Literary Safari

This post was originally published at Sepia Mutiny.

A few weeks ago, I posted “Data Crunching for Obama,” a look at the Democratic campaign’s microtargeting strategies led by Vijay Ravindran, chief technology officer at Catalist, Harold Icke’s start-up political technology company that built a national voter database of information on more than 260 million people for progressive groups, including the Obama campaign.

At Catalist, Ravindran led all the technology aspects of developing the company’s software products and services. The data banks and web-based tools he helped develop could answer questions such as: “How many Indian-Americans gave money to me, said they were an Obama supporter, voted in the last general election, own their home and live in Baltimore?”

Below the fold is a Q&A with Vijay Ravindran, where he talks about his engagement with politics, the 2008 election efforts, Catalist’s role in it, and what South Asian voter data tells us about the “brown” community.

Incidentally, the 34 year old is on a roll. Just yesterday, it was announced that as of February ‘09, Ravindran will be the senior vice president and chief digital officer of The Washington Post Company. Per the press release that went out:

“We are fortunate to have Vijay join the Company as we focus increasingly on electronic media,” said Donald E. Graham, chairman and chief executive officer of The Washington Post Company. “Vijay is widely recognized as one of the top innovators in the field. I am delighted that he will bring his extraordinary skills, talent and experience to our efforts to expand our digital business.” (more…)

Irritating words. Clichés. Trite expressions. We hear them all the time and sometimes, we are also guilty of using them in our own writing and conversations.

Here, from Oxford University is a list of top 10 “most irritating phrases.” [see full story]

1 – At the end of the day
2 – Fairly unique
3 – I personally
4 – At this moment in time
5 – With all due respect
6 – Absolutely
7 – It’s a nightmare
8 – Shouldn’t of
9 – 24/7
10 – It’s not rocket science

And, here at Paper Cuts, the NYT literary blog is a list of the “seven deadly words of book reviewing”:

1 – poignant
2 – compelling
3 – intriguing
4 – eschew
5 – craft (used as a verb)
6 – muse (used as a verb)
7 – lyrical

And, so, off I go in search of a better substitute for “compelling” which is often a word that is part of my first draft reviews because I think it’s better than “fascinating” … which, somehow, just does not cut the mustard either!!

Your most irritating phrases?

The Oscar buzz has already started and it’s only been one day since “Slumdog Millionaire” was released. So far, the new offering from British director Danny Boyle (of Trainspotting fame) has been referred to by The New York Times as a film that “could be the breakthrough work that leads the world to focus on the genre …of Parallel Cinema, a more personal narrative type of film like Mira Nair’s art house hit “Monsoon Wedding.”

And, Roger Ebert predicts the film will win an Best Picture Oscar nomination, calling it “a breathless, exciting story, heartbreaking and exhilarating at the same time [whose] universal appeal will present the real India to millions of moviegoers for the first time.”

When you read gushing reviews like Ebert’s, you can’t help but walk into the movie hall with high expectations, wondering whether a film can really live up to all the hype. The answer is: Yes.

“Slumdog Millionaire” is being billed as a film about “first love, determination, and realizing your destiny.” Not quite the pitch what you’d expect from a mainstream film about a kid from an Indian slum. This is a film that will surprise viewers who think they’re going in to watch a movie about India’s tremendous poverty and rich-poor gap. It switches swiftly between scenes that take you into an India that is at once poor and wealthy, moral and crime-ridden, developed and undeveloped, hopeful and disappointing. And, though the story is laced with a trace of Bollywood romance, goondas, and some implausability, it is for the most part, as Roger Ebert says, “real.” Add to that a soundtrack by A.R. Rahman and Danny Boyle’s directorial talent for bringing India’s sensory overload and motion to life without the typical exoticism or “oh those poor things” mentality and you have a winner.

More of my review below the fold. (more…)

Last Wednesday night, I had the chance to sit in on a fascinating conversation on “Religion and the Imagination” with Salman Rushdie. The author of Midnight’s Children [soon to be adapted for film by Deepa Mehta], The Satanic Verses, Haroun and the Sea of Stories, and East, West was, of course, the perfect person to launch Columbia University’s newly founded Institute for Religion, Culture and Public Life. The Institute’s mission is to “bring together scholars and students in various fields to reflect and respond to the issues brought about by the “resurgence of religion and, with it, religious and cultural intolerance and conflict [that] are emerging as powerful forces in the new century.”

Orhan Pamuk, the 2006 Nobel Laureate in Literature, introduced Rushdie as someone who has been “fighting religious intolerance with humor, proving that we can fight moral seriousness with humor.”

