This city is a photographer’s dream. Cool, beautiful and serendipitous; a playground for amateurs like me.

But what of the Empire Building? It was a thrilling experience to be whizzed in a “lift” a quarter of a mile heavenward, and to see New York spread out like a marvellous tapestry beneath us.

There was the Hudson – more like the flash of a sword-blade than a noble river. The little island of Manhattan, set like a jewel in its nest of rainbow waters, stared up into my face, and the solar system circled about my head! Why, I thought, the sun and the stars are suburbs of New York, and I never knew it! I had a sort of wild desire to invest in a bit of real estate on one of the planets. All sense of depression and hard times vanished, I felt like being frivolous with the stars.

— Helen Keller in a letter to Dr. John Finley describing what she “saw”.

For about two years, Sapna Kamdar has maintained a rigid, unvarying schedule. Every evening she travels from her house in Wadala to Pali Hill in Bandra where she waits to catch a glimpse of the star. Sometimes she’s lucky, most times she’s not. It’s a lonely vigil, standing outside his bungalow, waiting, just waiting with faith and love and hope in her heart.

Full story here.

Part of the project was to make posters, trailers, and a website for the film. We even went so far as to create our own production company, as to look professional. Somehow the legal team from the studio found out about a student project, in a small private college in the Midwest, with no budget, being shot in a warehouse basement, and decided to issue a cease and desist order. Basically, what that means, is that the studio’s lawyers said to us, “You’re using our property. Stop, or we’ll sue you into the stone age.” I responded by sending them the consent form from the Asimov estate, and explained that it was a student project, not a commercial venture worth litigating. I turned over our script, our shooting notes, our shot list, copies of our tapes and even the concept art drawings.

Instead of the letter recognizing our valiant efforts as students that I expected, I found myself on the tail end of a phone call that changed my life. I was contacted directly by the lead of the studio’s legal team, who explained my situation to me very clearly. He told me that I was technically in my legal right to use Isaac Asimov’s material. However, if I chose to proceed, they would file multiple lawsuits totaling over 2 million dollars against me. In the end, I might win, but it would take hundreds of thousands of dollars in legal fees just to fight it, but would cost them nothing more than the salaries they already pay their lawyers. It would be 10 years before any type of verdict could be levied, and by then it wouldn’t matter what the outcome was, since their film would be long since released.

This is how creativity is encouraged. This is what happens to aspiring small-time film-makers whose paths cross with the big studios.

/via @nimbupani

“When we renounce our dreams and find peace, we go through a short period of tranquility. But the dead dreams begin to rot within us and to infect our entire being.
We become cruel to those around us, and then we begin to direct this cruelty against ourselves. That’s when illnesses and psychoses arise. What we sought to avoid in combat – disappointment and defeat – come upon us because of our cowardice.”

— Paulo Coelho in Killing your dreams.

The recent Pune trip gave me glimpses of some Maharashtrian villagers. I’ll never fully comprehend their life and problems but this guy had a serene calmness in the way he rested. Perhaps, there was a storm brewing within his mind but he didn’t let it show.

Choose your best friends among those who bring something to the party. It’s not so easy to make new ones. As you grow older, a relentless narrowing takes place, until if you grow old long enough you’re reduced to your original state when you first boarded the vessel: Those who feed and care for you.

— Roger Ebert on friends, life and death in O Captain! my Captain! our fearful trip is done

“There is nothing in her appearance but perfect rest. You would suppose her quietly asleep.”

— Charles Dickens in a letter to his wife, Catherine, breaking the news gently about their 8-month old daughter’s death.

Read the entire letter. One of the most painful letters anyone would have ever had to write.

“Reading is an act of resistance in a landscape of distraction.… It requires us to pace ourselves. It returns us to a reckoning with time. In the midst of a book, we have no choice but to be patient, to take each thing in its moment, to let the narrative prevail. We regain the world by withdrawing from it just a little, by stepping back from the noise.”

— David Ulin via How to Survive The Age of Distraction