Ryan

I was channel surfing.
Something on Link Tv looked and sounded familiar.
It was Chris Landreth's film on Ryan Larkin, the animation genius.
In the late 60's Ryan Larkin was nominated for the Academy Awards for his film called 'Walking'.
Sheer genius.

I'm feeling tired after watching the film and the documentary about the film.
Drained out.
Ryan Larkin now lives off the streets.
He became a dipsomaniac somewhere along the way and now lives off the streets.
They said, this is the worst thing to happen to an artist.
Landreth's film has these half fleshed characteres. The face is only half. That's it. Only flesh on half the face and the other half, it doesn't exist.
Extremely poignant.
It doesn't feel like a film.
I guess it really isn't.

It's the truth staring right back at you.
Like looking in a dirty mirror. All your horrors looking at their reflection, that's what you are.

How often does a documentary about one single person leave you in tears?

His face quivers as though he's talking but the words really come out only 7 seconds later.
Sot.

He begs on the streets. And he says nonchalantly, the most often asked question is, 'why don't you get a job?' and he tells them to either leave their spare change or just move down the street.

In the end Landreth goes to show him the film. Goes to show Ryan a film about him, based on actual interviews and characters generated from the interview. Life and art intermingling and who knows who's imitating whom?
Ryan was left speechless after watching it.
His last words in the documentary?

'Well, I guess I want out'.


I feel caterpillars under my skin

This morning in yoga class I made a friend.
We're meeting up on Wednesday for dinner. I offered to help cook and bring dessert and some wine. Looking forward to it, should be lots of fun. I was feeling really enthusiastic about everything till earlier this evening. Just watching this film has managed to completely drain me out. How does one accomplish that, as a film maker? Does the film have to be as close to reality as possible?

Like you were watching the person's life itself?


I'm listening to my favourite Dylan song sent to me by a kind fellow blogger. If you're reading this, thanks again!

Alright then, my last week here has begun. Next week this time I will be nowhere. It's really something like that. The total time I'll spend travelling is I don't know what, but it translates to 30 hours. I'm reading Bolivian Diaries, part of the bigger Motorcycle diaries of Che Guevara that were not included in the film. It's intriguing.

( 10 minutes later)
I think I know how I feel after watching the film Ryan.
I feel as though I were driving down a beautiful highway and it began to rain. It was a harbinger, I drove on and the rain became almost fierce. I couldn't see clearly and the wipers were having a tought time fighting the force of the pouring rain. And I saw something red on the other side of the road. 7 seconds later I realised it was a body, rolled up backwards, from an accident.
Yeah, that's how I feel.

Ta!

So I've decided to quit my blog.
I'll be back in india soon.
Once I get there it'll be bye bye time.
I've had fun here.
Babushkas has been motivating me to draw every single day.
I now have a bigger pile of sketchbooks filled up completely.
You guys have pepped me up when I was low and egged me on when I was unsure.
So, thanks everyone!
I'll vist your blogs from time to time and keep in touch.

Perhaps I'll pop up in another avatar sometime, who knows?
:)
Ta!

I hope the tea's ready

Our man here can't boast of endless sunrises he's seen, but he sure loves his colours.

This is what inspired me to make this.

The farmers' Market.

(the three little pigs are not in the photos. they went off to eat some fresh blueberry pie)

more

Talk to her

with a not-too-hot mug of coffee

this sketch is for the poem D1 that i'd posted some time back. It's written by a friend. The painting's nearly finished.It's been drying and then it's been raining heree for the past two days.

What better way to end a cloudy grey day, than with warm water?

And a nice creamy mug of coffee, ofcourse.

( Just taking a coffee break while watching' Talk to her')

I finally watched the film Rang de basanti, today.

The crime of Padre Amaro

Nice film.
Gael Garcia is just super hot, as usual.

He said he wanted to take care of her in that all-pervasive, sick kind of way.
She told him that made her stomach turn.

He turned away
went to the other girl
and said the same darn thing.

She told him to wait
and took off her platonic glasses.

Summertime Suzie

Cinema Paradiso

Have you watched this film?

It's a film that makes you cry and in a way reassures you that's it's okay to cry while wathing a film.
And when Salvatore is watching the montage of kisses from all the spliced films, that Alfredo has left for him,
I shed a tear too.

This afternoon

The girl with a pearl earring

Sensuous and sensual.


















The film
romanticises
the routine
so much that
after watching it

I felt like
painting
scrubbing my face clean
wearing pearls
and even
doing the dishes.

A Scanner Darkly

this is what i want to watch

aha

you like to write without grammatical editing.
i like to write without emotional editing.

suits you
suits me

and for a refreshing break,
there's always something to look at.

Something in the green tee

je ne sais pas

I didn't know the right greeting

I met some people in Vegas.

I met them in flesh and bone
and muscle
tendon,
heart-to-heart,
spinal cord
ribs
diaphragm
stomach
small intestines
pancreas
large intestines
an eye for an eye
an eyebrow left untouched
lungs
liver
kidney,
hands full of phalanges
and metacarpals
deltoids shining bare
in the soft yellow light

and a small pituitary gland
sitting cosy in glass case.

I saw a face.
I saw a distinct face.
So clear was it
that i could count
the facial muscles on it .
The face wore no smile
as it looked back at me,
a slice of a cross-section,
in another glass case.

Further down the dark corridor
I shuddered at the cold hearts.
This one has valves
and the left ventricle swings open
that one has been carved out
so i can look within.

A soft delicate mesh
of blood vessels in red and blue
a spleen here
a hand there
a whole person, too.

In yet another dark room
I see babies who were never born
4 weeks
6 weeks
11 weeks
18 weeks
and so on.
The largest one is 32 weeks old.
(Don't think about it
jut look closely and walk away for now).

Co-joined twins with eyes shut tight
born with a single heart,
it beats no more.
Another embryo with ventral hernia,
organs grew outside.

Little blue babies
in glass jars
they show me your bone structures now.
let me not stand too long here
lest I begin to think about who you could've been
had you been born.


Then,
a lady lets me peer right into her heart
a window in her ribcage is open for visitors.
I stare
we stare
at her muscles
bones
knee caps
high cheek bones
bulging eyes
untouched unskinned brows
long bony hands
narrow waist
vagina
thighs
calves
calf-muscles
and long long toes with unclipped, unpainted nails.



As I walk out
a collection of 83 cross-section slides
bid adieu to me.
They say this collection is a whole human body.
I don't want to know your name.
I fear I'm not brave enough to digest it all.

I met 21 people
they were very different people.
If I think back now
they were more whole than me
even though they had no skin
and a couple of odd organs were
removed and plced in separate
glass chambers for closer obseration.


That night as i lay down
I realised I'd been peering into the deep insides
of 21 cadavers.
I couldn't sleep.
I wonder if they do.