This weather has made all the animals act a little silly. The horses are running around and expecting extra sweet feed every time they see me. With our cats, they don’t need an excuse to pounce on us when they see us and try to trip us if we make a detour instead of filling their four bowls. They are not so willing to run around, though and would rather snuggle up on their blanket and nap all day. Yesterday Smokey our oldest little gray kitty was caught off guard, probably sleepy. Sky flew over the fence and was able to catch her. Fur was flying, but Smoky was able to escape and climb up a tree, unfortunately, she lost hold and fell hard and didn’t land on her feet as usual. PLUNK that had to hurt! Sky went after her again, but I separated them and then Smoky disappeared. I looked for her all afternoon and had no idea what damage Sky and the fall from the tree had done. Happily Smokey was here for breakfast this morning and looks no worse for wear.  Another day in paradise……

Letting India speak for itself

Nick Smith reviews, Nine Lives: In Search of the Sacred in Modern India, by William Dalrymple

A lot’s changed in the two decades since the young William Dalrymple published his first book In Xanadu. India has changed, the world has changed and so too has travel writing, he tells us in his introduction to his latest, Nine Lives. In the 1980s, the genre was all about the writer, with the far-flung landscapes and the people who inhabit them relegated often simply to an exotic stage setting. Indeed, while Dalrymple was cutting his teeth on his first India book City of Djinns, another well known travel writer, Michael Palin, was broadcasting Around the World in 80 Days and Pole to Pole to a public that, dazzled by his celebrity, seemed to have developed an insatiable appetite for travel journalism provided it was about the journalist and not about travel.

But fashions change and our objectives have evolved into something slightly more ambitious than simply reporting on how unlike us foreigners are. Palin is now president of the Royal Geographical Society and Dalrymple is recognised as a leading popular historian specialising in India. In the past decade, in terms of book publishing at least, he appears to have turned his back on producing any more of those beautifully rendered travelogues that made his name, preferring to concentrate on delivering the first two volumes of his monumental commentary on the Mughal Empire. He’s also edited Begums, Thugs and White Mughals – The Journals Of Fanny Parkes, which falls into the same category of historical production. But, there’s been very little in the way of sustained travel writing. And yet, if we are to believe the Guardian, Dalrymple has ‘effortlessly assumed the mantle of Robert Byron and Patrick Leigh Fermor.’

One of the reasons for his being one of our most important travel writers is that when he turns his hand to the craft there are simply few better than Dalrymple. With Nine Lives he has proven once again that you don’t need to prolific to be of literary importance (Leigh Fermor’s books emerged at a rate of about one per decade). So, even after a decade’s absence from the fray, when the man who gave us From the Holy Mountain says it’s all changed, we’ve ripped up the programme and we’re doing it differently now, it probably makes sense to listen.

What exactly is different about Nine Lives? To answer that question it’s helpful to start with why it’s similar to Dalrymple’s collection of travel journalism The Age of Kali. In Kali he explores the juxtaposition of ancient and modern in India. But you could do that with any country. What’s so fascinating about India is the rate of change, and this is what gives Dalrymple his hook. Thousands of years of unchanging tradition, he says, are under attack from all sides by the skirmishers of the digital revolution. The new India loves technology: but while everyone in the city is becoming a software engineer, drinking Starbucks in their Levis and Ray-Bans, a few miles outside the city men in dhotis are tending the land with agricultural utensils that haven’t changed in five millennia. If you want to express the rate of growth of India’s economy on a graph, just point the line straight up. If it continues like this, by 2050 India’s economy will lead the world.

How Dalrymple chooses to express the changing face of India in Nine Lives is what’s different. Gone is the intrusive self-consciously literary narrator scribbling in an unfamiliar landscape (although Dalrymple can’t resist telling us about his ‘slowly filling… notebooks’). In a moment of artistic self-extirpation he’s banished the central narrator of old, to make room for the people of India tell their own story. So what have we got? Nine people, nine lives, all based on interviews in eight languages and all cracking entertainment.

In ‘The Nun’s Tale’ we are told of friend who undertakes sallekhana, a ritual fast to the death; in ‘The Daughters of Yellamma’ we hear the harrowing story of the devadasi (or temple prostitute) who introduces her two daughters into a trade that she regards as a sacred calling, only to lose both teenagers to AIDS; there is the story of the woman who leaves her middle class family in Calcutta and her job in the jute factory only to find unexpected love and fulfillment living as a tantric in a skull-filled hut in a remote cremation ground; and there is an idol maker, the thirty-fifth of a line of sculptors going back to the Chola bronze makers who sees creating gods as one of the holiest callings in India, but has to reconcile himself to his son, whose ambition it is to study computer engineering.

The cast of characters, drawn from different walks of life, with their heart-breaking, life-affirming and often plain weird stories, invites immediate comparison with Chaucer’s pilgrims in the Canterbury Tales, and to his credit Dalrymple acknowledges this straight away. But this isn’t ‘a modern Indian Canterbury Tales’ as the accompanying PR blurb enthusiastically trumpets, because there’s no pilgrimage to while away, no journey, no raiding of the memory banks of the oral tradition. Nine Lives does something else; something entirely different, more akin to an Impressionist painting, where the deftness of the brush strokes, rather than the detail, paints a subtly textured and unexpectedly complex piece that has Dalrymple’s fingerprints all over it.

