Comics

I love web comics. My latest discovery is 7 Shades of Black by James Treagus. It begins with Violet being so goth that Death turns up thinking she's dead. Violet, naturaly, seems to develop an...erm...attachment to Death and proceeds to woo him. Oh and then there's Poe, Violet's cat, providing social commentary and a general reason. They're all still getting to know each other at the moment, but I hope this strip sticks around. It's funny in the way only death and cats can be.

Another discovery, although it's been around for years is Questionable Content. I started at the beginning as I tend to do and so far the whole indie/emo thing is quite funny. I don't know how it's developed over the years, but the drawing's certainly improved between #27 and #891.

One down…

I handed in my final assignment for my research course yesterday. Yes, it's silly to have to write a research proposal for a thesis that's due in a few weeks, but that should actually make it easier to write. I took it as a good sign that I got it done without bursting into tears - that means I actually do have some idea what I'm doing. Yaay.

The creative component was fun though, specially since I've opted to not include a creative component in my thesis and I wanted to see what I might have come up with if I had.  I thought of doing an 'imitiation' of Faiz in English, but discarded that idea pretty fast since I'd need my examiner to be able to read the original for it to make sense. What I did take from Faiz was the images and sentiment he uses in "Aaj Bazaar Mein Pabajaulan Chalo" which translates roughly as "Come to the marketplace in shackles today".

[Digression] 

I've tried translating that one line over and over and simply cannot come up with any kind of phrasing in English that manages to convey the right combination of grief or determination or resignation or any of the other emotions that one line carries. 'Aaj' means today. 'Bazaar' is not just a marketplace, it's the town centre or square where the business of living, not just trade, is carried out. 'Mein' is 'in'. 'Pabajaulan' means 'with shackled feet. 'Chalo' means 'walk' but it can also mean come or go. But that doesn't really help because we don't know who the line is addressed to. It could mean: 

  • come with me to the marketplace in shackels

  • let us go to the marketplace in shackles today

  • I must walk in shackles through the marketplace today

  • walk in shackles in the marketplace today

  • We have come to a time when we must walk in shackles in the marketplace


So which is it? The problem is, it's all of them. The poet himself actually did have to pass through the marketplace in chains one day because he needed to see a doctor and one couldn't come to him in prison that day(Faiz was jailed because the government didn't like his political opinions). The idea of having to walk chained in his own country for the crime of actually caring about its people stayed with him. It is also a comment on subjugation and the idea that, visible or not, everyone living under an oppressive regime is in shackles in public. It is also not only touches on (and the poem later discusses it explicitly) the humiliation faced by those with the will to fight but suggests that the brave come out in shackles willingly and take whatever other punishment the 'oppressors' wish to heap on them. Yes this is still the one line.

[/Digression]

 Since I've been reading Ilhan's book at the same time and given my own interest in the ancient history of the land, I also picked up the image of the Dancing Girl of Mohenjodaro and again used Faiz's idea of her 'birth' as the moment when time began (until we figure out what the real myths of the time were, I suppose we'll just have to make up our own). Combine that with the Indus River (because I can) and you have a narrator all set to tell the story of a land in political turmoil. It was also easier to use the dancing girl as the speaker than myself because I feel my own emotional connection to the land is quite tenuous, despite my anger at the current situation there. (But that division is a whole other post.)

Overall, I'm not unhappy with the stuff I turned in. I'm avoiding reading it because I know I'll find something I could have put better or should have left out or something. Plus I have my Writing the Unconscious assignment due next and have to go look up stuff on Jung. A jungian short story. What the hell was I thinking?!

A brief history of Pakistan’s leaders

In his May 20 column, Cowasjee lists all the leaders Pakistan has had. The list begins with Mohammad Ali Jinnah, naturally, but it's frightening how quickly the downward spiral starts after Jinnah's death. Cowasjee has comments and a few insights to offer, which is only natural given that he is of the generation that was born under the Raj and was present when Pakistan's history began. Come to think of it, once our grandparents are gone, there won't be too many people left in the world who can claim to have seen a country being born.

Update

Lawyers across the country are on strike.

