weekend update

Sorry. Couldn’t think of a better title.

* * *

Watched Bolt with the brother on Saturday as an act of rebellion (four of the seven cinemas in Trinoma screened Twilight; probably three-quarters of the population lined up in Trinoma that day was going to see Twilight.) At one point the seat plan of Cinema 7 [THX] showing the occupied seats was flashed on one of the LCD screens, and we saw red. (The seat plan for One True Love on the other hand was as white as snow). I felt a little bad for the mother and daughter in front of us who were trying to find two seats in a particular cinema which would allow them to sit beside each other. I don’t know what happened to them. Mommy probably told the daughter to sit two rows behind. What can you do, Mom wants her some Edward Cullen and she’s the one who’s paying – no one can argue with that.

We couldn’t watch Madagascar 2 because I’ve already seen that, which annoyed my brother. We could have watched One True Love but we’re not that rebellious.

I love Bolt. I just hated the fact that they screened two scenes of it when I saw Burn After Reading a week ago, John Travolta and Miley Cyrus saying, “This movie’s unlike any animated movie you’ve seen before.” WHAT? What’s with the hard sell? It turned me off. Doesn’t Disney get that people are going to watch whatever crap they’re going to cough up, no matter how ridiculous? Yes, even if it’s a movie about a 78-year-old man who ties balloons to his house so he can visit South America.

When they screened those two scenes, I actually became suspicious: maybe Bolt’s going to suck. Why else would they sell it so hard?

But it didn’t. Damn you Disney! *shakes fist*

* * *

Before watching the film, I had to drag my ass around the mall in order to help my brother find a gift for his girlfriend. After 45 minutes (inclusive of two rest stops, my request) of walking in and out of shops, I looked within myself and said, with all the sincerity I could muster, What the fuck are you doing? You’re a self-respecting individual!

We entered Silverworks because my brother wanted to give the girlfriend a pair of earrings. I asked what kind of earrings, and my brother said dangling earrings, so I asked the girl at the counter, “Do you have any dangling earrings?” She brought out a display rack. I pointed at a pair and said these look nice, but my brother said he didn’t like the stones.

The girl at the counter looked at my brother, turned to me, gave me a big smile, and said, “Ma’am, try niyo.”

My brother, who was taller than me, had his arm around me. I saw the girl’s smile and was horrified when I realized what she was thinking.

But I didn’t want to ruin her day. We left without correcting her.

* * *

I was given the same smile when we crashed into Girbaud and inspected the bags. (My brother handed me one bag after another and positioned me in front of the mirror like a mannequin. “I wanted to see how it looks like when you carry it.”) Ulk. I wanted to wear one of those shirts with the arrow, but mine would say, I’M WITH MY BROTHER YOU CAN STOP SMILING NOW.

* * *

They’ve banned Plurk at the office, after banning Multiply, Friendster, and Facebook. You can’t even Google the term “proxy”! (Trust me, I tried.)

One day, those people from IT will walk in on us and find us cutting ourselves, saying, “I can’t feel anymore!” Or, they’ll find us starting fires, torturing small animals, dancing naked in a circle as if it were the Middle Ages.

I don’t know how I’m going to survive the holidays at work.

* * *

This morning an old woman stopped me on the stairs, saying the apartment has a clogging problem and so every unit has to pay 110 pesos and can I spare some now because the men are already here. She pointed vaguely beyond the staircase. Clogging problem? But I just took a bath and the drain in our bathroom worked okay.

She spoke in English every now and then. I said I’ll go ask my landlady about the payment. She said I should give the money now so the men could start working. (And I was thinking, What men? I don’t see any.) I told her I was going to be late. Then she said something that gave me the sense that she hated my landlady’s guts.

According to my landlady, the woman was a former building administrator who was suspected of graft and corruption, and who actually owed my landlady’s family some money.

