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.

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.

Little Mio

I honestly cried--no, sobbed--when I came across this little boy's story on his mom's blog.
He's a 5-year-old kid. Why him?

Gastronomical Blah

I have, fairly recently, given up on the Double Tall Mocha Espresso I consistently order on every Starbucks visit. I've known it all along--that this drink doesn't do anything to kindle my drowsy nerves--but have been in denial, so far. Well, I have had a change of heart and decided to switch to that most macho of macho coffees: the kapeng barako, Starbucks style. I couldn't do without the flavoring though (brewed coffee by Starbucks is E-V-I-L!), so I still make them put white chocolate mocha into the drink.

So far, that has been the only exciting thing to happen to my stomach (and my nerves) today. Lunch in the office was a bland affair of pork binagoongan (which I ordered without knowing what it was--it was too orange to be binagoongan); for snacks, it was a Strawberry-topped Danish which, due to the fact that I've been eating it almost daily for the past few weeks, has lost its excitement and novelty (such boring words!). I mean, I used to eat it with such gusto, but this morning, a third of it found its way into the trash can (the part where the custard and the strawberry jam was, to be more specific). Mom would probably berate me for throwing food away, with all the hungry people out there. Peace, Mommy! =)


I refuse to let this day end with my palate bored, or dissatisfied. After I post this, I shall whip out the Porky Best chicharon from its hiding place. There's Coke and ice in the ref, too. Ah, here comes the high-blood special, but what the heck.


What did you have for lunch?
=)

Kim

This afternoon, I lifted my 7-year-old so he could sit on the grocery cart. Boy, was he heavy! I had to do a take 2. We were both laughing during and after the exercise and as I gave him a kiss on the nose, I asked him, "when did you get so heavy, little boy?"

Does every blowing breeze take something away with it that it's gone before we even had the chance to know that a breeze had blown by? When we blink, does something get lost in the split second so that the something "disappears before our very eyes"? Are we such incognizant beings that moments get stolen from us under our very noses?

Questions.

I had to lift him out of the cart when it was time to pay at the cashier. For the briefest of moments, I held him close and took a whiff of his baby powder-scented cheek and whispered a silent prayer, "don't grow up so fast. Be mommy's baby for as long as you can."

And then he hugged me and tried to lift me. When I laughed, he said, "Mommy, when I'm older, I will lift you. Promise."

Sonnet XVII

-Pablo Neruda

I do not love you as if you were salt-rose, or topaz,
or the arrow of carnations the fire shoots off.
I love you as certain dark things are to be loved,
in secret, between the shadow and the soul.

I love you as the plant that never blooms
but carries in itself the light of hidden flowers;
thanks to your love a certain solid fragrance,
risen from the earth, lives darkly in my body.

I love you without knowing how, or when, or from where.
I love you straightforwardly, without complexities or pride;
so I love you because I know no other way

than this: where I does not exist, nor you,
so close that your hand on my chest is my hand,
so close that your eyes close as I fall asleep.

Nonsense-s

Friday was a good time to shop. Mainly because: a) lots of stores were on sale; b) I haven't shopped in quite a while; and c) the funds-available-and-nice-stuff-at-hand timing was perfect. It usually happens that when I'm on the look-out for stuff to buy, nothing good turns up in the stores or, when I spot pretty loots, the moolah is nada. what a bummer, right? Not last Friday, though. Still, I made sure I didn't overdo it. Stashed in just a pair of office trousers and a few nice tops.

Oh, and yeah, PCX is offering lotsa good deals right now with their Pond's, Neutrogena, Celeteque, etc. sale. Perfect timing because I had entered the store with the goal of replenishing my almost-empty tubes of moisturizer. It turned out they had a buy-one-take-one deal on the brand I use! Some really good and cheap buys right there.

Heehee. I've become a cheapskate. Which is a good thing, really.

Facebook application update: I am now playing Mob Wars.

to understand here was a clown

who didn’t know where he was,

a clown without a context?

