Accidental Blogger

End of the line

Dear Readers and Co-bloggers,

This is the farewell post I had contemplated writing several times in the past year but did not get around to doing. After noting the gradual decrease in readership and much slower rates of posting - mine and of others - I feel that the time has come to put an end to new writing on Accidental Blogger.

Blogging over the past many years has been a most enjoyable activity, both from the angle of creativity and social interactions that were interesting, thoughtful and fun.  We made many friends and hopefully, no enemies. I discovered much about others, the world and my own self that I did not know before. The format provided a perfect spot for the give and take of ideas and opinions with friends as well as strangers, many of whom subsequently became friends.

Accidental Blogger made its solo debut in October 2005 as a vehicle for recording my musings, mainly political commentary. On the way, it gathered a few more passengers.  Joe, Anna, Sujatha and Dean were among the early authors who joined A.B. to add their voices to mine. Andrew showed up soon after. Narayan and Prasad came on board midway during the blog's life. Norman, Jesse, Cyrus, Omar and John Ballard are among the more recent additions to the roster of authors. I am extremely grateful to my co-bloggers for their contributions and have enjoyed getting to know them. I also wish to acknowledge my sister-in-law Sukrita Paul Kumar and my good friends Elatia Harris and Nancy Hudson for writing an occasional piece here, thus making them honorary A.B. bloggers. Among the people mentioned, I have had the pleasure of meeting Sujatha, Anna, Elatia and Cyrus in real life. Perhaps in the future I will  bump into the rest also somewhere outside the virtual salon, on terra firma, and have a real cup of tea (or beer) with them.

Accidental Blogger owes its minor success in the blogosphere to a very large extent to the kindness of other bloggers who were already there and gave us a helping hand in the form of links and by featuring the site on their blogroll. Editors of vastly more popular blogs (Brian Leiter, Abbas Raza, Amardeep Singh, Bora Zivkovic, Razib Khan, Abhi Tripathi among others) introduced A.B. to their readers via links  to our articles and by adding it to the list of recommended blogs. Without those early assists, it is unlikely that I could have succeeded in spreading the word about A.B. on my own. Due mainly to the links from these widely read blogs, we were also occasionally pleasantly surprised to see our posts referred to on bigger, more mainstream sites such as Slate, Salon and Andrew Sullivan's Daily Dish which, for a few thrilling days brought in far more traffic than we were accustomed to.

Speaking of reading and writing on blogs, it has become increasingly clear to me in the last couple of years that many smaller, general interest blogs like A.B. are fading in popularity. (Professional and academic blogs probably haven't been affected) Writers, as well as readers are gradually gravitating towards other forms of social media. The brief and somewhat more casual mode of interactions at sites like Facebook and Twitter seems to have the attraction of instant communication that blogs don't generally afford. On the other hand, it is a bit ironic that mainstream publications, which initially expressed disdain for the proliferation of blogs started by amateur writers and non-journalists, now all have their own blogs. In any case, I don't know enough about the contents of the internet to comment authoritatively on the fate of individual blogs. But I do know that with a few exceptions, I don't have the same enthusiasm I once felt for writing or for reading many of the blogs that I used to visit regularly in the past. Most of the other A.B. writers (not you, John!) too have been absent for long periods, some longer than others. Some time ago, I had consulted with them about the prospect of keeping A.B. going. I got a mixed response. While some did not wish to see the blog die, others left it to me to make the decision of continuing or shutting it down. It has been a few months since then and I haven't seen much change in the health of the blog. Writing is infrequent and the readership has fallen precipitously in the last year or so. I am now convinced that rather than let A.B. languish, it is time to bring about a graceful end to its tenure. I will not delete the blog - there are many years' worth of interesting interactions recorded here. It will remain as an inactive archival site for the foreseeable future. 

Many thanks to all the readers who visited here over the years and encouraged us, sometimes privately, to write, think, inform and debate. Without their participation all of this would have been a lonely enterprise. After all, like many other public activities blogging too is a performative exercise. I hope to stay in touch with my co-bloggers via e-mail and Facebook. Those readers who have occasionally contacted me, please feel free to do so in the future if you wish. My contact information is available here.

The launch of Accidental Blogger was indeed accidental - an impulsive move that turned out to be a wonderful experience. The decision to end it however, is a deliberate and considered step. Among other things, blogging began for me as an exciting journey to a mostly unknown place. I had a vague idea of what I hoped to achieve but none whatsoever of what lay en route. The time, the place and the emerging technology of web based communications offered a ticket to ride and I set out with much anticipation and very little preparation. I always enjoyed writing and sharing my thoughts with anyone who would care to listen. Blogging was the perfect vehicle to pursue that interest. Now, after 7+ years, the trip is near the inevitable end. Again, the changes in time, place and technology, as also the diminished energy for the process of putting one's thoughts in order for a meaningful exchange with others, have played a role in the decision to apply the brakes, get off and move on.

Thanks again and best wishes for the upcoming Holiday Season.

Ruchira

P.S. I am attaching a portrait of my much younger self, painted years ago that shows me sitting with a cup of tea - alone. It is perhaps apt to post it here because the Table Talk (beverages implied) referred to in the title of the blog is now about to cease. Thanks everyone for a wonderful party!

 

Cats, cows and fence sitting

Since John Ballard has gone silent after a burst of energy, it's time for some Random  Thoughts & Idle Chatter and what better way is there than turning to cat antics? Here is a photo and a video of cats doing ... well whatever it is that cats do.

