Summer! I propose change!

I hate the weather! I mean it was just getting comfy cold and I was getting quilted out and all of a sudden...BAM! It's summer. Ick. If there is anything I hate more than walking around this city in the rain and slush, it is waking up in the heat. In my idyllic world, it is fancy jackets and hot chocolate weather atleast 361 days a year. That would leave two days for a tremendous rainfall (so that they have to close the office) and two days of stifling, scorching heat (where you can spend underwater because it's too hot to do anything else). See, I'm open to a small amount of moderation.

I'm looking forward to a few more days of comparative serenity. Nothing about last week was very crazy, but it was fast-paced enough and left me with such little personal time that I was a bit burnt-out by the time Friday night rolled around. I just have to make it through the next week and then a little vacation awaits. I'll probably be hitting Pondicherry (fingers crossed), where, with the exception of my date with Law & Order, I plan to spend all of my time slightly intoxicated, kicking water and working on losing my newly gained weight. Lord knows I'm up for the challenge.

However, the biggest test in my life now is to maintain my sanity at work and keep earning a paycheck. All in all, they've been very civil to me here. No reason I can't continue to do what I’m doing at this company and work towards outside goals. I just have to keep my patience and realize that I don't have to be stuck here forever.

And as my creative self, has always reminded me, I can always go out for Indian Idol Senior Edition in 20 years, if nothing else works out.

I’ve been kicking myself for not discovering this song any sooner. Well, yesterday Ru sent me this song and somehow it went right into all the nerves in my head. As an aside, ‘Love is not a fight’ by North Carolina-born singer/songwriter Warren Barfield, gets better and better every time I listen to it and the fact that I'm still hitting 'play' after turning in the review should say a good deal. And it gets me oh so happy by even writing about it here on my pretty little blog in any way.
My exterior pretended to be un-moved but in my head I was clearing up flowing awesomeness. Amazing doesn't begin to do justice to this song. What a revelation. A beautiful skillfully layered gorgeously instrumented work that has officially burrowed its magic into my brain.







To the good person responsible for getting me to hear it- Ru, thanks.

How was your weekend?

I am incredibly sleep-deprived at the moment, and plan on tumbling onto the cold hard floor the minute I’m finished posting this, waking up in my own drool several hours later, oblivious to all current events.

Ever since I started working I lost the possibility to spend lovely nights with my own friends. Since then I’ve made plenty other friends and have tagged along with them for fun nights and it has been a lot of fun too, though different all together. Ladies night out was something the girls- Runa, Ruan and I came up with in college. It was the time we got to dress up and go somewhere fancy, do what we want and talk about things we can’t with the guys around. It was more about talking than anything else. The night always promises to bring us, top-notch ladies together with some top-shelf dining. Here are some photos from Saturday night with the ladies! :-)

Thank you girls - I love you two! The chocolate shots were fun to have, I ate all the food placed in front of me in a great frenzy mood, and enjoyed it a lot. The only disappointment was being asked by a bald old guy to join him and his veteran friend for a drink! :-/

I celebrated my return to drinking again this weekend, and I am very, very thankful for the existence of Ladies Night. And then, just to balance out the weekend and make sure it doesn’t get too boxy, I went shopping on Sunday.

I got a new haircut too, to keep the heat off my neck - something of a makeover.

Mmmm! I love summer time.

There’s nothing like a good song and good music doesn’t need to remind you how clever it is, it doesn’t need fantastic new age noises and it doesn’t even need a very long introduction. While routine and social calls piled up between work and home this song stayed firmly on my play list. Despite getting pushed back a little, I promised not to waver. Then today, during a brief quiet period in work, I pressed play on track one. And I smiled. Regardless of a relative lack of commercial success, this remains one of my critical favorites. Most of the songs from this artist are acoustic tracks and it has to be said, more simple than the stuff I play here on EC but it’s still such a gem. I don’t know if you can ask more of an album than for it to stick in your head and make you wish you came up with the lines yourself. It's a simple song with a catchy little hook. Sometimes that's all you need. Take a listen. ‘Sleeping Dogs’ by Madeline.

