(the return of the) D-List

The only way to get out of a slump (lets just go ahead and admit it) is to try to snap out of it. So here's the easiest kind of post for me to do. Since the last D-list (back in May)- books have been read, movies watched and meals eaten so there should be plenty of fodder for this post. So lets plunge right into it, shall we?

Best Book : A slump also means that I haven't done a lot of reading for pleasure- despite it being summer. I did however do some re-reading and some reading of work related books. In never-read-before books, I finally read Upamanyu Chatterjee's English, August. English, August was one of the first of the wave of Indian writing in English that sprang up in the 1990's and I've always intended to read it but never got around to it. The book follows the lethargic, pot-filled and utterly sluggish life of Agastya Sen, in his first posting as an IAS officer. Madna, the town he gets posted to, is the stuff of modern Indian nightmares- a crumbling, unberably hot, dusty, dilapitated and provincial dump. For a Delhi-boy like Agastya, it's like being on another planet. Agastya is eminently unlikeable- superior, snobbish, lazy, cynical and a pathaological liar. Despite that and the somewhat overdone scatological references, I liked the authenticity of the book. The repetition of mindless interactions with prominent locals, the pitch perfect Indian officialese and Agastya's hours staring at the ceiling of his hot room all rang comically and regrettably true. And I think the book is still frighteningly relevant, two decades after it was first published.

Best Academic Article: This one is easy. Timothy Pachirat's “The Political in Political Ethnography: Reflections from an Industrialized Slaughterhouse on Perspective, Power, and sight." It's the kind of article, and the kind of work that can change how you view the world. Pachirat has written the kind of dissertation that us, mere mortals can only aspire to- a clever take on important questions, theoretically rich and with deep insights. It also made me give up meat.

Best Song: My best song is actually more a best 'Musical moment': Loyal readers of my blog might recall a certain fondness I have for the musician John Mayer. What? You don't remember? ...Oh well, just take my word on it. Imagine the unbridled joy of the following scenario: it's late at night and you log into twitter briefly just to see what your friends/celebs are up to. And you see a tweet from the above mentioned favorite musician alerting you to an impromptu radio show he's doing- from his apartment! Just sitting in his apartment and playing music from his laptop to thousand of fans interspersed with commentary and stories and trademark witticisms. And the music- demos, forgotten gems, oldies I never would have known or heard, rough cuts of unreleased songs from all sorts of interesting artists. All this was incredibly organic and live and unmediated- a great twitter moment!

Best Blog: In view of the entry above, let me say that finally after a few months of being on twitter and hardly using it- I'm slooowly warming to the concept of micro-blogging. I still think it can be very banal but there is something cool about having access to unique perspectives, ideas, experiences and thoughts from people who have important things to say in their domains - in a manageable and often, witty form.

Best Movie: I finally watched Oye Lucky Lucky Oye and was really impressed by the talent of Abhay Deol. He actually can act and he picks movies that are intelligent, with strong scripts and meaningful plot. No mean feat in Bollywood.

Best Podcast: My roommate (name yet to be decided but lets use Beck-man as a placeholder) Captain Picard, who is quite well versed with podcasts, introduced me to 3 really cool different podcasts this summer: First his former professor's podcast on IR and methods (what I've heard so far is really riveting and dynamically presented- rare), the big ideas podcast - lectures on a wide variety of subjects by leaders in the field and Dan Savage's Savage love- 'enlightening' to say the least.

Best Discovery: 1. Mystery theatre night at the Spaghetti Warehouse. Food was totally but I LOVE interactive theatre 2. My new neighborhood. There's a park. And a co-op. And squirrels in the roof. 3. This American Life- it takes a special show to take almost any subject and make it moving, interesting and profound.

Worst Discovery: Squirrels in the roof. Squirrels rattling in the roof. Squirrels on the porch. They are no longer cute- they are the enemy.

Best Meal: An excellent, authentic Korean feast a couple of days ago at Chorong house, a small and simple place run out of a house right near campus. Nothing like fresh kimbap and hae mul pahjong...

