Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment

Get you love drunk off my hump

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In the basement of our North Dakota headquarters we employ a small but elite team or researchers designated the “SMU.” Their sole job is to predict “the next big thing,” and they are rarely wrong. You see, our marketing department has indicated that based on focus group feedback, readers that visit our site will flock to other blogs the minute we fall behind on what’s happening in the world around us. They will leave us the minute we aren’t ahead of the curve on “what’s cool.” Therefore, whenever the SMU staff starts “rattling their cages,” they know they will have my full attention. I predict that the next big thing (and you are hearing it on our blog first) is…Camel Milk:

While slightly saltier than cow’s milk, camel milk is highly nutritious. Designed after all for animals that live in some of the roughest environments, it is three times as rich in Vitamin C as cow’s milk.

In Russia, Kazakhstan and India doctors often prescribe it to convalescing patients. Aside from Vitamin C, it is known to be rich in iron, unsaturated fatty acids and B vitamins.

Tapping the market for camel milk, however, involves resolving a series of humps in production, manufacturing and marketing. One problem lies in the milk itself, which has so far not proved to be compatible with the UHT (Ultra High Temperature) treatment needed to make it long lasting.

But the main challenge stems from the fact that the producers involved are, overwhelmingly, nomads.

Another problem, according to the FAO, is the nature of the animal itself. Camels can reputedly be pretty stubborn. And unlike cows, which store all their milk in their udders, camels keep theirs further up their bodies. [Link]

Now I know that some of you might not like milk of any kind. Some people just don’t. My mom for example never drinks milk. But what about chocolate? Everybody likes chocolate…

An easier sell would appear to be the low-fat, camel milk chocolate, which A Vienna-based chocolatier, Johann Georg Hochleitner intends to launch a low-fat, camel milk chocolate this autumn. With funding from the Abu Dhabi royal family, his company plans to make the chocolate in Austria from powdered camel milk produced at Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates, then ship 50 tons back to the Gulf each month. [Link]

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Halal Punkers

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Much like I have a crush on the boys of Karmacy, Ebrahim, the kids at Beta Project, I now have a crush on the boys over at The Kominas. What can I say, i’m a sucker for the Alterna-Desi types. The Kominas were mentioned earlier this month on Sepia Mutiny as one of the handful of desi punkers that exist here in America. The Boston based trio of Muslim punks rock out with halal music, and songs titles of “Dishoom, Baby” or “Sharia Law in the USA.” The band, consisting of Basim Usmani, Shahjehan Khan, and Adam Brierly, are quickly heading to the top of ‘bands to watch,’and even have a quirky bit on MTV.

The Kominas, whose name means ”bastards” in Punjabi, say they hate labels but offer ”Bollywood Muslim punk” to describe their sound, a blend of punk, metal, and Bhangra folk music. The lyrics, written mainly by Usmani, are clever, sometimes risque commentaries on racial profiling, foreign policy, and religion…

The Kominas: Non-Violent Punks

Their music has attracted fans of all stripes but speaks to young South Asian Muslims who identify with both their faith and American culture, and yet feel welcomed by neither. They’re fed up with racist classmates, judgmental relatives, suspicious neighbors, and the extremists — Islamic and Islamophobic — who have made it a burden to be Muslim in the United States. But thanks to online communities and sites like MySpace, where they post songs and have attracted a substantial following, they now have a pulpit, too. [link]

The band has it’s roots in The Taqwacores, an alterna muslim punk novel that muslim convert Michael Muhammad Knight wrote and sold out of his backpack, until it was recently picked up for publication.

