Musing from the impetuous 30something Cosmopolitan chronicles the modern life, personal commentaries and unconventional thoughts of a thirty-something professional woman on a quest to live life on her own terms.
Marc Baptiste has done it again. He directed Robin Thick’s video for the single “Sweetest Love”. It’s a great piece of work. Robin Thick’s newest CD is on heavy rotation on my ipod. The Sweetest Love single is my third most favorite song on the CD. The first is “Side Step” and the second would be “Ms. Harmony”. Hence, the “Sweetest Love” was written after Robin Thick visited Paris. Although, I’ve been to Paris only once, he penned the songs simple yet elegant melody perfectly. Moreover, Marc Baptiste captured the feel and mood of the song with perfection; simple, intense and sweet. Check out the Robin Thick’s “Sweetest Love” video below:
I love all forms of art; literary, photography, painting, sculpture, music, film, the spoken word. Superb Art is an emollient on a bad day because it touches the soul, warm the heart and leaves one wanting more. Our homes are our sanctuaries, and often represent our journey, our interests, our experiences, and simply who we are inside; no matter how kooky it may be. My very tiny house is filled with art from unknown artists whose work moves me, inexpensive prints of internationally known artists and many books from critically acclaimed authors. Hence, the books I have on my coffee table bring me great joy conceptually and visually. There is the amazing Freda Kahlo, the extraordinary Gordon Parks, the confused yet impeccable Basquait, the incredible Henry Tanner, and my favorite contemporary photographer Marc Baptiste.
Marc Baptiste, the author/photographer of the book BEAUTIFUL nudes by Marc Baptiste, exquisitively captures the Soul of women in ways few photographers have in the past. To me, Baptiste is the Herb Ritz of the millennium. His work evokes true LOVE and BEAUTY. I can only say that his work is like poetry. Robin Thick definately chose the best director for the "Sweetest Love" video. Bravo, Bravo!
The sophomore Gnarles’s Barkley album “The Odd Couple” was released on March 25th. After listening to the couple of songs, I decided it wasn’t as interesting as their debut album. Fast forward to November 11th, the single “Who’s Gonna Save My Soul” video came out and I’ve changed my mind. “Who’s going to save my soul”, directed by Chris Milk is actually a remarkable piece of art. I so love it. Cee-Lo Green’s voice is so uniquely distinctive that there is no denying its greatness. The producer, Danger Mouse is like the acid house version of Kenye West. The collaboration between multi-instrumentalist producer Danger Mouse and Cee-Lo Green’s vulnerable vocals and clever lyrics is a match made in heaven’s eclecticism. Check out the video below:
The journey to complete freedom through liberation and enlightenment has opened my view to Tantric Devotion in loving relationship. To fully explain Tantric Devotion, one should first read the history tantric summerized by Dada Shiilabhadrananda. Tantra is the original spiritual science first taught in India more than 7000 years ago. Tan is a Sanskrit root which signifies, "expansion", and Tra signifies "liberation." Thus, Tantra is the practice which elevates human beings in a process in which their minds are expanded. It leads human beings from the imperfect to the perfect, from the crude to the subtle, from bondage to liberation.
The development of Tantra is intertwined with the development of civilization in ancient India. During the time when Tantra emerged as an important spiritual practice, India was passing through a crucial historical period. In the Northwest nomadic tribes from central Asia, the Aryans, began to enter the country which they named Bharata Varsha (the land which nourishes and expands human beings). Although the Aryans were a nomadic warrior culture, amidst them there were certain sages known as Rishis who began to ask the basic questions about the origin and destiny of the universe.
These sages presented oral teachings, which were later compiled in books known as The Vedas. In these teachings they put forward the idea of a Supreme Consciousness, advancing beyond the previous concepts of a world in which many deities were thought to animate the forces of nature. They also developed a system of prayer and worship in order to enter into a relationship with this Supreme Consciousness, but their practices were mostly of an external, ritualistic nature.
In India the Aryans encountered and began to fight with the indigenous peoples - the Austrics, Mongolians, and Dravidians. They considered these races to be inferior to them, and in the epic tales of India such as The Ramayana, these races are depicted as monkeys and demons.
However inferior these races were considered to be, the Aryans were very much interested in the spiritual practices which the indigenous peoples of India were practicing. The spiritual approach of the non-Aryans was Tantra and it differed from the Vedic practices of the Aryans because it was fundamentally an introversive process rather than an external ritual. Many Aryans began to learn the Tantric system of spiritual development, and later Vedic books were influenced by Tantra.
During this epoch of warfare between the Aryans and non-Aryans, a great personality was born. His name was Sadashiva which means "he who is always absorbed in consciousness and one whose only vow of existence is to promote the all-around welfare of living beings". Sadashiva, also known as Shiva, was a great spiritual preceptor or Guru. Although Tantra was practiced before his birth, it was he who for the first time gave humanity a systematic presentation of spirituality.
Not only was he a great spiritual teacher, but he was also the founder of the Indian system of music and dance, which is why he is sometimes known as Nataraj (the Lord of the Dance). Shiva was also the founder of Indian medicine, and presented a system known as Vaedyak Shastra. In the social sphere too Shiva had an important role to play. He introduced a system of marriage in which both partners accepted a mutual responsibility for the success of the marriage, irregardless of caste or community. Shiva himself was of mixed parentage, and by marrying an Aryan princess he helped to unite the warring factions of India and gave them a more universalistic social viewpoint. Because of these social innovations Shiva has been called the father of human civilization.
Shiva's greatest contribution to the birth of civilization was to introduce the concept of dharma. Dharma is a Sanskrit word which signifies the "innate characteristic" of something. What is the innate characteristic and specialty of humans? Shiva explained that a human being wants more than the pleasure provided by sensory gratification. He said that the human being is different from plants and animals because what he or she is striving for is absolute peace. This is the goal of human life, and Shiva's spiritual teachings were aimed at enabling any human being to attain this goal.
Like most ancient teachings, Shiva's ideas were first taught in an oral form, and only later were they transcribed into books. Shiva's wife, Parvati, used to ask him various questions regarding the spiritual science. Shiva replied to these questions, and the compilation of these questions and answers are known as the Tantra Shastra (Tantric scriptures). There are two types of Tantric scriptures. The principles of Tantra are found in books known as Nigama while the practices of Tantra are contained in books known as Agama. Some of these ancient books have been lost and others are indecipherable due to their having been written in a code language designed to keep the secrets of Tantra away from the uninitiated; thus the ideas of Tantra have never been clearly explained.
In his commentaries on the Tantra Shastra and in his book about the life and teachings of Shiva, Shrii Shrii Anandamurti has presented some of the basic ideas found in the ancient teachings. One of the most important elements in Tantra is the relationship of Guru and disciple. Guru means “one who can dispel darkness" and Shiva explained that for spiritual success there must be a good teacher and a good disciple.
Shiva explained that there are three major categories of Guru. The first type is a teacher who gives a little bit of knowledge but does not follow up the lessons. That is, he or she may leave and the disciple is then left alone without guidance. The second or middle level is one who teaches and then guides the disciple for a little while but not for the complete period needed by the disciple to reach the final goal. The best type of teacher according to Tantra is one who gives a teaching and then makes continued efforts to see that the disciple follows the instructions and finally realizes the ultimate state of human perfection.
The qualities of this highest guru are further enumerated in the Tantra Shastra. The guru is one who is tranquil, can control his mind, is humble and modestly dressed. He earns his living in a proper way and is a family man. He is well versed in metaphysical philosophy and established in the art of meditation. He is one who knows the theory and practice of imparting the teaching of meditation. He loves and guides his disciples. Such a guru is called Mahakaola
But even if there is a great teacher, there must also be someone who can absorb his lessons. The Tantra Shastras describe three different categories of disciples. The first type is compared to a glass which is placed in the water with the mouth facing downward. While it is in the water it appears to be full but if it is lifted out of the water it becomes empty. This is like a student who practices well in the presence of the teacher, but after the teacher leaves, the student discontinues the practice and cannot apply the teachings to his or her every day life. The second type of disciple is like a glass placed in the water at an angle. It also appears to be full when it is immersed, but when it is raised out of the water it loses most of the water. This disciple is one who practices in the presence of the teacher but after a while he or she practices less and less and finally discontinues the spiritual way of life. The third kind of disciple is the best of all and is symbolized by a glass which is immersed in the water in an upright position. While in the water it is completely full and when it is taken out of the water it remains full. This kind of student practices in the presence of the master and continues the practice even if he or she is physically separated from the teacher.
The relationship of guru and disciple is very important and is a key feature of Tantra. The path of spirituality has been described as being as thin as a razor's edge. At any moment it is possible to deviate from the path and then it is very difficult to reach liberation. The guru is always there to love and guide the disciple at all stages of the practice.
Shiva was a Mahakaola, but after his death there was a lack of teachers of the same stature and Tantra fell into decline. Some of the teachings were lost and others were deformed. Today Tantra is shrouded in mystery and there are many misconceptions about it. To understand the source of these misconceptions it is important to examine the 5 Ms. These are spiritual practices beginning with the letter M. When Shiva first taught he gave teaching according to the development of the student. He saw that certain people were at a level in which they were dominated by animal passions and others were at a higher stage of development. He gave different practices depending on the qualities of the disciple.
The first M is known as Madya. It has two meanings. One meaning of madya is "wine". For those people who were dominated by physical instincts Shiva instructed them to continue drinking wine, but he showed them how to control the habit and then finally leave it. For those at a higher level of development Madya has another meaning, it refers not to wine but to a divine nectar. Each month the pineal gland secretes a fluid known as amrta. A yogi who has purified his mind and practices fasting can taste the fluid and experience the profound effect of the fluid on his whole being, which has been described as a state of bliss. Thus, there is both a crude or material interpretation of Madya and a subtle or spiritual understanding of the term.
Another of the five Ms is Mamsa. One meaning of Mamsa is meat. For those who ate much meat, Shiva told them to continue to take it with a spiritual idea and finally to control the urge and quit the habit. For the subtle practitioner of Tantra, mamsa refers to the tongue and the spiritual practice of controlling one's speech.
