Showreel Blues

It's one of those stomach-filling, incredibly reassuring sensations: the lifting of at least some of the haze that obscures our eyes.

I've come [at least temporarily] to a conclusion that this is one way of looking at the eternal question of what this crazy, bewildering, vast yet microcosmic, stagnant yet perpetually changing existence really may be at least partially about: illusion. It's as if we are submerged, at birth, into a hazy atmosphere full of dust particles [too much Star Trek, as per usual], and everything that we acquire, execute, plan and orchestrate is all within the limits of that obscured vision.

Goals that elude us, limits that haunt us, insecurities that plague us... we know there's a clue to unravelling all of these. Perhaps the key is to stop trying (but not too early), to pull back, detach, and perhaps then, some of the dust will evaporate, revealing glimmering fissures through which we perceive the truth.

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When I looked anew at the production showreel I submitted for grad school, I felt like I some of the layers began to thin out.

[The very term "showreel" makes my stomach quaver. It coveys images of cocky, action-oriented A-type personalities swaggering into a studio and securing a film deal through sheer arrogance and the veneer of championing some celebrated cause of the day.]

I look at this showreel now, and I see the a jam-packed linear timeline of a completely disconnected array of products that have been squashed together. The slow-paced, harmonious circles of an individual's life blending together in Urban Sketches lose their meaning when met with the abrupt assembly line of a sharply segmented, cut-and-pasted studio format that neatly packages break-neck speed tech-related information bytes.

Between the layers upon layers of "quirky" graphics, stylized montages and quick-paced edits, I see a myriad mouse-clicks, ribbons upon ribbons of my life-span sucked into the vacuum of transitions and 20 minute time structures.

I see an inner expression of the world impinged by the linearity of the [non-linear] editing timeline.

When I think of what I would say an interview about what I wanted to do with my, and as filmmaker, I realize I don't have a plan, a central driving force theme. It's not that the themes aren't there. They're in the process of emerging into focus like images from multiples lenses [the way your brain brings into focus the conflicting images from your two eyes].

Awakening To Her Final Sleep.

When I first started this blog (as just a reading blog) and was surfing to see if there was possibly anyone else in the world who would be reading Kate Chopin (needless to say, there was), I read in someone else's post that it ends tragically. I managed to keep myself from performing those spontaneous calculations when someone presents you with information you don't want to know.

However, that didn't stop me honing into the eventuality of the final scene.

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The choice of immediately placing Edna in Grand Isle, once again, had a delirious sense of time warp. The fact that she is there out of season, when the place doesn't exude the same hospitable vibe, but more of a barren, deserted feeling, eerily starts creeping up on the reader like a foreshadower of the end. Our final vision of Edna is naked, without any garments, completely exposed to the elements. This is such a remarkable transformation from the start; such a perfect evolution of her awakening process. There have been points earlier in the book when Chopin draws our attention towards Edna's relationship to her clothes, having her remove them like shackles:

"Edna, left alone in the little room, loosened her clothes, removing the greater part of them. She bathed her face, neck and arms in the basin that stood between the windows. She took off her shoes and stockings and stretched herself in the very centre of the high, white bed."

The scene above takes place after Edna leaves a church service with Robert after a "feeling of oppression and drowsiness overcomes" her. That day can perhaps be described as a first turning point in her awakening process. The oppression she feels suggests an intensity of perception and a hyper awareness of her surroundings from which she breaks free by taking refuge in Madam Antoine's little house. Her deep afternoon slumber in the pristine, serene white room in the middle of the bright, hot day spells a certain transcendence.

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To find her, at the novel's end, completely alone, without clothes, in the same sea that first awakens her, is a fitting end to say the least. As she walks onwards into the horizon, letting go of any pangs of terror and connection, it's as if a tight ball has been completely unwound and its structure dissolved into oblivion...

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Surrendering to Love.

Finally, the central passion of this story sees some fruition.

I can't help thinking along those terms as I forge the broken link in my stream of reading Chopin. I've enjoyed meandering around many different facets of the book - the feminist themes - the varying personas of Edna - etc. Now that we come to some materialization of the silent passion between Robert and Edna, I can't help but going back to that gorgeous line:

"...the same glance which had penetrated to

the sleeping places of her soul and awakened them."

The glance referred to here so majestically is of course, none other than Robert Lebrun's. [I love how any analysis / description about period writing always refers to lead male characters with their full name.]  I realize I always tend to struggle against looking at a novel as a love story, as much as I can. I always try to fit it into context, to see how the central or multiple threads of love and relationships reflect on the social undercurrents or overtones of the piece. I think someone else quoted this line and it made it stand out and remind me that the story is about this passion, this love, and that love is very much connected to the absolute main theme of the book: awakening.

