Growing Up

Some years back, the sight of a plane in flight was a beautiful sign of good luck, a portent of something pleasant about to happen. Etched against the blue sky, the plane was my beacon of hope. It lifted me from my slump.

Now, I have realized that the only reason why I constantly see airplanes is this: I live near the airport. (Well, relatively)

Poop.

The Eternal Scapegoat

A guy gets dumped by his girlfriend and someone says "that's Karma." The man from next-door gets killed in a car crash and the neighbors say "it's Karma." China gets hit by a high-intensity earthquake and someone (like, um, Sharon Stone) says it was brought on by Karma.

I mean, come on.

If this Karma were a person, he'd be the most battered, most abused fall guy by now, and he'd have gone ahead and hung himself to death (a long, long time ago). So let's just give him a break.

Him, her, it, whatever.

It's easy to find someone--or something--to put the blame on when something unpleasant (from poverty to natural calamities to tragedy) rears its ugly head. Let's face it, shit happens and will continue to happen. The fact remains that there are and will always be things beyond our control that it would be futile to look for someone/something to point a finger on.

In the first place, do we even have to?

Bottom-line is: Nature will always be one force impossible to contend with and people will always make mistakes. We make "bad" decisions, give in to our "human" weaknesses, choose the "wrong" paths. And when the consequences of our actions come barging in for all the world to see, the world would say that it's Karma and that we deserve it, which is an outright misconception. But one that would be difficult to counter because we, being human, could be judgmental to a fault.

Until the world gets to understand the complexity of the human brain, until our scientists discover a way to halt the next earthquake or storm, until we all develop the power to see what will happen tomorrow, until we evolve into perfect beings, if perfect means faultless--it would be so much easier to point at something that would make sense to things that don't seem to make sense.

Hence, the ubiquitous line: "it's Karma."

Conspicuously Juxtaposed:

In the May 12th issue of a prestigious international periodical, a Louis Vuitton spread sat smugly alongside an article on the skyrocketing price of oil and the sad, mad socio-economic implications of the crisis.

And on the page at the end of the article, a Patek Philippe ad grinned unashamedly.

Ah, the ironies that surround us everyday.
You do the math.

Not A Party Girl

Glammed-up people streamed into the great halls of the World Trade Center as HSBC's Manila Global Service Center held yet another big-- no, make that huge--party, with DISCOVOLUTION as the theme. Once again, the Senior Managers outdid themselves in proving that it wasn't just the corporate world they lorded over; they could also strut around as Madonna, Rihanna, Justin Timberlake, John Travolta (in Saturday Night Fever), Village People, et al.
Most everyone was in party mode. Even the shy ones found their feet keeping in time with the rhythm and beat of the dance music. No techno here, or house. Just plain old disco, true to the theme of the night.
Drinks were a-plenty, food overflowed. Everyone was dolled-up and in the mood for celebrating. The night spelled F-U-N away.
I had a nice time, sure. I'm not the type who won't enjoy a party here, or there.
But in true Shan fashion, I couldn't help wishing, in the middle of all that gaiety, that I was back in my warm bed, snuggled against my pillows.

Lit Geek Update #6

Last book I read: She Flew The Coop by Michael Lee West

This book is hilarious, had me hooting with laughter and kicking my heels up while reading it. The writing is candid but spiced up with color and wit. Human frailty and resilience are celebrated equally, the setting being the fictional Limoges, Louisiana, a small-town backdrop with quirky characters that just as possibly could represent any community in any part of the world. A lot of recipes, too, that made me go hungry and grab something to munch on just to satisfy the craving brought on by the raw, unembellished description of Creole fare (Gumbo, crawfish pie, jambalaya, peanut butter and bacon sandwich (!), loads of mayonnaise and chili). A light, most-of-the-time-funny-but-when-it's-sad-it's-sad read.

What I'm reading now: What Was She Thinking? (Notes on a Scandal) by Zoe Heller

Lit Geek Update #5

Last Book I Read: Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro

I find it remarkable how Ishiguro manages to draw so much emotion with so little fanfare. The Remains of the Day put him in my list of must-read authors; but reading Never Let Me Go (the last part of which I read outdoors under a very quiet, very still, twilit sky, tinging everything a shade of orange) made me realize how much more he's capable of, not just to tug at heartstrings with such spare language.
The exposition left me quizzical, very much uncertain of the ground I was treading, but very much aware of some impending darkness that was about to unfold. And therein lies one of the strengths of this mildly eerie, wonderfully strange novel: it shows rather than tells, but inch by inch, so that the strategically-torn piece you are given leaves you hankering for the next one. And so it goes, until the middle part, where things seem to fall into place, but not just yet. The story is carefully, if not fastidiously, crafted, so that the end result is a finely-woven novel of pain and non-pain, of innocence and betrayal, of loss and acceptance, done with such breathtaking restraint.
After I put the book back on the shelf, I knew that the words carer, donor and completed would never again mean the same to me. This book taught me, made me realize how finally, we are all human and mortal, and that most of us take each day that we are alive--and free--for granted, not knowing there could be people out there who live, but are bound by painful, irrevocable destinies spelt out for them the even before they started being.