The Taqwacores,” a novel about a group of Muslim punk rockers who smoked dope, read scripture, slam-danced, prayed, had sex, and embodied the tolerance and compassion that Islam encouraged but that, in Knight’s view, were being neglected in favor of rules and rigidity…”The Taqwacores” was ultimately picked up for distribution by Alternative Tentacles, the publisher and music label owned by former Dead Kennedys vocalist Jello Biafra.[link]

I was reading excerpts of The Taqwacores and I have to admit, it’s nothing like what they taught us in the mosque youth group when I was growing up. Muslim youth are raised with a very orthodox set of rules, creating this weird contradiction when living your life in a Western society. But as one who has performed pilgrimage in Mecca as well as one who has jumped around in mosh pits, I find the Taqwacore genre and subsequent movement able to intersect religion and counter culture in a progressive way – similar to the Christian rock movement.

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The narcissist principle

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I recently checked out How Opal Mehta Got Kissed, Got Wild and Got a Life at Crossword, a Barnes & Noble-like Indian chain with Barista-style upstairs cafés. The book is chick lit for teens, and the Indian cover interprets that so literally it shows a girl carrying both strappy heels and a stack of textbooks.

UK/India cover

The cover model for the UK/India edition could be desi, but her look is more toward the white end of the spectrum. Nor is Opal a common desi name. If I recall correctly (and I may be wrong — will double-check), there’s no mention of Mehta’s desi origins on the cover or in the official blurb (though the blurb for industry buyers is more accurate). Her desi-ness has been excised as neatly as was the turbaned actor from the Life Aquatic poster. To a casual browser it would almost certainly seem that Opal Mehta was just another white character, albeit with a funny last name.

I’m of two minds about this. In one sense it’s wonderful and somewhat subversive to have a desi character where her ethnicity isn’t made an issue. But in this story, surely Mehta’s upper-middle-class, post-’65 desi American-ness is a key reason why her parents are obsessive about her academic life. The plot summary reads like a parody of Asian American parental pushiness. That she’s desi seems integral to the plot.

Not that this is the author’s fault. New authors have famously little say over the trade dress of the product, though later Rushdie books have conspicuously avoided sari covers. (One of the worst: a hardcover of former BBC India correspondent Mark Tully’s book The Heart of India; it has that overbroad title, a garish, hot pink cover, a woman in a sari and a border smothered in garlands.)

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"Unafraid of pythons…"

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SM’s favorite plus-size man is in the spotlight once again [via Dhoomketu]. Dalip Singh (see previous posts 1,2) made his World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) debut earlier this week (watch him introduced). I will give $5 to anyone who can translate what he says for SM readers :). Here is the ring-side play-by-play:

Daivari made his triumphant return with the giant Dalip Singh! They walked out from backstage, slowly walking to the ring. The announcers didn’t know who this giant man was, but noted that he was being managed by Mark Henry’s manager. Taker bounced Henry’s head off the announce table.

[Under]Taker turned around and saw Singh. Singh stepped over the top rope and got in the ring, staring down Taker. Taker got in the ring. Taker had to look up at Singh. The announcers talked about how massive Singh is. Taker threw a right hand, but Singh basically no sold it. He threw another right hand, but it barely moved him. Singh then hit a karate chop to the head of Taker, knocking him down! Taker sat up, but Singh grabbed him by the throat. He ripped open one of the turnbuckles with one hand, then bounced Taker’s head off the exposed turnbuckle. Singh headbutted Taker in the back of the head twice. Daivari shouted “Do it again! Do it again!” Singh delivered another headbutt to the back of the head. There were tons of boos from the crowd. Singh hit a big kick to Taker’s head. Singh stood over the downed Taker as Daivari celebrated next to him. [Link]

Instead of the above you could just watch the clip and do your own play-by-play. I was never much into “entertainment” wrestling. The only reason I sometimes watched as a kid was because my dad wouldn’t let me. He said watching wrestling made you dumber and so it was forbidden in our house. I’d watch occasionally because I don’t like being told what to do, plus I wanted to see if he was right. The character that Singh plays in the WWE is named “the Great Khali.” He has quite a bio:

Hailing from India, The Great Khali stands at an impressive 7 foot 3 and weighs 420 pounds. The Great Khali has walked the jungles of India unafraid of pythons and wrestled White Bengal tigers. Daivari claims that The Great Khali has “stared into the abyss and the earth trembled at his gaze.” One of the largest athletes the WWE has ever bared witness to, The Great Khali stands to be a powerful force and a threat to every member of the SmackDown locker room. [Link]

But…here is something not in his WWE bio. Singh has wrestled in the States before. According to many wrestling observers he is a nice guy but just not any good at wrestling. Actually, in 2001 he accidentally killed a man in the ring by doing an imperfect “powerbomb.”

