I had never thought I would be so enchanted by someone mutilating books. ( link via Eddie Campbell)

Had the most awesome experience last night when I saw, for the first time, a 20-minute video of Yoko Kanno and the Seatbelts performing along with singer Mai Yamane live in Tokyo. Must have been the best audiovisual experience for me since Bjork: Live at Royal Opera House. There are videos of the Seatbelts floating around on youtube, but I had resisted watching them, bad audio-visual quality being part of the reason. Yamane, by the way, is the singer most associated with Ms Kanno's compositions, her distinctive voice the hallmark of tracks like 'The Real Folk Blues' ( WHAT? You haven't heard it? Go check out my mixtape already. Track 13, to be precise), 'See You Space Cowboy' and my personal favourite, 'Rain'.

SQUEE moment 1: Yoko Kanno, dressed in a red trenchcoat and black top and shorts starts dancing to 'Tank!', the Cowboy Bebop theme, as the saxophone soloist goes wild.

SQUEE moment 2: Mai Yamane and Yoko Kanno start doing a bizarre robotic dance during 'Want It All Back', coordinating each other's movements and adding to the fun of the song.

SQUEE moment(s) 3: Ms Kanno plays a plethora of Cowboy Bebop tunes on the piano, each tune effortlessly flowing into the other.

All in all, an amazing video. You can download it from most bit-torrent sites around, if you are interested.



Which reminds me, demonoid.com has been down for more than 48 hours now. Even Wired.com takes notice and talks about possible litigation by CRAI ( the Canadian version of the RIAA ), so fingers crossed.



Reading Barry Lyga's Adventures of Fan Boy and Goth Girl, something that I had been on the look out for since I read the preview chapter. ( Hmm, I wonder how I got to the site in the first place...Neil Gaiman linked to it? Possibly. ) Lyga wrote some bad comics - a couple of Warrior Nun Areala in the dark-and-speculatory nineties, and this is his first novel. Falls squarely into the YA category, and managed to get my complete attention by mentioning the words "Giant Size X-Men #1 in mint condition" in the second paragraph. As it turns out, the Fan Boy in the book is the narrator and the book namedrops Alan Moore's League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, Promethea and Swamp Thing. Seems there's also a guest appearance by Brian Michael Bendis, heh. And oh, I am "reading" the audiobook, because the actual thing isn't really available in India.

Lady Snowblood vol 1-4, Kazuo Koike and Kazuo Kamimura - I started reading this on December 31st, at Delhi airport, and finished them sometime in the middle of Jan 1st. The movie is a cleaned-up version of the books, with minor changes to the way the revenge saga plays out. How I wish it were Goseki Kojima illustrating the books, instead of Kamimura.

Mahabharata volume 1 and 2, Ramesh Menon - Easily the best version of the Mahabharata I've read so far ( counting the Point-of-view tales, like Yagnaseni and Samraj, this is the twelfth). Ample quantities of sex and violence, goosepimply moments and a splendid attention to detail, that brings together all the short tales one associates with the Mahabharata. And all this, of course, without any of the Wankery of the recent Ramayana-rewwritten-as-fantasy series. I shudder to think that Ashok Banker is actually writing a version of this. And people will actually read it. Gah! I am at the last stage of the Ashwamedha Parva, which will end with Krishna's death and Dwaraka's destruction. The whole post-War phase of the Mahabharata is extremely depressing. I have set it aside for sometime.

Siva - The Siva Purana retold, Ramesh Menon - Because the Mahabharata was so good, and because I could not carry the thick volumes with me on my trip to Bangalore and Calcutta, I ended up buying this relatively-thin hardcover, also by Ramesh Menon, from Bookworm. Retells mostly familiar stories from the Indian tradition, but suffers from a lack of cohesive storytelling. The different-narrators-telling-stories-to-saints format of chapters does not work, and the first person narrative of the Siva-Parvati love story made me cringe. Ample amounts of sex and violence here too, one chapter being dedicated entirely to Siva and Sati's lovemaking on their first night. ( Need I tell you how much a day and a night of Siva measures up to normal Kali Yuga time?) The problem with trying to narrate the Siva Purana, or any of the other Puranas is two-fold - one, you are trying to narrate different versions of the same story, based on different sources ( for instance, the birth and subsequent elephant-headization of Ganesha), and two, you are effectively saying that your god is the best, and is the supreme manifestation and all the other gods are minor players in the storyline, which effectively negates all other mythological tales other than yours.