The stage in Columbia’s always inspiring (and very crowded) Low Library Rotunda was set simply with two arm chairs—one for Rushdie, who was was all suited up, and the other for his “interviewer” Gauri Viswanathan, Professor of Religion and Comparative Literature, dressed as always, in a sari. The conversation was an intellectual one peppered with doses of Rushdie’s subtle (and sometimes pointed) humor and the topics of conversation ranged from everything to his relationship with religion and his hopes for robust religious debate to his thoughts on Obama’s win earlier that week.

“We don’t live in a world of drama, dance, and love… We live in a world of death, destruction, and bombs… I’m hoping something happened on Tuesday that will change that,” Rushdie said, referring to the election of Barack Obama. “I have no utopian tendencies. I’m good at seeing what I don’t like. But this week, I do feel optimistic,” Rushdie laughed. “It’s an odd feeling, one I’m not familiar with. The last time I felt like this was after the election of Tony Blair and look what happened!” Rushdie paused as the audience chuckled at his dark skepticism, then added, “ I hope it’s not that way this time. Actually … I don’t think it is.”

More on the evening’s highlights below the fold. (more…)

The day before the election, I wrote a lesson plan for The New York Times Learning Network [And, the Winner Is: Holding a Post-Election Discussion or Mock Talk Show] on how to teach the election in the classroom. The culminating activity of this lesson was for students to write letters to the newly elected President. The morning after Barack Obama’s historic win, I sat down to do the same.  Here’s my letter.

Dear Mr. President-Elect Barack Obama,

Congratulations on your election to the highest office in the land. I am profoundly moved and heartened by the outcome of this election. Last night, outside my window in the Morningside Heights neighborhood of New York City, car horns were blaring, people were screaming and weeping with joy, crowds were chanting your name. On a night replete with the revelry reminiscent of New Year’s Eve—champagne, impromptu parades, Times Square crowds, and even, funky 2008 glasses—I fell asleep thinking: Hope has landed and it’s here to stay.

Though I was born in Ghana and raised in India, I have lived in the Unites States since I was 12. People say that this election is historic because you are the first African-American to be elected president. Yes, that’s true. What’s also true, however, is that your election is of great significance because it has made me feel—perhaps for the first time ever—that just as I call this country home, it too can call me family. Thanks to your vision and “audacity to hope” for change, today, people like me, immigrants, minorities, and people of color—brown, brown, black, yellow, red—we are all brimming with hope for our future in America.

The morning after, I feel like I have woken not just to a new day, but to a new period in history. I keep revisiting your victory speech.

After an election where a certain man named “Joe the Plumber” was touted as the face of America, you addressed and acknowledged our true face and the beauty of our diversity:

It’s the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled. Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been just a collection of individuals or a collection of red states and blue states.

You broke the highest glass ceiling in this nation’s history—that of race—last night, and thankfully, you didn’t ignore that fact:

I was never the likeliest candidate for this office.

Yet, you reminded us that nothing is too impossible to be possible:

If there is anyone out there who still doubts that America is a place where all things are possible, who still wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time, who still questions the power of our democracy, tonight is your answer. (more…)

I’m happy to be a part of a global virtual book tour for the recently published picture book Amadi’s Snowman (read my review). Paris-born Katia Saint Novet-Lot was born to a Spanish mother and French dad. She currently living in Hyderabad, India, but is quite the globe-trotter and possesses a valuable international perspective, which shines through our interview.

Welcome to Literary Safari, Katia. I enjoyed reading your book and was struck by your international background and living experiences which I thought bring a unique perspective to your work. First off, I’d love to know: What was your inspiration for the character of Amadi?
My husband’s work at UNICEF and the problems they had to keep boys in school, in the south eastern part of Nigeria where we lived, are the inspiration behind the character of Amadi. It is a real problem, especially in Igbo land, where trading is part of the traditional culture. Boys tend to drop out of school in big numbers to earn quick money doing street business.

Did you write and revise the book while you were living in Nigeria? How did it change after your left Nigeria?
I wrote the story while living in Nigeria, and it went through several revisions, there. But I continued working on it after we moved to India. It was my very first story, and I had a lot to learn in terms of story arc, especially the emotional arc. Why and, most importantly, HOW did Amadi reach the decision to learn how to read, when he was so adamant about not wanting to at the beginning of the story? There had to be a progression or the decision at the end would not be satisfying, nor feel real and believable.

