mindful reflections - the power and mystery of light

Dec 17, 2015

Tired, but not out. Cold, but not bitter. I reached the Sonia Gechtoff gallery in Manhattan's Upper East Side for the opening night show titled as The Power and Mystery of Light by Julia Dubovyk.

Light forms everything we see. Its the primary source of every image. Its very common for painting tutorials to treat light as an addition to the picture, an atmosphere-maker. Painting by itself is an art of darkening, lightening, and coloring certain parts of the paper to create an illusion of looking at something real. I was naturally attracted to this exhibition as it appealed to my rationally inclined mind albeit I found more than rationality there.

When I reached the opening night event, there was Julia Dubovyk, in bright red dress beaming a smile for the photographer Salvatore Fabbri while meeting the art aficionados in Manhattan's Upper East Side.

Julia has elegantly portrayed a variety of moods in her paintings of the chandeliers. Her study in shadow and light is impressive. She is clearly knowledgeable about setting up the palette. One of her paintings had a sweet polychromatic shift in Chandelier #3 (oil on wood panel). A quick peek at her Abstract work at the online gallery reminds me of Jackson Pollock aka Jack the dripper.

I sneaked closer to Julia to get a better sense of the subject.

"Why chandeliers?" I ask curiously.
She explained, "...chandeliers, as a source of light, can be turned on or off."

This is akin mindfulness, which I practice. Bingo!

This is a fascinating symbolism for mindfulness. In painting, the audience can easily get the impression that the object has a universal form, and then with proper lighting change the mood of the picture. In life, one's mind is like the chandelier. Through mindfulness, one can evolve and regulate one's mind (the symbolic chandelier) to reflect and refract the emotions worth focusing on.

Buddha says -

Your worst enemy cannot harm you as much as your own unguarded thoughts.

Just remind yourself that you, as the artist of your life, can emanate and harbor positive vibes from your minds (chandelier) through practice of mindfulness. May be Andy Puddicombe may like it for his headspace app :-).

I shared my mindfulness experiences and the drastic changes it had on my life with a few guests and it stirred up an interesting discussion.

Among my favorites from the other works were Chandelier #17. It reflects a certain innocence.

I look forward to Julia expressing chandeliers in some other medium as well.

baby, its cold outside !

New York City didn't have a White Christmas this year (although a nasty storm is predicted for tomorrow).

This is an interesting version of the traditional one...

If you are curious about this original version from Neptune's daughter, here you go !

Earlier version, which had roles reversed is in the video below ! This one is also a part of the above video somewhere after 2:30.

ssshhhhh....

NY Times had an opinion over the weekend titled 'The Quiet Ones' As a frequent Acela Express traveler in the Northeastern corridor, I take the Quiet car whenever unaccompanied. I can relate to the author's point of view. Yet, I am not sure why she bangs her keyboard to the degree that it is disturbing to others.

Nonetheless, it was about time someone wrote about this article and the etiquette for the Quiet car. I have seen and confronted insolent behavior by 'repeat offenders'. No, I am not talking about the newbies, who just need guidance. I am talking about those repeat offenders, who when you request still continue to talk loudly and/or have loud cell phone ring tones and/or responding to calls and/or making those calls. Such violators make a wrong choice or end up being in the Quiet car because that may be the only car where they may get two adjacent and available seats.

In the usual cars, there are no such restrictions. Usually, people don't talk loud and/or talk on cell phone for extended conversations. My last trip in a non-quiet car in an Acela had an anecdotal evidence of a violator. This guy took the liberty to make the Acela compartment his office and began a marathon status call with his subordinates with a sharply condescending tone. If the call was such that he was just an infrequent participant then it is fine. However, he would go on with his tirade for almost 25 minutes until someone interrupted him. His incessant tirade was irritating. Since then, I made up my mind to board and travel in the Quiet car whenever unaccompanied to avoid any such unsavory instances.

meeting new artists - kanan

I came across this artist, Kanan Shah, while she was working on her thesis for her grad program at the Pratt Institute. Her thesis revolved around street kids and Bollywood and that made it a bit interesting for me from a social anthropological perspective.

On digging more about her, I found about her other works. One of them was around re-branding a pet boutique in Hoboken in New Jersey. The boutique was Beowoof.

Further, she worked for this off off Broadway theater show named A Walk across America for Mother Earth, which was featured in NY Times here.

All in all, an artist, making a mark in NYC and trying to climb the silver thread. Wishing her all the best in her journey in this city of opportunities.

paan singh tomar

paan singh tomar

When I first heard about it from my work colleague, who is from a nearby area to Chambal, I wasn't as thrilled. Later, as I got to know about the storyline, it reminded me of my days as an sportsperson (yes, I was a State Champion shooter!).