What appealed to me particularly about the photo is that the feline duo here are doppelgangers of my erstwhile cat companions, Raja and Ali.

 

I have seen cats do the darndest things but never sitting like this for so long!

"Pairon Talle" (Soul of Sand): An independent Indian film

Promoting a film and a family member here.  I haven't seen the movie and don't know whether I will be able to unless it is released on DVD. It is being shown in the Indy film circuit in India, Canada and the US. My interest in it is that my niece, my sister's daughter, Saba Joshi plays the female lead Saroj. Saba is not a career actress. After some modeling and a bit of acting, she finished a master's degree in international reltions in Geneva where she is currently working for a non-profit labor organization.

The trailer of Pairon Talle below.

 

 

The God Asterisk* ?

On an otherwise slow news day (CNN's Anderson Cooper is gay, the US apologized to Pakistan so the war in Afghanistan can go on, another high profile banker resigned) physicists at CERN confirmed the discovery of the elusive subatomic particle Higgs boson. Now, this was no ordinary scientific event. Decades of speculation, ambitious nomenclature (God Particle) and gigantic collisons inside the Large Hadron Collider came to an exciting climax with the acknowledgment of its existence. Yet they tell us that the discovery is not really a discovery. 

Anyway, for us laypersons here is a video that may explain the whole phenomenon. (link via 3 Quarks Daily) Also, our own Prasad is at CERN. Perhaps he will describe to us what went on there during the days and hours leading up to the media splash. And to think all this could have happened in Texas! Happy Fourth of July.

 

Increasing Abortion Rates for Make Benefit Glorious Society, with a sop to "men's rights" (prasad)

The following is more of a set of musings than an argument, which musings I come by via this Slate article about giving men a choice in supporting children they didn't want in the first place. My interest in that question itself as an ethical issue is not great, though I do think there's something a bit off about giving a man no voice in whether a pregnancy is brought to term, but holding him equally responsible after birth, in the sense that this is a moral cost, not a moral benefit. My interest is in the existence of children who aren't wanted by their parents, not abortion or child support per se. But here's the baroque, not thought-out scheme I'm brought in mind of, more to stimulate talk than anything else.

The collection of ideas/presuppositions I'm working with is:

1. Single parent families are on balance bad for children, and impose fairly large costs upon society.
2. Abortion reduces the number of such unwanted babies and benefits society, via the Freakonomics type mechanism.
3. The woman's right to choose is morally valuable, and should not be legally restricted by other people's views.
4. Early abortion (till the development of a nervous system, for example) is morally neutral, and we shouldn't particularly care how many or few there are.
5. The chief existing constraints upon abortion come from people who want fewer abortions, not from those who want to encourage them.

What I'm thinking of, is the idea of giving men a legally recognized way of disclaiming all rights/responsibility toward their would-be baby in the early stages (say first couple of months?) of pregnancy. The legal right to abort or not would continue to reside solely with the woman, but if a man indicated through this mechanism his unwillingness to support the child, the woman (together with some state monetary support, see below) would bear sole legal responsibility for the child, with no expectation of any legal or financial support from the father from then on.

What would follow? The chief outcome of such a scheme, it seems to me, would be to reduce dramatically the number of births where both parents are not invested in the child being born. Currently a pregnant woman who doesn't on balance want a child can abort, so that children born are likely to be wanted at least by one parent (the mother). Under such a scheme the legally valid statement of a father to disown the child gives the mother extra incentive to abort in such situations, reducing the number of children born who aren't wanted by both parents.

Now I don't really want to actually deprive any father-unwanted child of financial support (though conceivably if the drop in the count of such children is sufficiently large that might be a cost worth incurring?). I want to say thus that the state should pay the tab in such situations. This leads to many further issues. The potentially tractable question is where-does-the-money-come-from. I really do think reducing the number of unwanted single-parent kids has such large social and economic benefits that it could be made to pay for itself and then some. A more tricky problem is that this gives men an incentive to disclaim interest in a child, as a way of attracting state support. To me the cleanest handle on this issue is that with the divorce rate at near 50%, there are difficulties with disclaiming interest in a child unless you mean it, e.g. for custody situations. The hardest objection might be: since the scheme is based on dissuading mothers from having children fathers don't want, providing state support merely exchanges a dissuasion with its removal. I have a vague sense that the "net pre-natal dissuasion" would continue to be strongly positive, that people don't emotionally regard the state as a complete substitute for their romantic partners. In other words, the strongest impact of the scheme is to have it be legally "out there" early in pregnancy that one person wants nothing do do with the child being born, and won't take interest in it thereafter.

I'd assume people of "tender hearted" dispositions want to have nothing to do with such schemes, but I've never been one of 'em. More concretely, what are the good/bad reasons in both directions here?

Reflections - more than what you see

I am in Fort Worth for a couple of days. I took this picture of downtown Fort Worth reflected on the glass facade of a building. I was wondering why I took the photo this morning from the balcony of my hotel room directly across the street while enjoying a cup of coffee. I normally don't take photos unless I am officially in a "tourist" mode. It could well be that reflections and city structures were on my mind subconsciously because I am currently in  the middle of a crime thriller set in Los Angeles and Hong Kong in which the location of a crime scene is deciphered through an accidental flash on a video that catches the images of surrounding buildings as reflected on a window pane. The police work backwords, or rather flip it from left to right to figure out where the place is.