Matsya, the third of the Ms, refers to fish. For the physically minded practitioner Shiva applied the same instruction regarding fish as he did with wine and meat. In spiritual or subtle Tantra the "fish" refers to two subtle nerves which run up the body, starting at the base of the spine and crisscrossing each other and ending in the two nostrils. These nerves are known as the ida and pingala. By the science of breath control, Pranayama, the currents of the nerves are controlled and the mind becomes calm for meditation. This is the Matsya of the spiritual practitioner.
Another of the Ms is Mudra. Mudra has only a spiritual significance and there is no physical or crude practice associated with it. Mudra means to maintain contact with those who help us to make spiritual progress and to avoid the company of those who might harm our development.
The last of the Ms, Maethuna, is the one which has caused the most confusion regarding Tantra. Maethuna means union. In its crude sense it means sexual union. For those who were dominated by the sexual instinct Shiva told that the sex act must be done with a spiritual idea and that gradually this instinct must be controlled. For the more advanced practitioners, those who were practicing subtle or spiritual Tantra, Shiva taught another practice of Maethuna. In this case "union" refers to the union of individual consciousness with Supreme Consciousness. In this case the spiritual energy of the human being, lying dormant at the base of the spine, is raised until it reaches the highest energy center (near the pineal gland), causing the spiritual aspirant to experience union with the Supreme.
The Ananda Marga yoga of today is based on the spiritual and subtle interpretation of the 5 Ms.
One of the distinctive aspects of subtle Tantra is the introversive method of meditation. The concept of mantra is of key importance in the Tantra idea of meditation. "Man" means "mind" and "tra" means "that which liberates", thus mantra is a particular vibration which liberates the mind.
The ancient yogis experimented with sound vibration and began to utilize special sounds which they found useful in the process of expansion of mind. They found that there are seven principle psycho-spiritual energy centers in the human body. They further learned that there are 50 sounds which emanate from the centers. These sounds are found in the alphabet of Sanskrit, and certain combinations of the sounds were used in ancient processes of concentration and meditation. During Tantric meditation the meditator is concentrating on the mantra and trying to keep only one sound vibration (and its associated idea) in his or her mind. Constant repetition of the mantra leads a practitioner to higher states of consciousness.
Not any sound can be chosen at random for use in meditation, rather there are certain qualities which the mantra must possess in order for it to be effective. First of all the mantra must be pulsative, that is, there will be two syllables which are repeated in synchronization with the inhalation and exhalation of breathing. In addition the mantra must have an idea associated with it. The general idea of the mantras used in meditation is that "I am one with the Supreme Consciousness". The mantra thus helps the individual to associate his or her own individual consciousness with the totality of consciousness in the universe.
The final characteristics of the mantra is that it must create a certain vibration which acts as a link between the individual vibration of the meditator and the vibration of the Supreme Consciousness. As people are not all alike, the mantras which are used in meditation are also not all alike. The meditation teacher chooses a mantra which matches the particular vibration of the individual and can link this individual vibration with the universal rhythm of the Supreme Consciousness.
Tantra is more than just a collection of meditation or yoga techniques. There is a particular world-view associated with it. According to Tantra, struggle is the essence of life. The effort to struggle against all obstacles and move from the imperfect to the perfect is the true spirit of Tantra.
In this movement from imperfection to perfection, there are three basic stages an individual passes through. In the first stage, the person is dominated by animal instincts, but in the next stage he or she gains control over these instincts and reaches the state of true human development. Finally, by constant struggle and effort, a state is reached where the human being becomes godlike. Tantra thus has an optimistic worldview. It shows how each individual is moving in a cosmic circle from a state of less developed consciousness to the most highly developed status.
John McCain is a class act. He gave the speech of his career with honor, dignity and grace. The speech guarantees he will continue to be re-elected as an Arizona Senator. Senator McCain, you are truly a winner, my friend.
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Democratic presidential hopeful Barack Obama is ahead in four battleground states, according to a Quinnipiac University poll out Tuesday that suggested Obama could be benefiting from turmoil on Wall Street.
Republican White House rival John McCain has not been able to wrestle the banner of change from Obama, and voters in three of the four states see Obama as better on economic issues, the polls showed.
"With a lousy economy, an unpopular war and an even less popular Republican president, it's difficult to find voters who don't want change," said Peter Brown, assistant director of the Quinnipiac's University's Polling Institute.
In Colorado, Obama leads McCain by 49 to 45 percent. Last month, McCain was ahead one percentage point in Colorado, 47-46 percent, Quinnipiac said.
In Michigan, Obama leads McCain 48 to 44 percent, compared to 46-42 percent on July 24.
In Minnesota, Obama is holding on to a two percentage point lead of 47 to 45 percent, compared to 46 to 44 percent in late July.
In Wisconsin, Obama leads by 49 to 42 percent, although his advantage has narrowed from 50 to 39 percent in July.
"The Wall Street meltdown while these polls were in the field probably fed the public desire for change and seemed to benefit Senator Obama," Brown said.
Obama is widely perceived as the candidate of change in the four key states, by 19 to 24 point margins, Quinnipiac said.
Voters in all four states named the economy as the top issue in the November 4 election and said Obama has a better handle on it, except in Minnesota where voters were equally divided on which candidate best understands the economy (45 to 45 percent).
By contrast, voters were convinced McCain has a better grasp on foreign policy, by margins of 34 percent and higher in all four states.
Voters in the four states view the running mates -- Delaware Senator Joe Biden for the Democrats and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin for the Republicans -- as good choices.
But they would rather see Biden as president, by margins of four to nine percent.
Quinnipiac questioned 1,301 likely voters in Minnesota between September 14-21; 1,313 in Wisconsin; 1,364 in Michigan; and 1,418 in Colorado. The polls had a 2.7 margin of error except Colorado, where the margin of error was 2.6 percent.
The polls were conducted in partnership with The Wall Street Journal and washingtonpost.com, the university said.
Is Sarah Palin apart of the power wielding republican corruption machine? You be then judge.
ANCHORAGE, Alaska - A campaign spokesman says Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin won't speak with an investigator hired by lawmakers to look into the firing of her public safety commissioner. Palin is accused of firing the former Public Safety Commissioner Wat Monegan because he refused Palin’s demand to fire a state trooper who had divorced Palin's sister.
This skit is hilarious. Tina Fey is the spitting image of Sara Palin. Sadly it actually embodies the true essence of Sara Palin, and pokes fun of Hilary Clinton. Palin is an embarrassment to every educated capable women. Moreover, Palin's lack of deptha and low rate performance has made her the poster child for middle age "ditzy brawds".
Sadly, Palin might receive the unsuspecting, uninformed “vagina vote”, as a retaliation due to Hilary Clinton not being chosen as the Dems VP. Hillary Clinton is a smart, accomplished, strong, educated, political veteran, and seasoned diplomat. There is ABSOLUTES NO comparison between Palin and Clinton. If Clinton had not voted on the war that tarnished the US’s international image which sunk the economy, she might be the Dems presidential candidate. However, the country is looking for change. The current President’s lack of intelligence has caused the country’s current decline. The United States can not afford another “dumb” president or vice-president. A waffle house waitress could articulate better than Palin. She appears to manage her governorship like student club president. Palin like Bush, doesn’t show that she understand the lasting generational repercussions of the presidential decisions. Her support of offshore drilling is just one example. Palin allowed Lobbyists to influence her policy on Alaska drilling. Polar Bears could become extent by 2030 as a result Alaska ice glaciers melting at an astronomical rate due to off shore drilling, and global warming. Palin has no clue as to the impact of species extension, due to the deteriorate of the ecological landscape. The “Ditzy Brawd” image is cute if one is a waffle waitress but ineffective and irrational as a vice-presidential candidate. John McCain compared Barak to Paris Hilton but McCain chose middle aged Paris Hilton as his running mate.
It appears; Mrs. Palin did not put forth any effort to perform any research on the domestic and international political issues. Therefore, Sara Palin’s ABC interview with Charlie Gibson was a disaster. It clearly revealed her inability to simply answer the questions intelligently. I was embarrassed for her. The interview below shows what a true liability she would be to the United States. Considering all the stress the next president will be under, it’s very likely that McCain could have a heart attack or die from his cancer. Consequently, Sara Palin would not have a clue as to what to do. Therefore, she would rely on republican advisors which might be another George W. Clearly, we need competent and compassionate leaders who will move us forward not continue to drag us down. The fall out from the Republic regulatory deregulations of the banking industry, environment, FDA, managed care deregulation, and heir support for NAFTA has resulting in a slow pain market crash, ozone erosion, unbalanced ecosystem, toxic oceans, unregulated tainted foods from other countries, diseased beef, low air quality, bank collapses, low investor confidence, and thousands of lost jobs. Obviously, Sarah Palin is an excellent candidate to be manipulated by the GOP machine because she is unprepared, ill-equipped and incompetent.
George W. and Cheaney created "history" (his story) by munipulating the public through fear, and now the GOP vicepresidential nominee Sarah Palin is stretching the truth to creast "herstory" (her story). Is it me or are Republicans dishonest spin doctors that will stop at nothing to win? Here is Jim Kuhnhenn of the Associated Press's analysis of Sarah's growing nose from misrepresenting the truth and misleading GOP viewers.
By JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press Writer Wed Sep 3, 11:48 PM ET ST. PAUL, Minn. - Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin and her Republican supporters held back little Wednesday as they issued dismissive attacks on Barack Obama and flattering praise on her credentials to be vice president. In some cases, the reproach and the praise stretched the truth.
Some examples:
PALIN: "I have protected the taxpayers by vetoing wasteful spending ... and championed reform to end the abuses of earmark spending by Congress. I told the Congress 'thanks but no thanks' for that Bridge to Nowhere."
THE FACTS: As mayor of Wasilla, Palin hired a lobbyist and traveled to Washington annually to support earmarks for the town totaling $27 million. In her two years as governor, Alaska has requested nearly $750 million in special federal spending, by far the largest per-capita request in the nation. While Palin notes she rejected plans to build a $398 million bridge from Ketchikan to an island with 50 residents and an airport, that opposition came only after the plan was ridiculed nationally as a "bridge to nowhere."
