Posts Tagged ‘music’

Camping in Isle of Wight 30th April – 3rd May 2010

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Camping in Isle of Wight 30th April – 3rd May 2010

30/04/2010 Friday – Gym. Pack. Rewatch Naruto Shippuden Movie 2 (Bonds) at Sags. Over to Neha’s to fit the seats in the van. Shopping with Sach, Sag, Poo in Asda, Nish joins us, Neel cheerleads us. We shop for 3 hours man! It was so long, even the check out lady saved our receipt as a souvenir. Over to Sach’s for some chilly ass pizza and packing. Back to Sags, I stay awake till 2am burning music for the trip.

1/05/2010 Saturday – Wake at 5.30. Neel comes by with some chilly pau bhaji that made a good brekkie. Petrol. Shalins to pack. Back to Sags to get the yum yums. Over to Sach’s again to pack. Back to Sags to get Sach’s sleeping bag. Lol. Ok there’s another Sach now so we’ll call the tall one Sach and we’ll call Sach #1 Sacho. Pack Sacho and Roochi’s things. And we on the road! South Hampton ferry. Drinks, chit chat. Bond with Roochi about AOL and spiritual stuff. Now we get to the Chine Farm Camping Site and I wanna pee badly. I ask the reception lady and the way she directed me I thought it was gonna be far so I run across some house fences and get my leak on. From a distance I hear this granny that was in the car shouting at Nishil asking him where ‘that boy has gone, there’s nothing over there’. So I unload asap and pretend I went to wave Sag down if he was coming from the other direction. She started chatting about we better behave or she’ll have the police over and we don’t tolerate yap yap. Then she gets back in her car and continues her spying. And when I say spying… picture a busybody on her open driveway driving to the front of the drive to have a closer look at the people parked across the road… then she reverses back. I sure wanted to play some pranks on her but we had to pitch tents.

We got such a wicked spot at the edge of the cliff looking out to the beach. Setting up the tents was a mission though coz of the sea/land breezes. Now if the vid is not too clear I’ll describe some bits… I snuck away to the cliff to take in the scenery. This dude walking on the pebble beach way down there. I can hear each stride as he makes his mark on the beach. After a while there is a long line from one end till the other of only his set of footprints. But check this one… he’d stopped with a map in his hand and he was studying a cliff. At least thats what it looked like… I can’t make sense of that?!?!? Then this paraglider passes us so close man. After a while I notice him just jumping off the cliff on one end and then coming back in like he was stitching the cliffs. And then these seabirds fly past real close… it was all too trippy man! Felt kinda dizzy… didn’t know if it was the highness or the food but had to get to my recovery position a bit too early in the trip lol. And I don’t know if Sag is pranking me or not but he was like I vanished for more than 2 hours. He finally got me and my insides were burning up man. Even drinking water felt a bit like acid. Acidity, heartburn, food poisioning, all those chillies… whatever it was, it wasn’t going away… till Sag hooked me up. Roochi had hooked up some koroga style chicken which was amazing even thought I only managed a lil bite. Something about fires and we had a couple of pyromaniacs in the crew. Go to sleep and in the middle of the night it rained down like mad!

2/05/2010 Sunday – We had so much food so mostly it was cooking cooking and cooking. Hash browns, bacon. Sag sorted out some scramble and pancetta. That was entertaining. Oh and big up Priya for the hotchocolate with Bailey’s. Sheetal, Sacho, Roochi and Neil take refuge in Sach’s tent and with the little window they turn into the X-Factor judges. I did the raps, Priya did the singing and Neil did the … well whatever he did he won lol. In the mean time Nishil had set up the other tent’s lounge into a games room so the party moved here. An attempt to play Risk didn’t work out so we ended up playing Twister. And playing it on an air bed was even more interesting. Helped my back but I’ll come to that in a bit. Everyone takes a break, play some cards and it’s off to do some fishing. Sach and Sacho said they’ll go the shorter and harder way… we took the longer way and end up seeing them still at the top of the cliff. Kill time till they come by playing fill the hoodies up with stones without the wearer knowing it. Or hoodie stone poker… Nish was competition coz he got some big ones in a couple of hoods. Lol that was fun. Got a few in Nish’s wine too. Walking on a pebble beach uphill is another workout man. So yeah these guys sort out their rods and bait, etc. Some of us head back… going back up those hills with so layers on, I had to take a few breaks. Get to our camp and Roochi’s reading gave me an idea. So take one of the chairs to the cliff, watch the sunset and this amazing view where the water had the silver lining in the horizon man… hope the mobile pic comes out right. Get my read on till the winds stiffened my fingers too much to turn pages. Rest and get some more me time in the sleeping bag. It was like a camping version of my Sunday routine at the gym. Mild cardio walking down the cliffs, leg workout coming up, read on the exercycle and check out what on the screens (in this case the lovely horizon), yoga (twister on air bed) and steam/sauna (breathing in my sleeping bag lol).

