what is the vertiginous chapati saying to me?
Posts tagged as:
Dennis Perrin, whether he knows it or not, is in contention with Rolling Stone’s Matt Taibbi in a contest of nuclear indignance–which of the two will assume the mantle of America’s clear-thinking, hyper-independent conscience, left unshouldered since Hunter S. Thompson’s slide into obscurity, and lamentable demise?
Taibbi has the lead. He occupies a chair close [...]
{ 5 comments }
I will have some pictures up tomorrow of Ohio, including the fivethirtyeight.com road crew in situ, on the road. I can report that nearly every single ad I have seen on tv from McCain has been a negative ad – including some delectably served hate from NRA (check out gunbanobama.com, if you must). And everything [...]
{ 1 comment }
David Foster Wallace is gone. Deeply shocked. And saddened. Just crushingly sad.
See him on Charlie Rose interview from 1997.
DFW: You confront your own vanity when you think about going on TV. So I’m — no apologies, but just — that’s an explanation. The — the footnotes in the — there’s a way that — there’s [...]
{ 2 comments }
I watched Iron Man a few weeks ago in Copenhagen. It is a pretty boring movie – except for fans of Robert Downey Jr. – but it is worth watching for professional reasons alone. Let me explain, briefly. The movie that most brilliantly captured the particular brand of American Orientalism was 1994’s True Lies. Can [...]
{ 4 comments }
a long long time ago, a palmist told me that everything in my life will be hard, but i will achieve whatever it is that I wanted. just nothing will come easy. and then another person told me the same thing. No wonder I used to day dream about being a station manager of a [...]
{ 5 comments }
The revelation was Chee Malabar. I know, and knew, that Yogi B will be global. They are way too talented and ferocious, live – to not force themselves into every iPod on the block. They are also incredibly genuine and warm. But, it is Chee, for whom I must evangelize. Though, I had heard a [...]
{ 4 comments }
CM reader JM sends in this note for all you gentle readers.
Hi! Hoping you Chapati Mystery readers can help me find a publisher for my first novel, Monsoon Chutney. It’s the multi-generational tale of an upper-caste Indian-American family. What’s really fresh about this work, I feel, is that each generation has its own unique [...]
{ 2 comments }
“The worst uncontrolled reentry in history occurred in July 1979, when Skylab, America’s abandoned, 78-ton space station — which had long since run out of maneuvering fuel — came down earlier than planned, raining debris across the Australian outback.”
We would be playing out in Doha’s deserty fields and my mother, standing in the doorway, would [...]
{ 5 comments }
In 1953, when Dast-i Saba (Wind’s Palm) was published, Faiz Ahmed Faiz had been in jail for almost two years. He would remain in jail for another two. He was charged with conspiracy to overthrow the nascent state of Liaqat Ali Khan and arrested in early March, 1951.
You can read about Faiz’s prison days and [...]
{ 6 comments }
The hits keep on coming. George MacDonald Fraser, creator of Harry Flashman, has died at the age of 82. If you haven’t read the adventures of Sir Harry Paget Flashman VC, KCB, KCIE, do it now. Start.
As I’ve said, it was Sir Daniel Darnley who led me to Esquemeling, and Conan Doyle to Froissart, Graves [...]
{ 1 comment }
The time has come to take Sepoy to task with regard to his blanket condemnation of the New York Times. I am willing to cede the point that numerous op-ed writers for that newspaper of record often appear to lack even the most basic skills needed in making a logical argument. In the [...]
{ 7 comments }
Today, November 18th, 2007’s New York Time op-ed page is the absolute worst piece of printed tripe. ever. I know I haven’t read every op-ed page ever printed, but I am sure I can defend my assertion. Exhibit A: Shake, Rattle and Roll by Maureen Dowd. Exhibit B: Channeling Dick Cheney by Thomas Friedman. Exhibit [...]
{ 6 comments }
Thanks to my main man, Rajeev, we enjoyed a sunday afternoon at Soldier’s Field watching John Kitna decimate the Bears with his precision prayers. NFL is way more the carnival then any other sporting event – and perhaps much more taxing on the senses. Still, it seems though that watching a football game live is [...]
{ 1 comment }
Naim sahib has a scathing review in Outlook India of S.M. Azizuddin Husain’s 1857 Revisited/دستاويزاتِ غدر . The book is a compendium of 150 primary documents relating to the uprising and its aftermath, with translations and an introductory essay. A fine idea, in principle, but the problem, as Naim Sahib points out, is in the [...]
{ 3 comments }
I have a small piece in this month’s issue of Pragati: The Indian National Interest Review on, well, Pakistan. I wasn’t able to spend much time on this piece so I am unsure if it meets the standards of the journal.
You can download the issue and circulate it around.
I should also congratulate Nitin Pai [...]
{ 10 comments }
In the Aug 2, 2007 issue of LRB, Bernard Porter had a review essay, Trying to Make Decolonisation Look Good, covering Ronald Hyam’s Britain’s Declining Empire: The Road to Decolonisation, 1918-68, Peter Clarke’s The Last Thousand Days of the British Empire and Sir Christopher Bayly and Tim Harper’s Forgotten Wars: The End of Britain’s Asian [...]
{ 0 comments }
The ICC World Twenty20 is currently underway in South Africa. It is exciting and exhilarating and droves of fans are watching this most amazing and necessary rejuvenating elixir pumped into the staid, old, decrepit body of Cricket. Or so they tell me. I really cannot be bothered. Apparently the India-Pakistan match ended in a tie [...]
{ 8 comments }
Also see, David Simon in The Believer [via kottke]
{ 3 comments }
۱) فيض
تمەيں کەو رند و محتسب ميں اج شب کون فرق ايسا
يە ا کە بيٹهے ەيں ميکدە ميں وە اٹھ کە اۓ ەيں ميکدە سے
۲) فيض
اج تک شيخ کے اکارام ميں جو شۓ تهي حرام
اب وەي دشمنِ دين راحتِ جان ٹەري ەے
۳) حافظ
می خور که شیخ و حافظ و مفتی و محتسب
چون نیک بنگری ، [...]
{ 14 comments }
Ah, the second week in August, when every wizened old editor’s attention turns to the “Partition of 1947″. Thoughtful pieces are commissioned on the violence of Partition, the communalism that brought about the horrible violence of Partition and the horrendous culpability of the British in bringing about the terrible violence of Partition (to add some [...]
{ 9 comments }