Best Moments: Surviving the institute, surviving the move, surviving the fourth of july, watching the epic wimbledon mens final, hanging out with my very cool and fun friends, two of whom happen to be my new roommates (they're great :) ), the cool, rainy summer, watching my goddaughter turn one and change so quickly from week to week!

Worst moments: Dealing with my summer rash and then relatedly, getting ripped off by a quack who poses as a homeopath- suffice it to say there will be extremely bad word of mouth about this particular doctor whose name is very similar to a salad named after a famous NYC hotel.

Challenges of the Month: Four S's sum it up- Sun and Skin, Squirrels and sadly, the slump.

As I write this, I realize this summer has been about catching up- catching my breath after the institute ended and the move, catching up with friends back for the summer,catching up with news and culture that had slipped me by and catching up with what I'm supposed to do. Now I just have to catch up with the summer and all will be set. At least now you're all caught up with the D-list.

Mega Make Up D-List

It's been a while since I did a good D-List. I have 3 months to catch up on actually which is a tall order. Instead of trying to cram in 3 months worth of favs, I'm just going to pretend that I never stopped blogging and that that little writers block never happened at all...which I think is also good advice for the stuck dissertator (something we know about all too well)
So....here is the mega make-up D List:

Best Book: Three books vie for top honours here (this is fair because it's 3 months worth of posting I'm doing here, right?) The first is the intelligent and bitterly funny 'A case of Exploding Mangoes' by Hanif Mohammed. The second is 'A supposedly fun thing I'll never do again' by David Foster Wallace. And the third is 'Sacred Games',
Vikram Chandra's epic book about Bombay. This is roughly the order I read the books in. I read the books straight through (no mean feat for 'Sacred Games' which is a 1000 pages long) and each time, felt transported to different worlds. A case of exploding mangoes gave me an insight into the ultimate 'other' for many Indians- Pakistan- at once so familiar and so different, so close and yet so far. There's something about Pakistan's politics and leaders that fascinates me- they're so charismatic and colorful (whether the Bhutto's or Musharraf)- devious but dashingly so. General Zia was in power before my time so it was hilarious and educative to read this fictional portrait of the man- what could be more compelling than the story of his mysterious death and why it might have happened in the larger context of the mysteries of Pakistani politics? Mohammed has a really unpretentious style and authentic voice- actually all of them do- they're unapologetic about their styles and do not dumb it down for lazy readers. Sacred Games is about the parallel and intertwined lives of Bombay Cops and the dons they deal with. Like 'A case of..' it also is based on real life figures - Arun Gawli (the Bombay don) amongst others. Before reading this book, I had no idea how much the 'underworld' actively runs Bombay. Reading about the symbiotic lives of these people (and so many other characters - like the rising Bollywood star (modeled on Aishwarya?), slum dwellers, prostitutes, businessmen, random criminals etc.) took me into another, incredibly tough, gritty yet ALIVE world. I love that Chandra does not make he obvious allowances for foreign readers- he writes the way he wants to write, following it is up to the reader. Finally, the middle book is a selection of essays by the late, great David Foster Wallace, who I really got into really after his death last year. I liked Infinite Jest well enough but it's his non-fiction that really moves me. His essay on being on a cruise liner is just brilliant in its observation of social manners, the language and culture of American tourism and the class hierarchies and insecurities therein. I only wish I could read him without constantly thinking of how much despair lay behind someone so talented, funny, keenly observant, full of empathy for human beings (and animals) and truly intelligent. I'm sad that I'm constantly reading with his suicide in mind and interpreting his words with that knowledge in mind, much like when I listen to Nirvana. Again, he owns his style (the extensive footnotes, the digressions into literary theory, the details) and does not reward lazy readers.

Whew....This turned into a bit of a review, huh? In a nut shell, if you're interested in any of these themes- I heartily recommend these three books. ok, moving on...

Best Article: I want to say David Foster Wallace (especially "Consider the Lobster and of course the Cruise ship article "A Supposedly fun...") but it's a bit of a cop out. So I'll say I really enjoyed two articles on Iceland: the first in a book about happiness that looked at why Icelanders (?) are so happy despite the odds nature has dealt them which made an interesting and ironic foil to the article in Vanity Fair about how and why they bankrupted themselves so spectacularly last year. Both articles chalk it up to something peculiar about the Icelandic people and their isolated geographical space. Very interesting.

