On Failure

In certain classrooms in North America, teachers are discussing the existence of failure. The fact that one does not always succeeding in whatever one does in life. And that is OK. In a culture where nothing succeeds like success, how did it come to this? Here’s one explanation.

Please note: By young adult I mean anyone over the age of 15, old enough to read Emily Dickinson as well as P.G. Wodehouse and appreciate the beauty of both (in theory).

Scenario one:

A young adult gets ticked off in class. After class she logs on to Facebook and decries the “injustice” she has faced. Immediately gets a 100 likes and her hurt feelings are assuaged. One would like to point out that that’s 100 out of 6 billion, but one is too stunned by the parents (and their friends) applauding her rant. How about a chat on ‘learning from criticism’. Or for that matter the perils of writing out loud in anger that leads to loss of perspective. And grammar in today's world.

Scenario two:

A young adult writes a term paper and will go on to write countless more in the (at the least) 6 years she’ll spend in college. But the parents share it far and wide– a term paper on dialectic materialism or some such is suddenly deemed worthy of a Pulitzer. (Good luck dealing with rejection that is the one constant fact in every writer’s life, dear young woman.) I recall my college days. My parents would have said a simple well done and then directed me towards Stephen Jay Gould or Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness to widen my perspective. In short, encouraged me to read more and write better. That is if I had been silly enough to consider a term paper as something they deserved to suffer through too.

What I mean to point out is that there is a difference between encouragement and unfettered praise which is merely setting up someone for gigantic failure and heartbreak. A little jab of honesty is always better than a  lifelong burden that is a lie. What we are witnessing is a parenting fail perhaps. It seems parents are involved in ever minor, meaningless aspect of their child's 'education' but shield the child from the harsher lessons of life.

So we end up projecting mixed messages. On one hand we say, “You are a genius”. Then the young adult comes face to face with differential calculus: 

 

And we promptly produce the meme about how a fish can’t ride a bicycle and so on to prove everyone is different. However, no one tells the young adult that intelligence is neither inborn, nor an entitlement but something learned. It involves lots of hard work. And sometimes, no matter how hard we try it still eludes us. Just like life.

For parents in the above mentioned scenarios, here’s J.K. Rowling beautiful commencement speech on the ‘The Fringe Benefits of Failure, and the Importance of Imagination’.

Why the cutrain is blue

I’m sure you must have come across ‘the curtain is blue’ meme at some point in time, where the teacher says the curtain is blue because the writer is depressed and the punch line is the writer saying ‘the curtain is blue, because it is f@cking blue’. It is supposed to be a joke on over-analysis (this in an age when no one has the patience to analyze what they say or tweet). To me the meme, besides showing that both the writer and the teacher aren’t good at their jobs (let the reader find the meaning) also highlights the crux of our ‘comprehension problem’. When even newspapers resort to headlines that provoke a reaction rather than encourage thought, it’s safe to conclude that comprehension and analytical thought are no longer our species strong suit.

Gabriel García Márquez explains (in The Art of Fiction No. 69, The Paris Review) why the butterflies are yellow (or the curtain blue):

INTERVIEWER

You describe seemingly fantastic events in such minute detail that it gives them their own reality. Is this something you have picked up from journalism?

GARCÍA MÁRQUEZ

That’s a journalistic trick which you can also apply to literature. For example, if you say that there are elephants flying in the sky, people are not going to believe you. But if you say that there are four hundred and twenty-five elephants flying in the sky, people will probably believe you. One Hundred Years of Solitude is full of that sort of thing. That’s exactly the technique my grandmother used. I remember particularly the story about the character who is surrounded by yellow butterflies. When I was very small there was an electrician who came to the house. I became very curious because he carried a belt with which he used to suspend himself from the electrical posts. My grandmother used to say that every time this man came around, he would leave the house full of butterflies. But when I was writing this, I discovered that if I didn’t say the butterflies were yellow, people would not believe it.

