Like an alliance between a homely, fair, slender, God-fearing maiden and a Doctor, it’s ON!
TONIGHT, at 9pm EST we’ll start the live-blogging party (like we did for the Slumdog-sweepin’ Oscars) for the newest season of Top Chef.
Like last season, there is a brown girl in the ring– San Francisco’s Preeti Mistry. She’s 33, a graduate of the Cordon Bleu, a locavore and the executive Chef at God’s own empire, I mean, teh Google. More: Continue reading
In between favorites like WWII documentaries, Modern Marvels, and Gangland, the History channel occasionally dabbles in supernatural themed programming. Normally, shows like Monster Quest make me change the channel about as fast as Designing Women. This time however, History will be taking on one of the more colorful incidents of desi-themed hysteria in recent times – no, not Sanjaya but close, the New Delhi Monkey Man –
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Engrained in the history and mythology of India are tales of a ferocious creature, half-man, half-ape. It has been dubbed the monkey-man and headlines across the world have told of the vicious nocturnal attacks that occurred in India’s capital, New Delhi. The city’s population was gripped with fear of a violent creature described by eyewitnesses as having sharp claws, fangs and dark hair. After three people died and dozens were hospitalized fleeing the creature, 3,000 police officers were tasked with capturing the animal, but came up empty handed… Wednesday, June 10 09:00 PM |
Should be interesting… Razib pointed out the wikipedia entry for the Monkey Man including some tragic cases of mistaken identity –
A four foot tall wandering Hindu sadhu was beaten up by an angry mob who mistook him for the Monkey Man.
On May 18, a van driver was set upon and sustained multiple fractures in another case of mistaken identification as Monkey
To prevent future cases of this ilk, Delhi Police have provided this helpful sketch so you can ID the real Monkey Man should you ever run into him – Continue reading
Aziz Ansari’s show, Parks and Recreation (earlier SM post), may or may not end up surviving very long (who knows?), but with appearances like the following eight minutes on Jimmy Kimmel last week, it may not matter. Ansari is clearly paving the way for a nice career in Hollywood:
In the clip above, I love the way Ansari handles the “where are you from?” question. His audience is completely in on the joke; he doesn’t ever have to break his deadpan assertion that he’s clearly a “good ol’ boy” from South Carolina. He’s not shying away from his “difference” from other comedians and actors, but he’s not making it the center of his shtick either. Notice that, despite his obviously Muslim name, he doesn’t feel a need to bring any of that stuff up, and as a result, for the most part nobody else brings it up either (except perhaps, when he’s accused of starting a “Jihad” against IMAX…).
And it seems to me that he basically connects on every little anecdote or bit he comes up with in this eight minutes. If he’s always this good, he will soon be a fixture on the late night shows. Continue reading
A tipster notifies us that Miss Indiana, who appears at the Miss USA pageant that is on NBC tonight, is an Indian American woman by the name of Courtni Shabana Hall (more pictures here):
Courtni Hall, a 5’5″ brown eyed brunette, is the 22-year-old daughter of Barbara Hall of Crawfordsville. A senior at Indiana State University, Courtni’s career ambition is to obtain her Masters degree in Communications and to work in the entertainment industry as a television personality. Courtni is a spokesperson for Children’s Hope International and serves as an advocate for adoption, as she was adopted from India at just five months old. Her hobbies include singing, traveling, acting and volunteering as a Spanish tutor. [Link]
Her profile at NBC’s website has a bit more concerning her adoption and a few of her interests:
* Born in Calcutta, India weighing only 2 lbs., 2 oz., she was abandoned at birth, and adopted by U.S. parents and brought to Indiana.
* Working towards getting her pilot’s license.
* Has a beaver, 56 tigers and a pet alligator. [Link]
Mad respect to anyone working toward their pilot’s licence because I appreciate the commitment that takes. However, I am a bit concerned about the 56 tigers and the pet alligator (owning a beaver is probably not as dangerous and I think is fairly common in some parts).
In case you want to “friend” Courtni or become a fan, her FB page is here.
I for one will be tuning in and keeping my fingers crossed for the gorgeous Courtni (who speaks so well), and perhaps I shall follow along in the Twittervesre.