Best Academic article: For this category I will look to the past and to the future- to the past because I had the distinct pleasure of meeting and talking to a scholar whose work deeply informs my research: Jennifer Mitzen is not only whip smart but also very nice. So I enjoyed revisiting her excellent, thought provoking 2006 article on 'Ontological Security' (a fact that should please my dad since he liked the word 'ontology'!) - I really should revisit that work every few weeks...As for the future, part of my job allows me to look at the work of a lot of doctoral students around the country (and outside). Most of this work is not really up my alley but some projects really make me think 'wow, wish I'd thought of that.' Won't give those away but it's cool to be able to get a sense of the larger themes in the field right now. Biggest themes: post-conflict reconstruction, counter-insurgency, NGO's and women and lots of IPE. Also lots of Latin America related studies, perhaps natural?

Best Blog: Seth's Blog (which I link to on here)- and I'm not just saying that because he's my friend. Only complaint - he doesn't post nearly as much as he should. (Yes: Pot. Kettle. Black)

Best New Discovery: 1. Mail merge- I can never believe when the whole thing just comes together 2. Kamikazes (the drink not the pilots) 3. 20 bucks hidden away in one of my purses.

Best Meal: God sooo many...from ribs at Dinosaur BBQ, to the banana pudding (a meal in itself), to Turkish everythings- breakfasts, Bluebelle's Borek and Hunkar Begendi (my fav Turkish dish)- this is hard to pick. If I HAD to pick one I would say the Saravana Bhawan meal in NYC (which was also one of my top 5 NYC highlights (a blogging idea that fizzled out, in case you didn't notice)). There's nothing like a good dosa! And this was a good dosa- it immediately made me think of Bangalore and Neelgiris and many happy memories- like a good meal should.



Here is a very large Bhatura...



But apart from the wonderful dosas..the best meal should go to the Iron Chef competition that I had with Dolly. It was great fun- Dolly is a fierce competitor and we both took the fight very seriously, as did our great panel of judges (including blog favs chanbong and machete). They engineered it so that neither of us lost (very sweetly) but it was a win-win situation because of the delicious food and great laughs...Here is the eggplant part of the challenge - mine on top, Dolly's on the bottom (by the time cheese rolled around we were too stuffed to even take a picture)





Best Song: March was all about Just Dance by Lady Gaga. I'm sure I will hate everything else this person (what kind of name is lady gaga?) does but this song is hopelessly addictive and catchy. This month (as a reaction to Gaga I'm sure) I've been cleansing my palate with some classic melodies and classical music... Finally, John Mayer gave us fans a sneak peek at a couple of songs that he's working on for the new album- it's been cool to tag along for the process of making an album (via the tweets, videos and pics etc.) but songs are a different and generous matter- I liked 'Heartbreak Warfare' - it's going to be killer when it's done...

Best Moments: New York, Opening a package to find my dad's (very witty and erudite) book in it, getting a summer grant, spending a lazy afternoon eating ice cream, arguing heatedly and then giggling helplessly with con-verse and kultur vulture: truly, there is nothing as special as a lovely afternoon with good friends. The great eggplant/cheese iron chef challenge and Kultur Vulture's birthday with special friends- a night to remember and finally, watching spring unfold in all its glory. The cherry blossoms are lovely all over campus- that white tree is currently my fav tree...




Best Movie: I haven't seen too many movies but I have an (unlikely) pick. I saw an old Hindi movie (a few years old) called 'Mixed Doubles'. On the face of it this had all the ingredients for a disaster - Hindi comedy (read slapstick, over-acted hamming), about 'wife swapping' (potentially crude beyond belief), low budget (not always good in the bollywood scenario) and a lead actor who was a VJ of all things! But the actors intrigued me (Konkona Sen, Naseeruddin Shah and Rajat Kapoor?) and so I gave it a go...and whaddya know? It wasn't half bad!! Konkona can ACT and Rajat Kapoor is becoming my ISI mark (what's the US equivalent?) of a decent movie- he doesn't seem to do bad ones, as far as I know.