Not only does this quote, I must sadly admit, rather cheesily take my breath away, it also provides a relationship epiphany for real life:

The passions / infatuations or deepest and most significant relationships of our lives could possibly be those that we associate, for some reason, with a time period, process or sentiment in our lives that we cherish or cling to. Perhaps this is just a new packaging of an old truth: that we fall in love with versions of ourselves at a certain time, and the commitment and love spun from that time binds us together (hopefully) as we change.

This quote illuminates the same for Edna, I feel, with such discerning elegance. Besides the aforementioned Darcy-esque pang of quavering passion that it renders amongst many a girlish reader [or so I hope and assume], it almost provides some stability in the rather daring process of her awakening. She does experience sensuality during this phase apart from Robert, and her enjoyment and awareness of this side of herself emboldens her. But it is, as we are reminded here, Robert who... [urh, if you will].. planted the seeds.

It's strange how, as a reader, I felt a certain nocturnal, balmy magic slip away from the text as Edna leaves the sea side and settles back into her city life. It is truly as if that place, time and Robert all conspired together to set her free.

Onwards I read.

Mushrooms & Tomatoes: A ritual

I can't say enough about the combination of these ivory mushrooms with florid, squishy cherry tomatoes.





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A few months ago I was experimenting with combinations of mushrooms, tomatoes, spinach, and mushrooms, tomatoes and spinach with eggs, for breakfast. This particular rendition kind of stuck.




It's an almost daily fall back now.

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I've started adding a crushed clove of garlic in the olive oil before burnishing the mushrooms' alabaster skins.

There's something so satisfying, so earthily grounding, about knowing that you're releasing these robust, plentiful flavours at the start of the day. Just inhaling sizzling garlic makes you feel validated somehow.




Mingled with this is the nutty smokiness released by the mushrooms. After they're browned and softened, a mellow flush of the cherry tomatoes descends.  The sharpness of rock or sea salt against the delicate, blended flavours is so satisfying.

Almost as essential as...

The magic lemon.

Lemon and sea salt seasoning mushrooms and cherry tomatoes sautéed in garlic and olive oil. Mmmm hmm. On toast. For breakfast.

Maybe when its a midday snack and not breakfast, or a really, [really] light dinner in a fit of health-consciousness, one could add a sprig [ had to get that TV chef term out of my system] of a fresh herb like coriander or mint [a.k.a.  dhaniya paudina, the only two herbs one tends to have lying around in these parts].

Also, if feeling hungry for more flavour, a few shavings of cheese? Would be great if its not KRAFT square packs, maybe something like real sharp cheddar or goats cheese, but then again, the lying around factor, plus little quirks like reality, availability and money, tend to reign supreme.

Even as it is, this is a satisfying stash of flavours, carbs and veggies to start the day. With a rich, velvety blend of coffee in close pursuit, it's like an aphrodisiac for palette-awakening.

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Witch-hunts, cupcakes and Arthur Miller @ T2F

6:20 pm, T2F, Karachi.
I've just tucked A. into an essay.

Phew.

[caption id="attachment_1133" align="alignnone" width="300" caption="Muffins and Murals at T2F"]
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What am I doing, pretending to teach my brother o'level literature? Apart from the kind family-members and supportive friends who would indulge my attention-seeking "flowery" use of language, what merit do I actually have to say that I can help this young man do well in O'levels?

Of course, as I learned quickly, there's a very big distinction between helping someone familiarize, interpret and really connect with literature, and having them do well in the affectionately remembered Cambridge board examinations.

Well, I think today's been a slight improvement. I mean, I still haven't read The Crucible apart from the first scene, but why should that really matter? No I'm being serious. In fact, I've noticed that so much of the high school approach to literature is giving one the tools to deal with the text, rather than directly dealing with the text.

Today, for example, I realized that in the interest of time, this may be one of those rare occasions when reading the introduction may actually be useful. I'm glad I did. Not only did it alleviate some of my rather largely encompassing ignorance about at least one important volume of literature, but it also provided me a useful "angle", or hook, to focus on with A.

Today was all about historical context.

Not only did I not realize how rooted in fact Miller's play actually is, but I was also able to make notes that provided A. with some solid insight. I had heard of the iconic figure of Tituba, probably in reference to reading Toni Morrison's Beloved or in some other college literature course. The fact that Miller's Crucible opens right in the wake of the very first bout of alleged witchcraft, is historically spine-tingling. The "amateur dabbling in the supernatural by a group of adolescent girls in Salem, Massachusetts in 1692" sowed some very dark, dank seeds in the small, newly settled community of Salem. As also mentioned in the introduction:

"The seeds of this terrifying event had grown in the fertile ground of a society under great pressure both to defend its Christian way of life in a new continent and to defend its very life against attacks by Indians in the land behind them. The only safeguard against evil of all kinds was felt to lie in a strict code of laws imposing conformity on all its inhabitants. There was no room in Salem for individuality.”

