The 'Other' Heresies

Mexican photographer Pedro Meyer is as renowned for his powerful and provocative photographs as he is for his pioneering work with digital imaging. Meyer’s photographs consistently test the limits of truth, fiction and reality. With the advent of digital photography in the early 1990s, Meyer evolved from a documentary photographer who created so-called “straight photographs” into a digital-documentarian who often combines photographic elements from disparate times and places to arrive at a different or higher truth. Pedro's oft-expressed contention that all photographs — digitally manipulated or not — are equally “true” and “untrue” has been labeled “heretical” in the orthodox documentary photography community.

While fellow Apple-user Pedro Meyer (one of the first to adopt this platform and launch the very first intearactive CD-ROM!) may have his exhibition - Heresies - opening in 60 museums in almost as many countries (we are thrilled that T2F, where the exhibition opens on 21st October, has been selected as the Pakistani venue).

There are others, like me :), whose photographs have also made it to some of the greatest (virtual!) halls in the world. Here are just 2 of my examples.

"Happy viewing", as the Senator said!

;-)

Nuzhat

Sabeen

See you at the real Heresies, where a selection of large original museum quality prints of Pedro's works will be displayed and changed almost weekly!

Please do keep checking out the schedule at T2F's website for the exciting related events, like workshops, talks, discussions, and presentations during the weeks that this unique exhibition is on, unless you're on FB and already visit T2F Pages for updates.

Oh ... did you know that you can also subscribe to T2F's Events RSS Feed so you get the news automatically? And, as the icing on the cake, sign up for SMS alerts and get timely reminders too. This saves you the task of 'remembering to remember' to go to the website and saves me answering calls - usually when an event is actually happening - Maddy, please note ;-) - about when and what time it's happening.

Have aliens from space visited us?

Larry King's 11 year old interview is

 Shermer on Larry King Live with the UFOlogists 

It has people that I wouldn't disagree with

as they range from Presidents, Governors, an Astronaut

(who was the second person to walk on the moon),

and many others that include witnesses.

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There is also Michael Shermer, a leading Skeptic,

among the panel. Always an important person to listen to.

(He is also the editor of Skeptic, a magazine well worth reading).

He has objections to the standard story and wants evidence.

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A documentary, Out of the Blue,

and subtitled

The Definitive Investigation on UFOs

is narrated by Peter Coyote

and many of you maybe familiar with him.

Most people think it's the best film in this genre!

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There are, of course, objections by many serious people

about all these being 'conspiracy theories'

and they are mainly right.

But not all of them can be right, either.

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One theory that is almost always mentioned

is that the Governments are hiding a secret 

and don't want it out in public view

because it would create a panic.

Some say that beings outside our planet

would create a religious panic:

Why would the 'Son of God' appear just on Earth?

Christianity would then be wrong.

But that's no help, really.

Apart from the fact that hundreds of religions

and their sub-sects don't even accept that

Jesus was the 'Son of God'.

They do not even have him in their 'texts'.

In Abrahamic Religions only 2 of the 3

accept him but only one accepts him as God's Son.

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And what about Buddhists who have no God?

Why wouldn't they announce it if they knew this.

And Hindus, with their several gods

- who came from the sky - would accept this, too.

And so would Communists.

Their Atheism has no such problem.

And Scientologists would actually love it!

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One of the great pieces that I recall

was the The Walton Affair:

Woodworker Travis Walton was 'abducted',

in the presence of his friends.

Many though he'd been murdered by a friend

and the others were spinning a story.

Travis was discovered a few days later,

by a phone booth from where he contacted

a friend who was with him during the 'abduction'.

In 1993 a film Fire In The Sky was made about him.

(Do watch it! The scenes in the UFO are a treat!)

As Wikipedia stated, some people said this was a hoax.

Shermer criticized Walton's claims, saying

"I think the polygraph is not a reliable determiner of truth.

I think Travis Walton was not abducted by aliens.

In both cases, the power of deception and self-deception

is all we need to understand what really happened in 1975.

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However, you can now watch

Tarvis - The True Story of Travis Walton

and make up your own mind.

This is Travis many years later confirming

that his story is true and 100% right!