Islamists are (rightly) accusing Musharraf of clinging to his uniform despite it being time to give it up, plus there's the violation of the constitution thing. Although the poor constitution's been contravened so many times already that its abuse is almost part of the ruler's job description. Musharraf is also past retirement, never mind that he's been blocking the Chief of Army Staff seat for far longer than his appointment allowed.

The combined opposition walked out of Senate Monday morning, forcing its adjournment. The opposition blames the MQM, which controls Karachi and is an 'ally' of the government, for the violence that happened over the weekend.

The Supreme Court's additional registrar was shot in his home in Islamabad  in what appears to be a targeted killing. It would be very odd if his killing weren't related to the shit that's currently flying, specially when you consider that there were about 100 policemen stationed right outside his home.

And now for some context: Ayaz Amir's weekend (pre-bloodbath) article on the Chief Justice's trips around the country, in which he discusses what is likely to happen on the CJ's Karachi trip.

What the fuck is going on?

40 people dead and 140 injured so far and I still don't understand what's happened. The Chief Justice of Pakistan was to address a lawyers' convention in Karachi on Saturday, but the political party that runs the show there apparently didn't approve of the welcome rally that groups interested in the 'restoration' of democracy were planning and so held a rally of their own protesting the 'politicising' of the CJ's visit. Still with me? Ok, so then, given that two opposing groups wanted to hold rallies in essentially the same space, police were deployed, ostensibly to keep things under control. Only said police apparently vanished into thin air and the two groups started shooting at each other. So maybe my reaction to the fact that they were shooting is naive: this is Karachi after all--the big, bad, dangerous, violent city that us northerners look at with a mixture of dread and envy--but I can't help seeing shooting another creature, human or otherwise, as a fundamentally, hideously cowardly act. Oh. Wait. I think it's just begun to make sense.

Back to the plot. Apparently the sainted government had warned our naughty little CJ that things would get out of hand if he went to Karachi. I hope they're enjoying their 'I told you so' moment. Now Dawn says that Reuters says that paramilitary forces have been issued orders/permission to shoot anybody involved in "serious violence". As opposed to what? Funny violence? (Incidentally, how appalling is it that you can, at reuters.com, select world crises by region from a handy drop-down list?) That is supposed to be a response to the loss of "precious lives"?

Apparently (because nobody ever really  knows for sure, it seems--not even the people directly involved) this could be a reemergence of the ethnic violence that Karachi was famous for two decades ago, or it could be a clash between the government's supporters and anti-government activists and have nothing to do with the earlier violence, it could be sponsored by the government itself, or it might be something else altogether.

 Venial Sin, who happens to be from Karachi--and who I wish I'd found under happier circumstances--records his reaction to the madness as well as more details in his blog. Given that the post includes pictures of dead people, do consider your tender sensibilities before you click. And really, looking at pictures of the violence and reading about it on as many news sources as possible is the only thing we can do at the moment. At least until it begins to make some kind of non-simplistic, non-propagandist, non-asinine sense.

Workshopping

Workshopping is probably one of the most valuable things you get from a course in creative writing. Most writers will eventually show their work to someone before they set off on the tortuous path to publication, and some will get genuinely good feedback from readers, but there's nothing quite like having a room full of writers examine, assess, and critique your work. It can be a bit nerve-wracking having people you respect look at your work though because of course if they hate it it's not just because the work is the worst thing ever written but that you are a pathetic excuse for a writer and human being and deserve nothing but scorn. Or something like that.

It's interesting too to see what everyone brings to the mix. Clearly, everyone speaks from a particular point of view - we have fiction writers, YA fiction writers, poets, playwrights, and editors among others - as well as from personal preferences, so what they have to say can vary quite a bit. So, as Miriam pointed out yesterday, it's probably best for the person being critiqued to pay more attention to what everyone agrees about, or to comments that come up again and again, and less to comments that have to do with personal preferences.  Unless they happen to agree with them, I suppose. Ultimately, the writer is still the writer and has to decide what to take on board and what to discard. At least that's what you're told and what you have to keep repeating to yourself when redrafting. Because the problem is, when you workshop writing , is that you have it taken into as many different directions as there as writers and their attendant imaginations, and most of those directions are really quite good.