But inspite of all those gripes, I still had fun reading the Siva Purana, so there.

Princess Diaries 7: Seventh Heaven: Bought this one in Delhi on December 31st, and nearly got into a fight with a teenage girl at the store, when both of us noticed a copy of Volume 8 on the shelves ( called Princess Diaries: After Eight, and as it turned out later was released on December 26th). But then I noticed the price (399, goddarnit), and magnanimously asked her to buy it. Her mother refused to pay so much for the book, poor thing, and she left it where it originally was. Well, I didn't buy it either, so there! But the seventh book rocked, as always. This series will forever be one of my 'crack' pleasures - a quick read, and a euphoric feeling after completing every volume.

Junji Ito's Museum of Horror Volumes 1 and 2 - Read volume 2 first. Found volume 1 at Blossom on Saturday, and read it that very night. Exceptional!

Curt Swan: A Life in Comics, a book I picked up by chance at MR Book stall and finished the same day. Did I tell you how much I love Curt Swan? He used to be The Definitive Superman artist for me for quite some time, until John Byrne took over. I like Byrne's version a lot, mostly because of the positive changes it brought in. The book features a ton of artwork from various Curt Swan works, mostly Superman and Legion of Superheroes, and interviews with almost everybody who had worked with him. Alan Moore's interview was fascinating because he brings out both the positive and negative points about Mr Swan's work. The most interesting is the one with Jim Shooter, who started writing for DC comics when he was just 13 years old, and used to send in his submissions as stick figures, instead of a script - and those figures would be translated to actual artwork by Curt Swan.

Pride of Baghdad, Brian K Vaughn and Niko Henrichon. Chandru got this for me from Landmark, Chennai. One of the first reads this year. Bloody brilliant!

Fables: 1001 Nights of Snowfall, Bill Willingham and tonnes of artists. Also courtesy Chandru. Loved the framing sequence, though the last line was a little unnecessary, methinks. All of the individual stories were extremely well-told. James Jean's Flycatcher story was the best of all. James Jean! James Jean!!! Squeeeeeeee!

Ancestral Vices, Tom Sharpe - My first Sharpe in quite sometime. Not as hilarious as Indecent Exposure or the Wilt books were, but I'm getting into the groove. Yeah, baby!

Usagi Yojimbo volumes 8-17, Stan Sakai. Finished this lot in a night and half a day. These were far, far better than I thought they would be. Stan Sakai brings Japanese history to life using anthropomorphic rabbits, dogs, moles, bats and cats ( neko ninja! komura ninja! mogura ninja! ). The artwork is black and white, a lot of Sergio Aragones influences prevail, especially in the fight scenes - Sakai was the letterer for Aragones' Groo, after all. The best thing about this book is the way it manages to be all-ages inspite of telling stories with primarily adult sensibilities.

And yesterday, I got The Complete Conan Chronicles by Robert E Howard in the mail. 925 pages of mindblowing coolness. I know what I am going to read the next couple of days.

Since I've been flying around the country quite a bit (urm, planes, not newly developed wings), I have been able to find time to catch up on a bit of reading. And buying. Reread Gaiman's Smoke and Mirrors on the Kanpur trip. Also started a Diana Wynne-Jones collection of short stories just after that got over. And graphic novels, loads of them.

Landmark, Mumbai was a revelation. I had been hearing raves about it from oceansandearth and suku. The former gave me a near-apoplexy by mentioning that not only did the place have Samurai Executioner volumes 8 and 9, which yours truly had been searching for high and low, it also had volumes 14 and 15 of Blade of the Immortal, of which I had read volumes 1-13 in white-heat some time ago. And indeed, when I landed up there, the collection sent a rush of blood to my head. It had all that, and much more. Is anyone looking for volumes of Akira? What about David Lloyd's latest original GN Kickback? Complete runs of Fables TPBs, Y The Last Man, Flash Gordon collections, Promethea - basically whatever mainstream comics has to offer. Even the first two volumes of the Koike/Kojima release Path of the Assassin, which is just being released by Dark Horse.

