Miscellaneous

“Would beauty transcend?”

If you haven’t already, do read Gene Weingarten’s superb feature in the Washington Post, “Pearls Before Breakfast,” which details an excellent little experiment the Post carried out. The story begins thus:

He emerged from the metro at the L’Enfant Plaza station and positioned himself against a wall beside a trash basket. By most measures, he was nondescript: a youngish white man in jeans, a long-sleeved T-shirt and a Washington Nationals baseball cap. From a small case, he removed a violin. Placing the open case at his feet, he shrewdly threw in a few dollars and pocket change as seed money, swiveled it to face pedestrian traffic, and began to play.

It was 7:51 a.m. on Friday, January 12, the middle of the morning rush hour. In the next 43 minutes, as the violinist performed six classical pieces, 1,097 people passed by. Almost all of them were on the way to work…

What is extraordinary is that the musician was Joshua Bell, one of the most renowned classical violinists in the world. Playing “some of the most elegant music ever written on one of the most valuable violins ever made” on a 1713 Stradivarius, Bell made $32.17. It’s a fascinating story, wonderfully told, read the full thing.

And also, check out this follow-up story by Weingarten that has much chat between him and readers who reacted to the story, as well as “something enlightening about the nature of government bureaucracy versus private industry”, also neatly excerpted by The Mises Blog.

(First WAPO link via separate emails from Priyanka Joseph and Ravages, the other two via email from Ravages.)

Don’t squeeze when you can stroke and caress

If you are a man, this is essential reading for you: “40 Mistakes Men Make While Having Sex With Women.”

I have pondered deeply over many of these points in the past, and am glad that some of my beliefs have been validated. And, if I may, allow me to add a 41st mistake to this list:

Carrying a list of dos and don’ts into bed with you.

And also, please put that damn Blackberry away. She’s already in bed with you, so there’s no further need to signal your affluence. Thank you.

(Link via email from Prabhu.)

God made smallpox!

There’s a fascinating debate on religion between Sam Harris and Rick Warren in Newsweek, in which this delightful exchange takes place:

Warren: I look at the world and I say, “God likes variety.” I say, “God likes beauty.” I say, “God likes order,” and the more we understand ecology, the more we understand how sensitive that order is.

Harris: Then God also likes smallpox and tuberculosis.

I think Harris the atheist comes off much better than Warren the believer in this debate, but the nature of these polarising discussions is such that if you’re a believer, you might agree more with Warren, even when he says things like “I talk to God every day.” I find the guy hilarious, though, especially when he tries to explain why Christianity is superior to other religions:

In 1974, I spent the better part of a year living in Japan, and I studied all the world religions. All of the religions basically point toward truth. Buddha made this famous statement at the end of his life: “I’m still searching for the truth.” Muhammad said, “I am a prophet of the truth.” The Veda says, “Truth is elusive, it’s like a butterfly, you’ve got to search for it.” Then Jesus Christ comes along and says, “I am the truth.” All of a sudden, that forces a decision.

Big deal. Here and now, on India Uncut, I announce:

I am the truth.

You decide now. Your favourite blogger or dead man with beard?

Sari vs Salwar Kameez

Right now, it’s 1-0 to Sari. The Times of India tells us about a young lady in Patna who was caught cheating in her exams in rather unusual circumstances:

Answers to different probable questions were written in fine handwriting on the pleats and borders of the sari worn by the examinee.

I can imagine the lady in question not finding an answer she is sure she has written down, and unwrapping her sari furiously as she looks for it. Time is running out, answer is elusive, sari unwraps. Petticoat emerges. Everyone else fails.

Anyway, you know the score. And yes, I know salwars have pleats too, especially them volumnious Patiala thingies, but there are logistical issues, as a kameez or kurta or kurti hides them, and you need to lift that out of the way before you can stare nonchalantly at your lap. Most complicated.

And what about the guys? I suggest they study.

“Just you and the cheese”

Cheese is fascinating. It isn’t witty, sexy, erudite, affable or mysterious, but it is fascinating nevertheless. What else can explain CheddarVision.tv, the website where you can watch cheese as it matures?

