Thursday, January 19, 2006

Deppe recommends

Song of the Month
At my former workplace, at exactly noon every single day, they switched on the music in the cafeteria to indicate that lunch was ready to be served. And on every single day during the 3 and a half long years I worked there they played the same tape over and over again: Kenny G. The sound of the sax got so strongly associated with thoughts of food, that if Pavlov hadn't discovered conditioned reflexes, I surely would have. But unlike the famous dog, I never salivated; the thought of the bad food just prompted some disconcerting peristalsis. I came to hate the sax. The instrument did redeem itself at the hands of the uncle who performs live at Java City every weekend. But a few weeks ago I heard Morphine and completely forgave the saxophone.Comprising of a drummer, a guy who plays two saxophones simultaneously and a vocalist with a powerful voice who plays a guitar with just two strings in it, they produce some simple but very distinctive sounds. Deppe especially recommends the song 'Scratch'.

Book of the month
Marquez's 'One Hundred Years of Solitude'. As the narrative effortlessly swings back and forth between a quaint fantasy world and a captivating latin american reality, you are lulled into a listening mode where you don't even notice realism being sacrificed. Six generations are chronicled in a little over 500 pages (Joyce wouldn't be able to explain an orgasm in that many !) so the book has a very racy pulse to it. The only piss-off is that all the characters are either called 'Arcadio' or 'Aureliano'. All of Aureliano's kids - 17 out of marriage and a couple legits- are all called Aurelianos. Its understandable if a psycho like Michael Jackson calls his kids Michaels I, II and III ( thats a true fact!), but in general I never understood the philosophy behind the father and son having the exact same name. Definitely made history confusing- I never could be sure if it was Louis the 14th or the 40th that was guillotined, and which of the King Georges was loony. Extremely irritating!

Movie of the Month
Jarhead is about the first of the gulf wars and about the frustrating inaction that the ground troops experienced; the first shots they fired were at the sky to celebrate victory. Evidently inspired by Full Metal Jacket, this movie has its moments too. Considering that his first movie was an all-time great (American Beauty) and his second(Road to perdition) was pretty nice too, this is relatively disappointing, but my verdict is still that Sam Mendes is yet to make a bad movie.

2 comments:

Jax said...

A guitar with 2 strings!? Damn. He has a whole finger free while playing the 3-finger chords!! What does he do with it?

Father-son same-name business. Seriously, what is it with these people!? Esp. adding the "Jr." thing at the end, like he is naming his schlong!

Okay man, I am getting Jarhead and "100 years..". Already started liking Sophie's choice. Read his "Confessions of Nat Turner". One in the top 100 list.

Deepak said...

He must have been the only sonovabitch that could do the goat/devil/WeLoveYouBangalore sign while still playing the guitar.