PALIN: "There is much to like and admire about our opponent. But listening to him speak, it's easy to forget that this is a man who has authored two memoirs but not a single major law or reform — not even in the state senate."
THE FACTS: Compared to McCain and his two decades in the Senate, Obama does have a more meager record. But he has worked with Republicans to pass legislation that expanded efforts to intercept illegal shipments of weapons of mass destruction and to help destroy conventional weapons stockpiles. The legislation became law last year. To demean that accomplishment would be to also demean the work of Republican Sen. Richard Lugar of Indiana, a respected foreign policy voice in the Senate. In Illinois, he was the leader on two big, contentious measures in Illinois: studying racial profiling by police and requiring recordings of interrogations in potential death penalty cases. He also successfully co-sponsored major ethics reform legislation.
PALIN: "The Democratic nominee for president supports plans to raise income taxes, raise payroll taxes, raise investment income taxes, raise the death tax, raise business taxes, and increase the tax burden on the American people by hundreds of billions of dollars."
THE FACTS: The Tax Policy Center, a think tank run jointly by the Brookings Institution and the Urban Institute, concluded that Obama's plan would increase after-tax income for middle-income taxpayers by about 5 percent by 2012, or nearly $2,200 annually. McCain's plan, which cuts taxes across all income levels, would raise after tax-income for middle-income taxpayers by 3 percent, the center concluded.
Obama would provide $80 billion in tax breaks, mainly for poor workers and the elderly, including tripling the Earned Income Tax Credit for minimum-wage workers and higher credits for larger families. He also would raise income taxes, capital gains and dividend taxes on the wealthiest. He would raise payroll taxes on taxpayers with incomes above $250,000, and he would raise corporate taxes. Small businesses that make more than $250,000 a year would see taxes rise.
MCCAIN: "She's been governor of our largest state, in charge of 20 percent of America's energy supply ... She's responsible for 20 percent of the nation's energy supply. I'm entertained by the comparison and I hope we can keep making that comparison that running a political campaign is somehow comparable to being the executive of the largest state in America," he said in an interview with ABC News' Charles Gibson.
THE FACTS: McCain's phrasing exaggerates both claims. Palin is governor of a state that ranks second nationally in crude oil production, but she's no more "responsible" for that resource than President Bush was when he was governor of Texas, another oil-producing state. In fact, her primary power is the ability to tax oil, which she did in concert with the Alaska Legislature. And where Alaska is the largest state in America, McCain could as easily have called it the 47th largest state — by population.
MCCAIN: "She's the commander of the Alaska National Guard. ... She has been in charge, and she has had national security as one of her primary responsibilities," he said on ABC.
THE FACTS: While governors are in charge of their state guard units, that authority ends whenever those units are called to actual military service. When guard units are deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan, for example, they assume those duties under "federal status," which means they report to the Defense Department, not their governors. Alaska's national guard units have a total of about 4,200 personnel, among the smallest of state guard organizations.
FORMER ARKANSAS GOV. MIKE HUCKABEE: Palin "got more votes running for mayor of Wasilla, Alaska than Joe Biden got running for president of the United States." THE FACTS: A whopper. Palin got 616 votes in the 1996 mayor's election, and got 909 in her 1999 re-election race, for a total of 1,525. Biden dropped out of the race after the Iowa caucuses, but he still got 76,165 votes in 23 states and the District of Columbia where he was on the ballot during the 2008 presidential primaries. FORMER MASSACHUSETTS GOV. MITT ROMNEY: "We need change, all right — change from a liberal Washington to a conservative Washington! We have a prescription for every American who wants change in Washington — throw out the big-government liberals, and elect John McCain and Sarah Palin."
THE FACTS: A Back-to-the-Future moment. George W. Bush, a conservative Republican, has been president for nearly eight years. And until last year, Republicans controlled Congress. Only since January 2007 have Democrats have been in charge of the House and Senate.
I am often asked about tantric devotion and other yoga sutras. I am still learning the principles and discipline of yoga sutras myself. Hence,the book A companion to tantra is a great guide to trantic sutras. It breaks down the principles and methodologies simply. It is a great read for beginnings and for those interested in Tatric Devotion. The following is an explaination to Tantric according to A.C. Banarji.
From The Jacket Tantra is a distinct philosophical system. Many feel eager to know about it, but few love the time and energy to understand. The intricacies of Tantra. So, a short-cut is necessary.
In the present work, an attempt has been made to set forth the highlights of the Tantra works and their authors. A bibliography, intended to help further reading, has been added.
The author, a lifelong researcher in Sanskrit, has been a teacher of the subject. He has some 60 works to his credit. His only aim is to propogate Sanskrit learning.
Preface
The elements of Tantra are found in the Atharvaveda and, in a lesser degree, in the Rgveda. These relate to the mundane life of the people, and reflect their aspirations for material well-being. We see, in them, how people wanted to have long life, keep off diseases and thwart the activities of ghosts, supposed to cause harm to them. Magic, both beneficial to themselves and harmful to their enemies, figures prominently.
In course of time, side by side with the elitist works, Tantras having a populist appeal came to be composed. It seems that Tantras arose as a protest against the traditional scriptures which insisted on self-mortification and austerities, etc. as means to the attainment of emancipation of the soul from the bondage of rebirths. In doing so, they prescribed rituals which were denied to women and the Sudras who were in the lowest rung of the social ladder.
Tantra had a different approach to life and salvation. It sought to show the way to liberation here in life not by denial of worldly pleasures. For the followers of Tantra, the body was the microcosm and was to be kept fit for Tantric devotion. Women and Sudras were given by Tantra many facilities for religious practices. The rigours of caste-system were considerably relaxed. The acquisition of virtues was considered more important than the accident of birth.
In the modern society of India, the traditional scriptural injunctions are yielding place to rational thinking. Those, who do not know much of Tantra, are vociferously decrying ancient Indian values categorically. For reforming the society in keeping with modern ideas, the Tantra-sastra should be cultivated. But, in the busy life of today, with tension and turmoil, it is not possible for one to delve deep into Tantra.
The present work is designed to give, in a succinct form, the reader an idea about the highlights of Tantra. In the introduction, we have briefly dealt with the important matters relating to this literature. It is followed by short accounts of the important authors and works on Tantra. In a glossary, the difficult words and technical terms have been explained. A separate glossary of scientific terms has also been added. The bibliography is fairly exhaustive.
The labours of the author will be rewarded if the work goes some way in familiarizing the readers with the contents of Tantra, both Hindu and Buddhist.
Contents Preface 7 Abbreviations 9 Important Dates 10 I Introduction 11 II Tantric Elements in Post-Vedic Sanskrit Literature 33 III Tantric Saivism of Kashmir 39 IV Tantric Lexicons 61 V Science in Tantra 65 VI Society Reflected in Tantra 81 VII Authors of Tantras and Commentaries 89 IX Hindu Tantras 117 X Buddhist Tantras 233 Appendix I: Phthasthanas 247 Appendix II: Miscellaneous Tantric Works and Commentaries 248 Glossary (General) 251 Glossary of Scientific Terms 298 Select Bibliography 307 Index 341
This is my take on Ryan Kathman’s review of the Will Smith’s movie Hancock. First, I must say that I completely, unequivocally, and absolutely LOVED the movie. The dramatic twists and turns in the movie made it even more enjoyable, as life is full of surprises. Hence, after more than twenty years of acting, (Jason) Batman got his do. Hancock appears to be a defining moment for Jason Batman as a movie star; finally. The consummate professional and movie star Mr. Smith has brought creditability to the superhero genre for us 30Somethings in the way Robert Downey, jr. brought it to the 40Somethings in Iron man. I’ve posted the review because Ryan expressed my sentiments about the movie exactly. Surprisingly, the critics were split. However, with $107 million at the box office, it’s clear the public loved it. It appears…the people have spoken.
Ryan Kathman wrote in the DailyNabraskan.com news:
Now that Tom Cruise has officially become irrelevant, Tom Hanks has settled nicely into middle age, Johnny Depp continues to explore only quirky territory (thankfully) and Brad Pitt's love life seems more important than his screen life, is there truly any bigger marquee actor than Will Smith?
Sure, George Clooney is a "movie star" in the classic sense, and Steve Carell or Jim Carrey definitely have the comedy genre locked down, but when it comes to the summer blockbuster, popcorn movie-you've-been-waiting-for, Hollywood's been telling us for years that Smith is the hot ticket and we seem happy to agree.
But unlike the Cruises and Keanu Reeveses whose stars have ultimately faded due to a lack of range and/or appeal, Smith proves again in his latest July 4 tent-pole flick "Hancock" why he actually deserves to be the undisputed king of the box office.
First of all, Smith turns a potentially one-note concept cooked up by two TV writers (Vincent Ngo and Vince Gilligan) into a flesh-and-blood character.
Instead of just a misanthropic superhero who makes all of L.A. angry with him because of the damage he causes while saving the day, in Smith's hands, Hancock is a hilariously bitter and reluctant hero who turns to liquor not as an amusing plot device, but as a refuge to numb his confusion over his own identity (if you mixed Jason Bourne with Superman - minus the tights - and TV's House, you'd have Hancock). The reason all those previews seem a bit stilted is because the caustic Hancock is generous with the expletives and the likable Smith delivers his most "colorful" lines with verve.
Secondly, the star knows how to pick good projects with pedigreed collaborators. Peter Berg - the brilliant actor-turned-auteur behind both film and television versions of "Friday Night Lights" as well as last year's excellent Iraq War pic "The Kingdom" - has joined fellow thesp John Favreau (who helmed "Iron Man," the new superhero standard) as a new crop of filmmakers who will hopefully dethrone Michael Bay and Brett Ratner so our future blockbusters will actually have substance as well as style.
Berg's hand-held, overlapping dialogue technique lends an authenticity to the film that helps it stand apart in the superhero genre by giving us a recognizable world instead of Metropolis or Gotham.