I made a resolve. I will watch this movie first day first show. It so happened that I ended up being present at the In

ternational Premiere of the film at South Asian International Film Festival (SAIFF 2010) in NYC in Chelsea area.

The movie was very well made (10 being peerless):

• Subject Matter research was 9/10.
• Acting was 9/10.
• Direction was 7/10.
• Overall movie was 9/10.

Given that this movie has translated this story of an international champion to a rebel into a message criticizing conditions of sportspersons in India, I decided to ask a question to Irrfan (yes, he changed his name from Irfan Khan to just Irrfan):

'Irrfan, if you had to suggest three improvements to Sports Ministry of India....what would they be?'

To this, he didn't answer in three points. However, he ended up stating that he wasn't a specialist in this field and that government should have nothing to do with sports talent discovery and nurturing.

In my opinion, if the film makers decided to criticize the government (in a subtle way) then they must be ready to suggest improvements in case they are put in the shoes of the GOI; and yet, they were ill-prepared to handle this simple question. A critic has no right to comment in case they don't know how to improve the situation. Arm-chair commenting is one thing and constructive criticism is another; mostly for a progressive society, the latter is preferred.

This movie is yet to be released in India. Irrfan does not believe that this movie will have any effect on the Government of India or the way they approach nurturing sports talent. I think this movie would have an effect; at least, as an eye-opener. Also, it will serve as a source of inspiration for corporate marketing departments to patronize sports persons in lieu of marketing. Currently, the marketers are hungry for eye-balls for their products in a country, whose citizens have an increasing discretionary purchasing power and a constantly shrinking attention span.

Today, the government's facilities are much better as compared to Tomar's days (1950s). National Economic Liberation Policy (NELP) of 1991 opened up for foreign investments in India; and, in sports as well. We have already seen the boom in cricket with the foreign money and players flowing in ... in form of IPL (20-20) and other forms of the sport. Several other sports are finding corporate sponsors as well.

In conclusion, for approaching a matter as a critic, I think the Indian movie makers must approach it with a bit more progressive attitude than this. Differences apart, the movie is a must-see for a discerning movie-goer in India.

adour

adour represents a fusion of the traditional elegance and modern sophistication.

Having dined at some of the finest NYC restaurants, we decided to check out adour; the experience was luxurious. I had been to the King Cole bar on a number of occasions but never tried the dining experience.

A taste of modern sophistication comes when you sit at their bar waiting for your reservation time to come; it emanates from the interactive wine bar. This helps patrons choose a wine by allowing them to browse Adour's complete wine list by wine type, country and varietal. Computer menus are projected from the ceiling onto the bar, and patrons make their choices by pressing on the bar's surface. Yes, the restaurant is fashionably wine-centric. The 4-seat wine bar is constructed from gold and bronze and covered in luxurious goat skin.

The amuse bouche of tomato gazpacho with basil foam was quite a palate pleasing. The chilled English pea velouté was creamy yet light.

The vegetarian course initially sounded very cliche. However, it ended up being an unbelievable taste. The slow cooking of various vegetables allowed concentrating of flavors.

The exotic contemporary vacherin topped it all; the air was perfumed with passionfruit and mango as the servers brought it to our table. Digging into the layers of passionfruit, mango and lime gelee, we loved every spoon we dug in. This was truly a “masterpiece” as Bruni mentioned in his article. The petit fours were served with the desserts. The macaron flavors were dark chocolate and coconut with a fruit filling.

All in all, they are a purveyor of palatal and visual delight.

empty seats at the Grammy's !

Grammy's had the plenty of empty seats this year and visibly so...

Usually, they fill in the empty seats with fillers. However, it appears this year that either the organizers couldn't manage the same or there was a significant change in plans for plenty of guests.

The visual void was particularly visible when Phoenix received their award ! Check out the footage here:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sbNP18yFeg

sign of times - 'kick a ginger'

An Act of Hatred

Some students literally followed the act of discrimination and hatred shown in an episode of South Park. An accurate account of what happened can be located here.

Despite of the fact that disciplinary action was taken against the students, it is a disturbing trend to see that 10-11 year olds were allowed to watch South Park without adequate parental guidance. Even if the parents were present in the room, apparently, they did not do a good job of educating the young ones about the consequences about such discrimination.

Sign of the times

As a social anthropologist by hobby, I am concerned with these trends.

