‎"Set your life on fire. 
Seek those who 
fan your flames."
- Rumi

A strange lot

Funny habits of famous authors

Truman Capote

and 15 Writers' Bedrooms

via Apartmenttherapy.com

Sylvia Plath's bedroom

found on (where else?) Twitter

=)

Gandhi's Top 10 Fundamentals For Changing The World

via Explore

From thin air

March 17, 2012

2:01 a.m. 

Training room

Desultory thoughts

Your penmanship has changed 6 times on this page. You are a fickle-minded person, unreliable in relationships, you cannot be trusted. Your decisions change 47 times in a minute.

The person sitting at the corner of the room has been nodding off to sleep in the past hour.

The person speaking (who is very animated) has failed to rouse him from his journey to dreamland.

The person at the other corner of the room is also trying his best to keep his eyes open.

You smile. At 2:00 in the morning, can one expect less?

Population in the room: female-dominated.

There is an overpowering mix of scents. Woody, floral, fruity. 

You wonder about your perfume.

The table in the middle. Tumblers, coffee mugs, plastic bottles. Water, coffee, fruit juice.

Half-empty, half-full, empty, full.

The dominant colors are pink and black. Only one female is wearing a dress. The rest are in jeans, pants, trousers. You think of Celie from The Color Purple.

You remember that you have a meeting to attend in the next room. And the session here is only half-way done. 

Unearthed from your locker from the random security check of two hours ago: two empty bottles of perfume, an old scarf, your favorite mug (forgotten), your running shoes, three key chains (a bear, an orange, a red boot), two stress balls (one covered with writing).

Your coffee has grown cold.

Towards the end of the lecture, you suddenly remember your grandma.

You become sad.

Goobye, Adrienne Rich

Tonight, an August night, feeling
the apples yellow as young moons
on the tree behind the house,
I think of my winter—
- "The Corpse-Plant"
Adrienne Rich 
May 16, 1929 - March 28, 2012

Coffee

via Explore

Macy Gray, Covered

2012

Ms. Gray's "Covered" is definitely a whole crew of well-diffused sound waves. The perfect soundtrack for a 5:00-in-the-afternoon coffee shop meet-up with your quirkiest friends, or an early evening jaunt to some little-known, kitschy bar (again, with your quirkiest friends).

My favorites are: "Nothing Else Matters" (Metallica); "Wake Up" (Arcade Fire); "Love lockdown" (Kanye West); "Smoke Two Joints" (The Toyes); and "Maps" (Yeah Yeah Yeahs).

I'm not too crazy about "Bubbly" (Colby Caillat), and Radiohead's "Creep" has been covered enough times (my fave is Damien Rice's), but Ms. Gray still pulls off the dark charm and is able to put her spin on 'em.

Two thumbs up. Plus a glass of tequila rose on the side, if you will.
=)

The Decemberists - Down By The Water

"The season rubs me wrong/ the summer swells anon..."

via brainpickings

Blanks and blues

on random things and loneliness

The dust keeps settling too nicely on the floor. And now I need to wipe them off my books. I ask myself how it is that I keep forgetting, when I keep reminding myself to bring that notebook everywhere, but it's a lie. I often forget to remind myself. The thought seldom crosses my mind. But today I will put it in my bag and have it dig a snug space in my bag. 

Later, yes. 

I have just committed the sin of looking back at what I have written. I shouldn't have done it. But what gives, when this space is so tiny, the ceiling, not high enough? No matter, I have enough space inside to put things in, though there isn't much headroom for memories as there is for listlessness. 

Time, I steal--because I have to, because I want to. Twice, during the last eleven seconds, I typed spave, instead of space. 

Let's see:

It's March and yet much rain has already fallen. What is the world coming to? There isn't much to be seen where I am. There never is, but how come I see so much?

How many sunsets more?