Lessons Learned: 1. Academic snobbery is rampant. And academic snobs are really kind of pathetic. 2. Money is not funny, even in a rich man's world. 3. sometimes if you fry onions and garlic together -it turns a bright, metallic, toxic looking green (this freaked me out when it happened on the day of the iron chef challenge).

Challenges of the Months: Time change, Time itself and, as of the last few days- feeling alarmed every time I sneeze.

Meal of the Month: Asti Cafe

Meal of the month deserves its own entry:

I was going to be shameless and pat myself on the back for the best yet iteration of my eggplant pahi. I made this on the night of the inauguration and nodded blissfully to myself as I thought "you're good. really good."

10 minutes later: Oh My god! What am I saying?! The eggplant can wait. No, the best meal of the month was undoubtedly Pine tree's delicious birthday meal at Asti Cafe. It was so good, I'm going to share pics:

My Ravioli was rich and satisfying with fresh cheese and an absolutely elevated vodka sauce...



Pine tree's tortellini di bernardo (spinach tortellini, mushrooms, garlic sauce and prosciutto) was very flavorful as was blue-eyes' eggplant dish which I could not get a pic of.



The Tiramisu was luscious and moist and not too rummy



But the piece de resistance was the Creme Brulee - just superb with a caramel that was just the right amount of bitter-salty.



The service was a trifle snooty but that did not detract from a great meal- I'll definitely be back at Asti and for my fellow 'cuse dwellers, check it out!

D-List: January 09

To be honest, I think I'm all 'listed out' after the mega end of the year best of list. Still it wouldn't do to mess with tradition, especially at the start of the year and some of you have been grumbling about my lack of posting AND I am otherwise uninspired and (still) sort of sick....so here is your regularly scheduled monthly d-list. And then after this I promise no more lists till the end of this month!

So without further ado:

Best Movie: I didn't see a whole lot so far so this will have to go to the Dark Knight. I'm not a big super-hero fan, nor do I like action movies so this is more by default than anything. BUT as super-hero, action movies go this was pretty good. Heath Ledger was good and some of the plot twists were fun. I don't buy that this has any thing deep to say about good and evil like a lot of people have said- I just think it was good old TP (time pass), as they say in India.

Best Book: A most wanted man- John le Carre. I'm a little late to the party but this was a really solid, well paced book with some great insights about immigration, the clash of cultures and liberalism, intelligence, terrorism and the post 9/11 culture of fear. Also Arvind Adiga's heart breaking story called The Elephant in the New Yorker which in my opinion was better than White Tiger (does he have a thing for animals in his titles??)

Best Article: Now here I have a lot of contenders. I really liked this article discussing the Bush legacy through his most famous pictures, I also liked Zadie Smith's great article on comedy in the New Yorker.

Blog of the month: This has been a great month for discovering cool blogs. My favorite is one I already link to- David Lebovitz's food blog- great writing about Paris, desserts and desserts in Paris, easy recipes and lovely pics

Discovery of the Month: 1. Grilled Cheese Sandwiches 2. How the heating in my apartment really works- and now I'm in T shirts 3. I'm anemic (No. 1 and No. 3 may be related to each other)

Best Moment: Probably the euphoria of the inauguration AND the birth of Violet's very coolly-named baby!

Worst Moment/ Challenge of the month: a smorgasboard of health problems and knowing I have to get over my fear of doctors :(

Well, that's that for the lists. Feb is going to be an exciting month for sure- tons of work, ISA in New York via my first time on amtrak (stay tuned for a NY diary) and the Oscars, more snow, probably more recession and yes, amidst all of this- a birthday!

'Best of' 2008 D-List

Since there's no obvious way to do this and you know I'm going to have a lot to say about my choices- lets get straight to it: Presenting yet another 'best of 2008' list! (Now with notable contenders and 'worst of' categories and multiple entries!)

Best Book of 2008: (and straight away we're off to a tie!) Unaccustomed Earth by Jhumpa Lahiri and American Wife by Curtis Sittenfeld.

