Writing just to write

Ach, another weekend has slipped by far too quickly. Friday was supposed to be a ceilidh at the Irish-American Heritage Center (thus giving me an excuse to make the post about the building that I never got around to after my last trip there), but snowy_owlet turned out to have a previous engagement and, without her, the entire plan collapsed like a graham cracker castle. At the time, I was rather grateful, being less up for an Adventure than I thought I'd be.

For the same reason, I ended up blowing off the Malaysian festival that Bumiputeri invited me to and gathering my strength for the long, arduous trip to Hyde Park. Even though it (coupled with a sudden loss of my sense of direction) made me late for the Guy Fawkes party, I couldn't resist a trip to Powells. Was I rewarded for my pains? AND HOW! Martin's Reference grammar of Korean for $35. That alone would've made the whole trip worthwhile.

But it was only a beginning! tyrannio and innerdoggie's new place is wonderful, and I would be quite envious if it wasn't, you know, at the end of the civilised world and all. There were no firecrackers, but there was plenty of good food. I learned that Jews make quiche, too, which means that--contrary to what I've always known--it is possible to make them without bacon. Imagine!

More importantly, the parkin cake was a success despite the fact that I ended up hacking off and discarding several fingers of the outer rind which had dried out due to poor storage. I liked it a lot better than my first attempt. That seemed like a less interesting gingerbread, whereas this was quite definitely its own thing: Sort of a heavy, chewy, molassesy, oatmeal-black bread. Just eating it makes me feel like a real son of the soil.

Due to my own stupidity (please don't ask), I ended up getting to bed far far too late and slept through the morning. It would've been a beautiful day for walking in the park, but I was fated to attend a screening of J.P. Dutta's remake of Umrao Jaan. A little disappointing all around, I'm afraid. The dance scenes were almost entirely Aishwarya Ray solo, which got a little tedious despite the fact that she's got some very good Kathak moves on her side. It could've been the music, which lacked variety. I appreciated the fact that used a lot of traditional instrumentation, especially when it came to the percussion, but they were content with modern interpretations of Classical pieces rather than the real deal.

At least they had Kulbhushan Kharbanda, who's easy on the eyes, and Shabana Azmi, who's one of India's most accomplished actresses. (Y'all may remember them as the older of the two married couples in Deepa Mehta's Fire.) And, girl, do I wish we'd had niemandsrose for all the fabric porn. Fantastic interiors and outfits throughout, and some great location shots of Lucknow and Jaipur.

Lucknow is famous throughout India for the etiquette of the Nawabi court, and the director's attempts at recreating it added some pleasant distraction. There were all sorts of formal gestures which we were left trying to puzzle out the meaning of. As far as I could tell with my limited exposure to Hindi, they'd also taken some pains to Urduize it and include some takalluf, or formal polite language. For instance, the usual greeting was ādāb (from Arabic `adab?), the leavetaking khudāfiz (from Arabo-Persian xudâ ḥâfiẓ "God protect"), and "you" was almost always āp (the most formal version), except among country folk. When text appeared on screen, they were scrupulous about writing it in English, Devanagari, and Arabic script.

Also, I learned a useful new phrase which monshu is sure to get sick of: Hum āpka ghulām "I am your slave".