Spoiler Alert (DVR users should avert their eyes): All of a sudden our website traffic doubled in the span of a couple of hours. What the hell is going on I wondered. House M.D. was on earlier tonight and I guess a lot of people switched over to watch since the NCAA final sucked so much. The Fox network has put up an obituary of Dr. Lawrence Kutner, played by actor Kal Penn, online:
Dr. Kutner was born in Freemont, California. Tragedy marred his early life as he lost his parents, Karamchand and Niki Baidwan, who were shot during an armed robbery. After a couple of years in foster care, Julia and Richard Kutner adopted Lawrence. He showed great promise in high school, winning a Westinghouse Science award for an experiment involving dark matter. His adoptive parents mused that he showed a freethinking, inventive streak from a young age.
Kutner received a full scholarship to the University of California at Berkeley and graduated magna cum laude with a degree in Physics. He then attended the University of Tel Aviv Medical School and completed an internship and residency in Sports and Rehabilitation Medicine through the University of Colorado. “He wanted to be a doctor since seeing ‘M.A.S.H.’ as a kid”, said his close friend and colleague Dr. Chris Taub. “I think he modeled himself a little bit after Hawkeye Pierce.”
Kutner’s girlfriend Nicole Brewster remembered that Lawrence, being adopted and of Indian ancestry, always felt like an outsider. But she said he didn’t resent it – instead, he felt the experience gained him added insight and perspective. [Link]
There is the possibility that this is all a dream and that House will wake up tomorrow to find Kutner alive (maybe in the hospital’s shower). Hey, at least he wasn’t killed by a black smoke monster. Let’s see what @kal_penn has to say about his future plans tomorrow.
UPDATE: Penn has announced his plans. Click “Read More” to learn what comes next for him
Comedian Aziz Ansari has, seemingly overnight, gone from being another Indian-American hopeful comic (in the same bracket as blog-friend Hari Kondabolu), to the next Desi TV star (potentially the same bracket as Kal Penn and Aasif Mandvi).
There is a great profile of him, which focuses on his unique style of comedy, in the Wall Street Journal today (of all places). Aziz has a starring role alongside Amy Poehler in the upcoming NBC show, Parks and Recreation. He’s also in the current “bromance” comedy, I Love You, Man, an upcoming Seth Rogen starrer called Observe and Report (another movie about a mall cop? really?), as well as in a Judd Apatow film called Funny People coming later this summer (where Aziz will apparently play a comic disposed to extreme profanity). From nearly unknown to three big comedies and a Prime Time TV show with one of Saturday Night Live’s biggest stars… Wow.
As a side note, I have also been following Aziz’s insane Twitter feed, for the past couple of weeks. At first I thought the man is simply out of his mind (he is currently on a “campaign” to save rapper Ludacris from drinking too much Mangosteen juice), but at some point I started to think that the whole thing is an elaborate in-joke. The closing paragraphs of the WSJ profile give a little perspective on what Aziz is up to:
Mr. Ansari moved to Los Angeles a year ago, and his comedy is often fueled by references to pop culture and celebrities. He has launched a Twitter feed, where he sometimes alludes to imaginary plans with famous people he doesn’t know. According to the feed, in recent days he has eaten brunch with the R&B band Boyz II Men, had sushi with “Blood Diamond” actor Djimon Hounsou and beaten World Wrestling Entertainment star John Cena in a push-up competition. None of this is true. He has made a few real celebrity friends. Last year, he got permission from rapper Kanye West to use Mr. West’s “Glow in the Dark Tour” as the tongue-in-cheek name for his own, far smaller stand-up tour. Mr. West came to one of the comedian’s shows, and the two struck up a friendship.(link)
I have my doubts about whether Twitter is just another social networking fad or something bigger, but at least from the Twitterers I follow (a rather limited number), Aziz definitely takes the art of the funny & surreal 140 character message to a whole other level.