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[BTW, Tubi is a great place to watch some films for free.

But do remember that these are films.

Some are, naturally, based on true stories

but the rest are great fictions, too.]

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Favourite Artists: Dali

The Dali Mustache :)

Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí

Marquis of Dalí de Púbol

Spanish

11 May 1904 – 23 January 1989

Dali was as controversial in life

as are many of his artworks

Dali loved old and new Masters and has mentioned many in his writings and conversations. The best way is to read the long piece in Wikipedia which talks about not just about his art and his life but also the problems he had among frenemies and family.

While extremely fond of several great people in Hollywood, Dali worked with some of them. The Mae West Sofa was his tribute to one of the great stars known for her charms. He also sent Harpo Marx a Christmas present of a Harp with barbed-wire strings. Here is his Mao-Marilyn portrait. 

In Hitchcock's Spellbound he did the famous Dream Sequence. He also worked with Walt Disney on Destino - a film that he painted. Dali was part of many videos and films and you can see some of them on YouTube. The famous photographer, Philippe Halsmen, did a video of Dali painting. Here is a BBC recreation.

Here are some of my favourite works. There are many more by Dali that I love … but this will have to be enough to whet your appetite.

The Sacrament of The Last Supper

Figure at the Window

Slave Market with the Disappearing Bust of Voltaire

The Persistence of Memory

Geopoilticus Child Watching the Birth of the New Man

Metamorphosis of Narcissus

Portrait of Picasso

Soft Construction with Boiled Beans: Premonition of Civil War

Autumn Cannibalism

The Great Masturbator

Young Virgin Autos Sodomized By Her Own Chastity

The Ecumenical Council

Head Exploding

Soft Self Portrait With Fried Bacon

Discovery of America with Christopher Columbus

Lincoln in Dalivision
(There's Gala in the middle at a Cross;
If you move further you can see Lincoln)

Sleep

(Shaheen Jaffrani: My Covid Tesselation has this Man hidden in the Beige area)

The Anthropomorphic Cabinet

My Dali Remembered has this image re-done in Photoshop

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Among the most wonderful things that Dali did
was painting Alice in Wonderland on Glass

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If you need a book on Dali, there are several around,
from a small price to a heavily large price.

My recommendation would be to start with this.



It is a great start to see what he could do.
Take a look at his eye here.
Do you see something?

Here's a real close-up of it




Still not convinced?

You can see Gala and a Warped Clock!

WOW!!!

In his last few days Dali would make paintings but not sign them. They'd be put up in various shops  were sold there. The buyer would then have to bring the painting to Dali and ask him to sign it in front of themself. A gentleman bought a painting that he had seen Dali paint and took it to the artist. Dali said he won't sign it because it's fake. The buyer said that he had seen Dali paint this. "Oh", said Dali, "but I paint a lot of fake Dali's myself."

Are you putting pictures on the Net? Read this.

My problem with several pictures on the Net and specially in Facebook and other Social Media spaces are that they are crooked or unclean … or they are not put straight (and often at 90° from the original) … and are left with poor colours when they could be rectified and made so much better.

We've all seen these and more

Colours Changed

Picture where you have to bend your head

Crooked picture

This one is seen very often

PLEASE PUT THEM RIGHT

You can use Lightroom, Photoshop, and a number of other tools - many of them Free, like Preview (on a Mac) and many on Windows (can a friend please identify them; I am a Mac user). Colours can be corrected or rectified in some of the mentioned software.

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Another problem - and now seen most often as we put up old pictures we find in our homes, or are computer scanned - is the degree of distortion or spots or colours there are in the one we find. 

I found this in my old family collection

Of course you could go to a photo shop and get it fixed, for a price, but if it's not something you'd do, and I certainly won't, you could try and clean it up (partly!) and make it into a Black & White image and put it on the Net.

This is what I did here

FINALLY: Please do label it - even partly, if you don't know the names of everyone. Someone on Facebook, or wherever you put them, might recognise the others and add to your link.