That Nine Lives is unmistakably and so assuredly from the pen of Dalrymple is a tribute to his depth of knowledge of the people and places of India. As deployed in his The Age of Kali, his main strengths are his instinctive feel for what details matter, how much they weigh and how to articulate them in his understated, but quite lovely prose. While so many of today’s travel writers shift from territory to territory in search of new thrills, Dalrymple goes deeper and deeper into the landscape of India in order to return with clearer images of the people who live there. And in trying to appreciate their lives, we enrich our understanding of our own, and this is why Nine Lives might well be William Dalrymple’s most important book to date.

Nick Smith writes for the Daily Telegraph and has been a judge on the Thomas Cook Travel Book of the Year award.

Nine Lives is published by Bloomsbury, £2.00, pp 285 · ISBN 978-1-4088-0061-4

The front of Steven's hand drawned shirt.

The back...a little more interesting

How I came to own this is another one of those “stories.”
You know a friend of a friend of a friend…..
Here goes.
A close friend of mine and one of the top Rock and Roll memorabilia dealers in the country, Jeff Gold of Recordmecca was contacted by an individual looking to sell an unusual item.
A hand drawned shirt made for Steven Tyler of Aerosmith back in the early 70’s.
Jeff checked out his story, the background, how he got it, etc….by the way, you won’t find anyone more interested in provenance and backup than Jeff.

Since Aerosmith memorabilia wasn’t exactly his thing, he called and offered the shirt to me.

I spoke directly with the owner and he supplied me with enough information and backup for me to feel comfortable buying this piece.

It it to the best of my knowledge the earliest clothing item belonging to Steven Tyler’s in existence.
Here’s the letter supplied to me by the owner.

A portion of the letter with the original owner's name taken out.

William Dalrymple is already legend. Days before this interview friends volunteered enthusiastic accounts of their own encounters with him. “He is bound to be late. Take a book”, said most. On the given day as I walked into the lobby of the 5 star hotel he likes to give his interviews from, I found he was early and waiting, trouble shooting for the oncoming Jaipur Literary Festival on his Blackberry. Before we could start, he chose his spot under the autumn sun, sprawled on a large sofa and ordered a tall glass of cold beverage. William knows his books, his market and his position. He is careful with these things. But never too careful. And it is this, the balance of his rehearsed charm and unflinching insight, that his legend feeds of. It is not easy to interview him but it is easy to converse with him. A quality that explains perhaps the fact that the greater percentage of his latest book Nine Lives- In search of the sacred in modern india is quoted speech from his subjects of choice. The book, an extraordinary journalistic and literary exercise defies easy classification. But once you’re over missing the author’s presence in the narrative it opens itself up as a deceptively simple, decidedly large-hearted account of the ‘spiritual soul’ of modern India.

The lives you write about exist mostly on the edge of modernity, often suspicious of it. While those on the other side of the divide could regard them with cynicism. Is it possible for materialism and spirituality to co-exist in harmony? Especially at a time when alternative religious practices feel the heat of Ramification/Wahabbi-isation of religion on the one end and a homogenizing globalised culture on the other?

The degree to which India has always had a tradition of renunciation is closely linked to the degree to which India has had a tradition of ruthless politics, materialism and sensuality. Renunciation is a reaction to it, as is reflected in the lives of great renouncers like the Buddha or Mahavira. Similarly the people in my book have all pinged off something in the real world, a tragedy or something.

You only have to travel a couple of miles off Gurgaon to meet people like those in my book..

Urban India is deeply religious too…

Ofcourse. There hasn’t been any ‘death of God’ phenomenon here unlike in Europe. In india, as in American and China development has always gone hand in hand with religion. Although the way in which it is practiced might have evolved.

Besides the obvious emotional and intellectual connect, did any of the stories move you spiritually?

I have emphasized that this was not any sort of personal spiritual quest, purely a journalistic exercise. But religion touches the core of humanity and in that has always interested me. I am fascinated by how religion transforms people. I am the sort of swimmer who can sit around the pool and peer but never quite dive into it.

Most of the people you write about are marginalized. Was that a conscious choice?

There are very few people in india who are not marginalized! One review took exception to my calling a small shopkeeper middle class, but he is middle class if you look at a lot of india, where it is still a privilege to own land. But no this wasn’t a conscious decision. The stories came out of my wish to explore subjects ive been personally interested in for a while, like say, Baul music.

In a lot of interviews you’ve said that you kept yourself out of the stories because you wanted to avoid the pitfall of being judged as a “typical westerner writing about Indian religion”. But doesn’t that risk sustain in how you arrange your narrative, despite being outside of it?

No it wasn’t a defensive decision. Writers need to set themselves new challenges. If I kept rewriting City Of Djinns, id get bored too. Besides these lives were so complete in themselves. There was a sense of muddying waters if you sat in judgement. For instance, what useful comment can you make coming from a different faith and moral universe about a Jain nun starving herself to death?

You said in an interview once, “A bad review is like a slap on the face”..

Yes. For most authors. Hemmingway didn’t read his reviews I believe. How can you spend 3 or 4 years working on something and then not want to know how people are reacting to it?

Where do you think criticism is in india today? Can it be taken seriously?

Naipaul in his latest book makes some comment to the effect that there is no literary or intellectual life in india. If you start from that position there is certainly a lot going on! That said, given the amount of important writing coming out of india, the standard of reviews is extremely variable. But then there is also a Pankaj Mishra, who is one of the greatest living reviewers.

Hari kunzru called criticism in india a bloodsport!

