Friday, June 28
Now this is more bizarre than I hoped for: "Giraffe 'jumps to death after killing priest'" Buti pa yung giraffe may konsensiya. Not much can be said of our politicians.
[ via the morning news ]
I am discovering my inner Angelina Jolie:
Which Angelina Are You?
Hm, really? Or maybe I'd rather not.
[ stolen from A View From The Bottom of a Glass ]
Which Angelina Are You?
Hm, really? Or maybe I'd rather not.
[ stolen from A View From The Bottom of a Glass ]
Yes, yes, we're living in a postmodern world with its pluralities and all, where truth is like the many versions of the same thing (as in Rashomon), but this is not a mere plurality or a confusion, it's a frigging royal f**k up. One day you're the Vice President of the Republic of the Philippines and you hold the most important cabinet post in the land. Ten seconds later, you watch the tv news and find out that you resigned from your post and it's being offered to somebody else. Wtf? They can't just claim a mix-up. It's the bloody political machine rolling out early. It's still 2002, or did the calendar change already?
And this is from the sci-fi section: Some very nasty elements out there are in possession of highly toxic radioactive materials. Finally, some ingenuity from our routinary underworld. I'm getting tired of reading about cellphone snatching and corruption. Perhaps some masterful villain out there is preparing for world domination. Or else s/he just wants to make some radioactive sago and gulaman. Care to pass me the Iridium 192, Cesium 137 and Americium 241?
But alas, even without the radioactive thing, we might still end up mutants down here in Manila. Apparently, our mayor can be talked out of busting the petrol bullies. He signed an MOA which allows the petrol companies to continue their operations in Pandacan for six more months, on a reduced basis. I realize that the depots contribute to the economy of the town, and a lot of employees will be displaced. As one gas worker put it: "We push oil barrels. We are not graduates of De La Salle or Ateneo. Taga-UP lang. UPian ng lata." But consider the consequences. Jobs can be created without putting the whole town in danger of being torched down. Now that, Mayor Atienza, is the real challenge you must be willing to answer.
And this is from the sci-fi section: Some very nasty elements out there are in possession of highly toxic radioactive materials. Finally, some ingenuity from our routinary underworld. I'm getting tired of reading about cellphone snatching and corruption. Perhaps some masterful villain out there is preparing for world domination. Or else s/he just wants to make some radioactive sago and gulaman. Care to pass me the Iridium 192, Cesium 137 and Americium 241?
But alas, even without the radioactive thing, we might still end up mutants down here in Manila. Apparently, our mayor can be talked out of busting the petrol bullies. He signed an MOA which allows the petrol companies to continue their operations in Pandacan for six more months, on a reduced basis. I realize that the depots contribute to the economy of the town, and a lot of employees will be displaced. As one gas worker put it: "We push oil barrels. We are not graduates of De La Salle or Ateneo. Taga-UP lang. UPian ng lata." But consider the consequences. Jobs can be created without putting the whole town in danger of being torched down. Now that, Mayor Atienza, is the real challenge you must be willing to answer.
Anyone of you Manila-based bloggers out there interested in a get together? You might want to check this out later today:
PINOYBLOGGERS EB II @ UP DILIMAN
Likha-Diwa sa Gulod, C.P. Garcia Ave.
Krus na Ligas, Diliman, Q.C.
June 28 (Fri) 5:30 pm onwards
[ via mojoflea ]
The way my day is shaping up, this and the Rock Enroll concert at the Bahay ng Alumni might be the only things I'll be able to do out of the house. Still have a deadline to beat in the afternoon. For the cineastes out there, check out the screening of the 5-hour opus by Lav Diaz, Batang Westside, which is showing at the UP Film Center at 3pm. Tickets go for Php 60.
Likha-Diwa sa Gulod, C.P. Garcia Ave.
Krus na Ligas, Diliman, Q.C.
June 28 (Fri) 5:30 pm onwards
[ via mojoflea ]
The way my day is shaping up, this and the Rock Enroll concert at the Bahay ng Alumni might be the only things I'll be able to do out of the house. Still have a deadline to beat in the afternoon. For the cineastes out there, check out the screening of the 5-hour opus by Lav Diaz, Batang Westside, which is showing at the UP Film Center at 3pm. Tickets go for Php 60.
Thursday, June 27
I can type without looking at the keyboards, using all my fingers, with my wrists properly elevated. It's probably the single most useful thing I learned in high school. We had typing classes starting junior year and the teacher had us put one peso coins on the back of our hands. If you even so much as lowered your hands or attempted to look at the keys, she would surely know because of the battery of coins hitting the floor. Our typing room was filled with huge, antiquated Remingtons. I liked the elite fonts mostly. The huge new typewriters with the pica fonts are heavy, and the spaces between keys too huge for my hands. So enough about that, and check out this Classic Typewriter Page.