What could be sadder, my friend thought,

than a clown in need of a context?


-from "If a Clown" by Stephen Dunn-

And just when I think I'm already tinkering with too many apps on Facebook,

along comes...


COUNTRY STORY!

It's so cute!
=)

My Sh_tty Week, In Review

I'm done reading The Manikin and will be moving on to Ann Patchett's Bel Canto next. I was trying to decide between that and Irene Nemirovsky's Suite Francaise but Bel's synopsis mentioned a soprano, which clinched the deal. The soprano will always come first.

Blah.

I had meant to enumerate the week's events. I just realized virtually none of them (except the book I finished) are worth enumerating, at all.

Because for some people, it would take only one dark event to cast a pall over everything else, to lend shadow to what began as a sunny morning, to cause a domino effect over the hours of a day, a week, a month. And yes, it could go on longer than that.

I will call this post "My Sh_tty Week, In Review" even if it would hardly pass for a review.

My Facebook is teeming with negative status updates. Am thankful to the friends who took notice and took time to offer consoling/sympathetic comments. I'm hoping to shake off from this rut soon.

How was your week?

Lit Geek Update #18:

Last book I read: They Went Whistling: Women Wayfarers, Warriors, Runaways, and Renegades by Barbara Holland--

For the recently emancipated woman, this book further cements her being an offspring of the pains, the struggles, the glories, and the conquests of the women who, before her, had dared to wear a pair of pants and go whistling down the lanes, under the occasionally glaring, often frowning beams of the sun. Read about history's giantesses Amelia Earheart, Bonnie Parker, Joan D'Arc, Cleopatra, Isadora Duncan, Belle Boyd, the Amazons, and more than a handful of lesser known women who trod the narrow path toward the freedom to truly look the world in the face and laugh, wickedly, while doing so.

What I'm reading right now:


The Manikin by Joanna Scott

"The winter of 1846, when half of everything alive succumbed to the cold, has been stored for over eighty years in the mysterious mind common to the species, and though the owl didn't experience that winter, she remembers it--the poisonous smell of the air, the frost that pinned feathers to skin, the famine. She remembers that time the way a woman remembers her great-grandmother's death in childbirth..."

-from the novel's first paragraph, p. 3-

A "Whatever" Thought

Anne Boleyn was 5"2' and flat-chested. Bonnie Parker Of the famed Bonnie and Clyde duo was just 5" and loved wearing red.

Small--er, petite--women are really something else.

Hahaha. Still, we wear heels.
WT.

Poetry Poetry

Joel Toledo's Chiaroscuro is already in my hands. Next I'll be on the hunt for:

The Proxy Eros by Mookie Katigbak.

Somewhere
You are actual. Happen to me there.
-From “As Far as Cho-Fu-Sa”-

If it's true
That we move from one exhaustion to
Another, you are the tenor and the vehicle
Of all I cannot name in the things I do.
-from "The Proxy Eros"-

When I show you how you and I
Have more hunger than we know
What to do with, I am telling you
Goodbye before you know it.
-from "The Telling”

Such heartbreakingly beautiful, beautiful lines.
I am thoroughly enchanted.

Wind Matters

A mighty strong wind blew my way this morning. Was it a portent of things to come? A warning of sorts? Bad--or good--news being delivered?

I wasn't--and still am not--entirely sure which one of the above it was. All I knew was that it was a signal for me to tell my legs to hold fast and steady to the pavement I was walking on.

Thank the fairies I didn't get blown away, considering that I was already beginning to sway with the gale. I had a horrible fear my legs were going to give in.

Good thing they didn't.

Never Alone

The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, Trinoma

It feels wonderful to exhale after holding one's breath for so long. And with music flowing through earphones and an ice-cold coffee to cool one down on a warm afternoon, the experience is something of a revelation--the discovery and affirmation that all things, even the most difficult moments are, after all, just moments that will, fear them as we might, pass.

They are moments that will pass.