It's especially frustrating when your own idea is still fairly raw. Or entirely raw, actually, as mine was yesterday. Not being able to write when it's your turn to be workshopped is not fun. Still, when presented with my half-baked ideas, the class didn't skimp on advice, ideas, and suggestions. I have a few particularly exciting ones to work on, but my excuse for not developing them forthwith and writing this instead is that they still need to sink in. And I have a headache.

Stuck

I dislike middles intensely. I have an idea, I have images, I have symbols, I have a story and I have research to back them all up. I also have a beginning and an ending. All I'm missing is about, oh, 135 lines of middle.

Which really isn't that much to come up with when you think about it, specially when it's just the middle that needs to be placed neatly between a tidy beginning and a strong ending. But this one's different. This one's surly. I've written and re-written and cut and tightened and squeezed and stretched, but it's still all flabby and jiggly and even saggy in bits and I'm beginning to suspect it ducks out to gorge on candy bars when I'm not looking. Tsk. No discipline.

Taglines

Since taglines are oh-so-important and so utterly pithy and positively oozing with meaning, I thought it appropriate to spend a bit of time thinking about mine. Because, you know, with a name like 'mixed nuts' a blog can so easily be confused with, say, a laundry list and it's so very important that you explain that it isn't.

So our search for clever little taglines for our blogs threw up the following for mine:

  1. Smarter than the average nut

  2. More nuts than you can shake a stick at

  3. Because you're worth it

  4. My imagination is more than a match for your reality

  5. Nuts eat dementors for breakfast

  6. The premium choice for sophisticated hunter-gatherers

  7. Evisceration is best done on a cool day

  8. Mixed nuts are happy nuts


I'm quite partial to number 3 simply because it's so beautifully inane. 4 and 7 come from my journals. They're true, too. Don't ask. 1,2, and 5 are similar to 'mixed nuts are happy nuts' (which Ameel came up with and I quite like) and don't really say much at all, which is good. As for number 6, the more I look at it, the less I like it. Hmm. Since so much hangs in the balance, I think I'll simply avoid a decision and cycle through the lot. Hey it gives me something to do while I try to write something worth writing.

Urdu poetry

The Urdu Poetry Archive is probably the most comprehensive Urdu poetry site I've come across so far. It contains over 1,800 poems by about 343 poets and has an alphabetical listing of both, which makes it easy to locate whatever you're looking for. It hasn't been updated for a few years though and I hope it hasn't been abandoned - it's a fantastic resource and, since the poems are transliterated (according to a painstakingly uniform system that it's worth your while to get to know), people who speak urdu but have trouble with the script can still access the poetry. There aren't any translations up though, but I suppose that would be a whole other project.

Of trochees and iambs, or how we pick up language

If you've ever wondered why our voices go up a few octaves and become distinctly sing-song-y when we talk to children (and yes, even a misanthrope like me does on occasion talk to children), Professor Steve Jones may have an answer.
And thereby hangs a tale; for rhythm is essential to language. Children pick up the pulse of speech well after they have learned its vocabulary and grammar. That explains in part why they sound childish and why adults talk to them in such an embarrassing way. The young pick up trochees first (which is why "Twinkle, twinkle, little star" - a perfect example of the form - is so popular and may even lie behind Shakespeare's use of the same rhythm for the child-like figure of Puck). An ability to respond to the ponderous iamb takes much longer to emerge. When faced with a complicated word like "banana", infants often turn it into a tasty trochee, or "nana".

It’s A Blog!

We've been kicking around the idea of adding a blog to the site because it's just more convenient than uploading entire pages each time I write a new paragraph. Admittedly, it's not that many pages but hey, if I can do something in two clicks instead of three, I'm happy. So we finally did it (or rather I very generously offered to take out the trash while Ameel got it all organized and installed) and here I am with my shiny new blog all set to go. Ameel will be setting his up shortly too so do check back for it.

Here We Go

There goes my clever little day off in the middle of the week. I'm doing not two but three tutorials this term, which means that with my own courses I have at least one thing on every day.

Now something completely unrelated. The Whitby Goth Weekend as reported on very nicely by the BBC. For once, they make the whole thing look like fun instead of the spookykid/emo/serial killer image that's usually flogged.