But hold on a second, no discounts. Wankers. Just went ahead and bought some bare necessities, Samurai Executioner and BotI included. Glared at the hardcover edition of The Complete Conan by Robert E Howard. Wankers. I will just have to pick up the softcover version the next time I am in Blossom. My patience has run out.

It pains me extremely to realise that nowhere in Hyderabad can I buy new books with a 20% discount, like I used to in Bangalore. It's partly a blessing, because most of my book-buying is now confined to second-hand books ONLY while in this city. And boy oh boy, Best-Frankfurt-MR do manage to throw up surprises every now and then, like the original Tideland novel by Mitch Cullin for just 50 Rs, and a beautiful fairy tale book called Wingless which I picked up the other day just because it has illustrations by Atanu Roy. I do frequent the bigger bookshops - Odyssey and Walden - every now and then, but that's just to check up on the latest releases. If I like anything, I buy them at 20% discount the next time I am at Bookworm or Blossom. Both Odyssey and Walden have these "Sales" twice every year, in which they sell all their stock at a grand 10% off. Phoeey! Walden does one better. It takes out the worst books of the lot, the marketting manuals that were out of anyone's radar eight years ago, Java 1.2 API guides, Windows 98 tutorials, and tags them with "special prices" - which we customers are supposed to drool over and buy immediately. They are selling unsold hardcover copies of Harry Potter and The Half Blood Prince at 15% off - well after the paperback has been released. Morons.

Count your blessings, Bangalore-dwellers. For all the cribs I have against your city, there are certain things that make me gnash my teeth and wish I were still in that office on Museum Road. Ah, to be able to drop in at Blossom every day at lunchtime.

Did you know that Barefoot Gen, the seminal manga on the horrors of Hiroshima, and considered to be one of the inspirations behind Grave of the Fireflies is now available in an Indian edition? Yes, and quite well-priced at 250 Rs, also comes with an introduction by Anand Patwardhan.

Marjane Satrapi's Chicken and Plums is also available at most bookshops, though the cost price of 600 is somewhat off-putting. I will just wait for a Bangalore trip to pick it up.

Volumes 5-8 of Osamu Tezuka's Buddha are available quite freely in the market now. ( How freely? Even a backwaters bookshop like Odyssey, Hyderabad has them on display. The last time I asked them if they had Buddha, one of the salesmen pointed me to the "religion" section. Bah! ) Prices also seem to have come down quite a bit. 295 per book, and if you buy them from places that offer a discount, you get them for REALLY cheap. I ought to be peeved that I spent almost twice the money on the first four volumes, but this lowered price makes me quite glad because more people will pick up this superb series, which deserves hosannahs and praise and our eternal gratitude to Osamu Tezuka for creating it all. Highly recommended, folks. Storytelling does not get better than this.

I tried watching Nacho Libre the other night, but fell asleep midway. Is it just me, or is Jack Black trying too hard?

Best Book Stall has another sale going on right now, at YMCA Secunderabad, and I happened to drop in about 5 days into the sale. Much astounded at the clearance sale section which occupied one side of the huge hall - you could select any 5 books for hundred rupees, ten books for one hundred and fifty. A cursory search yielded gems like hardcover editions of Robert Silverberg's Valentine Pontifex AND Lord Valentine's Castle. Volume 3 of Brian Lumley's Necroscope, assorted parts of Anne Rice's Vampire Chronicles, two Patricia Highsmith novels, Tim Dorsey's Cadillac Beach, which I am looking forward to reading - I hugely enjoyed Hammerhead Ranch Motel. El Doctorow's Billy Bathgate, Gregory McDonald's Son Of Fletch, and I hate to say that I haven't gotten around to reading any of the Fletch novels yet. John Berendt's Midnight in The Garden of Good and Evil which, to tell you the truth, I wouldn't have picked up had it not been for the price. And interestingly, found this out-of-print book called Mrs Coverlet's Magicians by Mary Nash. I don't really remember where I had heard of this book - probably while amazon-surfing some day....

