Monthly Archives: April 2007

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Right here, right now.

One of the major art pieces that went on eBay sometime back was a page by Neal Adams that features the first appearance of Ra’s Al Ghul. Quite possibly, The Neal Adams Batman page. The price was stuck at 10000$ for about a week, and at the last minute, finished at 27000$. I am surprised. Everybody is, actually. The page doesn’t even feature Batman per se, and Neal Adams Batman covers go for less than the final price. And it’s tax season, forchrissakes.

Dave McKean’s cover to Sandman 18, Dream of a Thousand Cats is up on eBay right now. One of the last McKean Sandman covers that the man still had, and it’s going to go for quite a sum, I can assure you. At 17000$ right now. The work is a combination of acrylic, ink, and a collage of wood, framing, resin crow skull ( used to be an original crow skull which fell apart), transfer type, cardboard and gold acrylic paint.

I finished all my Paul Grist books last week. What. An. Experience. Just when I thought the likes of Bendis, Azzarello, Chaykin and Miller had done whatever could be done for crime fiction in graphic literature, Grist has gone and set a new standard with his Kane books. Set in the fictional city of New Eden, the series follows the eponymous hero, Detective Kane and his cohorts at the local Precinct. The story starts with Kane being reissued his badge following an unfortunate incident involving his ex-partner. The thing with Grist’s work is – in the space of a couple of pages, he switches timelines, plotlines and characters, and with a flair that leaves the unwitting reader gasping for breath. Equally stunning is Jack Staff, one of his superhero works which, like most of the modern-day classic comics – by which I mean comics that go beyond the monthly schedule and try to use the superhero cliches in ways that mess with your mind – pays tribute to familiar characters. And introduces its own.( Betsy Braddock, vampire reporter has a ring to it, don’t you think? ) An amazing mixture of twists, humour and good storytelling.

As it turns out, there are two Jack Staff books and two Kane books that I don’t have yet. Soon be remedied, nyahahahahah.

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AR Rahman, Music

OHYESOHYESOHYESSSSSSSS

Isn’t it irritating when a tune you hear reminds you of another bit of melody from some corner of your musical memory, and inspite of repeated attempts to map the older tune, its just impossible to figure out where it’s from?

This happened to me with ‘Sahana’/’Sahara’, one of the songs in Sivaji, present on the CD in two versions – one by Udit Narayan and Chinmayee ( the lady who sang ‘Tere Bina’ in Guru), and the other by Vijay Yesudas and Gopika Poornima. The opening tune was SO SO familiar when I heard it, but I distinctly remembered hearing the tune on orchestral violins, and a number of times over the last couple of days, I tried humming it to myself to figure out where exactly I had heard it. Was able to pinpoint it to the correct genre, it was definitely from a piece of Indian film music, and knowing Rahman, it was from one of his earlier compositions. That was as far as I got, until just now, the skies opened and I knew what the tune was.

It was the closing theme of Dil Se, a melancholy tune that was my ringtone for a couple of months back in 2003 or thereabouts. It creeped out quite a few people in my office, but I loved it, and even downloaded a proper mp3 version when I could. And that also explains why I didn’t figure out a Rahman tune – background soundtracks are excluded from the RAT ( Rahman Acknowledgement Time) factor. I still win!

The feeling of relief I have now is like the aural version of the experience of having removed a bit of food stuck in your teeth after dinner.

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Just when the music of Sivaji: The Boss was on the verge of taking over my life, I found The Best of Apache Indian at Music World today. For those who are interested, its pretty tough to get CDs of the original No Reservations anywhere at a decent price – I had seen a copy in Landmark, Chennai for 525 INR, and some copies at secondspin.com for 3.99$. But I am off secondspin for now, so this album is the only sensible way to go. It collects the representative hits of Apache Indian, the album hits Chok There’, ‘Boom Shaka-Lak’, ‘Arranged Marriage’, the collaborations ‘No Problem’ and ‘Yeh Ladka Hai Allah’, from Asha Bhosle’s Rahul and I. And it’s only 125 INR, and I was megapissed when this went off the market about a month after it came out sometime in 2005 – just after I had made up my mind to buy a copy. So, hoo-ah!

Top Shelf comics is celebrating its fifth anniversary with a major, MAJOR sale. There is a 3$ sale for books like Jose Villarubia/Alan Moore’s The Mirror of Love ( which retails for 20$), Alex Robinson’s Tricked ( ditto), the Blankets soundtrack ( retail price 15$), all the volumes of Bughouse, which selll for 15$ each. GODDAMNIT! It’s a bad, bad time to be an obsessed collector.

And my computer at home is humped. Totally. I think the power supply’s gone bust.

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