Etch those words into your heart, my friend, whoever you are and whatever it is that you are going through. We are, if you think about it, never really alone. Not me, not you, not the girl sitting by her lonesome on the table across me, flipping absently through her thick textbook, not the guard standing by the door, greeting the couple on their way into the coffee shop, not the youngish, hapless-looking fellow, clutching at his phone on his way out. None of us. We are never alone. Ever.

Perhaps one really dark day, you will forget this truth. The possibility is very high, given the weakness our natures tend to bend into. Here's a prayer for the moment to pass as quickly as it took over.

/And let me tell you now

why wings and doors and flowers really open, why
this wall, once non-negotiable, had let you in.

It is because all things want to open, that often
all you need do is ask./

-from Joel Toledo's poem, "Open Sesame", Chiaroscuro-

The Eighties

Sunday afternoon, a drive down a busy street. Fussing with the car tuner and chancing upon John Parr's "St. Elmo's Fire", with David Foster's "Just For A Moment" and Joey Scarbury's "Believe It or Not" in tow.

So eighties.

So long ago.

It was a senti moment right there for M-- and I. M--, by the way, is an 80s' baby, like me, so we were able to go down childhood lane together. The songs touched chords in our psyches and there were moments of quiet (both of us, I guess, remembering lazy afternoons, drowsy hometowns and orange twilights), peppered with small, low conversations on how the songs reminded us of our childhoods, to the loss of innocence where one became forced to say hello to gray twilights and life's dead ends.

"Wasn't there a time in our young lives when we believed in something?"

"Ya."

"When we believed in forever and the goodness in people and in hopes of bright tomorrows?"

"From that point to where we are now--it's like having gone a hundred-eighty-degree turn."

How right he was. How right. Such a cynical generation it was we belonged to.
Sad.

Lit Geek Update #17: What I'm Reading Now

I defined a woman's duty, "To look the world in the face with a go-to-hell look in the eyes; to have an idea; to speak and act in defiance of convention."
-Margaret Sanger, 1914

All Those Moments Passing Us By...

So, where were you on August 3rd of two years ago? What were you doing? Were you the same person you are now? How much did you have in your pockets that day? Were you happy? Was there someone special in your life that day? What were the thoughts you were thinking, the plans you were making?

Not that this date holds any significance, just so happened that I chose to write this post today, so, no, this date is not special in any way. To me, that is. But it could have some sort of specialness to some of us. Which is a problematic sentence, if we really break it down to pieces. It holds up the frequency with which we take things, and hours, and days, and people, and places for granted. Which is, after all, not difficult to do, considering the number of seconds and minutes that pass, too many, really, for us to count and too fast for us to pin down and just hold in our hands and turn over for perusal. But then, again, what of the regrets we express at letting a particular day go away without us having lived it to the fullest, and what of the sadness in the line "all those moments passing us by..."?

I read, somewhere, that waiting is a sin--a sin because the amount of time spent during the waiting is really time wasted. Makes a lot of sense to me. Think about this: if we added up all those minutes, or hours, we spent waiting for something and not doing anything as we waited, I'm almost sure we'd be able to come up with a pretty significant amount of time wherein we could have done so much more with the time we had in our hands.

But then, again, we can argue: isn't the waiting itself an act that is just as significant as the next one?

So, do you remember now where you were on August 3rd of two years ago?

I have drawn a blank. Have you?

Facebook Status: Such gray, despondent weather. The rains must be bringing on the gloom for some of us.

A room that is really a box, its walls wrapped in ash-tinted blue. Light without rays, barely illuminating a third of the place. Outside, an angry sky pelting heavy sheets of rain and wind.

Where I am, I am not there. I am somewhere else.

Though in that place, I am unsure of my presence, too.

My Sheila

I talked to my dear friend, Sheila, yesterday and after two weeks of not seeing each other, the conversation was a welcome respite from the monotony of work, work, work and the daily grind of keeping up with the colorless, unilateral world the industry we work in so easily becomes.

