Nerina, Where've you been all this time?

Lit Geek update # 22: recently read books

A Pale View of Hills (Kazuo Ishiguro):
This is a novel that is very quiet on the surface but is extremely disturbing, underneath. Most everything is undertow. It left me thoughtful, piecing things together, dipping my hand in the water and feeling the current draw me in. Masterfully understated. Definitely another Ishiguro coup de maitre.


Bel Canto (Ann Patchett):
The ending was another "The French Lieutenant's Woman" moment for me. I was completely disillusioned by the epilogue, hence, I went back to the paragraphs prior so that the ending that stayed with me was the one that came before the actual one. We always have a choice; and I chose how the story would end for me. Otherwise, I found the novel beautifully written. Another testament to music's power of transcending all the ugliness in the world.

My 4th Almodovar:

My 3rd Almodovar:

What I ate and did not

Now, let's see.

Thursday, in the office, I had a plateful of baked macaroni. Which i finished, by the way. It was M--'s birthday, too, and I was treated to lunch at Cibo, where I had yummy Pasta Veneziana with wheat bread. In the evening, I had cheesecake with my double tall mocha latte.

Friday morning, I looked in the mirror and groaned. My shoulders were ballooning again--they're always the first to rise up to the occasion once the calories start loading in.

Saturday morning, I started dieting: zero to minimal rice and carbs, protein and veggies only, and the occasional finger food (translate: chips).

Today is Tuesday and, so far, I have been successful.

My friend, S--, told me helpfully, "if that's what makes you happy, dear, then go for it."

Hee.

In several months... Oh, my.

At the risk of sounding shallow...

The quest for the fountain of youth has officially begun. Goodness, never did I--while I was in my girlhood and early to mid-twenties--imagine I would ever see the day that I'd actually start growing old.

But now, here I am, on the threshold of aging angst. Well, I've probably been on this threshold long before today; I was merely in denial that there was even a door, much less a hallway.

And, oh, what a dark hallway it is!

Lately, my friend S-- and I, we've been finding ourselves talking about how unbelievable it is that we'd actually have to answer "thirty--" when asked for our age. Well, mostly, it's me who's doing the lot of the complaining. I think S-- has already come to terms with her age, choosing to look at the advantages (she always was the more positive one, between the two of us).

I realized I had better start doing the same, I mean, counting the perks instead of the lows.

For one thing, being older makes one start to care less about other people's opinions. Laughing at oneself in the middle of, and after an embarrassing episode becomes easier and standing up after a fall becomes a walk in the park;

self-confidence becomes more defined as one's experiences--and the things learned along the way--pile higher. "I've been through this before and here I am, still in one piece. I can do it again!" becomes a statement that is as easy to say as "one, two, three";

the element of surprise in horrors that come up, time and again, wanes to a point where the only course left would be a shrug, a sigh, and then another shrug. To be blase is to be fashionable as sophistication becomes measured by one's capacity to keep one's cool--at all costs, at all times;

cynicism becomes more natural, and though this, in itself, is not exactly a good thing, one becomes more wary of choosing to believe in the ideal, as opposed to keeping one's eye on the real, which, in turn, translates to a marked decrease in one's risk of ending up disillusioned;

finally (for now, because I'm pretty sure I'd come up with more , eventually) one learns to laugh at the world instead of living in fear of it. Let the young people do the foolish things and cry and learn, my dear. As for us, let us be foolish, laugh at our foolishness, and be happy.

So, bring it on, Time. I am so ready for you.

But first, let me stock up on those moisturizers and eye creams. It's always best to be well-armed once reality comes knocking at one's door.

The 7 Von Trapp Children...

...all grown up.


I got this from an e-mail my dad sent me. There was a warm, fuzzy feeling in my heart when I saw these pictures. I must've seen "The Sound of Music" a hundred times.

Well, okay, maybe less.

Red yellow honey, sassafras and moonshine...

I've been raving about Laura Nyro for close to a week now.