What is intriguing is the way urban India, especially journalists and reviewers react to certain subjects. For instance, Adiga’s novel which is at the very least an ok novel gets shredded to bits. I wonder if its because it got the Booker and people are jealous, or that they don’t like the dark side to be written about, or believe it doesn’t exist. It is a very interesting question and I am thinking of writing an essay on this. Even a slumdog had to face this opposition. Sadhus/Mystic India/Extreme religion is also on the list of subjects people are uncomfortable about. One of the reviews I got said what I’m writing about is a cliché, truth is there is hardly any documentation of lives like these. And there is a market for it clearly because I’ve already sold 35000 copies.

Another blind spot is NRI literature. Jhumpa Lahiri’s Unaccustomed Earth was extraordinary, almost Chekovian. But it got largely written off.

In the reviews you’ve got so far, do you think there is enough focus on the prose itself, given that this is primarily a literary exercise?

No, there is hardly any reference to the prose. The whole concept of this book is clarity, simplicity and stripping away so it is consciously a short book. Having said that, most reviews have been encouraging on the whole.

Some reviews like the Guardian (Hirsh Sawhney) and Indian Express (Seema Chishti) seem to suggest your book is incomplete because you haven’t included stories about Indian Christians or Muslims. Does it fall upon a writer to worry about politics of representation when planning a book?

There tends to be a lot of dinner party criticism. Ive also been asked, “Why Mughals?” This is my first book about Hindus in fact! What is crucial is the point of the book. It is primarily about the 9 lives, not what religion they represent. In actual fact I did look for stories from other faiths but in the end it was about what worked, with emphasis on the lives of individuals.

When you are writing a book like this is it possible to not have a target reader in mind?

At certain points you have to make decisions about how much you explain about what. I suppose I have at the back of my mind usually a foreigner, probably a Brit, who knows a little about india so while I may have to explain what Tantra is, I don’t explain Dal Chawal. And that usually works for everyone. But in this book, I was asked to explain more than I had by my English editors, so maybe I have started writing more for desis now.

You have written a very well known critique of Naipaul’s politics but what about his influence on you as a writer? For instance, he talks about being a manager of the narrative in Beyond Belief in much as the same way you have tried to do in this book.

I haven’t read Beyond Belief. But I have read a lot of him and hugely admire his work, especially the earlier novels. But I have very mixed feelings about him. He is very wrong headed about things in india and the Islamic world, but even in his most flawed books there are lessons to be learnt. For instance, in million mutinies despite all its ragged wandering narrative, you have to admire the force of arguments, the way he gets his characters, the way he drills and drills till they tell him everything. I have learnt the technique of remorseless drilling and going back a number of times to your subjects from him.

Did you worry about Nine Lives stirring up controversy?

Yes, one is always aware. There was an edition of Age Of Kali, published as In The Court Of The Fish Eye Goddess. One Tamil person took offence to it even though the phrase is found in many books and demanded the book be banned. It is really that easy sometimes.

Wendy Doniger’s book Hindus-An alternative history got attacked by the cultural police, but your book, which is as much about alternative religion remained unscathed. Do you think there is any method to the madness of extra-state censorship?

It is tricky when you deal with extremely sensitive issues like sexuality in mythology like Wendy does or Shivaji’s parentage like James Lane did. Even though his reference was very veiled. But nothing justifies extreme reactions. And there is no telling what will be attacked either. It happened to be Wendy or Salman, but could easily have been any one of my books.

Last Mughal did stir up a lot of debate.

Yes, actually I’d hoped that White Mughal would stir up debate but it didn’t as much. People as a whole here are not used to narrative history. History is text books and novels deal with the fun things like romance and battles. A lot of people still think White Mughal is a novel!

In a lot of literary spats, reference is made to your foreign origin. You yourself seem conscious of it in interviews. After 25 years of living here, do you still feel like an outsider, especially in a country that is not wholly accessible to anyone innately?

Well, it is rather curious that there is always some reference to my foreignness or the other. I am one of those rare foreigners living in india and writing about it, whereas there are plenty of desis living abroad, doing very well in the literary circles there, who noone seems to have a problem with, so yes it does bother me a little, this attitude that if you have white skin you are incapable of knowing what’s going on in the country.  But then this is a problem with immigrant writers all over the world. I mean Vikram Seth can buy George Herbert’s house and own an umbrella but he won’t really ever be British. And I could live 5 lives here but I would always be an outsider. The downside is you will always miss out on some cultural references but then you also have an outsider’s bird’s eye view. For instance I am acutely aware of and revolted by idiotic middle class mores in Scotland but I can savour their humour here as an outsider. And overall, india has been very accepting and generous.

(A shorter version appears in the Sunday Herald)

No, we haven’t gone AWOL. The last few months at the FriendsOfBooks office have been terrifically busy. First we had technical housekeeping  that was on TOP priority and then there was some literal housekeeping chores that needed attention as we made space for even more books (Yay!). In the mean, the off -office hours have been well spent with all the new books that’ve hit the markets.

First there was Mr. Dan Brown’s latest offering.

I have a theory: When you see too much of something around you, even if you wouldn’t care to notice it to start with…it will, in due course of time have an unexpected effect on you, whereby you will actually start to take an interest in it. That  is was happened with The Lost Symbol. With due apologies to Mr. Brown, it did not figure on the top of my bookshelf. Yet, I saw copies come in and out of the office by the dozens and at some point I said ” What the heck!”. To cut a long and dragging (and repetitive) story short- I should’ve stuck to my bookshelf!