Catching up with her made me realize how important it is to have someone you can talk to and not worry about:


a) not being understood;
b) being over-read;
or
c)being stared at in the face and thought of as some loony person blabbering away into blabberland.

Sheila and I, we get each other. We would often:

a)catch each other's eyes and burst out laughing;
b)be in a conversation with other people, exchange glances and know what the other is thinking;
c)tell each other things we don't normally tell the greater majority of our friends, or colleagues;
and
d)keep secrets for each other, cherishing the fact that we each have someone we can release our bottled up trivia and non-trivia to.

We've agreed, a long while back, that we belong on the same wavelength. Our minds are in tune with each other. I can share my silliest thoughts with her and know that I will not be scolded, or thought of as shallow. With her, I know that I can pour the saddest and darkest contents of my heart and know that I will not be turned away or judged. And I know that she knows that she can run to me, anytime.

Thank the fairies for friends.
Such treasures they are.

Lit Geek Update #16: Neil Gaiman's NEVERWHERE

I must confess that it took me a while to sink into the novel's realm. My rule of thumb when it comes to deciding whether to finish a piece of literature or not is that I generally go by how the first few pages make me feel and then decide from there. These initial pages will make--or break--the book for me. If they appeal to me, I go on, and if they don't, back to the shelf the book goes. It was different for Neverwhere.

I gave it a chance. I curbed the urge to slam the book shut, what with the unappealing--almost trite--prose the novel began with. I told myself, hey, this is my first Gaiman novel and maybe his works do take some getting used to. Just because I absolutely adored his Smoke and Mirrors (which is a collection of his short fiction), I plodded on.

And I'm glad I did.

To the Gaiman greenhorn, Gaiman's works, I surmise (I say "surmise" because I have yet to read enough of his works to use any other verb), call for suspension of disbelief to be appreciated. As opposed to the magical realistic work, which assumes the "magic" in the fiction to be part of the "real", Gaiman's kind of fantasy employs "magic" that is more protuberant and intruding, and therefore, more difficult to swallow. I know Gaiman fans will probably protest; and that is why I started this paragraph with "to the Gaiman greenhorn."

It was all just part of the "how d'ya do" stage, though. Or, to be more exact, of the first thirty pages, thereabouts. Eventually, in this case, I gave in to the pull of the succeedingly superb, visual turn the prose took. The descriptions were something else, a quality that is most probably consequential of Gaiman's expertise as a graphic novelist. Needless to say, I found myself engrossed in the sea of words and worlds and possibilities given to me by the author. Richard Mayhew's journey(s) with The Lady Door became journeys that I wanted to follow.

I am in the book's final pages.

I'll be reading American Gods next.

Darkness

Victor Hugo:
"Darkness is dizzying. We need light: whenever we plunge into the opposite of day we feel our hearts chilled. When the eye sees darkness, the mind sees trouble. In an eclipse, at night, in the sooty darkness, even the strongest feel anxiety. Nobody walks alone at night in the forest without trembling. Darkness and trees, two formidable depths--a chimeric reality appears in the indistinct distance. An outline of the Inconceivable emerges a few steps away with a spectral clarity. You see floating in space or in your brain something strangely vague and unseizable like the dreams of sleeping flowers. There are fierce shapes in the horizon. You breathe in the odors of the great black void. You are afraid and are tempted to look behind you. The socket of night, the haggard look of everything, taciturn profiles that fade away as you advance, obscure dishevelments, angry clumps, livid pools, the gloomy reflected in the funereal, the sepulchral immensity of silence, the possible unknown beings, swaying of mysterious branches, frightful torsos of the trees, long wisps of shivering grass--you are defenseless against all of it. There is no bravery that does not shudder and feel the proximity of anguish. You feel something hideous, as if soul were melting into shadow.
-Les Miserables, "Cosette" book 3, chapter 5 "The Little Girl All Alone" pp 388-389-
*this section of my copy is shamelessly dog-eared and has been so for the past eleven years*

