I'm changing the tag.

Five books I read recently:
The Lost Continent: Travels in Small Town America- Bill Bryson
After having lived in England for many years, Bill Bryson takes a road trip across America. His take on eighties America: hilarious, critical and affectionate.

Jeeves and the tie that binds-P.G.Wodehouse
I haven't really (ahem) read much Wodehouse. But fear not, I shall remedy this soon. And before you dismiss me as illiterate, know that I started with the wrong book (or so I'm told)- Eggs, Beans and Crumpets at age 12. I didn't really get it. And never bothered to pick up another Wodehouse until...now. No wait, I read a collection of Wooster/Jeeves short stories that was lying around at home some time last year. Ha, finally I know where my father got the "You look like something the cat brought in." from.

The Painted Word- Tom Wolfe
On Eye's recommendation. Best left to artists/ those who know lots about art. Wolfe does have a point, though.

Kitchen Confidential- Anthony Bourdain
Entertaining (and informative) account of how Bourdain managed to become a chef despite being high at most times on some illegal substance or the other.

No onions nor garlic- Srividya Natarajan
A tambrhahm herself, Natarajan makes merciless fun of her ilk. Gotta like it for that. Ought to have been about half its size, I think.

Five books I find unreadable:

One Hundred Years of Solitude- Gabriel Garcia Marquez
I've picked this one up twice and give up both times. It isn't as if I disliked it. I just... lost interest somewhere along the way.

Godel, Escher, Bach- Douglas Hofstadter
Full of mathematical concepts. 'Nuff said.

The Pickwick Papers- Charles Dickens
Too long.

Mansfield Park
Don't get me wrong, I love Jane Austen. But this one's as dull as its virtuous heroine.

A Farewell to Arms- Ernest Hemingway
Just don't like Hemingway

The Female Eunuch- Germaine Greer
Might've been revolutionary when first published, but I don't see what the fuss is all about. And Greer thinks women ought to taste their menstrual blood. Is she familiar with the concept of hygiene?

Now, Eyefry and Antickpix do this tag. Go on.

Serendipitous discovery of the day: According to this Wikipedia article, Peengan (or Pinkan as they spell it) is derived from the Portuguese word palangana. But, BUT, google can find no such word in the Portugese language. Only the Spanish palangana which means 'basin' or 'wash-basin'. Since basins are made of ceramic, I can see how palangana could come to represent china/glassware. The Portuguese-Spanish conflict notwithstanding, seems a more convincing explanation than mine.

This is silly I know, but just had to say it.

Found while reading this serious and high minded paper, a reference to an article written by a guy named... Wanker. (A last name to beat all last names except of course, Screwvala). Imagine having a serious discussion with him: "But Dr.Wanker", you'll say, trying very hard to keep a straight face and not dissolve into a schoolgirlish fit of giggles, "surely you do agree that there's more to Huntington pathology than impaired BDNF transport?" Such tension it would be.

Alright, alright enough juvenile behaviour. Back to serious and high minded reading now.

This is old news now, but since we discussed the paper in class today, I might as well talk about it. Damage to a part of your brain known as the insula has an unexpected(but not unpleasant)consequence: if you are a smoker, you'll quit smoking. And with no trouble, no craving, and no relapse. As one man put it, after having suffered damage to his insula: "My body just forgot the urge to smoke." Neat. So now we know which part of the brain is involved in addiction to smoking (it's not known if the insula plays s role in other kinds of reward associated learning, including drug addiction).

No one has actually proven this experimentally- the study was entirely statistical(not that it isn't convincing). Maybe some one will try TMS- TMS or trans-cranial magnetic stimulation shoots a strong electromagnetic pulse to a small patch of brain tissue (of your choice), which is then stimulated. Some folks who've received TMS to their temporal lobes (the area of brain near your temples, hence the name) have 'experienced God' (this is rather controversial, though). Depending on the frequency of stimulation, TMS can also inhibit brain activity. If I were to apply TMS the part of your motor cortex (at the right frequency) that controls moving your right hand, you wouldn't be able to move it.

So here's what I'd like to see done- find a bunch of chain smokers- the kind that go through 2 packs of ciggies per day. Deprive them of smokes for, say, a few days. When they're dying for that nicotine fix, give them a cigarette, and at the same time zap their insula with TMS so as to inhibit it. If the study is right, the smokers should feel no urge to smoke. One moment the guy is dying to smoke, and the next moment he couldn't care less about the cigarette in his hand. That would be so cool if it worked!

I'm not sure if TMS can be applied to the insula (for technical reasons), though... And how to quantify a smoker's craving (and non-craving) for cigarettes? Maybe there's some physiological change that can be measured. Else, we'd have to take the smoker's word for it, and that wouldn't be the best way to go about things, would it?

This may be trivial, but had to say it (now that we're on the topic of science)- Germaine Greer seems to think that humans possess 48 chromosomes (we actually only have 46). She makes above assertion in the very first page of The Female Eunuch. What surprises me is that her editors haven't bothered to correct this- the 2001 edition (I checked on Amazon)has the same mistake. Makes me wonder how many other writers have got their facts wrong, and I've believed them blindly.

That probably got too serious for this blog, so as remedy, I leave you with the fainting goats, narcoleptic doggies and carnivorous cow...

Update!(Scroll down)

The NY Times trashes 300.

" "300” is about as violent as “Apocalypto” and twice as stupid."

Ouch.

"Its digitally tricked-up color scheme, while impressive at times, is hard to tolerate for nearly two hours (true masochists can seek out the Imax version), and the hectic battle scenes would be much more exciting in the first person. I want to chop up some Persians too!"

Ha, I'll tell you Sunday night if the imax experience was an exercise in masochism or not.


Ok, so this spiel about honour, glory and duty, and Sparta being the world's 'one last hope for justice and freedom'- I don't get it. Nor do I get the glorification of Spartan culture (which is bizarre and scary) and Spartan heroism- tolerable enough in the graphic novel- the illustrations were pretty (although the dialogues were corny). In the movie version, sadly the visuals are not pretty enough to keep one distracted from the dialogues (that believe it or not, sound cornier than they do on print) and the bad acting. They shouldn't really have made 300 into a movie... The trailer is much better looking and more entertaining than the full-length film. Watch it instead.

I wouldn't go so far as calling the experience masochism, despite having watched it sitting in the third row from the imax screen. But, yes I agree with the NY Times on everything else.

Btw, the theatre was inside a huge furniture store! We had to walk past row upon row of couches and beds to get to the screen. Most surreal.

Conversation between D (roomie) and A:

A: Male flies are more stupid than female flies.
D: Huh?
A: Yeah, of course- it's easier to kill them.
D (in disbelief): So every time you kill a fly you examine its genitals?
A (in all seriousness): Er, aren't male flies mosquitoes?
D: ...

A goes to Harvard Business school. He's going to work for McKenzie, with an annual salary of $150,000.

Now you know what it takes.