Victor Herbert

In one of my aimless walks of upper west side, found this interesting plaque on 108th and Broadway (if I remember correctly), outside the house where the composer Victor Herbert lived. (Click on the image for higher-resolution picture).

Rememberig Roerich

Of the many museums of New York, there is a small, almost hidden, gem of a museum on the upper west side, The Roerich Museum. Setup in a house on 107th St, between Broadway and Riverside Dr., it houses a very representative collection of Roerich's paintings, books and a few portraits from his son, Svetoslav Roerich. Those Himalayan scenes rich in colour always leave a deep impression on my mind. The paintings have a way of occupying our minds, peace and quiet of the mountains seem to be around us.

Museum is free for all, and is open from 2PM to 5PM Tuesday - Sunday. It is closed on Mondays.

Magical Memories - 1

The moment I am recalling today happened around Feb 2009. This was a classical Hindustani concert in downtown manhattan, sewhere around soho. I went there with four of my friends, and I don,t even remember the artists :(. Please don't get me wrong - it was a very, very good concert. The aalaaps, the tunes lingered in my ears for quite sometime after the actual concert. But most importantly, I rember that day because that kicked off a long series of visits to other concerts and performances that form an unforgettable part of my new York life :).

My Golden Treasury - She Walks in Beauty

This, I should confess, is my The Poem - the one that gave me my favorite English poet. That true romantic, Lord Byron, has captured the spirit of romance and beauty as inseparably and touchingly as I could have dreamed for in this masterpiece. Full Text.
Incidentally, this was adopted for a musical, Phantom of the Opera, long time back - Youtube link.
And oh, I had even translated this to my mother-tongue, Kannada!!

My golden treasury - The Bridge of Sighs

After a long time I re-read one of my favorite poems: The Bridge of Sighs by Thomas Hood. Its smooth flow, the genuine feelings of beauty and sadness touch me like few other poems do. Ironically, this is the one poem whose translation is, at least for me, much more beautiful than the original: The famous Kannada translation DhukhaSetu (ದುಃಖ ಸೇತು - ಬಿ.ಎ೦.ಶ್ರೀ, ಇ೦ಗ್ಲಿಷ ಗೀತಗಳು). If you can read Kannada, do read that once - you will love poetry forever.

Why buy books?

Because it is the best way to support literature. Because collecting books give a sense of pride few other hobbies give. Because family libraries are built over generations, not days. Because our children grow up seeing things around them, playing with them. Because what we adore, and treasure for all our life, defines us.

Douglas Adams beyond the galaxy

Most if us know Douglas Adams as the genius who told us the adventures of Arthur Dent in Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. But you have not explores him fully until you have read Dirk Gently. I read the Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency recently - thoroughly enjoyed it. A pity Dirk's adventures have not come out in a single volume yet - you will have to buy them separately, but it is totally worth it!! Amazon link.

I am yet to read the next volume, The Long Dark Tea-time of the soul. If the first Dirk Adventure is anything of a clue, second must desereve much more than a tea-time glance. Amazon link.

White tiger - a skewed miscelleny

This work, which won the Man Booker Prize for 2008 - turned out to be quite disappointing -and horribly skewed. True, it is very well written, and is highly readable. But substance matters more than style.
Here is why Arvind Adiga is not the modern Gorky: many of the experiences he details in the novel can not be possibly his own. I do not believe he ever rally worked as an tea server in one of the most backward parts of India, among other things. So when an author interprets other people's experineces instead of his own, there us always the greats risk of misinterpreting the facts. And I am afraid that the white tiger misinterprets a lot of facts about modern India.

But I am Also quite happy about this book, because it is a good attempt to describe one part f India. And good efforts are worth a good round of applause at all times. Like all novels about a society, this is open to a huge number of critisms - remember to read this with a view to the reality that is India -a reality no author in history has ever been able to capture in one lifetime, let alone one volume.

Amazon Link

iPhone and reading - stanza

Almost every book lover who owns a smart phone yearns for a way to read books on the go. Lucky for us iPhone users, there is a great app -stanza, by Lexcycle. It is free, has cool features to browse the book, you can bookmark pages, and most importantly, it is integrated with project Gutenberg. So you can seamlessly pull old classics from project Gutenberg and start reading.

Page display is not great - it does not format project Gutenberg books for ur iPhone - but remember that real books are still the best way to read books :) I use this only for those short durations when I can't read a real book. Check it out on ur iPhone app store!!!

Inventing Wodehouse

P G Wodehouse - The name brings memories of peerless comic writing, of Jeeves, and Bertie Wooster - and paperback prints not worth a second look by the poor souls who do not know Wodehouse. Before the Overlook Press started to come out with their beautiful hardbound volumes, I had a real hard time buying wodehouse prints that also looked good on my shelf. But the new hardbound Overlook Press books are a real gem - they call their collection 'Collector's Wodehouse', prepare their editions from the first British printing, and use a nice typeface designed in 1740.

For those of you who care to buy books that can also last long in your bookshelves - here is your chance to preserve Wodehouse.

And oh yeah, I found Amazon prices to be lower than store prices for many of these books :)