Monday Cup Of Links #40 - William Makepeace Shakespear, North Korean K-Pop, Anonymous Blogging.
Also, robot dogs, and how to write a short story.
Happy Monday!
The novel is chugging along. This past week has mostly been research. I’m writing two interesting scenes that are spiralling out of control because they are so full of events. I’m trying to write the chapter where Savarkar tries to publish his book on the history of the 1857 mutiny, and it is such a long, roundabout path he needs to take. He tries to publish it in Marathi, but runs into so many issues, so he has to translate it, and then shop around four countries before he finds a publisher willing to take the risk of offending Scotland Yard by publishing it. And then it gets banned by the British without them even having seen a copy, so they need to smuggle it into India through land and air. And somehow, the book wasn’t banned in Europe, so they sold it there too, albeit secretly. Funnily now, you can read the book for free online.
Onto our links!
Shakespeare’s cousin had a bunch of descendants, several of who were influential in colonial India. One of them was pals with Warren Hastings, and another brokered an alliance with the Begum of Bhopal, and ensured that the Begum who was friendly to the British was installed on the throne, cementing British rule in central India. This family also had a marital alliance with the Thackerays, who they lived near in Calcutta, even having a descendant named William Makepeace Shakespear, a cousin of William Makepeace Thackeray.
There’s a lot more such connections in the piece, but it somewhat drives home how feudal Britain was, with the same families passing power, wealth and influence between each other. In India too, the British, and later the Indian National Congress ruled with urban elites in alliances with feudal chiefs until at least the ‘80s, which kind of shows us why business and Bollywood are still so extremely family controlled. Business has at least had its upstarts, but Bollywood still hasn’t had its reckoning. Which hopefully will come soon.Apparently North Korea has a K-Pop Girl Band. The Moranbong Band was hand-picked by Kim Jong-Un, and are supposedly extremely skilled in playing a variety of difficult instruments. And they are also all high-ranking members of the North Korean armed forces. Listen to them performing here! Link via Shaunak.
Last week, I linked to a NYT article on How To Write A Short Story by one of my favorite short story writers, Curtis Sittenfeld. Subsequently, Ms. Sittenfeld had an interactive conversation about writing short stories. I rather liked this talk. It demystifies the process, and I found at least a handful of useful tips about preparing to write, and how to find topics to write about.
As a side note, I’m both loving and hating all the Zoom events. For one thing, I don’t have to plan my day around going to a talk, and I can attend even the ones taking place thousands of miles away. But given that usually the questions to the speaker are mediated through a moderator, I feel less of a connection to the speaker and feel less like I’m attending a live event, and more like I’m watching something on Youtube.Ford has a new office dog! In their partnership with Boston Dynamics, they have Fluffy, a robot dog, helping them create accurate 3D maps of their manufacturing plants. It’s equal parts fearful and wondrous watching Fluffy climb up stairs.
If you want to blog completely anonymously, and i mean COMPLETELY anonymously, this blog has a manual on how to do exactly that. It seems like a lot of work, but man, is it thorough.
GIF of the Week: Zooming really deep into a paintbrush.