I went to high school in Saratoga, California, which started out as a quiet retirement community. At the time there were less than five desis at Saratoga High; one or two Iranians whom we vaguely suspected of being desi, though the names threw us; and a handful of East Asians. It was the kind of […]
Over the weekend I sat through the second lame remake in a row of the same movie, preceded by the cheesiest rom-com trailers this side of Bollywood. Not even the lovely visage of Catherine Zeta-Jones could save No Reservations, which like Cheeni Kum is a remake of Bella Martha (Mostly Martha). In one signature […]
Katherine Heigl of Grey’s Anatomy wears a sari for her upcoming film 27 Dresses. From the looks of it, the wardrobe person has no idea on how one wears a sari.
The NYT finally gets on the ball and covers the Simpsons / 7-Eleven controversy:
Chaudhari’s store
… Apu has “always grated on me… He is a very crude ethnic character, and while there are many other crude ethnic characters on the show…” Apu is the only one with a stereotypical singsong accent, “like the accent that Chinese-Americans […]
Toronto’s Masala Mehndi Masti arts fest is going strong this weekend, and plenty of desi artists (including my friend and children’s author Pooja Makhijani) are on stage this year. If you’ve been through the pavilions, give us a little love and tell us what’s good this year — besides the parties, you lucky bastards.
Related posts: […]
Oh, wow. This Aliens in America sitcom pilot is far worse than Apu and Fez (thanks, Jyoti):
The previews being shown on the CW Web site… have drawn criticism on the Internet saying the program perpetuates negative stereotypes of Muslims — not to mention of the clueless American Midwesterners — and that it conflates numerous, distinct […]
You Are Invitedto a Joint MeetupWith Sepia Martini
Saturday, August 18th5 o’clock Until Whenever
Verlaine110 Rivington bet. Essex & LudlowManhattan
So they walked there, among the wild herbs,and the night alone listened to their words.
– Paul Verlaine, ‘Fêtes Galants (Sentimental Conversation)’
Sundal Roy of Rawalpindi, Pakistan, says she will discard her duds and streak through Pamplona for PETA’s annual Running of the Nudes. The protest against animal cruelty happens before the traditional bull run. Roy says:
“… the abolition of bullfighting is a really good cause to fight/party for… I’ll try to learn some Spanish, pack […]
I went down to WNYC, the NPR affiliate in New York City, this morning for the most sympathetic airing of the Simpsons / 7-Eleven issue to date. It was the Brian Lehrer show; Jen Chung of Gothamist was on right before me. After the Ultra psychoanalysis of Apu and his Kwik-E-Mart, several desis who dislike […]
The Canadian government backed down yesterday from banning immigrants named Singh or Kaur. The immigration service says providing an additional name is optional and blamed the lafda on a poorly-worded letter:
Asking applicants to provide a surname in addition to Singh or Kaur has… [reduced] incidents of mistaken identity. This was not a mandatory requirement.There is […]
ABC, Australia’s version of the Beeb, ran a segment on youth radio today about the Simpsons controversy. The Land Down Under does have 7-Elevens, but they didn’t get the full Kwik-E-Mart makeover.
Again, it’s a meaty discussion of the kind you only seem to have on radio and podcast. I mentioned that Apu feeds the kind […]
A Canadian babu has just started unilaterally enforcing an obscure policy banning immigrants with the surnames Kaur or Singh. The bureaucrat wants Sikhs to pick more unique names. The government’s apparently never heard of assigning identification numbers:
Incognito
… a long-standing [Canadian] immigration policy… forces people with the surname Singh or Kaur to change their last […]
Et voilà, here’s the Darjeeling Limited trailer released over the weekend with a cameo by the happily ubiquitous Irrfan Khan and ‘music from the films of Satyajit Ray and Merchant-Ivory’:
(via the beautiful new Pardon My Hindi visual arts blog, which is currently covering the last hand-drawn Urdu newspaper, a rickshaw-helicopter and two proto-Sapphic women […]
Carmen Van Kerckhove of Addicted to Race, a sister blog to Racialicious, did a half-hour podcast on the Simpsons issue. She kindly let me shoot my mouth off about the Rudyard Kipling - Peter Sellers connection to Apu despite having a face made for radio and a voice fit for mime. The ‘Gunga Din’ bit […]
Aish gets prominent billing in these Last Legion posters, though the one I saw in Manhattan had her third after Firth and Kingsley. It’s a far cry from giggly Rai on Letterman.
Related posts: The ‘Last’ trailer, Fruc this, Hey Jude, Daddy Mac, Abhishekwarya 24/7, ‘The Last Legion’ trailer, ‘Bride and Prejudice’ trailer
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This feed, of course, updates a lot more often than the main column.
Here are a few snaps from the SAJA convention a week ago. Arun Potter and the Magical Halal Cart:
Finally, here’s the full CNN clip on the Simpsons / 7-Eleven promotion in a high-quality version. You’ve already seen the beginning, so jump straight to the panel discussion at 3:10. The mainstream framing of the issue is pretty dismissive.
The Simpsons movie comes this Friday and has resorted to all kinds of innovative guerrilla promotions (the […]
As I arrived at Jana’s movie and began checking my texts, a fellow cinemaphile restrained me immediately. ‘I’ve been here since the beginning, I don’t want to be distracted,’ he complained. Tagore has a fan among the African-American community of New York City.
Chirosakha Hé is a traditional, arty Bengali movie about Rabindranath Tagore’s muse and […]