Bookish Dreams and Other Speculations

I believe every reader has his or her own unfulfilled bookish dreams. I have quite a few.

To be gifted a book on my Birthday (or on any occasion for that matter) has to be the one on top of the list! Amazingly, no one has ever gifted me a book that I had not myself chosen in prior. Sometimes I would get a gift voucher. The problem is, before I buy a book I tend to do a lot of 'research'. I look at a book and say "Hey! This seems interesting!", but I never buy it immediately. I read up a lot of reviews and quite some time would pass before I decide to read it. The freshness and joy of discovering something new is always lost this way. The Fellowship of the Ring, Three Men in a Boat, Agatha Christie's The Big Four and Asimov's Foundation are some of the few books that I happened to read in a considerable state of ignorance and those experiences are still unbeatable.

So that's the major one. Some of the others are - to form a 'Sunday Book Club', rummage through a second-hand bookshop and discover some unknown masterpiece, get together with another reader and spook each other out by reading aloud M. R. James's ghost stories on Halloween night and so on ad infinitum.

A comment by my Hyper Rational Alter Ego: No! I don't think this can be an infinite series. The number of such fantasies that can be entertained by any given individual must surely be finite.

Kaleidoscope of Mathematics

Almost seven years ago the first thing that I fell in love with on watching the movie A Beautiful Mind for the first time was the opening theme known as Kaleidoscope of Mathematics. Another movie that I watched for the first time around the same time was Bicentennial Man, directed by Chris Columbus. It was only when I watched it again a few years later that it dawned on me that the opening score of Bicentennial Man was pretty much the same as that of A Beautiful Mind. Music for both films was scored by James Horner, but I'm not sure if I knew this ahead of my discovery. Surfing around in YouTube I came to know that Horner had apparently used the same piece of music in an earlier film - Searching for Bobby Fischer, released in 1993 - as well. Of course, I cannot vouch for the truth of this assertion because I've neither watched the movie nor heard its score.

The fact that Horner has used the same theme in at least two different movies has led to some predictable criticism. This ranges from sane calls for a bit more of originality from the composer to insane assertions of plagiarism. I on the other hand, find nothing at all to criticize the composer about. For me, the fact that he used the same musical theme in the opening scores of both Bicentennial Man and A Beautiful Mind indicates his understanding of the deeper intellectual themes that underlie these two movies. While the Bicentennial Man is about a robot who strives to become human, A Beautiful Mind traces the life of a schizophrenic mathematician. So essentially, the former follows the evolution of a beautiful mind while the latter is concerned with the consequences of the existence of a beautiful mind. It's nothing short of amazing for me that James Horner not only understood this, but was able to translate it into a beautiful piece of music. One last point that I want to make is that even though the musical theme is the same, the style of orchestration in terms of the instruments used, the aural ambience and the tempo are vastly different between the two movies and Horner makes sure that the music for each movie is its own. Bravo James Horner!

Jason and The Devil

What follows is a dialogue that I dreamt up a few years ago, inspired by a line from Umberto Eco's novel Foucault's Pendulum and Arthur Porges's short story The Devil and Simon Flagg. Of course I know about Porges's story only because Simon Singh refers to it in Fermat's Last Theorem !

Jason: It sure is a lovely day!

The Devil: I would certainly agree, but in a darker sense of the word.

Jason turns around and almost jumps out of his skin.

Jason: Holy Smokes! Who're you?

The Devil: Never mind! But isn't speaking of the word lovely in a darker sense something of a... what would you humans call it?

Jason: A contradiction?

The Devil: Yes! I suppose you can call it that... but then you see, I'm The Devil and Darkness is quite Lovely for me and therefore I concur with your initial appreciative diagnosis. Today is indeed a lovely day. Quite lovely in fact for pursuing unguarded humans like you!

Jason: Why would your highness, The Supreme Ruler of the infernal depths be sneaking up behind innocent humans like me?

The Devil: I believe you're under the mistaken impression that the supreme ruler of the infernal world cannot appreciate sharply satirical human speech. Now I shall demonstrate to you the extent of my appreciation.

The Devil makes a fluid gesture with both his arms. The opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth can be heard thundering. With an abrupt movement The Master of Infernal Special Effects conjures up a slew of MGM style visual effects with a touch of Devilish ingenuity that would have given goosebumps to even a hardened fan of horror movies and put Industrial Lights and Magic out of business. Lightning and Fire seem to strike at Jason from infinitely many directions and The Devil himself seemed to have grown to the size of a multi-dimensional Godzilla! But as abruptly as it had begun it was over. The face of The Devil was contorted in a Devilish imitation of smugness.

Jason looks dazed and awestruck but gathers his wits around pretty quickly.

Jason: Phew! Wow! That was frightening! I'm quite certain that a lot of people would go bankrupt if you manage to make your way to Hollywood.

The Devil is unable to hide his surprise and looks really annoyed.

The Devil: You think you're quick witted, don't you?

Jason: Yeah! Sure...

The Devil: Then let me match my anti-divine wit against your super quick human brain.

Jason: I don't really prefer matching wits against nonexistent creatures.

The Devil: How dare you... never mind! Prove to me that I don't exist.

Jason: That's quite simple. I don't believe that the Devil exists. Therefore you don't exist!

The Devil: But I do exist as you can see!

Jason: My Belief is firm.

The Devil: So is my existence.

Jason: Then I'll have to prove it your way. You exist. This Implies that God exists, right?

The Devil smirks.

The Devil: Him! Yes He does.

Jason: Then that proves you don't exist!

Before The Devil manages to react, Jason makes the sign of the Cross. Instantaneously The Devil vanishes in a puff of nonexistent smoke (courtesy Infernal Lights and Magic).