Dear, dear Jim

I have just discovered, today, that James Merrill was a Pisces. He would have turned 84 this coming March 3rd.

from "The Broken Home":

A lead soldier guards my windowsill:
Khaki rifle, uniform, and face.
Something in me grows heavy, silvery, pliable.

How intensely people used to feel!
Like metal poured at the close of a proletarian novel,
Refined and glowing from the crucible,
I see those two hearts, I’m afraid,
Still..

and the final 5 lines, oh, what sharp sadness:

Under the ballroom ceiling’s allegory
Someone at last may actually be allowed
To learn something; or, from my window, cool
With the unstiflement of the entire story,
Watch a red setter stretch and sink in cloud.

Coming across this Randall Jarrell poem in my Post-War American Literature class in college forever sealed my fascination with fighter planes:

LOSSES

It was not dying: everybody died.
It was not dying: we had died before
In the routine crashes-- and our fields
Called up the papers, wrote home to our folks,
And the rates rose, all because of us.
We died on the wrong page of the almanac,
Scattered on mountains fifty miles away;
Diving on haystacks, fighting with a friend,
We blazed up on the lines we never saw.
We died like aunts or pets or foreigners.
(When we left high school nothing else had died
For us to figure we had died like.)

In our new planes, with our new crews, we bombed
The ranges by the desert or the shore,
Fired at towed targets, waited for our scores--
And turned into replacements and worke up
One morning, over England, operational.

It wasn't different: but if we died
It was not an accident but a mistake
(But an easy one for anyone to make.)
We read our mail and counted up our missions--
In bombers named for girls, we burned
The cities we had learned about in school--
Till our lives wore out; our bodies lay among
The people we had killed and never seen.
When we lasted long enough they gave us medals;
When we died they said, "Our casualties were low."

The said, "Here are the maps"; we burned the cities.

It was not dying --no, not ever dying;
But the night I died I dreamed that I was dead,
And the cities said to me: "Why are you dying?
We are satisfied, if you are; but why did I die?"

Mommy matters

I bought my daughter her second pair of gladiator sandals last Saturday. She loved them, of course--she seems to love everything I get for her. And she wore the new pink-and-brown semi-jumpsuit I got for her last week. I told her, "you're so pretty!" and she said, "you too, mommy!"

Asus. hee.

So, anyway, we spent one-fourth of Sunday afternoon singing to Miley's "Party in the USA" at our favorite Starbucks. In as much as I want her to be all Broadway-ish and pop-free--I stuffed her mp3 player with Broadway and musical tunes--I am aware that my daughter is a kid and that she does, and would eventually, hear pop all over and would pick out ones that she likes, no matter how I try to "educate" her on what's good music and what's not. This is not to say that pop is bad, per se, though the kiddie pop nowadays can be irritatingly, well, pop (yeah, yeah, too many pops right there). And "Party in the USA" is quite catchy and "sing-able", I have to admit. So, I guess that's not too bad.

I'm debating with myself whether or not to teach her Tori Amos, Aimee Mann and the other angry female musicians (when she gets older, of course). I wouldn't trade them for Rihanna, et al, but I'm not altogether sure if my daughter would benefit from all that "angriness."

But, let's see. Jackie's only 10, anyway. Let the kids have fun. Miley could only do so much damage.

I hope.

You know how there are topics that we avoid, words, even, or names that we try so hard not to utter in conversations, both with someone else and with ourselves, or else the pain will seep through us, just like that, and totally water down our soldered brace on reason, and make hash of whatever semblance of cheerfulness we may have been feigning, for the longest time?

From the weekend couch:

How quickly we size each other up.

But if I ever found myself where you are now, would I be able to stand up and move forward?

And do you think you could retrace the steps I took--without bitterness, without self-reproach--before I reached this spot?

from "The Flower Girls That We Were"

And the snapshots, of course.