Something about Neil and the pizza jiko. Can’t remember. Sacho hooked up the wings Roochi prepared. Just like how moms used to make em… I think I know who I’m gonna marry ;o) Big up Shalin and Priya for hooking up the pizza’s, I was on the other jiko trying to sort out the garlic bread. Hell they even came up with a banana and chocolate pizza… too bad we ran out of marshmallows. Kinda remember confiding in Sheetal how she reminds me of my best friend and how I miss her coz I don’t get to chill with her since she got married. Music, dance, eat, jokes, sound fx lol. By now we were drunk and tired and ready to sleep but Sach and I was worried about leaving Neil alone with the fire so Sach took it away from the camp. I was still worried coz it was closest to me in the tent but Nish woke up by then. And I thought I was a pyromaniac.

3/05/2010 Monday – Hangover! Pack. I was kinda heartbroken and how much we wasted but like I said… hangover. Shower help that situation out a bit. Ferry, pics, sleep while Sag drives. Get to Sag’s, Naruto Shippuden Movie 3. Over to Shalin, pick drops, Sach’s, pick drops. Finish watching Naruto Shippuden Movie and as I realise my ‘will of fire’ the movie site ends up downloading wrong things on the work comp. Which reminds me… new episode is out so see you next week!

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Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis with Larry Sloman

Thursday, July 29th, 2010

Scar Tissue by Anthony Kiedis with Larry Sloman
Coz it says with Larry Slowman does that move it from the autobiography section to the biography section? Anyway it’s Red Hot Chili Peppers’ frontman’s story. The first half was sooo exciting, the crazy things in his childhood like being introduced to the drug dealing and drugs by his dad at such an early age. Or him writing a letter to his dad telling him that he wants to lose his virginity on his birthday with dads girlfriend and the dad actually hooks it up. Or him and his friends doing all sorts of chemicals and finding houses with pools to jump into from the roof… the higher the house the more the necessity to do it. While reading this book I was forced to daydream… I’d actually stop after a few paragraphs and either reflect on how the writing style makes me identify even though I wasn’t an addict or a rockstar or whatever. That was one of the reasons, secondly I’d daydream as it brought back a lot of my own childhood, teenage and college memories. Thirdly I’d daydream about how I was gonna structure my writing… not gonna say much about that right now but yeah… the first half of the book was nostalgic and freaky and exciting and rollercoasting.

I shouldn’t say half coz it’s not sectioned but later on the book gets into this pattern and gets kinda boring. Keep in mind its a biography and I can’t really criticize someones life so think of this as a warning. In a nutshell, the pattern is about ups and downs with the bands, fallouts with band members, women and drugs. And when I say drugs I mean dude spent a lot of time in sleazy or extra ghetto places where death is just around the corner. Props to Anthony for sharing such a life and showing us even though the rockstar lifestyle can be wild, you can still be humble and be just as average at the same time. Dude was in touch with his spiritual side too, recognizing the signs and talking about the dark energy of drugs, etc. It made me appreciate my friendships too because he’d talk about how they do all these crazy things, some even disgusting, but just like him I believe the more weird or taboo things you share the closer the relationship. Like when you and your peeps are in sync it doesn’t matter what you do it just clicks and falls in place… kinda thing. He even makes you realize that if you have some issues you have to deal with them 100% and from every angle. Another thing he mentioned was not knowing how some jokes and dissing can damage someone even though they wont show it so there is this fine balance between being comfy and being too comfy kinda thing… it just touched me coz I recently stopped doing the dissing thing and started avoiding it in people around me.

The book has pictures too… yay! Helped me figure out who was who. I gotta say, apart from Californication I didn’t know any of their stuff but have a new found respect for The Chili Peps and will give their music and videos a chance. Big up Viv for hooking it up.

Update: Gave their music and videos a chance… even saw the lil documentary they made when they decided to move in a house and record there… with Kiedis in one room and a mic far away from the rest and it was pretty cool seeing them work… they def had their own chemistry. Kept about 6 songs from their discography… and all of them Californication album onwards… wasn’t feeling the stuff before that album apart from this weird track called Pea.