Cohere

"Life is a sum of all your choices. So, what are you doing today?"
- Albert Camus

"Sometimes, from sorrow, for no reason,
you sing. For no reason, you accept
the way of being lost, cutting loose
from all else and electing a world
where you go where you want to."
- William Stafford

"I still feel kind of temporary about myself."
- Arthur Miller, "Death of A Salesman"

"In many shamanic societies, if you came to a medicine person complaining of being disheartened, dispirited, or depressed, they would ask one of four questions. When did you stop dancing? When did you stop singing? When did you stop being enchanted by stories? When did you stop finding comfort in the sweet territory of silence?"
- Gabrielle Rothou

"Your sorrow is an infinite circle
that never begins and never ends."
- Nicanor Parra

"Each time you happen to me all over again."
- Edith Wharton

Always, Daphne.

It never ends.

Ah, daylight. Early morning, to be a bit more specific. Exact time, not important. The mildness that brushes everything is what matters: the lack of glare, the expectant coffee cup, the stirring households, the dew on the leaves, the distance from darkness. The newness of the day comforts the mind, that just an hour ago had been at odds with the unfriendly shade of dusk.

"We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it."
-Rainer Maria Rilke

This morning's Facebook status:

Conversations with my daughter are almost always sprinkled with her exclaiming (with those animated, beautiful eyes of hers), "Mommy I took so much after you!" And this is from all sorts of things, from outlook in life, to fashion sense, to socio-political view, to artistic elitism, to shoe choice, etc. My dear Jackie, Mommy's wish for you, among so many others, is that you would not have the sadnesses she's had, and that you would not make the wrong choices she's made. (teary-eyed, sniff sniff)

Lit Geek update:

What I'm reading now:

John Fowles, A Maggot, 1985
his last work of fiction

After the novels, after the teacups.../

To lead you to an overwhelming question...

Oh, do not ask, "What is it?

- T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

And if I were to be asked about it, I probably wouldn't know what to say.

The heart unknowingly pushes down names, thoughts, entire sentences of long scripts. Memory fades at desire's ferocity. And if it is forgetting which the heart decides on, surely, it can be done.

There are four corners to the typical room. More, to the unconventional ones. The outdoors can be limitless. There is so much space for the mind to roam in. The inanity of insistence at the same spot, of knocking on the same shut door, does not, and will not, make much sense to the remote, impervious day-after.

Unless pointlessness is what the heart is after. Unless it is pain that makes more sense? For, after all, the glory of torment has been much written about, and much fuss has been made out of its necessity.

But none of that for me, now, please.

I'd much prefer not digging at what is no longer there.

And indeed there will be time For the yellow smoke that slides along the street, Rubbing its back upon the window panes;     There will be time, there will be time -T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

*title of post borrowed from T.S. Eliot

#19. Accept loss forever.

Jack Kerouac's "30 Cool Tips"

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy
2. Submissive to everything, open, listening
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from bottom of the mind
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual
10. No time for poetry but exactly what is
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monolog
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement for yourself
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in language sea
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in mind
22. Don't think of words when you stop but to see picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language & knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In praise of Character in the Bleak inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You're a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored & Angeled in Heaven

via Dodo Dayao.

Follow me on Twitter:

                                                     https://twitter.com/#!/chansonata

Minimalist has never been this cute!

I found this wonderful little link over at writer Maria Popova's twitter. Designer Christian Jackson created a series of minimalist posters for popular children's books. Such whimsy and delight!

Here are a few examples of his works:

=)

A Panorama of ‘Middlemarch’

A Panorama of ‘Middlemarch’

from the weekend couch:

Oh, Miles!

You fill my heart with joy. You're the best companion to anywhere and anything.
Don't you ever go away.

Every time we say goodbye, I die a little
Every time we say goodbye, I wonder why a little
Why the Gods above me, who must be in the know
Think so little to me, they allow you to go 
- Cole Porter, "Everytime We Say Goodbye"

It's Sunday morning, again. Still dark outside, and here, too. I will not look for where the sun will soon rise, do not care for that sliver of light heralding dawn. No, none of that for me.

Ella is crooning in the background, and Neil, singing along with her.

What sad thoughts fill the mind.

And would it have been worth it, after all, 
After the cups, the marmalade, the tea, 
Among the porcelain, among some talk of you and me, 
Would it have been worth while, 
To have bitten off the matter with a smile, 

- T.S. Eliot, "The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock"

Your promises:

lackluster, empty,
as brittle as your will,
dust in my hands.

I dust off my hands.