Notable Contenders: Netherland,The Reluctant Fundamentalist, a certain Qualitative Methods book

( Note: I'm chastised by the entries I have received so far for my contest. Apparently, many people interpret 'best book' to include academic books. That this did not immediately occur to me worries me a little.)

Worst Book: A Good Indian Wife NRI writing at its worst.

Best Album: Ok, so if you read this blog and you don't know what I'm going to pick you haven't been reading closely enough!
'Where the light is' sealed my love for and started my, lets admit it, slight obsession, with all things John Mayer this year. This live album showcases JM's different avatars- the acoustic singer-songwriter, the guitarist, the blues musician of the JMtrio and the pop musician with the hits, the hyper-articulate performer etc. Great.

Notable Contenders: I rarely listen to entire albums but from what little I heard I liked Modern Guilt (Beck), Duffy , the Vampire Weekend album and Sara Baraeilles and Ray LaMontagne.

Best Song: In your atmosphere (in Mayer world) and (in other music-world) Paper Planes by M.I.A. (Any song that makes me bop my head to gun shots and a cash register has to rock. Catchy as hell)

Notable contenders: Shut up and let me go- the Ting Tings, I'm not going to teach your boyfriend how to dance with you- Black Kids, Circus- Britney Spears, House of Cards - Radiohead, Lost- Coldplay, Electric Feel- MGMT, Winter Song- Sara Baraeilles, Mrs. Officer and other Lil Wayne songs I wanted to hate but can't...ok I'll stop here.

Worst Song: (Sooo many choices here) Womanizer- Britney Spears, Single Ladies- Beyonce and I was assaulted by a Miley Cyrus song once and have not yet recovered.

Best Movie: Wall-E. This movie took not-so-appealing elements for me - environmentalism, robots, scifi, cockroaches, silent movies- and made it magical, touching and profund.

Notable Contenders: The Visitor, Jab we met



Best TV:: drama, scandals, endless comedy, an audacious bimbo spoiler, teenage pregnancies, unforgettable cameos by plumbers and mooses, an irresistible tagline, celebrity appearances, audience voting and participation, a powerful steely heroine who holds her own, the older godfather who isn't quite what he seems to be, an impossibly charismatic hero prevailing in a feel-good ending...the best show this year had it all....yes, ofcourse, I'm talking about the Presidential Election 2008.

Notable Contenders: The Ivory Tower Half Hour and This Week with George Stephanopolous (which are the perfect complements to) The Hills, Rafael Nadal vs. Roger Federer Wimbeldon Final

Worst TV (not in a good way) : Moment of Truth. Hands down



Best Meal: I've blogged about my fav sandwich but best meal encompasses more than just food. I'm going to go with a delicious lunch I ate with bluebell and fleur in San Francisco during ISA at B star on Clement in San Francisco- edamame humus, kabocha croquettes, calamari, , satay, lychee ice teas outside in the sunny patio.

Worst Meal: The fancy lunch I had to keep down all the while our annual funding meeting was going on- didn't taste a thing, really.

Best Party: Normally this would be a slam dunk for my first entry but this was a special year and so I have a tie.

So my first party of the year was My 90's themed birthday party February 2008 The elements: the dinner with my best girl friends, the slide show (if there was a category called best ego boost, it would go to that slideshow). AND then the surprise 90's themed after party with everyone dressed up in their 90's best (read: lots of flannel, torn denim). The 90's music was the icing on an already delicious cake- and the cherry was everyone hilariously getting down to 'Baby one more time'. Thanks Tulip!! And Heather and gang for the music and everyone who helped make this the BEST. PARTY. EVER.

How could there even be another contender, you ask? Well, this was also the year my sister, Daisycat got married!! My sister's wedding May 2008 The wedding was lovely- intimate but lively, beautiful with San Francisco and our garden at its best, family and friends gathered and the cake of the year. My sister was just the loveliest, most glowing bride I've ever seen and my brother in law rocks....for the emotions and the love, this also ranks as party of the year....

Best New discovery: blogging (and other new modes of self expression)

Best podcast:: Slate's audio book club

Best trip: San Francisco (always)

Best blog: Daniel Drezner for the content, Go Fug Yourself for the laughs

News story of the year: Obama is the obvious story but two others stood out: the Mumbai attacks and the global economic crisis which I followed but am still not sure I fully understand.