Contents
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction

- CHAPTER ONE: “Me, I’m from Michigan”
- CHAPTER TWO: Spider and Son
- CHAPTER THREE: Fairfax High
- CHAPTER FOUR: Under the Zero One Sun
- CHAPTER FIVE: Deep Kicking
- CHAPTER SIX: The Red Hots
- CHAPTER SEVEN: Groundhog Year
- CHAPTER EIGHT: The Organic Anti-Beat Box Band
- CHAPTER NINE: Refourming
- CHAPTER TEN: Funky Monks
- CHAPTER ELEVEN: Warped
- CHAPTER TWELVE: Over the Wall
- CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Nothing
- CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Welcome to Californication
- CHAPTER FIFTEEN: A Moment of Clarity

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Bad Smell Mystery

Thursday, July 22nd, 2010

Bad Smell Mystery:
First of all… that’s the last time I wear my full white track suit to work. I thought I’d look good for the new ‘sal’. Lol 2 freshies asked why I came in PJs. Ok now for the main bit… I’m there in my office doing my work, music playing and letting one rip every other minute right. So all the other workies that came to my office would ask what that smell was lollll I just kept quiet. Till the questions got too much so I waited for the bosses to go for the meeting and made a little print out and stuck it on the door… BLAME THE BEANS I HAD LAST NIGHT… smell turns out to be food in the bin.

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The Scientific Meaning of the Gayatri Mantra … from Vishal

Thursday, July 1st, 2010

The Scientific Meaning of the Gayatri Manta … from Vishal

From Gatatri Mantra Meaning

Gayatri mantra has been bestowed the greatest importance in Vedic dharma. This mantra has also been termed as Savitri and Ved-Mata, the mother of the Vedas.

Ombhur bhuvah swah
Tat savitur varenyam
Bhargo devasya dheemahi
Dhiyo yo nah prachodayat

The literal meaning of the mantra is:
O God! You are Omnipresent, Omnipotent and Almighty. You are all Light. You are all Knowledge and Bliss. You are Destroyer of fear, You are Creator of this Universe, You are the Greatest of all. We bow and meditate upon Your light. You guide our intellect in the right direction.

The mantra, however, has a great scientific import too, which somehow got lost in the literary tradition. The modern astrophysics and astronomy tell us that our Galaxy called Milky Way or Akash-Ganga contains approximately 100,000 million of stars. Each star is like our sun having its own planet system.

We know that the moon moves round the earth and the earth moves round the sun along with the moon. All planets round the sun. Each of the above bodies revolves round at its own axis as well. Our sun along with its family takes one round of the galactic center in 22.5 crore years. All galaxies including ours are moving away at a terrific velocity of 20,000 miles per second.

From Gatatri Mantra Meaning
From Gatatri Mantra Meaning

And now the alternative scientific meaning of the mantra step by step:

(A) OM BHUR BHUVAH SWAH:
Bhur the earth, bhuvah the planets (solar family), swah the Galaxy. We observe that when an ordinary fan with a speed of 900 RPM (rotations Per minute) moves, it makes noise. Then, one can imagine, what great noise would be created when the galaxies move with a speed of 20,000 miles per second. This is what this portion of the mantra explains that the sound produced due to the fast-moving earth, planets and galaxies is Om.

The sound was heard during meditation by Rishi Vishvamitra, who mentioned it to other colleagues. All of them, then unanimously decided to call this sound Om the name of God, because this sound is available in all the three periods of time, hence it is set (permanent). Therefore, it was the first ever revolutionary idea to identify formless God with a specific title (form) called upadhi. Until that time, everybody recognized God as formless and nobody was prepared to accept this new idea. In the Gita also, it is said, “Omiti ekaksharam brahma”, meaning that the name of the Supreme is Om, which contains only one syllable (8/12).

This sound Om heard during samadhi was called by all the seers nada-brahma (a very great noise), but not a noise that is normally heard beyond a specific amplitude and limits of decibels suited to human hearing. Hence the rishis called this sound Udgith (musical sound of the above, i.e., heaven). They also noticed that the infinite mass of galaxies moving with a velocity of 20,000 miles/second was generating a kinetic energy = 1/2 MV2 and this was balancing the total energy consumption of the cosmos. Hence they named it Pranavah, which means the body (vapu) or store house of energy (prana).

From Gatatri Mantra Meaning

B. TAT SAVITUR VARENYAM: Tat – that (God), savitur – the sun (star), varenyam – worthy of bowing or respect. Once the form of a person along with the name is known to us, we may locate the specific person.mHence the two titles (upadhi) provide the solid ground to identify the formless God, Vishvamitra suggested. He told us that we could know (realise) the unknowable formless God through the known factors, viz., sound Om and light of suns (stars).

A mathematician can solve an equation x2+y2=4; if x=2; then y can be known and so on. An engineer can measure the width of a river even by standing at the riverbank just by drawing a triangle. So was the scientific method suggested by Vishvamitra in the mantra in the next portion as under:-

C) BHARGO DEVASYA DHEEMAHI:
Bhargo – the light, devasya – of the deity, dheemahi – we should meditate. The rishi instructs us to meditate upon the available form (light of suns) to discover the formless Creator (God). Also he wants us to do japa of the word Om (this is understood in the Mantra). This is how the sage wants us to proceed, but there is a great problem to realize it, as the human mind is so shaky and restless that without the grace of the Supreme (Brahma) it cannot be controlled.