Happy Monday, y'all!

I started blogging when a friend suggested that I put my thoughts and love for music into words. I never expected to tell anyone what I was doing online. But you and I know that this tale doesn’t quite work out that way. It first started with my crew getting to know of it, then other colleagues and then the FAMILY! The idea of getting this writing to work out for me was to get my thoughts, experiences and musical discoveries in one place…. A record, you could call it, of the days I’ve lived in this universe and not some self-seeking trip of an incoherent theorist.

I must include this very common question I’ve been asked by people who’ve read my blog - “Am I in it?” And I’d like to throw open the question to my readers here, how on earth do you answer a question like that? Responding in the affirmative would get you caught in explaining the entire post, why you wrote about that person, about what, etc. If you were brave enough to reply in the negative then you’re swiftly confronted with this look of hurt and the glaring question (of course, unspoken) - “So you don’t really think I’m all that interesting?” Sometimes you get the most insulted response, coated with much sweetness - “Wow, how do you get around to writing so much”. Thanks. I think. But we sorted that one out and I now know what that means!

And the last one, I promise. Whenever I’m out with friends who know I blog, I’m always met with the statement “This is so going up on your blog”. The condensed answer is – Hell yeah! If something gets me laughing like a hyena or angry as a hornet, then it’s very likely going to end up here at some point. Let me tell you that a very small amount of my life stories are sacred.

So what started out as my own little secret is quick developing into common knowledge. Yes, there are certain individuals who I would still prefer not to know about my blog, as I don’t think their feedback would be either complimentary or constructive. But the intewebs is a small space and some folks are distinguished for not being able to keep shut. I know I will have to answer at some point of time about the crap I’ve written about a few people and when that happens I’ll just blatantly bold it out and ask them if they’re insulted or upset because they see some reality in what I’ve written.

I had an interesting little moment awhile ago while I was spending some time focused in on this video and I realized I had seen this boy somewhere:

And I was thinking that the fellow looked crazy similar to: 

Ridge Forrester from ‘The Bold & the Beautiful’

After bouncing around from a couple confirmations I came back to the conclusion that they’re the same person. Go figure!

That’s Ronn Moss (Ridge Forrester) on bass and he can actually do more than hold that guitar! Figured that was worth mentioning. Do check out the video.

Seems I've had a fondness for 70 love ballads. In any case, this song 'Baby come back' from the band called 'Player' flows in quite hypnotically, making for an enjoyable and atmospheric tune.

(Thanks to Runa. My source for this post)

Things I Want....

I want to see the night full of city lights, flashing in orange, red and white, to remind me that existence still goes on even as I'm unaware of it.

I want to be in a café with Ash, talking about that which only we could understand about each other.

I want to be looking out the open window of my uncle’s house in Dimapur, to hear the people talking in beautiful Ao, even through the night. I want to smell the wood burning and the moistness of the soil.
I want music to be playing just for me. To lead me through decision after decision.

I want to lie on the beach. To feel the fresh, damp wind blowing through every strand of my hair. To feel the air and quiet consuming me whole.

I want to watch ‘Divine Connection’ perform, with the energy of their music around me as if the night would never end. I want to walk out of that performance into the deafening night air, my mind racing and humbled by the performance.

I want someone to take care of me, because I’m tired of taking care of myself.

I want to be different from everyone, but fit in everywhere.

I want to be passionate about more things. Attract other passionate people, feed off their energy, like a dialogue of ideas and inspiration and with them becoming something more than what I am by myself.

I want my music loud, while I walk through this life. Walking it off like it’s nobody’s business, dancing inside to the bass pounding in my ears.

I want to never give up.

I want to never be stuck in the rat race.