That is the hallmark of a great writer. Also the reason why good story-telling is so damn hard. (Complete interview here: http://www.theparisreview.org/interviews/3196/the-art-of-fiction-no-69-gabriel-garcia-marquez)

As an aside, years ago while reading ‘Life of Pi’, I came to the part where the family plans to migrate, and the mother thinks of all that she'll miss about her life in Pondicherry. Like all good writers to make the part believable Yann Martel names names– for example, the television, she’ll miss watching her favourite shows on, is an Onida, a brand well-recognized by Indians of a certain age because of its standout (though not necessarily good) advertisements that featured a green Devil like figure with the tagline ‘neighbour’s envy, owners pride’. But the novel is set in the summer of 1977. Onida TV began production in 1982. A novel whose premise is believability, is using specific details to make the story believable, but because of such seemingly minor inconsistencies suddenly became hard to believe. Suffice to say I couldn’t complete the book. (Also  Doordarshan, the government run sole TV channel in India, didn’t begin national programming until 1982 (the year colour TV was introduced). In 1975 it broadcasted to only 7 Indian cities.)

“…the slovenliness of our language makes it easier for us to have foolish thoughts.”

– George Orwell, Politics and the English Language (1946)

Orwell’s words hold true for all forms of communication in any language. Consider the election rhetoric in India. That's why one is grateful that there are people around who pay attention to not just what is said, but also the words used, the context and the tone. And insist that other people do so too.

Day Moon

Driving the car, walking the dog . . .
cresting the hill. When suddenly
you catch sight of the day-moon, why
does it come with what is almost a jolt of pain?

You mean the pain inflicted by its beauty? 
No, I mean the pain
caused by its having been up for hours,
and though you’d noticed, you had not seen.

Blaring at you from a sky
the blue of a fast car of a bygone day—
you have so far to go in your perceptual awakening
and the day-moon is the meter of your failings.

And if you’d seen, would you still feel
that soft and slightly sick spot in your stomach
whenever you stoop to self-reflection: now
you wouldn’t stoop, being perceptually awakened

though not boastful, no never boastful.

Meanwhile the day-moon circles the globe like Superman,
hauling the seas on his white shoulders
flying half a mile a second,
getting things done

but also as calm as the Virgin Mary.
See her face up there?
People used to say that it was made of cheese.
Such silent cheese. Such busy cheese.

– Lucia Perillo, Day-Moon

The Best of the Internet

For those unimpressed by cat videos and other such shoddily art directed content that clutters the internet, McSweeney’s Internet Tendency “a website that ran all its articles in the same font and within abnormally narrow margins,” has been an oasis of sanity and unlimited entertainment (and laughter) for the past 15 years. And also a reminder of the hope and change and possibilities originally promised by the internet, before sanity was sacrificed at the alter of noise, clutter and click-baits. While all the articles are available for free online, the site runs no ads and thus earns no money. So every year they collect the best pieces and publish a book to keep the laughter going. Makes sense. As a reader, if you enjoy what you read and want to continue to derive enjoyment from reading, then it is your responsibility to ensure the enjoyment continues unabated. Unfortunately, good content and good writing aren't sustained merely on good wishes and moonbeams.

In 2013, a collection of the best of the best, The Best of McSweeney’s Internet Tendency edited by Chris Monks and John Warner was published featuring legends like ‘I’m Comic Sans, Asshole’ by Mark Lacher and ‘It’s Decorative Gourd Season, Motherfuckers’ by Colin Nissan. And many popular one’s like ‘I Regret to Inform You That My Wedding to Captain Von Trapp Has Been Cancelled.’ by Melinda Taub, ‘Hello Stranger on the Street, Could You Please Tell Me How To Take Care of My Baby?’ by Wendy Molyneux and ‘America: A Review.’ by Megan Amram. And a personal favourite, the ongoing back and forth ‘On the Implausibility of the Death Star’s Trash Compactor’ that first appeared in 2002 and is still going strong. 