Berg and Smith have some help, of course, from great supporting turns by the reliably hilarious Jason Bateman as a PR consultant who offers to help clean up Hancock's image, and the unfairly beautiful and talented Charlize Theron as Bateman's wife. It's nice to see Bateman really start to carve out a niche on the big screen in his largest film role yet and Theron holds her own against Smith while letting her beauty be secondary to her acting.
The team manages to highlight the mediocre script's strengths - Smith and Bateman's scenes as well as Hancock's early verbal sparring with ungrateful citizens - while downplaying its weaknesses such as the occasionally corny theme about trying to change the world. As for those who might complain about a plot twist that seems a bit telegraphed, I would argue that the reveal is all the more rewarding for its expertly placed foreshadowing.
Ultimately, the movie works because of Smith's unique blend of the everyman qualities he's had on display since 1994's "Independence Day" (his first blockbuster), the colorful comic timing that made "Men In Black" and "Bad Boys" great rides, and the dramatic chops he flashed way back in "Six Degrees of Separation" only to fully realize in "Ali" and "The Pursuit of Happyness."
In last year's grossly underappreciated "I Am Legend," Smith was the movie, delivering a powerhouse performance that made Hanks' "Cast Away" look like a day at the beach. There's a stoic sadness that bridges his "Legend" character to "Hancock," making it even harder to remember that this is the same cocky young kid who introduced rap music to the mainstream and sometimes looked wide-eyed and awkward in his cheesy early 1990s sitcom.
But because he transcends racial barriers while never failing to embrace his own roots, because he actually shares his scenes with other actors instead of demanding the spotlight, and because he hasn't yet had a meltdown on Oprah or got into a screaming match with Matt Lauer, Smith has earned his place atop the list of marquee male stars.
Let's just hope all those Scientology rumors aren't true.
Source: Reviewed by Ryan Kathman’s in the Dailynabaskan.com
By DAVID ESPO and STEPHEN OHLEMACHER, Associated Press Writers
WASHINGTON - Barack Obama effectively clinched the Democratic presidential nomination Tuesday, becoming the first black candidate to lead a major party into a campaign for the White House. Vanquished rival Hillary Rodham Clinton swiftly signaled an interest in joining the ticket as running mate.
Obama arranged a victory celebration at the site of this summer's Republican National Convention — an in-your-face gesture to Sen. John McCain, who will be his opponent in the race to become the nation's 44th president.
The 46-year-old Obama built a grass roots campain that outlasted and outcampaigned Clinton in a historic campaign that sparked record turnouts in primary after primary, yet exposed deep racial and gender divisions within the party.
In a campaign of surprises, Clinton's comments about joining the ticket rated high.
According to one participant in an afternoon conference call among Clinton and members of the New York congressional delegation, Rep. Lydia Velasquez said she believed the best way for Obama to win over Hispanics and members of other key voting blocs would be to take the former first lady as his running mate.
"I am open to it," Clinton replied, if it would help the party's prospects in November, said the participant, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the call was a private matter.
Obama sealed his victory based on public declarations from delegates as well as from an additional 18 who had confirmed their intentions to the AP. The count also included five delegates Obama was guaranteed as long as he gained 15 percent of the vote in South Dakota and Montana later in the day. It takes 2,118 delegates to clinch the nomination.
Clinton stood ready to concede that her rival had amassed the delegates needed to triumph, according to officials in her campaign. They stressed that the New York senator did not intend to suspend or end her candidacy in a speech Tuesday night in New York. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they had not been authorized to divulge her plans.
Obama's triumph was fashioned on prodigious fundraising, meticulous organizing and his theme of change aimed at an electorate opposed to the Iraq war and worried about the economy — all harnessed to his own innate gifts as a campaigner.
With her husband's two-White House terms as a backdrop, Clinton campaigned for months as the candidate of experience, a former first lady and second-term senator ready, she said, to take over on Day One.
But after a year on the campaign trail, Obama won the kickoff Iowa caucuses on Jan. 3, and the freshman senator became something of an overnight political phenomenon.
"We came together as Democrats, as Republicans and independents, to stand up and say we are one nation, we are one people and our time for change has come," he said that night in Des Moines.
A video produced by Will I. Am and built around Obama's "Yes, we can" rallying cry quickly went viral. It drew its one millionth hit within a few days of being posted.
As the strongest female presidential candidate in history, Clinton drew large, enthusiastic audiences. Yet Obama's were bigger still. One audience, in Dallas, famously cheered when he blew his nose on stage; a crowd of 75,000 turned out in Portland, Ore., the weekend before the state's May 20 primary.
The former first lady countered Obama's Iowa victory with an upset five days later in New Hampshire that set the stage for a campaign marathon as competitive as any in the last generation.
"Over the last week I listened to you, and in the process I found my own voice," she told supporters who had saved her candidacy from an early demise.
In defeat, Obama's aides concluded they had committed a cardinal sin of New Hampshire politics, forsaking small, intimate events in favor of speeches to large audiences inviting them to ratify Iowa's choice.
It was not a mistake they made again — which helped explain Obama's later outings to bowling alleys, backyard basketball hoops and American Legion halls in the heartland.
Clinton conceded nothing, memorably knocking back a shot of Crown Royal whiskey at a bar in Indiana, recalling that her grandfather had taught her to use a shotgun, and driving in a pickup to a gas station in South Bend, Ind., to emphasize her support for a summertime suspension of the federal gasoline tax.
As other rivals quickly fell away in winter, the strongest black candidate in history and the strongest female White House contender traded victories on Super Tuesday, the Feb. 5 series of primaries and caucuses across 21 states and American Samoa that once seemed likely to settle the nomination.
But Clinton had a problem that Obama exploited, and he scored a coup she could not answer.
Pressed for cash, the former first lady ran noncompetitive campaigns in several Super Tuesday caucus states, allowing her rival to run up his delegate totals.
At the same time, Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., endorsed the young senator in terms that summoned memories of his slain brothers while seeking to turn the page on the Clinton era.
In a reference that likened former President Clinton to Harry Truman: "There was another time, when another young candidate was running for president and challenging America to cross a new frontier. He faced criticism from the preceding Democratic president, who was widely respected in the party."
Merely by surviving Super Tuesday, Obama exceeded expectations.
But he did more than survive, emerging with a lead in delegates that he never relinquished, and proceeded to run off a string of 11 straight victories.
Clinton saved her candidacy once more with primary victories in Ohio and Texas on March 4, beginning a stretch in which she won primaries in six of the final nine states on the calendar, as well as in Puerto Rico.
It was a strong run, providing glimpses of what might have been for the one-time front-runner.
But by then Obama was well on his way to victory, Clinton and her allies stressed the popular vote instead of delegates. Yet he seemed to emerge from each loss with residual strength.
Obama's bigger-than-expected victory in North Carolina on May 6 offset his narrow defeat in Indiana the same day. Four days later, he overtook Clinton's lead among superdelegates, the party leaders she had hoped would award her the nomination on the basis of a strong showing in swing states.
Obama lost West Virginia by a whopping 67 percent to 26 percent on May 13. Yet he won an endorsement the following day from former presidential rival and one-time North Carolina Sen. John Edwards.
Clinton administered another drubbing in Kentucky a week later. This time, Obama countered with a victory in Oregon, and turned up that night in Iowa to say he had won a majority of all the delegates available in 56 primaries and caucuses on the calendar.
There were moments of anger, notably in a finger-wagging debate in South Carolina on Jan. 21.
Obama told the former first lady he was helping unemployed workers on the streets of Chicago when "you were a corporate lawyer sitting on the board at Wal-Mart."
Moments later, Clinton said that she was fighting against misguided Republican policies "when you were practicing law and representing your contributor ... in his slum landlord business in inner city Chicago."
And Bill Clinton was a constant presence and an occasional irritant for Obama. The former president angered several black politicians when he seemed to diminish Obama's South Carolina triumph by noting that Jesse Jackson had also won the state.
Obama's frustration showed at the Jan. 21 debate, when he accused the former president in absentia of uttering a series of distortions.
"I'm here. He's not," the former first lady snapped.
"Well, I can't tell who I'm running against sometimes," Obama countered.
There were relatively few policy differences. Clinton accused Obama of backing a health care plan that would leave millions out, and the two clashed repeatedly over trade.
Yet race, religion, region and gender became political fault lines as the two campaigned from coast to coast.
Along the way, Obama showed an ability to weather the inevitable controversies, most notably one caused by the incendiary rhetoric of his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright.
At first, Obama said he could not break with his longtime spiritual adviser. Then, when Wright spoke out anew, Obama reversed course and denounced him strongly.
Clinton struggled with self-inflicted wounds. Most prominently, she claimed to have come under sniper fire as first lady more than a decade earlier while paying a visit to Bosnia.
Instead, videotapes showed her receiving a gift of flowers from a young girl who greeted her plane
WASHINGTON - Call them Kool-Aid drinkers. Political romantics. Starry-eyed dreamers.
But as the marathon Democratic primary campaign nears an end, Barack Obama's staff is on the verge of vindicating its belief that the eloquent black freshman senator from Illinois was a unique candidate who could win the Democratic nomination in one of the biggest upsets in presidential politics.
The band of Obama loyalists who imagined that could happen have stunned even themselves with their success against Hillary Rodham Clinton, who appeared to have wrapped up the nomination last year, before any votes were cast. Now, they face a new challenge with the impending nomination and campaign against Republican John McCain.
If they succeed, many team members could be helping run the country eight months from now. Presidents often appoint campaign advisers to top administration jobs.
The team was led by calm and focused campaign manager David Plouffe; their strategy was inspired by the candidate's experience as a community organizer. They built a campaign designed to accomplish what other political sensations like Gary Hart and Howard Dean failed to do — turn the energy and excitement of the Obama phenomenon into long-term results.
"I think everyone knew realistically that he was starting as an underdog," said longtime friend and adviser Valerie Jarrett. "But I don't think he would have started down this path with a team that didn't think he would win. It was going to be an uphill battle, but in the end I think we were all confident that it could be done and that he could do it."
Matching Obama's organizing background, the team has roots in conducting on-the-ground congressional campaigns across the country. Many top aides were groomed by former House Democratic leader Dick Gephardt and former Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle instead of by the Clinton wing of the party. Clinton's team was built with Washington and New York operatives.