Se Souvenir des Belles Choses is a really interesting dissection of what it means to be in love. And I mean really be in love, not the fleeting, easily discardable fancies we usually think to be the real thing. It means leaping past the difficulties of living with the other person's previous relationships, of putting up with all of your lover's neuroses, psychological disabilities, of how someday, she wouldn't even recognize you if she ran into you on the street.
The film started with this girl Claire Poussin checking herself into an institution. She was 32 years old, and seemed in perfect health. But one summer evening in the middle of a walk in the woods, a storm started and she was struck by lightning. Then she started having difficulties remembering things. She suspects she might have inherited Alzheimer's disease from her mother, who died from it. It couldn't possibly happen to her, her sister insists. But she submits herself to a series of tests, and meets a variety of people who really are troubled. There was a guy who wouldn't take baths and constantly wore his pajamas. To every question he would only reply "Up yours." Two elderly men spent their days bent over an unending game of chess. And there was Philippe, a nicely man with a scar his left eye. His wife and child died from a car accident, but he couldn't remember anything. He spent his time raking leaves and sniffing wine he stored under his bed.
One day, Philippe's parents visit him and his mother bursts into hysterics, blaming him for the deaths for which he couldn't even show remorse. At the canteen, Philippe catches Claire staring at him and he attacks her, screaming that she must blame him, like everyone does. How can you grieve for something you cannot remember? How can you feel an emotion when you don't have the memories to link them to?
There was this moment in the film where Philippe tried apologizing to Claire about his outburst. They were in the canteen, crowded as it were. But the way the director filmed them, with Philippe facing Claire against a background that was filled with light, they seemed to face each other, when in truth they were in separate tables. You could see how their smiles, hesitant at first, started to widen and brighten up their faces. You could see how Claire pushed the hair out of her eyes, and we could not help but see how graceful her hand was, how the slow start of a smile was enough to fill that canteen with light.
Then at the museum, they sit in front of this painting of an angel. Philippe sits beside Claire, and he starts to tell her about the story of the Angel of Oblivion. "When babies are born, they know everything that happened from the fall of man, to the plagues, I want to kiss you, to the great war, the creation of instant soup, I want to kiss you." Claire turns to him, "What was that you said?" He says he couldn't remember, then repeats it again. "Then the Angel touches the baby's lips, so he wouldn't remember. The baby has to learn everything all over again. What's left of the Angel's touch is this cleft right above your lips." Then he hushes her. They kiss.
We know that they were starting to fall in love. It's strange how our remembrance of things create our feelings. We remember love by the way our fingers brushed together, by how the light brings out the most brilliant smiles, and the gracefulness with which you brushed the hair out of your eyes. It's the little things which attach themselves like glue to our memory. And those are the little things that make us smile when we remember them. Se souvenir des belles choses. Try to remember the small beautiful things. It's what makes life worth living, even when things start to get difficult. Even when your ability to retain those memories begin to fade and disappear.
That was the very thing that Claire feared. She cannot remember things anymore. She doesn't have the word for these things. And how can you remember love when you cannot even remember your lover's face? She knew that her memory was going to fade soon, but she wanted her life to be worth living, and the only way was to be in love, and to be enveloped by that love.
It was a crazy thing for a woman who is starting to lose her memory to live with a man whose very painful memories are starting to surface. But they took the risk. Their apartment was filled with post-its and clocks. They wrote their itineraries, a per hour guide of the day's tasks. It's like learning things for the first time.
Philippe cannot remember how it was to be with a woman, even though he had a wife and child. Don't worry, it will come back to you, the doctor said. In time you will remember, the way you can never forget how to ride a bike. He was falling in love with Claire as though he were an adolescent experiencing it for the first time. Philippe's awe was fascinating to watch. If only we can retain that awe every time we fall in love, but then it would require losing our cynicism accumulated through the years. [Unless we all decide to have collective amnesia, but that would be too difficult. I digress.]
It warmed me to see how these two people worked hard at building their life together. Philippe would repeat every so often the route of how to get to the hospital and back home. He would outline it on a map on the wall, and enumerate every corner and bus stop, to make sure that Claire gets home safe.
