Brown Motion

Raised by a single dad.  Often media will report on someone or the other about their lives being abnormal and or having faced hardship.  The concept they refer to is that of so and so being raised by a single dad.  Like Elon Musk was raised by a single father. I am not sure if I am the only one but I never heard of anyone being raised by a Double Dad.  Unless it happens to be a dad that just grew to twice his size for some metabolic reason then maybe. Of course in today's society we have two guys get married or two women and that could potentially qualify to a scenario of being raised by two dads.  But not a double.  Unless the observer in question is seriously under the influence and sees doubles.  Otherwise folks - naturally and logically if one of the spouse has departed (short or long term) it  is enough to describe the said situation as being raised by a Dad or Mom.  No need to say Single. Or maybe there is an a...

Some colleagues at work decided to do some offsite bonding.  Away from work.  On the last day of summer we headed to the local museum of modern art or MOMA. Now modern art by definition is not logical.  Far from it.   This was about 40 miles away from our office.  But really as in into the far reaches of the artists expressionist mind to seek out a unique perspective not obvious to anyone but them.  The museum has undergone recent renovations and was an opportunity to let our minds wander from the daily ho hum of work. I think the facility lived up to it.  We started by walking into the cavernous space which is the lobby where newly unveiled set of two canvasses greets the visitor.  As you look up at the light filled atrium you observe the sweep of the stairway leading to the second level and making you feel small are these colorful squiggles on canvas, interrupted with dark colored squares one on either side. It is the work of an Ethiopian b...

We watched the film adaptation of the Pulitzer Prize winning play of the same name written by August Wilson around 1987.  The film is well made.  Lead actor and director Denzel Washington plays Troy, a garbage collector in the Pittsburgh neighborhood. He is African American married to an African American woman (played amazingly by Viola Davis) whom he discovers after being released from a long incarceration of 15 years after being caught in a robbery gone bad. The screenplay is taut and funny at the same time.  While Troy loves his family dearly he is also shown to be vulnerable and tired.  Tired of kowtowing to the white race, tired of making ends meet and generally tired of the hand he was dealt as a black person in America.  He is seen making reference to Baseball being good at it himself at one time but not good enough to be recruited by a major league because of his color. He is shown making the effort to put up a fence around his property throughout...

It is a well made movie about the holocaust.  Specifically about a court case in Britain involving a historian and author that describes the horror of the genocide and another who denies the existence of it. Starring British actor Rachel Weisz as the protagonist, the American author Deborah Lipstadt and directed by a Brit it is a 2015 film based on true events from 1996, showcasing the high-profile, legal battle against Holocaust denier David Irving (another Brit). A delicate and loaded subject is well handled to show the range of emotions and interests of variety of parties including the lawyers that represented Deborah sued by Irving for libel specifically for calling him a denier.   Tom Wilkinson as the lead barrister is amazing in his role representing Deborah in court.  He is shown as part incisive Sherlock Holmes and part fun loving outdoors-man coupled with his extensive research drives the final blow to the accused Irving in court. ...

What can you get for a $1,000 you ask? Well 10 Benjis could fetch you - A month's rent in middle America - you can even live large in Tennessee in an apartment with a pool and tennis court or rent an entire house with 2 bedrooms in Alabama for a month. 300 gallons of milk (if you find a deal you can even get it as Organic - esp if milkee does not like the free preservatives and bug killers they give to the milker) which is a good beverage that can build strong bones and lead to a healthy lifestyle. 20 pairs of walking shoes (each pair reasonably good for walking  at least 200 miles, which can reduce the incidence of a heart attack). If you wandered off into a developing country you could potentially live large for a few months and eat some amazing food and see amazing sights. OR you could buy a newest iPhone that can recognize your (tired) face to let you use your phone and see if you are healthy (now that you did not have the milk to drink or the shoes to w...

Tom Friedman does a grand job writing.  He is a NY Times columnist with many insightful books to his credit.  His recent work is called 'Thank you for being late'.  Below is my summation of the book. I re-read it this weekend.  It is in his words a work of explanatory journalism.  He tries to distill complex ideas and concepts that occupy the world we live in and translates it to English.  From English.  He is right.  There is a vast ocean of data out there and not everyone has time nor energy to sift through it to get on close to even keel with what it all means. Authors like Friedman or Neil deGrasse Tyson are amazing at making the arcane readable and understandable. The Thank you book is the author's realization that we live in an ever accelerating world where we do not take a moment to pause.  Pausing allows people to start he quotes.  To start thinking, assimilating thoughts in their head perhaps even achieve wisdom. We are...