From its experience in congressional races, the Obama team understood firsthand the extent of Clinton fatigue in the heartland and the lesson of the 2006 midterm elections: America wants change.
Obama's chief directive for hiring the more than 700 staff members who eventually came to work for him was: No Drama Allowed. Obama's even demeanor is reflected in the advisers closest to him. While Clinton's campaign divided into conflicting power centers whose emotional disputes leaked publicly, any fights in the Obama campaign were kept in the family.
Plouffe embodies Obama's vision — a steady and unemotional number cruncher averse to the limelight, able to tune out noise and focus on the moves needed to reach the end game. Plouffe was the mastermind of Obama's long-range campaign plan that looked beyond the Feb. 5 Super Tuesday primaries that Clinton had predicted would deliver the nomination to her. He dispatched staff to states that Clinton's campaign overlooked, particularly small caucus states where intensive organization produced wins that swelled Obama's delegate lead.
A Gephardt guy, Plouffe had worked on campaigns that went broke, so he was notoriously cheap. Obama attracted a talented staff willing to work for much less than they could have made with Clinton. Plouffe carefully minded the bank account to preserve enough money to keep running after the wildly expensive Super Tuesday contests while Clinton's campaign went broke. She had to lend it $11.4 million to stay afloat.
In the month after Super Tuesday, Obama won 11 straight contests and took a delegate lead that Clinton has not been able to erase.
That's not to say Obama's campaign plan worked flawlessly. The initial plan was to turn a win in Iowa into a win in New Hampshire that would make his nomination unstoppable, but Clinton defeated him in New Hampshire and the campaign dragged on for months.
Now the team must reunite the fractured party and introduce Obama to a whole new swath of voters as he takes on a well-known war hero with bipartisan appeal. The campaign is rapidly adding new people, like experienced communications strategist Anita Dunn, who is married to campaign general counsel Bob Bauer and recently joined Obama's inner circle.
Obama's other closest advisers:
• David Axelrod, a former newspaper columnist who shares Obama's talent with words, is the most experienced and visible political strategist. An idealist who exudes enthusiasm for his candidate, Axelrod helps buck Obama up on the road. Also from Chicago, he can play down-and-dirty politics with a Midwestern smile.
• Jarrett, who has helped guide Obama's entire political career, brings blunt assessments only a longtime friend can provide. Jarrett has known the Obamas since before they were married, when she hired Michelle to work for Chicago Mayor Richard Daley. Known to be cool under pressure, she stepped up her campaign role last fall when Obama was a distant second to Clinton. Bringing a fresh outsider perspective, she held staff accountable.
• Pete Rouse, who has run Obama's Senate office, is known for loyalty and a self-effacing manner. Rouse brings expert knowledge of Washington to a team based in Chicago. He protects Obama's standing in the capital city and has brought in other D.C. operatives, particularly from the Daschle fold where he used to run things.
• Robert Gibbs, who has been at Obama's side since his Senate campaign, is communications director. A Southerner and tough fighter, Gibbs is a passionate defender and can channel the candidate's thoughts. He's also among a few who can frankly tell Obama what needs to improve.
• Michelle Obama, the candidate's wife, is his closest confidant. She often says, "I'm not his senior adviser, I'm his wife." But she also talks about how dinner conversations about their family are what's in his mind when he's crafting policy. She's the ultimate truth teller to the candidate; he calls her for feedback after debates. She has led the campaign's outreach to female voters: As a lawyer and hospital executive, she provides evidence that Obama respects strong women even as he's campaigning against one.
Another crucial adviser is Steve Hildebrand, who oversaw state-by-state efforts to run up Obama wins. Other key team members are finance chairwoman Penny Pritzker, finance director Julianna Smoot, policy director Heather Higginbottom, scheduling director Alyssa Mastromonaco, deputy communications director Dan Pfeiffer, national press secretary Bill Burton, economics adviser Austan Goolsbee and foreign policy aides Anthony Lake and Susan Rice.
Shala Monroque and Larry Gagosian at the Brooklyn Ball. They honored developer Bruce Ratner at the Brooklyn Museum’s annual Brooklyn Ball this past Thursday night and marked it with the opening of the Takashi Murakami retrospective.
Left: Shala Monroque and Larry Gagosian. (Photo: Stefanie Keenan for Patrick McMullan) Right: Artist Ellsworth Kelly. (Photo: Brian Lindensmith for Patrick McMullan They honored developer Bruce Ratner at the Brooklyn Museum’s annual Brooklyn Ball this past Thursday night and the marked it with the opening of the Takashi Murakami retrospective.
Shala Monroque, Larry Gagosian, and Andy Valmorbida front row at "Warhol Factory X LEVI'S X Damien Hirst" Spring 2008 Collection at Gagosian Gallery. Fashion Week. The entertainment/social budgets get bigger every year. After the runway shows which are ostensibly in the Bryant Park tents, but are actually all over town, there are the parties
-------- Gagosian the great Aug 18th 2007 From Economist.com Master of all he surveys (then sells)
THE king of the art world—a superlative title, perhaps, but Larry Gagosian just may deserve it. Each year ArtReview, an art journal, publishes a list of the industry’s top 100 movers and shakers in an attempt to assess who has the greatest impact on art’s value and reputation. Museum directors, auction-house owners, private collectors, dealers and even, occasionally, artists jostle for the top position. Mr Gagosian topped the list in 2004, and has lingered near the peak since.
In that triumphant year Mr Gagosian, New York’s leading dealer, had just opened his fifth gallery, in London’s Britannia Street, to balance his three in New York City, the one in Beverly Hills and his smaller space in London’s Mayfair. At 1,400 square metres, it is the largest and most splendid commercial gallery space in London. Its opening—Cy Twombly, a distinguished American artist, had been persuaded to create new work specially, and even Charles Saatchi predicted it would transform London’s art world—firmly established Mr Gagosian’s transatlantic dominion.
So what makes a successful dealer, and what is the nature of his power? Mr Gagosian is famous for his bold business dealings and glamorous lifestyle. He has a penchant for fast cars and beautiful women, and a vast home in East Hampton called Toad Hall.
Yet beneath this predictable exterior lies a true entrepreneurial instinct for the buying and selling of art. Mr Gagosian started his career, in Los Angeles, by buying posters for $2, framing them and selling them for $15. His energy in exploiting the possibilities of the secondary fine-art market in the early 1980s—buying and then reselling work by blue-chip modern and contemporary artists for a considerable profit—established his reputation, earning him the nickname “Go-Go”. Starting out in downtown New York in the mid-1980s doing historical shows, it was the lull in the art market in the early 1990s that offered Mr Gagosian his next opportunity. He began to represent living artists.
Driven and a workaholic, unafraid to bid aggressively at auction, he has a legendary capacity to drive up prices: fellow dealers enviously explain that he is consistently ahead of the game, always thinking about the next deal. Cristina Ruiz, editor of the Art Newspaper, has a judicious summation: “He loves the art—but he is one of those dealers who absolutely loves to sell, and he is very successful at it. Yes, he employs aggressive selling techniques, but that’s how dealers get stuff done.”
Todd Eberle
Cultural revolutionaryPerhaps his greatest achievement has been to win the trust of both artists and collectors. He represents the cream of contemporary American and many British artists. His arsenal of big names includes Richard Serra, Walter De Maria, Jeff Koons, Ed Ruscha, Howard Hodgkin and Rachel Whiteread. In New York he shows Damien Hirst, Douglas Gordon and Jenny Saville. Mr Gagosian also represents the estates of Andy Warhol, Willem de Kooning, Roy Lichtenstein and David Smith. Alongside these stars, he continues to show the work of lesser known artists, fostering the next generation.
As Mr Gagosian admitted in a rare public speech, one steady priority has been “to find or create a great space, a beautiful space, in which to show the art. You have to draw attention to yourself, to the gallery and to your artists.” Three of his galleries are by world-class architects—Richard Meier in Beverly Hills, Richard Gluckman in Chelsea and Caruso St John in Britannia Street—and the shows he creates in these remarkable spaces are knowledgably curated, equal in quality to fine museum exhibitions.
Another key priority has been the establishment of long-term relationships with serious collectors. As he has described it, he is averse to “transactional sales”, the one-off arrangement, and prefers “working steadily, over time, with collectors, and helping create or expand their collections.” He works closely with big-name collectors such as Charles Saatchi, Eli Broad, Si Newhouse and David Geffen.
Mr Gagosian is a master not just at selling, but, even more importantly, at selling to the right collector at the right price; for it is not just the deal that is at stake but the global market perception of that artist. For this reason Mr Gagosian avoids what he calls “impatient money”, which sees art only as a quick investment. It is this ability to understand art as a matter of love as well as money that has given Mr Gagosian so much power—not just to make himself a fortune but to shape the taste of a generation. http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?story_id=9673257&fsrc=RSS
Meet Friends, Have meetings, See live Entertainment, Eat good and more, at our café in Metropolitan Washington DC. Come join us at 3311 Rhode Island Avenue Mount Rainier, Maryland 20712. Mount Rainier’s Atmosphere Café is a great place for Artist and community to merge coffee with creativity. Music and poetry is a delight to my ears. To Artists, by Artists for the community; it’s like bringing a taste of Brooklyn to Maryland.
David Patrick reported, DIFFA: Design Industries Foundation Fighting AIDS, launched its 2008 dining by Design National Tour at Skylight on 275 Hudson Street in NYC. This is the 11th National Tour of Dining by Design. Conde’ Nast Media Group has joined the 2008 tour as national media partner. DIFFA brought together a talented and intriguing cast of designers, artists and personalities to put a spotlight on stylish and outlandish trends in design. Following New York, Dining by Design will tour seven cities nationwide including Kansas City, Los Angeles, Dallas, Atlanta, San Francisco, Chicago, and Boston. Apparently, the designers were not impressed with décor and presentation. The dinner party had all the makings of frump, if not for the company at hand. I am sure it was a wonderful dinner party, however, Conde' Nast has a reputation of being associated with only the best design presentations. The dinner party looks as if it were put together by a child. It certainly doesn’t appear that the designers and artists sitting around that table were pleased. Although, a dinner party is about connecting with friends through good conversation, good food, good wine and good humor, the culinary experience has a visual and esthetic aspect which artists have particular sensitivity. Not to worry, they will get over it; maybe the dinner parties in Chicago or San Francisco will meet their standards, and possibly warrant a picture in a Conde’ Nast publication.
