Category Archives: Arts and Entertainment

“Golly jeepers, where’d you get those peepers…

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ash

peepshow, creepshow…where did you get those eyes?”

:+:

Earlier today, I was at the most forlorn CVS in downtown DC, stalking my unbelievably elusive prey (one, just one OTC elixir without Pseudoephedrine, i.e. that which I have a horrific reaction to) when I saw this…eye-catching display.

I love makeup and while my proclivity to purchase two lip glosses a week would lead you to believe that my all-consuming obsession involves THAT, it doesn’t.

Mascara.

I am as fanatically devoted to mascara as Abhi is to that evolution stuff. 😉 Eyelashes are so important, that’s why the right curler is key; it’s also why every model, actress, pageant winner, celebutante and drag queen wears fakes…in Jennifer Lopez’s case, MINK fakes.

I like my eyelashes. I wasn’t born with eyebrows, but I lucked out on the lash tip and girlfriend, you best believe I work it. All I wear is L’oreal mascara. Because it is the best. So, like some unstoppable force pulling me towards the mothership, I was brought to this display.

I noticed two things: a brand-spanking-new type of mascara in a curiously-fat container and one flawlessly beautiful woman channeling Maria Callas, in that exact order. She looked slightly familiar but I couldn’t place her immediately. A second later, I remembered seeing Aish’s face by L’oreal’s lipsticks and that’s when it hit me– she IS one of the faces for the brand. Yes, it was TMBWITW. I’ve never seen her in a movie, which is probably why I had to arrive at my conclusion in such a strange, round-about way. One look at the fine-print, which always tell you who’s in the ad confirmed it. Continue reading →

Tigers and Monkeys…oh my.

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In my continuing quest to blog about hot, desi rocker-girls until one of them reads my flattery and marries me, I bring your attention to Shonali Bhowmik, the lead singer of the New York indie rock band Tigers and Monkeys [via Gothamist]:

Shonali Bhowmik straddles several lines, living in two different worlds with perfect ease, and whether it’s music and comedy, the law and rock n roll, or balancing her Southern roots and East Village hipness, she does it with style, making it all look effortless. Having grown up in Nashville, Tennessee, the “30-ish” Bhowmik started her acclaimed band Ultrababyfat while in law school in Atlanta, and has continued to play in New York as leader of her band Tigers and Monkeys, who’ve opened for Sleater-Kinney and, most recently, Ted Leo at South Street Seaport. Armed with bluesy rock songs that highlight Bhowmik’s sultry drawl that can border on a sneer, the band rocks with tracks like “Loose Mouth” and “Something’s Gotta Give,” and are set to release their debut EP in November. She’s also part of the offbeat movies/music/comedy show Variety Shac, along with Heather Lawless, Andrea Rosen and Chelsea Peretti, hosting the monthly Williamsburg event and taking part in their hilarious video shorts, about everything from a potluck a workout. When Bhowmik spoke with Gothamist about being an Indian-American woman in indie rock, the power of being onstage, and playing for thousands of people, her enthusiasm for her musical career rang through loud and clear.

I mean come on.  The names of the two songs available for download on the Tigers and Monkeys website are called “Vampire in a Dirty City” and “I’ll Ruin Your Thoughts.”  How hot is that?  Perfect for me since I live in a dirty city and I ruin lots of peoples thoughts on a daily basis.

Q: What do your parents think of your career now?
A: They have been completely supportive of whatever I do, they fully approve now that I’ve been using my law degree to an extent. I definitely think that they’re surprised that I’ve stuck with music and it’s what makes me the happiest. They totally are a rare find when it comes to traditional Indian parents. I’m sure they’re wondering if I’m gonna just keep dating boys, they want me to get married. If they had an idea of my social life, they’d probably flip out. They come from such a different culture, they probably would never understand what I consider it to be a success in terms of music.

There is hope!  Check out the video as well.  VH1’s description of her previous band Ultrababyfat gives more info on her musical roots.

Q: How would you describe your sound? There’s something very Southern about it to me, in part because of your accent, but even the rock songs seem a little slower, a little more sensual or something.

