The trees and lights in our place have been shelved to be remounted only after the mandatory eleven-month quarantine in some dark corner of the garage. Resolutions have been made and broken even before one is done with the first week of some delusional ascetic impulse. Why not! That cheesecake came with my name on it.
Christmas was surreal. Much like the observances I grew up with, we had a very Mizo-style krismas with arsa sawhchiar to round-off our urlawk zan. Friends from a distant past were in town to join our festivities; very warm reminders that as Californian as we wannabe, we’re still Mizo deep down, albeit of a BMA or DMWA extract (if these acronyms make any sense)!. The only dampener was a nagging flu I caught on the 23rd evening. I am still nursing traces of the cough that refuses to ease up. While I’m sure the krismas and new year’s celebrations were memorable, my congestion muddled much of my recollections such much so that the last two weeks register as a vague white-out.
We were able to catch up with the latest cinema over the holidays. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows picked up where the 2009 edition left off. The screenplay took liberties to embellish Conan Doyle’s ambivalent end in “The Final Problem” and weave a very engaging adventure for a slick and ninja-footed Holmes. If the ambiguity of the fall off Reichenbach Falls intrigues you, try Jamyang Norbu’s The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes. The second movie on our list was The Adventures of Tintin. Having grown up on the illustrated comics, I think the cgi-d format did justice to what we had come to identify as the person and world of Tintin; can't wait for Red Rackham's Treasure. On its fourth outing, MI: Ghost Protocol might have been over-hyped especially as BMW, cashing in on their product placement, milked the run up to the premiere with a barrage of MI clips adorning a BMW narrative. The movie itself was engaging in fits and starts. Paula Patton was hhhhot! Some of the less glitzy fare included Stalingrad (1993)-deeply engaging and reflective, and The Debt (2010)-highly provocative and suggests the slippages of modern myth-making.
The Christmas tableau in my previous post was in the news. This time because two of the slides—the ones depicting gay couples—were found face down. It could have been a strong wind or some discontent wielding his or her muscles to make a statement. Whatever the reason, perceptions of vandalism caught on fast. But in a moment of political art, the seemingly vandalized tableau was tagged with “choose love”. The cumulative effect was a dunk!
I didn’t realize how congested I was until one evening, my wife—also down with a flu—was craving pizzas. To finalize our order, the staff at our local pizzeria asked me for my name. The receipt was then pasted on a box into which our order would be placed. Fifteen minutes later, we picked our order and just to double-check, I read the receipt on the box. The order was for a “Kiba”!!
Much peace to you this new year.
Christmas was surreal. Much like the observances I grew up with, we had a very Mizo-style krismas with arsa sawhchiar to round-off our urlawk zan. Friends from a distant past were in town to join our festivities; very warm reminders that as Californian as we wannabe, we’re still Mizo deep down, albeit of a BMA or DMWA extract (if these acronyms make any sense)!. The only dampener was a nagging flu I caught on the 23rd evening. I am still nursing traces of the cough that refuses to ease up. While I’m sure the krismas and new year’s celebrations were memorable, my congestion muddled much of my recollections such much so that the last two weeks register as a vague white-out.
We were able to catch up with the latest cinema over the holidays. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows picked up where the 2009 edition left off. The screenplay took liberties to embellish Conan Doyle’s ambivalent end in “The Final Problem” and weave a very engaging adventure for a slick and ninja-footed Holmes. If the ambiguity of the fall off Reichenbach Falls intrigues you, try Jamyang Norbu’s The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes. The second movie on our list was The Adventures of Tintin. Having grown up on the illustrated comics, I think the cgi-d format did justice to what we had come to identify as the person and world of Tintin; can't wait for Red Rackham's Treasure. On its fourth outing, MI: Ghost Protocol might have been over-hyped especially as BMW, cashing in on their product placement, milked the run up to the premiere with a barrage of MI clips adorning a BMW narrative. The movie itself was engaging in fits and starts. Paula Patton was hhhhot! Some of the less glitzy fare included Stalingrad (1993)-deeply engaging and reflective, and The Debt (2010)-highly provocative and suggests the slippages of modern myth-making.
The Christmas tableau in my previous post was in the news. This time because two of the slides—the ones depicting gay couples—were found face down. It could have been a strong wind or some discontent wielding his or her muscles to make a statement. Whatever the reason, perceptions of vandalism caught on fast. But in a moment of political art, the seemingly vandalized tableau was tagged with “choose love”. The cumulative effect was a dunk!
I didn’t realize how congested I was until one evening, my wife—also down with a flu—was craving pizzas. To finalize our order, the staff at our local pizzeria asked me for my name. The receipt was then pasted on a box into which our order would be placed. Fifteen minutes later, we picked our order and just to double-check, I read the receipt on the box. The order was for a “Kiba”!!
Much peace to you this new year.