The only sad thing was that none of the people I've asked if they knew her knew her. A few of them knew Joni Mitchell, and even fewer, Janis Joplin, but none of them knew Laura Nyro. Such a shame because she was a really talented musician. Though I've probably just been asking the wrong demographic (been asking people my age--Nyro was a 70's gal). Plus, she had never been popular as a performer, mainly because she'd always shunned the limelight (yup, a female version of JD Salinger we got here). The limelight had always tried to chase her, though, because she was songwriter to a lot of hits by other artists like The 5th Dimension, Peter, Paul and Mary, Carole King, etc. She had reportedly been chased by talk show writers/researchers to be a guest on their shows but had repeatedly turned them down.

I am so loving her songs, mostly the ones she had penned in her early years as a songwriter, songs like "Stoned Soul Picnic" (my absolute favorite, hands down!), "Timer", "Eli's Coming", "And When I Die", "Sweet Blindness", "The Bells", and "Blowing Away", among others. Her voice has got lots of power and soul and her music is a hybrid of jazz, rhythm and blues, rock, and pop (of the 70's, that is).

Her elusiveness (both then and now) has completely spiced up how I see her. Having a jazz trumpeter for a dad and a mom who listened to Billie Holiday and Debussy must've helped her figure out what it was she wanted to be, what it was she wanted to do. Listening to her music transports me to her era and, at the same time, keeps me more grounded to mine, because here was a woman who knew, from the start, the direction she wanted to take and didn't allow anyone, and anything--neither limelight, shadow, nor broken marriage--from straining her.

She died of cancer at 47, another one of those incredibly talented people who died relatively young. Such a pity. She could've written more, sang more. Though, as it is, she had been a prolific songwriter and her cache of works is really pretty impressive.

Talk To Her

Pedro Almodovar, 2002

That human beings--here, two men--could be this unselfish: "Habla Con Ella" dares problematize this tritest--and most sensitive--of themes.

Leo, Leo

I watched Edward Zwick's "Blood Diamond" and Martin Scorsese's "The Departed" this week, and I thoroughly enjoyed both. Though, on hindsight, "enjoyed" might not be the perfect word considering the length of time with which I had my heart on my throat from all that suspense. Okay, let me rephrase, then, and say that I was much affected by the scenes, the themes, the exposition, the lines, and the acting. It's difficult to write about a movie when one isn't well-versed in film criticism lingo.

I know, I know, I'm being apologetic again. Defensive, even. Sorry.

Anyway.

I confess to never having been a Leo fan prior to watching the above movies. He, for me, belonged in that same category as Brad Pitt and Aga Muhlach, with everybody (or the girls, at least) gushing about how good-looking they are and I never really getting what the fuss was all about. The film I most associated his name with (in those times) was "Titanic" and, yeah, in terms of acting, Leo doesn't really get far with that.

Then along came "Revolutionary Road", which made me do a double-take. He was good there. Though his role and portrayal of it was not as memorable as what he did and how he did in "The Departed". His role as Billy Costigan clinched his acting caliber for me. Still dazed from the suspense and thrill I got from the movie, I went, like, yeah, this guy does have something to offer.

I still haven't finished the book. =(

It's been a circus, yep, that's how things have been. Call it a circus. I tend to repeat things when I'm floating. And sometimes I don't know what I'm saying. Well, most of the time, I do. You might say that. I might say that. I think I've learned to mull things over first before giving a thought free reign. You might say I've learned to hold my tongue. What a cliche. If I counted how many cliches there are in what I've typed so far, I'd probably be appalled.

But, whatever.

I'm a little tired, that's what I am. Probably more than a little tired, I'm not entirely sure. "Probably" is such a safe word. There's safety in the probable. There could be danger, too, though, come to think of it.

And now I'm telling myself don't look back. It's nothing melodramatic; I meant don't look back on what you've written, so far. Well, I probably should've typed don't look up the page, keep your eyes on the cursor. Was I supposed to use parentheses? I think, yeah. Or, probably, I could've clicked on the italics icon.

But I'm staying where I am. Or, rather, I'm keeping my eyes here.

Here.

Right here.

Found:

Sublime!