Notable contenders: Olympics opening ceremony and architecture, The rise and fall of Sarah Palin, The fall of Spitzer, The fall and rise of Britney Spears, Hilary Clinton's tears, Carnage in Gaza, dodgy Chinese toys, milk and gymnasts, and Somali Pirates!

Obsession of the Year (In the venerable tradition of my obsessions such as Michael Jackson - I know but in my defense I was 12/13-, Steffi Graf, Nirvana, Sachin Tendulkar, Cricket, Cats): John Mayer

Best Days: Sister's day out and the shoes, the birth of my goddaughter, Nov 4th, days bonding with tulip in Ithaca, Seth in SF and Heather in the bay/online and baking cupcakes with the gang, seeing the QMIR book with my name on it and doing my first interview!

Funniest Moments : Sarah Palin's interviews, details of the Salman-SRK spat

Worst/Saddest Days: Bombay attacks, annual meeting May 2nd, leaving San Francisco, goodbyes, discovering what acid reflux feels like :(

Buzzwords of the year: 'yes we can', 'change', 'stock markets plunge', 30, 'John Mayer', 'Funding', 'Babies', 'Trivia'

Lessons Learned: 1. To thine own self be true. 2. Basic HTML coding 3. I have wonderful friends and family

Challenges of the year: are not over yet...

On that cheery note, I'm done!

Goodbye 2008- you gave me moments of joy (my sister getting married to a very cool person, my adorable goddaughter, conversations with my lovely friends, being able to talk to my parents so often, the Obama victory, Sachin's form). But you were also really, really tough (work frustrations in the first half, saying goodbye to people and places, that whole recession thing, the horror of 11/26 and Gaza, growing up and all that comes with it).

But you sure were eventful, 2008 - sisters getting married, pregnant friends, we're losing jobs and getting new jobs, moving on, confronting our fears, getting published, saving, thinking about the 'future', being distinctly on the wrong side of 20 or even, gasp, turning 30!

We're not in Kansas anymore, Toto....

2009 is going to be 'interesting' no doubt with many uncertainties but also much to look forward to. Here's to 'hope', 'change' and all the rest of it.....and to the joys of wandering through it all....

D-List November

It has been quite a month. There was too much going for much extra sources of stimuli and none of it really can be reflected in the monthly list tradition. But tradition is tradition and so it must be upheld. Since there were many tumultuous happenings, I'm dispensing with some of my usual categories (blog, book, article, podcast etc.) Either nothing stood out or I didn't have the time. They will be back next month when I do my best of the year D-list.

So without further ado:

Best New Discoveries: 1. The hidden depths of myself 2. the Body Shop's Hemp hand cream. Fellow sufferers of dry skin: I think we have a winner.

Best TV moment: Watching Barack Obama making his acceptance speech and the amazing pictures of the Obama's and the Biden's on election night. I might have shed a tear or two.
Close second: JM singing Sinatra on Dave Letterman. Sigh.
(Worst TV moment - watching the coverage of the Bombay blasts- for so many reasons)

Best Movie: I've realized I hardly watch any movies so this category is a bit redundant. But this month I have a clear winner. You guessed it: The Visitor. The other contender was Sex and the City (the movie) which wasn't half bad but was no competition to the Visitor. Put it on your netflix queue (it took me 5 tries to try to spell that word)

Best Songs: The Things I do- Teddy Thompson. A little melancholy, ok a lot melancholy but it works for me. And because JM provides the sound track to my life 'In repair'.

Best meal: A delicious home cooked Turkish meal cooked by my neighbor- there was a spinach-lentil dish, a peas pilaf and the piece de resistance a grilled eggplant dish with little bits of feta cheese that managed to be smoky and creamy all at once. You're supposed to eat it with meat but i could eat it all by itself. Oh...just thinking about it makes me hungry. (Hint-hint to my Turkish friends).

Best Moment: 4th November 2008. (I think the worst one is obvious)

Picture of the month:



I took this at the vigil for Mumbai held at school yesterday. When we observed silence, all we could hear was the wind and the flag poles creaking and rattling in the wind. It was sad but there was a solidarity there.

