Which Book are You?
2007-09-18 13:21:00
Take this Book Quizand find out!Apparently, I'm Great Expectations by Dickens. "Coming from humble beginnings, you have become pretty stuck-up in your later years. While hard work and dedication were the path you first walked on, a sudden fork brought you glory and fortune. Unfortunately, you have changed even more than your bottom line. You really should turn back to your old friends and at least respect your old life. Look out for haughty hotties."
I'd like to have heard this one...
2007-09-17 09:55:00
Cecelia Porter had a review in yesterday's Washington Post about an interesting concert at the Kennedy Center, commemorating the 60th anniversary of India's independence. Famed santoor player Pandit Shivkumar Sharma "first took the floor, sitting with a sizable zither-style instrument. After demonstrating the delicate fine-tuning of his instrument's 100 strings, he opened with an Indian folk tune, using a subtle array of strokes as he unwound a series of complex melodic patterns. Along with accompanying instruments (relatives of traditional Indian long-necked lutes and hand-held barrel drums), the players engaged with each other intensely, as if in a classical jazz band, gradually increasing in dynamics, tempo and emotional levels to the climax."I thought you might enjoy this interview about Sharma.interview
Ganesh Chaturthi
2007-09-14 17:19:00
Today marks the festival of Ganesh Chaturthi. (See video clips) During Ganesha's birthday celebration, a household worships a clay murti of Shri Ganesha, and then submerges it at an immersion site.Neighborhoods compete with each other in building the biggest murti. There are pujas and other rituals, and kozhakottai, a dumpling made from rice flour with a stuffing of coconut and jaggery, is offered at the temple. In a scene in Shiva's Arms, Nela, the ostracized daughter, has just sacrificed her hair to gods she no longer believes in. Her mother is ill, and she will try anything to help her recover. "On her way back to her room,... Nela spotted a small earthen version of Ganesh... She picked it up and ...waded out waist-deep into the river, the murti in her elbow’s crook. A flotilla of figurines streamed by, with their streaked features half- erased, and their trunks of clay dissolving. She released her icon like a bad debt, like a broken promise."
The Kimnama, from Journal to Poem
2007-09-12 11:01:00
Today's guest blogger, Kim Roberts, is the editor of the on-line journal Beltway Poetry Quarterly. She is the author of two books of poetry, The Wishbone Galaxy and The Kimnama. Here, she talks about process: I wanted to write a little bit about my process of writing my latest book. The Kimnama is a direct transformation of my journal, written while I was living in India. I went as a guest worker of a subsidiary of Apple Computer, and stayed with a family in New Delhi. The company had arranged everything for me, from providing a car and driver, to arranging sight-seeing trips on days off. It was strange to be so well taken care of, and so little in control of my personal decisions (such as what to eat: a cook delivered my meals). While much of my experience never made it into the book, some parts are taken straight from my journals. Here's an excerpt: "Each day as we travel to work along the same route, we pass a fruit market set up on rickety wooden stands by the side
Read more: Journal
Book Club
2007-09-12 07:02:00
The ladies of my neighborhood book club met last night. We discussed “Sugar Street,” the final volume of Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy, a history of El- Sayed Ahmed Abdel-Gawwad and his family. Against a backdrop of social and political detail, the work spans three generations, and shows the intimate relationships between family members. I found the account of the search for faith of youngest son, Kamal, very touching.Throughout all three volumes, the patriarch’s power erodes. Mahfouz records with a critical eye the passage of time: he follows the family through the 1919 Revolution, the era of Saad Zaglul, the British occupation, and the reign of Fouad. The author has written elsewhere that "The cruelty of memory manifests itself in remembering what is dispelled in forgetfulness." Click the title for an interview with Naguib Mahfouz by writer and journalist Mohamed Salmawy.
Read more: Book Club
Interview
2007-09-10 13:56:00
Click the title for a lovely article journalist Kay Day wrote about me.Some information about Kay: Kay B. Day provides content to print media like The Florida Times Union, The Writer, Coastal Homes and other publications. She is a columnist for online sites like 451press.com and Family Security Matters. She writes a bi-weekly column for the Web site of the print magazine The Writer. She also prepares content for United Press International. Her blog Covering Florida is one of the most popular Web sites about life in The Sunshine State.Day is the author of two traditionally published books, a poetry collection and a memoir. She is completing a nonfiction book and a poetry collection.She served as writer-in-residence for Shands-Jacksonville’s Arts in Medicine program. She conducts poetry presentations and a variety of writing workshops for trade organizations, high schools, colleges, and a number of different arts or civic groups.Day is a member of the American Society of Journalists an
DC Meets Delhi
2007-09-07 08:27:00
Looking for something to do in DC this weekend? "DC Meets Delhi," a week of films by Indian and Washington filmmakers, opens today at the University of the District of Columbia. Screenings will be followed by discussions,and children's films will also be presented, as well as dance performances and workshops. It's a festival, so there will be crafts and food vendors, too. The particulars are in the clickable title. You're welcome.
