SLOTH 4.1

SLOTH:

1. Apathy and inactivity in the practice of virtue (personified as one of the deadly sins).
2. Any of several slow-moving arboreal mammals of South and Central America; they hang from branches back downward and feed on leaves and fruits.
3. A disinclination to work or exert yourself.

I am living up to two-and-a-half of the aforementioned points these days. Why climb branches when you have a snug bed, a wall to lean back onto, a packet of biscuits to pounce on in case of untimely stomach calls, the comp right next to you with the keyboard on your lap, multiple googletalk windows open and active and most importantly, you guitar to turn to to echo the river of tunes flowing in your head, thanks to all the Clapton and Floyd and Joe Sat you've listened to during your state of acedia. It's this part of your life in campus - a vice we shall christen 'Psenti-sem', and I dare say it's got to be appended to the se7en; they should call it ei8ht I guess ;).

One of my friends here who started blogging recently was talking (I am not sure I could call it cribbing) about how it was his Psenti-sem and still he had no psenti. Well, is there anyway you could actually get a psenti just for your last sem? I see the psenti eliminating the latest vice we coined, but we hit a snag here. A four-and-a-half month trial version of a psenti isn't really a psenti. It's something like freeware (if you substitute the treats with (w/t)alks) you download and experiment with. If you really like the trial version, you'll pay a semester later, not with money but with a heavy heart, trying to make yourself believe that long-distance is going to work in your case. It just doesn't. You simply have to resign yourself to Sloth 4.1. You've just downloaded the full version, and it's free!

So how is Sloth like? Let me try and explain. There may be alternate versions, and they may be just as vague. It's like finding a coach for the Indian cricket team. There's no single solution. There are so many that you're totally zapped and have to contend with the one you believe is the best, and go all-out with him. (Still from time to time you're not sure he's your coach, and rant publicly against him in all tabloids, but that remains another issue).

When you're in Sloth mode 4.1 (or 4.2 or 5.1 or 5.2 in other cases), there's this particular inkling to listen just as keenly as the first time to a number that has gone into its 176th repeat. If it's a song-video, well, you simply give up trying to bring yourself play another song. You begin to note down significant instances in the video, like the time Clapton starts off fiddling with chords for the first minute and 3 seconds, and then the bass guitar joins in playing a mysterious chord I still haven't been able to figure out, to be accompanied by a gentle tap of the drums a couple of seconds later and at 1:17 Clapton ends the unknown chord sequence with a smile towards the drummer who goes rat-tat-a-tat-tat and then the confluence of the guitars and drums happens, the crowd suddenly goes wild realizing that the number is Cocaine - a masterpiece by Clapton. Fine, the suspense no longer remains suspense when you listen to it over and over again, but the kick you get out of it is undiminished throughout.

Well, and then there is this inner persuasion that drives you away from your room come night time. You just walk. Somewhere. You don't really have an idea about the time, it's probably 1 in the morning for all you care. You look up to the stars. You try and identify the few constellations you know. You wish the moon would just disappear so you could get a better look at the astral bodies. Hum the song you’ve listened to that day. Find a possible interpretation to the psychotic lyrics. You wonder why. Then you wonder why you wondered why when you know you can never zero in on the real reason for the song to come into existence. Most songwriters are either loonies or geniuses, and are almost always gifted with the art of pulling the right strings on live shows. It just comes out brilliantly, and most people are left marvelling at the numbers of years these guys practise relentlessly. When you can’t think more than you already have and are totally saturated with inner voices, you stop, sigh, walk back to your room and crash.

That’s the Sloth 4.1. I love it, and execute its routine everyday.

Credits:

1) Eric Clapton's Cocaine which I keep experimenting with (only on the guitar ;) )
2) Wordweb (er, you now know where I flicked the definition of Sloth from).

No strings attached...

It was brand new, straight from the most gorgeous showcase of the shop. The desire of owning one had long kindled his musical instincts, only to be bogged down by his inability to pick up guts and ask his father for the money. The family situation wasn't ideal - his mum's cancer treatment chiselled away $220 every month from the $950 pension his father drew as a retired bank officer. His sister, separated from her husband, undertook odd cleaning jobs at Brooklyn households adding a measly $40 a week to the family earnings.

And there he was, a dropout, still only 21. He'd defied education and taken up playing the instrument when he turned 19, learning chords on and off and currently was no more a professional than a two-month old novice at the National Academy on 74th Street.

He was looking at an Ibanez. This one boasted of a JS neck, a signature of the master himself, Joe Satriani. He'd seen him play at sonic speeds, his fingers moving over the rosewood board with stunning ease negating the complicacy of the notes. Picturing himself playing Lynyrd Skynyrd's most famous number yet, he marvelled at the thought of all the girls swooning over the breathtaking five minute solo towards the end. Freebird. He'd probably give up playing if he could pull this one off somewhere in the best part of the next twenty years. It's a long shot, he told himself.

Catching sight of another wannabe on a Gibson in the acoustics room, he pointed at the Ibanez, paid $5 for the trial and waited outside for his ten minute slot, scanning his brain for possible tunes to experiment with. The solos from Dance of Death and Blood Brothers, Love Story, the Godfather theme, the first few notes of Nothing Else Matters and Wish you were here, Wherever you will go by The Calling, Superman by Five for fighting....

Shutting the door behind him he proceeded to plug the instrument and sat down. Resting the curve of the Ibanez on his thigh, he brought his right arm around the basswood body, took up the plectrum and strummed. Delight. Yes, this was a JS100 and not a Gibson Les Paul or a Fender Stratocaster, but that wasn't going to make him think two ways about playing the first ever tune he'd learned...