Lit Geek Update/What I'm Reading Now:

Halfway done...
=)

Map Quiz

Geek friend and I looking at a live satellite feed of the typhoon:

Me: this is some scary shit.
Geek Friend: See this? Shows you where the wind is.
Me: I know, I know! Let's have a map quiz!
Geek Friend: You sure?
Me: This is... Japan, this is... Malaysia?
Geek Friend: Nope.
Me: Let's go to that later. How about this one. This is... China? Right?
Geek Friend: Not big enough to be China.
Me: (getting disappointed with myself) That's India! And this one's China, I'm sure!
Geek Friend: Good, good. How about this one?
Me: Easy. That's Mongolia.
Geek Friend: Good, good. Now let's go back to this one.
Me: Is that... Taiwan?
Geek Friend: Hm, well, close.
Me: Tai...pei?
Geek Friend: Close, close!
Me: Tai...two?
Geek Friend: What the...?! Close, close!
Me: Thailand!
Geek Friend: Very good!
Me: Now let me look for Nepal...

Dear City,

Permit us to refresh your memory: what comes from heaven is always a blessing, the enemy is not rain. Rain is the subject of prayer, the kind gesture of saints. Dear City, explain your irreverence; in you, rain is a visitor with nowhere to go. Where is the ground that knows only the love of water? Where are the passageways to your heart? Pity the water that stays and rises on the streets, pity the water that floods into houses, so dark and filthy and heavy with rats and dead leaves and plastic. How ashamed water is to be what you have made it. What have you done to its beauty, its graceful body in pictures of oceans, its clear face in a glass? We walk home in the flood and cannot see our feet. We forget to thank the gods for their kindness. We look for someone to blame and turn to you, wretched city, because we are men and women of honor, we feed our children three meals a day, we never miss an election. The only explanation is you, dear city. This is the end of our discussion. There is no other culprit.

-Conchitina Cruz, from Dark Hours-

Lit Geek Update # 20: Moving On

(the Suite Francaise manuscript)

Whew. Finally.

A heavy read, this one (probably helps explain the snail's pace with which I read it?). It is a war novel, a big hint that it was to be no light reading fare; and what further padded up the weight were the circumstances around the novel's writing and publication.

Irene Nemirovsky's childhood was not what one would call a happy one. She came from a wealthy family, but her problematic, strained relationship with her mother more than clouded up her early years. I'm thinking this toughened her up and prepared her for the darkness which she was to grope around in during her final years.

Fast forward to her adult years--

An established writer/socialite, she and her husband had to move around a lot to flee persecution during the 2nd World War, them being Jews and their conversion to Catholicism not being enough to save them from certain, imminent death which awaited all the Jews during that dark period.

The novel was written in the middle of the chaos and done secretly, scribbled in handwriting so tiny that Nemirovsky's daughter, Denise, many, many years later, had to use a magnifying glass in order "to decipher the miniscule handwriting" (preface to the French edition, p. 512) and type the manuscript for publishing.

I found it uncanny, reading about how the novel survived and found its way into the world's bookshelves. Nemirovsky died in Auschwitz in 1942, and Suite Francaise was published 64 years later. Her two daughters, mere children when their mother died, had instinctively--seeing how painstakingly (and discreetly) their mother had labored over it--kept the manuscript in a suitcase. It became their constant companion in their transit from one place to another in order to escape the fate their parents had met (death in the gas chambers). The manuscript, through the children's loving protection and care--they had meant to keep it as a memento of their mother--miraculously survived the unfriendliness of the era.

The book, though unfinished, has a lot to say about the war (Germany's occupation of France, specifically), and even more about the human tenacity to cling to life in the middle of a death-strewn age, resilience amidst trials, the power of faith, of hope.

I am glad the book found its way into my hands.
Thanks, M--.

Next on my list: E. M. Forster's A Room With A View

Lit Geek Update # 19: Stuck

It's been weeks and I'm still reading the same book. It's not the book that's the problem--both the prose and the exposition are very, very good. It's time, or the lack thereof, that's the culprit.

Excuses, excuses.

It's that damn Facebook that's taking me away from my books. LOL

I'm giving myself until Friday. I should be done by then.

Allow me to add this to all that's been said

"The blackout takes over the night erases the city from the map erases everything"
-Conchitina Cruz, "I Must Say This About The City", from Dark Hours-

Since everybody has written, is writing, and will write about the typhoon that has recently come our way, I told myself, I won't write about it. So I kept it away, put off the urge for as long as I could. But the images in the news, the horror stories (made even more horrifying by the fact that they were not fiction, but fact) were just too much for me to take, while keeping mum and being passive.

