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Showing posts from August, 2013

Last summer long weekend

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The weekend began with a dinner with an old friend that I don't know when I will meet again. Good to wake up early on a Saturday morning to make a quick trip to work to run some errands and grab breakfast, only to come back home and have lunch. It was good that I ate well since the rest of the day was standing dancing festival in a big big muddle puddle of a park after a downpour.  SW4 was amazing in spite of all that. We heard Gareth Emery on the main stage for a short while before moving to a tent to listen to Orjan Nilsen, not so impressive. But he was quickly replaced by Aly & Fila.  We moved to the main stage to listen to Sanden Van Door and Eddie Halliwell. We went back to the tent for Paul Van Dyk. And finally got back to the main stage to listen to Laidback Luke closing and finally the Armin Van Burren.  Image courtesy: CB That was 7 hours of a trance music. Enough for a long long while I think. By the time Armin came on stage I was so tired I ju

Circus !

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In a span for 4 weeks I watched two circuses (not the one with animals, only people doing weird but entertaining stuff). I watched a massive circus production in a large auditorium last month. They had web pages full of descriptions of each character and the idea and conception of the circus. It was good, really good. And I haven't seen circus since I don't remember when, so I was impressed. But all the shows were of very few people, some even just one or two people shows. It was far away and it was hard to see up close. I enjoyed it though. I watched a circus on Saturday, in a small tent with a small gathering of people. It was absolutely breathtaking. It was beautifully presented and had everything I would expect in circus except the trapeze but to make up for the trapeze they had three people on three poles do incredible things. The fire show was the best. It's always been my favourite and it was wonderfully done. The music was created on stage, as is with all

Bookshelf

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I felt it's time I needed a new header. But I haven't been doing much lately except, working, watching movies and reading books. And since I can't talk about work and movies are not much to add to, books is all I have. So here is a header with my bookshelf. It doesn't have too many books because I usually borrow from the library here (there are 4 books on the shelf that I borrowed from the library and 1 that I borrowed from a friend). But to compensate for 10,000 books I added my kindle too...

Illusions and Art: Leandro Erlich

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Leandro Erlich has some really interesting ideas about art. He plays with light and mirrors and creates illusions for art. It's beautiful and fascinating; one needs to be really smart to do this. You can check out some his work on his webpage . I especially love his "Double Tea". Recently I found on the web that he has an installation in Dalston, called the Dalston House. After reading up on the web I really wanted to see it. It's basically the front wall of a house to the scale and complete with a door and a few windows, placed on the ground. Attached to it is an equally scaled clear mirror at 45 degrees. So whatever is on the floor is visible on the mirror like as if it is standing up on the ground at 90 degrees, ie the front wall of the house. A few of us went to Dalston on a sweltering hot sunny day. There was a long queue for the installation. A long queue not to see it but to take pictures on it. So people lie on it and take pictures of the reflection

Facebook forwards and Lord Macaulay

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Recently I noticed this picture doing the rounds on Facebook. I must say I was surprised. I assumed it was hoax. I tried to look up the Parliament archives. But before that I saw a lot of articles about this issue. It's an old forward, very very old. Obviously given it is claimed to be some 1835 archive. The forward is clearly fake. For the following reasons given by many people (who claim this is purely faked by Hindu Nationalists): 1. Lord Macaulay was in India on this date and stayed in India a few years staring 1834, that includes 2nd Feb 1835 so he could not have addressed the British Parliament. 2. Lord Macaulay would not have been addressed as Lord then because he was not a lord yet. 3. And most importantly, that this was not his exact quotation. and many more reasons I do not want to give benefit to, but basically surrounding other fringe points as above. Also many claim that it could have possibly been mis-linked to a report he produced called the "mi