Found out tonight that a friend and his girl friend will be going to the same jazz concert I will be going to later this month -- Wynton Marsalis and the Rockefeller Jazz Orchestra. We are now planning on going to the Firefly Club and listening to more live jazz after the concert. Me happy.

 

Life of Pi by Yann Martel

Started reading this great little novel a few days ago. It is about a boy from India who is a practicing Hindu, Christian, and Muslim all at once. He sees great truths in all three religions and sees them as complementary to each other.

Here is the description from the back of the book:

Quote: Pi Patel, a God-loving boy and the son of a zookeeper, has a fervent love of stories and practices not only his native Hinduism, but also Christianity and Islam. When Pi is sixteen, his family and their zoo animals emigrate from India to North America aboard a Japanese cargo ship. Alas, the ship sinks - and Pi finds himself in a lifeboat, his only companions a hyena, an orangutan, a wounded zebra, and 450-pound Bengal tiger. Soon the tiger has dispatched all but Pi. Can Pi and the tiger find their way to land? Can Pi's fear, knowledge, and cunning keep him alive until they do?

Here is a quote from near the beginning of the book to give you a flavor of it:

I was at the Indian Coffee House, on Nebru Street. It's one big room with green walls and a high ceiling. Fans whirl above you to keep the warm, humid air moving. The place is furnished to capacity with identical square tables, each with its complement of four chairs. You sit where you can, with whomever is at a table. The coffee is good, and they serve French toast. Conversation is easy to come by. And so, a spry, bright-eyed elderly man with great shocks of pure white hair was talking to me. I confirmed to him that Canada was cold and that French was indeed spoken in parts of it and that I liked India and so on and so forth - the usual light talk between friendly, curious Indians and foreign backpackers. He took in my line of work with a widening of the eyes and a nodding of the head. It was time to go. I had my hand up, trying to catch my waiter's eye to get the bill.

Then the elderly man said, "I have a story that will make you believe in God."

I stopped waing my hand. But I was suspicious. Was this a Jehova's Witness knocking at my door? "Does your story take place two thousand years ago in a remote corner of the Roman Empire?" I asked.

"No."

Was he some sort of Muslim evangelical? "Does it take place in seventh-century Arabia?"

"No, no. It starts tight here in Pondicherry just a few years back, and it ends, I am delighted to tell you, in the very country you come from."

"And it will make me believe in God?"

"Yes."

"That's a tall order."

"Not so tall that you can't reach."

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