A:  Tigers and Monkeys is a bluesy pop rock band in the vein of the Pixies and the White Stripes, mixed with country, and there’s a darkness to it. There’s a haunting sound beneath it all. Most recently I used minor chords a lot and I used to use major chords a lot and that’s a little more of a positive sound, so there’s a darkness that I’m grasping onto that makes me feel good.

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Wildflower wideo

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My singer-songwriter buddy Shaheen Sheik just got her first video onto MTV Desi. Brownie, you’re doing a heck of a job!

We cut a video for ‘Wildflower World.’ MTV came to the set to shoot some behind the scenes footage and an interview with me. I even got to hold the MTV microphone! It’s all so surreal… the segment is airing on MTV Desi News every day this week at 6:50am, 10:50am, 2:50pm, 6:50pm, 10:50pm, 2:50am.

She’s a law school dropout, classical dancer and blogger. Afreen afreen, eh, Nusrat?

… i have literally grown up on stage. since the time i can remember, i have been rehearsing or performing… maybe there are folks who’ve never had to strip down on the side of the stage to make a 45 second costume change with the tech guys politely turning their heads and your fellow dancers frantically tucking things and wrapping you in costumes while you can feel the sweat running down your body…

there is not another thing in my life that i’ve experienced that has given me the kind of high from dancing with abandon. not drugs, not sex, not even a first kiss with a new beau. [Link]

Amen, sistah. Listen to ‘Wildflower World’ from her new indie album, Rock Candy. I promise you she’s better than the last singing phenomenon from Berkeley  Taking struggling-artist dedication to new heights, she’s even singing the national anthem tomorrow night for the hockey team with the implausible name, the Anaheim Los Angeles Mighty Ducks.

Previous posts: one, two, three.

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Maple leaf meetup

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Upcoming Sepia meetups:

Toronto, Sunday, Oct. 2, 6 pm. I’ll be in Toronto this weekend — let’s do a meetup at Bombay Bhel (1411 Gerrard St. E.) I’d also appreciate hearing about desi arts events, great food and creative ‘hoods to check out. You can comment or email me here. Toronto represent!

Brooklyn, Sunday, Oct. 16, 12:30 pm. Mutineer / architect Arzan has generously offered to introduce y’all to the pleasures of Parsi food. Please RSVP via email [disabled] (mandatory, since only ~20 people fit in his living room):

A crowd of 10-12 people would be ideal… Sunday afternoon is traditionally the time when every Parsi household in the world has dhansak. It’s a dal and rice dish. Brown rice with a masala daal which has a lot of different ingredients. It’s accompanied by mutton kebabs and chilled beer. In fact this is one of the few Parsi traditions followed religiously anywhere and everywhere in the world…

Dhansak can be both veg and non-veg. I generally always make both…..I put the meat in last, thus I can have a veg dal and a non veg daal. Same with the kebabs…..will have the veg variety.

Thanks, Arzan!

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‘The War Within’

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I recently dismissed an upcoming Sarita Choudhury effort because she plays yet another brown terrorist.

But the high-def production, now called The War Within, also stars cutie-patootie Nobel scion Nandana Sen, who played the sister in Black. It also stars our cereal Cyrano, Aasif Mandvi. Although the Village Voice pans the Mark Cuban-financed movie, now I have to see it. That’s a double chocolate fudge sundae of pillow lips, subcontinental curls and attitude, and if anyone tells you they don’t see questionable movies just for the stars, they’re lying.

Pillow lips, subcontinental curls and attitudeThe War Within follows in the introverted footsteps of Hassan (co-writer Ayad Akhtar), a Pakistani wrongly imprisoned and tortured for terrorist affiliations… The film’s title may seem to spill the beans–will the watchful Hassan carry out his mission or renege after enjoying America and flirting with Sayeed’s ravishing sister (Nandana Sen)?–but in fact, whatever inner conflict rages looks to us like moping and staring blankly out at the East River. (Time killed gazing from the beach or dock is a telltale sign of indie floundering.)