The times that I looked at the ten or so pictures which my mom put in an album, my mind registered a blank, and I drew up more questions than answers: Why was I frowning all the time? Were the flowers in my basket real or not? How did I feel, sitting there on the pew with the other white-clad flower girls? Why did I look so anxious, while they seemed so much at ease?

Looking at the photos felt a little strange, as I did not have any actual memory of them ever happening. I did not recall how it was to be wearing the white, boat-necked, ankle-length dress, bare except for a wide orange sash tied around its waist; or how the headpiece made of orange flowers felt on my head.

It was my aunt's wedding, but I did not remember being aware of that, or of anything at all. The orange and white-colored flowers arranged along the pews did not look familiar. I did not remember seeing my Auntie Nene so young, so vibrant in her white gown; looking dazed with happiness, sitting there across the altar with her equally young groom, an ineffable smile spilling from her lips. Neither did I recall my uncle to be half as handsome as he was in his medal-festooned, white military suit. Did they, on the other hand, remember the whole thing—from beginning to end—it being their wedding and all?

I didn’t know.


Running my eyes over the photos, I remembered the things my parents had told me about each frame; and, in time, I began to gather a sense of familiarity, somehow, of the captured portraits. Still, it was different from having an actual memory to anchor the familiarity on. Somewhere between the pictures and my eyes, there always seemed to be a hollow that would have only been filled by memory itself. I looked at each snapshot with a perceptible lack of emotional response, except for something akin to regret—regret that I would never be able to say the words, “I remember.”

-March, 2004, CW 141/ Creative Nonfiction 2-

I have measured out my life with coffee spoons. -T.S. Eliot-

Last Saturday, I received what was probably one of the best news via text message that I've gotten in a long, long while:

AN ENTIRE WEEK OF FREE COFFEE FROM STARBUCKS!!!


Life is great!


Cheers, darlings! I leave you with this very amusing attempt at balladry by some anonymous chap (or girl, for that matter):

Caffeine is my shepherd; I shall not doze.
It maketh me to wake in green pastures:
It leadeth me beyond the sleeping masses.
It restoreth my buzz:
It leadeth me in the paths of consciousness for its name's sake.
Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of addiction,
I will fear no Equal™:
For thou art with me; thy cream and thy sugar they comfort me.
Thou preparest a carafe before me in the presence of The Starbucks:
Thou anointest my day with pep; my mug runneth over.
Surely richness and taste shall follow me all the days of my life:
And I will dwell in the House of Mochas forever.
(source: quotegarden.com)

The beautiful and the odd

...and i knew then it would be
a life long thing
but i didn't know that we
we could break a silver lining

and i'm so sad
like a good book
i can't put this day back
a sorta fairytale
with you

*vid from youtube

The Way I Am (Ingrid Michaelson)

If you were falling, then I would catch you
You need a light, I'd find a match

Cuz I love the way you say good morning
And you take me the way I am

If you are chilly, here take my sweater
Your head is aching; I'll make it better

Cuz I love the way you call me baby
And you take me the way I am

I'd buy you Rogaine when you start losing all your hair
Sew on patches to all you tear

Cuz I love you more than I could ever promise
And you take me the way I am
You take me the way I am
You take me the way I am

*vid from youtube

Outside, the drowsy twilight

scatters shadows on the streets:
a tree here a bramble there and shrubs

or someone walking--

If we didn't try hard enough

to fill our days with something, some thing, anything--

did we waste time?

Story excerpt turned sudden fiction:

Then there was that time when she, thirteen years old and sulking, refused to eat her meals but for a few bites, staring, instead, out the window and into the street, watching the neighborhood kids playing Patintero. She nibbled incessantly on her fingernails as she listened to a Kiri Te Kenawa selection over and over again, dark circles around her eyes for lack of sleep.

Her father started worrying.

“Don’t mind her. Just some growing pains, I’m sure. She’ll snap out of it soon enough,” Lola Amparing said, looking thoughtfully at her granddaughter, her mind turning like wheels.