What I'm reading now: The Blind Assassin by Margaret Atwood

Some reviews from my previous blog:


February 13, 2007
Lit Geek Update #1

Last book I read: Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami- Poignant without the pathos; in this book, Murakami deviates from his trademark "strangeness." No elephant vanishes here, no dancing dwarf, no man-sheep-- just real people whose paths intersect and whose lives intertwine, a coming -of-age story set in 60's Japan, in the era of the Beatles, of Carole King and The Doors. No Murakami creation would be complete without references to Music (see sentence before this one) and Literature-- here he mentions Dostoyevsky, and has the main protagonist declaring admiration for Jay Gatsby. An emotional read. Too many suicides, though.
What I'm reading now: Tomcat In Love by Tim O'Brien


April 01, 2007
Lit Geek Update #2

Last Book I read: Tomcat In Love by Tim O'Brien- If you liked Nabokov's Lolita, you're gonna love this one. Not that there's any similarity between the plots, though, just in the delivery. The genius who wrote the unforgettable The Things They Carried strikes again, this time in a hilarious story of the thwarted obsession and madness of one Thomas H. Chippering, a self-proclaimed war hero and "sex-magnet," whose attempts at honesty and transparency make it hard for the reader to guess just exactly when he is telling the truth, and when he is not. This ambivalence will keep you glued on the book and give you the itch to go to the next page! The main character made me shake my head and laugh out loud in turns, and the other people in the novel made me realize, with grudging agreement, just how dysfunctional this world of ours could get (or the people in it, at least).
What I'm Reading Now: The WInd-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami


May 16, 2007
Lit Geek Update #3

Last book I read: Over A Cup of Ginger Tea by Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo- Reading this book meant being reunited not only with one of my favorite Filipino writers, Cristina pantoja Hidalgo, but re-encountering some of my best-loved pieces by Filipino women writers, as well. In example: the venerable Gilda Cordero Fernando's fairy tales like "The Dust Monster," "The Level of Each day's Need" and "High Fashion." The piece that I liked most, though, was the part entitled "Rewriting The War," wherein Hidalgo discussed some noteworthy women's experiences during the Japanese war (these entries--most of them from diaries and unpublished memoirs--compiled into books only recently). These harrowing tales, as told from the perspective, not of the men who fought in the frontlines, but of the women who were staging a different kind of battle, that of trying desperately--but with much determination and resilience--to fight for survival, to glue together the pieces shattered by the war and its atrocities, make for eye-opening reads, pieces from which we have a lot to learn, and which will further elucidate our views on the Japanese occupation and the horrors that came with it. Towards the end of the piece, Hidalgo quoted Brenda K. Marshall on Foucault: History then, in Foucault's terms may become "counter memory": the process of reading history against the grain, of taking an acknowledged active role in the interpretation of history rather than a passive, viewing role. Counter-memory intervenes in history rather than chronicles it.(1992, 140). And this is precisely what these women have done with their war memoirs: they have gone past looking at the war with just their stares, their senses. They have taken the extra step to intervene, to re-write it for the sake of changing history and transforming our perceptions, not with the might of weapons, but with the beauty, the honesty and candor of their words, their truths.
What I'm reading now: A Portrait of The Artist as a Young Man by James Joyce


Lit Geek Update # 4

Last book I read: Written on the Body by Jeanette Winterson- I saw this book at the South Mall branch of Book Sale and I grabbed it even if I had only the faintest idea of who the author was (I vaguely remembered my professor mentioning her name in our Erotic Writing class back in college). The title was an arresting one, as well. True to the words on the cover, the pages did have a lot to say a lot about the body, but not just the body, superficially. It was also about the complexity of human relationships, the richness of the senses, and the sparks of chemistry that go through the skin, the muscles, the sinews and the bones when two people touch and discover each other through all these passages. The story is told from the first person point of view, transitioning from speaking to a particular "you" to addressing the reader (who could just as well be the "you" in every "you and me"). The language is lush, sensual, powerful. One particular thing that I liked about it is that the story spoke to me. The words seemed to be reaching out from the pages to my consciousness and memory. It is a book that I know I will keep coming back to, over and over, if only for the truths in its pages and the lack of pretense in the telling.
What I'm reading now: The Journals of Sylvia Plath; Ted Hughes and Frances McCullough, editors- this book will most probably screw up my head even more, but what the hell. Sylvia Plath is just something else.