“Your love should never be offered to the mouth of a stranger, Only to someone Who has the valor and daring To cut pieces of their soul off with a knife Then weave them into a blanket To protect you.”


- Hafiz

This is me, still.

When I bristle, my forehead still distorts itself into impossible lines.
When I feel the lines carving themselves into my forehead, a friend always still manages to smooth them out.
When twilight comes, the impending dark still doesn't present itself to me as something innocuous.
When I think of hunger, I still fumble for noodles.
When it gets too cold, my skin still breaks out into rashes.
When there is a note that seems especially daunting, I still don't try to reach it.
When the cash in my wallet starts to thin out, I still manage to pluck out a bill and spend it on fruit shake.
When I get really angry, I still find my throat constricting itself into a tight little knot.
When I lose my way, I still always find my way back home.
When I find myself back home, I always still turn all the lights on.
When sleep eludes me, I still turn to Joni Mitchell for solace.
When Joni Mitchell fails to lull me, Miles Davis still always saves the day.
When the coffee gets cold, I still throw it away.
When I throw cold coffee away, I still feel sorry for having to throw it away.
When I finally decide to watch a movie, something or another still somehow manages to keep me from it.
When I get bored, I still find my gaze landing on my books.
When I open a book to read, I still fall asleep on the seventh page.
When my eyes begin to droop, I still could never remember where I put the bookmark.
When I fail to find a bookmark, I still find myself dog-earring the page I'm about to fall asleep on.

Finally, the denouement to the crest, the crescendos flocking towards stillness, the pieces falling back into place.

It didn't seem possible, after what seemed like an endless stretch of chaos, noise, confusion. But here it is, at last: stillness, calm.

Today, I tried to make the most of daylight. I read one hundred eighty two pages of Byatt's Elementals outdoors. I prefer reading by sunlight. Artificial lighting distracts me. I find reading lamps too glaring. They take away most of the pleasure of drinking in the words off a page.
Mental note to purchase a low stool. I had to make do with a make-shift one, a tin shoe box whose cover sunk where my weight rested.

Lit Geek update:

Last book I read:

What I'm reading right now:

They filmed Gatsby!

And how deelish is this? Baz Luhrmann, you're so tops!

Tobey Maguire as Nick Carraway, Leonardo Dicaprio as Jay Gatsby, Carey Mulligan as Daisy Buchanan

They seem perfect for their roles. Can't wait to see Leo being Jay! In 3D!
My spine is positively tingling from the anticipation. Though the wait will have to last 'til its projected release date, which is December, 2012, pffft.
Oh, oh, oh!

from Flavorwire

"The nuns taught us there were two ways through life - the way of nature and the way of grace. You have to choose which one you'll follow."

Terrence Malick, 2011

"Grace doesn't try to please itself. Accepts being slighted, forgotten, disliked. Accepts insults and injuries. Nature only wants to please itself. Get others to please it, too. Likes to lord it over them. To have its own way. It finds reasons to be unhappy when all all the world is shining around it. And love is smiling through all things.
The nuns taught us that no one who loves the way of grace ever comes to a bad end."


Roger Ebert reviews.

Found

I’m always breaking
something, a hand-thrown
mug, a path, a promise.
This life requires a map
I can’t find, a gentleness
I can’t feel, a surety I know
only in these edges that keep me
from stepping on a mess
of my own making.

- Karen Schubert, "Breaking"


from Jonathan Carroll

Lit geek update: What I'm reading right now

Sunday

Listening to my girls Laura Nyro and Joni Mitchell, with some sprinkling of Diane Birch and Carly Simon, dreaming of green hilltops and meadows full of flowers, of a wreath of blooms for my head and sunshine bouncing off glasses of sparkling wine...

We ask that life be kind...

Without a doubt, my favorite version.

Thanksgiving, 2011

party theme

Congo Grill, West Gate, Alabang

Registration peeps

The boys, first

Then, the girls

party peeps

The audience

Photo shoot, as always

Joni Mitchell-ing on this rainy evening..

Oh starbright, starbright
You've got the lovin' that I like, all right...

Up there's a heaven
Down there is a town

Blackness everywhere and little lights shine
Oh, blackness, blackness dragging me down
Come on light the candle in this poor heart of mine...