It breaks me when Claire really started to lose her memory. She was trying to bake a cake for dinner. She needed three eggs: one, two, three, she counted. The second she put the eggs in the bowl, she would read the cookbook and see that she needed three eggs. Start all over again. It was funny at first, how she repeated things. Then we see her staring at the schedule on her blackboard: 6.30pm, light up the oven at 180 degrees. As she does so, she sees that she had not completed the task for 6pm, prepare the cake batter. She turns and sees that the eggs were still there. Over their candlelit dinner, we see Philippe crunching on burned buttercake. But he smiled all throughout, insisting it was delicious. Claire is not convinced, and comes back to the table with a bowl of sugar. She forgot to put in the sugar. "So what," says Philippe. "We had a sugarfree buttercake."
Any man who would willingly eat sugarfree buttercake and patiently prepare audio guides for me must be a treasure. Philippe is like that. He realizes that he was happy with Claire, and it doesn't matter if the bad memories are coming back. He wants to be happy and he's willing to work at it even when it's becoming obvious that Claire's condition is going worse.
Claire disappears after one of her hospital visits. Philippe has convinced her to use the audio guides he made for her, but after making a wrong turn she couldn't find her way back. She roams through the streets and ends up in an out of the way warehouse and into the woods. It starts to rain. Meanwhile, Philippe searches the city all over for her. When he finally finds her the following morning, Claire sits, babbling, dancing around, with a gone look in her eyes. She can't even recognize him. He shows her his scar. "This is your nicely man." He kisses her. "This is how I taste." He hushes her and tells her the story of the angel of oblivion. But she doesn't remember. Not even the beautiful things.
The film started with this girl Claire Poussin checking herself into an institution. She was 32 years old, and seemed in perfect health. But one summer evening in the middle of a walk in the woods, a storm started and she was struck by lightning. Then she started having difficulties remembering things. She suspects she might have inherited Alzheimer's disease from her mother, who died from it. It couldn't possibly happen to her, her sister insists. But she submits herself to a series of tests, and meets a variety of people who really are troubled. There was a guy who wouldn't take baths and constantly wore his pajamas. To every question he would only reply "Up yours." Two elderly men spent their days bent over an unending game of chess. And there was Philippe, a nicely man with a scar his left eye. His wife and child died from a car accident, but he couldn't remember anything. He spent his time raking leaves and sniffing wine he stored under his bed.
One day, Philippe's parents visit him and his mother bursts into hysterics, blaming him for the deaths for which he couldn't even show remorse. At the canteen, Philippe catches Claire staring at him and he attacks her, screaming that she must blame him, like everyone does. How can you grieve for something you cannot remember? How can you feel an emotion when you don't have the memories to link them to?
There was this moment in the film where Philippe tried apologizing to Claire about his outburst. They were in the canteen, crowded as it were. But the way the director filmed them, with Philippe facing Claire against a background that was filled with light, they seemed to face each other, when in truth they were in separate tables. You could see how their smiles, hesitant at first, started to widen and brighten up their faces. You could see how Claire pushed the hair out of her eyes, and we could not help but see how graceful her hand was, how the slow start of a smile was enough to fill that canteen with light.
Then at the museum, they sit in front of this painting of an angel. Philippe sits beside Claire, and he starts to tell her about the story of the Angel of Oblivion. "When babies are born, they know everything that happened from the fall of man, to the plagues, I want to kiss you, to the great war, the creation of instant soup, I want to kiss you." Claire turns to him, "What was that you said?" He says he couldn't remember, then repeats it again. "Then the Angel touches the baby's lips, so he wouldn't remember. The baby has to learn everything all over again. What's left of the Angel's touch is this cleft right above your lips." Then he hushes her. They kiss.
We know that they were starting to fall in love. It's strange how our remembrance of things create our feelings. We remember love by the way our fingers brushed together, by how the light brings out the most brilliant smiles, and the gracefulness with which you brushed the hair out of your eyes. It's the little things which attach themselves like glue to our memory. And those are the little things that make us smile when we remember them. Se souvenir des belles choses. Try to remember the small beautiful things. It's what makes life worth living, even when things start to get difficult. Even when your ability to retain those memories begin to fade and disappear.
That was the very thing that Claire feared. She cannot remember things anymore. She doesn't have the word for these things. And how can you remember love when you cannot even remember your lover's face? She knew that her memory was going to fade soon, but she wanted her life to be worth living, and the only way was to be in love, and to be enveloped by that love.
It was a crazy thing for a woman who is starting to lose her memory to live with a man whose very painful memories are starting to surface. But they took the risk. Their apartment was filled with post-its and clocks. They wrote their itineraries, a per hour guide of the day's tasks. It's like learning things for the first time.