Burger King has re-invented itself, with the Whopper Bars. Oh Dear, what is this world coming too? This presents a really serious problem for me, because I already should attend cheeseburgers anonymous. This will only further feed my addiction to cheeseburgers. For years, I have tried to kick the habit, but keep relapsing. There are 36 addictive carcinogenics in beef, I am almost positive that must be the reason I keep going back to cheeseburgers. I am now on a diet. After a year of being cheeseburger free, as a result of stress, six months ago I begrudgingly but eagerly picked up a double cheeseburger at McDonalds. Hence, 20+ lbs later, those burgers are still calling my name. Therefore, I am trying to reduce my intake, detox and exercise. Frankly, it’s incredibly frustrating. The BK is changing its décor and adding a new experience. If I’m walking through the airport I may not be able to resist the Whopper Bar. Thankfully, they won’t be in malls or open urban venues like a Cosi’s where one could pop in to check email and pick up a burger, because I would be doomed.
The Wallstreet Journal announced Burger King Holdings Inc. plans to start building a new version of its restaurants this year called the Whopper Bar that will sell a wider variety of its signature hamburger in a hipper setting. See Wallstreet Journal for complete article.
Remarkable! I saw the award winning documentary of Keeping Time: The Life, Music and Photographs of Milt Hinton, on PBS. I absolutely must get this new book, Playing the Changes. I will sit it on my coffee table next to my Gordon Parks book "Half Past Autum". I think both books are great coffe books because they capture american culture in in it's actuality; which evokes moving conversation. Jazz is the only American art form originating in the United States. As a cultural tradition, I collect jazz prints, jazz music and am trying to learn more about the history and tradition of Jazz. Milt Hinton is the most accomplished and influential base player in the history Jazz, and has become the historian of traditional Jazz. Thankfully his documentation of the artform exists for the Museums, as it is a pivotal part of American history. Thankfully David Berger helped put Milt's massive collection of pictures together and published the work. As it might be the only historical document of the history of jazz, candidly, as it really was. Interestingly, after viewing the documentary, Keeping Time, I realized I have one of Milts pieces; Billy Holiday; the Last recording session. I bought the print in New Orleans 14 years ago. It's framed on my living room wall, but I didn't know the story behind the picture. If you can hear me heaven, thanks Mr. Hinton for describing the story behind that powerful picture; it now has even more meaning to me. I can not waite to get Playing the Changes.
The Words, Images, and Music of One of the Greats In American Jazz New book and cd chronicle the artistic and personal journey of extraordinary bassist Milt Hinton
The life story of Milt Hinton is rooted in hard times, rising from segregated backwater clubs to elegant concert halls, offering a perspective on the African American experience that is unique in its mix of humor and wisdom.
The publication of PLAYING THE CHANGES: Milt Hinton's Life in Stories and Photographs (Vanderbilt University Press, January 2008) not only tells Milt's compelling story, in his own inimitable style, but also exquisitely reproduces 260 of his incredible photographs. He began taking pictures in the 1920s and continued documenting the world that he knew, in and away from the spotlight, up to his death in 2000 at age 90.
These photographs, more than 140 of which are published here for the first time, burst with life--and some would swear sound--revealing candid and often intimate moments of both the famous (Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Duke Ellington) and the not so famous who played alongside them, such as 400-pound arranger/bandleader/organist “Tiny" Parham.
Included with the book is a CD of music and interviews with Milt Hinton, along with a discography and a filmography.
This remarkable book reveals as well that Hinton possessed a gift of narrative. Blessed with a storyteller's facility, he leads the reader back to his first memories as a child in Vicksburg, Mississippi, and even beyond, to his father's African birth and elements of that legacy that lingered in his grandmother's cooking. Through his recollections we feel these times and places, down to the lynching he witnessed at age seven and, nearly as horrible, the surreal stillness of the town the morning after.
Interweaving photos and prose, the book traces Milt's path from Mississippi to Chicago, where he polished his music through the famous Wendell Phillips High School program and earned money running errands for the Al Capone organization. Committing full time to music, Hinton crossed paths with people who seem cut from a mold that was broken long ago. Many have left vivid marks on history, from the legendary boxer Jack Johnson to the incomparable Cab Calloway, with whose band Hinton traveled for many years. Others have been forgotten or died too young, like the tough-talking and brilliantly gifted singer Ann Robinson, whose rise toward fame ended suddenly one night in a Harlem alley.
Combining an acute observational eye with an ear sensitive to music and conversation, Hinton casts these characters in revealing light. He was there to witness a legendary and nearly fatal encounter between Calloway and a knife-wielding Dizzy Gillespie, to help remove the great Charlie Parker, passed out on heroin, from under a table in a bar, and to see the King of Swing, Benny Goodman, playing pinball alone in a Broadway arcade. Whether huddling in the basement of a backwater club as a race riot raged overhead or shaking hands with President John F. Kennedy at a swank soiree, Hinton registers these moments and summons them back to life on every page of Playing the Changes - and in so doing, preserves an important part of America's culture and history for posterity.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS: In 1955, when he was 14, David G. Berger asked Milt Hinton for bass lessons -- thus beginning a friendship and professional partnership that would last more than 40 years. Berger, though, did not follow in his friend's footsteps to become a professional musician; instead he completed a doctorate in sociology and taught at Temple University for 30 years. In 1979, Holly Maxson began organizing Milt's photographs for Hinton and Berger's first book, Bass Line. Maxson and Berger co-direct the Milton J. Hinton Photographic Collection, and in 2002 they completed their award-winning documentary about Milt's life, Keeping Time: The Life, Music and Photographs of Milt Hinton. (Photograph courtesy of The Milton J. Hinton Photographic Collection)
BOOK INFORMATION PLAYING THE CHANGES: Milt Hinton's Life in Stories and Photographs By Milt Hinton, David G. Berger, and Holly Maxson Foreword by Clint Eastwood; Preface by Dan Morgenstern 384 pages, 11 x 9.5 inches, 260 black & white photos, with a CD of interviews and music, discography, filmography
Trade cloth w/CD $75.00 (ISBN 978-0-8265-1574-2) To be published January 2008 by VANDERBILT UNIVERSITY PRESS
Wow, such synergy. I just read on Conde Nasts Portfolio.com that Starbucks reported in their Annual Shareholders meeting that Starbucks plans to buy the company that makes the Clover. The clover is the rose royce of coffee machines at a price of $11,000. I guess that justifies Starbucks $6 per cut cup of coffee.
Here is what Liz Gunnison reported on Portfolio.com:
Live-Blogging the Starbucks Annual Meeting: Starbucks Buys the Clover We should have seen it coming with the Pike Place Roast announcement . Not only is Starbucks directing its attentions towards a super-premium coffee blend, but the newest super-premium way to brew it.
Starbucks closed the annual meeting by announcing it would be acquiring The Coffee Equipment Company, the makers of the Clover Brewing System.
What is the Clover? It's a coffee machine - for lack of a more sophisticated term - that is all the rage in the coffee community these days (check out the New York Times article from earlier this year).
Up until now the astronomically expensive machines - which provide a commercial way to produce coffee akin to what's made at home in a french press - have only been in use in only a handful of coffee shops, which charge a large premium for the brew that they make.
Coffee wonks go nuts over this machine, as the brewed coffee it creates is supposedly leaps and bounds above all else in terms of flavor. No specifics out of Starbucks in terms of when and how widely these babies will be rolled out in stores.
Would one be considered a “wino” if one preferred wine to mixed drinks or liquor all the time. If so then call me “willie the wino”, because I prefer Kendall Jackson chardonnay over an apple martini any day. A new wine bar popped up in Logan circle; the Cork Wine Bar. Interestingly, it is very much like the Cork Wine Bar in Ohio. Nevertheless, the DC urbanotic scene seems to love it.
The food is delicious, small plates only, simple foods, and lots of flavor. The wine list is extensive, more than 100 wines by the bottle, focusing on Old World selections, including many organic and sustainable produced wines. Prices range from $6 to $14 by the glass. Tasting wines by the glass can add up, flights are more economical and the bottle could be an even better value. The service is great as well, and staff is well versed in the very wide range of French and Spanish wines available.
The Cork Wine Bar’s crowd consists of the laid back 30something urban dwellers packing in the place with a New York/East Village ambiance. . Hence, Cork wine bar is a cool place to chill out with friends and catch up. It’s extremely crowded which makes it more fun to have “sex in the city” moments with friends. Like Arnold says, “I’ll be back”. Absolutely.
Ben Affleck articulated, Obama's approach to leadership is to address the issues in a very measured, deliberate, thoughtful and diplomatic way. Obama is a listener who is altruistic to the people, and is willing to admit fault and mistakes, which reflects strong character. In effect, Obama's approach might help to heal the country socially, economically and patriotically. Finally, his integrity will build trust internationally.
I Love Wes Felton’s Funky Feeling. Wes Felton is without question, one the coolest alternative neosoul Artists to come out of DC. I’ve often wondered, what is it that keeps him trapped on the underground scene? Does he lack the tenacity of Common or booking power of the Roots to build a following outside of DC? I haven’t a clue. Like Raheem Devahn, Meshell Ndegeocello, Mya and JC Chauvez, he should climb from the obscurity of the underground to a nationally recognized musician. For more than 15 years Wes Felton has been on the DC indie neo soul underground scene making great music, opening for neo soul artists whose tours stop in DC like Eryka Badu, the Roots and Omar at the 9:30 Club. Yet there has been little traction. With the use of a creative college PR team Wes Felton could be as well known as the Black eye peas, however, the lack of national media buzz has trapped him on the DC underground scene. When he ever take that Leap? Only time will tell. Until then, check out that Funky Feeling below.
Bravo and Kudos! Must see! To preview, click Brainwave.