Bogg
2007-09-06 13:17:00
The new Bogg arrived in my mailbox today. It's a double issue, and I have a poem about Radha in it.Bogg takes art as well as concrete and experimental work, and the publisher has a free-for-postage chap series. A copy of David Alpaugh's Downsizing my muse: Poems 12 lines or less was tucked into my envelope. This is one of his poems--Reader's Digest Asks Robert Creeley To Condense Paradise Regained (the minimalist's milton;part two)manwomangardensnakeappleJesus Christ!Click the title for more about Bogg.
Banned Book Week
2007-10-01 18:59:00
Did you know there was one? The only way to celebrate must be to read a banned book, maybe under the covers with a flashlight. That's right, just like we used to!Here's a list for inspiration.
Read more: Banned
Reading at the Writer's Center
2007-09-30 08:27:00
Nin Andrews will read at the Writer
's Center
on October 9th at 7:30pm. Nin is the author of several book including The Book of Orgasms, Any Kind of Excuse,Why They Grow Wings, Midlife Crisis with Dick and Jane. She also edited a book of translations of the French poet, Henri Michaux, entitled Someone Wants to Steal My Name. Her next book is called Sleeping with Houdini and is due out in October. The interview Richard Peabody did with Nin is here The Writer's Center is located at 4508 Walsh Street, Bethesda, MD 20815Phone: 301 654-8664, Fax: 801 730-6233 www.writer.org
Read more: Reading
Views on Reviews
2007-09-28 15:50:00
On Porochista Khakpour’s blog today is her review of Carolyn See’s review of her novel.Whadya think?
Dusshera
2007-10-13 17:30:00
Dusshera (also spelled Dasara or Dussera or Dusharah) occurs on the tenth day of the Navaratri. It's primarily celebrated in the North, but the triumph of good over evil as shown by the defeat of the demon king Ravana is still the point. Huge effigies of Ravana, Kumbakarna, and Meghnath are burnt to the accompaniment of firecrackers, and Ramlila (or Rama- Drama, scenes from the Rama-Ravana battle) are performed.The Dusshera celebration in southern India revolves around Chamundi, the family deity of the Maharaja of Mysore. Similar to the Durga Puja myth in east India, this story says that Lord Rama performed chandi puja to invoke the blessings of Goddess Durga for slaying Ravana, so the gratified Goddess Chamundeswari (same goddess) told him how to slay Ravana. A parade of decorated elephants is led to the Maharaja's illuminated palace as part of the spectacular festivity. Twenty days after Dusshera, Diwali arrives--the Festival of Lights. I'm just sayin'.
Saraswati
2007-10-12 05:46:00
An especially sweet part of Navaratri is the Saraswati puja. The goddess of learning is worshipped on the ninth day. Books and musical instruments are placed on a wooden plank covered in red silk—-perhaps the family ledger, one of the children’s math books, copies of the Ramayana or Bhagavad Gita. Sometimes a tool or small machine is added. Sanskrit slokas like this one are recited."Shrii Saraswatii Namahstubhyam Varade Kaama Ruupini/Twaam Aham Praarthane Devii Vidyaadaanam Cha Dehi Me" (I bow to Goddess Saraswati, who fulfills the wishes of the devotees. I pray her to enlighten me with knowledge.)It is considered that the Goddess herself is blessing the books and the instruments.On this day, Vidyarambham, Hindu children are taught to write their first word. It’s an auspicious day to begin a child's education. The women in the family wear yellow saris, decorate with palash flowers or marigolds, and distribute coconut koyakkatai as prasad for the worshippers.