That night, Stella found herself drinking—not too willingly—a colorless, bitter liquid, which her Lola Amparing had told her to take.

“That will do you a world of good, believe me. So drink. I don’t want a drop left in that glass, you hear me?”

Stella did as she was told, after little resistance. After the first taste, she grimaced, then finished the rest in one big gulp. She was not one to disobey her elders, and neither was her Lola one to take “no” for an answer.

She went to bed with a bitter aftertaste clinging stubbornly to her tongue. She fell asleep almost the same instant as when her cheek touched the pillow; and the face of the handsome, slightly rugged boy that had stuck itself to her mind for weeks quietly detached itself like a piece of yellowing leaf, blown away by some mysterious wind.

Basic Multiple Choice

Choose the best answer:
a) be happy
b) sulk

Run, Run, Run.

My dad called me up a couple of days ago to remind me of how sedentary my lifestyle is--up to and including the nature of my work--and the dangers that come with it (high blood pressure and other cardiovascular-related diseases). It was stating the obvious, but being a parent, he told me that I needed to have some exercise routine that would alleviate the height of the risks. He reminded me, too, that I had medical insurance that I should be taking advantage of. "When was the last time you had a general check-up?" he asked me. Silence. I couldn't remember the last time I had one.

And, of course, he had to add, "how old are you? thirty?" And I was, like, "Daddy! 29 pa lang!" He chuckled. Well, technically, I am only 29 years old. Until March. Grrrr.

And so, yesterday, I ran. This morning, I ran, too. The thing about running is that once you get started, you can't stop. I just wish I had more time. I'm making it a resolution to run at least 3 days a week--that's Friday, Saturday and Sunday. A friend made me try that Wii exercise thing, but I stopped five minutes after trying it; I couldn't wait to go out into the twilight and catch some evening breeze. My legs and feet itched for activity.

Yeah, nothing beats the real thing. As early as now, I can already feel the effects: I feel less drowsy, readier to do things.

Yep, dads always know best. =)

Have a great Sunday!

Browsing...

How cheerless are these lines?

The rain is falling and it is awfully dark outside. It’s two forty in the afternoon and yet it seems like twilight. There is a congruence to the words twilight and gloom.
Loneliness is a terrible thing. It makes the soul shrink unto itself, like there’s nowhere else to go except inwards, and one does not know what one will find there. Lonely. There is a sense of finality in the letters, as if there is nothing in between them, not even shadows. Just nothing. (July, '05)

or these:

But loneliness. It is twilight, and then the darkness that comes after twilight. It goes away, but is certain to come back. Daylight obscures it, but only for so long.
It is part of, if not the, landscape.
Loneliness, I have to confess, has become one of my favorite words.(July, '05)

Even the description of Maria Callas' singing does not escape the dismals:

...and yet, ultimately, its greatest achievement is that it is able to touch the core of one’s humanity, to stir dormant feelings of sadness, whose cause one can’t seem to trace, exactly. It is, I believe, the primeval sense of loneliness that lives in each of us, and it is this that “La Mamma Morta” gropes around for, and then raises for us to see, if not to acknowledge. (July, '07)

And then add this to the dreariness:

I have long ago taught myself, little by little, to close myself into a bud whenever I feel the threat of pain. (July, '07)

But wait, there's more:

We feel the gargantuan pain (and we're talking physical pain) shooting up from the chest to the throat and we push, push it downwards so that the effort makes breathing difficult that tears start to well up in the eyes. But we don't stop until we know for sure that we've dug deep enough to bury the scream. And, with it, the pain. (January, '08)

Sheesh. I'm glad to have outgrown those.

Or, I hope I have.