She seemed crazy, too. I don’t know. I hope she doesn’t own a gun. Or a pipe wrench.

what you find in the asking

In 2007, in my last semester in the University, a poetry professor asked us to write 50 questions that we find important. Well, I was checking files in my flash drive just a few minutes ago and found that document. Interesting.

I wonder what my classmates’ questions were. I wonder what other people ask themselves.

Some of the questions:

1. Is there a God, and how much of the stories about Him are true?
2. Is there an afterlife? What will that life be like?
3. After we die, will our consciousness remain intact? Will we retain our memories? Will we be able to remember our names, our loved ones’ names, the books we’ve read, the stories we’ve written?
4. If we won’t remember who we are, then what’s the use of trying to understand the world?
5. Where did (re: evolution) the first single-celled organism come from?
6. And where did that thing come from? Where did everything come from? What’s the source of everything?
7. Does the universe have a boundary?
8. There is a theory about the universe that says that the universe “has always been”, that it has no beginning. It has always been. Is that true? How is that possible? How can anyone grasp that idea? How can that ever be imagined?
9. Do we have a soul, meaning something eternal, something distinct from our physical bodies? Or is the thing we call the “soul” just the end product of chemical/electrical reactions in our brains, in other words something still connected to the physical?
10. Is memory organic? (I’ve read of an experiment where a needle to the brain was able to liberate a patient’s memory of an event) Is the mind different/separate from the brain?
11. I’ve read somewhere that the second that elapsed after the Big Bang contained a “dark age”. Scientists don’t know what, if anything, occurred within this period. What happened?
12. Do we have a purpose—something connected to fate (if there is such a thing), something connected to the cosmos—or do we just invent one for ourselves?
13. If we are just animals, then morality is simply a human creation, a product of our brain’s evolution. Then good/evil is simply a social contract. Then it is a curse, because we feel bad—guilt, grief, sadness—for something—murder, rape, assault—that, as animals, we would have observed without any emotion. Is this correct?
14. Why are we aware that we are going to die? Animals aren’t. Is that the curse of evolution, too?
15. Is evil (e.g. finding pleasure in hurting others) innate? Or largely a product of outside forces?
16. Then how come there are children who are peaceful? Is that trait already in the DNA?
17. Then who do you blame?
18. What is the right way to raise a child?
19. Is politics also just a curse of evolution? If it is, then caring about it is a joke. Is that true?
20. Caring for anything is a joke, because nothing really means anything. Is that true?
21. There are people who have lived and died without knowing what has been happening in Somalia, or some other far-off, impoverished place. What is the use of that knowledge then? Is it necessary? Is it necessary to whisper these stories to our kids at night?
22. What would I have been like if I were able to have piano/violin/voice/dance lessons when I was a kid? Will I think/behave/write differently?
23. Am I a writer, or am I just fooling myself?

and this is why i’m scared of riding cabs alone

Have you read this article? Came out today.

FRIGHT NIGHT IN RETIRO : Coed abducted by angry cabbie
By Nancy C. Carvajal

MANILA, Philippines – When Valeria (not her real name), an 18-year-old University of Santo Tomas student, got into a taxi cab at 2 a.m. last Saturday after attending a school activity, she had no idea that she would be in for a harrowing ride.

After telling the cab driver to take her to Sta. Mesa Heights in Quezon City where she lived, the young girl settled in the back seat for what she thought would be an uneventful ride.

When the driver of the KUL taxi cab with license plate TWC 897 pulled up in front of her house, Valerie took a P1,000 bill from her bag and handed it to him.

To her surprise, the cab driver casually dropped the bill on the floor of the vehicle and took three P20 bills from his pocket.

When Valerie asked for her change, the driver protested, telling her that she gave him only P60.

At this point, Valerie’s mother, who was wondering why it was taking too long for her daughter to get out of the cab, came out of the house and asked what the problem was.

The driver promptly assured her that nothing was wrong although Valerie protested, saying that the man had yet to give her her change.

As Valerie started arguing with the driver, her mother went to the barangay hall from across the street to ask for help from the tanod (watchmen).