This is one happy addition to the bedside table.

Ghosts of Gone Birds / Extinct Boids

What is the purpose of art? Where does its power lie? The answer to such questions vary depending on one’s state of mind– sanguine, cynical or pragmatic. Regardless of what the answers maybe, my favourite ongoing art project is ‘Ghostsof Gone Birds’. Over 200 artists, writers and musicians attempt to breath life into birds long gone (in large part due to human actions) so that other living birds that are under threat may survive. A part of the profit from the sale of the original art works and 50% of royalties from the book are donated to critical bird conservation efforts worldwide.

The book: a visual record of the four exhibitions

Some pages from the book.

The Snail-Eating Coua, Chris Harrendence (left) and Brace's Emerald, Victoria Billet (top right)

Another rendition of the Snail-Eating Coua, Brandon Lodge

The Snail-Eating Coua, a non-parasitic cuckoo from Madagascar became extinct in the 19th century. Deforestation, introduction of Black Rats (that competed with them for food) and domestic cats (that preyed on them) lead to their demise. Brace's Emerald hummingbird lived in Bahamas since the Pleistocene became extinct due to habitat loss and destruction (by agriculture) at the end of 19th century.

Margaret Atwood's knitted Great Auk

Last recorded sighting in 1852, the Great Auk once common in the waters of North Atlantic was important to Native Americans both as food and a cultural symbol. Used as fish bait and hunted for its beak, skin and feathers the species became extinct from the face of the earth, despite late efforts to save the birds.

Not just illustrations, even words bear witness to the silenced voices

When Ralph Steadman was asked to contribute one work of art, he, in what comes as no surprise, provided a book full of 'Extinct Boids', an illustrated record of extinct and imaginary birds in his inimitable style. The result is this book:

On the cover is the Dodo bird, the unfortunate symbol of all the birds that have been lost and gone forever. Not even a single complete specimen of the bird exists. Appropriately the book begins with an Egret– the bird that was hunted to the brink of extinction for its plumes that adorned women's hats. It was the campaign against plume-hunting that lead to the establishment of RSPB– the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. (In the US it lead to the declaration of the first wildlife refuge, Pelican Island in Florida.)

Japanese Egret

In Ralph Steadman's imagination:
How a Bird is Born
One minute there is an egg, the next there is a boid!
One big push and an inky shake of its plumage, and a boid is boin!

How a Bird is Born

Real and Imagined Boids, 240 pages of them

For more about Extinct Boids click here.

The Book

Choose from the option below:
a) I like Tom Gauld a lot.
b) I like Tom Gauld very much.

'You're All Just Jealous Of My JetPack' comics by Tom Gauld, published by Drawn and Quarterly (2013) was eagerly awaited by people who love Tom Gauld's work, people who love books, people who love books with pictures and people who love books about books. It's packed full with all things associated with Tom Gauld– dry humour, unexpected literary references and pairings, whimsical imagination and sharp insights into human behaviour. Here's a small peek.

The story:

About the author:

The street the author grew up on:

The author's family:

 The (inevitable) end:

All comics are on a white background (excuse the camera phone distortions), a reason why you should buy the book.

Meanwhile, on the Facebook page, this week posts on birds (photographs) along with a poem related to each bird to demonstrate a progression in bird watching:

Other Worlds

“It is a curious emotion, this certain homesickness I have in mind…It is no simple longing for the home town or country of our birth. The emotion is Janus-faced: we are torn between a nostalgia for the familiar and an urge for the foreign and strange. As often as not, we are homesick most for the places we have never known.”
― Carson McCullers, ‘Look Homeward, Americans’ 

It's been a while and I wondered, "Does anyone read blog posts anymore?" I'd be lying if I said I was torn between nostalgia and homesickness. For one, I have been posting very regularly on Facebook. But also because I have no such 'feelings' towards posting entries on the blog as I know for certain that nothing lasts for ever. It's because, just like our fellow primates (I have watched the chimpanzees at the London Zoo very closely), we get bored too easily. Look at how we read online: in just 10 seconds we decide whether we should read further or move onto whatever is next.