His Ardent Heart

from NewYorker.Com:
Critics fretted about the growing self-enclosure of Salinger’s work, about a faith in his characters’ importance that sometimes seemed to make a religion of them. But the isolation of his later decades should not be allowed to obscure his essential gift for joy. The message of his writing was always the same: that, amid the malice and falseness of social life, redemption rises from clear speech and childlike enchantment, from all the forms of unself-conscious innocence that still surround us (with the hovering unease that one might mistake emptiness for innocence, as Seymour seems to have done with his Muriel). It resides in the particular things that he delighted to record. In memory, his writing is a catalogue of those moments: Esmé’s letter and her broken watch; and the little girl with the dachshund that leaps up on Park Avenue, in “Zooey”; and the record of “Little Shirley Beans” that Holden buys for Phoebe (and then sees break on the pavement); and Phoebe’s coat spinning on the carrousel at twilight in the December light of Central Park; and the Easter chick left in the wastebasket at the end of “Just Before the War with the Eskimos”; and Buddy, at the magic twilight hour in New York, after learning from Seymour how to play Zen marbles (“Could you try not aiming so much?”), running to get Louis Sherry ice cream, only to be overtaken by his brother; and the small girl on the plane who turns her doll’s head around to look at Seymour. That these things were not in themselves quite enough to hold Seymour on this planet—or enough, it seems, at times, to hold his creator entirely here, either—does not diminish the beauty of their realization. In “Seymour: An Introduction,” Seymour, thinking of van Gogh, tells Buddy that the only question worth asking about a writer is “Were most of your stars out?” Writing, real writing, is done not from some seat of fussy moral judgment but with the eye and ear and heart; no American writer will ever have a more alert ear, a more attentive eye, or a more ardent heart than his. ♦

-J. D. SALINGER by Adam Gopnik-

So I putter

In some subliminal effort to get to the next page, or step into that twelve-or-forty-eight--hours-later moment, we fidget and tinker and blur our way into one long, hazy series of staccatos.

As if it would matter how we get there. As if it would cross our minds how precious energy and even more precious time are wasted in the getting-there.

Has it ever? Crossed your mind? If so, what did you do?

I had always gone on. Stopping would have meant becoming entangled in my whirl of things, tangible and otherwise.

It would have escaped me, altogether, how it is to come back.

So, move. Move.

March Me Up

I love marching bands. They make me happy.

And, oh, yeah: the louder, the better. I especially love the tuba; it's quite magnificent.

Yesterday was a reversal of roles as my 8-year-old son covered his ears with his hands because the marching band passing us by was "too loud" and I, I couldn't stop my feet from stomping to their music. Heck, I had to stop myself from marching alongside them!
=D

Have an awesome February!

*photo source*

On Women and Drugstores

So, Kathryn Bigelow has edged out ex-hubby James Cameron for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Saturday's Directors' Guild Awards. Woman has once more triumphed over man. (Evil laugh).

I don't know if you'd understand, but realizing that I'd already seen all five nominees gave me a fuzzy, giddy feeling.

I know, I know. I'm bragging. Sorry.

Anyway.

I went to the drugstore today--Watson's, to be exact, where I bought half a basket of goodies (toothpaste, conditioner, etc.) and took my sweet time scouring the make-up section for the perfect shade of brown eye-liner.

I love drugstores. I really do.

What is it with women and drugstores? Like, what is it with women and groceries? Although the two aren't as similar as one might think, in that the latter has something to do with that more quotidian, obligatory quest for the utilitarian whereas the former is more of like a leisurely stroll--shears in gloved hand, ready to nip the blooms of one's choice--along some sunlit garden where all sorts of flowers grow in abundance.


But what is it with women and bombs? That would take a separate entry to discuss, I think. In the mean time, I suggest you watch Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker." An answer should be there, somewhere.

Yup. It should be there.

Rise Up, Little Sistah...

You gotta rise up, little sister
Turn on the light
Wise up to the stories you've been told
'Cause love don't come in black or white
No no no no.
-Diane Birch, "Rise Up"-

*video from here.

Despondency always arrives unannounced.

But why does it need to come, at all, in the first place? And for no apparent reason? Or does this happen only to some people? You know, the ones with certain personality traits that make them baits for its hook, like those possessed of some, or all, kinds of neuroses, heavy to moderate angst supply, or some kind--distant relative, even--of artistic temperament, if you will.

