Through the Children's Gate - Adam Gopnik (Part 2)

I finally completed this book yesterday. As always Mr. Gopnik gave me a lot. His fluid, introspective review of minutia that really makes up our life, is perceptive and often makes you want to be patient and introspective yourself. This follow-up to the 'Paris to the moon' is a somewhat different. The first book was more about Paris and less about child raising and this one is more about the personal experience and joy or bringing up your children but also the obvious pain of the knowledge that as you help your children grow you are also helping them go away from you. You raise them to lose them. This poignant dilemma it seems is the central driving force for Mr. Gopnik.

Semi Finals - Review

Well, as predicted, it is indeed going to be a repeat of 1996 at least in spirit. I expect Australia to crush Sri Lanka pretty convincingly.

As far as the semi-finals go: it is strange how both turned out to be no-contests. Australia's win was never in question but South Africa's dismal performance was disappointing. New Zealand never really had a chance. Of course Jayawardane's innings reminding me of Arvinda De Silva and it seems like Jayawardane might be the heir. Though not yet having quite the poetic flair of De Sliva, Jayawardane is going to the same place.

Candide - Voltaire

After a long long time I read a book that cracked me up in so many ways. Candide (or Optimism) is the story of a naive boy of that name who learns the true nature of the world and the rather messy life that we live in. It relives in hyperbole the horrors of the 18th century world. It is basically a blatant satire, to the point of shamelessness, at the philosophy of the 'good' and 'simple'. It ridicules almost all cultural aspects of its time and blasts away simplistic reductions of various peoples of the world.

Written in the 18th century, it is refreshingly politically incorrect. Reading it reminds us how our current world is taking away from us the freedom to express any idea no matter how outrageous it may be. How the pressure to conform to a unified moral code is stifling discussion and just plain old fun.

If you buy this book make sure you by this edition. It has an outstanding reference section. Most of the book will be lost without that.

Semi Finals - Preview

So the World Cup Semi-finals start tomorrow and we are all but ensured of a repeat of the '96 World cup final on the 28th. However, it is almost certain that Australia will pick their 4th cup. Their dominance of this World Cup is almost obscene and has arguably done more harm to the tournament than good. Of course the real downer was the departure of the two most popular teams in the World being out of the chase in the first stage.

West Indies done in

Got to see Sanath Jayasurya, one of my favorite cricket players, play quite an amazing innings yesterday. Poor West Indies. Not only were they helpless in front of Jayasurya but they were quite hopeless in the field. 3rd straight loss in the Super 8 stage and they are out really.

Other than that the World Cup has largely been reduced to some batting practice for Australia and South Africa. Speaking of which, seems like these two countries have taken the game to a whole new level. While this is great for them but it has sort of made the game much less interesting. When these two countries play any other side the odds are just too lopsided to justify watching the game for the better part of a day.

I somehow feel that Sri Lanka is the still the only team that can be innovative enough to give the above two a tough time. The other teams just seem too disinterested.