After seeing the photo on my Facebook page a blogger friend sent me the link to one of his essays on 3 Quarks Daily.

African Butterfly Bush

I just posted this on Facebook and thought I should share the photo here. An African butterfly bush which I planted in early spring is flourishing in my front garden. I had never seen this plant until I found it in a nursery and decided to bring it home. This bush is not to be confused with other common butterfly bushes which attract butterflies (I have some of those also). This one is so named because its flowers look like butterflies. I love  it. Hope you enjoy the lovely and unusual botanical specimen.

 (click to enlarge)

Chlorine Road

It is more than two years since I had written a post about street names - the overabundance of homage to politicians among them and names that change at the whim of people in power or because of changing politics and local sensibilities. I find road names a fascinating subject and take note of them, always looking for instances where someone had the imagination to stray off the beaten path of dedicating every public street and building to wealth, power and patriotism.

A few weeks ago I spent a couple of days in Galveston with a friend. Close to where we were staying is a bridge that leads to the city of Freeport which lies quietly to the south of Galveston Island, its more glamorous, arty and historic neighbor. I do not know much about Freeport except that it is an industrial sea-side town where Dow Corning has a large chemical plant.  Almost eight years ago, I had passed through Freeport on my way to Galveston via a circuitous scenic route that my husband had insisted on taking. I noted at that time with some surprise that one of the streets we passed was named Chlorine Road.  I was reminded of that odd street name and mentioned it to my friend. She informed me that the streets of Freeport where the Dow plant is located are marked by many such chemical names.  A search brought up a google map of the area which indeed shows streets bearing names such as Tin, Nickel, Iron, Copper, Zinc, Benzine, Glycol, Butane and Electric.

Neighborhoods within cities often follow a central theme in naming their streets - trees, universities, presidents, marine culture etc. The streets in my own subdivision which is not on the sea but contains several lakes, bear aquatic names; streets like Jetty Circle, Shoreline Drive, Midstream Street, Westshore Lane, Harborview Court etc. But rarely have I seen the essential ingredients of a particular business used in street names. Are there more out there? At hospital complexes, in Silicon Valley or other places dedicated to a specialized pursuit?

Note: This post was originally published in December of 2007. Recently a friend was talking about road names on Facebook and I was reminded of Chlorine Road and similar topics we have discussed here before.

After six and a half years, some of us are not posting with the same frequency as the early days of the blog. We used to write a lot and often. Rather than leave the front page idling for long periods, I have decided to bring some of the old posts to the front from time to time. These may be familiar to some but others new to the blog, including some of our own writers, have not seen them. I request the older A.B. authors (Sujatha, Dean) to do the same with some of their posts that are more than three years old, especially those that generated a lively discussion. Choose from non-time sensitive posts (ignore politics, mostly) of cultural nature that are often fun to read and re-read.

A More 'Perfect' Music (Sujatha)

Does the latest music album sound more than perfect to your ears, as it dribbles or blasts out of the earbuds of your music player?  Not a note out of place, no little rough edges that would make you squirm?

There's a reason for that in this world of hyperdigitization. Auto-tuning is the trick.  Steve Guttenberg of Cnet.com muses on whether technology is robbing music of its soul.

Today, for example, Auto-Tuned vocals are so ubiquitous that my friend, mastering engineer Dave McNair, exclaimed, "The only way to know for sure a vocal hasn't been Auto-Tuned, is an out of tune vocal." So once a new technology is available, the engineers can't resist using it. This isn't so much about analog versus digital recording formats. No, it's the way recordings are made. Too many are assembled out of bits and pieces of sound to create technically perfect, but soulless music. It's not that great music can't be made with computers, but it's sure less likely to get my mojo workin'.

I love the ability of some of the new software to manipulate vocals, having toyed with Audacity myself. I record myself singing, wince over how it sounds, raise the pitch by one step or two, sit back and listen to myself singing as I would have sounded when I was in my twenties, with all the technique honed by the added years, yet more of the sweetness that is lost to age and countless infections thickening the vocal cords.

But using Auto-tune to change that which is unmusical into a tune, while not new, has been taken to new heights, in this 'music video' consisting of auto-tuned utterances of well-known scientists.

Or, witness Neil deGrasse Tyson, converted from bathroom singerhood into passably stageworthy in this hilarious Nova Science segment on PBS.

When a performance has been digitally pieced together off several imperfect takes,or slight off-pitches corrected, what does it do to the experience of the listener? We often listen without realizing the amount of correction and can only sigh at our inability to replicate the perfect renditions, a feeling of audio envy, much like the photoshopped perfect models on magazine covers who trigger look envy. 

Even live performances aren't immune to this kind of doctoring, with stars resorting to lip-syncing to their own recorded vocals, just because of the physical impossibility of dancing vigorously while belting out high notes.

I came across this video of a Kathak dancer who actually sings and dances, admittedly one of the slower types of dances. No lip-syncing here, you can hear her breath grow slightly heavier after fancy footwork in places. So what if it isn't perfect, the genuineness of the experience more than makes up for the occasional off-pitch note.

That's the reason why even crackling, terrible old recordings  of long lost gurus are capable of moving me to tears. even with the imperfections, speeded up audio, flubbed lyrics or more. The quest for digitized perfection leaves an older generation of listeners in the cold, while the newer generations get used to a degree of improbable perfection that will never be matched by the pleasures of a live performance.