News cycle in America.  Alert - all adults with a paycheck - your personal information has been hacked.  Your birthday and your driver license info along with your physical whereabouts.  And oh did we mention your Social Security Number. An SSN is a unique nine digit identifier for all Americans that tracks their path from birth till expiration and serves as a way for credit monitors to collect and disseminate information to lenders about an individual's worth. Worthiness as defined by whether or not to lend money to a certain someone.  The entire country is built on the premise of a line of credit so much so that it is the lifeline. Now the very foundation of the system has been shaken.  Not by any quake or hurricane (there are those too) but by a cyberattack.  At this point the already fantastical government that is crafting new rules faster than Apple can come up with new products is considering a brand new service. A Social Insecurity Number. ...

Arriving on American shores almost a quarter century ago from an erstwhile British colony filled with close to a billion people made for some dramatic adjustments. In terms of following the literal and philosophical rules of the road.  Below are some (adjustments that is) that we made as we tried to merge into the flow of traffic that is America. Speed - No we did not take to crack.  But just the notion of speed was something we had to get used to.  When one can barely move on Indian roads with any form of conveyance here the country had to actually tell people what the top limit to their transport should be.  Millions were actually invested in presenting the American public with signs that marked the top limit of their vehicular transport in the form of Speed Limit boards.  65 or 70 or 75.  Wow.   To see the speedometer actually attain those elevated numbers on the dial was in itself a joy to behold. Not to mention that the chosen vehicle was a...

Do not confuse the word Ram as in the Dodge brand or as the hill climbing species or the sudden application of force to another object. Ram is also Rama or Ramachandra which is a major deity in Hinduism.  A Supreme being in certain parts of Indian culture he is revered and worshiped for the virtues and qualities he epitomizes and serves as a guiding light for how one can lead one's life. Now to the title of this blog.  It was a muggy Labor Day morning as I set out on my morning walk.  I planned to stroll a 3 mile trail before returning to base.  The path is dotted with multiple flowering growth, tended to by the city grounds staff, parks and track homes.  The parks serve as a respite in summer from chilling in the shade to variety of sporting activities including cricket. This morning though I was hit with a loud chant arising from the park.  That of Shree Ram!  This is an invocation of the name of the supreme being at 7 am amidst the quiet in t...

I like train travel.  From sweaty climes with open windows that bring in diesel soot and clicking sounds to dry fish smells in India to cool, superfast and whisper quiet gliders of Japan the charm of a railway journey has to be experienced to be enjoyed.  Or not. As I remember it here are some that I have been on that were unique in their own way. The Indian Railways Deccan Queen -  An Express train service from Pune to Bombay via the Bhor Ghats, descending less than half a kilometer in altitude from the Peshwa capital on the Deccan plateau to the nation's commercial capital by the Arabian sea coast.  190 km in about four hours.  28 tunnels and about five stops from start to finish.  The 'ghat' is a mountainous region that was alive with wildlife not seen in the city and during the monsoon was awash with impromptu waterfalls along the track.  You could stick your arm out and touch the cooling water as it raced down the hillside.  The snack f...

A Wes Anderson film. Kind of an indie project.  Smallish budget that earned twice as much at the box office.  So a business success story. The actual script co-written by Wes and Francis Ford Coppola's son along with Jason Schwartzman an actor, musician himself. Lead roles by Owen Wilson (who really has a broken nose and highlights that in the movie) along with Jason and Adrien Brody are the protagonist brothers that meet on a train in India in search of their mother who has run away due to a falling apart of sorts.  The journey is part spiritual and part bohemian and forms the basis of this play like film. The director has gone to great lengths to (with approval) plagiarize background music scores from senior film makers like Ivory Merchant who in turn learned a lot from one Mr. Satyajit Ray, a master film maker from West Bengal in (then British) India.  The making of this film in western India's desert city of Jodhpur required some amazing patience and colla...

Every now and then you stumble on a book, a movie or in this case an essay that so captures you or your way of life, of wanderlust, that you finish reading, or watching it in one go and feel good at the end.  Much like you might feel after a meal of your favorite dish. Content. So it was this morning as I scanned the WSJ or the Wall Street Journal, that clearly has expanded long ago beyond things happening on the stock exchanges, that I happened on an essay by the famed author Paul Theroux.  I had briefly heard of him when a book he wrote about rail travel in Asia became popular. Today I read an essay he wrote about road travel in America.  Spot on.  Below is the link to the essay online.  You likely need to be a subscriber to read it in entirety but your local library should have free copies of the paper ed.  Another way to get your hands on it is at your local Starbucks. https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-romance-of-the-american-road-trip-1504281812 ...