But I have also learnt that boredom is the biggest motivating force. It can motivate us towards either action or inaction. In fact, to accomplish (or insert any other word you'd rather ascribe to daily existence) anything in life one has to sacrifice boredom, it's not easy but it has to be done. At that the precise moment imagination walks in opening the way to other worlds.

Can we think of animals other than as food, pets or pests?

(A quick update on what has kept me occupied these past days.)

(In the photograph: Black-tailed prairie dogs looking out for predators, eating, interacting with pups and generally being the awesome animals that they are.)

If one wants to study animal cognition– animals as thinking, complex beings– then a study of prairie dogs is inevitable.

For the past couple of months I’ve had the opportunity to observe black-tailed prairie dogs regarded as a keystone species of the short-grass prairie as some 160 other species depend on them for their survival. Moreover their burrows provide underground tunnels for water to flow, thus harvesting rainwater in a dry land with little rain.

Highly social beings, the prairie dogs are ground squirrels that live in colonies consisting of complex social systems spread over several geographic units, known as wards. Each ward contains several kingship units called coteries with a dominant male, several subdominant males, adult females and their pups. Through play, mock fights, mutual grooming and food sharing the pups learn the ways of the colony’s complex social system (more on that later). A highly interesting and engaging pursuit for any student of social structure and organizations.

Throughout the colonies they use visual cues and vocalizations to communicate. They have distinctive “barks” to indicate the nature of threat, whether it’s aerial or terrestrial and at what speed it is approaching. The all clear is a wheezy call accompanied by paws thrown in the air, much like a Mexican wave during a football match.

Symbolic language is considered the one thing that separates humans from non-human animals. Professor Constantine Slobodchikoff has been studying Gunnison's prairie dog communication for  30 years. He notes that predator-specific calls appear to be referential in nature, describing objects and events external to the animal.  He has found that not only do prairie dogs have different words, or alarm calls, but also create new words to refer to new things in their environment and also can discuss things that are not present. Both these abilities were considered purely human. He has also found their language exhibits geographic variations, much like our dialects though prairie dogs from different regions can communicate with each other.

Persecuted as lowly rodents by ranchers and city planners because of their burrows, the prairie dog population has declined 95 percent since mid-19th century. Along with it other dependent species like the black-footed ferret, swift fox, and ferruginous hawk too have declined. Continued study of prairie dog language – its grammar and syntax– shows the limits and flaws of human understanding of other life forms.


I have just skimmed the surface of Professor Slobodchikoff's study. Anyone interested in Animal Cognition should read 'Cognition and Communication among Prairie Dogs' by C. N. Slobodchikoff: http://books.google.com/books?id=T-ztyW8eTnIC&pg=PA257&lpg=PA257&dq=prairie+dog+and+animal+cognition&source=bl&ots=uIp8QwjrFi&sig=dDUe-kB9IFquSEIHBhCC2jVi_AQ&hl=en&sa=X&ei=kF6-UZ71H6rfyQGmioEI&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBA#v=onepage&q=prairie%20dog%20and%20animal%20cognition&f=false

Here's a link about the BBC documentary "Prairie dogs, talk of the town,": http://news.bbc.co.uk/earth/hi/earth_news/newsid_8493000/8493089.stm 

The Hiatus

“Begin at the beginning," the King said, very gravely, "and go on till you come to the end: then stop.”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

One fine day in 2008 I had an epiphany. In my diary I noted down the precise words– “You are not my audience.”* It was a liberating thought. It was as if I had broken some unseen barrier. Suddenly I was free and beyond the reach of any particular individual or social constraint. The only constraints that remained were the one’s that take birth and die almost daily within one’s conscious and subconscious being. I began posting online in 2008. It was to mark a pause: A pause to think, if you will. It has been five years since.