In the above picture (from March 1913) starting from the left, are Safdar Ali (my Dada), Shahid Hosein (a friend of my Dada and married to my mother's cousin whose children included author Atiya Hosein and Pakistan's brilliant Air Force Pilot Fuad Bhai); Sitting as a Child was Rishad Bhai (the elder brother of Atiya Hosein) who was also India's Ambassador to Sri Lanka; Bilquis Phupi (my aunt who died very young) and Mahlaqa Begum (my Dadi).

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Also, take a look at flickr. It's great. Use it.

A Dream Fulfilled: Mustafa Zaidi Event at T2F

Mustafa Zaidi Ki Yād Mayñ

Born 1930 Murdered 1970

It was really such a great event. All my dreams came true. For years after MZ's murder (although the courts asked us to consider it a suicide … and, sadly, many people believed it) I have been wanting to do something for his memory. Something that would put the record straight … instead of the idiotically crazy pictures that the press painted for us (and I feel that Jang, a newspaper that actually surpassed the sales of all other dailies in Pakistan, did). Something that would indicate what he was as a poet! He was one of our greatest poets that lived for just 40 years before death engulfed him and left us poorer in poetry.

But it wasn't just that …

It left us all poorer in the love of a man who always told the truth; poorer for a generation that had not even heard of him (thanks to the lack of availability of his books); the bans on his appearing on radio and tv broadcasts; the erasures of his lovely works from those libraries; and the actual poorness of that man's last few years when he didn't even have enough money to phone his family often.

After a ridiculous 303 movement — the removal of maybe many crooks but one that included a lot of decent people who were shunted out by President Yahya Khan (on advice from many who had personal grudges against them). The News says that "Yahya Khan’s military regime had summarily dismissed 303 civil servants and government functionaries, but did not prosecute them." That's not true, really. Blocks were put on MZ by having his passport confiscated and a ban was placed on his travels so that he could not see his family, a family that loved him and he loved so much. 

MZ mentioned this in a poem ("Pahla Pat'thar"). We all loved the poem … but the press refused to print it.

He then went to the two people who were known here as the speakers of freedom … but they, too, thought that it was wrong, so he wrote another poem ("Banaamé Idāraé Lail-o-Nahar"). Always worth listening to on his only audio CD: "The One and Only Mustafa Zaidi" — a collection that I have. It is now available at T2F (or by post in Pakistan if you pay the mailing charges).

Both became poems that the crowd celebrated and repeated to each other. But they were never published. You can read it now in the (almost!) full selection of his külliyāt.

The book is now available everywhere.

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Why did I say almost? There were two lines that were omitted in this collection … I have them and can read them out to you if we meet ;)

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It was soon after his death that I kept telling Nuzhat (my wife) that it was something we needed to do. The press was unfair. The politics was unfair. The people who read all this were being prejudiced because they neither knew the man … and even if they did, they thought the press must be right about him.

To the world he became the lover of Shahnaz Gul (a one year encounter in 40 years of his life!) …something that his wife, Vera, has to talk about, if she wants to.

How many people who read these posts can look into their own lives and not admit their 'other loves' after marriage. Many, I am sure.  Men and Women. But that's the theme of Hypocrisy. Blame others, not yourselves. One that now seems to pervade everyone … even more by the recently converted religiosity people. The first poem above says that, too, for MZ knew where we were heading.

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Years later, when I was heading Enabling Technologies, we decided to do a CD-ROM (Do you remember what those were?). I decided to do one for MZ, first. Sabeen Mahmud loved his poems after I recited them for her and really loved the idea I had for the beginning of the CD-ROM and we decided that it would bring him back to life.

But … with MZ's books missing from the market, and no voices that I could gather other than what I had with me, added to the fact that many parents and others had removed his books from their libraries in case children would know about this mis(represented) man, plus the banning of Mustafa Zaidi's work from Radio and TV, would make for very few people interested in him. So we chose to do 'Faiz - Aaj Kay Naam' as a CD-ROM. There was lots available for Faiz, anyway. And we loved him, too. The Faiz CD-ROM had 16+ hours of amazing works. We hoped we'd do MZ the next time. As events passed we realised that a few kids, who had access to computers, knew nothing of MZ and their parents rarely understood or used computers. Pity.