You know how it is, when a host of negative thoughts and anxieties suddenly descend upon your hapless little brain and decide to stay for some time and you're left with the task of entertaining said host and you, frowning as you do, would be side-tracked long enough to stop and question the sense of what you are doing.

Yeah, that sort of thing.

And it's exactly the kind of thing that would make you want to turn your back on everything--up to and including what, or who, is in front of you right then--and run off to build a little cottage in some hill-surrounded clearing where all you'll have to deal with are your cat, the laundry and your adobo.

How convenient that it should come now, I mean, with J.D.'s passing away, and all. Not that they're in any way connected to each other, heavens, no. How presumptuous--and downright rude--of me if that were true, or if I allowed myself to think that that was so. So, no. The thought just crossed the writing of this post, that's all.

Oh, to be a hermit.

The thought seems tempting enough. Can't blame the fella.

The Wisdom of CoCo

All I ask of you is one thing: please don't be cynical. I hate cynicism- it's my least favorite quality and it doesn't lead anywhere.
Nobody in life gets exactly what they thought they were going to get. But if you work really hard and you're kind, amazing things will happen.

-Conan O'Brien "The Tonight Show" farewell speech-

Farewell, JD.

Jerome David Salinger, January 1, 1919 – January 27, 2010:
Literary giant, Holden Caulfield's creator, recluse, icon.

Read the story here.

My dad

is really something else.

We were texting just this afternoon and I was telling him about my unusually busy (not that it's ever been not busy, just that it's been especially busy) and colorful week at work and he told me that he had just dismissed the foreman of the team of builders working on the new house because said foreman was reporting to work inebriated (which is, come to think of it, ground for termination). My dad is now acting as foreman. I have no idea what it is that a foreman does. But, there.

In my mind, I was, like, sheesh, Daddy, is there anything you can't do?

See, my dad is sort of a jack-of-all-trades, an all-around kind of guy, cosmopolitan, if you will, doing a little bit of this and that and everything else.

I remember being a first or second-grader and seeing the plan my dad had drawn of the house he was having built (which was ours). Awed, I asked him, "Daddy, did you draw this? You're goooood!" Even as a child, I was already a doting fan.

A few years back, when Friendster was still the "in" thing, I remember writing in my profile: "My dad is the one man whom I measure all other men against."

The loot: Erstwhile stage actor, Fisheries grad, one-time teacher, competent banker, talented singer/musician (he sings and plays the keyboards in his rock band and the church choir and he plays the guitar, too), architect/engineer, contractor, real estate broker, interior designer, Ping-pong champ, dancer, Art aficionado, guidance counselor, loving husband to my mom, wonderful, wonderful father to his three proud, adoring kids, and my steadfast saving grace.

Whew.

I told him, "Daddy, you are one tough act to follow."

And he is. He really is.

I don't think any other kind of worry can equal that of a mother's for her sick child.

Thank you, God, for making Kim well.

It's Twilight, That's Why

"And if, by chance, that special place that you've been dreaming of leads you to a lonely place, find your strength in love." -from "The Greatest Love Of All" written by Michael Masser and Linda Creed-

I was raised in fairy tales. From what I could remember, the people around me had always done their best to protect me. I grew up thinking the world a good place and this, perhaps, was what made me fodder for the wolves.

And when I went out on my own, I found out that people and places and things weren't at all as good as I was taught they were.

And so I broke. Into pieces. And I wished that I'd been shown the blacks and the grays as much as the pinks and the whites. I cried and mourned for the self that I saw, scattered in fragments across my eyes. I realized: They were wrong. Love was not all.

But it came to pass that what gathered me back into wholeness was the love that I knew I always had, the love I realized I had never lost, the love that the people who loved me had to show me was there, all along, so that I would find the strength to keep on wanting to be whole.

In the end, it was the belief in goodness which I thought had betrayed me that saved my life, after all.