Sped away

As she walked into the barangay hall, the taxi driver suddenly stepped on the gas and sped away, with Valerie still inside the vehicle.

The mother immediately ran back to their house, woke up her husband and told him about the incident.

Alarmed, the man got into his car and gave chase. When he failed to find the taxicab, he went back to their house to pick up his wife.

The mother later received a text message from Valerie, telling them that she was near a gas station from across the Lourdes Church on Retiro Street.

The couple rushed to the area and found their daughter, with blood on her face, knees and clothes.

Read more at the original link. God, how horrible. Be safe, everyone.

’see? poetry.’

[6:46 PM]<me> may nipadala friend ko na link sa isang apartelle sa bohol. gusto ko lang ipagpag, natawa ako dito “A villa dramatically anchored on a cliff with spanning view of the sea and the majestic sunset.” sabi ko sa kanya, paano kung hindi siya anchored “dramatically”, malalaglag kaya siya?
[6:46 PM]<me> What if i-try natin siya i-anchor “grammatically” ganyan, or “perilously.”
[6:46 PM]<me> ahahahah bwisit
[6:47 PM]<kate> HAHAHAHAHAH
[6:47 PM]<kate> grammatically ampota
[6:47 PM]<kate> “hanging on by an apostrophe”
[6:48 PM]<me> now there’s poetry
[6:48 PM]<me> AHHAHAHAHAHAH
[6:48 PM]<me> shet we should take notes
[6:48 PM]<kate> so conchitina would say
[6:48 PM]<kate> hahaha
[6:48 PM]<kate> troooo
[6:48 PM]<me> ahahha
[6:48 PM]<kate> we should compile our conversations over chat, really.
[6:48 PM]<me> or pwedeng title ng rock album
[6:48 PM]<me> or pangalan ng rock band
[6:48 PM]<kate> tapos let’s pass it off as poetry
[6:48 PM]<me> AAHHAHAHAHA
[6:48 PM]<kate> by removing both our names
[6:48 PM]<me> oo konting tweaks lang sa line cuts
[6:48 PM]<kate> tapos ang claim natin to fame e surprise poetry siya, ganyan.
[6:48 PM]<me> tapos sasabihin natin, We let space do the talking.
[6:48 PM]<kate> HAHAHAHAHAHa
[6:49 PM]<me> kabog sila dyan bakla
[6:49 PM]<kate> tabi jan high chair
[6:49 PM]<me> pota
[6:49 PM]<me> ahahhah
[6:49 PM]<kate> eto kami, wheelchair naman.
[6:49 PM]<kate> hahahah
[6:49 PM]<me> AHAHAHHAHAHAHA
[6:49 PM]<me> bakit bumenta bakit bumentaaaaaaa
[6:50 PM]<kate> hindi ko alam te
[6:50 PM]<kate> ewan ko sayo
[6:50 PM]<kate> haha
[6:51 PM]<me> ahahha iba-blog ko to.
[6:51 PM]<me> sabog eh
[6:51 PM]<kate> see?
[6:51 PM]<kate> poetry.

* * *

But really now, High Chair publishes great poetry. Some faves:

Benjamin Paloff’s “Time and Sense”

Christina Mengert’s “Elegy”

Vincenz Serrano’s “How can it be that the sublime can only be approached and never touched”

* * *

I am again in that phase where I believe I can write poetry. Hm. Well. At least it keeps me entertained. I miss workshops.

I need beta testers. Any takers?

for more blood sucking

So Twilight is practically everywhere, isn’t it. My sister even let me read a text message that’s been going around lately. Something about discarding the knight in shining armor for the vampire with the Volvo. Something like that. If you’ve become the subject of forwarded text messages, you’ve made it. Big time. Like Inday.

This popped up on Yahoo:

LOS ANGELES – The vampire romance “Twilight” drained the box office in its opening weekend, taking in $70.6 million.

