Saturday, August 15, 2009

What Would Uma Thurman Smoke?

So, the Lord of the Rings. Shoot me, but I've never felt the magic, and god knows I've tried. Due to my policy of not watching the movie until I've read the book, I have no idea what you're talking about when you rhapsodise over the perfection of the casting system that picked Gollum, or was it Gandalf. Dude with the long hair that should have been Dumbledore, yo.

I like Pulp Fiction. As a rule, I do not watch movies more than once. I barely watch movies at all, but I have watched Pulp Fiction three times. All three times, my breath has caught a little bit at that moment that the camera follows Uma Thurman's bare ankles and feet around the house. If there is one moment in modern cinema that exudes pure, effortless Sex, this is it.

School reunions sadden me. We have not grown out of the shadow of the people we were convinced we'd be by now, and we have not grown into the people we will become. Somewhere in between what should have been and the absolute least that we could be, we've paused in an uneasy sort of equilibrium that we try to defend to everyone else with high-pitched laughter and different clothes. No one ever tells anybody else exactly what they've been doing for two years. No one is going to get along like they used to; indeed, no one ever got along quite as well as their memories would have them believe. Why do people do this to themselves?

Me, I go for the discounted pepsi and the smiley potato patty things. :)

Sometimes it feels nice to simply be quiet. Six unbroken hours of silence, and you float quietly through the day. Perspective, order and unless I am very much mistaken, acuity. Watching your average joe emote while tuning out the bullshit he is saying generates a far clearer picture of what he means as opposed to what he'd like you to believe he means. Intuition is not, I think, the word for it; in any case, the closest to a 'gut feeling' I've ever had is indigestion.

Apparently the only close-to-healthy way you can eat Maggi, is by cooking the noodles by themselves in water, draining away the stock, washing the cooked noodles in cold water and dry tossing the masala in, as you would toss a salad. I'm probably also the kind of idiot that would rather die than switch from Marlboro to Nicorette, but if this was the only way to eat Maggi, I would not eat Maggi. No offence to Maggi - baby, you've been by my side through thick and thin. Though these days, you are tending more and more to thin... it's all the cost cutting at the factories and as an informed enjoyer of a quality noodle of generous thickness, I protest the new Size 2 Maggi. I like my Maggi old-school: fat, soupy and simply exploding with the goodness of Vitamin FUCK-this-is-bad-for-you.

There's an age and a personality to perfumes. Chanel No.5 is for the quiet sexiness that comes with some age, much maturity and a comfort in one's own skin, like those women who modelled Chanel's early suits, wearing berets and seamed stockings. I don't know if the pictures ever showed them smoking cigarettes, but in my mind, they always are. And this might be an anachronism - I have no idea, does anyone know? - but in my mind, they are smoking Gauloises. Why? Because it is French, and also because it is short and stubby and unfiltered and black and so totally not marketed towards the chicks, but they smoke it anyway, and of course, understated rebellion is so feminist, and so very 1920's Chanel. No?

See:


Coco Chanel in one of her own suits, and happily enough for me, smoking a cigarette. Is that a Gauloise?

It could be any other cigarette, of course. I know nothing about cigarettes.

Speaking of things I don't know, I don't know Chanel today. Karl Lagerfeld and suntan-in-a-bottle are BFFs and I don't like my designers orange.

Chanel No. 5 is one of the few perfumes whose progressively changing scents I both noticed and liked. Lacoste's Touch of Pink smells dramatically different at first go - aggressively bright and citrus, like one of those chirpy , vacant girls who used to annoy you in school, but by nightfall it is all gently sweet and wistful and musky, and I can't help but like it. I am convinced that more people would both try and buy perfume if not for those annoying people in malls who follow you everywhere with perfumed paper strips and stick em into every visible orifice, until you smell like a flower market, but you don't know because all you can smell is alcohol. But I mean, paper strips. Really?! Philistines.

