Because Riddhi asked, so nicely.

My list of recommendations for the fast fading year. Based on my own prized discoveries and rediscoveries of the last few months.

(Muzique)

I Shall Be Released- Bob Dylan

At This Moment- Michael Buble

Bach's Canon in D Major

O Fortuna- Carl Orff (If you've watched more than ten movies in your life, you'll DEFINITELY recognise this one when you hear it.)

High Noon Ballad- Tex Ritter

O'Children- Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds

Tore My Heart-Oona and Dave Tweedie

Trust Me- Janis Joplin

If Love is a Red Dress- Maria McKee

(Litturetchur)

The Name of the Rose-Umberto Eco

Cannery Row- Steinbeck

Franny and Zooey- J.D. Salinger

The Leopard- Giuseppe Tomasi di Lampedusa

Short stories by Katherine Mansfield and Truman Capote

Poetry by Rainer Maria Rilke, Yehuda Amichai, Walt Whitman, Gerard Manley Hopkins, 'The Hollow Men' (Eliot)

(Philims)

American Beauty

Rosenkrantz and Guildenstern are Dead (And this demands, well at least suggests, a reading of Hamlet)

In the light of recent fires

I felt I had to post this. Especially after reading today's newspaper front page.

The Identification

So you think its Stephen? Then I'd best make sure Be on the safe side as it were. Ah, theres been a mistake. The hair you see, its black, now Stephens fair ... Whats that? The explosion? Of course, burnt black. Silly of me. I should have known. Then lets get on. The face, is that the face mask? that mask of charred wood blistered scarred could that have been a child's face? The sweater, where intact, looks in fact all too familiar. But one must be sure. The scoutbelt. Yes thats his. I recognise the studs he hammered in not a week ago. At the age when boys get clothes-conscious now you know. Its almost certainly Stephen. But one must be sure. Remove all trace of doubt. Pull out every splinter of hope. Pockets. Empty the pockets. Handkerchief? Could be any schoolboy's. Dirty enough. Cigarettes? Oh this can't be Stephen. I dont allow him to smoke you see. He wouldn't disobey me. Not his father. But that's his penknife. Thats his alright. And thats his key on the keyring Gran gave him just the other night. Then this must be him. I think I know what happened ... ... ... about the cigarettes No doubt he was minding them for one of the older boys. Yes thats it. Thats him. Thats our Stephen. Roger McGough

I was going to download Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21. And in the first result generated by Limewire, the composer's name was spelled 'Motzart.' Yes, 'Motzart.' Ususally, people read words first and pronounce them wrong. Hence, you hear 'Chop-in', 'Batch' and a refusal to go down Tchaikovsky street. There are Bangalis who say 'La Vega' for Las Vegas, EXPECTING a fancy-ass, exotic pronunciation.

But this filesharer (bless his generosity) must have heard the name before he ever saw it written. Funny kind of mistake. Or maybe I'm just not used to to it.

And this is why I think Oscar Wilde is Great, and not just veryveryvery good.

"When Narcissus died the pool of his pleasure changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, and the Oreads came weeping through the woodland that they might sing to the pool and give it comfort.

And when they saw that the pool had changed from a cup of sweet waters into a cup of salt tears, they loosened the green tresses of their hair and cried to the pool and said, `We do not wonder that you should mourn in this manner for Narcissus, so beautiful was he.'

`But was Narcissus beautiful?' said the pool.

`Who should know that better than you?' answered the Oreads. `Us did he ever pass by, but you he sought for, and would lie on your banks and look down at you, and in the mirror of your waters he would mirror his own beauty.'

And the pool answered, `But I loved Narcissus because, as he lay on my banks and looked down at me, in the mirror of his eyes I saw ever my own beauty mirrored.''

(The Disciple, from 'Poems in Prose')

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g8y3_X6Ia7Q

I want to learn the Rumba; I do, I do. It is like making love on the dance floor, in the purest, most ethereal way possible. What sensuality these people have, what grace! While lesser mortals like me stew in our swamp of awkwardness >.<

I came across this quite unexpectedly. And I really liked it.

The Seed-Shop

Here in a quiet and dusty room they lie,

Faded as crumbled stone or shifting sand,

Forlorn as ashes, shrivelled, scentless, dry -

Meadows and gardens running through my hand.

In this brown husk a dale of hawthorn dreams;

A cedar in this narrow cell is thrust

That will drink deeply of a century's streams;

These lilies shall make summer on my dust.

Here in their safe and simple house of death,

Sealed in their shells, a million roses leap;

Here I can blow a garden with my breath,

And in my hand a forest lies asleep.

Muriel Stuart

This Is Just To Say

I have eaten

the plums

that were in

the icebox

and which

you were probably

saving

for breakfast.

Forgive me

they were delicious

so sweet

and so cold.

-- William Carlos Williams