Neil Gaiman:
""Darkness is happening," said the leather woman, very quietly. "Night is happening. All the nightmares that have come out when the sun goes down, since the cave times, when we huddled together for safety and for warmth, are happening. Now," she told them, "now is the time to be afraid of the dark." Richard knew that something was about to creep over his face. He closed his eyes: it made no difference to what he saw or felt. The night was complete."
-Neverwhere, chapter IV, p.103-

*Painting: Sunflower by Gustav Klimt*

Overheard:

A: Did you know that The Great Pyramid of Giza is the only one of the 7 Wonders of The Ancient World still standing today?
B: WTF? The hell I care for your pyramid. duh.
A: I'm just saying. It's a nice-to-know. Plus...
B: Oh, spare me.
A: Almost all of 'em were destroyed by earthquakes. How tragic.
B: I am so interested. Leave me alone, you geek.

Hmm. Cool.

When I think of all that has been taken from me--
countless white spaces between time's black hands--

Sign of MY times: age masks

When I flip through a fashion magazine, I generally find myself going past the beauty section (i.e. make-up and beauty products, for those not in-the-know). Lately, though, and most recently, this morning, I've noticed that I've been lingering--and I did linger--far longer than I used to on a feature on moisturizers or, as they are called, "age-defying" creams in botttles or tubes or what-have-yous.

Uh-oh.

I'm fast approaching my thirties, that's probably why. They say that the best time to start lathering up on those "miracle creams" is when a woman is in her twenties. I've been using moisturizers religiously, but only the kind that you may call "basic" and not one of 'em "miracle" ones. hahaha. What's with this word? Perhaps it's time to bid the basics adieu and say "bonjour!" to the more "intensive" creams. blech

I never thought I'd see the day but here I am. I am starting to dread the time when people would actually guess my age correctly. For now, most of them take me for 24.

Hee. Good enough for me.
=)

I was in one of my pensive moods this morning and a line from Wordsworth's "Ode: Intimations of Immortality From Recollections of Early Childhood" blew across my thoughts, as the line was connected to the chains my mind was piecing together. I decided to look the poem up and I found myself starting to feel sad upon reading the first lines of the first verse and grew even sadder as I moved onward...

There was a time when meadow, grove, and stream,
The earth, and every common sight,
To me did seem
Apparelled in celestial light,
The glory and the freshness of a dream.
It is not now as it hath been of yore;--
Turn wheresoe'er I may,
By night or day,
The things which I have seen I now can see no more...

Oh, to be a kid again! Adulthood is such a sad affair.

In the room, everyone was beautiful.
Silks rustled with tulle
and toad's skins
kept very quiet
under lavender and lily.

Harry, Harry

Once again, I must ask too much of you...

"Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" was a real winner. Kids probably won't enjoy it as much as they did the first couple of episodes, as this one is much, much darker. The themes it explores--and the way with which the movie is executed--are, decidedly, for the older crowd. A few have complained about its lack--well, compared to the first ones--of scoring and, dig this, "too much dialogue"! Whoa! So what were they expecting--all spells and fights and flying?! Exposition, folks, exposition!

There may be a few tears waiting to fall for the soft-hearted ones--I know I felt a lump in my throat in the movie's final scenes--and adults forcing themselves to "grow up, grow up!" might end up with some double-taking and mulling over to do. The magic of Harry Potter is that its magic almost always gets to people. Even non-fans have confessed to have been moved by it. Impeccable cinematography and an almost flawless casting are, of course, very essential pluses.

I heard the last book will be broken down to 2 movies. We have some waiting to do, then.

Meanwhile, let's all kindle that child-like belief in magic. I know it'll get us through the long wait.
;)

***

I'm glad to note that Roger Ebert who, so I'm told, is not really a Harry Potter Fan, still thinks it a good film. Click here to read his thoughts on it. I had to shake my head, though, when I read what he had to say about Daniel Radcliffe's acting, though he did have a point. Being "the chosen one" in the middle of such a powerful cast and standing up to the expectations coming with and tailing after such a role is a tall, tall, order.

So, if only for that, I'm completely with ya, Daniel.