-This Flight Tonight

Vacillating vixens. Meandering mannequins. Grappling grizzlies. Pixies' pinkies. Clamoring clarinets. Magnets magnified. Smiling smokers. Flaming fleets. Spiny spinsters. Cruising in crowds. Marinating marsupials. Demarcated demographics. Harping harlequins. Sleepy slopes.

Coffee and Christmas

(photo from Coffee Mood)

I treated myself to a tall Toffee Nut Latte for my first taste of Christmas at Starbucks. Toffee Nut is the only one in their Christmas series that I buy. This particular cup comforted me. The very mild coffee jolt, the hint of toffee, the nutty aftertaste -- all blended in with my after-work exhaustion and turned into a homey, peaceful feeling. The day seemed in no hurry to begin, no thanks to the gray clouds smearing up the sky, no thanks to the drizzle which, however much intending to be propitious, still seemed like an unwelcome intruder to most, me included. Like most people, I have an aversion to rain. It depresses me, dulls my energy, slumps me down to melancholia. But this morning, the coffee acted as balm. The aches didn't seem as salient.

And so, I sipped away, thinking of the blue-and-silver tree in the office, loving the lack of greens and reds and yellows in it, wondering if this Christmas was going to hold any magic, at all.

Domestic Diva -- Not!

I know, I know. I should have come up with a better title, but the first word that came to mind was "domestic", and then I naturally thought of Nigella Lawson and her irritatingly perfect dishes, and then I thought, no, I will never be an inch close to that good, hence, the word "not".

So, anyway, today, I learned that to make old champagne extra bubbly, you have to drop a raisin into the glass. Not that I'm a champagne drinker (heck, I say "no" to most drinks), just that I found it interesting, the things one can do to "repair" things. I was blog-hopping while working up another experiment in pasta, and I found that bit of information over at Joanna Goddard's blog.

I'm not much for measuring stuff when I cook, so each dish comes out different, every time. I've had hits and misses, but thank god I've had more of the former than the latter. I know what I want, so I generally just follow my instincts, throwing in a bit of this, or a generous helping of that, without forgetting the basics, of course. I like  putting in loads of garlic, and I get a thrill from watching the bits sizzle when thrown into the hot oil, love the smell they sweat out just a few seconds into the swim. I've mastered the art of sprinkling in just the perfect amount of minced pepper, whereas I used to wreck dishes with putting in too much of it. It's still touch-and-go in the al dente pasta part, but I manage. How elementary, but hey, these are the stuff cooking is made of. Oh, yeah, and I love putting in melted cheese and cream of mushroom in to just about any pasta dish I whip up. I had planned on a cheese-and-cream-of-mushroom macaroni earlier, but because the original sauce came out just a tad too salty, in went the tomato sauce. I'd have to say it turned out pretty well, despite the rocky start.

Cheers!

And, oh, yeah, gotta have music with the cookin', otherwise, it's just another chore.
=)

Good night

"...morning is the soul's night." 
—  David Foster Wallace,  Infinite Jest

Twilight rouses the soul from its slumber, and the soul stays awake all night. The mind accedes precedence, the heart submits. Thoughts, so carefully kept in check, and emotions, fenced in with circumspect, get free reign, run amuck in the darkness, find solace in the promise of moonlight, mill about with the stars...

The senses keen up, taking toll on the body. The body is helpless, eclipsed by shadows.

The soul dominates. And the soul is a difficult master.

How am I?

Let's see.

So, I've: added Hershey's milk chocolate with almonds and Green Cross hand sanitizer to my grocery list and Escada Ocean Lounge to my favorite perfumes; scrapped Kylie Minogue from my playlist, replaced her with Sarah Jarosz and Melody Gardot; spent less time in heels; been watching stupid comedies for relief and relaxation; and toned down my tendency to seethe and pounce when I don't get my way. Well, I still seethe, but not as much. At least, I don't pounce anymore.