The book that I had actually been waiting for since we started pre-booking it, was William Dalrymple’s Nine Lives. Now, that book did not disappoint me. Dalrymple did what he does best- takes you on a journey that is part travelogue, part history and part biography.

What am I reading now? I have bowed down once more to the “If I see it, I want it” (only in books!) gene. Chetan Bhagat’s Two States is everywhere I look, so I have been reading it off and on. Will post a review so you know what I think….soon!

Back to grad school?

Honestly, there’s so much I want to do. I miss going to the cadaver lab at 10 pm, only to return at 7am the very next day to prepare for an Anatomy midterm. I miss studying. But when I’m in school, I miss the adrenaline rush of composing “art” through my view finder. I also love living abroad and learning foreign languages and cultures. And sometimes, I want to work for the Impossible Project, even if it entails having no salary… because, starving is art, right? Interning at the PR department at Urban Chic sounds pretty tempting too.

Life is unfair. Why must youth be fleeting?

… why do cat’s get to have nine lives and we don’t? -_-

Nine Lives  by  Melinda Barron

Changeling Press

Cat shifter Ophelia Brown lives a nomadic life. She travels from town to town, dancing at clubs, and trying to help others with the money her parents left her. But when she gets to Denver things change.

Club owner Conner Riley is very attracted to his new dancer. He and his boyfriend, Fox Nichols, have always appreciated the female form, especially O’s. But when strange things start happening to O, it’s up to Conner and Fox, a private detective, to figure out what’s happening before their shifter loses any more of her nine lives.

I enjoyed this story of shape-shifters and attempted murder by Ms. Barron. I found myself enthralled by not only the storyline but by the character of Ophelia.

Ophelia reminded me a little of an eccentric millionaire. She is so kind and is always trying to help out others. When you look at her, she appears to be just a regular working stiff but she is anything but. Not only is most of her money given to others, she personally assists those in need. I understand Ophelias need to move frequently but I found the time of every six months to be too short of a time period for the reason given. Ophelia likes to dance and works as a stripper in a club owned by Connor. This further adds to her character’s eccentricity.

Connor is a very sexy boss who Ophelia is quite taken with. Unfortunately for her, he has a boyfriend named Fox who is a private investigator. This turns out to be a very good thing when attempts are made on Ophelia’s life. Fox tries to unravel the mystery that is Ophelia.

The story had me on the edge of my seat the entire time I was reading it. I enjoyed the who done it aspect and loved the sexual encounters, which had me fanning myself to keep from overheating.

All in all, I found Nine Lives a very hot story that I know I’ll be picking up to read again and again

I had this great idea for the front cover for my upcoming album but then I saw that REO Speedwagon already beat me to it!

I was going to put on a black tight little number I had saved for this occasion, borrow the neighbour’s cat and take a photo in the all red alley behind our supermarket. But then one day I saw this cover in a magazine and my dream was shattered. They even stole my idea of framing the image with leopard fur.

But to be totally honest I am glad they used this concept before me, I do think my music and this image would have been the perfect fit anyway…

Nine Lives by William Dalrymple reviewed by Ruaridh Nicoll (The Observer)

Yet at its best travel writing beats fiction, firing the imagination with tales of foreign peoples drawn close by our common humanity. If I had read Nine Lives as a boy, I would have felt that desire to strike out. That this book also makes its political points more powerfully than any newspaper article, while quietly adjusting a reader’s attitude to faith, builds its importance. It meets Dalrymple’s own criteria as set down in his recent article, displaying a deep knowledge of the culture, yet is intimate with each interviewee. This is travel writing at its best. I hope it sparks a revival.

William Dalrymple on the new generation of travel writers (The Guardian)

For nearly 10 years, travel writing was where the action was. It re-emerged at a time of disenchantment with the novel, and seemed to present a serious alternative to fiction. A writer could still use the techniques of the novel – it was possible to develop characters, select and tailor experience into a series of scenes and set pieces, arrange the action so as to give the narrative shape and momentum – yet what was being written about was true. Moreover, unlike most literary fiction, it sold.

Mahraja: The Splendour of India’s Royal Courts by William Dalrymple (The Guardian)

The V&A’s new exhibition is a serious attempt to put the myth of the maharajas in its proper context, as part of the history of courtly India, and to explore at the same time the visual and artistic expressions of Indian kingship both before and after the maharajas’ Victorian heyday. Nevertheless the show is haunted by the sad story of the princes and the British, telling how the British first bullied the princes into submission, schooling them in western tastes, then both laughed at, and envied, the monsters they had created. Finally, they quit India, leaving the maharajas to be abolished. At the V&A from 10th October 2009 – 17th January 2010

– Photos by Paul & Elizabeth

The Joe Perry Project. Their debut record, Let the Music Do the Talking, reached #47 on the Billboard album charts, selling 250,000 copies domestically. While sales and reviews were respectable the group mainly thrived as a live act. It managed to do so even after its second album, I’ve Got the Rock’n'Rolls Again, went largely ignored.

In the end, the Project never solidified a lineup; all three studio releases would feature a different lead vocalist and the entire roster was replaced before their final effort (1983’s Once a Rocker, Always a Rocker.) Even a brief stint with fellow Aerosmith exile, rhythm guitarist Brad Whitford, failed to ignite things again and the group found themselves with minimal label support by 1984.

A compilation album, The Music Still Does the Talking: The Best of the Joe Perry Project, was released by an Australian Indie Record label in 1999.