The rest of the sale yielded some great finds too. Daniel Wallace's Big Fish, which I read immediately, and which, like I expected, has very little in common with Tim Burton's movie except for the broad theme in general, and the ending. John Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, which I also finished immediately. An illustrated 1946 hardcover of Alice in Wonderland and Through The Looking Glass, (John Tenniel's drawings, of course!) I had resisted buying this for quite a long time. An illustrated unabridged version of The Three Musketeers, and the only children's book William Faulkner ever wrote, called The Wishing Tree. The Encyclopaedia of the Occult, which seemed much comprehensive when I browsed it on the spot, and a book on the early Warner Brothers' directors. Yukio Mishima's Sound of Waves, a love story set in Japan, which I had been hearing good things about ( seems it has been adapted to film some five times). Two Shel Silverstein hardcovers - When The Sidewalk Ends and A Light In The Attic. An interesting children's book called The Philadelphia Chickens - this came with a free CD that had songs sung by folks like Kevin Kline, Meryl Streep and Laura Linney.

Also picked up quite a few random books on music criticism. Had to go there again later, because I ran out of cash.

Spent the long weekend peacefully completing four volumes of Buddha. Can't wait to get my paws on the remaining four - and I now understand that the term "Godfather of Manga" is one not easily bestowed on a person. Do yourselves a favour and try reading Buddha if you can. Scans are not available online, as far as I know. The storytelling alternates between cartoony goofiness and gut-wrenching realism between pages, and goddamnit, why is so less Tezuka available on eBay?

Which reminds me, I won a lot of 18 comics that included a signed first edition of Craig Thompson's Goodbye Chunky Rice, a signed copy of Slow News Day by Andi Watson, and Matt Madden's One Faraway Beach, also signed. Loads of other stuff too, and all for 22.5$, woo hoo!

And there was also the package I received from mikester, containing multiple copies of Solo, each signed by Sergio Aragones, and a trade paperback of Fanboy, that has a sketch by Aragones inside. Why multiple copies of Solo? Because there are rabid Aragones fans in Delhi, Bombay and Kolkata, and it just didn't seem fair for me to have a copy and them not having it. Now, now, is my halo showing?

What is Solo, you ask? Oh, well, you don't, but let me tell you anyways. It's a series published bimonthly by DC comics, with 48 pages and no adds, and correspondingly has a higher price point of 4.99$ per issue. What really sets Solo apart is that every issue is done by one artist, who is given free reign to do whatsoever s/he wants with DC characters. I believe the series has been cancelled after twelve issues, but each of the artists who have contributed so far are legends in their own right - Paul Pope, Tim Sale, Howard Chaykin, Mike Allred, Ted Kristiansen, Richard Corben, and on issue 11, Sergio Aragones. Coincidence department: I bought the first 10 issues issues of Solo from a comicbook fan at a dollar each just two days before Mike mentioned that Mr Aragones was signing at his bookshop.

I had to play a game this weekend - one of these insane urges to trounce virtual meat that crop up from time to time - so I began Chronicles Of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay. Excellent gameplay, which was kind of expected when I found out that the game was produced by Tigon games, a company founded by Vin Diesel himself ( I remember asking a question about this company in some quiz or the other when it was launched). Currently midway through the game, and enthused enough about gaming to install Lara Croft Tomb Raider: Legend, the latest TR game. Graphics are superb, but the camera angles are killing me. Is it time to pick up a controller?

Last Wednesday, as I began my day in the office with a customary cup of hot lemon tea in the pantry, my phone rang. I was a little grouchy at that time, and the Bangalore number did not sound familiar, so when the voice at the other end said a cheerful "Hi! How you doing?", I growled "Who is this?" with that edge in my voice reserved for telemarketeers and credit card companies. The mean-I-am-the-Goddamn-Beatzo tone of voice. A minute later, I was regretting the tone, I could have mumbled shameful monosyllables of apology the whole day long.

The person calling me up had just said "There is a shipment of a thousand new comics that have come in, should I hold them for you?"

Bangalore. Weekend. Plans had not been made, but if you had asked me that morning to describe the weekend that was coming up, I would have sighed contentedly and talked about catching up on sleep and horror anthologies and DVDs and Tom-Yum-Goong ( Yes, YES, the latest Tony Jaa-Prachya Pinkaew movie has been released in Hyderabad, yeehaw!), the kind of lazed two-day reprieve one looks forward to with half-closed eyes and a contemplative smile. One phone call had thrown my plans out of the window - how much more Motorola-ad-ish could my life get? After wildly considering booking flight tickets ( I had to slap myself a couple of times to come out of this corporate "flights-will-save-time" mood), made some phone calls and found out that there were not one, not two, but three quizzes happening on Sunday. Ok, technically two quizzes, because I wasn't allowed to participate in the Metaquizziks Anniversary quiz, bah! So, Wednesday evening, I had return tickets from Sharma Travels, the folks who have gotten so used to selling me Bangalore tickets that they waive the twenty rupees service charge for the return journey. Regular customer, baby, regular customer.