Philippe cannot remember how it was to be with a woman, even though he had a wife and child. Don't worry, it will come back to you, the doctor said. In time you will remember, the way you can never forget how to ride a bike. He was falling in love with Claire as though he were an adolescent experiencing it for the first time. Philippe's awe was fascinating to watch. If only we can retain that awe every time we fall in love, but then it would require losing our cynicism accumulated through the years. [Unless we all decide to have collective amnesia, but that would be too difficult. I digress.]
It warmed me to see how these two people worked hard at building their life together. Philippe would repeat every so often the route of how to get to the hospital and back home. He would outline it on a map on the wall, and enumerate every corner and bus stop, to make sure that Claire gets home safe.
It breaks me when Claire really started to lose her memory. She was trying to bake a cake for dinner. She needed three eggs: one, two, three, she counted. The second she put the eggs in the bowl, she would read the cookbook and see that she needed three eggs. Start all over again. It was funny at first, how she repeated things. Then we see her staring at the schedule on her blackboard: 6.30pm, light up the oven at 180 degrees. As she does so, she sees that she had not completed the task for 6pm, prepare the cake batter. She turns and sees that the eggs were still there. Over their candlelit dinner, we see Philippe crunching on burned buttercake. But he smiled all throughout, insisting it was delicious. Claire is not convinced, and comes back to the table with a bowl of sugar. She forgot to put in the sugar. "So what," says Philippe. "We had a sugarfree buttercake."
Any man who would willingly eat sugarfree buttercake and patiently prepare audio guides for me must be a treasure. Philippe is like that. He realizes that he was happy with Claire, and it doesn't matter if the bad memories are coming back. He wants to be happy and he's willing to work at it even when it's becoming obvious that Claire's condition is going worse.
Claire disappears after one of her hospital visits. Philippe has convinced her to use the audio guides he made for her, but after making a wrong turn she couldn't find her way back. She roams through the streets and ends up in an out of the way warehouse and into the woods. It starts to rain. Meanwhile, Philippe searches the city all over for her. When he finally finds her the following morning, Claire sits, babbling, dancing around, with a gone look in her eyes. She can't even recognize him. He shows her his scar. "This is your nicely man." He kisses her. "This is how I taste." He hushes her and tells her the story of the angel of oblivion. But she doesn't remember. Not even the beautiful things.
Tuesday, June 25
You are my fire. The one, desire. Believe, when I say. I want it that way.
I curse the Backstreet Boys for singing this forever in my head today. Argh.
I curse the Backstreet Boys for singing this forever in my head today. Argh.
Bloggers are like superheroes. Superheroes have secret identities. Therefore, bloggers can assume secret identities as well. Hm, does that mean I can wear a cape and hang upside down from very tall buildings? And more importantly, do we like it that way? [ via jill/txt ]
Monday, June 24
Just returned from the Cecile Licad solo recital held at the Tanghalang Nicanor Abelardo at the CCP. The concert was set for 8pm. Something came up at work and I was occupied until a little before 7pm. I took a cab and got there in ten minutes, a miracle since I thought there would be hellish traffic since it rained earlier. None of the friends I was going with were there yet. One was still stuck in Bulacan, and she said it was raining heavily, and the other two were still somewhere in Fairview. I milled around in the lobby, where mostly everyone wore black. Now most of my clothes are either black, grey or blue, but for some flimsy reason I can't remember now, I ended up wearing white and khakis -- perfect for daytime wear, but not for evening concerts. Five minutes before the recital started and they still weren't there. I went into the theater, found my seat, looked around and saw that mostly everyone in my section was like 40 and up. I ended up listening to all of Chopin's Etudes with the seats to my right all unoccupied.
Now it was my first time to watch Cecile Licad perform. I didn't know what she would be playing until I got there and browsed the program. So I didn't have any expectations, no clue, except that it was going to be a night of classical music. She came in wearing a black dress, sat down, and from my view high up in the balcony, all I could see was black hair billowing around her face, and I noticed how fluidly her hands and fingers were as they moved across the keys. There was a projector at the side of the stage, and there the movements were magnified. You could see her mouth as she pouted and the way her eyebrows furrowed. Her hair fell in black pools over her shoulders. Sometimes her whole body shook and hunched and bent low, face near the ivories. Sometimes more than the music itself, I was absorbed at how absorbed she was at playing the piano. She seemed in rage or in ecstasy, and her fingers either caressed or flew all over the keys. It always amazes me to watch someone who wasn't just playing the music but living it. By the time the intermission came, it was only then that I realized I was sitting there by myself.
I went out and found my friends in the lobby. They came in after the concert started, and they were wearing black. I spent most of the intermission chatting up my friend Ross's sister who is a music major. Then we went back in and there were more people in our section. The second half, she played Schubert's Impromptus Op.142, D.935, Liszt's Annees de Pelerinage and Walking on the Waters, and the Mephisto Waltz by Liszt and Busoni.