The description of how Amadi eats his mango is so right on. So is the choice of having him be from the Igbo business community. Tell us about the role of research and observation in writing a children’s book.
Thank you, Sandhya. As I mentioned above, Amadi could only be an Igbo boy. We lived in Enugu, which is in the heart of Igbo land; this was the former capital of the short-lived Biafra Republic. As for the mango, I happen to have a daughter who LOVES mangoes (who doesn’t love mangoes, anyway?) and I have many pictures of her savoring the fruit, sticky juice running down her chin. Of course, observation and research are extremely important. Even after I had left Nigeria, I continued to send many questions to a friend in Nigeria. I wanted the story to be perfectly authentic in every way. As for observation, I think that anyone living with a writer will tell you that we’re terrible, because we look at everything and everyone with a writer’s eyes, meaning we’re always thinking : mm, I could use this in a story, and/or filing images, words, sentences, and situations in a corner of our mind (when we are not scribbling furiously on any scrap of paper, to not forget).
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I’m excited to be a part of a global virtual book tour for the recently published picture book Amadi’s Snowman (Tilbury Press, 2008) by Katia Saint Novet-Lot. Later, we’ll feature an interview with the author here, but in the meantime, here’s my review.

Update: Here’s the interview.

Amadi is a young Nigerian boy who believes that he can become a great businessman in his village without learning to read: “I’m an Igbo man of Nigeria. I’ll be a trader. I don’t need to read to do business,” he tells his mother, a poor woman who wants to see her son grow up to be a man with “a good job, someday, maybe in an office.”

One day, on a visit to the marketplace, Amade comes across an older boy who is hunched over a book about a strange white creature with a carrot for a nose.

What’s that? asked Amadi.
“A snowman,” said Chima, not even looking up. “It’s made of snow.”
“Snow?” Amadi repeated.
Chima rolled his eyes. “It’s frozen rainwater …”
“Do you know how to read?” Amadi asked.
Chima frowned. “Shh! Yes. I’ve been learning.”
“What for?”
“Chima heaved a sigh. “To know more, that’s what for. Did you know about snow before I told you? Now, be quiet.”

A series of encounters prompt Amadi to start thinking about his decision not to learn how to read, and he begins to see everyday sights from a new perspective: “The signboards on the roadside seemed to laugh at him, their giant letters taunting him … He’d never noticed them before.” Soon, Amadi realizes that learning to read will open up whole new worlds for him, and introduce him to places and ideas he never knew existed outside his village.

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Originally posted at Sepia Mutiny.

This article buried in the Saturday’s New York Times reports that the Obama campaign has invested heavily in microtargeting.

Microtargeting uses computers and mathematical models to take disparate bits of information about voters — the cars they own, the groups they belong to, the magazines they read — and analyze it in a way to predict how likely a person is to vote and what issues and values are most important to him. Often these analyses turn up surprising results; for instance, Democrats have taken advantage of the fact that many evangelical Christians are open to hearing a pro-environmental message.

Though this is technique has long been favored by the Republican party, especially during the 2000 Bush campaign, even Republicans agree that he “Obama campaign has appropriated it and taken it to a new level.”

One of the largest data banks is Catalist, a for-profit company that specializes in providing data for the Obama campaign. Turns out its chief technology officer is 34 year old Vijay Ravindran, former director of the ordering-services group at Amazon.com, where he led a team of about 130 engineers who built and maintained the site’s “shopping cart.

From the Washington Post:

The work being done in Catalist’s McPherson Square offices—which, with its multiscreen computer terminals, resembles a Silicon Valley start-up—is helping revolutionize the fields known as data mining and microtargeting. … Catalist was founded in August 2005 by Harold Ickes, the longtime Clinton deputy White House chief of staff, after the 2004 campaign to address the Democrats’ inability to harness data. One of the first hires was a young engineer, Vijay Ravindran. … “With my hiring, he made a decision that this was going to be a real company,” Ravindran says. As the chief data-architecture guy at Catalist, he’s part of a new trend in political technology: As data become more important in campaigning, candidates are increasingly turning to the tech industry for business-level expertise.

In a feature on political strategists and microtargeting, from fastcompany.com [via the newstab, thanks brijo1], Ravindran says:

“In the political space, I felt it was very important to build a computing architecture that would take in real-time data, get them into a standardized format, and then load them into a place where they could be snapshotted out for particular purposes. That didn’t exist before. Now we have an architecture that scales more than 15 terabytes of data while providing an interface for users to work with. We expect to leave this election cycle with a piece of permanent infrastructure that enables groups to do microtargeting more efficiently than ever before. It all boils down to one principle: Leave no data behind.”

Below the fold is a video where Ravindran talks a little bit about what he does.

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