Two days passed by in a flash.

On Saturday morning, I was in Bangalore, doing the same things I do whenever I reach the city on Saturday mornings. Checklist: coffee at a hotel on Anand Rao Circle whose name I can never remember, walk down Racecourse Road until I spy an auto with a digital meter, go to Anil Kumble circle, walk to my old office, brush and freshen up, walk to India Coffee House, have a scrambled eggs on toast and a coffee, walk to Bookworm right next door, say hi to the folks there, pick up books I had reserved the last time, reserve books that I will in all likelihood pick up the next trip, walk down Church Street to Magazines, then go to Planet M, and then to the Brigade Road outlet of Bookworm - oh, hold on, I got carried away, this was not about the daily routine, this was about what happened this Saturday.

So after India Coffee House, I went to Bookworm and picked up two books that I had reserved, an Iain M Banks Against A Dark Background, and Cliff McNish's The Doomspell Trilogy. Walked over to Magazines, where the comics were supposed to have arrived. It was exactly 10:01 AM by my watch. I had told Amjad that I would be there at 10 Am on Saturday. I won, wheeeee!

The shop was closed.

Frustration. Impatience. Much growling of inner beast. Walked to Planet M, which was supposed to open at 11, it seems. Double Grr. Walked back to Magazines, just in time to see them opening the shop - the first magazine I saw when the shop opened was an issue of Art in America, with the cover story being "Female artists in comics". What an omen. The price was 249 Rs, and I hastily put it back. Then, of course, he got the comics out. One basket. Two baskets. Three. By the time the fourth was out, I was gibbering and flapping around in a pool of saliva. Watchmen issues. Complete Greg Rucka runs on Wonder Woman. Batman# 407, the last Year One issue. Long Geoff Johns runs on Flash and Willingham runs on Robin. Most of Batman: War Games. ( I didn't like that so much when I read it, but it's always fun to own new Batman issues). I remembered to call up a friend about the loot. The conversation went something like this:

Me: Hey, how soon can you come to Magazines?
Him: Will take me about an hour and a half.
Me: What if I tell you that Watchmen issues are available at Magazines right now?
Him: ( scary sounds on the other end of the phone) I am coming. Be right there. Bye. *click*

So he came, after I had completed my first pass at the lot, and after the speechlessness and the obligatory swoon, he proceeded to create his own pile ( of comics, I mean, not saliva ). The interiors of Magazines appeared rather bright that day, because there were beaming faces all around. We sat and made a third pass after a coffee break, and by the time the billing was complete, it was three o'clock and the pile of 1000 was short by about 300. A quick trip to Bookworm, where we deposited our bags, then to the nearby momo joint for a late, late lunch. The plan was to go to National Market and check up on fresh stock. As we walked out, I remembered that autos are not allowed into MG Road between 2 and 7, so we walked down Church Street again. Hit Blossom or not hit Blossom? Ok, hit Blossom. Walk up to the comics section, and find a pile of 80's stuff which my friend pounces on. I saunter over to the other side of the rack, and take out a couple of Amar Chitra Kathas. Hey, these are in pretty good condition. No reprints and no staples, either, and no binding holes on the edges. And, gulp, they seem to be in order, too.

An hour later, we are at the billing counter, I am holding 101 ACK copies, my friend about 60, and assorted DC issues, and both of us are about to do the tandava right then and there, yo.

National Market gave me the first seasons of Rome and The X-Files, three seasons of The Family Guy, Eli Roth's Hostel ( am pretty sure it's not a release version of the DVD, but I want to see it! Will buy the release version later.), and The Blair Witch Project. Came back to Bookworm, I had fought with my conscience enough to pick up this book called Warner Bros Animation Art, which featured not just the history of Warner Bros animation, but also a list of the limited edition cel prints released by Warner Bros. The sight of those signed and numbered historical artifacts make me tear up, I tell you.

