SALMAGUNDI

^..^ Today is Saturday, no work and no play. I went out and watched Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind starring Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet. When the film's over I felt blown away like no work and no play can ever do. The movie's extremely complex, a fresher Vanilla Sky which, to me, is sheer nonsense. Eternal is about love and lost love, memory and lost memory, and the moral is, It is better to have loved and lost than never to have blah-blah-blah...

^..^ The movie is very literary, beginning with the title lifted from a poem by Alexander Pope, Eloisa to Abelard, recited in the film with great diction by Kirsten Dunst (though she referred to the poet as Pope Alexander, so I laughed, confusing the old woman beside me. What's funny, eh?!):

How happy is the blameless Vestal's lot?
The world forgetting, by the world forgot:
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;

^..^ The same lines were used in that other Charlie Kaufmann great, Being John Malkovich, in a puppetry scene that was more serene and melancholic than any of the live action, worth the price of admission.

^..^ Did you know that in Mongolia fathers greet their sons by smelling their heads? My dad never smelled my head. First, because he was not Mongolian. Second, because I was never Mongolian. And third, he preferred hitting than smelling my head. I may have said it a thousand times but I had no qualms being hit by him in the head. Even as a kid, my head was big and hard and he must have been the one physically hurt by his hitting. Besides, he would have hit me harder if he smelled my head first.

^..^ i miss my dad
he missed my head
his hitting's a dud
i no longer had
no hit in the head
no dad getting red
no butter n' bread
no stories in bed...
i miss my dad

^..^ Robert N. Bolles, author of the wildly popular What Color Is Your Parachute has a simple self-imposed rule in sentence construction. In every written sentence, he puts a comma where he would have paused if that sentence were spoken. I consider that rule as logical, though logic and grammar are two different eggs in composition.

^..^ I noticed many young Filipino bloggers being hooked on Sophie's World by Jostein Gaarder. I read that book when I was young, too, and was amazed how a small book could contain the history of philosophy. Later on in life I was amazed even more by Martin Amis' The Immortals which contained the history of the world, in a...short story.

^..^ The Immortals, by the way, is 1 of my 10 most favorite short stories, together with The Dead (James Joyce); Journey Back To The Source (Alejo Carpentier); The Ledge (Lawrence Sargent Hall); The Things They Carried (Tim O'Brien); Pie Dance (Molly Giles); A Country Husband (John Cheever); Everything That Rises Must Converge (Flannery O'Connor); The Snows of Kilimanjaro (Ernest Hemingway); and Jacob's Chicken (Milos Macourek).

^..^ I did not include any of Jet's short stories on my 10 but if she were on any of my list list, she'll be #1 on my Most Unassuming People In The Net.

^..^ Speaking of lists, the Book Of Lists once considered 'golden' and 'pond' as 2 of the 10 best-sounding words in English. That should then make On Golden Pond as the best-sounding film title in English.

^..^ I'll summon my memory. In that same edition, I remember reading 'I Scream, You Scream, We All scream For Ice Cream' as the stupidest song title, and McArthur Park as the stupidest song.

^..^ Ruminate.
McArthur Park is melting in the dark
All the sweet green icing flowing down
Someone left the cake out in the rain
I don't think that I can take it
Cause it took so long to bake it
And I'll never have that recipe again, Oh No!
(Oh no! talaga, gross...)

^..^ Strangest song title? Hmmm, how about Dancing On The Ceiling?

^..^ At Specs Music Store, there's a cd by Boy Katindig. At Barnes, there's a book (Dusk) by F. Sionil Jose. Did you know that 3 (?) years ago, Sionil-Jose almost won the Nobel? There was even a great commentary about him and his close brush with deserved recognition on National Public Radio's All Things Considered. I love Sionil-Jose, but honestly, Nick Joaquin is the better writer. As for Filipino writers in Tagalog, it's a toss-up between Pete Lacaba and Vim Nadera for me. (I know Nadera personally, from way back, though of course he does not know who I am who knows him and it is not necessary, for to quote another good writer in Tagalog, Dennis Aguinaldo, pusang hilaw naman, oo!)