Rrrrrr

Penni posted ten things she likes that begin with D and has bestowed upon me the letter R. Although research is something quite close to my heart, I'll start off the list with Reunions. Given the amount of traveling I've done (and plan to keep doing), reunions figure pretty heavily in my life, at least as a concept if not a reality. From my family to friends from high school (some of whom I haven't seen in ten years now) college and work, it seems sometimes that I have more people to meet again than meet in the first place.

The other kind of reunion that's got me all giddy is when bands get back together. Specifically The Police (eeeek). I seriously have every single thing they have ever done. From Fallout to the first ever live performance of Message in a Bottle to their last reworking of Don't Stand So Close to Me, to Sting's solo work, Andy Summers's albums, and Steward Copeland's stint with Animal Logic, I. Have. It. All. So yaay for me and they'd better be planning an Australian tour or I'm getting me some voodoo dolls. What I'm happiest about, really, is the possibility of seeing Steward Copeland drumming--I love what he does and his influence is audible in so many different drummers' work that the prospect of seeing the original is just really exciting. You can read all about it here. Now. On with the rest of the list.

I actually do like Research because it means I can spend hours in the library or at the computer (but more the library, really. Weight, texture, smell, sound..there's so much *more* to books.) leafing through information on obscure facets of obscure subjects.

That said, Reading is so obvious it feels a bit like cheating...maybe I'll do 11 just to make up for that. I've wanted to read ever since I figured out that there was a hell of a lot more going on than people were telling me about (To be precise, I was about 3 years old and, following my mother out of her room after asking what was probably yet another awkward question, I realized I'd been fobbed off with some sort of kiddie explanation.) Now, I come from a long line of looker-uppers whose homes are not complete until filled to bursting with dictionaries, encyclopedias, thesauri, grammars and the like, and I'd already been watching my elders leap for the nearest reference book any time a question came up, so I suppose my assumption was to be expected. I don't remember learning to read, only that I could. I was very disappointed when, soon after learning to string letters together to make words, I found I *couldn't* read everything.

As should be obvious from my previous posts, Remembering is something I do often and at great length. I won't say reminiscing, necessarily, although it does touch on that often enough, because for me remembering is more an exercise in figuring out why things are the way they are as opposed to dwelling on fond memories. I also love the way connections start sparking when you think about something you haven't thought of for a while and realize it's all there still, neatly filed away for you to take out and examine again.

Good or bad, Relationships are ultimately likeable creatures if you listen to what they have to say.

Riding along on motorbikes is definitely something I developed a taste for, though I've done it seldom. Specifically, an impromptu ride on a motorbike on a road that takes you over bridges and past massive trees and lets you look down at the Kathmandu valley, all in the Rain, of course (thanks, Roy).

Rain. Light rain, heavy rain, cold rain, warm rain, rain with thunder and lightning, rain with wind, rain sizzling on hot concrete, rain kicking up dust when it starts, the smell of rain about to fall, the smell of trees and earth in rain, rain you can drive in, rain you can't drive in, rain with rainbows, rains with heavy, angry clouds...

I enjoy Randomness. The way some thoughts just turn up, some links just get made, some people just happen to have a layover where you live. Unplanned, effortless goodness.

Rilke. By far one of my favorite poets although I have yet to learn enough German to read him in the original which, I'm told, far surpasses the translations I've read so far.

Roads. I love travelling, particularly road trips, and particularly when there are two cars or more. There's something about the possibilites, the unknown, the road stretching ahead of you, leading wherever it leads. Winding mountain roads are amazing, particularly the Karakoram Highway, built on the legendary Silk Route. Imagine what amounts to a tiny strip of metalled road slicing through the most gigantic rock faces on the planet. Or imagine being in the Himalayas trekking up an incline and seeing ahead of you a stone tunnel obscured by foliage through which you can still see a glimmer of light at the other end. Or even just driving the steep, winding Salt Range leg of the highway between Islamabad and Lahore. (Yes, I'm slightly mountain mad.) Roads are in-between places. Roads free you from what and where you've been and keep at bay the necessity of being someone, something, somewhere for just that little while longer. Roads are probably where I can be most at peace.