Also -> boy readers who wear Axe - please don't. Thanks. :)

Simply out of curiosity, why are you opposed to consensual, non-procreative incest?

I wonder when this topic-jumping incoherence is going to end.

10 comments:

Punvati said...

SO.. you saw the movie and didn't like it? Im surprised, really.

School reunions make me run in the opposite direction. And we can't tell people exactly what we've been doing for 2 years.. its like the elusive question that noone knows how to answer; namely "What's up?"

Its nice to be quiet at times. Alone and silent. But then people walk in and start babbling about tiny bottles. You know.

If a brother wants to diddle his very willing sister, hey more power to them. But still... Come on... Not the least bit weird to you?

Rebelzz said...

Simply out of curiosity, why are you opposed to consensual, non-procreative incest?

Hmmm.. Really.. I don't know..

The New Age Superhero said...

now i know why racks were being discussed with me :P

Jil Jil Ramamani said...

Why discrimination to Axe?? The Chocolate fantasy smells heavenly.

@suk - forget racks, did any species of the insect world turn up in your conversations? *THE grin*

Mudra said...

1. I don't get perfumes at all.
2. Why the obsession with cigarettes, btw? :D
3. And I'm opposed to consensual non-procreative incest because it's just plain... weird. I know that's what homophobes say about homosexuals, but really, isn't it?!

Spaz Kumari said...

@divi - yeah i spend school reunions studiously blowing bubbles into my pepsi with the straw and ignoring everyone. :)

@rebel - there you go.

@suk - really? i don't. :S

@sindhu - didn't know of chocolate version, and the common one is usually (OVER)used by young boys who believe that bathing in axe = being irresistible to chicks. the reason that all 9th std classrooms smell like a Baygon factory exploded there.

@mudra - haha i love perfumes, i just don't know much about them. I can recognise very few. Also, you dislike it because it is 'weird'?

My point, I submit, is made. :D

It must obvious by now, but I just don't find incest weird. :) As long as it is consensual, non-procreative.

ramsub said...

scientific studies have shown that people are attracted to people who are genetically similar to each other. and that siblings who have been raised apart and are unaware of each others existence are likely to be attracted to each other if they meet. thus Incest is actually natural.

source: wikipedia .... I know! I know! lets believe it this once ok?

apart from that there was some other study which showed that abnormalities in children born out of incestuous couples (such as cousin marriages) are not higher than normal rates or at any rate their high values have been greatly eggagerated (sp???).

sources: doubleX blog run by slate

as the entire corridor of our hostel now knows, you and I are not freaked out by incest :P

so I can't answer your question, the only argument people seem to have, is that it is forbidden by religion, or that the bible forbids it, or that its weird.... and like it has been pointed out, those were all arguments used (hopefuly, mostly unseccessfuly) against homosexuality.

anyway as the theory goes, being not attracted to siblings/parents is actually a socialized trait and not a genetic one, thus as per me it should be perfectly Ok for people to have consensual incestuous relationships.

ramsub said...

I can't spell, I apologise.......

also doubleX stands for the XX in female chromosomes (I am talking to you Divya R!) its a great blog for all kinds of womens issues, so those of you heading over there hoping to satisfy your milder sexual fantasies are going to be sorely dissapointed.

I cannot repeat enough, that I can't spell.

As the Mind Meanders said...

Pulp fiction, school reunions, acuity, gut feeling, Maggi, perfumes, Gauloises, incest...

You ramble... but then you ramble so well... nothing seems incoherent...

Consensual, non-procreative incest... cant oppose something I don't understand and cannot relate to... to each his/her own..

revelsign said...

i've recently discovered an appreciation for perfumes. never could stand 'em before...always felt vaguely like they were the kinds of things stinky people sprayed all over themselves so that they could smell of body odour and roses. lovely.

also, divya...dry tossed maggi with liberal helpings of butter to grease the tossing is beyond brilliant. ain't nothin' thin about it. =)