Navaratri explained
2007-10-10 09:41:00
Navaratri marks the period of nine nights when female divinity is celebrated all over India. Women decorate with oil lamps, as seen below, and show off their displays of dolls to visitors. A sweet called shundal is made especially for this festival of female friendship. (There's a recipe in my book, btw) Poet and novelist Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni paints a vivid picture of Navaratri in America-- The Garba The nine sacred nights of Navaratri we dance the Garba. Light glances off the smooth wood floor of the gym festooned with mango leaves flown in from Florida. The drummers have begun, and the old women singing of Krishna and the milkmaids, Their high keening is an electric net pulling us in, girls who have never seen the old land. This October night we have shed our jeans for long red skirts, pulled back permed hair in plaits, stripped of nailpolish and mascara, and pressed henna onto hands, kohl under the eyes. Our hips move like water to the drums. Thin as hibiscus petals, our
Rita Dove reading her poem Prose in a Small Space
2007-10-08 15:53:00
What's the difference between fiction and poetry? A few more authors weigh in:“In the novel or short story you get the journey. In a poem you get the arrival.”-- May Sarton “I like the fiction writer’s feeling of being able to confront an experience and resolve it as art, however imperfectly and briefly – to give it a form and try to embody it – to hold it and express it in a story’s terms. You have more chance to try it in a novel. A short story is confined to one mood, to which everything in the story pertains. Characters, setting, time, events, are all subject to the mood. And you can try more ephemeral, more fleeting things in a story – you can work more by suggestion – than in a novel. Less is resolved, more is suggested, perhaps.”-- Eudora Welty“It is the difference between a diamond and an elephant…Poetry to me is more organic, more passionate, more spiritual, more intense. Fiction is about time – what happens if you make one or another choice. What ha
Read more: Small
, Space
A Meme for Shiva's Arms
2007-10-07 09:23:00
I thought I'd try my hand at a meme, so here are some questions about my novel.Favorite words in Shiva’s Arms?vidama pidingarathu (the way samsara gets its hooks into you and won’t let you go) Favorite maxim or proverb in the book?The elephant should not marry the mouseFavorite description?“Soon the lawn bloomed with bright saris. Heads tilted upward to try to see what Amma saw--light traveling to each person, to take with them wherever they went.”The description of Alice’s madness, also. Scenes that most made you want to visit India?The celebration of Golu; Nela offering her hair at the temple Which character’s fictional world would you most like to live in? Nela’s. She never loses herself in the face of conflicting demands. What’s the key to fine writing?The story and the sound.
The Darjeeling Limited
2007-10-05 08:11:00
"The Darjeeling Limited," Wes Anderson’s comedy about three brothers searching for spiritual meaning in India, opens in town today. The train in the movie is treated almost as a separate character, and it made me think of a scene in Shiva’s Arms, where "the old broad-gauge train announced itself with a shrill whistle and creaking brakes. Alice fought to stay upright in the crush of travelers as they hauled her into the stinking body of the machine like so much luggage." Speaking of luggage, in Anderson's movie one of the brothers has eleven pieces of Louis Vuitton. For more info on The Dareeling Limited, including a clip, click here
Tagore's Banshi
2007-10-03 13:19:00
Over at Bullets of Love, they're talking about LibriVox, where you can hear poems in languages other than English. Click on the title of this post, and you'll hear a poem by Rabindranath Tagore from this collection, recited in Bengali. The subject is a young man who does his fiancee a favor-- he leaves her rather than doom her to a life of poverty. For the rest of his life, she will visit him only in dreams "Draped in a Dhakai-sari/Red dot on forehead".A translation can be found here
Literature in vernaculars and not
2007-10-17 17:36:00
When Salman Rushdie said in his Vintage Book of Indian Writing that "the prose writing - both fiction and non-fiction - created in this period by Indian writers working in English, is proving to be a stronger and more important body of work than most of what is being produced in the 16 'official languages' of India, the so-called 'vernacular' languages, during the same time: and indeed, this new, and still burgeoning, 'Indo-Anglian' literature represents the most valuable contribution India has yet made to the world of books," opinions flew. Here are two reviews of The Picador Book of Modern Indian Literature
, an anthology of modern Indian literatures including the vernaculars, edited by noted novelist Amit Chaudhuri who asks, "Can it be true that Indian writing, that endlessly rich, complex and problematic entity, is to be represented by a handful writers who write in English?" While you're deciding, check out The Little Magazine a Delhi-based publication that offers good tr
Award Aftermath
2007-10-17 16:12:00
Doris Lessing may not care, but what do other literary winners say about the effect of awards?"It (the Booker win) had a really serious effect...You realize that to win a prize is basically childish. The pleasure you feel is childish, which is nice too. But the frightening thing is that it has a serious, serious effect."-Kiran Desai, The Inheritance of Loss "What do such awards really mean? 'You're really good'? Possibly. Or, 'Keep working, stupid.' The latter, almost surely. Either way, you need caller I.D."—Novelist Richard Russo, winner of the 2002 fiction prize for Empire Falls."The Pulitzer Prize? It's gotten me laid a few times..." —Reporter and author Dale Maharidge, co-winner for And Their Children After Them. "...everybody has won, and all must have prizes." Dodo, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland
Read more: Award
, Aftermath
Booker
2007-10-16 18:42:00
The results of the Booker
Prize are out.Surprised?
