They Are ALL #1

Someone just ranked every Beatles song.

And because you have nothing better to do, you should click on each song title and read the notes. Should "Wild Honey Pie" outrank its domesticated sister, "Honey Pie"? And how can "Love you to" lose to "Her Majesty"? Oh the horror - "Love me do" is placed higher than "Penny Lane"!

There are about 15 billion comments on that page: many boldly proclaiming that the writer knows nothing about the Beatles and that he is an idiot. But of course. No one knows more about the Beatles than the six billion people on this planet.

He Didn't Start The Fire

There's a Billy Joel slam on Slate (via 3Quarksdaily) titled "The awfulness of Billy Joel, explained". I am not entirely sure if the Slate piece is intended as music criticism or just a parody of music criticism.

Also on 3QuarksDaily, a commenter has posted a link to a "conversation" between a blogger and Billy Joel himself. Basically, the blogger trashed Billy Joel for indulging in vocal trickery during a performance of the national anthem. Billy Joel responded with a "fuck you". Read the post and the comments by Billy Joel.

The Farther One Travels

In which our hero finds himself stuck to an evil, sticky couch for long stretches of time (and the wrong stretches of time) and upon waking asks, "where am I?" but does not receive an answer from the window.

Sweet are the uses of jet-lag, specially when there are a million things to be attended to.

Upon opening one-and-a-half eyes and after blankly staring at the wall clock for nearly two minutes (could have been two hours), I tried to remember if I was here or there. This same sensation descended upon me on the flight from Bangalore to Mumbai. For a few seconds, around the time when the Woman in Red brought out the eighty-rupee vada-pav, I couldn't quite tell if I was leaving Bangalore or landing there. The hippocampus and me then got into a silent shouting match. "HOMESICK OR HAPPY?" "I DON"T KNOW!" "WELL, MAKE UP YOUR MIND FAST!" "I CAN'T!" "MU!"

And it was in the same state of delicate imbalance that I read an article yesterday in the NYT magazine, titled "What do women want". (The article's here). If the word "post-feminism" scares you, let me summarize the article for you in one word: Bonobos.

It seems what women want most are bonobos. So if you are a single man, this is your competition:

Earshot

Things I can hear from the bedroom right now: Carnatic music on the radio, a mullah reading his prayers over a PA system, the spiraling notes of a koel's song, the sound of a sweeper's broom rubbing against tar and concrete, bicycle bells, dogs playing, a car alarm and spoons clinking inside tea-cups.

And I kid you not: the other day, I opened a window and heard bhajans, ghazals and some really loud 70s-era country music at 7PM. (I suppose mariachi and polka lovers have left India for good?)