Perry released his first solo record, the self-titled Joe Perry, in May 2005. Recorded at his home studio (The Boneyard) in suburban Boston, with every instrument but the drums played by Perry himself. Critics also responded favorably; Rolling Stone magazine crowned it with three-and-a-half (out of five) stars, declaring “A Joe Perry solo joint? about time!” He was also nominated for “Best Rock Instrumental” at the 2006 Grammys for the track “Mercy” but lost to Les Paul. (Hey if you’re going to lose it might as well be to your hero right?)

In 2009, while on tour with Aerosmith, Joe Perry announced that he will be releasing a new Joe Perry Project album entitled “Have Guitar, Will Travel”, set to release the album on October 6, 2009. The first single from the album will be called “Long Way to Go.” This will mark the first Joe Perry Project album since 1983’s Once a Rocker, Always a Rocker, and the 5th Joe Perry solo album in total counting the 2005 self titled album.

Joe’s new and fifth solo CD Have Guitar, Will Travel, named by Joe Piscitelli, one of nearly 2,000 names given as part of a Twitter search, reveals even more intriguing layers of the guitarist who was immortalized in 2008 when Activision released the Guitar Hero®: Aerosmith, sales of which broke records and further solidified another generation of fans for Joe and Aerosmith.

Have Guitar Will Travel, follows self-produced solo releases including Let The Music Do The Talking (1980), Once A Rocker, Always A Rocker (1984) and I’ve Got The Rock ‘N’ Rolls Again (1981). Recorded this past Spring at the BoneYard, Perry’s state-of-the-art home studio, where Aerosmith’s Honkin’ On Bobo and Just Push Play were recorded, Have Guitar, Will Travel is a ten-song CD written and produced by Perry, complete with his trademark rock and blues ferocity.

The CD’s blazing first single “We’ve Got A Long Way To Go,” showcases the voice of a young German singer known as Hagen, found completely by chance on YouTube by Joe’s wife Billie. “I first called him from Cleveland when I went to perform at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Jam with Jeff Beck, Jimmy Page, Ron Wood, Flea and Metallica,” said Perry. “It took several minutes to convince him that it wasn’t a prank call, but a true invitation to audition to sing on the CD.” Hagen mans the microphone for five tracks, while Perry sings lead on four. The remaining tenth song is an instrumental entitled “Wooden Ships.”

“Freedom,” a hard-driving signature Perry track, was written during an election year. “On this record, as opposed to my last solo CD, I thought that I’d write a bit more about what is going on outside instead of inside, and freedom is a really good example of that,” said Perry. “It’s musically inspired by Hunter S. Thompson’s book “Fear and Loathing” that I read during the seventies. Those images have always stuck with me. In fact, I think I lived a bit of it.”

Still as scorching hot on guitar as he is preternaturally cool in his persona, Perry attracted an eclectic blend of musicians with whom he recorded. Drummer Ben Tileston, a Boston University percussion graduate, who plays drums with two of Perry’s sons in TAB The Band, joined an esteemed roster of some of the best that the music world has to offer; Bassist David Hull, who played with The Buddy Miles Band at 19 and was in the Joe Perry Project in the 80s, Paul Santo, whose played Hammond Organ/Pipe Organ with the likes of Ringo Starr, Eric Clapton and Ozzy Osbourne, drummers Scott Meeder and Marty Richards and Willie “Loco” Alexander, Boston’s “Godfather of Punk,” who was part of the Bostown sound of the band “the Bagatelle.”

It was Alexander who helped Perry pay tribute to the legendary Gene Vincent on the track “Head Kicked In Tonight.” “If Elvis was the “Dom Perignon,” Gene Vincent is the “White Lightening Moonshine” with a stiletto in his boot,” said Perry. “With the Boogie Woogie played by Willie (Alexander), we had a great time recording this song. It turned out to be quite a party.”

Perry is planning a “short, fast, hard tour” with the Joe Perry Project after Have Guitar, Will Travel is released. “That’s what I’m really looking forward to – getting back out there with some old friends and some other musicians and doing it like it used to be done.”

Perry’s solo credits include composing the theme song for the “Spiderman” animated TV series, as well as the instrumental music for the independent movie “This Thing of Ours,” which starred James Caan. In late 2006, at the personal invitation of Chuck Berry, Perry jammed with Mr. Berry and his band at his 80th birthday celebration at Blueberry Hill in St. Louis. Joe also lent his guitar virtuosity to Mick Jagger’s Goddess in the Doorway and played guitar on Les Paul & Friends: A Tribute To A Legend, amongst many others.

He was a huge influence on Slash, who after hearing Rocks decided to take up the guitar rather than race BMX. Slash owned Perry’s old ‘59 Les Paul, but later returned it as a birthday present.

http://www.joeperry.com/

A super rare gigantic Joe Perry Project poster.

The Victorian practice of a bride wearing something old, something new, something borrowed, something blue is still carried out today to bring newlyweds luck and a happy future. Book Group Magazine thinks this tried and true tradition translates into auspicious and audacious reading lists.

So, this week we’ll be suggesting good reads under the umbrella of something old (fiction classics), something new (newly released fiction), something borrowed (fiction from foreign authors), something true blue (non-fiction). Our wine and food pairings will undertake the same theme, looking at the old-stand-by’s, new cuisine and vintages, foreign dishes and wines and simple no-fuss finger-foods that work with a variety of labels.