Anoushka Shankar
2007-10-15 13:52:00
We had a treat this Saturday at The Kennedy Center: Ravi Shankar
, accompanied by his daughter, Anoushka and backed by tabla, kanjira, and tanpura, performed ragas -- "Bhimpalasi" and "Pancham Se Gara" – playing on a small, amplified sitar. This video is about the making of Anoushka Shankar's album, "Rise".
Read This Story
2007-10-23 14:38:00
Here is a new (to me, at least) voice from India. This story, "Our Lady of Paris," centers around a multicultural romance, and an Indian mother who tells her American would-be daughter-in-law that she's not superficial enough for Karachi society.The author, Daniyal Mueenuddin, is a former New York City lawyer who now manages a farm in Khanpur, Pakistan.The story was first published in Zoetrope: All-Story. I'll be on the look-out for others.
Belated Blog Action Day
2007-10-22 14:21:00
I didn't get to my conservation piece, but here is an article by Kiran Nagarkar, the author of Seven Sixes are Forty Three, Ravan and Eddie, Cuckold, and God's Little Soldier, on climate change in IndiaLast and final chance, my friends, it really is now or never.
Read more: Action
Karwa Chauth
2007-10-21 09:19:00
Nine days before Diwali, married women in the north observe Karwa Chauth. It is a day of fasting, moonrise to moonrise, to ensure the health and longeivity of their husbands. The women dress in their bridal saris, worship Pavarti and Shiva with ten earthen vessels full of sweets. When a wife glimpses the moon through a seive, the fast is broken, the husband feeds his wife, and the mood is set for the Festival of Lights.
Poetry in DC this Week
2007-10-26 12:19:00
Two great venues, four great voices-- Monday, October 29, 2007 at 8:00 pmKim Roberts with Jennifer Gresham and Kwame AlexanderReading from the new anthology Family Pictures: Poems and Photographs Celebrating Our Loved OnesBusboys and Poets, 4251 S. Campbell Ave., Shirlington neighborhood, Arlington, VA. (703) 379-9756.Hosted by Fred Joiner - Free Admission. Wednesday, October 31, 7:00 pmKim Roberts with Hiram LarewKensington Row Bookshop, 3786 Howard Avenue, Kensington, MD, (301) 949-9416Hosted by Nancy Allinson - Free Admission
Read more: Poetry
Water. Water everywhere
2007-10-24 14:18:00
Devyani Saltzman’s book Shooting Water: A Memoir of Second Chances, Family, and Filmmaking details the making of her mother, Deepa Mehta’s, third film in her “Elements” triology, Water. Here is Ram Subramanian's interview with Devyani.Deepa Mehta's attempts to shoot the film brought about a series of politically motivated attacks that shut down production for four years. The film, about child marriage, was finished in Sri Lanka, and with the film's production as a backdrop, Saltzman tells her own story.
Read more: everywhere
Indian Ghost Stories by S. Mukerji
2007-10-31 17:04:00
Since it's Halloween, I thought you might like some scary stories.These were published in English in 1914, and are not that scary, but will give you the flavor of a type of fiction in a certain time. The collection is part of Project Gutenberg. Enjoy!
Read more: Ghost
, Stories
Orhan Pamuk
2007-10-30 11:05:00
Orhan Pamuk was in town yesterday, getting an honorary degree from Georgetown University. The story is covered in today's Washington Post.This bit struck a chord with me:"...the novelist...tries to conjure up one by one a multitude of readers hidden away in corners, nestled in their armchairs with their novels." Then, before his eyes, "thousands, tens of thousands of readers will take shape, stretching far and wide, across the streets of the city, and as they read, they dream the author's dream, imagine his heroes into being and see his world. So now these readers, like the author himself, try to imagine 'the other' -- they are putting themselves in another's place." By the end of this vision, Pamuk said, he sees his novel readers as "an entire nation . . . imagining itself into being."
Read more: Orhan
Falguni Shah
2007-10-29 13:18:00
Falu, a classically trained Indian vocalist released her debut album, 'Falu' this summer. Backed by harmonium, guitars, bass, keys, drums, and tabla, her music fuses the Hindi vibe with inventive rock.
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