It seemed almost irreverent to remain silent, when the rest of everything and everyone was, and is raging.

On my September 26 post, I wrote:

Let's all stay indoors. This is not a good time to be out.

It was morning when I typed those words and I was, as yet, completely unaware of the catastrophic scale the inclement weather (I thought it merely "inclement" at that time) was about to shoot up to. I was lucky that where I lived remained untouched by floodwater. The only complaint I could come up with was that rainwater came in through the window, creating puddles on the room's wooden floor. I grumbled even as I wiped. But still, I wiped.

The shame I felt, then, when, after turning the TV on, the screen presented coverage of a furious typhoon gone mad on the city and its people. Flood, flood everywhere, making lakes out of streets where people remained trapped inside floating cars; dark, filthy water risen and still rising to alarming heights, climbing up staircases, reaching up to terraces, chasing people up, up, so that they had to brave the rain and the wind in order to seek safety on their roofs. There were places where even the roofs failed to provide the shelter so desperately sought.

Really, who could have been prepared for this?

No one, I guess. And so the typhoon has left us in shock, in shambles, in shreds.

Returning

"Volver" is dominated by women's themes. The friend who recommended it to me was anxious that I wouldn't like it. As it turned out, I ended up telling him, "heck, I most probably got the movie more than you did."

Female relationships--mother-to-daughter, sister-to-sister, girlfriend-to-girlfriend--are key elements to how the film comes full circle, the glue being one woman's supposed death and believed return and regular appearances as a ghost. Depicting how a mother's love can transcend life and death, the movie is at times absurd, comic and often painfully real. The human tenacity to cling to faith and life, despite and in spite of the many obstacles death and its harbingers bring, is spun neatly into the tale.

I cannot allow myself to miss mentioning, too, that the predominance of superstition and myth in Hispanic culture is essential to the telling of the story, if not to the conception itself of the story.

Daughters (and sons, too) and mothers had better watch this film. Though often taken for granted and most of the time overlooked, we all need to return to that most precious--and binding--of ties.


*for an ever so much better and more erudite review, go to film guru Roger Ebert. =)

In Today's Movie Marathon:

Superb films, both.

And what of the rain lashing loudly against the windows, the walls, the roofs of each house? What of the wind, wailing, mournful?

Let's all stay indoors. This is not a good time to be out.

Feeling that blah feeling again. Not a good sign at all.

For M-- and M--:

When stuck in a car with two rock music aficionados conversing, what is one to do?

Listen.

And learn heaps!
=)

And What Came After

Once in a while, it happens: two people meet, fall madly in love and live happily ever after.

Once in a while.

And then there's the rest of the time, where two people meet and fall in love and wait, and wait, and wait for a happy ever after that never comes.

When I was a little girl, the couples I knew always found happy ever after. Now, I realize that the pages i loved so much were merely shielding me from the harsh, bitter truth: that Rapunzel's hair was never the same when it started to grow again, so that her prince eventually left her to look for a girl with prettier hair; or that the Beast, who went back to his human form because of Beauty's love, got transformed back to a beast because he had a difficult time shedding away his beastly ways; or that Cinderella, having broken free from being a slave to her stepsisters virtually all her life, left her prince and became a women's rights activist in some obscure land (the prince had turned out to be even more oppressive than the ugly old maids in her former home, you see).

Happy ever after turned out to be just another fairy tale, after all. Tsk, tsk.

Bummer.

And so, now, people who greet newly-married couples "congratulations" are actually muttering "good luck" under their breaths. A girl who announces her upcoming wedding gets greeted by frowning, knowing looks and unsolicited advice to "think it over first." Those who have been there and found their way out (and it's amazing just how high their percentage has become, just try asking around) no longer bite back their cynical opinions on the great M-- word.

It's most probably because they've discovered that there were still pages and pages that came after the endings--or supposed endings--of the fairy tales they'd read as children.

The fairy herself must've ripped them from the original texts. Turns out the fairy was really just as human as the rest of us.

Now, Stillness.

Stepping indoors on a gusty, stormy day means walking into sudden calm, and warmth, and quiet.