Challenges of the Month: 1. How to keep the sweet in bitter-sweet. 2. Paper cuts

Lessons of the month: 1. YES WE CAN. Yes I can. 2. In Britain they call stapling clipping.

Quote of the month: 'Then, the circle of your friends will defend the silver lining'

Next month: the best of 2008 d-list! Lots of exciting categories for me to mull over...

D- List: October 2008

In keeping with the monthly list tradition, here are my picks of the month:

Best New Discovery: Three discoveries here- 1. The music of Erik Satie (1866- 1925), a French composer. Discovered it on NPR's 'All songs considered' podcast. It was haunting, spare, sad and beautiful. 2. World cat- thanks to 'Iowa-Syr-D.C.girl' 3. I like blogging

Best TV/Movie moment (behold, new category): I'm not going to go the obvious SNL route...I found the Letterman/McCain feud pretty funny. But really, there were no stand outs. What this should be about is how I have successfully cut down on TV watching. I can feel my brain cells growing back slowly but youtube keeps killing them...

Podcast of the month: Slate's cultural gabfest. Experts sit around and come up with surprisingly insightful takes on everything from Sarah Palin to Microsoft ads to whether the economic depression will make for better movies....good stuff.

Blog of the Month: Lulu loves Bombay. 'Lulu' also had previous blogs about Manhattan and London- these are great food blogs with recipes, reviews and nice pictures too. Lulu seems cool too, very cosmopolitan and an inventive cook.

Best Book: I went back to Salman Rushdie's 'Shame' this month, after reading a thought provoking essay on him by Amitava Kumar. I wanted to see again, does Rushdie over write? Are his characters thin metaphors? Is he ultimately just a talented expat writer who exoticizes South Asia? Upon reading Shame, I think not. It's still as powerful to me as it was the first time I read it. That doesn't mean his last few books weren't disappointing but Rushdie at his best is formidable.
Next week I will finally read 'White Tiger' so I'll blog about that hopefully.

Best Song: Rather than a song, I'm liking Ray LaMontagne's album Gossip in the Grain. Great lyrics, interesting textured voice...(I bet you're just happy I didn't make a JM reference. Oh... too late!)

Best Article: This was a great month for articles, so I'll present two: First, Andrew Sullivan's essay on why he blogs. Apart from being of interest to anyone who writes or reads blogs, it's a nice look at the emotions and dynamics of this relatively new (but perhaps no more) but rapidly flourishing medium. http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200811/andrew-sullivan-why-i-blog/2
The second one was a New Yorker piece on Leonard Trilling, the Columbia University professor of English who was a famous literary critic. That's the beauty of the New Yorker, to take something that screams snoozefest and then write about it so you're sad when it ends.

Best Academic Article: "The naming and shaming" article in IO. Scarily close to my dissertation - being 'scooped' is the grad student's ultimate fear but useful over all.

Best meal: 2nd story's Ham, brie, fig jam and onion sandwich...I love it so much I even took a picture of it.

It's the kind of sandwich that makes you understand Joey's love for sandwiches on Friends. It probably means I'll never eat anything else at 2nd story (it's a book store on the second storey, get it?) though the entire menu looks good. It looks fairly easy to make too and even if you're vegetarian- the idea of melted brie and fig jam (or any kind of textured jam that's not too sweet) works very well. Oh god... now I want one.

Best Moment: Realizing that I get an extra hour...starting right now. So this is an hour of my life that I will get back...



Picture of the month: My African Violets are blooming again, for the third year in a row...My name is not Dr. Green Thumb (bonus points to anyone who catches the reference) so this is quite an achievement. Thanks to 'tulip' for the gift, which was a house warming present.

Challenge of the Month: Articulating

Lesson of the month: Good things (papers, ideas, minds, friendships, bonds, art) get better with time... if they don't, they're not good things.

More Lists, Political One Liners and a mini-rant

Just the other day, I was confessing my love of lists and look what I find...Vanity Fair is celebrating its 25th anniversary with lists of top 25 everything- books, songs, hotels..you name it. So far they just have a few categories including best book and album covers but more will be added as time goes by. The categories are interesting in themselves because they're not obvious like 'best actor' or 'best music video'. You can vote for your favorites and see how they are doing in an online poll. So a lot of fun!