E E E E E E E E

B B B B B B B B

C^# C^# C^# C^# C^# C^# C^# C^#

A A A A A A A A…

So simple, just eight notes on one string, and eight notes on the other and yet so delightful. And so significant that you couldn’t imagine The Edge playing With Or Without You with any other base note…

And he continued to play it over and over again till the end of his allotted time.

Morning fever

The first thing in the morning I tune my mind to is The New Indian Express. I am your average guy who never delves much into stories unless it concerns Cricket, Pink Floyd or Hollywood actresses. Then I grope every place that has the remotest likelihood of sheltering a pen - the top of the fridge, the computer table, the little shelf in the toilet (yes indeed!). Invariably I find it in the toilet shelf, and head for the sofa. I struggle with the Sudoku for an hour before switching to comic strips on the penultimate page. Nobody in the household misses out on Beetle Bailey. A few smiles later I move to the column courtesy Messrs Henri Arnold and Mike Argirion, Jumble. Over a period of years I've understood why I've never seen the words 'silent' or 'master' appearing here in Jumble, because you can make up more than one word with the letters s-i-l-e-n-t. I wish I could do a Tom Marvolo Riddle etching out his name in thin air for them to magically spell out 'I am Lord Voldemort', but I'll resign myself to saying that master can also anagram to stream, as can silent to listen and enlist. Anyway, as I get around to the crossword with which I've never had a lot of satisfaction in the past, my eyes glue themselves on to clue 15 across:

Persian reunion of broken parts (7)

Oh yeah - that's Algebra, I tell myself, Al-jabr echoing in my head. It had come up earlier in a quizzing jam back at college, and I put it down in black and white before I spot the clue succeeding it :

Glowing causing confusion at the lowest point (7)

I stop to think for a moment - lowest point may mean chasm or nadir, and for some instinctive reason decide on nadir, club it with 'at' and end up with radiant. A bit of chance there, but all's fair in love, war and crosswords.

I migrate to the bedroom, and switch on some music. It's a delightful combo, doing crosswords with The Bee Gees playing along. I suddenly start to imagine a dashing young man walking down the sidewalk making him the cynosure of all surrounding eyes, and my mind dates back to the 70s era which I unfortunately wasn't a part of. Sigh. Back to the crosswords.

8 down: Transgress a lesser colour (6)

I have help here - the last letter clashes with the t of radiant, and I can think of only one six-lettered colour that ends with t. Violet. I consider it for a moment, and the brilliance of crosswords hits me. I hurriedly go through what the gentleman had in mind when he set the clue - Transgress = violate; which is a lesser - 'a' lesser => violate minus a, and playing with the other letters I land up with violet. Oh man.

At this point I look at the clues I've solved thus far. There's some connection somewhere between them...I think to myself.

Big and strong husband partially eyes extremes of key (5)

I put down h-u-s from 'husband partially' - then gather the extremes of key - k and y. An easy clue, I tell myself. Husky.

Again, the bridge between the words is so strong...I can only imagine she has more than one admirer from the society of cruciverbalists. Subconsciously, I smile. My mother spots me, and gives me a quizzical look. Shaking my head, glad that I can see something she can't, I turn off the music and march off, the crossword page in my hand.

It's all a delusion, I tell myself. 'A false belief of french lion surrounding America', my alter-self pipes in and I laugh at the weakly constructed clue.

I still have a lot to learn.

8:02

As she slammed the door of the sedan shut, she looked askance at the house which she believed hadn't looked this desolate in decades. Raindrops pattered on top of the car. Getting behind the wheel, she turned the ignition key. The car quietly whirred into action, and with it, the local FM station. She stared at the wheel, or something beyond it she alone was capable of discerning. A couple of pensive minutes passed.

"There's a lady who's sure, all that glitters is gold...."

She stepped on the accelerator. Memories came flooding, taking her back to that night. She'd liked him at once. He had all the right moves, and behaviour equivalent to an 18th century Englishman - courteous and admirable. What began as a platonic relationship tumbled across the borderline towards sensuality in a matter of weeks and before she knew it, they were poring over The Big Book of Child Names.

“….. but she wants to be sure, ‘cause you know sometimes words have two meanings.”

When he had said “I do” the joy enveloping her had known no bounds. It had come to an abrupt end as the devil in him began to unleash. The night she realized why he had never bothered to mull over her marriage proposal delivered the first blow of several to follow. Three days after the marriage, driving at 60 miles an hour on the US 176, she looked at her bruised arm which showed traces of dried blood. Her hands bloody, her wrists were still shrouded by a shred of bandage which she had carelessly ripped off with what remained of that broken champagne bottle - one of the many paraphernalia that had been flung at her.

“Yes there are two paths you can go by, but in the long run, there’s still time to change the road you’re on.”

She paused for a moment and considered, it seemed to make sense to her chaotic mind. Wearing a wry smile, she stepped on the gas. These guys were geniuses. It was a pity this was going to be the last time she listened to the song. And she knew it.

“Dear Lady can you hear the wind blow, and did you know, your stairway lies on the whispering wind.”

Nervous excitement. Joy. Exhilaration. Vigour. Power surging through the limbs. A thousand moments of glory fluttering in the head. These last few minutes of her life were going to be her best. The speedometer showed 180 miles an hour.

Three minutes later, in the town of Spartanburg, South Carolina, a ramshackle sedan lay smashed against the façade of a multi-storeyed building leaving the onlookers stunned in silence, while the player continued to hum in the background.

“...and she’s buying the stairway to heaven.”