What would be the mindset of those young ones who skipped retribution for such heinous acts ? Especially, when they grow up, and let us take this further, occupy positions of power?

South Park must not be blamed fully. The show is made specifically for adults assuming that the legally defined adults have discretionary judgment. Though this provides publicity, the family-oriented networks must start considering whether they must buy re-runs of South Park. Parents with sound judgment might end up putting out the channels if they are conscientious enough.

There are varying degrees of discrimination and hatred. Though South Park doesn't induce extreme hatred amongst matured adults with sound judgment, it does sow the seeds for it. Sound judgment is not everyone's cup of tea. We have seen George Bush Jr. being elected not just once but twice ! This goes to say that it's easy to hijack power by forcing people to suspend their critical thinking. The society must arise to not let their critical thinking be suspended.

transformers 2

Saw Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen in regular iMax. The craze amongst the fans was amazing. I correct myself - the hype was amazing. Many folks who don't know what Transformers are also wanted to watch this movie eagerly. The movie was sold out in NYC's iMax theatres for an entire week. I had to go on a Saturday morning to check out the show.

It's a truly popular movie. This one had more action, lesser overacting, and a proper story-line compared to the first one. Of course, they made too many other errors. Overall, I rate it at 6/10 for dialogues and script. However, a 8/10 for graphics. The low rating for script comes from the plotholes (issues with the plot). Apparently, the biggest plothole deals with the prime plot device - the one of allspark. However, I will not get into those details.

My first experience with Transformers is blogged here.

gotta use my marriott points

I better use my Marriott points before the company goes under. As this article indicates, MAR is in a very risky position: http://www.fool.com/investing/value/2009/03/10/is-this-company-about-to-fail.aspx

I have about 10-12 free nights worth points. I gotta make sure I use'em up. 

critique on role of Indian media coverage for the blasts

Sad and shameful; Mumbai fell victim to yet another well-planned attack by well-trained terrorists of the Deccan Mujahadeen group. The worst part of the event was the coverage by the Indian media. 

Just by the sheer presence of the military trained terrorists, the media tried to portray this event as a "war." This is disgraceful coverage. The spin that they provided to the matter was aweful. Was this a matter of every other journalist trying to create a sizzle from their news to be differentiated or was it just plain reckless journalism? For a discerning audience, this will stand out as one of those events when the media grossly failed. 

Everyone has tried to hijack this event to serve their agendas. The right-winged parties have tried to portray it as a war and mentioned that Pakistanis have created this terror attack. The media covered it as Pakistani attack than as "an attack by Pakistan-based militant groups." Some have gone to the extent of drawing parallels between the New York 9/11 event and this one. NYC event was much bigger. With similar vein, these folks want India to go on and bomb-out Pakistan. That's crazy!

Media must understand that we exist in a much multi-lateral world. The bombing out of Afghanistan and Iraq served no good for the US. Besides, that was not a reaction to the 9/11. It was simply an agenda which the neo-conservatives had used to hijack the public attention and create a consensus to declare a war. It had two benefits: guaranteed election win in absence of a strong Democratic rep and continued revenues to the likes of Dick Cheney, who holds controlling interest in Halliburton. 

Also, there are anti-political propagandas being spread in the Indian populace. "No security, no tax" is an unintellectual thought. Media perpetrates it further. Anarchy will not help India achieve its dreams. Such tragedies should not de-rail us from our path to prosperity. If an anarchy (due to such anti-political agenda) sets in, I would say the terrorists achieved their final objective of de-railing India. 

Mumbai has come out resilient and should stay so. The media must help it rather than obstruct its path to show the world that Mumbai is resilient. Media's code of ethics must be questioned when "India's 9/11" is used by journalists to increase the circulation numbers of their newspapers. On a concluding note, I leave an example of responsible journalism. Check out this article by Suketu Mehta about Mumbai in NYTimes and you will get the idea of where I am coming from. He concludes it nicely - 

If the rest of the world wants to help, it should run toward the explosion. It should fly to Mumbai, and spend money. Where else are you going to be safe? New York? London? Madrid? So I’m booking flights to Mumbai. I’m going to go get a beer at the Leopold, stroll over to the Taj for samosas at the Sea Lounge, and watch a Bollywood movie at the Metro. Stimulus doesn’t have to be just economic.

mumbai meri jaan

A nice article by NYU Prof Suketu Mehta, who is author of a book Maximum City. 

Worth checking out here. 

world's first moving building

The growing prominence of the Middle East increases the attraction towards owning a piece of real estate in Dubai. Such attractions bring in enough wealth to shoot up fancies of the architects. 