Although people look back on the witch trials of Salem as a geographically self-contained phenomena, its overtones of fear and paranoia are hard to forget. I can't help, for example, making a parallel between "safeguard against evil" and "axis of evil."

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In any case,  A. seemed to appreciate this bigger picture approach.

So we talked about it, I took him through my notes. I made him read the full introduction himself, and then I set him a question. I tried to deter him again from focussing on notes as just material he can scan and attempt to retain for mere regurgitation in the all-knowing O'level.

But I had to offer a strategy as to why this kind of free-flowing connection is important. The question, in all fairness, was to get him to start writing about literature, which is what the exam is really all about.

Teeny weeny progress.

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In between, we ate muffins. Both of us noticed the warm baking aroma as soon as we walked in. I rebuked him for wanting to pay for his older sister, then discovered I didn't have any cash.

The muffins were pure chocolately indulgence though.

Easy, creamy, life-simplifying icing atop sponge..

In the preliminary bathroom visit, I was delighted to discover the presence of a particularly psychedelic chalkboard.

Curiously satisfying impromptu doodling ensued.
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Olfactory futurism & Cocoa Rising.

I was recently watching Star Trek TNG, like I often do, and in one of the later Season 3 episodes, a morally apathetic, keenly twisted collector of rarities shows Lieutenant-Commander Data (whom he has also "collected") an ancient Earth relic: a baseball card that he has preserved - along with its... smell.

That's right.

As the ever-empirically obsessed, intensely human-like android methodically sniffs the air as the card's framing is opened, the evil-collector-man squeals with delight and says:

"Bubblegum. We've preserved the smell."

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As I seal in dripping, velvety lumps of batter into little mounds and seal them behind the oven door, the sumptuous satisfaction of it is serenaded by the rich aroma of rising cocoa.

Now that's a smell I wish could be preserved.

Not so much to use it again in any practical way, but just to document the very experience of that age-old ritual of domesticity:

baking.

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I firmly believe this age-old process is so satisfying because it touches some deep, fathomless primeval current inside us.

For me at least, the mystique of specialized baking utensils, with their rounded, plasticky comfort always brings back some of those multi-sensory flashes of childhood. There's something so definitive and compartmentalized about the baking process as compared to other food. It's a more fundamental approach: a few basic elements that do very predictable and unalterable things to each other. Not like the subtle cross-overs between different flavours you can play with in regular cooking.

Perhaps that's the science behind its ritualistic balm for the psyche.

Egg, milk, yeast, heat correspond to our basic instinct for hearth, domesticity, control, nurturing.

In any case, for many of us, it's always an experience that takes away the sharp angles of every day life and becomes more than a practical function. My recent muffin batches have been eaten by everyone except me. Happily so. It's a visual feast, experimental play and an activity no one will ever criticize you for doing.

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RECIPE:

FLOUR: 1 3/4 cups or 250 g

PLAIN/CASTER SUGAR: 3/4 cup or 175 g

BAKING SODA: 1/2 tsp

BAKING POWDER: 2 tsp

COCOA: 2 tablespoons

CHOCOLATE CHIPS / CHUNKS: little less than 1 cup

MILK: 250 ml

VEG. OIL: 90 ml

BAKING:

PRE- PREP:  Oven preheat to 200 degrees C • Line muffin tray with muffin paper or grease each cup •Make sure ingredients are room temp before baking • Egg from fridge should be put in medium temp water to take chill off • If flour in fridge (like in hot sticky climates like mine), it'll need some time to warm.

ACTION: Mix all dry ingredients in large bowl • Put all wet ingredients in measuring jug • Mix! • If you like, sprinkle more chocolate chips on batter and then spoon out into muffin tray. Bake for 20 min (do knife dip test a little before incase)

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The Chocolate Chip Muffin recipe from Nigella is amazingly simple. I got sucked into muffins a few months ago, but was refraining from making such a predictable combination of flavours as chocolate chip, since I just love finding myself knee-deep in the complex before I even get past basics. But, since I was in a hurry and had limited ingredients, this seemed to fit the bill.

I simply love using cocoa in baking, just for the visual you get when you sprinkle it on flour. It's like you're playing with real powder pigments. Although i love having the iPhone handy, these aren't the best images, but still.

