Random Deviations
One comes across a lot of ‘interesting’ things on the internet these days. If email forwards of yesteryears were not enough, you now have Facebook, Twitter and yes, blogs. A lot of it is noise. Granted what is noise and what is not is a highly subjective and personal thing, but we all find ourselves a bit overwhelmed these days - no matter how selective we are about what we consider noise. Here are a few things that stood out from the noise (for me) over the past couple of months:
Subodh Gupta - Is an Indian artist who is going places these days. He creates very peculiar art and steel utensils are an important motif across most of his works. Be it his installations, like “Very Hungry God” - a huge skull made entirely of stainless steel cooking vessels (thereby giving the installation a somewhat literal bend), or his photorealistic paintings of everyday steel utensils.
Very Hungry God - Photo: Marc Domage, via Saatchi Online
Utensils - via The Saatchi Gallery
FreshPairOfEyes
Brooke Waggoner - Most music that is churned out these days has very little shelf life - most songs grow on you within one listening but then their charm begins to wear off. Within a month you begin to wonder how you ever liked that particular track. Gone also are the days when you’d pick an album and like every single track in it.
So I approach the free tracks that iTunes gives away each Tuesday with very little expectation. Yet, when I heard Brooke Waggoner’s ‘Young Friend’ I knew I had stumbled upon something different.
Her music is a fairly unique sounding blend of folk, pop and country and hasn’t lost it’s freshness after a month of repeated listening. But don’t take my word for it. Her site is giving away her first EP free. Get it from brookewaggonermusic.com.
Filminute: The International One-Minute Film Festival showcases one minute long ‘films’. My attention span isn’t quite that bad yet, but it is indeed a very interesting limitation that has led to some very creative ‘films’, including a couple from India. Do check out ‘Rahim Murge Pe Mat Ro’ (don’t if you are the squeamish sorts). Bonus points if you can identify the background track.
Filminute
Via Gaurav.