Work Less Live More!

I just chanced upon this book titled "Work Less, Live More The New way to Retire Early" by Bob Clyatt, an alumni of MIT Sloan. I just perused through a few pages it sure does have a few interesting tag lines. Maybe one of my readers can pick it up and let us know more about it :)

It reminded me of the incredible lifestyle of Louise Hornor and Sean Welsh. See the link below

Our Odyssey

Now, this is what I call living life in your own terms. Fabulous!

A Partnership of Minds

I am impressed with the article carrying the same title as this post and written by David Brooks in today's New York Times. I quote

"...It emphasizes how profoundly we are shaped by relationships with others, but it's not one of those stifling, collectivist theories that puts the community above the individual.
It exposes the errors of those Ayn Rand individualists who think that success is something they achieve through their own genius and will-power.
It exposes the fallacy of New Age narcissists who believe they can find their true, authentic self by burrowing down into their inner being. There is no self that exists before society.
It explains why it's so hard to tackle concentrated poverty. Human beings are permeable. The habits that are common in underclass areas get inside the brains of those who grow up there and undermine long-range thinking and social trust.
It illuminates the dangers of believing that there is a universal hunger for liberty. That universal hunger may exist in the abstract, but we're embedded creatures and the way specific individuals perceive liberty depends on the context.
It lampoons political zealotry. You may be a flaming liberal in New York, but its likely you'd be a flaming conservative if you grew up in Wyoming."

And further

"..In the information age, it seems fitting that we'd see people bonded by communication. It's not exactly new to say that no man is an island. But Hofstadter is one of hundreds of scientists and scholars showing how interconnectedness actually works. What's being described is a vast web of information - some contained in genes, some in brain structure, some in the flow of dinner conversation - that joins us to our ancestors and reminds the living of the presence of the dead."

Ingrid Bergman

I watched Ingrid Bergman's The Passion of Anna today.

Existing - Fyodor Dostoevsky

I recently picked up Fyodor Dostoevsky's Greatest Short Stories (also progressing albeit slowly on my study books). The story I started with is titled 'White Nights' and the basic plot is about a man aged 26, living in Petersburg (St.?) who has never dated a woman in his entire life and suddenly has this chance encounter with an amazing woman during one of his lonely walks around the city in the middle of the night. My first foray into existential literature - I must say it strikes me as very honest and interesting. I especially liked the bits about how a person leads an almost detached existence amidst so many people around her/him in the big city.

On Difficulties

Real difficulties can be overcome; it is only the imaginary ones that are unconquerable.
Theodore N. Vail

Another June afternoon

Its another afternoon like the one I wrote about earlier and I am sitting at home watching this movie Little Giants on HBO. Its about "a man who leads a group of misfits into competition against his brother's successful football team". My query in the earlier post is answered. Now I know why those kids give free car washes. Its to collect tips for their sports gear and stuff. Aha - my moment of Zen!

Brandon Ratcliff

On Wednesday (06/20/07) I saw Me and You and Everyone We Know, an award winning comic film which is very reflective of our times. The basic plot revolves around Christine Jesperson (Miranda July) and Richard Swersey (played by John Hawkes) who acts as a salesman and a father of two boys, and has recently separated from his wife. One thing that struck me was the uncanny facial resemblance this guy has with Ben Kingsley (esp how he looked in Gandhi). Christine is a struggling artist who is trying to get her work recognized in (fickle?) the world of modern art. For her living she runs "Eldercab" - a car rental for elderly people. Apart from this main plot there are subplots involving among others a shoe salesman colleague of Richard who is a single guy on the heavier side and has obviously not been so successful with the female kind. His role involves communicating his hidden fantasies to two teenage girls who are school mates of Richards sons.

 

My pick of the whole cast though is the 7 year old Brandon Ratcliff who plays the role of Richards younger son Robby. Even though I would give in that the character has been given a role which is decidedly too mature and weighty for a 7 year old but Brandon does a remarkable job. In one of the scenes where Robby and Miles (his older brother) are chatting anonymously with a girl on the internet he matter-of-factly gives out the theory of "back and forth".

I lost the rest of this post because of some special symbols I used in the text!! Aaaarghhh!!! Even Google has flaws!!