The encores were also delightful. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what they were, because I have absolutely no idea. It was weird being around music majors. When they started discussing the second movement of this piece and how the No. 1 in F minor as played by this musician was a bit more fluid. I was lost. Then they asked if I wanted to see another concert with them this weekend, classical of course. I said I already planned to go with another group of friends to watch Cynthia Alexander. Who was Cynthia Alexander. Er.
But the recital was fun. A bit different from my usual fare of "angry sounding people who are making life for their esophagus difficult" -- this was how a friend of mine described the music I listen to. Originally, my friend wanted to watch the June 17 concert. But the guy who bought the tickets for us said that there was no Cecile Licad concert on the 17th, my friend's birthday. Instead he got us the tickets for these. So no birthday concert. Then later we learned that Cecile Licad did play last week -- she was guest pianist at the Manila Philharmonic Orchestra concert. Anyhow, I think this was better because there was no orchestra to crowd out her music. And she really was fascinating to watch. It's like watching a demon possesion, and I mean that in a very good way.
[ p.s. After the recital I milled around the lobby some more with my friend's sister, with the crowd waiting for Cecile Licad. My friend's sister wanted to have her Chopin's Etudes lyric sheet signed. She told me about all the times they waited for artists to sign their tickets/programs/books only to discover they didn't have pens. This time she was ready and determined. When we finally got close to Ms Licad, all she managed to do was sort of squeak. But Ms Licad signed her book and said in a really low voice, "Thanks for coming." Then several seconds later, my friend's sister said, "It was like she was saying 'Pare..'" Weird. We love her nevertheless. Feh. ]
Now it was my first time to watch Cecile Licad perform. I didn't know what she would be playing until I got there and browsed the program. So I didn't have any expectations, no clue, except that it was going to be a night of classical music. She came in wearing a black dress, sat down, and from my view high up in the balcony, all I could see was black hair billowing around her face, and I noticed how fluidly her hands and fingers were as they moved across the keys. There was a projector at the side of the stage, and there the movements were magnified. You could see her mouth as she pouted and the way her eyebrows furrowed. Her hair fell in black pools over her shoulders. Sometimes her whole body shook and hunched and bent low, face near the ivories. Sometimes more than the music itself, I was absorbed at how absorbed she was at playing the piano. She seemed in rage or in ecstasy, and her fingers either caressed or flew all over the keys. It always amazes me to watch someone who wasn't just playing the music but living it. By the time the intermission came, it was only then that I realized I was sitting there by myself.
I went out and found my friends in the lobby. They came in after the concert started, and they were wearing black. I spent most of the intermission chatting up my friend Ross's sister who is a music major. Then we went back in and there were more people in our section. The second half, she played Schubert's Impromptus Op.142, D.935, Liszt's Annees de Pelerinage and Walking on the Waters, and the Mephisto Waltz by Liszt and Busoni.
The encores were also delightful. Unfortunately, I can't tell you what they were, because I have absolutely no idea. It was weird being around music majors. When they started discussing the second movement of this piece and how the No. 1 in F minor as played by this musician was a bit more fluid. I was lost. Then they asked if I wanted to see another concert with them this weekend, classical of course. I said I already planned to go with another group of friends to watch Cynthia Alexander. Who was Cynthia Alexander. Er.
But the recital was fun. A bit different from my usual fare of "angry sounding people who are making life for their esophagus difficult" -- this was how a friend of mine described the music I listen to. Originally, my friend wanted to watch the June 17 concert. But the guy who bought the tickets for us said that there was no Cecile Licad concert on the 17th, my friend's birthday. Instead he got us the tickets for these. So no birthday concert. Then later we learned that Cecile Licad did play last week -- she was guest pianist at the Manila Philharmonic Orchestra concert. Anyhow, I think this was better because there was no orchestra to crowd out her music. And she really was fascinating to watch. It's like watching a demon possesion, and I mean that in a very good way.
[ p.s. After the recital I milled around the lobby some more with my friend's sister, with the crowd waiting for Cecile Licad. My friend's sister wanted to have her Chopin's Etudes lyric sheet signed. She told me about all the times they waited for artists to sign their tickets/programs/books only to discover they didn't have pens. This time she was ready and determined. When we finally got close to Ms Licad, all she managed to do was sort of squeak. But Ms Licad signed her book and said in a really low voice, "Thanks for coming." Then several seconds later, my friend's sister said, "It was like she was saying 'Pare..'" Weird. We love her nevertheless. Feh. ]
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