[recipe note: had only 1 1/2 cups flour instead of 1 3/4 -went ahead and used and just cut down on milk a weee bit later. no biggie]


As many recipes from the revered Domestic Goddess, [whose status as muse for Tim Burton in shaping his "White Queen" just reaffirmed my absolute and undying love for her] this one also includes a double whammy of chocolate. No need to say anything here.

Dark, jagged chunks of almost ebony crisply stud the pristine whiteness.

Ok, something had to be said.

[recipe note: didn't have chocolate chips so instead used large knife to cut off jagged chunks from slab of cooking chocolate. it was semi-sweet chocolate (which really isn't very sweet) so the muffins had a slight bitter aftertaste. i personally prefer this to saccharine sweetness any day, but on hindsight it wouldn't have hurt to add an extra taste of orange zest or vanilla, to make up. the muffins were generally quite amicably consumed, though.]

I don't know about you, but this is the part in a runny, choclately batter like this that really hits home.

Literally.

It's that scrape of the spatula against the plastic bowl, as everything turns shapely, smooth, chocolatey, swirly. Those thick chunks of ooziness that form in the wake of the spatula movement really seem to evoke some kind of distinct childhood memory.

[recipe note: ok so i forgot to add an egg to the milk and oil combo - had left it in a bowl of room temp water to take the chill off - as no other than DG herself advises to do so in her most noteworthy compilation of kitchen wisdom. i threw it in hastily after adding the milk and oil but no worries there. ]

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So finally, we had one of the easiest, thickest, most promisingly chocolate batters ready to become little brown puffs.

Dolloped by the spoonful into the muffin tin, they sat in sublime liquid serenity, till heat conjured forth from their depths a deep, rich, earthy aroma that would bring sheer love to any house.

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O'levels: the flip side

" Or is it only the breeze in its listlessness

Traveling across the wet mead to me here

You being ever dissolved to wan wistlessness

Heard no more again far or near"

The Voice, Thomas Hardy

Today was the second session of O' level literature "tuitions" I carried out for my brother.

This is truly something I never thought I'd be doing, but I have to say it was the fastest hour and half that went by in a long time. Whether that meant I was talking to much, or whether I actually helped A. in someway is a question I'd rather not over-analyze just yet.

As I read the first poem, inwardly gathering the multitude of metaphorical ramifications swimming through my head, my first high-strung utterance was cut off with matter-of-fact, thoroughly non-wishy-washy statement: "It's about his wife." My second [utterance] with: "She dies."

There were definitely a few other things that I learned - like the fact that you would never say "stanza 3," but only "third stanza." An outright rejection of Cafe Mocha (a clever way, I assured myself, of introducing my innocent to the wiles of caffeine and getting him to focus just that much more), and a summing of up of the dynamic T2F as "different," and Thomas Hardy, me and A. were out the door.

Lily Closure

Mom: "I'm throwing these lillies away because they've done their time"

Lifecycle Chiaruscuro

From the first pale flush of pink, to the deep burgundy currents of initial death, these Lillies have enchanted me ever since I met them.

Watching two luscious curls disattach and fall gently downward as I fixed my morning tea, they seemed to call out to me to witness their exquisite drama one more time.

Burnished sienna stripe a la caffeine

The staff at a staunchly frequented cafe gave us this impromptu minimalist rendition of a mocha. It's almost seeping through the foam, ink-like.

Lilies on the Dining Table

Three Lillies left from party a week ago. Have been taking in their scent everyday. Mom replaced them in reduced amount today. Each luscious curling petal seems to stand out more in the cool, diffused, Caravaggio-esque light.

Impromptu use of iPhone camera. Not only has someone borrowed D40x, but just capturing without bringing another clunky gadget into the equation can be very compelling. The more intelligent focussing system of the 3G makes it a worthwhile upgrade when
capturing details like floral anatomy. You're welcome, Steve.

Living Room: a Space to Blossom

This is the living room in my mother's home.

Although she and I are both fond of flowers as much as the next person, they're not part of our daily repertoire. I happened to bring these back from a shoot where someone had extra. I couldn't quite suppress the joy of how their varied, old-wordly charm enhanced the same quality in my mother's mahogany abode.

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The home my mother and I shared with her parents was full of the old-fashioned presence of lace, the beauty of golden afternoon sunlight, and filigree-like chandeliers. This afternoon with its gilded warmth and the haughty, fussy dignity of gladiolas seemed to exude the charm of a bygone era.


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Glints of gold light up my mother's hair as she adds ritual to the place with her late afternoon tea and cigarette. The deep, glinting ochre reflects everywhere. In this moment, it's truly a sanctum of comfortable elegance, exuding well-being and harmony. .

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While the benign warmth of cream, ochre and gold wash over the background, i love how the details of stem, flora and follicle get accentuated in a sort of back-lit frieze

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