EXIT ART CHALLENGES ARTISTS TO MAKE CONSCIOUSNESS VISIBLE IN EXHIBITION AT CENTER OF CITY-WIDE FESTIVAL
New York, NY - One of New York City's leading outposts for vanguard art showcases an array of artworks inspired by recent advances in the understanding of the brain beginning Saturday, February 16, 2008. On view at Exit Art at Tenth Avenue and 36th Street through April 19, BrainWave: Common Senses is part of the city-wide festival BRAINWAVE, which explores how art, music, and meditation affect the brain. In organizing Common Senses, Exit Art co-directors Jeanette Ingberman and Papo Colo looked for artists who are creating powerful visualizations of the activities of the mind. Works run the gamut from mechanical objects-including a roving robot-to videos, multiple-screen slide projections, sculpture, and painting.
"In sending out an open call to artists, we hoped to find works of art that captured the mystery of the mind, rather than works that merely illustrate scientific insights. We have succeeded in this, I believe, by gathering artworks that are of the moment-innovative as art, current as science," says Ingberman.
Visitors to Common Senses will spy a 15" tall robot navigating Exit Art in directions determined by data derived from artist Fernando Orellana's REM-sleep brainwave activity. Sleep Waking (2007), created by the Troy, New York-based Orellana in collaboration with Brendan Burns, of Schenectady, New York, is one of a number of ambulatory and interactive works in the exhibition. Another is Swarm (2008), by David Bowen of Duluth, Minnesota, a roaming device shaped like a broomstick, capped by a bulbous plastic chamber filled with 500 buzzing houseflies. Digitally, the motion of the flies determines Swarm's direction and momentum. As well, New Yorker Jamie O'Shea contributes his mad machine, the Alvin sonic incubator (2005), wherein a visitor can set an electronic neural-like network in motion by connecting his or her forehead to Alvin's hardware.
Brilliantly colored images evocative of a dense forest are conjured from the layering of light projections in Andrew Carnie's Magic Forest (2002). The result of the artist's collaboration with Dr. Richard Wingate of the Medical Research Council Centre for Developmental Neurology, Kings College, London, the 15-minute-long installation piece takes as its subject the process of data collecting in an ever-growing cluster of neurons in a developing brain. The beauty of the images derives in part from the fluorescence used in staining of individual neurons, which in turn produces the images under a microscope.
The New York-based artist Suzanne Anker also is represented by beautiful, lyrical imagery arising from careful extrapolation of neurological processes. Here, three-dimensional Rorschach tests resemble fossils from a lost world and brain scans and images of butterfly wings suggest the organic complexity of the brain and archetypes from the natural world.
Windows of the Soul (2008), a video by New York artist Phil Buehler, invites the question of whether or not one can read madness in another's eyes. Three hundred close-up black and white photographs of the eyes of actual mental patients, taken in the '50s and recently recovered from an archive, speed by in a riveting five-minute-long montage.
For BrainWave: Common Senses, New Yorker Devorah Sperber constructs what will appear to be a random arrangement of 875 spools of colored thread in the Exit Art gallery. Remarkably, the spools coalesce into a seemingly sharp focus replica of Leonardo da Vinci's "Mona Lisa" when viewed through a small sphere that mimics the functioning of the human eye.
Other works on view include a sculptural installation by George Jenne of Brooklyn, New York, that incorporates a variety of objects that the artist calls "tokens," which are designed to trigger associations with adolescence; two sculptures created by casting the brain cavities of whales into brass by Dustin Wenzel of Ottawa, Canada; a single-channel video by Naho Taruishi (New York, New York) meant to be seen "blindly" with eyelids closed (functioning as a pair of internal projection screens); a mural-size painting by Steve Budington of Burlington, Vermont, depicts the dangers of a political candidate favoring one sense over another; a video by Daniel Margulies (New York) and Chris Sharp (Milan, Italy) coupling Kant's Third Critique of Judgment and Stravinsky's Rite of Spring with brain scans; and Reodorant (2008), a multisensory installation by the four-member artist collective, SERU.
BrainWave: Common Senses is the second in Exit Art's Unknown Territories series exploring the impact of scientific advances on contemporary culture. It follows Paradise Now: Picturing the Genetic Revolution, a landmark exhibition of art and biotechnology that brought art and science audiences together at Exit Art in 2000. Opening December 6, 2008 will be the third presentation, of biotechnology based artworks. Organized by Boryana Rossa, Corpus Extremus (LIFE+) will assemble work by many of the major artists working in this medium, including Adam Zaretsky, Stelarc, Bioteknica, Kathy High, Dmitry Bulatov and SymbioticA Research Group, an Australia-based collective that will produce a wet laboratory in collaboration with scientists for the exhibition. Corpus Extremus (LIFE+) will travel to Russia in 2009.
PUBLIC EVENTS / BrainWave: Common Senses
Joseph Ledoux The Amygdaloids Friday, February 29, 2008, 6-8 pm
Pioneering researcher Joseph LeDoux, the Henry and Lucy Moses Professor of Science at NYU's Center for Neural Science and the director of the Center for the Neuroscience of Fear and Anxiety conducts a walk-through of BrainWave: Common Senses, discussing brain-related issues along the way. His band The Amygdaloids plays afterwards. Free.
A Night of Trance Music Friday, March 14, 7-10 pm
Exit Art presents a night of "trance" music with Zach Layton's real-time sound manipulation of an electroencephalograph (EEG), Wind-Up Bird's quadraphonic drone rotations, and Raphael Lyon's hypnotic "cinema-in-the-dark," Psicklops. Free.
Matt Mullican Wednesday, March 19, 7-9 pm *Date Change - TBA
Artist Matt Mullican screens a video of his performances made while under hypnosis and discusses his work in relation to perception, the subconscious, and his personal cosmology of symbols. Concurrent with the artist's presentation in the 2008 Whitney Biennial. Free.
Kent and Kevin Young present 'A Monozygotic Experiment Using Telepathic Conveyance' Friday, April 11, 2008, 6:30-8 pm
Los Angeles-based artists Kent and Kevin Young will make a 'painting' by trying to solve a crossword puzzle from clues telepathically sent from one twin brother to the other. Free
EXHIBITION SUPPORT Brainwave: Common Senses is supported by a grant from the Greenwall Foundation. Additional exhibition support provided by Carnegie Corporation, Jerome Foundation, New York State Council on the Arts, Starry Night Fund at The Tides Foundation, Exit Art's Board of Trustees, our members, Union College and the Albany Regional Sleep Disorders Center. Public programs support provided by The New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
ABOUT EXIT ART Exit Art is an independent center for contemporary culture that aims to react immediately to important issues of the day. The center mounts experimental, historical and unique presentations of aesthetic, social, political and environmental issues from the perspective a multiple disciplines. Founded 25 years ago by directors Jeanette Ingberman and Papo Colo, Exit Art has grown from a pioneering alternative art space into a model artistic center for the 21st century committed to supporting artists whose quality of work reflects the transformations of our culture.
Exit Art is located at 475 Tenth Avenue, corner of 36th Street. Exit Art is open each Tuesday through Thursday, 10 am - 6 pm; Friday, 10 am - 8 pm; Saturday, noon - 8 pm. Closed Sunday and Monday. There is a suggested donation of $5. For more information please call 212-966-7745 or visit www.exitart.org.
Exit Art tell you the war stories through the vision of 9 international artists. Love/War/Sex considers memory, history, weapons and personal stories. As a cultural center, it is Exit Art's mission to reflect what is going on in our society. The installation reveals how war images are so common that it makes us immune to death. This art work is a chapter of the history of power. The present exhibitions deal with the current global conflicts and the countries fascination and addition to war. The title demonstrates the paradox of what war really is and it contradictions of emotions, passions, idealisms and convictions. The installation of Love/War/Sex includes real weapons of war in the show, while telling the stories of the relationship between love, war and sex and its brutality and insensitivity to humanity. It provokes surprise and shock with the realization of war. Click her to view LOV/WAR/SEX at Exit Art.
Thus far, Zadie Smith is one of the great writers of my generation. I read White Teeth and On Beauty. I love that she envelops who she is in the story line. The dysfunction and inadequacies which permeate through her family structure are often woven into the character she creates. Hence, the perils of the human experience make for good fiction. I am amused at her amazing comparative cultural antitheticals which seamlessly convey the symbiotic mural of life(one planet, one people, with cultural differences). Her British dry wit, clever sarcasm, illusive charm, and exhaustive imagery makes for great humor and a well develop plot leaving the reader wanting more. Zadie definitely exemplifies the typical Impetuous 30Something Cosmopolitan.
JANICE SIMPSON wrote in April 2006 TIME magazine wrote Zadie Smith's books. They arm wrestle, get in one another's faces and climb into one another's beds. Smith's precocious debut novel, White Teeth, published in 2000, just three years after she graduated from Cambridge, centers on two World War II buddies—a white working-class Brit married to a Jamaican Jehovah's Witness and a Muslim immigrant from Bangladesh who imports what he thinks will be a traditional wife from the old country. But it's also the story of their children, who grow up, as Smith did, in a post-postcolonial London where the old gentlemen's agreements about class and race are being shredded. The book earned lavish critical praise, was turned into a TV mini-series and established a model for how to make sense—and art—out of the complexity, diversity and pluck that have defined the beginning of this century.
Smith, 30, likes to work big. Her narratives sprawl with Dickensian swagger. Her cultural references leap the high-low divide from John Milton to Eminem. Plus she's funny. Refugees from the era of political correctness and others who are easily offended probably should stay clear. Last year Smith published On Beauty, a novel set in the hothouse of American academia and scheduled to be made into a movie produced by Scott Rudin, who has adapted such provocative works as The Hours and Closer for the screen. Like White Teeth and her second novel, The Autograph Man it is simultaneously intellectual and visceral, a panoramic view of the way we live now.
Interview with Zadie in Stockholm 2006 Double click bottom arrow to view an interview with Zadie Smith in Stockholm the summer of 2006 when her book On Beauty had been translated into Swedish.