Here's an example of sheer modern nature of Dubai's real estate market. Check out this video below:

Is Dubai the new New York? I can't wait for this upcoming trip to Dubai in Dec.

trip to da 'burgh

yea, I got to go to pittsburgh !

I literally felt home during this trip...thanks to Bal, Val and my old memories. 

The weekend started on Friday with the Pittsburgh Symphony performance. Joshua Bell just crossed us on the sidewalk and Bal told me - that's Joshua... I asked Bal skeptically - really? (You never know when Bal's pulling one on you). Later, we crossed Honneck too!

On Saturday, I went to the Carnegie Museum of Art and just roamed around the Oakland area and in CMU campus to catch up with friends and my cousin Sarang as I didn't want to disturb Bal and Val's routine. They made a great dinner for Sat night. Home food - at last !

On my way from OH to Pittsburgh, I saw this funny bumper sticker... check out the picture.

"MY KID AND MY MONEY 

GO TO 

CARNEGIE MELLON"

Finally, prior to getting out of Pittsburgh, I got to check out the Nationality Rooms at the Cathedral of Learning (I missed out on those while exploring Pittsburgh...one of those too close to be important things...). Finally, caught up with a friend over at Starbucks and flew back to work. 

Pittsburgh reminds me of the days and the proverbial feeling - "The world is my oyster" . The weather was just right.... I could capture the fall season's beginning. I wish I could visit Pittsburgh once more this fall. 

These days, my work takes me anywhere. Fortunately, this time it took me to Pittsburgh airport. However, the work was at Village of Tiltonsville, OH. 

yoga bears...

Here's an interesting article in WSJ. Check it out here.

pay me my rent

this is a funny video they showed something about on cnbc (of course, without the expletives).

too much travel...

In last 11 days, I have been in 4 cities .... mostly for work ... phew !

I was in NYC to begin with - lounging around with some friends and having a fun time. As usual, I had to pack my bags for Monday morning; this time for Dallas. Dallas was unusually cloudy and rainy.

Second, I headed out to Chicago on Thurs for training on Fri. The W on Chicago Lake Shore Dr had an awesome view. The lounge had a city view rather than the lake shore view. However, that lust for the view during my stay was fulfilled by the lake view room!










Finally, heading out of for a run from W, I realised that the art form at the door was really cool - fairly functional as it leveraged the wind of the windy city !




You must check out this video of the same...which is fairly close to the view I had...


At the crack of the dawn, the sunshine woke me up and the view was gorgeous..
















The Wave lounge time was well spent there in my penthouse prior to me shifting to The Loop where I had a serendipitous meet with a fine young lady at a breakfast place of Hostel International. I caught up with my network down there over the weekend and spent the whole weekend almost in a non-productive way before heading out to Dallas.

Again, mid-week, I headed out to Denver for a less-than-24-hour trip. This time I explored Denver-night-life like I never did before. It was fun...that's all I can say. The next morning, I completed my meeting and headed back to Dallas. Fortunately, the Avis folks upgraded my PTCrusier to a modern pearl blue 08 Sebring convertible - sheer luxury ! Check out this video here:



Back in Dallas, I decided not to return to NYC for the weekend as too much travel can be disruptive for health. I plan to explore the show put up at JWM Turner here this weekend. My experience with Dallas night life has not been mixed and I will just sit back and study for the upcoming tests.

I need to rejuvenate prior to the next week's beginning to present the most productive me! I hope the Heavenly set of Westin helps me recoup soon.

ufos

This is an interesting historic event - the National Archives related to UFOs exposed by UK .
National Archives of the UK government have all the records here.

Nick Pope, the former MOD officer, had revealed this 3 months ago. I happened to see it on Larry King Live today.




Even the Pope issued a comment - check here.

I was not a big fan about UFO stories. However, the Ministry of Defence of a leading developed nation has released a good amount of data . It would be interesting to check out how this saga unfolds.

25 broadway in movies...

25 Broadway - I work here - or at least that's what my business card reads.

I just saw an interesting scene from a movie named Hitch. The clip showed exactly the same gate which I walk down sometimes. A misogynistic trader walks out of the building and Eva Mendes plays hard ball with him for some information. After Eva kicks him, his head is stuck in the bull's behind.

wanderlust...

I was in Denver in March, DC in April, Dallas in May ! Three D's with my Uncle D....

I visited my cousin sister in Arizona in Dec last year, my friends in California, Seattle, and Wisconsin during Jan-Feb this year, and finally, I will be headed to meet some in Chicago in May.

Besides, I have a plan to visit Mumbai and London in June-July.