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An interview with Ananda Mahto

Every year, pretty much everyone available from DHAN Foundation and its family of “themes” gets a chance to attend the “DHAN Retreat.” The retreat takes place in different places each year. There are also different themes each year.

Because of my surgery, I wasn’t able to attend this last retreat, which was somewhat unfortunate since I really like the place that the retreat was being held. (You can see some pictures of the location here; I visited some students back in 2007. It was pretty great.)

Although I wasn’t able to attend, I was asked to write a “retreat report” which gets published along with reports from some 350 or more colleagues of mine. I think I’ll have to bring the reports along with me for my long flights that I’m trying to book for the end of this month.

Anyway, I enjoyed writing my “report,” and figured some of you might be interested in reading it, so here it is:
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2009 02 06 Ananda Mahto (all categories)
(non) fiction
India
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Hi Drocoele, crowin’ under the coconut trees….

Wow. Another post so quickly. And more new music.

This was recorded at the same time as the songs in the previous post, but I didn’t get to play around with it before I had to go in for a surgery. Well, the surgery is over, and now I’m at home relaxing, and I decided to fiddle around with the recording a bit. So, here you have it! Another new DWAB song!

Yes, the crows can really be that bad during the day (although I admit there was some looping involved). And no, that’s not exactly how the song was supposed to end, but I’m probably going to be lazy and never get around to recording it properly, so I guess this is better than nothing, right?

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2009 01 23 Ananda Mahto (all categories)
2657 Productions
DWAB
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The long road to nowhere in particular always seems to get us right back to where we started

It has been a little while since my last song, so I decided to get back onto my rooftop and spend some time with my cats and the crows and record something new. This time, I also decided to fiddle around a little bit and do something with the recordings on the computer. (Also something I haven’t done in a long time.)

The songs were recorded with my Cowon D2 media player and my new Samsung mobile phone. How’s that for lo-fi hi-fi?

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2009 01 18 Ananda Mahto (all categories)
2657 Productions
DWAB
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A flashback to 15 years ago….

I’m getting old. I must be. I was just sorting some of my random files on my computer, and I remembered that I had downloaded Ryan Gratzer’s post of the Jeberrekenelle/Rugburn split LP. While the Jeberrekenelle songs were already available, Ryan went ahead and also included the Rugburn songs (so you hear the songs in the same order that you would hear them from the record—alternating between each band), the silly start-up samples, and the nice big booklet that we stuffed in the packaging. I downloaded his booklet, straightened it up a bit, and re-posted it at Issuu so that you can all check it out without having to download the whole zip file (unless you want the Rugburn stuff too, which is also worth hearing).


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2009 01 15 Ananda Mahto (all categories)
2657 Productions
Music
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Mr Grumpy’s 2009 “How-to-write” calendar

Over the past few weeks, everyone has been going calendar crazy. I mean EVERYONE. I was sitting in meetings with colleagues trying to write “messages” and then find the right pictures to go with the calendar they were making. Amy was asking me how to edit some of her photos so that they would look better when they were printed in the Centre for Microfinance’s calendar. Friends were running out to buy newspapers which had free calendars included with them.

There was so much hype that I just couldn’t resist making a calendar of my own.

For those of you who don’t know what the Grumpy Writer’s Grumps is all about, it’s a place where I’m taking some of the Indian English problems that I am always correcting and making a (hopefully weekly) one-page newsletter telling people (mostly my students at the Tata-Dhan Academy) what kinds of things they should avoid when writing. Not everything will translate to an international audience—many things are definitely localized, in some cases even to Tamil Nadu (and not India overall) but for those of you who have been to India, you might recognize some of the things I write about from time to time.

Anyway, if you want to print this little thing, you can download a different PDF which—when printed double-sided, cut in quarters, correctly arranged, and stapled—will give you a nice pocket-sized version of the calendar above.

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2009 01 04 Ananda Mahto (all categories)
General News
India
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I passed 100 posts and didn’t even realize….

Well, honestly, that’s somewhat irrelevant, especially since I tend to have stuff posted in so many places.

And that wasn’t the point of my writing today. No—the point of my post today was to share a nice hefty PDF file of “The Art of 2657 Productions” which you can also buy (in a different version—the printed version doesn’t include all the text) from Blurb. I know. Now I won’t get any sales on my book. But that’s OK. Y’all know that I like to give stuff away all the time…. Consider this my one-hundred-one-post gift.

Anyway, you can get the book from Issuu—so check it out….

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2008 12 16 Ananda Mahto (all categories)
2657 Productions
Pictures
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You Want to Rock?

I can’t think of a better way to rock than to put on some Sleeping Body and listen to the slamming crunchy chaos that ensues.

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2008 12 06 Ananda Mahto (all categories)
Music
So sue me already
Vinyl-to-mp3 Comments Permalink

I’ve been so busy…

… that I can’t really think of much to write about.

So I’ll give you some doodles instead.

I'm looking at you
Don't ask me whose face it is though....
Dig the hair....
aka "I need to practice my shading skills"
aka "Afro Cat." All depends on your perspective.
Oh. Like that way.
... but only for the peeps and the bird....
(or something like that)
Version #1, front
Version #1, back
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2008 12 05 Ananda Mahto (all categories)
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More Core… Vinyl Retentive, Share Common Ground, Up for Grabs

Again, it has been a little while since I last uploaded some good hardcore to rock out to. So, to make up for lost time, here is one double LP and two regular LP compilations filled with some awesome songs. The Vinyl Retentive compilation is truly amazing.

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2008 08 17 Ananda Mahto (all categories)
Compilations
Music
So sue me already
Vinyl-to-mp3 Comments Permalink

Buy a book… make me happy

A book of pretty picturess.... What more could you want?I guess I should really say “Buy THIS book… make me happy.”

I decided to try Blurb out to see what their hardcover books were like, so back in April, I gathered all of my CD covers and put them together into the book “The Art of 2657 Productions…”. Axle sent the book to me and I just got it and I’m pretty happy with the output.

Now for the shameless promotion: You should all buy copies too! I figure I can use any money from it to pay for my web-hosting. Each book sold would be good enough for almost one month of hosting. (I can see you all whipping out your credit cards now….)

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2008 07 15 Ananda Mahto (all categories)
2657 Productions
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