Did I succeed in making someone read beyond 140 characters? Did I open a tiny window to other ways of seeing, other ways of being– even if only for a moment? Did any of it matter, not on a cosmic scale but on a very thinly sliced sliver of time?

If I were to be honest, then the answer would plainly be, “It isn’t important.” Nor was it the intended purpose. The exercise like all physical and mental excursions was purely for personal benefit. However, regardless of the best-laid plans of mice and men, life keeps breaking in and randomly moving the chess pieces. Even if one refuses to play the game, by being a mere bystander (by doing nothing) one influences and is influenced by the proceedings. One doesn’t need to master sociology to understand that. But one needs good sense to recognize that there are no more moves left on the board. That it is time to fold the board, pack away the pieces and go home. Have a cup of tea, or eat an orange. And then reflect back on what one has experienced. But not for too long. For tomorrow lies ahead and with it will come new games played out on some other new arenas.

Or maybe upon reflection one will simply say, “To hell with all these games.” And go sit by the creek with the flowers and watch the clouds and the birds.

* “…We neither of us perform to strangers." –Mr. Darcy to Ms. Elizabeth Bennet, Ch. 31, Pride and Prejudice by Jane Austen.

After writing this post I recollected this dialogue from a book that I keep coming back to almost every year, ever since I first read it when I was around 15 years old. Which only reconfirms what Proust said about reading: Every reader, as he reads, is actually the reader of himself. The writer’s work is only a kind of optical instrument he provides the reader so he can discern what he might have never seen in himself without the book. The reader’s recognition in himself of what the book says is the proof of the book’s truth.

Afterword: Is this the end? Or does a sequel lie beyond? I don’t have any answers yet.

If ever you are curious and find yourself wondering the same then you could stop by the facebook page and piece together something like a story.

The Hare: A Memory

 “Don't you find it a beautiful clean thought, a world empty of people, just uninterrupted grass, and a hare sitting up?”
― D.H. Lawrence, Women in Love 

Watercolour Pencils and Charcoal on Fabriano Accademia Drawing Paper

Watercolour Pencils and Charcoal on Fabriano Accademia Drawing Paper

Watercolour Pencils and Charcoal on Fabriano Accademia Drawing Paper

One had a lovely face,
And two or three had charm,
But charm and face were in vain
Because the mountain grass
Cannot but keep the form
Where the mountain hare has lain.

― W.B Yeats, "Memory"

The Peacock

The Peacock we know (and don't know).

A peacock tries to impress a peahen.

The fabulous colours, the result of structural colouration.

Peacock feeding on seeds laid out for birds in a residential locality in India.

The Peacock (male peafowl) with its showy tail and iridescent colours is not just hard to miss but easy to dismiss, except when he spreads his tail and dances. That is the only time when we care for him. Other than that we only think about peacocks when someone says the words ‘National Bird’.

There is much about the peacock that we think we know. But I suspect there is much we don’t.

I could tell you that the iridescence plumage of the peacock isn’t due to colour pigments but is a result of structural colouration– that means the fibres in the tail feathers scatter light, in accordance with a complex optical interference phenomenon (Bragg reflections). And as optical interference depends upon the angle of light, the colours seem to shimmer as we view the peacock from different angles.

But I would rather talk about how the bird, which is a forest dweller, now comes looking for food to houses that are being built on what once was forests. Instead of roosting on trees, the peacocks now settle for the night on cell phone towers that have taken the place of trees.

Peacocks scavenging for food in open garbage dumps was one of the reasons why I started observing birds as a means to understand the impact of human consumption on other living beings. Before that I spent a large part of the day looking at garbage dumps– the other side of human consumption. But garbage dumps aren’t attractive enough to make people understand that their every action has a consequence. Or that there is no such thing as ‘free choice’.

Four Books: Afterthoughts

Afterthoughts on four books read in the past year (or so). As always, if you are looking for a review please look elsewhere. Posted below are some thoughts that these books brought to the fore.