 

The bird that made a big splash

I am currently in New Delhi, staying where I always stay, in my parents' old house where I spent a large part of my youth. At the request of a friend I photographed the inside and outside of my home and posted some of the pictures on Facebook as three albums showing different parts of the house.

It is nearly the end of winter in India; spring is just a few weeks away. Delhi is full of migratory birds as well as those that live here year round. Many of these birds congregate in the backyard of our house throughout the day, partly because of the grains of rice, crumbs of bread and a clay pot of fresh water to be found there. So far I have caught sight of parrots, nightingales, magpies, doves, crows, sparrows and one  species of song bird that I did not recognize. Yesterday afternoon I took my camera to the backyard. After exercising considerable stealth and patience and working around a bright sun, tree branches and skittish birds, I managed to capture some decent shots of the avian visitors. (There were many more blurred shots than pictures in focus) Most of the photos of the Delhi home created some interest on my Facebook pages but the "Birds in the Backyard" collection is the biggest hit by far.

One photo in particular has garnered a lot of admiration. It shows the unnamed "songbird" I mentioned earlier (I have now been told it is an oriental magpie robin) - an unusually friendly bird in a pensive mood and strategically framed. The most common comment that viewers have made about the photo is that it looks like a painting, a Japanese painting in particular. It is true - I thought the same when I saw the photo I had managed to snap - a lucky shot of "life imitating art."

 

Draw a Stickman

Please excuse the lack of postings of late. Who knows when one of us will find the time to write something worth your attention. In the meantime, please amuse yourself with this little art project. A very happy New Year to everyone.

 

Winners of 3 Quarks Daily Politics & Social Science Prize, 2011

Here is the announcement of this year's winners of the 3 QD Politics & Social Science Prize. All three are excellent posts worth reading.

Accidental Blogger had the privilege of being among the nine finalists and that to me personally, is hugely encouraging. We can get distracted by the cacophony on the web, hopping around between headlines on news sites and the social media, thinking fleetingly about issues that catch our attention and are forgotten soon thereafter. Blogs have lost much of their early allure but they remain convenient venues for sharing our thoughts with others by means of cogent and thoughtful writing. Nothing focuses one's mind better than putting one's opinions and ideas together by means of well chosen words. I intend to utilize more of my time in the new year in gathering my thoughts and writing them down, just as I did in the early years of the blog. I probably will no longer be as prolific but "real" blogging on a smaller scale may still prove to be an enjoyable endeavor. I urge my co-bloggers to consider writing a few substantive posts of their own on any topic that interests them during the coming year, as and when time and inclination permit.

(NOTE: We are not the "winner" but the logo is irresistible to me because I have seen the original source of the picture)

Homo narrans (Sujatha)

Swedish author Henning Mankell (of 'Wallander' fame) posits in the New York Times that better than calling our species Homo sapiens would be to call us  Homo narrans, or Man the Storyteller.

"It struck me as I listened to those two men that a truer nomination for our species than Homo sapiens might be Homo narrans, the storytelling person. What differentiates us from animals is the fact that we can listen to other people’s dreams, fears, joys, sorrows, desires and defeats — and they in turn can listen to ours.
Many people make the mistake of confusing information with knowledge. They are not the same thing. Knowledge involves the interpretation of information. Knowledge involves listening.
So if I am right that we are storytelling creatures, and as long as we permit ourselves to be quiet for a while now and then, the eternal narrative will continue."

 With the explosion of the internet, we have gotten into hyper-storytelling mode. A million new videos, a million new blogs, a billion new tweets... The human animal is quite capable of ignoring the present in its search for the newest narration.
So, when do we have the time to stop the talking and tweeting, and really listen? Or can we listen without indulging in a reciprocal "That is your story, and it reminds me very much of the time that I...", starting off on a fresh narrative of our own. Maybe that is the point.
I will forgive Mankell his anthropocentrism when he ascribes storytelling skills only to humans. Other species do manifest the storytelling ability, to varying degrees, as far as we can tell from scientific studies. But note, that is only based upon what we know to be provable. Maybe there is still a lot more to be learnt about the storytelling modes and mechanisms among, say, elephants. But we are still preoccupied with figuring out the physical mechanisms rather than going to the next level to find out the grammar of those languages.
Till we get out of the unspoken base assumption that we are the only species in the planet capable of narratives, we as humans will continue to ascribe to animals the voices that we cannot  hear or understand, making up our own stories about their lives, as they likely do about ours.

(cross posted from Fluff 'n' Stuff)

'tis the Season to be giving... and receiving?

Why do we give to charities or causes from which we expect nothing more tangible than the usual warm fuzzy satisfaction? There are sociological and now evo-biological explanations for our altruisms. Most of us give for simple reasons - compassion, willingness to share, support for a worthy cause. Sometimes we also give for more mundane monetary or social reasons - tax breaks or because we cannot turn down a friend's request.