Our first good-luck-book-group list looks like this:
 

S O M E T H I N G  Old

MY ANTONIA, by Willa Cather

“The best thing I’ve done is My Antonia,” recalled Willa Cather.  ”I feel I’ve made a contribution to American letters with that book.”
An unconventional novel of prairie life, My Antonia tells the story of a remarkable woman whose strength and passion epitomize the pioneer spirit. Antonia Shimerda returns to Black Hawk, Nebraska, to made a fresh start after eloping with a railway conductor following the tragic death of her father.  Accustomed to living in a sod house and toiling alongside the men in the fields, she is unprepared for the lecherous reaction her lush sensuality provokes when she moves to the city. Despite betrayal and crushing opposition, Antonia steadfastly pursues  her quest for happiness–a moving struggle that mirrors the quiet drama of the American  landscape. 

S O M E T H I N G  New

HOMER & LANGLEY by E.L. Doctorow

Homer and Langley Collyer are brothers–the one blind and deeply intuitive, the other damaged into madness, or perhaps greatness, by mustard gas in the Great War. They live as recluses in their once grand Fifth Avenue mansion, scavenging the city streets for things they think they can use, hoarding the daily newspapers as research for Langley’s proposed dateless newspaper whose reportage will be as prophecy. Yet the epic events of the century play out in the lives of the two brothers–wars, political movements, technological advances–and even though they want nothing more than to shut out the world, history seems to pass through their cluttered house in the persons of immigrants, prostitutes, society women, government agents, gangsters, jazz musicians . . . and their housebound lives are fraught with odyssean peril as they struggle to survive and create meaning for themselves.

S O M E T H I N G  Borrowed

THE ANGEL’S GAME by Carlos Ruiz Zafon

In an abandoned mansion at the heart of Barcelona, a young man, David Martín, makes his living by writing sensationalist novels under a pseudonym. The survivor of a troubled childhood, he has taken refuge in the world of books and spends his nights spinning baroque tales about the city’s underworld. But perhaps his dark imaginings are not as strange as they seem, for in a locked room deep within the house lie photographs and letters hinting at the mysterious death of the previous owner. Once again, Zafón takes us into a dark, gothic universe first seen in The Shadow of the Wind and creates a breathtaking adventure of intrigue, romance, and tragedy. Through a dizzingly constructed labyrinth of secrets, the magic of books, passion, and friendship blend into a masterful story.

S O M E T H I N G  True Blue

NINE LIVES by Dan Baum

An outsider in a city that many outsiders have tried to understand, Dan Baum arrived in New Orleans to report on Katrina for The New Yorker and came to realize that the way to tell the story of the storm was to step back and tell the story of the city. From the ’60s through the aftermath of the hurricane, Baum follows, with empathy and joy, nine lives that could only happen in the Crescent City.

Happy Reading!

The only child of actress Annette Ekblom and actor Alun Lewis, Amelia Warner was born on June 4, 1982, in Liverpool, Merseyside, England. Because her parents seperated when she was very young, Amelia stayed with her mother. They moved to Ladbroke Grove when she was six years old. Amelia studied at the Royal Masonic School for Girls and then, when she was sixteen, at the College of Fine Arts in London. She also studied History of Art at Goldsmith’s College in London.

She was disovered by an agent when she and her friends performed a play in Covent Garden. It was because of this that she earned a place in the London Royal Court Theatre’s Youth program. Although she was encouraged to pursue an education over an acting career, Amelia made her television debut on the program “Kavanagh Q.C.” and went on to snag a couple more television roles. It wasn’t until the BBC adaption of Lorna Doone, in which Amelia played the title character, that a broader audience would start to take notice. She has since appeared in more films: alongside Kate Winslet and Joaquin Phoenix Quills, briefly in Mansfield Park, Nine Lives with Paris Hilton, to name a few. In spite of her acting career, Amelia still managed to acquire decent grades.

From July to November 2001, Amelia was married to Irish actor, Colin Farrell.

Amelia was recently seen in the film, The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising, which came out October, 2007. In 2008, she will be seen starring in The Echo.

Sinopse:

Nine Lives é um filme forte que combina nove monologos e cenas de sexo para contar a vida de nove pessoas (oito dos quais são homossexuais) e como eles estão todos interligados. Atores bons e convincentes. Uma história sobre os ascendentes e os desafios das relações que podem dizer respeito a todos.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6OKsAE2FkTs

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Yesterday I went and bought a book of Keats, since he is following me, and was particularly struck by his poem “To a cat.”

Why?

Because as near as I can figure, it’s a poem about Xander (or, as Kid #2 calls him, Mister Doctor Alexander).

Cat! who hast pass’d thy grand cliacteric,
How many mice and rats hast in thy days
Destroy’d? – How many tit bits stolen? Gaze
With those bright languid segments green, and prick
Those velvet ears – but pr’ythee do not stick
Thy latent talons in me – and upraise
Thy gentle mew – and tell me all thy frays
Of fish and mice, and rats and tender chick.
Nay, look not down, nor lick thy dainty wrists -
For all the wheezy asthma, – and for all
Thy tail’s tip is nick’d off – and though the fists
Of many a maid have given thee many a mail,
Still is that fur as soft as when the lists
In youth thou enter’dst on glass bottled wall.

Xander is much like this in personality, but also he is asthmatic and missing the tip of his tail.

Overall I thought this explained a lot.

More about Keats, and why I think he’s following me, later.