Since this is sorta turning into a politics blog, I thought I'd focus on their ongoing poll of 25 best political one liners.

Some are obvious candidates for inclusion ("Ask not what your country can do for you" ...JFK or "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall" Reagan or "Read my lips, no new taxes" Bush Senior) and others are more dubious but equally infamous "It depends on what the meaning of the word 'is' is"...Bill Clinton.

Of course the list is heavily skewed (actually totally skewed) towards American Presidents. What happened to the rest of the world, Vanity Fair? No Churchill? No De Gaulle? No Mao? No Saddam Hussein, even. They said some memorable/important/crazy stuff.

This brings me to one of my pet peeves: the assumption that American history/ culture is world history/ culture. Putting aside all the intellectual arguments about Eurocentrism, the interconnections of power/knowledge etc.- lets just look at it from a commonsensical point of view. I totally understand that given that this is America and Vanity Fair is an American magazine, it is natural to focus on American history and culture but why not just call it that? Call it top 25 American Political One-Liners and be done with it.

Ok, my mini-rant is done.

Anyway to correct this imbalance, I'm going to ask you (my imaginary but beloved readers) the following question (this might be something to comment on- hint hint):

What's your favorite political one liner? Extra points for non-American submissions.

I'll start with mine, it's a little cliche but I think its humor and sophistication endures:

"I think it would be a good idea" - Gandhi on being asked what he thought about Western Civilization.

Other notes:

I'm pleased to see the Secret History by Donna Tartt getting a mention for book cover. I never really noticed the cover but I have loved the book for more than 10 years now.

D-List : September

I love making lists. Heck, I'm even writing a dissertation on 'lists'... I would be perfectly content to spend hours making random, disconnected lists, both profound (like the ambitious but spectacularly unhelpful "what do I want in life" or that eternal favorite, "Current Worries") and banal ("Songs to buy next month", "groceries", "annoying people").

I'm not alone- there are entire books and even magazines dedicated to lists, including this blog that became a book, as I discovered to my delight.


That said, here is the first of a series - my monthly list of recommendations for the viewing, listening, eating pleasure of my readers (now more than 1.5):

Best New Discovery: A tie between Vanilla Soy Milk and Turkish red lentil soup...

Podcast of the month: I'm discovering Podcasts in general, but particularly like the ones offered by Slate. Check out the Audio Book Club for erudite, truly insightful and often heated discussions on new and classic books, hosted by Stephen Metcalf. The 'Eat, Pray, Love' discussion is particularly full of intense sarcasm between the panelists.

Song of the month: Yes, I'm going to promote a John Mayer song (hey, it's my blog, I can do what I want) but, in my defense, this one is a duet with Eric Clapton where JM plays guitar and doesn't actually sing and it was performed for the victims of Hurricane Katrina: Broken Hearted

Book of the Month: I didn't read a truly good book this month so I'll hold off on that rather than offer up something mediocre.

Article of the Month: I'm always amazed by how I find just about anything in the New Yorker riveting. This week's article on Post Traumatic Stress Disorder for war veterans took something easy to treat with cliches and made it both touching and eye opening.

Blog of the Month: Jabberwock, a prolific Delhi-based blogger. His writing on film, books, cricket and commentary on issues reveal a deep intelligence and the rare combination of a lack of pretentiousness with a refined sensibility. The 'spleen' section is very funny. Intimidatingly good.

Academic Article: "Why Civil Resistance Works: The Strategic Logic of Nonviolent Conflict"
International Security, issue 1, volume 33 Maria Stephan and Erica Chenoweth
Non-violent actions are more likely to succeed in the solution of political conflict than armed conflict. It's 'feel good' (rare in political conflict studies) and it is based on an impressive combination of large n and case studies.

Challenge of the Month: Trying to make a website and learning HTML... with the emphasis on 'trying'

Lesson of the Month: Even if you fall on your face (literally), get up and laugh....(or try to laugh).