Hence Vishvamitra suggests the way to pray Him as under:

D) DHIYO YO NAH PRACHODAYAT:
Dhiyo (intellect), yo (who), nah (we all), prachodayat (guide to right Direction). O God! Deploy our intellect on the right path. Full scientific interpretation of the Mantra: The earth (bhur), the planets (bhuvah), and the galaxies (swah) are moving at a very great velocity, the sound produced is Om, (the name of formless God.) That God (tat), who manifests Himself in the form of light of suns (savitur) is worthy of bowing/respect (varenyam). We all, therefore, should meditate (dheemahi) upon the light (bhargo) of that deity (devasya) and also do chanting of Om. May He (yo) guide in right direction (prachodayat) our (nah) intellect (dhiyo). So we notice that the important points hinted in the mantra are:-

From Gatatri Mantra Meaning

1) The total kinetic energy generated by the movement of galaxies acts as an umbrella and balances the total energy consumption of the cosmos. Hence it was named as the Pranavah (body of energy). This is equal to 1/2 mv2 (Mass of galaxies x velocity2).

2) Realizing the great importance of the syllable OM, the other later date religions adopted this word with a slight change in accent, viz., amen and Ameen.

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The Rediscovery of Man by Cordwainer Smith

Wednesday, May 19th, 2010

The Rediscovery of Man by Cordwainer Smith
First of all Cordwainer Smith is a pseudonym Paul Myron Anthony Linebarger used for his science fiction work. He has a few more depending on his work. Now I’m not one to go for any kinda of fiction that easily since my thinking is why not read something where I’ll also learn something at the same time. But after Nick described this book and especially the mind-blowing descriptions… I had to find out for myself.

Boy was I blown away! The way Cordwainer uses descriptions are so original and astounding you have to read them again. My favourite examples – When describing telepaths navigating space he said something like the stars being the pimples in the telepathic mind. Another one: Doleres Oh sighed a dry, ugly sigh, like the crackling of sub-zero winds through frozen twigs. Describing music: Silly, bony words given flesh and blood and entrails by the music which carries them. It’s random but connected! I’m hoping Nick will add some more of his favorites under this post ;o) What a way to paint a picture for our imagination.

The book started with a timeline and a long fascinating history of the author (wars, languages, countries… he’s been around and know lots). The timeline is a guide for the coming short stories. They all lead into, but are not dependant on, each other. And I dare you to start the first story and not be hooked. Even after reading the book it’s so clear even though we’re missing a few 1000 years between the stories. I’ll tell you one thing… it’s the first book I’ve fallen deeply in love with. I admit it, I was lost in a world of creatures, morbid technology, melancholic happiness… basically it was like life we live here but with different mentalities, rules and lifestyles. I mean people called scanners turned into killing robots, ships with sails million times larger than the planet, travelling space for 40 years when it just seems like months, using telepathic powers to shoot ships in space and the ships have cats that are helping people kill dragons, the planet where a cow-man harvests body parts grown on criminals for the rest of the … Universe. And at the same time these are historical revolutions to change how ‘man’ lives. Instead of death theres cryogenics… hell one story even brought back death and troubles so people we not miserably happy.

I might as well transcribe the book if I’m gonna go on like this. Smith’s writing has the ability to pick you up and put you in the characters shoes, pull you out again and do it for every character involved. So you see the world through so many eyes, you understand their feelings and history. I didn’t understand the relevance of a couple of stories to the ‘rediscovery’ but I was still so ensnared I had to pace myself or I’d finish the book too soon (The cover explained my confusion about one of the stories anyway). And even though all the stories have a sadness you’re not too emotionally moved. There are songs lyrics in the book, poetry, rhymes, historic notes. This man has created a complete world! I think the sadness helps you connect more with the people when they have some kind of emotion between them. Some of his sentences are not grammatically incorrect or misspelt or otherwise but you still get the gist of what is happening… in fact you get a better idea just from the bad english. This guy is so deliberate you want to get in his mind! A definite recommendation man. Superstar big up to Nick for hooking me up.

Contents
- Timeline
- Introduction: Cordwainer Smith – The Shaper of Myths by J. J. Pierce
- Scanners Live in Vain
- The Lady Who Sailed the Soul
- The Game of Rat and Dragon
- The Burning of the Brain
- The Crime and the Glory of Commander Suzdal
- Golden the Ship was – Oh! Oh! Oh!
- The Dead Lady of Clown Town
- Under Old Earth
- Mother Hitton’s Littul Kittons
- Alpha Ralpha Boulevard
- The Ballad of Lost C’mell
- A Planet NAmed Shayol

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