My donations continue through the calendar year depending on who needs my help at a particular time or fundraiser. However, the bulk of the check writing takes place right around this time when I go through my list of regular charities and send out the customary funds. I expect nothing in return although many of the organizations send me token gifts of address labels, note pads, car decals or some such item of appreciation along with a thank-you note and another form for future donations. Occasionally, some of them would have  special gifts associated with different levels of donations. Most of the time I pass on these unless it is something quirky or mildly useful that I want. I have in the last thirty years, opted to receive perhaps three or four such gift items while making charitable donations. This year however, I lusted after an "All Things Considered" commemorative coffee mug when I donated to the Houston area NPR station. It was one of the gifts being offered at the level of contribution that I made. The cost of receiving the gift was $10 ($6 for the mug + $4 for shipping & handling) which was deducted from my total contribution. The donation was made a few months ago during the radio station's fund raising drive and soon thereafter I received a receipt for my net contribution. I had forgotten about the whole thing. But a few days ago when I sat down to write the remaining charity checks, I remembered the mug and realized that I haven't yet received it. This fact bothered me a lot! I have been wondering why. It is after all only a six dollar mug and I would have made the same contribution even without the lure of the mug. Please explain this strange gnawing acquisitive feeling in an endeavor whose essence was really an act of giving on my part. Why does the missing mug make me feel slightly cheated? Is it because even in our generosity, we like to receive what we are promised, however trivial the gift may be?

One of my long time favorite charities, the World Wildlife Fund customarily offers gifts with donations. Except for two gifts (a stuffed tiger and a tote bag, both of which were delivered as promised) in the last twenty five years, I routinely decline their gifts. But this year again, the WWF has something I really wanted. So I wrote them a check and checked the "yes" square next to the item. Now I will wait for my WWF Butterfly Umbrella!!

Backspiration (Cyrus)

It has been a slow last few months, the way time always seems to be when it's full of variety rather than intense drive.  Sadly, my back has been full of intense pain, from general soreness during the day, to spasms when I try to get out of bed in the morning.  As a welcoming present upon my return to the U.S., I was denied health insurance, so I've largely been dealing with it myself.

Yoga, walks, and mornings that drift toward full movement around noon.  The last week has been better, largely thanks to these remedial cures, such that (until this morning) I had already started to think of the previous months as the "era of the bad-back," past tense.  Joy!

However, the bad posterior has been cause for much creative thought, or, more accurately, the annoying antagonist that reminded me to do things not only good for my back, but also my mind.  In particular, daily walks. Walking without immediate purpose almost always puts me in a contemplative mood, and the natural open space of Boulder does much to incite the inner voice.  Allora, backspiration, one of which I want to share.

I've always enjoyed soaking up the ambiance of a scene.  Or, maybe, it's the other way: I take in the ambiance when I'm relaxed.  The brain opens up and starts to notice things normally edited out in the name of concision.  As a aurally focused person, sound particularly brightens up. Birds, conversation, a distant flute.  Volume itself becomes fascinating, as people walk by, children scream joyfully, and the wind acts as DJ, mixing it all together.  Last week, one gust brought a sudden onset of bagpipes.

But I can only walk so far, only go to so many places.  You may have experienced similar problems with time and space.  How about recording it? Put it online, let others listen to it, and accept their donated wanderings in return?

Alone, this isn't a particularly interesting idea, but the advent of large, semi-public geoinformation databases opens up a range of fascinating possibilities.  The presence of GPS on most modern phones makes it easy for anyone to make a highly accurate track of their movements.  Put these together with the recorded audio, and you have a website that explores the interface between place, context, time, and sound.

Imagine two windows on the screen, one a time-line/audio player, the other a Google map widget.  As one plays the audio, a little figure on the map moves synchronously, following the GPS track.  Somewhere, the time is presented.  Hear something interesting?  Calm?  Calamity?  Cacophony?  Click the map, and the location will be looked up in the numerous public image databases, the resulting images revealing the context of the place.

I suppose this is somewhat related to Google's Street View, but two things things set it apart.  First, of course, the audio is the heart of the project.  A particular snapshot of time, I would hope that people would walk the same or similar routes multiple times, sampling them for their variance.  Second, each recording would be a path set upon not becuase streets happen to be there, but because a person, an individual chose to go there.  That agency adds something unique to every recording.  Does the person choose to speak, saying hi to strangers?  Do they spit?  Cough?

I'm almost convinced to build the thing in my spare time.  If only it didn't hurt to sit for extended periods of time.  Backspiration failing.

Six years and sickly - Happy Birthday A.B. :-)

I guess that is not a very nice thing to say in a birthday greeting, at least not if you still want people to remain interested in your enterprise. Every year on October 19^th, the anniversary musings come with sweet as well as bitter sweet reckonings about the health of the blog. It is increasingly evident that we are now in a completely different state of blogging regarding enthusiasm, frequency and readership volume from the heydays of just a couple of years ago.  

There is nothing terribly interesting to say this year about traffic, new authors or sensational links that created a lot of interest. The past twelve months have seen a real dip in new writings and naturally, in traffic. Of the dozen authors listed on our roster less than 50% have contributed on a regular basis in the past year. Often short links (something I don’t like very much) have filled up the space on the front page in lieu of substantive commentary. We have pivoted away from political blogging for the most part, current political events specifically, have not received much attention.

Time, as Sujatha pointed out in her anniversary post last year is a major obstacle to blogging for most authors. But that is not the only reason. As I once speculated and Sujatha pointed out, crowded and more interactive social media too have played a role in the reduction of readership and postings. 

My thanks to Sujatha, Norm and Omar for blogging here with some regularity on varied topics and to Dean for keeping the comment threads lively. I also appreciate the contributions of other authors (Dean, Prasad, Jesse and Cyrus) who have posted when time has permitted. Joe, Anna and Andrew have not been seen here for a long time. The former became busy with his new job and the latter two with their new baby. My own rate of blogging has fallen precipitously. I noted in a comment on Sujatha’s anniversary post last year that a lack of enthusiasm for the political scene is one of the many reasons why my blogging spirits have flagged considerably. Some of us think that is not necessarily a bad thing. Now with a messy election season coming up, our attention may once again turn to politics. Who knows, the urge to hold forth publicly on issues that matter to us may pick up once again.