Catherine Hardwicke’s film also enjoyed the biggest opening ever for a female director, blowing away the previous standard of $41.1 million set by Mimi Leder ’s ” Deep Impact ” in 1998.

I’ve been making fun of these crazy teenage girls, but then I realized: I’ve been crazy about Harry Potter just a few years back. I’ve read all the books and I’m sure I’m going to see the last two films, no matter how bad they turn out to be. I suppose I’ve been made fun of by those standing outside.

And I realized I didn’t care, really. So yeah, I’ll still make fun of these crazy teenage girls.

Let’s follow The Soup’s lead, shall we:

burned

Those clever Coen brothers. Or, those clever people who edited this film’s trailer. All the things I thought Burn After Reading was about, I had to throw away after the first five minutes. Those sons of bitches. I’ve been had.

And I love it.

- Drinking problem? You’re a fucking Mormon! Next to you, we all have a drinking problem.

* * *

- Why didn’t you tell me?

- I tried.

- Tried? Tried? And then what, aphasia kicked in?

* * *

Photo Credit: Filmofilia

Transcripts are from memory.

‘surreal suburbia’

The American suburbia has always been much maligned. Think Rick Moody’s The Ice Storm, think The Stepford Wives, think Desperate Housewives. In suburbia, everything is perfect, and everyone is lonely – because of, despite of.

A.M. Homes’ short story collection The Safety of Objects, first published in 1990, uncovers the bizarre in places where everything is supposed to follow the rules. In “Looking for Johnny”, a man, possibly crazed, kidnaps a young boy and later on tells him that he is not the right kid, he is bringing him back. The boy, who has been begging to be taken home, suddenly realizes the weight of this judgment and apologizes, asking his kidnapper: “What is wrong with me?”

At the beginning of “Esther in the Night”, a mother imagines a burglar breaking into her family’s home, imagines him rounding them up and noticing the “room there with the light on”. The mother imagines herself saying there is no one there, but the burglar will be persistent, and she’ll have to open the door and show him her son lying on the bed, hooked on tubes, dead but not dead. She imagines the burglar seeing this, and running away from their house, not wanting to take anything anymore.

In “Adults Alone”, Elaine is joyous after dropping off her two sons at her mother-in-law’s, but later on thinks, “Without the children, with nothing absolutely required of her, she is exhausted. She is more tired than she ever remembers being.”

I’ve never read a collection quite like it.

(The title of this entry is taken from the back cover of the 2001 paperback edition. The entire sentence reads: “Working in Kodacolor hues, Homes offers an uncanny picture of a surreal suburbia – outrageous and utterly believable.”)

Photo credit: Powells.com

newcomer, etcetera, etc.

I usually hate structured events. Like seminars, orientations, company-sponsored parties. Anything that involves name tags and games. And presentations (group dance, interpretative or otherwise [leadership seminars are big on this]; skit, a sharing session of sorts that must culminate in an artwork [“The Youth’s Plan for the Future” or some similar shit]).

I sound like a scrooge, but it’s the awkwardness that gets me. And the silence after an event host (bright-eyed, cheerful, hooked on caffeine) asks a question. In that silence you know somebody wants to answer but doesn’t want to be branded as an eager beaver. People hate eager beavers. And it’s embarrassing. And absolutely uncool. It’s just a fucking seminar, why will you be so excited? So everyone assumes a bored expression and the event becomes lethargic.

But the Newcomers’ Get-Together at work was okay. I got invited because apparently the definition of “newcomer” in this company is n. someone who has not yet attended a newcomers’ party. So I’m a “newcomer”, even though I’ve been here for a little over a year. Food from Friday’s. And chocolates. And tsismis! (A staff writer used to work as the band manager of Yano. HOLYPAKINGSHET. Writer said: “Para lang akong yaya.”)

And chocolates!

I still don’t know why the employees’ center has so many chocolates. Do they (HR personnel) create those spontaneously? Is that included in their qualifications? Computer literate, hardworking, has the ability to conjure chocolates from thin air. And why won’t they eat them themselves? If I worked there I’d—

Well. Thank goodness I didn’t work there.