Shot in DV by Lisa Rinzler, Joseph Castelo’s modest drama struggles for verisimilitude, but it wears clichés like concrete boots… [Link]

Here’s a plot summary:

… Hassan undergoes a radical transformation and embarks upon a terrorist mission, surreptitiously entering the United States to join a cell based in New York City. After meticulous planning for an event of maximum devastation, all the members of the cell are arrested, except for Hussan and one other. With no alternative and nowhere else to turn, Hassan must rely on the hospitality of his former best friend Sayeed, who is living the American dream with his family in New Jersey… Hassan takes advantage of Sayeed’s generosity while plotting his strategy and amassing materials to create explosives. Eventually, Hassan’s skewed religious fervor clashes with his feelings for Sayeed and his family, especially Sayeed’s sister Duri. [Link]

The movie opens in NYC this weekend and in LA next weekend.

Previous post here. More on Sarita Choudhury here, Aasif Mandvi: one, two, and Sen’s brother Kabir: one, two, three.

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Angry Eggplants!

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tin and snowy.jpg

Fifteen years ago, I fell for an oddly-coiffed Belgian boy named Tintin. I was Anna-Johnny-come-lately; the object of my affection had been loved by people all over the world for 75 years. I met Tintin in India, where his English-language comic books have always been popular. Looks like the cub reporter who has starred in more than 120 million books 200 million books (Thanks, Avi) is about to make a whole new set of friends:

for the first time, DVDs and Video CDs (VCDs) of “Adventures of Tintin” have been launched in Hindi too…
Saibal Chatterjee, a media critic, says the move is driven by pure commercial sense.
“When you do something in English, you’re only reaching out to a certain number of people, a certain percentage of the audience,” he says.

Herge, the nom de plume of Georges Remi, Tintin’s creator, imagined up some charming friends for our boy with the unique hair. They included:

Tintin’s loyal dog and partner-in-adventure, Snowy, and Captain Haddock – famous for his love of whisky and colourful expletives

I guess some words just don’t translate well:

For the curious, Captain Haddock’s “blistering barnacles” translates unexpectedly as “bhadakte hue baingan” (literally, “angry aubergines”). “Thundering typhoons” comes out as “toofani lehren”.

It’s so strange, if Amazon.com were to compile a list of MY statistically improbable phrases, “barnacle” would be one of the anomalous words they’d notice– suddenly, I’m struck by one of those “eureka” moments which occurs when something I’ve always done has a new and logical explanation. 😉 Continue reading →

Death Disco in the Diaspora

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sepianirmala1.jpg The Sepia Music Edition continues…Last week, Adnan Y. left a comment about post-punk desi musicians. Specifically, Nirmala Basnayake of controller.controller. Smelling a fellow Sri Lankan, I tried to verify my hunch…but…nada. Ms. Basnayake apparently doesn’t see the need for a compelling backstory.

Once again though, Sepia readers came through.Mephistopheles1981 compiled a list of arty-farty Lankans in the North American diaspora, and called her out. Here forthwith, is a quick review of controller.controller’s debut album History:

Five-piece Toronto outfit, Controller Controller, are the latest mob to join the post-punk rat race. More than just another punk-funk band, though, they seem immediately capable of overriding the hype….The usual old school references are dotted throughout this debut (PiL – check, Gang Of Four – check, Joy Division – check), but distinctive female vocals (courtesy of Nirmala Basnayake), some serious attitude, dancefloor-aimed death grooves and a sense of the apocalyptic all make for a thrilling ride. [link]

More? Why not:

Recalling the best of female rock vocalists from Debbie Harry to Chrissie Hynde, Nirmala’s voice alternates from anxious and angry to pure sonic tenderness as the four boys behind her laydown seriously solid songs of punishing rhythm and dueling angular guitar work. Bust out your dancing shoes because with their nonstop four-on-the-floor disco beats and raging basslines, you won’t be able to stand still for long.[link]

Sisterfriend really gives my fav post-punkers Bloc Party a run for their angular danceability. I dare you to check out “Disco Blackout” and not twitch your feet! Continue reading →