1

Moonwalking with Einstein: The Art and Science of Remembering Everything by Joshua Foer

I read the American edition of the book: The one with the delightful cover featuring a Sumo wrestler and a dinosaur, among other things, placed on the different levels of a house (which makes perfect sense when one has read the book). It was lent by a friend who said, “You read it first. You’ll like it.” It was a gesture that is becoming obsolete– the one where friends lend you their brand new unopened books, not simply because they want you to read it first, but because they really like you and that is their way of expressing it.

If you haven’t heard about the book then it is clear that you and I don’t share the same planet (by which I simply mean the same perspective and worldview and interests and so on). So much has already been said about the book and Joshua Foer that I can’t think of anything new to add. That this book is/will become a classic is never in doubt. What is perhaps worth debating is whether being able to remember everything (and never forget anything) is a desirable mental state. In fact, the book dwells on this aspect too. We get to meet the most forgetful man in the world and also the man who could never forget anything.

But what the book most importantly demonstrates is the capacity of the human brain to learn things that we categorize as ‘difficult’. A source of inspiration, a self-help book, for all those who quiver in the presence of algebra or art.

2

The Facts of Winter by Paul Poissel translated by Paul La Farge

Paul Poissel was not born in 1848. As a young man, he did not set out to become the greatest Turkish architect in Paris. He did not fail to become the greatest Turkish architect in Paris. He never became a poet, or invented puzzles for an illustrated magazine. In 1904, he did not write this book, The Facts of Winter.*

Of course, Paul Poissel doesn’t exist. Just like the vivid, evocative dreams of Parisians living in 1881, recorded in this book that he never wrote. Without giving away the premise of the book, in case you haven’t read it, let me just say that this book will teach you how to write a dream and/or how a book is written. 

Which brings us to the question: Where does memory end and imagination begin?

For me oranges are a fact of winter. As the snow falls outside my window, even as I type these words, the imagined smell of oranges brings to mind memories of sunny winter afternoons. Which leads me to other winters, and other facts, and other dreams from those other times.

*From the back cover of the book.

3

Edgelands: Journey’s into England’s True Wilderness by Paul Farley and Michael Symmons Roberts

People planning trips to ‘wildlife sanctuaries and parks’ often forget that wild creatures co-exist with humans. And also that the sanctuaries aren’t truly wild but are intensively managed by humans (but that is the subject of another post).

Most of the photographs that I take are from the urban areas– the birds, flowers and trees are always a short walk or bus/train ride away from my house. Most are found on my daily commute. Wildlife and wilderness isn't elsewhere. But to understand that you’ll need to re-examine the definition of the word ‘wilderness’. Two poets in a beautifully written book, part childhood memory, and part exploration present you a new perspective on it.

This book is about the oft-neglected spaces– the landfill sites, gravel pits, motorways, business parks, parking lots– the Edgelands, the spaces where the “veneer of civilization” peels away and reveals the true wilderness that is neither ‘city nor countryside’. It is also an exploration of our imagined and idealized notions of wilderness (that we pick up from the books we read) and the wilderness that is always there, close at hand. An issue close to my heart, you’ll probably call it my work– same thing, different definitions.

4

The Selected Stories of Mavis Gallant by Mavis Gallant

I began this post by talking about books and friends. And book covers. I partly picked up this book for the haunting cover photograph by Henri Cartier-Bresson. Also I consider Mavis Gallant’s stories friendly: they are welcoming at the end of a long day, but more importantly they always speak to me.

I have written about Mavis Gallant elsewhere on this blog. But I keep come back to Mavis Gallant because she writes about nomads and people in exile– not just people living away from the place where they were born but people who are disengaged and detached. People juggling memory, imagination and reality. At times homesick but the home they pine for doesn’t exist, neither here nor in the country that is considered their nationality (often a short form for their identity).

Afterthoughts on Books: Part 18