Many thanks also to some regular readers who continue to drop by despite the paucity of new material and reduced frequency of posting. Some, like my friend Elatia, are invariably supportive and add to the discussion with their interesting and thoughtful observations. Despite the anemic condition, Accidental Blogger remains a comfortable zone for some of us to share our thoughts and talk to each other. Do continue to check us out.

Several times in the past whenever I felt (sometimes mistakenly) that the blog was in the doldrums, I used to weigh the option of closing down Accidental Blogger. Joe always said that he didn’t believe I would ever do that. He was right. I do not want to lose a huge and interesting archive of material contributed by many different authors and commenters who put in a lot of thought and effort in adding to the discussions.  The contents of the blog will be maintained as they are whether or not blogging ceases altogether here. I have decided that TypePad is as good a venue as any other on the web to maintain the blog in its original format. A.B. therefore will remain available to its authors and readers for the foreseeable future.

To add some color to the bland musings, let me share a painting of mine with you. The composition is a bit stark and bare. Perhaps the solitary musician is not entirely unsuited for the mood of this post. We are not quite whistling past the graveyard but sometimes it feels a lot like singing in the wilderness.

 (click to enlarge)

Kashmir: A troubled paradise

As a child growing up after India's partition, Kashmir to me was always a part of India. Only in middle school did I begin to realize that it was considered "disputed territory" by much of the world, the sentiment being especially fierce in neighboring Pakistan. The map of India that we studied in school showed Indian Kashmir as a larger territory than what was actually under Indian control. Parts of it in the north and the west were in reality, within China and Pakistan. The scenic northernmost state, a popular destination for summer tourism and the backdrop of many a puerile romantic song & dance number of made-in-Bombay movies, was not a very urgent topic of discussion for the general Indian public. Kashmir for most Indians, evoked benign, pretty images of apple, apricot and walnut orchards, chinar trees, shimmering lakes, snow capped mountains, houseboats, fine pashmina shawls, lacquered papier mache ornaments and the valley's light skinned aloof inhabitants.    

Later in my teen years I began to understand that Kashmir was not the placid paradise we had imagined as children. Its politics were complicated and its population sharply divided on the state's rightful status - part of India, part of Pakistan or a wholly independent/ autonomous entity. The difference of opinion fell across religious lines. Kashmiri Hindus wished to remain with India and the majority Muslim population of the state did not. Even then, things were mostly quiet and free of turmoil. There were quite a few Kashmiri students in my school. Many had ancestral homes and relatives in Kashmir and they visited there regularly during summer breaks. Those friends were all Hindus. Come to think of it, I did not know a single Kashmiri Muslim on a personal level until I was in college. There were Muslim traders and merchants who came down to major Indian cities bearing expensive and much coveted Kashmiri merchandise such as saffron, dried fruit, nuts and embroidered woollens, but they did not reside in the plains permanently and their children did not attend our schools. The first Kashmiri Muslim I came to know well was Agha Shahid Ali, a graduate student a few years ahead of me in Delhi University who later became a lecturer of English at my college as also a poet of some renown. It was Ali who first revealed to me that most Kashmiri Muslims did not identify themselves as Indians and many felt a greater emotional and cultural allegiance with Pakistan. An equal number wanted an autonomous state with a very loose federation with India for economic reasons. The Indian government spent large sums of money to subsidize the state's economy and prohibited non-Kashmiris from buying land there while also meddling in local politics. Kashmiris became increasingly suspicious of the central government's motives and the rift with India widened both politically and culturally.  

Despite tensions and uncertainties, Kashmir never experienced the sectarian violence that had racked the eastern and western wings of India around partition time. Even when India and Pakistan fought several wars over their disagreement surrounding the region, Kashmir itself remained relatively free of communal strife for many decades after India's independence. The uneasy calm ended in the late 1980s and early '90s when the Kashmir valley became a battle ground for armed insurgents trained in Pakistan and the Indian military forces. The conflict caused a communal rift among long time residents and resulted in a mass exodus (some say expulsion) of Kashmiri Hindus from their homes. Those tensions remain to this day laced with bitterness on both sides.

I had never visited Kashmir when I lived in India. By the time the political upheaval unfolded in the 1990s, I had already left and had been living abroad for a decade. Kashmir's troubles and deteriorating political situation were not something I paid close attention to until the Kargil War erupted in 1999. It became clear then that Kashmir had become an intractable problem for India. I am still not sure how I feel about the situation. What can India gain by holding on to a territory whose residents do not want to be a part of India? Can India protect  regions like Ladakh and Jammu in the vicinity which identify firmly with the rest of India? What would happen if India does decide to vacate the valley and stops spending money to placate the population and maintain the large presence of its armed forces? Would Kashmir valley remain "independent" or will some other country like China or Pakistan march in and establish control even closer to other Indian states? How does one balance the interests of Kashmiris and the rest of India? Is peace ever possible when the citizenry perceives the government as an "occupying force?" Most confusing of all, will Kashmiri Hindus be permitted go back to the homes they abandoned out of fear and panic?  And even if it was possible, would they ever want to return to a place that had cut all ties to India?

