Tony D’Souza of the excellent The Konkans stopped by a bookstore last night in a small Boston suburb. He read a comic scene about DIY pig slaughter in a hardcore Chicago accent and the cadence of a poetry slam. He’s got his reading schtick down, more natural than most authors I’ve heard read.
The event was […]
The Sacred Games softcover design is more film noir than South Asian lit. The genre touches are subtle: a bindi, a sideways Mughal arch. Lit fic authors like Vikram Chandra and Salman Rushdie have, by and large, escaped the mango-henna cover treatment.
But the softcover gets a glossary — Chandra succumbed — and some cheesy supplemental […]
‘The Overcoat’ is Nikolai Gogol’s best-known short story. Jhumpa Lahiri hung her plotline for The Namesake upon that story. But the shy and unpopular Gogol, called a ‘mysterious dwarf’ by his classmates, also wrote a horror story about a monster named Vij:
Gogol came to St. Petersburg in 1828, an insecure and frightened young man, fresh […]
So Mike Myers didn’t go with the Apu accent in the end for his Guru Pitka character in The Love Guru. Wondrous! Now maybe some of our esteemed desi American comedians could learn from him.
Pitka contorts himself to the catchy opening strains of ‘Dhadak Dhadak‘ from Bunty Aur Babli (thanks, Pooja and Rahul). It isn’t […]
[Warning: very long post. But no more on the Hamza epic after this]I don’t think much of phrases like “important/essential book” or “one of the year’s most significant publishing events” (pompous, best reserved for jacket descriptions writt…
Our ‘Hillary’s Dubya moment‘ post was apparently shown on CNN last night around 7pm ET (thanks, El SD and RC):
… it was on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer. The voiceover called it …with her gaffe being called by some blogs as ‘Hillary’s Dubya Moment.’ Then there was a quick zoom shot of that post… […]
Scary, bearded candidate with Semitic name
Juan Cole penned a great post about how despite the GOP’s kindergarten strategy of sneering at Obama’s middle name (how’s that for substantive?), Republican nominee John McCain himself adopted a daughter of Muslim descent:
Since Hussein is a very common name in Bangladesh, it is entirely possible that [Bridget McCain’s] birth […]
The Daily Show’s Jason Jones gave Starbucks free publicity for its nationwide shutdown and visited a desi-owned deli to buy coffee. He overlayed a random wedding shehnai soundtrack, unlikely to be playing at a place of business, then headed out to Times Square to make fun of a Sikh gentleman’s lack of English fluency. This […]
Sakina Jaffrey (Masala) has a bit part as a schoolteacher in Definitely, Maybe, an excellent political rom-com about the Clinton ‘92 campaign starring Ryan Reynolds (Van Wilder), Kevin Kline, Abigail Breslin (Little Miss Sunshine), Isla Fisher, Rachel Weisz and Elizabeth Banks. This flick’s manipulative, treacly and undistinguished trailer put me off my lunch.
But like campaigns […]
Both the Daily Show and the Colbert Report addressed the Obama turban smear last night, but I don’t see the humor in this Colbert clip — unless pairing ‘Obama’ and ‘terrorist’ is intrinsically funny. His coda on the line-lifting nontroversy was better.
At tonight’s Dem debate, Obama made the obvious point that Dubya has already pivoted toward his policy of targeted terrorist assassinations in Pakistan:
Clinton: … last summer [Obama] basically threatened to bomb Pakistan, which I don’t think was a particularly wise position to take. I have long advocated a much tougher approach to Musharraf and to […]
Courtesy of Vikash Yadav, via SM
From tonight’s Dem debate, still a carefully hedged non-denial by Hillary Clinton on the Obama turban smear:
Brian Williams: … Matt Drudge on his website said it came from a source inside the Clinton campaign. Can you say unequivocally here tonight it did not?
Hillary Clinton: Well, so far as I know, […]
At tonight’s Dem debate, Hillary Clinton was questioned about Russian president Vladimir Putin’s successor Dmitry Medvedev:
Tim Russert: Do you know his name?
Clinton: [Nonplussed] Med… Med…
Russert: Medvedev.
Clinton: Med-ve-duh-vuh. Whatever.
Dubya in ‘99:
“Can you name the general who is in charge of Pakistan?” Hiller asked, inquiring about Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf, who seized control of the country October 12.
“Wait, […]
Unlike the sleek, lounge-like Tavalon in NYC, Tealuxe in Harvard Square resembles nothing so much as a Diagon Alley magic shop, with mysterious potions locked away in tall cabinets behind the counter. I’ll have to go back and try the Golden Monkey blend. It all sounds like opium to me.
Picked from plants dating back to […]
Some actors are so magnetic, I’ll watch them in just about anything, even a movie as WASPy as a prescription-drug farce about the wealthy of Connecticut. I’m so glad I followed Robert Downey Jr. into the fabulous Charlie Bartlett. He’s joined by Ishan Dave as drama geek Henry Freemont in an emo haircut. The character […]
It all began when I moved into this house and was given a shelf all to myself in the pantry. One endless winter night I gazed at my roomie’s Swiss Miss with lust in my heart. She was so Nordic, so pure, so full of chocolatey goodness. I knew it was only a matter of […]
Over the weekend I was again chatted up by excessively-friendly brown people at suburban malls. Once was in Bloomfield Hills, MI, and the the other at a mall in Cambridge, MA, both pretty white towns. These desis weren’t aunties needing help with an escalator; they weren’t asking for directions; they weren’t engaging in genuine, friendly […]
Hillary Clinton’s campaign is apparently circulating photos of Barack Obama in Somali nomadic dress while visiting a Somali-inhabited part of Kenya. It’s the turban which they’re calling attention to, of course — because we all know turban means Muslim means terrorist. Hillary herself wore a hijab on a trip to Saudi Arabia, and Dubya and […]
The only reason I’m watching this show is Jon Stewart. Just sayin’. But he’s doing cheesy Jay Leno-style one-liners and exhorting people to vote Dem this election.
Diablo Cody (Juno screenwriter) looks delish with a red starburst on her right cheek. Jon Stewart says she went from exotic dancer to Academy Award-nominated screenwriter, and ‘How do […]
(PARENTAL GUIDANCE ALERT)I’m pleased to report that raunchy passages aren’t the exclusive preserve of Hindu mythology. Here’s more on the adventures of Amar Ayyar, prince of tricksters (first mentioned in this post), from a passage in the Hamza e…