You know, I have watched every episode of every season of Top Chef. I love food and I love to cook which keeps me tuned in. I have always thought that Padma Lakshmi was miscast as the host. Don’t get me wrong, Lakshmi is not bad to look at, but she isn’t a very noticeable host, she just lacks a stage presence. She gets overshadowed by all regular judges and even some of the shy guest judges. Perhaps that is why she agreed to have sex with a hamburger on camera. At some point in every TV personality’s life you just got to shake things up a bit so people can imagine you in a different light:
The best part? Hardee’s named this sandwich the “Thickburger.” Don’t forget that was the same restaurant (Hardee’s and Carl’s Jr. are the same) that had a commercial featuring Paris Hilton doing it to a car. Also, rumor has it that she is going to add a burger to the mural featured here. Continue reading
Ok folks, tonight we will try a second attempt at “Cover it Live” which Anna debuted on SM to cover the Oscars on Sunday night. I have had zero practice at this and am totally winging it so I aplogize if it doesn’t work out. If it fails then you can revert to leaving comments in the comments section as usual.
Also I was think about a drinking game. How about every time Jindal says “Let me be clear” or “stimulus” or “Louisiana” in a good-ol’-boy accent you have to take a shot? Continue reading
Last summer, I posted about my experiences Desi Spotting in Brazil and observed that “despite my lack of desi human spottings, there was no dearth of Indian influence—mostly of the exotic India variety—to be found in Brazil.”
I’m revisiting this topic today, thanks to Sepia reader Vijay, who shot me an email from Rio a couple of weeks ago. “Omg–have you heard of this Brazilian soap opera about an indian family?” he wrote. “A sepia investigation is in order.”
It certainly was! And, here’s what I dug up, with a little help from Vijay.
Since January 19th, Brazilian TVs (approximately 60,000 households just in Sao Paulo) evenings have been tuned to a new telenovela six nights a week. Camhino das Indias (Path of India) “examines beliefs and values that differentiate the Eastern and Western world” and follows the story of a forbidden love between a Brazilan man (whom I understand to be a yoga instructor) and an Indian woman from a conservative family. The drama was filmed with a budget with a mostly Brazilian cast on a budget of $80 million in Jaipur, Agra, Dubai, and Rio (where two Indian towns were constructed for production purposes!).
Backpacking Ninja, a desi blogger traveling through India describes it thus:
With Portuguese actors all dressed in extremely jatak (gaudy) Indian clothes (looking thoroughly North Indian), speaking Portuguese, it’s a total riot. I laughed so much watching one episode. The episode was a wedding….. the background music that was playing in the wedding as they did the saath phere (sacred walk around the fire symbolizing marriage) was Kajra re (one of the most popular songs to play in dance bars in India). It’s almost like playing Shakiras ‘Hips dont lie’ when someone is walking down the aisle in a church. In another scene, the heroine Maya (Juliana Paes) walked over to the buffet table and made eye contact with the hero Bahuan (Marcio Garcia, and trying to be Indian in all ways possible, they showed a dream sequence of them holding hands… not in person.
The opener features Sukhwinder Singh’s “Beedi” and is intended to show off the “cultural diversity that exists in the country,” according to creative director Roberto Stein. I’ll let you be the judge of that. Whatever your opinion (“this exoticizes India yet again” or “this is great for Indian tourism” or “wtf?”), I think that you’ll agree that your eyes will stay glued to it.
For those who want more (I certainly did!), beneath the fold, I’ve added clips from episode one. Continue reading
I know I am going to get in trouble for this post. I mean, what kind of a**hole makes fun of a pregnant woman? This is why our headquarters is in a secret North Dakota bunker where I can be safe from shoes hurled at me:
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MIA cross-bred a lady bug and a zebra and then skinned the resulting spawn alive to create her outfit. PETA is going to lose its sh*t over this. For real. |
I was at a loss for words while watching this last night so I consulted a dictionary in order to find the right words:
Hot Mess: (NOUN) term used to describe somebody that has NO REASON to look the way that they are lookin at the time. [Link]
Also, I can understand why TI, Lil Wayne, and Jay-Z were up there (I guess some consider them better than Lupe Fiasco who was in the audience), but why was Carlton from The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air rapping on stage with them also? What am I missing? The whole thing was just a dissonant mess.
For those of you that didn’t realize it, MIA was a real soldier last night. Her baby was actually due yesterday! Got that? The baby decided to stay inside the womb longer than it was supposed to so that it would not be around the bear witness to that performance. I mean, you got to give MIA props for her dedication but you also got to give that baby boy props for barricading the door.