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Ohio’s newest puppetmaster

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In 2005 much of Ohio politics was dominated by the controversy surrounding a scandal dubbed “Coingate” by the media:

Coingate is a nickname for the Thomas Noe investment scandal in Ohio revealed in early 2005 in part by Ohio newspaper Toledo Blade. The Ohio government’s Bureau of Workers’ Compensation fund (BWC) invested hundreds of millions of dollars in high risk or unconventional investment vehicles run by people closely connected to the Ohio Republican party who had made large campaign contributions to many senior Republican party officials.

A rare coin investment fund has attracted particular scrutiny after it was reported that two coins worth more than $300,000 had been lost. Further investigation then revealed that coins worth $10-$12 million were missing and that only $13 million of the original $50 million invested could be accounted for. [Link]

As you would expect, politicians, especially Democrats running for office this year, find it beneficial to point to the Coingate affair as another example of Republican corruption and a reason to vote to change the status quo. One of those politicians is a Democrat named Subodh Chandra (see previous SM mention here) who is running for Attorney General of Ohio. Subodh recently talked about the Coingate affair to drum up support at one of his fundraisers. Well…he didn’t so much “talk” about Coingate, rather he…well you’ll see:

Apparently it was a “kid friendly” fundraiser. What? Kids in pre-school really do dig politics. The man is providing a valuable service to a segment of the population that lacks a voice in their government. His puppeteering skills aren’t bad either. Continue reading →

Everything’s More Fun in a Group

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Meetups might just be the most delightfully unexpected dish which is made from all this flavorful brownness (which conveniently is contained in one savory packet). When liveblogging isn’t possible, sometimes the best substitute is looking at all the wacky, joyful pictures which inevitably get captured by the half-dozen or so cameras which tend to be around (80% of which are Canons– you read it here first).

Now that we’ve had several meetups in four Amreekan cities, I just know that there are potentially hundreds of pictures moldering away on your computers, pictures which could find a home in the Flickr group created just for the Mutiny. LA Mutineers, this is a gentle plea to share your pictures with the rest of us via this outlet. If you are already a member of Flickr, you may comment on the 100 photographs which are already up, all from last month’s fantastic DC meetup. If you’re not a member, you can still view all pictures by clicking here.

I PROMISE you’ll want to see what’s hiding after the jump. 😉 Continue reading →

CrossingAZ

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Last week we discussed some of the South Asian participation in the immigration rallies that took place across the country. An SM tipster informs me that director Joseph Matthew, originally from Kerala, has a new documentary out called Crossing Arizona which highlights the tensions between various factions down at the U.S.-Mexico border.

CROSSING ARIZONA is an up-to-the-moment look at the hotly debated issues of illegal immigration and border security on the U.S./Mexico border.

Heightened security along the Texas and California borders funnels an estimated 4,500 illegal migrants, most traveling on foot, into remote sectors of the Arizona desert on a daily basis. The perilous journey, which can take up to four days, has led to the deaths of thousands of migrants.

The influx of migrants and rising death toll has elicited impassioned responses and complicated feelings about human rights, culture, class and national security. Through the eyes of frustrated ranchers, local activists, desperate migrants, and the Minutemen who’ve become darlings of the national media, CROSSING ARIZONA reveals the surprising political stances people take when immigration and border policy fails everyone. [Link]

I checked out the filmmaker’s blog as well (everyone has a blog now). Here was one audience member’s reaction to the film:

The Premiere [at Sundance] was a blast. The Q&A afterwards focused soley on the issues. And it was great to have three characters from the film there to shape the debate. Some Minutemen even showed up and we made sure they were able to get tickets to see the film. After the screening, a Minuteman wrote me: “It is, in fact, an utter disappointment that any honorable U.S. citizen would make such a film.”