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Finally, back to our event …

The guests at T2F were superb:

Ismat Zaidi, MZ's daughter, who read out and talked about MZ in ways that we never would have known;

Saba Zaidi, Irtiza Ji's daughter (and MZ's niece), who talked of him;

Nusrat Zaidi, a 93-year old cousin who was a close friend of MZ, despite the age difference, talked about his humanity and love;

Nargis Saleem, the daughter of Dr Omar - a very close friend of MZ - who read MZ's letters to her father;

Khalid Ahmad who read out a few poems of MZ;

Our wonderful poet, Iftikhar Arif, who spoke for long and had so many wonderful things to say about MZ and our own lives in general (a person who is always worth listening to);

… and the moderator, Asif Aslam Farrukhi, who handled the occasion brilliantly. I am glad that he is on T2F's list as an advisor.

If you missed the programme (it was broadcast LIVE and will be on YouTube, too), here it is for you again.

Mustafa Zaidi Ki Yād Mayñ

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One of the T-Shirts that I was wearing (now available at T2F and can be mailed out to anywhere in Pakistan, if you are willing to add the mailing price on it) had this shayr on it.

I knew there'd be an objection and a person in the audience did raise it. He said the shayr was wrong. There was no kahēñ but it was koē. I pointed out that MZ had written koē, but a young college boy went up to him and said that the word, Kahkashāñ, was meant for Milky Way and not Galaxies. We all knew that was the galaxy we could see with the naked eye (and still can, if the annoying lights that hide all the stars in the city don't block out the sky at night). In fact we never had a word for galaxies in Urdu (now we do: we say گیلکسی ) … so MZ agreed and changed it to koē. He wrote that to the publisher when the work was going to be printed in his book and the publisher added kahēñ to the book … but forgot to correct it in the preface that was written. So now we have both available, with the correct one in the poem and the original in the preface. Take your pick. I'll stay with new one.

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We have had many people writing to us about the live broadcast. Some who missed it are waiting for it to go on YouTube.

Naseer Turabi (whom Saba and I contacted and got no response from him) was a very close friend of MZ. Now he says we wish he had been contacted. We did, NT! Several times. And would have loved you to be there. Don't worry we'll do another one next year on him and you'll be there, we hope.

We sadly missed Tina Sani who was supposed to come and sing a piece or two of MZ's poems … but she was extremely busy on that day and forgot. You'll be on the next programme, too, Tina!

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Thanks for the Music, iPod …

… but they are gone, now!

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Released on October 23, 2001, just eight and a half months after iTunes came out on the Mac, I bought this at the end of November, 2001. What a delightful piece (and still my favourite iPod).

I soon got one for Nuzhat and she listens to it everyday at her work and travel. And its always carried by her in her old Altoids box.

Both iPods still work!
Of course! They are Apple Products, so obviously they work.

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In a few years the iPods changed a bit in style and form … and, eventually, they got Screens. We could view and choose from lists of things we could put on them. By the way, they arrived with Apple Covers and Labels.

As I bought my 2nd and 3rd iPods almost as soon as they came out I could use them on different days with my Apple Speakers that are amazing. Sitting on a side table in our Dining Room, the air is filled with music all the time. The 2nd iPod (playing in the picture) has Eastern Music; the 3rd iPod has Western Music.

The last iPod I bought and gave to my wife was the little one … and she will use it some day. Heheh. Well, she does, on a couple of days - but mainly its her first iPod that's heard by her all the time. 

My own first iPod was used for my morning walks. When I got my Pacemaker fitted I was told that I could not have the speakers in my ear and would need to have Bluetooth or ELS stuff. So I did buy 3 Bluetooth headphones.

One for Travel on long flights. The Naztech one has 30 hours of running time on it, so it works on my US Flights. And back.

One more that stays on my Treadmill at home.

And an Earbud that I use at work.

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Of course the old iPod has no Bluetooth! But I added a little gadget to it and it works with any one of my Bluetooth Headphones. Isn't life wonderful.

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Thanks, Apple.

We all knew the iPods had to go at some point.

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Oh. Just one more thing :)
Here's a quote from my Facebook post when SJ died.

