Art by Film Directors

I picked this book off the footpaths of Flora Fountain and that too for less than what I pay to borrow two DVDs. I tried to articulate the experience of reading it in many ways only to be embarrass myself after knowing the amount of clichés in my jargon.

'Art by Film Directors' has been compiled / authored by Karl French, undoubtedly the least known name in the book. It features 23 filmmakers in the likes of Jan Swankmajer, Jean Cocteau, Peter Greenway, Alan Parker, Stanley Kubrick, Federico Fellni, Wim Wenders, Satyajit Ray, Fritz Lang and their artworks—Photographs, Paintings, Illustrations, Sculptures etc. Featured above is a ‘reimagined map’ and a ‘fused creature’, both by Swankmajer.

Colors

The 73rd offering of the Quarterly that was created in 1991 by Tibor Kalman and Oliviero Toscani (who also funded the venture) is out. The issue is called MONEY and talks about all the many forms the same exists in. The magazine had gone off its provocative ways since the first few issues but nonetheless, has been bringing out well designed / compiled editions on pertinent issues dealing with human rights, value systems and various forms of discrimination.

Their website offers articles as pdf's. It will take a while to load , make sure your browsers are updated. Also, do check out the some additional info including earlier covers, here.

N.B: Michael Bierut cites Kalman and talks about a few of his interesting ways in "Thirteen ways of looking at a Typeface" posted down.

Moto sans Foto

I am sorry to inform the Motorola company and the rest of the world that I famously put my much defaced MotoRazr phone inside a toothbrush-holder half filled with waters of bygone time in a very basic bathroom of a new hotel that actually looks pre-independent in a non offensive small town called Vidisha in Madhya Pradesh. Thus, I managed to seriously damage its mic. which resulted in the callers not being able to hear me even after I woke up half the occupants of the nice hotel.

The first thing I did was removing the water from the toothbrush-holder. Then I rushed to the best repairman in Vidisha who opened the handset with his bare hands. I, not able to withstand the sight, told him to carry on and went to work. When I got the cursed piece of instrument back , I noticed a couple of badly torn strips of Scotch tape holding its insides. Right after, I was told that it was out of the skill sets of the unassuming but undoubtedly competent technician and I would need to go an ‘original’ service centre to be heard. The technician took Rs. 300 service charge without even a hint of smile. The ‘original’ service centre informed me two weeks down the line that the cost of repair would be slightly lesser than the cost of a new handset of the same model.

The point is I miss the camera in that handset. So, I thought of compiling some photographs taken using the same and putting them up for your kind notice. They might be small to look at here but if you let it grace your computer by saving it on to the desktop or something, you will see they’re a little bigger.

N.B : For all the challenged brains wondering why can’t the camera be used if just the mic. is conked, please understand the silly thing won’t start up without a SIM card. You might also want to know that I am not the kind who carries three spare ones in my wallet.

Inert and proud of it.

What better way to restart an idle blog than doing it without excuses. Read on.