Today and Tomorrow (Hoy y mañana)

06/13/2007: I picked up this DVD at random from the library. The cover says its the winner at Havana Film Festival and also chosen as the Best First Film at LA Latino Film festival. This is my first experience with Argentinian cinema.


My take - Good movie to watch if you are in introspective mood. Definitely not a happy ending.

A June Afternoon

Yes its a June afternoon alright, but very far from what Roxette described in her song! Its 65 deg F (18 deg C) here near New York City and its a cloudy, windy day. I am sitting in my apartment near the window facing the backyard and every couple of minutes a cool gush of wind soothes me!

I went to Columbus this past weekend. Since I am more accustomed to the east coast (NJ, NY, Penn) roads, I noticed something which looked very odd at first. On a lot of busy intersections you would find kids and young adults standing with big placards which read "Car Wash" or "Free Car Wash". Sometimes they would also shout the same; at other times they would advertise specialties like 'gay friendly' etc.

One Hundred Years of Solitude - Found it!

Yahoo! I finally found Gabriel Garcia Marquez's magnum opus on the library shelf. I have been searching for the book for many weeks now and it was quite unexpected to find it today suddenly.

Is this Magic Realism? Fluid thoughts.

On Writing

Today I attended a 'Workshop On Writing Memoir' organized by the Gotham writers workshop at a Barnes and Nobles shop on upper west side (66 St subway station). It was a free event to promote their memoir writing workshop classes amongst interested writers. The sole speaker at the event was Janice Erlbaum (author of Girl Bomb) who took us through the basics of writing a memoir. Here is what happened at the event.

Janice started by mentioning that a memoir is a true story of one's life. All of us remember most of the traumatic events of our lives; the ones that induce change and are the first of their kind for us. Memoir writing is recreation of all these changes. The following books were mentioned as noteworthy memoirs -

Jesus Land by Julia Scheeres
The Year of Yes by Maria Headley
The Year of Magical Thinking by Joan Didion
Angela's Ashes by Frank McCourt

Memoir writing (as any writing) can be classified into three main areas - Character, Plot and Good writing.

Character - All the minute details of a personality matter here. Who has what characteristics? Who is the hero and who is the bad guy? A character need not generate sympathy of the reader to be a strong character; the more detailed and vivid the character is the more audience can see themselves in it and so empathize with it.

Plot - A plot of a memoir should ask the question - 'Are you going to get what you want?'. The reader should be sufficiently interested in this basic question. You may or may not get what you want, but the details of how you go about it about it should induce them to read on.

Good writing - Good writing is vivid and specific in its descriptions. Janice said that adjectives and adverbs are often overrated as fas as good descriptions go - sometimes a well used noun can do the trick. As a writer you should do everything possible to refresh the memories which form the basis of your memoir. Sometime some specific sight, sound or a person can act a catalyst in helping you remember exactly what happened. The writer should try and recreate the dialog between the characters. Memoir is an honest account of what happened; however a writer can lie by omission. This means that the reader is most often not interested in the boring parts and it is the writers prerogative to skip these in the memoir. Good writing also details the environment or the setting in which the events took place. As an example if your mom tells you - 'You have been adopted', you will most probably remember such a shocking dialog in very vivid detail. You would tend to remember the minutest details when such a conversation took place. However other stuff like you traveling to work usually could be skipped over to achieve a good pace in the story.

Three exercises were undertaken in the workshop:

#1 The first was to remember some first time incidents.

#2 Building up on the first exercise we were asked to write some more details about the event in exercise 1.

#3 We were asked to write for 6-7 minutes about the event in 1 and 2.

At the end of the workshop Janice gave out pointers to help publish the work. Specifically two books were mentioned as references

- The Art of the Book Proposal by Eric Maisel
- Thinking Like Your Editor by Susan Rabiner and Alfred Fortunato

All in all, I think I spent a quality one hour at the workshop and made a promise to myself to read some of the works mentioned here.

Negotiate Smart

I recently picked up a book from the library titled Negotiate Smart by Nicholas Reid Schaffzin. The 'About the Author' gives the credentials like this - "He (Nicholas) loves negotiating. He recently traded an old rag and a bag of dirt for a large island off the coast of Malta". He is also a Stanford and Columbia University graduate.

