U2 is still singing? I know very very little about music. People have become angry with me over this when I tried to discuss rock music. I had learned a few catch phrases like ’the doors man. they are so cool. its a nasha man. its a nasha.’ very soon I was exposed. But I dont want to glorify my ignorance as something cute and endearing though it might be. I always go to the music section in the library and try to listen to some Jazz and blues. I completely don’t get them. My not getting is so complete that It was suggested i never bring up the topic of music again.

Samina Virginia Woolf is fantastic. Her simple words, and their lyrical arrangement yet always serving some purpose. And I love the fact that she was so sensitive about her work that she would faint upon being critisized. I guess she herself never knew that she is ’’Virgina Woolf.’’ To her the 3D world must have come jeering and sneering and over whelming. But it is said about mad men that they in their insanity break down the psychological defences needed to live in society. And this we call madness. Maybe she figured everything out and then felt no need to live? And one day putting rocks in her coat pocket descended into a river forever. What a statement. A writer writing the ending of her own life. I would love to meet her.

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Minhaj,

Orlando rocks!

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I had the shakti gawain audiobook..did you get it from that web site?

This is off the topic but do you guys like the new U2 album?

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sobia,meatless days is beautiful, so beautiful... im using this word very carefully... sara suleri is in a class of her own, no current contemporary wontemporary south asian writers compare unto her use of the language... tell what u think when ure done reading it.. i keep my copy very close, flick through it every now and then and am amazed at the rush it gives me...

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Orlando by Virginia Woolf.

Part of my course reading. The story starting in the 1500’s is a story of a man called Orlando who lives for 300 years. Orlando is a rich teenager from a noble family and he has nice legs. He works them out by climbing on high hills, running around in the jungle ridding horses and long brisk walks. He wears tights as was the custom in those days. Robin Hood started it and by the 16th century everyone was doing it. Even I do it. These days we call them thermals but they are tights. I wear them in winter. White is their color.

Orlando can speak french and likes to sit by the lake and concentrate on nature. Because food and rent , tuition, clothing, laundry has been resolved by his rich family, his problems include poetry, the meaning of life and interior decoration. Isn’t it funny how great warriors breed weak children who wear tights and think about matching carpets with center table? Why is this? Becoz great warriors steal so many things that their children & grand children dont need to steal anymore. And they move into the house that they stole, hire servants. Swords are cleaned and polished. It gleams proudly but it hangs on the wall below large paintings of dead men. What was once functional becomes decoration. Why do you think the dinosaurs got extinct? They got soft. They got into poetry and interior decoration. They lost the edge. Some of them wore tights and relaxed and where are they now?

One day Queen Elizabeth visits Orlando’s estate. She likes his legs and decides to give him a job. He is in her court doing some paper work. And the queen fondles him at times holding him close to her body and breathing hard. Orlando does not like it because she is like a million years old and he is not feeling the attraction. Imagine his tension. This is the fucking queen right, and she wants him to get it on and he cant because she is ugly. Also she does not take a bath for months and she smells like an old suitcase.

Finally he cant take anymore of the granny sex and starts screwing around with other younger maidens in the court. Back in those days women would dress up to accentuate their bodies. The clothes made the waist look smaller and show cased the tits. You saw a lot of cleavage. Eye contact was a struggle. Desire to grab them must have been strong.

So Orlando starts an affair with a younger woman. He loves it. This one has real teeth. She was born in his century. They can relate. He forgets the Queen. Thats the thing about life. You might be the Queen of England. But when you are old you are old. But The Queen finds out and such a bitch is she that she fires him. Now Orlando is jobless but still rich and hangs out with hookers and other interesting people. Later he goes ice skating. You have to understand that about rich people. They are not like you and me. Their battle is against boredom. They don’t “have” to be anywhere. If one of us got fired we would be working hard on Microsoft word trying to make resumay adding shitty sentences like ‘was member of International Organization, organized picnic for Students from China, proficient in HTML XML LMX C, C++ Fortran, Linux, Cybersex… So Unlike you dear reader, Orlando is rich. When he gets fired he goes ice skating. And there he meets a Russian princess. There is much more but I will stop now.

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I am reading Pearl S. Buck’s ’The Good Earth’. It seems to be interesting. Just finished reading The Old Curiosity Shop - A great book, this one. I enjoyed reading every bit of the book. Future Dickens books that i plan to read are Little Dorritt and David Copperfield.

In the weekend, tried reading Origin - a biography of Charles Darwin, but left it for future reading!

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a confederacy of dunces by john kennedy toole..

it is a fun read.. ..250pages or so... new orleans is very much a character in the book.. if
anyone interested in the orleans.. i highly recommend it... and down by law - dir: jarmusch amazing movie in the new orleans backdrop.. fable like treatment...

over to ignatius reily.. the protagonist is very much a character of his own... and keeps the book going... mister jones has an interesting sideshow he is the black man who is turned vagran then mopping floors then givin lectures to poor old black shopkeeper.. then back to floor mopping... his head is always in a cloud of smoke..... very interesting..

i cant help seeing coen brothers doing this book on the film when they were doin great stuff.. why didnt they do it? shud be taken as mystery.. phil hoffman can be a great ignatius reily...

the writer has his own tragic byline that goes along with this book but thats an aside.. ..
and i left it unmentioned out of respect for Toole -

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