One of my favourite International Tamil voices, Susheela Raman is back in concert and this time, it’s a very special show at The Barbican, one of my favourite music venues. What impresses me the most about Susheela’s shows and general presence, is her re-imagining of her Tamil roots, from the devotional (Bhakti) aspect to her clothes and accessories (her Mangal Sutra aka Thaali is strung into a beautiful choker, which is inherently distinctive and feminine) to her choice of musicians. At her incredibly spiritual shows, one can hear the Temple instruments of Nadhaswaram and Thavil and also the vibrant guitars of Sam Mills, while the vocals of young British artistes like the brothers Raghunathan (Karthik and Kumar on vocals and violin respectively) add to the experience. Prepare to be captivated!

Yesterday while I was in Bellingham my cousin Robin rang and asked if she and her sister Pat could bring my Uncle Bob (a man who has nine lives!) down to Seattle to visit mom on Tuesday? Certainly, I said, What time do you think…? See my mother’s sister Reva married military and so everyone on that limb of the family tree gets up EARLY AS HELL. They’re all teachers and perfect and their yards are out of Sunset Magazine (much of that family has gone to church or is downright Christian whereas my father’s side and my siblings and I never have). Oh, about 11:00 she says.

ELEVEN GD O’CLOCK! My mother doesn’t even get up before noon. I stay up until 4 or 5 AM working on stuff and sleep in, too. Also…let’s just say that I am messy. I am not dirty, just messy with piles of video stuff here, illustration tablets there, books and brushes and prints akimbo. On top of that my mother’s house is like the house of Miss Havisham in Great Expectations with cobwebs and old furniture and missing things that got too ruined and were never replaced. I mean what is the point of getting a new living room couch when Bix LIVES on it with his chin resting on one arm where the fabric is very…encrusted.

Also, I haven’t gotten out and weeded the front beds lately so tonight I got out there and cleaned out the beds and filled the ENTIRE yard waste bin with yard waste — all the way to the top (and it was just picked up this morning). While weeding I didn’t want to disturb two spider webs above the hose’s spigot so I crawled under the shrubbery to turn it on then…realized after I’d watered down the walkways and patio and yard that I’d have to crawl through what was now mud. Check.

I also washed all of the windows on the first floor inside and out. All the while mom and the dogs sat on the window seat watching me work, I mean for hours. This reminds me that while I was growing up my mother worked like a squirrel all over the house and yard, including doing her parents’ yard every week, while I was out getting high or drunk or in trouble or trying on clothes or listening to LPs on my stereo that folded up into a suitcase.  I didn’t do shit, never had chores a bedtime a rule a consequence. I was a wild child who drew pictures when she wasn’t messing around, getting suspended from school, making out.

Tonight I also went to the store and bought brie (the cliche of cheeses!) shot through with bleu cheese, gourmet crackers, fruit, some veges and humus, wine and powdered Greek pastries. Oh, and a bouquet of flowers to…distract from the cobwebs. Will have to set an alarm in order to get up and get ready for what is left of the Waldburger clan (i.e. my Aunt Reva, Uncle Bob’s wife and my mother’s only sibling is passed away). The Waldburger’s: no addicts, no white trash, no lesbians, no gays, no artists who live with their mothers and barely earn enough to pay their medical and car insurances.

And I love them so.

My mother's younger sister Reva who passed away a few years ago.

I have to admit that I have had more-than-a-little-crush on hottie (and reportedly P Diddy-sig-0ther), Cassie, for quite sometime.  Yeah, as for most, the crush has very little to do with her singing chops/career and more to do with the undeniable fact that she is absolutely GORGEOUS!  Even after chopping quadrants of her hair off to look like a client of a ravenous Edward Scissorhands, I still got love for this exotic beauty.

Obviously taking some advice from her reported beau about longevity and diversifying, Cassie is said to be starting her own line this coming fall.  According to People.com the budding mogul will do a collaboration with the label DimePiece.  The line within a line called Nine Lives will feature tee shirts.

File under: YUM!  I need a gay intervention, yet again.  Pass me those platforms circa 1995, STAT!

HBO just recently aired a special entitled The Nine Lives of Marion Barry, a documentary based on the life of the former DC Mayor.  The title alone speaks volumes.  I’m not sure if drama follows Barry or if it’s his nature to be caught up in such drama.  Mr. Barry is most infamous for that fateful day of January 18, 1990, in which he was arrested with former girlfriend, Hazel “Rasheeda” Moore, in a sting operation at the Vista Hotel by the FBI for crack cocaine use and possession. This incident was widely broadcast on network television and shows an enraged Barry lashing out, “That Bitch Set Me Up.”  With this type of behavior, I’m not so sure I want this individual representing me as Mayor or city council but DC residents are far more forgiving, many even saying that he’s done so much for DC. 

Following his arrest and serving six months in prison, Mr. Barry’s world started to crumble—his wife and son quickly moved out and moved on with their lives.  Many whites abandoned the mayor, while a significant number of their black counterparts were forgiving and understood what redemption was all about.  But wait, Barry didn’t let that stop him from running and successfully winning the bid for Ward 8 city council.  Why are we so forgiving when it comes to Marion Barry, let me take a look at his record and see what he’s done for DC and this might explain why natives have a love-hate relationship with the former DC Mayor.  Let’s see, during Barry’s terms as mayor, he helped rebuild the District’s downtown, gave more than 100,000 young people summer jobs, increased senior citizen involvement and support of their programs, decreased the racism that affects non-whites, provided a catalyst for thousands of jobs for African-Americans and others who had been left out, helped ex-offenders make the transition back into the wider society, brought Washington from a sleepy southern town to a thriving metropolis and a cosmopolitan city, provided an example of inspiration and hope that a person can fall and rise again, fought constantly and tirelessly for Home Rule and democracy for the District, was a booster for the city, traveled widely spreading the word about what the city has to offer, and worked closely with business leaders to bring increased commerce and recognition to America’s First City.  Mr. Barry has dedicated his life to public service and has accomplished many things, but is this a fair balance?  Does the good outweigh the bad? 

