After you’ve been blogging for awhile, it gets easy to ignore new blogs — you get kind of wrapped up in the little circle of blogs you read every day. But while it’s completely understandable, it’s really too bad one tends to get “settled” in one’s reading, since the circle of good blogging is always growing steadily, and new writers are always coming out of the woodwork, trying to find readers.
There is a great deal of really intelligent, moving writing out there, not to mention good music and video links — and humor. So here are links to about half-a-dozen blogs I’ve been reading recently. In the comments, please feel free to link to other blogs that you think highly of that other people may not know about. And if there’s a particular post on the blog you would recommend, give the link to that too.
First, the return of Teju Cole: Modal Minority. Teju is a New York-based African brother who knows Indian culture quite well. And he’s a damn good writer. Here are a few rockstar lines describing his experience listening to a fusion jazz CD called Sangam:
To start with, there was the sound of the tabla, on which was soon layered an expertly played drum kit. This went on for a while, until some kind of saxophone came in, a modal sound, somewhere between late Coltrane and South Indian carnatic reed music (it turned out to be a tarogato, a Hungarian folk instrument), in a rapid and airy melody. The sax wove around, making clear references both to the jazz tradition and to the Eastern folk influences. The whole time it was underpinned by the seamless and joyous interconnection of the tabla and the drum set. (link)
Read the whole thing.
Second, Raza Rumi. Raza Rumi is a Pakistani writer who focuses on South Asian art and literature from sort of a Sufi perspective. Check out this great post on the Bhakti poet Kabir (who was born a Muslim, was influenced by Hinduism, and later became one of the non-Sikh poets whose works is included in the holy Sikh scripture).
I think a lot of readers already know about Mixed Media Watch, since there are often links to their posts in comments to Sepia Mutiny posts. Mixed Media Watch are focused on following the way American culture represents interracial/inter-ethnic couples, and people of biracial or multiracial heritage. Very active blog.
How many African-American women are there in Nashville, Tennessee who are ardent Bollywood fanatics? Well, there can’t be many, but there’s at least one, and her name is T-Hype. And she knows her stuff.
Brooklyn Masala. Only in Brooklyn do you meet guys who read biographies of Dostoevsky and Sartre, who are also prone to say goofy things like, “I’ll just send her a coconut. Every Hindu loves a good coconut, eh?” Say what? (Don’t worry, it’s a joke.)
Tamasha has posted links to dozens of Desi-oriented events in New York on our Events tab, which is a huge ‘seva’, both to us and, I’m sure, to the organizers of those events. (But does she really go to all those events?) Anyway, her blog is fun; check out this post on a Himalayan art exhibit at the Rubin Museum.
Since I often get accused of ignoring South Indian culture, check out Prasad’s blog. Lots of cool YouTube links to South Indian (Telegu Telugu?) movie clips. The Hindi clip at this post is the only one where I understood the language, and I’m glad I did — some brilliant musical comedy. (Though it helps if you know the difference between Himesh Reshammiya and Hemant Kumar Mukherjee…)
And for the techies, check out Ravneet Grewal’s Emergintex, a blog dedicated to Emerging Technologies. Ravneet seems to be pretty on the ball — lots of links to Beta versions of new software, and startups I’d never heard of.
Again, please make further recommendations, and remember to say a little about why you find a particular blog to be interesting. A link to a particular/favorite post would be welcome as well.