I visited Kashmir last month for the first time. The experience was charming and depressing at the same time. A beautiful but somewhat sad place, the political and emotional tensions there are palpable even though the awful and frequent violence has abated. The native population of Kashmir is now almost 100% Muslim, the Kashmiri Pandits having departed from the valley. The tourists are mostly non-Muslim Indians (foreign tourism in the politically unstable region has evaporated) as are the members of the very large contingent of Indian armed forces whose presence is ubiquitous and certainly unnerving for local Kashmiris.

I will not describe here the impressions of Kashmir that were gleaned from what I saw and heard. I discussed that a bit in a comments thread over at 3 Quarks Daily. Instead please see below the fold, some of the photos we took during our trip and click to enlarge the images.

(For how Kashmiris themselves feel, see a Muslim man's perspective here and the plight of the Hindu refugees here.)

Cookery Carousel (Sujatha)

Why do we watch food shows on TV?  For a variety of reasons, as varied as the different offerings on the likes of The Food Network and The Learning Channel, analyzed to exhaustion by Akim Reinhardt on 3QD.

I've come to the conclusion that I hate cooking, and would be entirely happy if I never had to lift a finger in the kitchen. Why then does my remote-clicking finger seep into paralysis when it reaches the Food Network?

There's no dearth of gorgeous, tastefully arranged plates of food, faux drama, foodie discussions with lines read straight off the teleprompter. These are all actors purveying a story and concept to the TV audience. "You too can get off the couches and start cooking like the Great Chefs, or the Bounteous Babushkas, or the Bulimic Bombshells."

It's less of Buon Appetito, and more of the triumph of Mindless over Matter.

The Art of Physics, or should it be The Physics of Art ? (Sujatha)

Jackson Pollock may have been a secret physicist, judging by a recent scientific analysis of his techniques and works. Or not.

How many times do we do things without stopping to examine the underlying physical principles? I'm sure that many a cake may have been put together Amelia Bedelia-style, "A pinch of this, a toss of that", and the end result is sometimes better, though quirkier than the perfectly adhered-to recipe.

It makes for fun to know that we do what we do, but doesn't make the outcome palpably better. But the exploration of those principles can make for fascinating stuff.

Pollock's works have alway been the subject of both awe and derision. Whether it was lauded as a 'liberation from value- political, esthetic, moral' or derided as 'a joke in bad taste', the paintings themselves, remain to this day, widely popular and iconic in status as the years pass.

 

From the Wired.com article:

"Now, Boston College art historian Claude Cernuschi,  Harvard mathematicians Lakshminarayanan Mahadevan and Herczynski have turned the tools of physics on Pollock’s painting process. In what they believe is the first quantitative analysis of drip painting, the researchers derived an equation for how Pollock spread paint.

The team focused on the painting Untitled 48-49, which features wiggling lines and curlicues of red paint. Those loops formed through a fluid instability called coiling, in which thick fluids fold onto themselves like coils of rope.

“People thought perhaps Pollock created this effect by wiggling his hand in a sinusoidal way, but he didn’t,” Herczynski said.

There is even an interesting video that illustrates the principle of the fluid mechanics behind some of the curlicues that show up in detailed view the Pollock painting.

 

Now you know what to do on a rainy day with food coloring/paint/flour and paper. Experiment away and make mini-Pollock style masterpieces of your own. You don't need to understand the Physics behind it to enjoy it. Maybe that was partly what Pollock's painting was all about, more about the enjoyment of the moment of creation, and less about understanding the phenomenon behind it.

Odds and Ends (Sujatha)

-I knew the CDC was the go-to place for information on dealing with epidemics, the latest outbreaks of measles, travel vaccination recommendations etc, but did you know that they offer instructions on how to deal with a Zombie Apocalypse ?

-Not all planets need their stars, some may be Lonely Rangers, like these newly found types of planets.

-A possible competitor for Mad Hal, the crazed computer in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Research from U Texas shows that it is possible to make a computer schizophrenic.

Skimming the "News" about Domestic Trends (Dean)

By accident--this is, after all, the Accidental Blogger--two stories from major news outlets came my way, both in relevant part pertaining to domestic amenities, kitchen conveniences in particular. I don't often read the real estate or dining pages. Now I'm reminded why.

With rare exceptions, I can't stomach food writing. A story in yesterday's New York Times (beware the paywall) is a perfect example of putrid journalism parading as insightful, novel human interest. Essentially, two pages of precious web journalism copy space are occupied by fluff about Indian cookery. Don't get me wrong. I love tandoori cooking, which I first learned about in, oh, around 1986 (India's Oven, Los Angeles). This story finds interesting the fact that some guy, who now runs a business manufacturing tandoor ovens for home use, hadn't heard about it until...1986. That's 25 years ago. We learn that Madhur Jaffrey, whom I first heard about in, I dunno, the '90s, maybe, heard about it only as recently as 1947. How is this news? Or even interesting?

 

The tandoor may have originated in Rajasthan, India, where archeologists have found tandoor remains dating from 2600 B.C. — about the same time as the pyramids. The first tandoors were used to bake flatbread, a tradition that survives in Indian roti, Afghan naan and Turkmen chorek.

Visit a bakery on the teeming Chandni Chowk in Old Delhi — or any Indian restaurant, for that matter — and you will see fresh naan being made to order. Soft white balls of yeasted dough are rolled into flat cakes, which are draped over a round cloth pillow called a gadhi and pressed onto the hot inner walls of the tandoor, where they puff, blister and brown in minutes.