There was a game (yeah, yeah) where you’d write your first impression on a piece of paper taped to the person’s back. Here’s what I got:

matalino, energetic (Edson wrote this. I used to be his trainee back during my internship days, so I don’t know if these really were his first impressions of me or if he’s just being nice)

kwela

nice

mabait and shy

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmm.

* * *

Anyway, just read this and found it hilarious/sad/infuriating:

[Capiz Rep.] Del Rosario said liquid fertilizer was fit, not for rice, but for ornamental plants.

Bolante replied that Capiz had become a promising exporter of ornamental plants.

PESTE. Sounded like the sort of thing you’d tell your mom if you wanted to piss her off.

* * *

And I was just about to post this blog entry when I got a call from a reader very intimately connected to the subject of an article I’ve written before. Reader said: “When I read the article, I thought, ‘She’s fantastic! She got everything right!’ A lot of people have written about this and I remember having to correct them all the time but this…this article was just perfect.”

She said she was calling in behalf of the family, to thank me.

I am grateful. Thanks, Universe.

message to self:

Yes, I know. And okay.

Message to – well – whoever wants it :

More here.

Tip from thegshift.

mini-reviews

Because free cinema passes are love.

Madagascar 2 – There was a point in my movie-watching life when I got absolutely sick of this movie’s trailer. We like to move it, move it. Enough, already. It cracked me up the first time (“I love you, Gloria!”), but once is sufficient, as I very soon found out.

Now I’m so glad that that was the only version I was able to see, because everything else came as a (pleasant) surprise.

Favorite bits:

Mob Penguin to Chess-Playing Monkeys: Hey, higher mammals! We could use your frontal cortexes and opposable thumbs.

Mob Penguin to Chess-Playing Monkeys, who just formed a Union and is demanding Maternity Leave: (peeks beneath table) But you’re a man.

Julien (voiced by Sacha Baron Cohen) acting out what will happen once they’ve given a sacrifice to the Water Gods:

(Julien as Water God): Oh, that is a nice sacrifice.

(Julien as, uh, Waiter): Would you like to have another sacrifice?

(Water God): No, I’ve had enough for one day.

(Waiter): Oh, I insist. You take another one.

(Water God, angry now): I said, no more!

(Waiter): But look at you, you’re so thin!

…

I know, the script is insane. Watch it.

(Transcripts are from memory.)

Passengers – I hate the movie poster: the one with Anne Hathaway looking ominous, with an ominous-looking plane behind her. Oh, and the plane had a skull-face on it. Very ominous. Ominous, indeed. It’s a fucking mess. I mean, the poster, not the movie. The movie’s okay. I think. It’s one of those movies where once you find out the twist everything else that came before just seems silly. I won’t even say it keeps you guessing. Unless of course you’re a person who likes guessing movie endings, then it will keep you guessing. Me, I just sat there, waiting for The Twist. Then, when it came, wondered if I liked the Mitch Albom turn of events. I’m still wondering.

See: if the movie’s (local) marketers aimed to attract people who’d watch the film based on the movie poster alone, then they’d just attracted the wrong audience.

Zodiac- There was a sale, so I bought a (VCD) copy. Didn’t know the movie was long; I was actually surprised to find that there were 3 VCDs when I opened the package.

This is a good film. Much has been said about it, so that’s all I’m going to say. (Why the hell didn’t I see this film when it first came out?)

The film opens with a murder in 1968, and ends in 1991. It took twenty-odd years to pin down (sort of) Zodiac, who killed people in the San Francisco Bay area because – I’m not very sure about the because. Because he felt like it? Because it was fun? Because he was insane? The fact that the film is based on true events, and the fact that so many lives (not only the victims’ or their families’) have been ruined by the case (still open in one or two areas, according to the film’s postscript) makes the film all the more awful, all the more important.

Watch it. I have a feeling I’m going to watch it again.