Aside from that, I still: listen to Jazz for those I-wanna-feel-smart moments; read Rilke, Louise Gluck, Conchitina Cruz, and Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta for my poetry fix; am addicted to "Glee"; think that pink lipstick is pretty; depend on my stash of music to lift me from despondency; wallow in despondency and don't see it changing, at least not anytime soon; adore Lea Salonga; look to the moon for inspiration; wear cuffs, the bigger, the better; think that a narrow mind is a sad, sad mind; keep on finding myself stuck between rocks and hard places. And there is an item here on this second list that I badly wish I could cross out, but it seems that more waiting has to be done, in order for me to do so.

Anyway, dear reader, how've you been?

The night stretches out before me, the hours small from where I am, the shadows innocuous, the dark presenting no threats, but only from where I am, I am quite aware of that. My mind is occupied with the music in the background, calmed by the light in this place, at peace with the smallness of this sphere, undisturbed in this solitude.

Let the tranquility stay, for as long as the great schemes of this universe will allow.

Is that too much to ask?

If the line forms to the right, chances are, you'll find me on the left. Surely there'll be one, or two, others there, on the line, with me?

If not, then, let me be by my lonesome self. I figure that's where all these are going, anyway.

I don't know what my point is.

As usual.

I want to write about

moonlight and cool breezes and my favorite perfume and gold-colored flip-flops and sunlight in the morning and pink curtains and teal nail polish and mauve sunsets and benign raindrops and dewdrops on blooms and internet connection and talks over coffee and baby powder and thick, fluffy pillows and flowers and vanilla and drowsy afternoons and the sound of strings over hushed conversations, and pink quartz and fairy dust and fuchsia and purple and Daphne's flight and Breakfast at Tiffany's and happy endings and Rilke and Eeyore and clean sheets and nice-smelling towels and love and violins and weddings near the sea and mild waves against waiting rocks and Oscar the Grouch and shoe boxes and baskets of freshly-baked bread and newly-trimmed fingernails and walks in the park and green grass and Shakespeare and things...

Instead, I write about you, and I write about me.

Pulse check

Weight: 97 lbs (gained 3 lbs from the recent week-long break from work)
Height: diminutive, still. pffft. hahaha
Books read: .5 (I know, right?!)
Movies seen: 4
Moves watched: 17
Hours of sleep missed: 76
Mood: ennui, extracted from determined resolution to detach from issue(s) causing chronic headaches, both actual and imagined
Number of (actual) headaches since last blog post: 4
Inspiration for this post: coffee date with girl friend
Girl friend's name: Celine
Celine's status: confused
Comparison with girl friend's status: same
View from the window: brown gate, neighbor's water meter counter, dried-up tree whose name I don't know
Plans for the near future: read the e-mails accumulated while I was on break from work
Tanduay Ice bottles consumed since general confusion began: 9 (so not an alcoholic, thank God, haha)
Closing in mind: a giant sigh, a shrug, a prayer for resolution of issue(s)

Have a ___ Day

by Lou Lipsitz

Have a nice day. Have a memorable day.
Have (however unlikely) a life-changing day.
Have a day of soaking rain and lightning.
Have a confused day thinking about fate.

Have a day of wholes.
Have a day of poorly marked,
unrecognizable wholes you
cannot fathom.
Have a ferocious day, a bleak
unbearable day. Have a
riotously unproductive day;
a grim jaw-clenched, Clint Eastwood vengeful
law enforcement day.
Have a day of raging, hair-yanking
jealousy and meanness. Have a day
of almost grasping
how whole you are; a finely tuned,
empty day.

Have a nice day of walking and circling;
a day of stalking and hunting,
of planting strange seeds and wandering in the woods.
Have a day of endearing nonsense,
of hopelessly combing your hair,
a day of yielding, of swallowing
hard, breathing more deeply,
a day of fondness for beetles
and macabre spectacles, or irreverence
about anything you want, of just
sitting and wondering.
Have a day of wondering if it's
going to help, or if it just doesn't matter;
a day of dark winds
and torrents flowing though the valley,
of diving into cool water
and gasping for breath,
a day of sudden hunger for communion.

Have a day where the crusts you each
were given are lost and you stumble
with your fellows
searching endlessly together. 

It's been chaos here there everywhere. It's as if everyone I know is in a whirlwind of some kind, or other. The crescendos, all around, are deafening, and have stayed too long where they are, so that one begins to wonder, when does it all end?