Crabs and Beer

Dec

2020

The Association of Small Bombs

I just finished reading ‘The Association of Small Bombs’, Karan Mahajan’s second novel. I really enjoyed it and, apparently, so did many others:

National Book Award Finalist
Winner of the New York Public Library Young Lions Fiction Award
Winner of the American Academy of Arts & Letters Rosenthal Family Foundation Award
Winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Award
Winner of the Bard Fiction Prize
One of the New York Times Book Review’s Ten Best Books of the Year
One of Granta’s Best Young American Novelists
A Washington Post Notable Fiction Book of the Year
PEN Center USA Literary Award Finalist for Fiction
Simpson Family Literary Prize Finalist
Shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature
Longlisted for the FT/Oppenheimer Emerging Voices Award

Named a Best Book of the Year by: Buzzfeed, Esquire, New York magazine, The Huffington Post, The Guardian, The AV Club, The Fader, Redbook, Electric Literature, Book Riot, Bustle, Good magazine, PureWow, and PopSugar

We read from time to time about terrorist attacks in western cities but hear little about many similar attacks in other parts of the world including South Asia as though we consider it to be normal. This is an expansive and humane novel that explores the makers of those ‘small bombs’, the victims, the lives of those who place the bombs and the long-lasting effects of the bombs.

When brothers Tushar and Nakul Khurana, two Delhi schoolboys, pick up their family’s television set at a repair shop with their friend Mansoor Ahmed one day in 1996, disaster strikes without warning. A bomb—one of the many “small” bombs that go off seemingly unheralded across the world—detonates in the Delhi marketplace, instantly claiming the lives of the Khurana boys, to the devastation of their parents. Mansoor survives, bearing the physical and psychological effects of the bomb. After a brief stint at university in America, Mansoor returns to Delhi, where his life becomes entangled with the mysterious and charismatic Ayub, a fearless young activist whose own allegiances and beliefs are more malleable than Mansoor could imagine. Woven among the story of the Khuranas and the Ahmeds is the gripping tale of Shockie, a Kashmiri bomb maker who has forsaken his own life for the independence of his homeland.

The book explores not only the lives of the victims but the inner lives of the terrorists – their ex-girlfriends, their diabetic parents and their dreams and doubts. It’s interesting that none of the terrorists in this novel are radicalized Muslims. Instead they political activists in pursuit of independence for Kashmir or an end to political violence against Muslims under the government of Narendra Modi.

As I said at the beginning, I really enjoyed this book and you might enjoy it too. The New York Times has an excellent review which you can find HERE.

Dec

2020

F..F..F..Friday!!!

Getting to be that time!

Uh oh…

That time of year!

Our tree goes up this weekend. Wish us luck.

Today is the birthday (in 1944) of Dennis Wilson, co-founder of The Beach Boys. He was the drummer and the middle brother between band-mates Brian Wilson and Carl Wilson. The had dozens of hits including this one.

Dec

2020

A Chilly Thursday

The irony is deep…

Musical moment. This day in 1947, Patti Page recorded her first hit. I couldn’t find a good copy of ‘Confess’, but here’s this one- another big hit. She had a remarkable voice.

Dec

2020

Georges Seurat

Today is the birthday (in 1859) of Georges Seurat, a French Post-Impressionist Artist who devised the painting techniques known as chromolumarism and pointillism. His large scale work, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte (above), is one of the iconic works of late 19th Century painting. If you look at it carefully you can see it is made up of tiny brush strokes of different colors that appear to the viewer to create a third color.

Seurat was very much influenced by scientists of the time who were researching color, optical effects and perception. One of the scientists, Michel Eugène Chevreul, discovered that two colors, juxtaposed or slightly overlapping would have the effect of another color when viewed from a distance. This phenomenon became the basis of the pointillist technique of the neoimpressionist painters. Chevreul also realized that the impression one sees after looking at a particular color is the complementary color. If one stares at a red object, one may see a cyan echo of the original object due to retinal persistence.

Seurat believed that a painter could use colors, especially complementary colors, to create harmony and emotion in the same way a composer uses counterpoint and variation to create harmony in music.

This painting, The Circus, was Seurat’s final work and demonstrates to a degree his theories of color. Note that he carried the pointillism even to the frame.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/41/Georges_Seurat%2C_1891%2C_Le_Cirque_%28The_Circus%29%2C_oil_on_canvas%2C_185_x_152_cm%2C_Mus%C3%A9e_d%27Orsay.jpg

Seurat died in 1891 at the age of 31. He is buried in Paris. at the Cimetière du Père-Lachaise.

I really like his work, particularly his use of color. I’m amazed at the amount of work that must have gone into each of his paintings. The ‘Sunday on the Grand Jatte is huge – 10 feet wide! It’s at the Art Institute of Chicago. Go and see it when you are next there. If you can’t get to Chicago, there’s a much larger version on Wikimedia Commons HERE.