Dad, Mom, Ma, Earl, Otom, Jackie, Kim, M -- Thank you for the love that keeps me going each day.

I'm so senti today. Been crying at the slightest provocation (like hearing "The Greatest Love Of All" after a million years).

It's twilight pa.
Hay.

From The Weekend Couch

He's a Libra

This morning, I woke up with a headache, probably because I've been sleeping piecemeal for the past two days. I should probably hydrate.

Yup, I should.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching Jason Reitman's "Thank You For Smoking". This kid (he's 32) has got loads of talent! So far, he hasn't let me down, not with this one, "Juno" or "Up In The Air".

That's all I got for today. Haven't even had lunch or breakfast yet.

Will be watching "Fargo" later.

One of the Butterflies - by W. S. Merwin -

The trouble with pleasure is the timing
it can overtake me without warning
and be gone before I know it is here
it can stand facing me unrecognized
while I am remembering somewhere else
in another age or someone not seen
for years and never to be seen again
in this world and it seems that I cherish
only now a joy I was not aware of
when it was here although it remains
out of reach and will not be caught or named
or called back and if I could make it stay
as I want to it would turn to pain.

I found this poem in Jonathan Carroll's blog. Such sad lines. It's painful, the truths they carry.

Hay.
*sniff sniff*

Found:

Rickie Lee Jones: Pirates, 1981
Thanks, Mr. K!

So, Kathryn Bigelow is James Cameron's ex-wife. Interesting fact. Guess too much genius does split a unit into two.

Anyway, had an interesting conversation with a friend today, over coffee and after-work relief. Don't you feel lucky to have people to talk to, just because? I do. And this after years of self-inflicted isolation inside sturdy walls, built with much care, one gray brick after the other. What a relief it is to realize that once the teenage angst and the depression of my early twenties had crumbled down, so did those walls. Once in a while, I do find myself feeling the urge to put them back up, brick after brick--but only once in a while. And I always find myself stopping half-way. There's almost always something that distracts me.

(End of speech and cheese)

Been raving about "Avatar" this week. I'm not a fan of Sci-Fi (both film and Lit--I hated my College Sci-Fi class so much, I built walls around me the whole semester), but this movie grabbed me and grabbed me hard.

Oh, hey, I ended up circling back to James Cameron (sans Kathryn B.), after all. Completely unintentional, thank you.

Have a great afternoon ahead.

Found:

I am beginning to hate empty spaces--

--blanknesses that stretch into miles, empty silences that roll upward to crests and fall down to plateaus, ending in emptiness, always emptiness, never-ending.

...
Empty spaces are blank canvasses for what's no longer there.
And silence is an empty space.

I remember punching holes into the air

500 Days of Bummer

A lot of folks who saw "500 Days of Summer" had said it was a great movie. I had little motivation to catch it, but since its fame had spread through word-of-mouth and facebook, I thought, why the hell not.

So I gave it a try.

And I'm glad I did, not because I liked it, but because it added something to my small cache of film wisdom: mainly, it added points in my list of the ingredients of a bad movie.

In short, I was disappointed.

I think the movie had something to say, you know, all that shit about how we are all products of our upbringing and how our ideologies (which we might have carried with us for most of our lives) can be shattered by one brief, shining crash to the earth. The message being a cliche, there was more pressure on the part of the film-makers to make sure that the delivery was thorough.

As it turned out, there was a total lack of character development and the plot didn't make much for credibility. The script was, well, nondescript (beats the shit out of me why it's a front runner in the Oscars screenplay department--or so I've been told), short of like telling the viewer, hey, you're smart, you should be able to get it, we're even giving it a different spin (you know, that whole rewind/fast-forward thingie they did with the plot) and spicing it up with references to cool stuff like "The Graduate" and Dorian Gray (what was it doing there, anyway? Were we given any prior indication that Summer even read, in the first place?) and sprinkling the scenes with a good playlist (The Pixies, Regina Spektor, Carla Bruni), short of having that Tom guy say, "hey, I like cool stuff, I'm a cool guy, so you better think I'm cool and this movie, cool!"

