And we all live happily together!

First comes the need for food, then need for warmth and concealing of modesty then protection from nature. Man, being man is not satisfied with his basic needs. With affluence, food is replaced with cuisine, clothing with haute couture and hut(home) with palatial house. Also trickling in would the appreciation of performing arts.

Arts help to influence a society to make them think how they should think. Indian freedom fighters and Nazi propaganda machinery shrewdly used this for their advantage - to parcel off British from Bharat Desh and to fuel hatred for Abraham's God's chosen people respectively.With the freedom of availability of information and both sides of the story, the boldness, the exposure, the education opportunities and the vociferous vocalness of people of late, performing arts in Malaysia have never been the same.On a Tuesday night, I decided to give myself a go at a PJ Live Arts stand up comedy show. It is a potpourri of and coming comedians trying to give a shot at 15 minutes of fame.

Kavin Jay

Catering to an mature and broad minded audience, there were no holds barred in the types of jokes that the performers belted out. By and large, the barrage of stereotypical racial was the highlight of the night led by the masters of ceremony, a well endowed confident Kavin Jay. The performers were from various ethnicity and were basically laughing at various races in the family, at themselves and their neighbours. (Rizal van Geyzel, Pravin, Srikanth, Kaptain Khalid from Nigeria).
If you thought, there was no representation from our Eastern part of Malaysia, Shamin from Sabah was out to make us laugh at the ignorance of the Peninsularites and their confusion of cultures from Sabah and Sarawak. They even had a Singaporean (Fuzz) act to rekindle the old love-hate flame between the two neighbours.
The leaders of the country and even the official religion of the country were the butt of their jokes.
a good 2 hours of fun and laugh. Sadly, there were no comediennes in the list of performers. Probably, we have to give the fairer sex some time before they learn the art of invoking laughter. As expected, Indians, the big talkers (all talk only, no action) stole the limelight.
Many of us are yet to be exposed to the plethora of talents amongst us.
A good night well spent.

Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer - Mark Twain

Interactive Street Art in Penang

Ernest Zacharevic is a Lithuanian street artist currently living in George Town, located in the province of Penang, Malaysia . As part of the George Town Festival that runs from June 15 to July 15, Ernest has been putting up some incredible street art all around the city.

The piece getting the most buzz online has been his artwork featuring two kids painted on a wall. He then strategically placed a real bike in front of the wall which not only gave the piece a three dimensional feel (that you can physically touch), but encouraged people to interact with the artwork and use their own creativity to put their personal spin on it.

 

Interesting viewpoint

The person who painted these pictures wanted to attend the Viennese Academy of Fine Arts to become an artist, but academy rejected his application.
If only he had been accepted by the academy, the world history would have been much different ...
 


.. That applicant's name was ADOLF HITLER!

In honour of pioneers of the silver screen...

With all the technological advances in sounds systems and colour, some people may think that I must be nuts still watching silent movies after all these years. But hey, they are still producing them, you see. The Artist from which the Best Actor for the 2011 Oscars came from - The first recipient of Awards since 1927!
It is a completely speechless movie (barring the two minutes of a dream scene when people started talking and the closing lines). The movie narrates the story set from 1927 to 1932 of a silent movie star, George Valentin, a swashbuckling toothy grinned hero who has has problem adjusting to the introduction of talkies.
The movie starts with the premiere of his movie 'Russian Affair ' which receives a roaring approval from the masses. During a photo shootout with fans, George meets Peppy Miller who makes it as a chorus girl extra in Valentin's new movie. Slowly Peppy moves up the ladder of stardom.
Come 1929, the studio decides to go talkies with the introduction of sounds in movies. All at once, old faces are axed to give way for newbies including Peppy Miller. As all actors of that era who thought that sounds are going to kill the acting ability of the actors, Valentin decided that he was not going to take it lying down. He acted, produced and directed in on own silent movie which was released at the same day as Peppy's talkies. Unfortunately his release coincided with the stock market crash and the reception to his film was appalling. He became a bankrupt while Peppy's career flourished. His wife had left him too.
Poor, drunk and depressed made him burn his old film collection and he is trapped in his own flat only to be rescued by his faithful companion Uggie (a Jack Russel terrier). (Watch Uggie's antics here!) Incidentally, Uggie needs a special mention for his extraordinary talent. If not for being of the human species, he would have vied for the Oscars! In 1928, a dog acting as Tin Tin got more votes then the actual winner - after that most award boards disqualified animals from nomination!
George is nursed back to health in Peppy's mansion where he stumbles upon all his old collection of items which were auctioned by him nicely stashed away. Feeling disillusioned, he attempts suicide, while Uggie compassionately coaxing him not to do so by ticking on his pants. This scene quite poignant and heart wrenching. Just in nick of time, Peppy makes it to the scene literally in a bang by crashing at the compound stopping our hero from his silly action.
Peppy suggests that they should use his dance talent to make it back to the movies which proved to quite true.
I can swear that the hero (Jean Dujardin) is trying very hard to be much like Sean Connery via his mannerisms, actions, moustache, smile and barrette! He is quite a likeable guy. The movie is quite straight forward in its storyline - nothing extraordinarily. Perhaps there is a lot of hype for this movie to sort of to commemorate and honour the contributions of the forefathers of the celluloid industry.