Rewind

4 posts in close to 3 weeks. I definitely have some catching up to do.

The problem with Facebook is that it takes up too much of one's time and easily thwarts one's resolve to do other things, especially when one has low EQ, like me. I stare back at the days and think, but so much has happened and begin to wonder where to start stringing them into words and lines. Ugh. Problem.

But then again, one can always start where one is. And it just so happens that beside this window are 5 Facebook windows, each one opening to a different FB application, all with pending stuff--energy fill, time before one can work a job again, or harvest a crop, or stamina to fight. Heehee. So, it's all FB, FB, FB. One thing I've sworn off, though, is one game I used to be so addicted to, which is Bejeweled Blitz. I swear, I was on it for days and hours in a day. I grew cranky and impatient when each game gave me a paltry score, and angry whenever someone else beat me to a level, or several levels. Losing is not my forte. I am a sore loser. Well, at least, I'm admitting it. Right.

The same goes for arguments. Work is one of the best venues for sharpening one's arguing claws. Recently, I found myself in a 3-day battle of sides with someone who, so some have said, I was better off giving up on. And I was like, why? I saw no reason not to dig my heels just because people saw this person as someone not worth wasting one's time in pushing back on because he would never give in. I knew I had a point and I was determined to make it.

By the end of the third day, I found that my determination had paid off. I had him where I wanted, which was: on the ground where I stood. The cause I fought for were to benefit quite a number of people, and so we all shared the victory and its advantages.

Sweet. =)

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince: Darkening Themes

A student's blind faith in his mentor.
Unfathomable guilt that drives a man to tamper with his own memory for fear of discovery.
A villain's steady, gradual descent into darkness.
Trust and betrayal.
Death.

Still, in all of these: magic.

Go, watch.

Peer AJ was singing "Puff The Magic Dragon" the wrong way and I corrected him. I said,"it's "lived by the sea" not "living by the sea"". He, ever so stubborn, insisted it was "living" and not "lived".

My dad taught this song to me when I was a kid and I knew it well enough to stand my ground.

"Wanna bet on it?" I had my right eyebrow raised. A hundred, let's get it on. He pretty much just shrugged, looking up the lyrics on the net, then turning to me with a huge grin on his face and saying, with that annoyingly smug tone of his, "I am never wrong. Peter, Paul and Mary wrote the song wrong."

Hah.

Still, I won.
Heehee.

My Very Bad Habits:

1. wearing heels five days a week;
2. buying heeled shoes when I already have one too many;
3. playing Mafia Wars, Sorority Life, Farm Town, YoVille, and Barn Buddy on Facebook instead of sleeping (got dark circles around my eyes to show for it);
4. dwelling on a problem for too long (a peer once said, "anything that you let last for more than 5 minutes is self-inflicted");
5. drinking coffee in lieu of having a decent meal;
6. preferring Starbucks coffees over any other kind of coffee (bad to the wallet, tsk, tsk);
7. not saying "no" to what my darling kiddos want (bad, I know, but surely moms out there would understand);
8. grabbing a bag of chips every so often;
9. preening in public;
10. arguing for the sake of winning (especially when it's the male vs. female kind of debate hahahaha).

I'm spending too much time on Facebook. LOL.

What are your bad habits?
;)

I'm just saying.

If you don't know much about something, I say step down and stop pretending that you're an expert on that particular topic. You'll come out looking like a fool, honey, so just quit it. If you're gonna compare the Harry Potter series to "The Da Vinci Code" movie, I say, stop. It'd be like, well, putting a smocked bed spread beside a smocked pillow case and trying to decide which one is prettier. Saying that "The Da Vinci Code" is way better because it "tackles real life" (eww) and that the Harry Potter movies are corny because they are "unrealistic" is, like, duh, lady. Where've you been?

And to tell me that you have every right to give your opinion on the matter because you "studied literature for two years"? Come on. I'd bet my next pay check you didn't even pay attention to your English 1 class.

Pffftt.