To put it in a clam shell, this movie ends up undermining the audience's intelligence, and I hate movies that do just that.

Plus, it tries too hard to be cute, though its many attempts at cuteness--far too many, I have to say--end up streaking the place with 500 mismatched shades of mediocrity.

And that whole "Autumn" thing at the end? That was the last nail on the movie's coffin. Made me want to throw up.

Up in The Air

There are movies that make you roll over with laughter, movies that make you bawl like a baby or weep like a young boy whose heart was broken by his first love, movies that make you swear under, or over your breath.

"Up in the Air" does none of those.

What it does is leave you with that nameless emotion slowly but surely tugging at your heart and prodding you to get on your feet to look for, or go to the people you love and give them a tight hug and tell them how much you love them and appreciate their presence in your life. Yeah, that cheesy sort of thing, you might say. But cheesy is as cheesy gets because when it comes to the people we value, there can be no such thing as saying "I love you" too much because there is no telling--it'll be completely beyond us--until when anything can, and will last.

The tragedy of being human is that we do not know. So, yeah, go and give your pa a hug, your mom a peck on the cheek, your friend a slap on the back, your dog a bone.

Before the moment goes up in the air, before it's too late for regrets, before the intention to appreciate gets rendered hopeless because either you, them, or the moment, has gone away.

And away is seldom a happy place.

And, sitting there in the middle of that crowded cafe,

you are brought out of your invisible bubble and the jarring din of the people around you rushes into your quiet like a sudden stream.

Just like that.

Looking at the face of the watch resting on your left wrist, you realize it's been almost an hour since you sat down and started reading the book of poems you had impulsively bought from the nearby bookstore and you think, you wonder, what power of self-containment was it that enabled you to shut everything--the drone of voices, the sundry, small human movements, the afternoon heat, the forgotten cup of coffee, the discomfort of staying in one position for a certain length of time--out and get lost in the words, the lines, the stanzas on the pages of the book on your lap? What sort of self-centeredness? What selfishness? What apathy? What trick learned from childhood? What sorcery?

Sign of the times: letters blooming on a screen

me: can you give me a moment?
friend: A moment to what?
me: A thought just occurred to me which I think is worth typing down.
friend: Ok.

whatever happened to "worth writing down?"


William Shakespeare's handwriting

Lola Coqueta (2009)

I held the glossy in my hand and pursed my lips, thinking, wouldn't I be better off buying a book of poems, instead?

I spent the rest of the afternoon reading this:


A worthwhile read, for only PHP150. The glossy was priced the same.
I'm glad I chose to buy what I did.
=)

Keeping Up With Ebert

Reading Roger Ebert's Best Films of The Decade and seeing Kathryn Bigelow's "The Hurt Locker" (2009) in the list (in the number 2 spot, to be precise) recalls to my mind a conversation I recently had with my brother. He was asking me why I liked "The Hurt Locker" so much. Going into know-it-all mode, I launched into a tirade about how the movie's plot didn't really seem linear, therefore it was different and I liked things that weren't part of the bandwagon, how the focus was mainly on the character and how everything else was built around his motivations, etc. I ended my little spiel with "did you know that it was directed by a woman?" He was surprised (funny and sad that it still surprises people that women can be as good as men, if not better). But I preferred to think that what induced the reaction was the fact that the movie was really what one might call a "guy movie", but then, again, this is another problematic statement, which can be problematized in a number of ways, but which I will not launch into for fear of further digressing from the topic, which is Roger Ebert's best films of the decade.

Whew.

Okay.

So, anyway, Roger Ebert being who he is, it pleased me to note that I had seen quite a number of the films on his list, a few of which I had written about--or,at least, made some quick post--in this blog. Let's see, so Jason Reitman's "Juno" (2007) was there and so was Spike Jonze's "Adaptation" (2002). The Coen Brothers' "No Country For Old Men" (2007) got a spot. Guillermo Del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" (2006) made it, too.