When engineers working on the very first iPod completed the prototype, they presented their work to Steve Jobs for his approval. Jobs played with the device, scrutinized it, weighed it in his hands, and promptly rejected it. It was too big.

The engineers explained that they had to reinvent inventing to create the iPod, and that it was simply impossible to make it any smaller.

Jobs was quiet for a moment. Finally he stood, walked over to an aquarium, and dropped the iPod in the tank. After it touched bottom, bubbles floated to the top.

 "Those are air bubbles," he snapped. "That means there's space in there. Make it smaller."

[Steve Jobs, we loved your insights and your involvement in design … and the perfection you brought to the world.]

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And when one is talking about Music:

The STAX Electronic Headphone I bought in 1982 when I was in Hong Kong. Expensive (USD $1000) but brilliant. They are 35 years old and work beautifully. Generally attached to my HiFi system, they also attach to my iMac and, occasionally, to my Zoom Recorder for live recordings, I adore it.

Electronic Speakers are a must! Mine are Quad ESLand they have no standard speakers in them. They just have a stretch of a flat substance inside that is powered by electrics through a plug. The substance stays flat until the sound vibrates it and it moves forward and backwards, producing the cleanest sound possible. They were brought in Hong Kong in 1984 while I was there and shipped with my (late) friend Jalal Akbar's luggage when he came to Pakistan.

Take a look at how thin they are …

There is no added heavy Bass, so many Pop listeners don't use these … but for many people who listen to Classical and Pop, they do want to add Bass. Mordaunt Short makes a set-up with Quad's Speakers and their own Woofer added to it. A friend of mine has them and they do sound brilliant. Specially if you love the Bass.

I am an Analogue lover (oh I do have CDs, too) so my LPs and Tapes sound remarkable through my set-up. Specially my Reel-to-Reels, recorded on a Revox A77.

I had to spend my last £150 in 1971 (on my first trip on the ship with my wife, Nuzhat) to buy this at Imhofs in London. That makes it 46 years old. And what a piece of art and sound it is. Still used, if we have a classical session at home.

But I do add a Zoom H4

so that I can make CDs for T2F.

And all said and done, the Zoom is remarkably good,

specially with its wonderful microphones.

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I listen to Western Classical, Opera, Jazz, Many Vocals, Eastern Shüdh Classical, Qavvāli, Some Pops from East and West, and tons of Spoken Word - much of which I have recorded (including Müshāérahs). Not too fond of heavy bass, I am fine with my Quad ESLs. But you've got to send good clean sound to them.

Since all my music is listened to on a Flat Setting (not in the way my photos below show, where I wanted you to see the Controls they have), my Quad Pre-Amp and Amp are the best bets. I have had their first product which has inputs for different forms of 78s, as well. Great for my large collection of 78s dating back to the First World War PLUS a few of much older classical pieces.

They started with a Pre-Amp called Acoustical

and eventually moved on to the Quad 33 that could play LPs, 45s, 78s, Reel-to-Reel Tape Formats and Cassettes … with controls that filtered the sounds to a T! Naturally I bought the 33.

But the PreAmps need an Amplifier, so the Quad 303was a must. It stayed for many, many years with me but it died during a Pakistani Electrical Whoooof … and no one could repair it here.

Sad to see you go, 303 :(

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But Quad had a new Amp out, so I bought it; The Quad 306.

Sitting between my favourite Classical Composers.

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The old Quad ESLs do exceedingly well. In any case, as old age approaches, my ears aren't as good as they were once … so no change of speakers would be welcome, now, anyway :)

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Bye, guys. I have to go back and listen to Sant Andreu Jazz Band on my CD. Although I have a load of LPs that I listen to — and they are a lot better than CDs, anyway — I have stopped buying them. They disappeared and have now come back, but not sold here (and are far too expensive abroad).

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Incidentally, Cassette Tapes are back, too. And a good Cassette Player beats the CDs, as well.  Analogue is a lot better than Digital … at least so far. However, while finding the right piece and turning the tape over has been made easier, the best player is an expensive piece and you'll have to wait until more Cassette Tapes are released. But if you've got a large selection of Cassettes in your house, go for it. And get one like this that turns them into CDs or MP3.

Bye!