On seeing the positive side
A couple of months ago, I watched Neil Pasricha’s wonderful TED talk, The 3 A’s of awesome. I had not heard of Pasricha before watching this talk; he started writing a blog called 1000 Awesome Things and that led to a Webby award and then a book. You should watch the talk but the short [...]
Back from vanvas*
It’s hard to figure out how to come back from a long absence, especially when you didn’t really intend to be absent for so long. But, sometimes these things take on a life of their own and you end up being absent for longer than you thought you would. Anyway, for pretty much the whole [...]
Don’t let the Canadian government silence Franke James
It seems the the Canadian Government does not like what Franke James has to say and that they’re prepared to block an art show to ensure that she is silenced. Yes, an art show. Franke, who is an artist and author of Bothered by My Green Conscience (and creator of other superb visual essays), and [...]
The new year feels old already
2010 flew by so fast and we’re already 9 days into 2011, and it feels like an old year already. Maybe it’s just deja vu — this does happen every year, no? I’m not sure if I’ll look back on 2010 a few years later and remember it differently, but right now I can’t say [...]
Strand Book Festival 2010
My favourite book festival in Bangalore is back. The Annual Strand Book Festival at Basava Bhavan, Opp. Hotel Chalukya and Sophia School, Bangalore Fri 26 Nov – Sun 12 Dec 10 – 8.30pm Discounts up to 80% Parking in and around the venue. I’ve been for a few years now and I always find something [...]
Why do we use only blue or black ink?
Lately, I’ve been wondering why we predominantly write with pens that have inks in two colours: blue or black. I remember that in school we were explicitly told not to use green, purple, or heaven-forbid, red pens. The penalty was death. I’m kidding, the teachers only caned us. I remember that the school principal used [...]
2 States (and Chetan Bhagat)
I hadn’t read any books by Chetan Bhagat until a friend passed on 2 States to me and asked me to read it. I took my time getting to read the book and when I did I finished it pretty fast. I didn’t like the book well enough to read Bhagat’s other work but I [...]
What the Dog Saw
When I bought the book, I hadn’t realized that Macolm Gladwell’s What the Dog Saw was a series of essays selected from his New Yorker articles. No matter, since I hadn’t read most of them anyway. One thing about Gladwell is that he writes in a way that makes the story interesting and accessible and [...]
Bothered by my Green Conscience
It’s no secret to anyone who reads this blog that I’m a fan of Franke James’ visual essays. I’ve linked to her work, I’ve blogged about it, and tweeted about it as well. (Franke James, for those of you not in the know, is a multiple award winning author and artist, who lives in Toronto.) [...]