The Day of Debauchery ended, like all other Saturdays at Bangalore, with a dinner at Mei Ying. But not before we ran up to this new second-hand bookshop that had opened next door, and taken a look at their collection, and added a couple more Amar Chitra Kathas and Batmans to our pile. What. A. Day.

And to think I still haven't seen Tom-Yum-Goong on the screen. But that shall be remedied in a couple of hours, heh heh.

Six books in seven days is not too bad. Books, as in proper non-graphic-novelly books.

Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys.

Twice-22 By Ray Bradbury. A collection of short stories collecting two previous short-story releases- The Golden Apples of the Sun and A Medicine for Melancholy. I have read some of these stories before, "The Fog Horn", for instance, but I just can't get enough of re-reading Bradbury.

Carl Hiassen's Skinny Dip. Entertaining as always. I loved the fact that I could figure out that the cover art was by Charles Burns.

Chuck Palahniuk's Fight Club. Now an interesting thing happened. There are these book exhibitions happening at the Institute of Engineers from time to time, but of late I have been skipping them because of three reasons - one, the way they price their books is completely random - mostly it seems to be based on the thickness of a book, and not whether it's good or bad;two, the books are completely unarranged. Which is good for your book-hunting impulses, but at the end of a terrible day at work, one hardly has the impulse to tilt one's head sideways and walk from one end of a hall to the other trying to filter the white noise of titles ( 90% of the listed books are stuff you find at Abids on Sundays for 10 or 20 rupees, and I swear the next time I see five copies each of Alexandra Ripley's Scarlertt and Terry McMillan's Waiting to Exhale in a stack of 100, I will scream.) ; three - if you get books for cheap, all the restraints, all the mental promises you've made not to spend any more money on books, all of these are forgotten. So yeah, I try my best to ignore these sales, even though I pass the Institute of Engineers every evening on my way home.

Now this evening, it was drizzling, and traffic was suckadelic. Traffic is always suckadelic and it nearly always rains in the evening, but it was even worse this time because I was on riding pillion on a bike. So there, we decided to park the bike at the I of E and check out the book-sale. We gave each other 10 minutes. Now as I went up, the sign said "Last day of sale", which was good, I told myself, because I would not be able to come back for second helpings if I saw something interesting, and because they were only taking cash. So off I went, nonchalantly checking around. Truth be told, I wasn't looking too hard, because most of the good stuff would already be sold. Saw a book of Marilyn Monroe pictures, priced at 195, but decided to skip it. Too high a price for photos, especially after I had downloaded a 140 MB package called "The Ultimate Marilyn Monroe Photographs Collection, Ever" just a couple of days back.

And then I saw the familiar logo of Fight Club staring at me, with Brad Pitt grinning and Edward Norton looking sullen and "Chuck Palahniuk" written in bold on top, and I said "hallelujah!" and went and checked out the price, which turned out to be just right. Sixty rupees is not a high price to pay for this book, yeah? Then at the counter, the guy tells me, buy one book, get another free. GLUCK! Ten minutes were almost up, so I ran a bit and looked around for something good that would cost me 60 Rs, but alas, the only ones I could see were Terry McMillan and long-read Stephen Kings and the odd Steve Martini here and there. Finally, just picked up the Marilyn book, and asked the guy to price something.

"Pay 150", he says. Woah! Has to be the first time I paid lesser for two books than I would pay for buying one of them. Began reading Fight Club right that night, during dinner, and finished it the next morning. Yummy. Can't believe how faithful the movie was - except for the nip and tuck there, which added to the goodness of it. Seriously, it would take guts to make a script out of this book.

Bollywood Uncensored: What You Don't See On Screen And Why by Derek Bose. Pretty interesting reading on the peculiar quirks of Indian film censors. I liked the attention Bose paid to the banned documentaries of the seventies and eighties, with a neat comparison chart of what happened to those documentaries. ( Some were allowed to be telecast on Doordarshan by High Court and Supreme court, and others were shafted by DD anyway, when they aired these post-midnight.)

Tim Dorsey's Hammerhead Ranch Motel, that I finished on the train ride to Madras day before yesterday. One sitting. Another writer in the crime/comedy genre, and a thoroughly loony one at that. For the most part, the storyline hops around from one oddball occurrence to the other, and as pages turn and timelines mesh, a completely zany series of events transpire - the climax, naturally, happening at the Hammerhead Ranch Motel. A dancing chihuahua who meets a tragic end when he jumps off a weather-plane, a trivia-spouting schizophrenic who kills people by literally making stuffing of them. From what I have read about Florida courtesy of Hiassen and now Dorsey, the state seems to be full of lunatics and corrupt officials and fugitives on the lam from the other states.