Yes, it can take months.

Alexandra Topping, who must be tired of jokes about pizza, writes:

Something strange and slightly troubling begins to happen when you spend more than about two minutes watching Cheddarvision, the much-publicised website set up by the cheesemaker Tom Calver, which broadcasts live footage of a single 44lb truckle of cheddar as it imperceptibly matures. First, unsurprisingly, you feel bored and irritable. Then, after a while, and without really meaning to, you slip into a peaceful, meditative, quasi-hypnotic state. You start to breathe more deeply. Peripheral distractions – traffic noise, ringing telephones – fall away. There is you, and there is the cheese. Nothing more. If something should actually happen to the cheese while you’re in this state of mind – every week, the cheese is turned over; on one occasion, the label fell off and had to be replaced – it has an impact utterly disproportionate to the event. It is inexplicably hilarious; astonishing; gasp-inducing. Then the drama subsides, and once again, it’s just you and the cheese…

I must confess the block of cheese didn’t quite have the same impact on me, but maybe I’m just boring. Anyway, if you’re one of those who doesn’t have the patience to sit and watch this great drama unfold over months, you shall find a time-lapse video of the first three months of this block of cheese below the fold.

Rachel Marsden v Pakistan Cricket Fans

Manish brings my attention, via email, to this delightful nugget on Salon:

“Maybe [Pakistani cricket fans] should focus less on cricket and a little more on hygiene,” opined Rachel Marsden on a recent episode of Fox News’ middle-of-the-night talk oddity “Red Eye.”

Heh. The lady’s being groomed to be the next Ann Coulter, we are told, which will certainly ensure for years to come that America is loved around the world. It’s not only non-Americans who face Marsden’s derision, of course. Here’s what she has to say about Al Gore:

Al Gore could really pollute a bathroom … Just look at the guy. If someone doesn’t take away his pork ‘n’ beans, he’s bound to get another one of those ‘gut feelings’ and mistake his own greenhouse gas production for science!

Such a charmer.

A snapshot of America?

Here’s what I saw on the Yahoo! homepage a short while ago:

image

On clicking on the Arnie story, I came across a blurb that said, “Watch as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger interrupts a speech to help a fainting girl.” I think they should just make a reality show around him now, with SMS voting on what noble task he should perform next week. Such fun will come.

Was YouTube around in 1968?

I have to ask: after all, it was in 1968 that Andy Warhol said, “In the future, everyone will be world-famous for 15 minutes.” YouTube enables that like nothing else can.

Consider the story of the gent who “hurtled down nearly 200 feet at Angel tube station with a camera strapped to his head and posted the video on the YouTube Web site.” I can guarantee you this: the young man wouldn’t have bothered to do the stunt had YouTube not been around. What else will come from this?

Here’s the video, below the fold:

Purity Balls to you

This is scary. I feel sorry for the girls who go through this.

I can understand talk of purity when it comes to milk or oil and suchlike. But people can be impure? What evil weed do such men smoke that their minds get so filled up with rubbish?

(That was a rhetorical question. I know the answer is religion. Quiet now!

Link via email from reader VatsaL.)

India can still play in the Super Eight

Anand Ramachandran tells us how. Heh.

Other random links I’ve come across this morning:

A couple of posts about Nandigram by Somnath Batabyal and Yash Jain. Somnath makes an interesting point:

I see Nandigram in the same light as the horrific events in Gujarat. Yes, the number of deaths is less but it is the state machinery that went out to hunt the minority. In Gujarat, it was the Muslims, here they were poor peasants. Show me the difference? Both are minorities.

Ayn Rand once said, “The smallest minority on earth is the individual.” But some minortities, of course, are more equal than others. My thoughts on Nandigram are the same as my thoughts on Singur, which I’d expressed here.

Last link for this post: Old pal Rohit Gupta, who now calls himself DJ Fadereu, is writing a book, of which the first chapter can be downloaded here. If you like it, he is asking you to donate money that will help him write more of the book. I like the model: doodh ka doodh, paani ka paani.