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Rana Dasgupta’s first novel Tokyo Cancelled has earned itself a comparison to The Canterbury Tales. This comparison is probably lost on all but literature students and book worms, but that isn’t much of a loss. The only similarity is the vehicle that Dasgupta uses to tell his stories: travelers, who are all but strangers to each other, tell each other stories to pass the time.

Set in an airport in Tokyo, 13 passengers are left stranded when their flight is cancelled. Under the flickering neon lights, in the plastic chairs that seem specifically designed for the discomfort of the traveler, they revert to the age old art of story-telling. There is little else to keep them entertained through the night, as the airport slows to a weary halt.

The collection of stories begins in true story-telling tradition, told against an Arabian setting with Princes and poor tailors who fashion the most beautiful coats to be found for miles. But a bizarre modernity quickly sets in, as the stories become increasingly disturbing and surreal.

An old man in Paris is afflicted with a mysterious disease, with flowers growing out of his gaping wounds, as the rest of the city is subjected to a sudden lockdown as the Plague spreads through its quarters. A young woman (who as it turns out is Martin Scorsese and Isabella Rossellini’s lovechild), along with the help of Robert DeNiro’s illegitimate lovechild, and a box of Oreo cookies, is able to transform herself into a mammoth department store on Madison Avenue in New York. A Japanese man falls in love with a life-size doll he creates, using prosthetic limbs. A young boy is hired as a ‘Memory Editor,’ collecting and cataloguing people’s most intimate memories before the city is swept by a bizarre and inexplicable mass amnesia.

There is an underlying bleak and darkened tone to all the stories. Happy endings are scarce in these vignettes that read like fairy tales for the disenchanted. Betrayal, loss and displacement are all running themes throughout the different stories. There is a constant and pervading sense of an inability to belong anywhere. Each character is an outcast in his own right, from a changeling from another world, who comes and goes as he pleases to a mute Turkish woman who, without explanation, appears in the house of a mapmaker in Germany.

The novel is experimental in every sense of the word, and is not for the faint of heart. His descriptive style is vivid to the point of being painful. There are moments you will cringe. There are moments you might want to put the book down, promising yourself you will not pick it up again. But you do. Because somehow, it works. Because Dasgupta is honest and refuses to sugarcoat his words.

The stories are modern and high-tech, and yet simultaneously ancient and folk-like. From Delhi to the Bahamas, from London to Lagos, the stories take you on a whirlwind journey, the like of which you’ve never seen before.

This video came to mind when I stumbled across an argument on twitter involving eztv.it – one of the best TV torrent sites out there. It’s worth mentioning that eztv is free, doesn’t require you to sign up to use the service, and doesn’t use private trackers that would force people to seed the TV shows that they just provided for free. I’m not going to get into the issue of whether or not they have the right to do this because that is beside the point.

Eztv has been down for a while – but despite that – they have continued to post all of their TV shows which can be accessed through a simple search on any given torrent search engine like Mininova, and for the particularly lazy, they’ve also been posting links on twitter.

One spoiled little brat (who has now protected his updates) was actually complaining on twitter about how “pathetic” it is that Eztv has been down for a month. The fact that he protected his updates doesn’t mean you can’t find examples of his stupidity with, again, a simple search:

Many people rallied to Eztv’s defense on Twitter, who themselves weren’t exactly mincing words in their response to this “non-contributing zero” as Louis CK would put it.

Eztv offers this service for free, they put their own money into it, and don’t even expect you to seed the TV shows they JUST provided for you, and yet this kid has such a sense of entitlement, and clearly expects everything presented to him on a silver platter within seconds of asking for it.

This is exactly the kind of attitude that Louis CK was talking about in his video and seeing kids today, honestly, makes me so grateful for the normal childhood that I had. I may be a self-avowed geek who’s obsessed with gadgets, but I wouldn’t trade the childhood I had, where I spent most of my time playing outdoors with friends, swimming, bike riding, knees and hands scratched up and covered in plasters, rather than sitting glued to a screen bitching about what’s rightfully mine – when really it isn’t.

Do yourselves a favour and wait until Darth Vader comes out at about 3 and a half minutes in. It’s worth it. I promise.

And Wiki also gets a mention later in the episode when Shane is at his macbook trying to find out to the new Mexican character introduced last week.

Posted via email from image-inary

It does help, to be a writer, to have the sort of crazed ego that doesn’t allow for failure. The best reaction to a rejection slip is a sort of wild-eyed madness, an evil grin, and sitting yourself in front of the keyboard muttering “Okay, you bastards. Try rejecting this!” and then writing something so unbelievably brilliant that all other writers will disembowel themselves with their pens upon reading it, because there’s nothing left to write. Because the rejection slips will arrive. And, if the books are published, then you can pretty much guarantee that bad reviews will be as well. And you’ll need to learn how to shrug and keep going. Or you stop, and get a real job.”

Via Neil Gaiman

It’s a (new?) brand of chips called “Kalbaz” which I guess translates as “get chubby.”

Interesting marketing technique there.

Here are some artificially flavoured, bright orange pieces of crap that your kids can shove down their throats and get fat – so let’s just call them “Get Fat” and put a picture of a kid busting out of his pants on the shiny, glossy bag that will attract the attention of little kids all over Cairo.

There is some sort of hidden genius in there somewhere…

via DesignMyWorld

Something that the judges are always going on about is the introduction of different traditional dances from around the world. Last year was the first time they brought Indian Bollywood to the SYTYCD stage. The other styles that I can think of off the top of my head include Russian folk dancing and Argentinean tango. So what do you notice about each of those styles? They tell you which country each routine comes from right?

On the last episode of SYTYCD, the top 5 guys did a group routine which was described as “African.” That’s it. African. They didn’t mention which country in Africa. They didn’t even mention which part of Africa. East? South? Who knows. Because apparently the over 50 countries in Africa are exactly the same. There couldn’t possibly be any discernible difference between say Sudan, Ghana and Namibia, could there? There are over 40 ethnic groups in Kenya alone. South Africa has 11 official languages, most of which couldn’t be more different from each other.

But still in mainstream American and European media, the entire continent is still lumped together as one big mass of land. For the love of God people, Africa is not a country!

Dust in your Eyes

We shall Overcome by Joan Baez

Stand by Me by Jon Bon Jovi & Andy

via Geek and Poke