James Lasdun's review on the Novel "On Beauty" (Source: The Gaudian UK) I completely agree with the James Lasdun's review of Zadie Smith’s newest novel On Beauty. He wrote: among the many tasks Zadie Smith sets herself in her ambitious, hugely impressive new novel is that of finding a style at once flexible enough to give voice to the multitude of different worlds it contains, and sturdy enough to keep the narrative from disintegrating into a babel of incompatible registers. Its principal family alone, the Belseys, comprises its own little compact multiverse of clashing cultures: the father a white English academic, the mother a black Floridian hospital administrator, one son a budding Jesus freak, the other a would-be rapper and street hustler, the daughter a specimen of US student culture at its most rampagingly overdriven. Still more worlds open up beyond them as their lives unravel out through the genteel Massachusetts college town to which they have been transplanted: Haitian immigrants, hip-hop poets, New England liberal intelligentsia, reactionary black conservatives .
White Teeth had a similarly heterogenous cast, but whereas in that novel Smith kept it together by keeping it light, with a knockabout comic style (Dickens, by way of Rushdie and Martin Amis), here the intent is to live more inwardly with her characters, and the model, alluded to throughout, is EM Forster. Forster's style, which looks simultaneously backward to the epigrammatic polish of Jane Austen and forward to the looser, more discursive amplitude we favour today, resonates strongly in the leisured cadences and playful figuration of the many beautiful descriptions and gently ironic authorial interjections that frame and connect the bright pieces of Smith's mosaic. You can hear it in everything from the stately scene-setting passages (particularly where rooms or houses are being evoked) to the most incidental moments, for example where the lovelorn elder Belsey boy joins his mother and her middle-aged friends at an outdoor festival: "Jerome, in all his gloomy Jeromeity, had joined them. The ill-pitched greetings that compassionate age sings to mysterious youth rang out; hair was almost tousled then wisely not ... "
More specifically, the plot of Forster's Howards End, ingeniously re-engineered, underpins much of the storyline of On Beauty. The unruly Belseys, like Forster's Schlegels, become embroiled with another family whose conventional household seems the stolid opposite of their own. In both cases the wives form a surprising friendship that leads to a valuable legacy being bequeathed by one woman to the other. And in both cases the family of the deceased woman conceals the legacy from her surviving friend.
Orbiting in this capacity around the Belseys are the Kippses, presided over by Sir Monty Kipps, an orotund West Indian intellectual who delights in provoking liberals with his ultra-conservative views on homosexuality, affirmative action and so on. Sir Monty has written a popular appreciation of Rembrandt which Howard Belsey, himself an art historian, though of a more highbrow bent, has denounced for its retrogressive stance. Unfortunately his attack was marred by a factual error which Sir Monty has wasted no time in exploiting to maximum humiliating effect, and vague dislike on Howard's part has turned to boiling resentment, exacerbated by the fact that he has been unable to complete his own book, Against Rembrandt. To this self-inflicted injury the opening chapters add two choice insults: first Howard's elder son falls in love with Sir Monty's daughter Vee, and then Sir Monty is offered a visiting celebrity appointment at Wellington, the very college at which Howard himself teaches.
With the self-righteous Kippses thus plumped down on the doorstep of the self-sabotaging Belseys, the situation has the makings of a small-scale campus comedy with scope for all the familiar farcical posturings so dear to the heart of academe. But while Smith does indeed deliver a superbly wicked example of that genre, this is only a small part of her achievement. Large, Forsterian themes of friendship, marriage (the Belseys' is in crisis following Kiki Belsey's discovery that Howard has been unfaithful), social tension, artistic expression (from Rembrandt to Tupac) are meditated on with an unguarded seriousness rare in contemporary fiction, and to some extent the book could be seen as a rather heroic attempt to dignify contemporary life with a mirror held up in the grandly burnishing Bloomsbury manner.
But that isn't quite it either. The word "liminality", which a student of Howard's has to look up at one point (she would have found that it has to do with thresholds and boundaries), perhaps best expresses the driving idea of the novel and the source of its most powerful passages. These occur some way along, after the plot has been laid and the book begins coasting on its own momentum. They consist of a series of encounters in which the discrete worlds incarnated in these highly diverse characters start colliding and breaking each other open. At its most basic, the illumination that results is simply that of the surprise perspective - Levi Belsey applying his hip-hop worldview to a casual thought about Richard Branson: "Levi liked the way the mythical British guy who owned the brand was like a graffiti artist, tagging the world ... " But in its more sustained form this collision principle becomes a way of taking apart and investigating elemental human configurations: parent and child, teacher and student (some of the most sensitive writing I've read on what actually goes on in this particular relationship), black and white, employer and employee.
A degree of psychological violence is always implicit in such mutual broachings: Kiki Belsey's gravitation toward Carlene Kipps is a betrayal of her own husband; minor, but forceful enough to set off a cascade of reappraisals of both Howard and herself in her own mind. Sometimes the impact sets off a whole ricocheting chain of further encounters. Howard Belsey, usually armoured with a sneer (or a snore) against anything overtly "sublime" in art, becomes unexpectedly overwhelmed when a choir breaks into Mozart's Ave Verum at Carlene Kipps's funeral in London. He reels out of the church, the shock of mortality reverberating in his head, and finds himself wandering toward his childhood home in Cricklewood, where his father, whom he hasn't seen for years, still lives. Here, as the conciliatory impulse gives way to ancient antagonisms, a still more devastating confrontation takes place, and Howard careens off again, first to a pub, then to Carlene's wake where, drunk and dazed, he allows himself to be seduced in an upstairs room by ... well, by about the last person on earth he should be allowing himself to be seduced by.
A further pleasure of these charged encounters is the extraordinary vividness with which they have been imagined. Beautifully observed details of clothing, weather, cityscapes and the bustling human background of drivers, shoppers and passers-by are constantly being folded into the central flow of thought, feeling and action, giving even the most mundane moments - Levi riding a bus into Boston, Howard setting up a projector - a dense, pulsing life.
There are flaws, of course (and not just the portentous title). The beginning feels awkward: remnants of an older style full of grabby italics and wisecracking dialogue sit uncomfortably alongside the richer, more complex tone that takes over. Fussily choreographed bits of physical action (such as Howard showing off hip-hop moves to the gleeful horror of his kids) give some of the early family scenes a sitcom feeling - not so much visualised as televisualised. The plot clunks a bit at first, too: a laboriously contrived trip to London premised on some unconvincing business about a lost address book; the convenient coincidence of Sir Monty being offered a job at Howard's college. More seriously, some of the characters appear blurry or under-drawn - especially Kiki Belsey, who seems intended to embody a kind of feelingful alternative to Howard's hyper-intellectuality but never quite comes out from behind the enormous bosom with which her creator has a little too symbolically endowed her. Also Sir Monty, who's fun, but too cartoonish for his inevitable exposure as a hypocrite to pack much of a punch.
But with so much done so extremely well, it seems ungrateful to dwell on imperfections. Numerous virtues more than make up for them: characters such as Claire Malcolm, an east coast poet/intellectual portrayed with a stunningly accurate feeling for the type. Or Carl, a sharp, touching study of a ghetto teenager making good, done with all the volatile political and sexual currents set in motion by such a progress. Or Howard Belsey himself, who starts out like an escapee from a Malcolm Bradbury novel but whose limitless capacity for folly keeps deepening and strangely sweetening his character. Above all, just the sheer novelistic intelligence - expansive, witty and magnanimous - that irradiates the whole enterprise.
James Lasdun's The Horned Man is published by Vintage
=======>About the Author======>(Source: Wikapedia) Zadie Smith was born Sadie Smith (she changed her name when she was 14) in the northwest London borough of Brent – a largely working-class area – to a Jamaican mother, Yvonne McLean, and an English father, Harvey Smith. Her mother had grown up in Jamaica and immigrated to England in 1969. It was her father's second marriage. She has a half-sister, a half-brother, and two younger brothers, one of whom is the rapper Doc Brown. Her parents divorced when she was a teenager.
As a child she was fond of tap dancing; as a teenager she considered a career as an actress in musical theatre; and as a university student she earned money as a jazz singer and wanted to become a journalist. Literature, however, came to be her principal interest.
Smith attended the local state schools, Malorees Junior School and Hampstead Comprehensive School, and King's College, Cambridge University where she studied English literature.[1] In an interview with the Guardian in 2000, Smith was keen to correct a recent newspaper assertion that she left Cambridge with a double First. "Actually, I got a Third in my Part Ones", she said. At Cambridge she published a number of short stories in a collection of student writing (see Short stories) called the May Anthologies. These attracted the attention of a publisher who offered her a contract for her first novel. Smith decided to contact a literary agent and was taken on by the Wylie Agency on the basis of little more than a first chapter.
White Teeth was introduced to the publishing world in 1997, long before it was completed. On the basis of a partial script an auction among different publishers for the rights started, with Hamish Hamilton being successful. Smith completed White Teeth during her final year at Cambridge. Published in 2000, the novel became a bestseller immediately. It was praised internationally and won a number of awards (see Novels).
In interviews she reported that the hype surrounding her first novel had caused her to suffer a short spell of writer's block. Nevertheless, her second novel, The Autograph Man, was published in 2002 and was a commercial success, although the critical response was not as unanimously positive as it had been to White Teeth.
After the publication of The Autograph Man, Smith visited the United States as a 2002–2003 Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Fellow at Harvard University. [1] She started work on a book of essays, The Morality of the Novel, in which she considers a selection of 20th century writers through the lens of moral philosophy.
Her third novel, On Beauty, was published in September 2005 and was shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize. The book won the 2006 Orange Prize for Fiction.
Smith met Nick Laird at Cambridge University. They married in 2004 in the Chapel of King's College. Smith dedicated On Beauty "for my dear Laird." Laird has published a collection of poems, To a Fault, and a novel, Utterly Monkey, early in 2005. The couple lives in North London, UK.
Marc Baptiste, the author/photographer of the book BEAUTIFUL nudes by Marc Baptiste, exquisitively captures the Soul of women in ways few photographers have in the past. To me, Baptiste is the Herb Ritz of the millennium. His work evokes true LOVE and BEAUTY. I can only say that his work is like poetry. Robin Thick definately chose the best director for the "Sweetest Love" video. Bravo, Bravo!
