I was reading SiberNews and I saw this odd photo of Prabhakaran hugging two now-dead pilots. There’s a lot of noise from the Tamil diaspora in Geneva and testimony from a fair amount of testimony from white people I’ve never heard of in the US. But I find it a bit divorced from reality. The protesters in Norway and Geneva saying ‘Pirapaharan is our national leader’ just repulse me. Well, OK. Come and live in the nation he has built. You can actually get on a flight and go east and perhaps North to help people. It’s not easy, but exaggerating your words won’t actually make up for the poverty of your action. What’s a rallying cry for diaspora Tamils is a dire reality for people of all races who are actually on this island. And I do think the diaspora needs to be involved in Sri Lanka, but for fuck’s sake. Sending money to the LTTE to turn the Tamil youth here into suicide bombers is just sick.

This is a poem about the imminent zombie apocalypse. Pending that, it looks like the Open Mic will be at the Punchi Theatre (up upstairs, udah udah rehearsal room) next Thursday. It’s booked but I’ll check on sound and stuff today. This is not an announcement. I was apologizing to someone about stairs and the parking and drinking out of buckets and stuff but he was like, ‘I’m OK with the side of the road’. Which makes sense to me. Anyways, I wrote a bunch of random stuff over the weekend. I guess I’ll release it periodically between now and then.

Just found that one of my exes got married. Time to re-evaluate my life. I guess it’s OK. This is a partly fiction poem on my general mental vicinity. Sometimes. My head’s generally in shape but the details are all messed up. We’re having the next Open Mic thing next Thursday, March 5th. Should be good. I have my own apartment, I buy my own shoes, It feels like I’m a grown up, Yet everyday I lose. There’s geckos on the ceiling, Roaches on the loose, A rat lived in my kitchen, Till I stopped buying food…

I missed the LTTE air raid entirely. Thankfully, two planes have been shot down. Mercilessly, many people are dead and injured. My friend was in Slave Island at the time, she said they saw the plane roll by and saw the explosion. It’s sad, but I wish I was there. I was at CR&FC, in the dark. The LTTE air attacks (except air/ground on Anuradhapura) have been largely symbolic and now, shambolic, the last embers of a dying creed. I was talking to a friend who’s an LTTE supporter in London. And yes, that is possible. I think that dialogue is important, especially with people you don’t agree with. But he says the struggle will go on. And I’m like, this struggle? I know the LTTE emerged after over 25 years of failed negotiation. But now violence has had 25, and failed even more. I’m all for the struggle, but not a dumb struggle. It’s time for new management.

I work. Around lunchtime Subash is like ‘what’s the lunch plan’. I walk over to his cubicle and describe the specials of the day – fois gras, tapas, empanadas, and a light honey glazed chicken tourbillion. Then we go and get ba’th (rice), like every other day of our lives. There are varieties, and my new favorite is Bath Amma’s. We call it British Airways. Bath Amma’s is literally someone’s house. You sit at their dining table, in front of their family photos and the little kid is running around while her mother serves you rice out of ice cream containers. There’s like five plates so she has to go back and keep washing them. While she’s washing there’s no water to wash your hands. Above the sink there’s something plugged in leading out. I think that powers the house next door. Food’s not bad. Two kinds of pork yesterday.00

My dear friend Hania has a captivating voice. She’s singing this Friday at Underground (Taj Samudra club, née Onyx née MKOP). She’s playing with Ranil from Hollow Point Halo and Pabalu Wijegoonawardane. Personally, I know that her and Ranil are damn good musicians, and Pabalu I assume. The videos I’ve included here are not rehearsed or anything, the crowd just badgered her to sing. But you can hear. Friday they’ll be playing more downtempo and chillout-type stuff. Cafe Del Mar, Zero 7, Massive Attack, Radiohead, etc. It starts at 9:30, then the thing continues with house music till dawn (including Shiyam, Tim, and Yazz, who are great DJs). Should be a decent nice of music. I personally am a big fan of both the unplugged and wired sets.

Kottu has actually been keeping a record of the top posts ever for a few years now. So there is a Top 100 of sorts, based on clicks out of Kottu. There are 45,000 links dating from May 2007. So about two years of data. Some of the top are just blogs (not posts), like Dom’s blog, or RD’s. There’s still a big enough list. I’ve included some here, and then you can view the Google Spreadsheet here. Note that this is only 1000 out of 45,000, just cause I can’t upload the lot. If anyone wants the whole set or some other output can do. This, of course, isn’t the best posts. If anything it’s the best titles. But it is some data for people, like Cerno, if they’re going about making a collection of the Top 100 Sri Lankan blog posts.

Read more, and MIA is still spreading outright falsehoods in interviews. And I don’t mean that I disagree with her argument, I mean that many of the basic facts are wrong. Again, full respect for her and her music, and I do think there is a case for greater autonomy and rights for the Tamil people. However, if MIA wants to comment on the world stage she needs to take some accountability for her words, and to try and tell the truth. And I understand that a lot of this stuff is debatable, but some of it is just obvious. Sri Lanka is not ‘out and out Nazi Germany’, there is no campaign for ethnic cleansing, civilians are trapped behind frontlines by the LTTE, Tamil people are not banned from the press, international press are not shot, Tamil people are not banned from doing the census, and ‘as a Tamil’ she’s not banned from entering the country. Oh my God.

I really like MIA. Congrats on all her Grammy/Oscar exposure, and the new baby. However, as a commentator on Sri Lanka (Via PBS), she’s pretty out of touch and plain lazy with the facts. Note that I do not think she’s LTTE or a terrorist, but I don’t think she’s the ‘only voice for the Tamil people’ as she says. She’s a transnational person and while she may feel the obligation to comment on Sri Lanka, she doesn’t take the time to even Google simple facts. My main issue is not with her thesis, but that she a) levels the word genocide without seeming to know what that is b) says there are two races in Sri Lanka when there are many c) says that the ‘Sinhalese’ army is 1 million strong when it’s really about 230,000. She has a platform now internationally and it’s OK for her to speak. Unfortunately the facts she uses are plain wrong, and it makes her entire authority suspect.

These are two of my personal favorite performers from the Open Mic. This is Delon Weerasinghe reading (basically) stand-up comedy and Hania Mariam singing. My other fav was Harean’s Terrace From Hell Story, but I messed up the video on that. Delon is a Graetien Prize winning playwright. Here he’s reading jokes about life here, from the traffic to economic situation. His act really lightened and livened the evening, just as it had at the Galle Literary Fest. It’s very funny. Hania is a beautiful girl and singer and a dear friend of mine. Her voice is absolutely captivating and everyone loves it, and her. This is her singing ‘In The Arms Of An Angel’ by Sarah McLaughlin and ‘Silver Dagger’ by Joan Baez. Note that she hadn’t prepared everything, this is just off the top of her head after the audience insisted that she perform.