The searing heat and smoke, and moisture-retaining properties of the tandoor, make it equally effective for roasting meat on vertical skewers, a delicacy mentioned by the Indian surgeon Sushruta as early as the eighth century B.C. Shah Jahan, the Mughal emperor who built the Taj Mahal, held the tandoor in such high esteem he had a portable metal model constructed to take on his travels.

In spite of its ancient origins and utter simplicity, the tandoor produces startlingly sophisticated results, including smoky flatbreads that puff like pillows, and roasted meats of uncommon succulence.

And what is this baloney? "In spite of its ancient origins and utter simplicity, the tandoor produces startlingly sophisticated results, including smoky flatbreads that puff like pillows, and roasted meats of uncommon succulence." Such condescension to those dumb, unsophisticated ancient originals! "Uncommon succulence" sounds downright dirty.

So the core of the story is: some ceramics guy in Florida was approached by some NY Indian restaurant owner who wanted a homemade tandoor. Floridan made it and parlayed his success into a business. Now he knows more about tandoors than your average diner at an Indian restaurant. And now he sells a unit for home use. Ah, American ingenuity!

Then there's this Houston Chronicle piece about homebuilding and "diversity."

Ramesh Bhutada didn't plan on moving. However, when his son married a few years ago, he knew the growing family needed more space to keep living together.

He bought a 5,000 square-foot house in Sugar Land with a second master bedroom upstairs for the newly wed couple, an option the builder, Perry Homes, offered.

"We knew they would want their privacy, and this way we can still enjoy living together," said Bhutada, whose family is among South Asian buyers requesting additional master bedrooms. "Our grandchild is on the way at anytime now, so it will be a lot of fun for us as grandparents to have a little kid around."

Carrying over a tradition from their native countries, some South Asian children live with their parents until they marry and then often live with the groom's parents after marriage.

In the Houston area, such cultural norms have builders responding to the region's diversity by incorporating special design demands into homes. Aside from extra bedrooms, they're adding secondary kitchens and prayer rooms that appeal to South Asians and courtyards popular with Hispanic buyers.

The changes haven't yet become a common part of most standard home plans, but more builders are accommodating well-heeled buyers who ask for such features.

So, South Asian families are demanding additional master bedrooms in the homes of the parents of newlywed grooms, into which the married youngsters can move. On the one hand, and despite my disdain for the awful convention we call family, I do believe families should live together in extended configurations. (My wife and I are raising two kids, one a newborn, with no family nearby to help.) So, I think there's nothing weird at all about the newlyweds moving upstairs. On the other hand, I myself find home ownership unheimlich, disturbing. My preference would be for widespread communal living and widely shared responsibility for raising kids. (This in no way reflects the opinions of my wife and two children.)

The article goes on to describe a vile status-seeking development in home design around the kitchen, ostensibly one respecting "diverse" needs of other cultures, the construction of two kitchens, one for show, the other for the "dirty" work of cooking. The show kitchen feature is, to me, pure capitalist cancer. I wish food poisoning on those who demand them. I don't think there's anything wrong with using multiple spaces to prepare meals (or, say, to brew beer), but installing a kitchen as an ornament is obnoxious.

I dunno. Maybe one day soon slow news days, like slow cooking, will be all the rage.

Another Baby on A.B. :-)

If you stick around long enough, interesting things happen on the blog. This is the second time we are announcing the news of a baby being born to one of the A.B. bloggers. A little girl was welcomed by our own Dean's family recently, exactly a week ago to be precise. Olivia Valero Rowan was born on March 27, 2011 in perfect health, weighing in at 6 lbs., 2 oz. and measuring almost 18" in height / length. Olivia's proud parents and older brother Sebastian are thrilled. Many good wishes and hearty congratulations to the Rowan family from Accidental Blogger(s).  

 

Another piece of good news from Dean's quarters, a follow up to his recent post, The Reach of Resonance where he described the work of his friend, musician and film maker Steve Elkins. Dean has just informed me that Elkins' film won the award in the category of "Best Essay" at The 29th International Festival of Films on Art held in Montreal last month. Congratulations to Steve too!

3 Quarks Daily Arts & Literature Prize Finalists

 

A few weeks ago the 3 QD Arts & Literature contest for blog writings was announced here. I indicated then that a post from Accidental Blogger had been nominated. I am happy to report that the post has been selected as one of the nine finalists by the editors of 3 Quarks Daily. The eligible entries will be judged by author Laila Lalami to determine the three winners. 

A Question of Lineage (Sujatha)

A simple, almost off-hand comment in this article (via 3QD), describing an interview with the estimable William Dalrymple:

"It was during the writing of White Mughals that Dalrymple discovered something about his own family: His maternal great-great-grandmother Sophia Pattle was the daughter of "a Hindu Bengali woman . . . who converted to Catholicism and married a French officer in Pondicherry in the 1780s." Like Virginia Woolf, who is descended from Pattle's sister, Dalrymple is part Indian by blood. "If you look at photographs, Woolf looks almost Punjabi," he laughs. "Indians haven't yet caught on to it."

The Grammar Police (Sujatha)

Take this, you English-mangling, bumbling writers blending in your regional dialects, oddities of phrase and grammar in your writing. A pontificating pundit from The Hindu ('India's National Newspaper') laments the death of good English in Indian writing, and herself commits more than a few cardinal sins in the process.