Hmm? What was that? Oh, yeah, his top movie of the decade was Charlie Kaufman's "Synechdoche, New York" (2008) which inspired this conversation between a geek friend and I.

I should remind myself to come up with my own list. Hmm. Wheels in the mind turning...

Here's to more good films for you and me...
Cheers!

First book I'll be reading this year:

(published 1997)

Come in, 2010

I spent New Year at work, and, in that respect, at least, it was no different from last year.

Otherwise, things were better.

You know that lightness of being (which was in no way unbearable, by the way) that people have when they're happy? I felt that. The last New Year I remember feeling that way was when I was a small kid. Long time ago. You know, all wide-eyed and bright-eyed and content and excited, at the same time? It felt good to be my age and feel good and actually look forward to the coming year.

Wishing you that lightness of being, too.


Happy New Year, reader. Things will be better, you'll see.
=)

Sleeplessness.
Desire(s) translated into restlessness. Or, that which is untranslated into the fulfillment of said desire(s).

For time to run faster so that the next task can be worked at and accomplished; for the object of one's affection (a dress? a goal? a woman? a man?) to be within one's sight; for time to unravel, unravel because time spent in sleep is--or seems to be--stationary, and lack of movement is desire fulfilled.

Whereas our nature requires movement. How contradictory, this raison d'etre.

Sleeplessness. Desire unfulfilled. Movement.

Toss, turn.

Racing to the 24th

I did my Christmas shopping quite late this year. Compared to last year, I did not spend as much time scouring shops for gifts for family and friends; mainly, I guess, because I already knew what to get for each.

Traffic was a headache today. I mean, it's usually heavy Fridays, but the jams I found myself in earlier this evening were horrendous. Lines in front of ATMs were eyesore-long. The mall I went to was thronged by on-the-go shoppers.

Looks like most of us were--and still are--caught in the holiday rush.

How's your Christmas rush going?

You know how it is

...when the hours and the days drift by like never-ending seas of curtains and you barely have a moment to blink and realize that they are actually unfolding before your eyes because the only thing you know is that you're there, watching, and not noticing that the curtains are not only moving but are really changing color, too?

The past several days have been like that. As usual, there's comfort in cliches, so, yes, the days have flown so swiftly by with the breeze, and the chore of having to step back and retrace one's whereabouts from the starting point of choice, up to the mark one has drawn between the step before the finish line and the actual finish line, seems a needless one, one might say, because something always seems to get lost in the retelling.

Or is something gained, instead?


I am going home soon--in less than two days, as a matter of fact. Probably explains all the breeziness.

Imogen Heap: "Ellipse"

Released: 2009
My favorite tracks: "Half Life", "Between Sheets", "First Train Out", and "Bad Body Double"

Imogen Heap turns 32 today.

But that is not the subject of this post; though this doesn't mean that the statement above isn't true.

Okay, okay, start over.

Imogen Heap turns 32 today.

...the sweeping insensitivity of this still-life.

Ransom notes keep falling out your mouth.
Mid-sweet talk, newspaper word cut-outs.
Speak no feeling, no I don't believe you.
You don't care a bit. You don't care a bit.

-Imogen Heap, "Hide and Seek"-

*Watch the video here.

My favorite tracks: "Hide and Seek", "Headlock", "Goodnight and Go", "Have You Got it in You?", "Loose Ends", and "The Moment I Said It".

And if I could sing myself a merry little tune

...I'd be fine.

It was the saddest thing. As I and a friend were walking in the mall just last week, my mind's eye captured the sights and sounds of the holiday cheer--the glitter, the carols, the laughter, the reds, the yellows, the greens--and I thought, all these will be gone before we know it. I looked around and saw lights disappearing into the air, saw the dying smiles on folks' faces.

I shook myself out of it.

Brr. It's been awfully cold, lately.