I want to smoke, drink, and eat cheeseburgers all day.

I want to always dream, hope, believe in something better.

I want to be surrounded by my best friends. To speak without thinking. To feel without caring. To confide without worrying.

I want this feeling to last forever.
If you pay attention, comics will teach you many important lessons, and this week, we learn that not every scumbag can be taken down with the judicious application of a kick to the face.

Awhile back I had got myself a copy of ‘The Watchmen’ and it’s one of the best comics I have ever read. Believe it or not, I sometimes exaggerate for effect here on EC, but there comes a time when I have to set aside any pretense and just lay out the facts, and this is one of them. This graphic novel, which casts a world of costumed heroes, is completely a fantastic work of art. I don’t know what happens in the last few chapters, as I had to stop before my head exploded from radness. This is the greatest comic book that has ever been published. Given the amount of time I’ve spent on it last week, it should probably have become pretty apparent that I tend to think about The Watchmen more than just about anything else I had read before.
For starters, there’s Alan Moore, who – it’s no surprise that a guy with his track record knows how to put together a fantastic comic, but he manages to pull off the neat trick of hitting all the familiar beats of a classic action packed story while still keeping everything fresh and exciting. But I must say that the real star here is the art. The book is a treasure, folks, and while the art alone would make the book worth reading, the way the pictures pulls off every beat of Moore’s script is just a joy to read.

And that’s today’s post. As always, if anything caught your eye, feel free to tell me about it, for now here is Smashing Pumpkins’ with ‘The beginning is the end is the beginning’.

Please excuse me while I scream….

Okay… Now that that’s done. I shall proceed to tell you the reason behind this outburst. The one thing that is guaranteed to have me running out of a room, ready to bawl my lungs out in happiness and run up and down my two storey building, is receiving this package - an original Imcha Imchen creation!!!!!

It was a little overwhelming, and I won’t say I didn’t cry some tears of joy. I wanted to have everyone I loved in the room with me right then, to hug them and somehow have them feel this way too. But right now I want to sincerely thank Imcha for being such an amazing friend no matter how busy and far away he is right now. ‘Marky Marc, this really means more to me that you’ll ever know.’

Saturday night had me attending Naga Night 2009; a night to showcase the rich cultural heritage of the people of Nagaland. At the venue I felt like I was back in Dimapur. Meeting people, learning names, throwing in for some pork.

The best part of the night was the performance by this band named ‘Divine Connection’.

It was the huge setting, chill atmosphere and awesome music that made it unlike any other performance I’ve attended. The music was a fusion of modern rock, hint of jazz, funk and nu-metal. I was supposed to stay in Nagaland long enough to catch the Hornbill Festival but plans didn’t go down that way. Divine Connection was the band that won at the Hornbill Music Festival and I was so excited that I had the chance to watch them last night.

They’re striking and their clarity and quality of sound is extremely full and well rounded and that really brings up the energy. The vocalist, Obed Kath, was able to work the crowd up pretty well and was clearly confident with his singing, and this went hand-in-hand with the amazing range of sound that they’ve developed, from provoking and awakening to intense and heated. This is what makes them musicians and not just members of some band. The set they played was blood pumping, adrenaline rushing, great sounding music and I would have bought an album at the concert if I had seen it.

One thing's for sure though, I would definitely go to another Divine Connection concert if they ever came around again.

So far I haven’t had the chance to feel guilty about not looking for another job, which is something that I’m finding hard to get motivated about.
Speaking of which, I spent the last week sending out résumés to various companies. I have a résumé that I’m pretty proud of right now, after spending a lot of time fixing it up. No phone calls so far.

If you’re looking to hear Divine Connection’s music you can check out their music here:

Naga Music Online

The video appearing here on Evuhleen’s Corner is a very short Divine Connection’s bootleg live track, not a studio recording, so be prepared for a little background noise. All that aside enjoy the music and the next time DC is in town get out and see their show.