British Asian Music Comes Again

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In continuing the mutiny’s hommage to the UK today, an in trying to steer clear of the all MIA all the time, I salute the Sheffield-based South Asian producers, the Kray Twinz, who were scheduled to make an appearance at the recent Music of Black Origin (MOBO) awards show to promote their latest single, What We Do.  Yes the two British sardars who (silently) co-produced Panjabi MC’s Mundian To Bach Ke and Backstabbers are at it again. This time however the silencers are off, and Sepia Friendly MC Twista along with grime specialist MC Lethal Bizzle and ragga rapper Gappy Ranks are dropping the lyrics on top of a tabla and kanye west influenced sped-up-vocal-hip hop beat.  The tune, What We Do, which is getting some heavy airplay in the UK, and is also being dropped in American clubs could mean the resurgence of desi production in mainstream hip-hop.  Or it could just mean the Kray Twinz are finally getting some recogntion for their production.  Regardless, What We Do is only the first single off of the Kray Twinz forthcoming debut album, Indian Summer and if the Twinz photogallery is any indication of who they will collaborate with on Summer, lookout for appearances from the Pharcyde, Truth Hurts, and DMX.

Check out the music website pitchforkmedia’s mention of What We Do here, and check out the video for the track, here.

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S’cuze me Mister Hombre

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I’ve got a hot-off-the-press issue of GQ in my hands, and guess who I see? Mathangi “Maya” Arulpragasam, staring right back at me. sepiaMIA1.jpg

The article is titled “British Rule” (hmm…somehow so familiar, so soon) and it’s a style spread:

The hair, the sounds, the suits. For more than 40 years, the Brits have consistently defined the style of rock’n’roll. In this exclusive decade-spanning portfolio, photographer David Bailey proves that they’ve never looked sharper. [link]

David Bailey is, of course, an important figure in the music-fashion-celebrity matrix, seeing that a film was based on him and all. But who the hell are these musicians? Let’s see…we’ve got Pulp, and Blur. Beatles/Stones mentions: Eight. From the closest thing to a Brit OG (Paul Weller) to the youngest of the new tarts (Razorlight) everyone agrees that the Kinks were bloody marvelous and underappreciated. Sure, whatever….pleez. I could say more, but my fangs are already bloody.

Into this sea of insular uniformity they’ve thrown in the Sepia Idol herself, and she doesn’t disappoint: Continue reading →

I bongo with my lingo

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Can’t stereotype my tingo: As a huge fan of neologism, the poetry of idiom and general language geekery, it gladdens my heart to hear of a new book collecting words with no precise English equivalents. Adam Jacot de Boinod’s The Meaning Of Tingo sounds like linguistic jalebi (via Boing Boing):

The Japanese have bakku-shan – a girl who appears pretty from behind but not from the front. Then there’s a nakkele – a man who licks whatever the food has been served on (from Tulu, India). [Link]

Wayne’s World fans already have ‘scud,’ a bakku-shan equivalent dating back to the first Gulf War. Tulu is, of course, Aishwarya Rai’s native tongue. Mmm, lickable dishy.

You know how poets, writers and Mr. Everything Comes From India sit around at desi parties and smoky cafés bemoaning what they miss about the old country? ‘Beta, how can you explain the meaning of x? It’s not translatable. Only a true x would know about x~ness.’ Here’s to moody linguistic ethnocentrism, this from Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk:

The key, he said, is to understand the concept of huzun. This Turkish word describes a kind of melancholy, he says, not so much a personal state as one shared by an entire society, a mood of resigned despair for the great past… “The thought behind huzun was: People in Europe are happy, but we are doomed…” [Link]

I’ll throw one out: in Punjabi, nakhreli, a finicky woman (from nakhra karna, to turn up your nose at everything). In the highly functional, less ornamented American culture, there’s no exact equivalent. Or in Spanish, the idiom ‘dar calabazas’ — to give pumpkins, meaning to jilt or ignore.

… nakhur, Persian for “camel that won’t give milk until her nostrils are tickled”… tsuji-giri is Japanese for “trying out a new sword on a passer-by”… [Link]

I wonder whether nakhur is related to nakhreli. Here are other poignancies:

The French have Saint-Glinglin to mean a date that is put off indefinitely… Madogiwazoku… Japanese window gazers (office workers who sit at desks with little to do)… [Link]

Kummerspeck is a German word which literally means grief bacon: it is the word that describes the excess weight gained from emotion-related overeating…

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