Beyonce's Dreams & Jhumpa's Reality

Okay I have to admit that when I first heard that Beyonce was doing a straight-up dance record with house music as the overarching theme I was not amused. But clearly someone got it wrong if Beautiful Nightmare is any indication. This gem "leaked" late last week and I can't stop playing it. It's a wonderful hypnotic mash of 80's new wave groove rock and afro punk funk. And if this song does not sound like the pop version of Tamar Kali's Ocean then this year's presential campaign has nothing to do with race! Check it and tell me what you think?

While Beyonce is caught up in her dreams, writer Jhumpa Lahiri is all about the realness in her new book The Unaccustomed Earth. Earth like Jhumpa's previous works, especially Interpreter of Maladies, dives into the lives of its characters giving readers a very raw and honest perspective of middle class South Asian life. What I love about Jhumpa is that she's not hokey. She's all about the real world madness, sadness, successes and challenges of everyday life. In this week's NY Mag she responds to criticism about her Bengali-American centered subject matter:

 ‘Is that all you've got in there?’ I get asked the question all the time. It baffles me. Does John Updike get asked this question? Does Alice Munro? It's the ethnic thing, that's what it is. And my answer is always, yes, I will continue to write about this world, because it inspires me to write, and there’s nothing more important than that.

This book will surely make my summer reading list and I will try to catch one of her upcoming readings in the city. Check her out, that is if you are interested in keeping it real too.