Because I had coupons for Premier Book Stall left over, went and picked up Elizabeth Kostova's The Historian and Pratibha Ray's Yagnaseni: The Story of Draupadi. Began the second book, really well-translated ( it was in Oriya originally, I think). If only Ashok Banker could write half as lyrically as Pradip Bhattacharya can translate, I would be a happy man.

I wish it would rain, so I could go out and sing "Singin' In the Rain". D-uh, I am happy! My deadline just got postponed by a week, so I can calmly write all the stuff and go ahead with actually testing it all before committing any of it. Trust me, that's so comforting, I can think of other things right now.

Like going to the Book Fair tonight. Or of kicking some alien poo-poo in Halo. Getting a cable connection at home. Thinking of things to buy with my up-and-coming credit card. And not thinking about the seven things I gotta do. Heh.

I got into this semi-argument with Navs today morning, on YM. He has been reading Stardust, not the film rag, but the Gaiman novel, and in the first chapter or thereabouts, there is this love-making episode. Pretty innocuous one, too. But Navs felt that it was Out Of Place. "An adult comic book with a love-making scene? What is this - Harold Robbins or something?" , and "It's ok if the story merits it, but a scene out of the blue! I wasn't expecting it." and "If I wanted a sex scene, I would rather read Playboy or Nancy Friday." and "Ian Fleming never wrote more than a line whem it came to Bond's sexcapades." and words to that effect.

Hmm. Now I had a slight problem with that. Frankly, I just couldn't see why he had a problem with it. I mean, look at this, this is the scene in its entirety.

She said nothing. Dunstan pulled her toward him, wiping ineffectually at her face with his big hand; and then he leaned into her sobbing face and, tentatively, uncertain of whether or not he was doing the correct thing given the circumstances, he kissed her, full upon her burning lips.
There was a moment of hesitation, and then her mouth opened against his, and her tongue slid into his mouth, and he was, under the strange stars, utterly, irrevocably, lost.
He had kissed before, with the girls of the village, but he had gone no further.
His hand felt her small breasts through the silk of her dress, touched the hard nubs of her nipples. She clung to him, hard, as if she were drowning, fumbling with his shirt, with his britches.
She was so small; he was scared he would hurt her and break her. He did not. She wriggled and writhed beneath him, gasping and kicking, and guiding him with her hand.
She placed a hundred burning kisses on his face and chest, and then she was above him, straddling him, gasping and laughing, sweating and slippery as a minnow, and he was arch-ing and pushing and exulting, his head full of her and only her, and had he known her name he would have called it out aloud.
At the end, he would have pulled out, but she held him inside her, wrapped her legs around him, pushed against him so hard that he felt that the two of them occupied the same place in the universe. As if, for one powerful, engulfing mo-ment, they were the same person, giving and receiving, as the stars faded into the predawn sky.
They lay together, side by side.
The faerie woman adjusted her silk robe and was once more decorously covered. Dunstan pulled his britches back up, with regret. He squeezed her small hand in his.
The sweat dried on his skin, and he felt chilled and lonely.

(c) Neil Gaiman . Reprinted without permission, but I am sure he wouldn't disapprove.


I found this very descriptive, yes, and also very "literary". Nothing titillating or vulgar about the whole thing. And yes, isn't it infinitely better than saying - "Dunstan kissed her full on her burning lips. They made tender love in the moonlight. And as the stars faded in the predawn sky, they lay side by side." ???

Again, I don't see why it's wrong to have a love scene in a fairytale, adult or otherwise. (try reading Anne Rice's Sleeping Beauty series, with its graphic s&m scenes and you will know what I mean) Besides, it's hardly plausible to see characters in any book behave like Disneyfied nincompoops - or to read an author who is descriptive when it comes to explaining the internal working of a Walther PPK, but coughs away certain aspects of a character's daily(????) life because he wants to preserve the sanctity of Holy Humanity as laid down by Her Late Royal Highness Empress Victoria.

Hmm, or was it Navs pulling my leg?