The transition is extremely blunt and brutal that there happens an arrest of almost all the senses. The mind is jolted out of a memory of chaos--because that second when the door is shut is enough to turn the chaos into a memory--into a bed of languor and lull.

It can be startling, this distortion.

But the mind, and the rest of you, will need no more than a variation of seconds or minutes to achieve equilibrium.

Unless you desire the opposite.

Mercury's on Retrograde Again!

Mercury has retrograded and I didn't know! Tragic. Tsk, tsk.

I screamed "mercury's on retrograde now!" and M-- said, "so that explains it. Why you've been acting really weird lately. Pfft." Grins.

Now, I'm trying to think back on my week and, yeah, I do remember it as a roller-coaster ride to downhill from uphill (arrggh!). In fact, it's been the most sudden downturn I've had in a long, long while.

It's a good thing I watched "Kimmy Dora" a day before and got to be in one heck of a rollin' party hours before (Mercury turned retrograde September 7th, 12:39 am EST). Hours into it, I woke up with that terrible, terrible hangover. That should've been warning enough. Though the equation (or pseudo-equation) Hangover=Mercury Retrograde is hardly the first "put-two-and-two-together" one would come up with, under normal circumstances.

Mercury will turn direct September 29th.

In the meantime, folks, prepare for a rough ride ahead. And then, hopefully, lots of peace and order afterward.

Partying on a Monday

Looks like the rainy season has descended upon us for good (until summer comes again, that is). Time to bring out the sweaters, the cardigans, the knits, the coats, the tweeds, the wools, why not?

M-- made me a cup of really fab coffee earlier, perfect for the cold and the rains. Have just recovered from the hang-over I've been nursing since this morning, throbbing headache and dizziness, my goodness, I've reached this age without experiencing those, until now, that is. I loaded up on lots of water and it seemed to do the trick. Hydrating, they call it. Last night's proverbial company party did this to me-- which is not to say I didn't have fun, because I did have fun. Probably explains the hang-over, too:

Fun + alcohol = HANG-OVER.





This party meant a lot to me because I was one of the two people who organized it (good friend, Sheila, was the other one).




Like her, I was feeling mighty anxious days before and hours before and only really got to exhale an hour into the party, when things were already in full swing and the people looked like they were having a good time (read: rowdy).




Early on, I even had to help the waiter take the orders for rice, complete with pen and notepad gear, so that our AVP (dear, dear Barb), bottle of Jack Daniels in hand, jokingly asked me, "do you work part-time here?" and then burst into that distinctly evil laugh of hers.


They were able to coax me into a beer-drinking match with colleague, Myra. That was a first for me.



I lost, of course. hahaha

At ATC National Bookstore today:

I breezed into the store and heard a chime-like sound, which turned out to be the sensors, which were strategically placed by the entrance. If a bit timidly, the guard asked me if I was carrying a book with me.

A little puzzled, but at the same time beginning to realize what it was all about, I said "yes, I do,", my right hand instinctively diving into my unabashedly pink bag for the copy of Mookie Katigbak's The Proxy Eros, which I had recently bought at Festi's National and which I have been taking with me almost anywhere I went and which still had the price tag stuck to its behind. The guard asked me to leave it at the counter and I willingly obliged. If he had shown the least bit rudeness, I would have been pissed (irritable creature that I was), but since he was very courteous about the whole thing, I simply gave a mental shrug. He was just doing his job, I realized, and preventing further mishap because if he hadn't stopped me and asked me to deposit the book, things would have been really complicated--and awkward--on my way out.

And you can add to that the fact what a monster I could become whenever I find myself in any situation where I feel that my rights and dignity are being infringed upon.

Plus, the guy at the package counter was really nice, offering to take my book to their cashier so that whatever it was that caused the sensors to react would be removed.

There are still good people in this world. What a comforting thought.
=)

Sign of the times: Countdown

People in the office have begun the countdown to Christmas.

I've been, like, "what? So soon?"

Quite a number of friends are celebrating their birthdays this month. Happy Burp-day to: Sheila, Fenina, CJ, Mae, Wema, Emillie, Ribbon, Steve, Tatat, Gino, and Sweet.
=)

Happiness is...

balmy breeze on a mild Friday afternoon, a cup of very hot, very strong coffee, a book of beautifully-written poetry.

Life is, indeed, what you make it.