taj mahal

Should guilty seek asylum here,
Like one pardoned, he becomes free from sin.
Should a sinner make his way to this mansion,
All his past sins are to be washed away.
The sight of this mansion creates sorrowing sighs;
And the sun and the moon shed tears from their eyes.
In this world this edifice has been made;
To display thereby the creator's glory.

passage to india

In less than 48 hours, I will be winging my way back, back, back to the near-motherland: India.  The golden triangle in specific, which includes Delhi, Jaipur, and Agra.  I know this seems crazy, but I've only spent two nights in the country that neighboured by birth land (n Calcutta, no less).  It will be whirlwind, a mere eight days (for 36 hours flight time, that seems insane, but there you have it).  As is tradition, I have brought myself down with cough and relentless fever.  So, I haven't packed or done anything except secure my visa and my inoculations.  I intend to spent the next 45-hours-and-counting drinking soup and sleeping.

Am I excited?  Yes.  It's been bucket-list item of mine to see the Taj Mahal.  Everything else is cherries.

The Golden Triangle

Also, nervous. 

Now Playing: Oz, the Great and Powerful

I’m not entirely certain why it took us three weeks to get to Oz the Great and Powerful but there you have it. After frolicking bunnies and resurrected hippies, Easter Monday saw us back in the theatre. We had taken so long, that we were relegated to the smallest screen at the multiplex.

A word of advice: if you haven’t watched The Wizard of Oz, you should. As Jadek can attest, half the movie’s suspense and drive comes from the watching the 1939 classic. So, once you ‘ve watched that, you’re good to go.

I liked the homages to the original (starting out in black-and-white, going from mono to full-on digital audio, the gingham and the bubbles) and I really liked the “twists” in the story. What I loved was the constant lookout for a certain green-skinned lady: she doesn’t show up for a while and when she does… boy, was I surprised. The one thing I didn't ever understand about Oz is this: why put this inept man in charge of Oz when there's a perfectly good Glinda around?

Well shot, well-paced, well-acted, and well worth your money. I’d go see it. 3.5 out of 5 stars.

Now Playing: G.I. Joe: Retaliation

Good Friday is a solemn day for many; what better way to spend it than to watch a shoot-em-up based on a Saturday morning cartoon of my youth? Truthfully, the place was packed – what with most useful things being closed, thankfully, movie theatres were wide open (are they the only non-essential institution now open year-round, no exceptions?). So, we bought our tickets for G.I. Joe: Retaliation.

Before the movie started, I shared with Jadek that we should have perhaps rewatched the original. Good thing I didn’t: after reading my thoughts on the first one, it may have tainted my enjoyment of the second one. And enjoy it, I did. The one thing this franchise seems to have going for it a nice blend realism and cartoonery. I mean, yes, everyone in this movie is impossibly beautiful (Adrianne Palicki’s Lady Jaye is bang-on and I can’t think of anyone better to play Roadblock than Dwayne Johnson and the action scenes are over-the-top, but somehow they stay on this side of fantasy.

Speaking of action – hoo-wee! That scene on the side of the mountain – and seriously, the price of admission is worth this one scene alone – is intense. It’s the only action scene I can recall at this moment that don’t need to hide the wires attached to the stunt crew. In fact, the wires are essential. It was stellar. Right up there with Nolan’s rotating hallway and the Wachowski’s bullet time.

So, if you like cartoons or action movies, you’ll enjoy this. 3 out of 5 stars.

PS: spoiler!

christianity (in a nutshell)

From: Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal
By: Christopher Moore


Joshua's ministry was three years of preaching, sometimes three times a day, and although there were some high and low points, I could never remember the sermons word for word, but here's the gist of almost every sermon I ever heard Joshua give.
You should be nice to people, even creeps.

And if you:
a) believed that Joshua was the Son of God (and)
b) he had come to save you from sin (and)
c) acknowledged the Holy Spirit within you (became as a little child, he would say) (and)
d) didn't blaspheme the Holy Ghost (see c)

then you would:
e) live forever
f) someplace nice
g) probably heavan

However, if you:
h) sinned (and/or)
i) were a hypocrite (and/or)
j) valued things over people (and)
k) didn't do a, b, c, and d,

then you were:
l) fucked.

[“This story is not and never was meant to challenge anyone's faith; however, if one's faith can be shaken by stories in a humorous novel, one may have a bit more praying to do.”]

Now Playing: Olympus Has Fallen

So, looking to kill some time, Jadek and I perused the offerings at the movieplex by his place and we stumbled across Olympus Has Fallen. Neither of us had even heard of it, despite an all-star cast of Morgan Freeman, Gerard Butler, Aaron Eckhart, Angela Bassett, Ashley Judd, Dylan McDermott, and Melissa Leo. Honestly, you don’t get casts like this unless you’re in a British Christmas movie. or, you know, Batman.  So, what the heck, we went in. We even used our points and watched it for free.

This review will be short. The movie was okay, a perfectly good way to pass a random Saturday afternoon. It was action-packed, suspenseful and even a little funny. It had twists and surprises.  People live, people die (spoiler!).  When it’s on Netflix, you should catch it. 3 out of 5 stars.

late

It is no secret that, every year, I hit a SAD zone. It coincides, usually, with February. This year, I ran late. I’m not sure what the trigger is – it may be a lack of sunlight or fresh air; it may be delayed post-Christmas denouement; It may be a residual sorrow for the loss of my single-child status. (Love you, LilBro!)

Regardless. It hits like a tonne of bricks. I find myself doing things I hardly ever do:

- (re)reading dozens of favourites, hardly ever leaving bed;
- listlessly wandering through the machinations of work (it’s amazing how unproductive I can be and yet go entirely unnoticed);
- avoiding chores (small things, like laundry and dishes)
- desperately seeking company (and becoming the one thing I really hate being: needy)
- watching romances (damn you, Netflix!)

I usually just need one good sunny spring day with a warm breeze that allows me to open my windows to snap out of it. The kind of day that’s spent doing laundry and cleaning the bathroom with 90’s music in the background. It usually means fresh sheets, new curtains, and donations piles. My fridge gets stocked with hand-squeezed juice and neat containers of conveniently cut veggies; my counter overflows with cakes and cookies. If I get a whole weekend, it will mean new projects for the rest of year – lists of birthday cards to make and dresses to retrofit and organisational designs for closets. I won’t touch my computer except to boot winamp. It’s high-energy.

That is not today.