He was concerned that the film was off-balance. Simcox himself said that he thought he was portrayed fairly and that the filmmakers allowed him to say everything he wanted to say. May I point out that, during the film, the audience meets multiple characters who have different takes on the situation: landowning ranchers who deal with the consequences of migrants crossing over their land, immigrant rights’ activists who feel that immigrants are being blamed for problems for which they are not responsible, undocumented (but tax-paying) migrant farmworkers, “samaritans,” “vigilantes,” migrants attempting to cross. [Link]
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Sepia Destiny

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Ever since I got my nano, I have been obsessed with downloading podcasts. Since there isn’t a Sepia Mutiny podcast for me to download (ahem) I do the next best thing and listen to a Desi Dilemma, a podcast by a woman named Smitha Radhakrishnan. This week’s series on ‘Desi Love’ perked my ear up- seeing as how the search for a ‘suitable mate’ is always at the forefront topic for most mutineers (or so it seems).

“There was a clear message from the Indian community about dating, that it was somehow inextricably linked with the most dangerous, scary thing that could befall an ABCD kid; an identity crisis.”

As has been mentioned before on this blog, as an ABCD youth one often had to deal with the projection by your peers that the only people you were expected to date is that one other desi in the school, even though you had nothing in common with them. Forget the fact that you weren’t allowed to date; if you had been, there was no one there for you to date, in the often confusing bi-cultural high school years. For me, this reminds me of senior prom. And prom reminds me of how my mother wouldn’t let me go to prom unless I went with my gay guy friend because only then would she know nothing would happen to me on prom night. How’s that for bi-cultural confusion?

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One ring to rule them all

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French feminists have begun agitating to ditch the title of ‘Mademoiselle’ (Miss) and call all women ‘Madame.’ A French organization called Les Chiennes de Garde (the Guard Dog Bitches) wrote:

“The option Madame/Mademoiselle means that a woman has to give an indication about her availability, in particular her sexual availability. A letterbox is not meant to be a dating agency…” [Link]

It’s similar to the shift to Ms. in the U.S.:

The use of Ms. as a title was conceived by Sheila Michaels in 1961… Michaels, who was illegitimate, and not adopted by her stepfather, had long grappled with finding a title which reflected her situation: not being owned by a father and not wishing to be owned by a husband… the title is now standard, especially in business — and where one may not know or find relevant the marital status of the woman so addressed. [Link]

One feminist has a novel reason for the shift:

Emmanuele Peyret, wrote in the newspaper Libération that “the insidious passage from Mademoiselle to Madame is so painful that we may as well begin by being called Madame straight away, in the cradle”. [Link]

I think that’s a fine idea. As you hold a naked, wailing baby upside down and give her the welcome whack, you can say, ‘Pardonnez-moi, madame.’ It’s the polite thing to do.

And why stop there? It is absolutely true that women bear the burden of being marked as property. In fact, the full burkha of devout Muslims angles for complete sexual control, but almost every culture has milder restraints: the bindi, the sindoor, the wedding ring.

I’m of a breed which dislikes wearing things on the skin. We live streamlined, unornamented and unscented. It’s not that I object to status markers, especially one so hard fought-for by women as the reciprocal, male wedding ring. It’s just that wearing rings bugs me.

But there are simple alternatives. By a happy coincidence, the Hindu color of auspiciousness is also the color of traffic lights; the red bindi is also the signal for Stop, She’s Taken. So give me a green bindi to signal Single. Or for my lapel, the slide latch from an airplane loo, set to Available.

Forget Ms., forget Madame, forget cell phone dating. To avoid crossed wires, all you need is one good sticker.

Related posts: The Gender Gap

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