Since his 1990 debacle, Mr. Barry has had many run-ins with the law– in 2002, traces of marijuana and cocaine were found in his car after he was stopped in Southwest DC–no charges were filed, and Barry claimed the drugs were planted; in 2005, he plead guilty to misdemeanor charges stemming from an IRS investigation; in 2006, he was pulled over for alleged traffic violations and in 2009 he was taken into custody for allegedly stalking his ex-girlfriend, Donna Watts-Brighthaupt. 

Drama is not following Mr. Barry, he’s entangled in this type of lifestyle because it’s a part of his character.  He has had numerous opportunities to get it right but chose to take a different path each time.  I think the residents of DC deserve better and its far time to start looking at what he’s doing for the city now instead of what he’s done for the city in the past.  Mr. Barry is in a position to do great things but insist on being part of the scum that Mayor Adrian Fenty is trying to get off the streets and behind bars where they should be. 

I think Mr. Barry should focus more of his attention and efforts on education, fighting crime and cleaning up the neighborhood instead of young women, booze and drugs.

Comenzamos con la primera de dos partes:

AC/DC.- Corriente alterna/corriente continua (alternating current/direct current), es el significado de esta banda de hard rock formada en 1973, por los hermanos escoceses Malcolm y Angus Young. Los dejo con “Thunderstuck” desprendido del álbum “The Razors adges”, uno de los discos mas exitosos de este grupo (por cierto que este tema fue durante mucho tiempo la rola de apertura de un programa local de aquí de monterrey, “Desvelados”):

Aerosmith.- Banda de rock formada en los 70’s, cuentan con un total de 30 discográficas entre las que destacan su primer disco homónimo, Permanent Vacation, Get a grip o Nine lives donde aparece la canción que les dejo; “Pink”:

Air suplpply.- Grupo de rock-pop creado en 1975, activo en la actualidad. Toda mi vida desde que conozco esta banda, pensé que el vocalista era una mujer, pues posee una voz muy suave que parece de dama, pero esa falsa ilusión termino el día que vi este video hace ya algunos años…

Al Stewart.- Cantante británico, nacido en 1945. Aunque tiene muchos discos e infinidad de canciones, la que le dio mas reconocimiento fue “The year of the cat” en 1976, producida por Alan parson (también incluido en el repertorio). Sin duda una de las canciones que mas disfruto escuchar, pues es tranquila, cuenta con el sonido de un potente piano, una voz muy dócil, simplemente deliciosa…

Alan Parson Project.- Grupo británico de rock progresivo formado en 1975. Estaba liderado por Alan Parsons, Eric Woolfson y en él participaron varias alineaciones de músicos, así como el arreglista y director de orquesta Andrew Powell. La rola que mas me gusta es “Eye in the sky” de 1982, desprendido del álbum homónimo a esta canción:

Alanis Morissette.- Cantante canadiense, nacida en 1974. Hay que reconocer que no es la mujer más guapa en el mundo de la música, (mi hermano la llamaba “Caballis Morissette”, imagínense porqué) pero hablando de hacer buena música, a quien le importa si sus facciones no son los más finos. A lo largo de su carrera ha sido galardonada con siete Premios Grammy, incluyendo Álbum del año por Jagged Little Pill en 1996 y doce premios Juno. Dudé mucho sobre cual video seria el mejor, pues tengo varias favoritas de ella, pero al final quedo “Hands clean”:

Alicia Keys.- Es el nombre artístico de Alicia Augello Cook, cantante y compositora de R&B y soul. Desde la primera vez que la vi me cautivo su forma de cantar, pues poseía una voz potente y llena de fuerza a sus apenas 20 años de edad, cuando lanzó su primer sencillo “Fallin’”. Una de mis cantantes favoritas de todos los tiempos; inteligente, guapa, exitosa, la clase de mujer que toda mujer desearía ser y que cualquier hombre desearía tener… fue duro tomar la decisión de mi canción favorita, pero tengo que dejan su primer sencillo, porque es fantástico:

Ambrosia.- Grupo formado en Los Ángeles en 1970 por David Pack y Royce Jones, se desintegraron en 1982 y retomaron sus posiciones en 1989. No pude encontrar el video de mi canción favorita de esta banda, “How much to feel” (si pueden, búsquenla, esta buena!), pero a cambio les dejo otro buen tema; “You’re the only woman”

America.- Grupo musical inglés de folk rock, la banda tuvo gran popularidad entre los comienzos de 1970, hasta los inicios de los 80’s. Siete de sus álbumes fueron producidos por George Martin, el famoso productor de los Beatles. Sus canciones más conocidas han sido: A Horse with No Name, Sister Golden Hair, Ventura Highway, I Need You o You Can Do Magic, entre otras. Tin man también se encuentra entre las más famosas, he aquí el video, en vivo, al estilo de cómo los que me gustan:

Hasta aquí termina la mitad este listado con la primera vocal del alfabeto.

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