The book is about practical smartness - all deals we make in life (jobs, business, buying house or car, renting apartments) involve negotiation and if you are smart you can definitely get more bang for your buck. In a chapter titled "Prepare or Beware" it is mentioned that usually the person who has thoroughly thought through all the possible outcomes of deal and his reactions to them, is more likely to come out grinning.

On Reading

What I have been reading the past couple of months?

I. Books which I read completely:

1. Khalid Hosseini - The Kite Runner
2. V S Naipaul - In a Free State

II. Books which I picked up but left in between

1. Gabriel Garcia Marquez - Memories of My Melancholy Whores
2. James Joyce - A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man
3. Joseph Conrad - The Heart of Darkness

III. Books which I am currently reading

1. Milan Kundera - Life is Elsewhere

IV. Books which I picked up but did not get time to go through

1. Mark Twain - The Diaries of Adam and Eve
2. Eva Hoffman - Lost in Translation

The Piper at the Gates of Dawn

Atom Hear Mother, Relics(?), The Darkside of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, The Wall, Animals

I'm Alive

Oh, you know where, now I can't see, I just stare...

What have I been doing? Well in between delusions and doldrums I've been...

rafting on Delaware,

visiting the Capitol in DC,

visiting the oldest port in America - Baltimore,

wandering like mad in this mammoth city,

...and admiring the beauty of it all too.

Taking a trip down memory lane to meet old friends..

meeting my lovely family...God I'm lucky!

Thanks again, friend for inspiring this post... I hope I live up to my promise!

On Sleep!

Thought for the day - "Nothing in this life, is worth losing your sleep".

Interesting

Digital image of my visual self?

What's going on?

Monday 02/20/06 is a holiday! Welcome break. Had plans to go out of town, which got screwed. I have three books and two movies lined up for recent future.

I watched Clerks today. Serious humour. Will recommend it for days when nothing seems to work, and you feel like venting out the schmuck in your head!

Also watched The Constant Gardener last week. Rachel Weisz is stunning, hands down. The movie raises several questions and answers them rather well. And even though I am no expert on this - the cinematography was supreme stuff. The background provided by Africa reminded me of two books. First is V S Naipaul's A Bend in the River, for its depiction of African way of life. The second is Frederick Forsyth's The Dogs of War. There is a piece in this which mentions how it is fearful, almost menacing to see an African man with a gun. A raw power to kill minus the responsibility. Much the same feeling you have while watching the movie - esp the end. Also in the same league as The Constant Gardener is Syriana, an epic about the reality of how business almost dictates politics in our times. Nice work this is. It is not so often, that we are shown both the sides of a story with so less prejudice.

And lastly on a friend's recommendation I watched George Clooney's Good Night, and Good Luck which is about politics in America during the 1950's, something which I have no clue about!

Lined up for today and tomorrow are Arth & Jarhead. Arth is part of this newly found interest I have developed about parallel cinema in India during the 70's and 80's. Judging by what I know and have felt I think the Indian people were (or are) rather naive, not to appreciate the work done in those times by the likes of Naseer, Shabana, Farooq, Smita, Om, etc. Or maybe they did in their own way - that is why these guys hung around for so long to do such remarkable work!

The Truth Oath

What does the name of this blog signify?

One fine day in early 2006 my head was just overflowing with ideas and there was no one to share them with. This led to the creation of this online journal. In order to log only an honest personal point of view I made the following promise to myself -

"I swear to write the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. To me, as I see it."

This in turn led to (the rather fanciful) blog name.

~Sandy


Blog title-quote courtesy - Paula K. Speck

On blogging

Why Blog? Well, why not? Once in a while all of us get that feeling that your head will just burst because so many ideas and thoughts are going through it. You need to yak yak about them with someone or want write them down. It so happens that there is no one to talk with today.

A few things about me - I am 28+ years old. I was born in South Asia and now live and work in New York City. I am single and love movies, books, traveling and food. Also I often dream of an Utopian world.

At most times I will write about movies that I watch. Occasionally, however, I will also scribble about the places I go to or the food that I eat.
The Golden Rule: