SOME SETTLING SURVEY - VERY PERSONAL VERSION SLAMMED BOOK

1. What's the worst nickname (or buska) you've been called or branded? Care to tell why, (whether the label be/had been true or not)?

2. Who were your childhood heroes?

3. What are/were your pets' names, and what are/were they?

4. If the only power you have in life is to tell everybody what NOT to read, what will that be, and why?

5. What do you want this Christmas?

of gods and poems

Michel de Montaigne said that man cannot make a mite yet he makes gods by the dozen.

The worse thing is that sometimes we play god ourselves, casually perhaps, or even unknowingly, in such a venue none closer to home than our very own backyard. I am talking about an instance when we encounter a bug venturing in our bermuda grass, or in the shrubs, and it scares the hell out of us so we decide to end our agony by giving the bug a good thumping of the foot, and we are relieved by the fact that our life is one less creepy creature to live by. We head to the pool, with cold lemonade in hand, think of the day's events, and curse at the active sun.

In those animated movies showing the lives of bugs from their own eye level (or perspective), we get to see - even animatedly - how bugs go about their buggy lives lurking in danger, veering away from the mouths of their predators but more so, from the indiscriminating shoe of their godly human giants.

My favorite poet Wislawa Szymborska has this to say - from the perspective of a god-giant. (I suggest that this poem be read aloud, with strict consciousness applied on parts where they break, thank you.)

SEEN FROM ABOVE
(translated from the Polish by Magnus J. Krynski and Robert A. Maguire)

On a dirt road lies a dead beetle.
Three little pairs of legs carefully folded on his belly.
Instead of death's chaos - neatness and order.
The horror of this sight is mitigated,
the range strictly local, from witchgrass to spearmint.
Sadness is not contagious.
The sky is blue.

For our peace of mind, their death seemingly shallower,
animals do not pass away, but simply die,
losing - we wish to believe - less of awareness and the world,
leaving - it seems to us - a stage less tragic.
Their humble little souls do not haunt our dreams,
they keep their distance,
know their place.

So here lies the dead beetle on the road,
glistens unlamented when the sun hits.
A glance at him is as good as a thought:
he looks as though nothing important had befallen him.
What's important is valid supposedly for us.
For just our life, for just our death,
a death that enjoys an exorted primacy.

IN MEMORY OF THE VICTIMS OF THE GLORIETTA BOMBING, OR GAS LEAK EXPLOSION, OR HIGH CERTAINTY OF DELIBERATE CONFUSION

I would rediscover the secret of great communication and
great combustions. I would say storm. I would say river.
I would say tornado. I would say leaf. I would say tree.
I would be drenched by all rains, moistened by all dews.
I would roll like frenetic blood on the slow current of
the eye of word turned into mad horses into fresh children
into clots into vestiges of temples into precious stones
remote enough to discourage miners, whoever would not
understand
we would not understand any better the roaring of a tiger.

from Notebook Of A Return To The Native Land
by Aimee Cesaire
(translated by Clayton Eshleman and Annette Smith)

TANUNGAN, YOU BEGIN

Q. Si Marcel Proust daw, malimit i-associate yung mga kakilala nya sa tao ng kasaysayan, o vice-versa, na para bang lahat ng tao e may kamukha o kahawig (which is probably true). Kung ikaw si Marcelo Pururust, pwede mo bang i-associate ang mga kaibigan mong bloggers sa celebrities?
A. OO bah, magandang tanong yan. Si ghost, kamuka ni Tara Lipinski; si svelterogue parang batang Iris Murdoch; si Toni, no dout, Eva Longoria; si Jet, Lucy Liu; si titorolly kahawig ng pinsan ko who, hold your breath (more so if it's bad, wehehe) ang pangalan e Rolly, although in this case ang celebrity e si titorolls, shempre; si Gwen Bau, hmm, kamukha nung cute na artista nung araw, nakalmutan ko pangalan; si Jobert, hmm, si Haring Zeus; si Belleloved, si JLo (uyy, hihimatayin na yan, inhale exhale inhale exhale); si Schad e si JD Salinger, pareho silang walang mukha.

Q. E ikaw naman, sir?
A. Si Lito Anzures.

Q. In any particular movie?
A. Of course. Ang Pinakamagandang Babae sa Balat ng Lupa.

Q. Totoo?
A. Eng eng engg!
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Bukas magsasalita ako sa isang pagtitipon, gathering na lang para hindi mukhang seryoso, na mayroong kinalaman sa kamay (di po ako manikurista, o masahista ng kamay, o palm reader kaya, o salamangkero kahit pa sabihing cbsmagic kuno) at malamang sa alamang e banggitin ko tong tula ni Boss Margaret Attwood -

YOU BEGIN

You begin this way:
this is your hand,
this is your eye,
that is a fish, blue and flat
on the paper, almost
the shape of an eye.
This is your mouth, this is an O
or a moon, whichever
you like. This is yellow.

Outside the window
is the rain, green
because it is summer, and beyond that
the trees and then the world,
which is round and has only
the colors of these nine crayons.

This is the world, which is fuller
and more difficult to learn that I have said
You are right to smudge it that way
with the red and then
the orange: the world burns.

Once you have learned these words
you will learn that there are more
words than you can ever learn.
The word hand floats above your hand
like a small cloud over a lake.
The word hand anchors
your hand to this table,
your hand is a warm stove
I hold between two words.

This is your hand, these are my hands, this is the world,
which is round but not flat and has more colors
than we can see.

It begins, it has an end,
this is what you will
come back to, this is your hand.

SOME SETTLING SURVEY, VERSION 3

Pasakalye (or Intro, if you're sosi): When I was still doltish in computers (still am, but I have graduated from imbecility to idiocy -or however the intelligence [dis]order comes), I thought FAQ was an obscene abbreviation, until I discovered what they meant and realized obscenity resided in me, and so one day I thought of putting up a surveyor blog a la Social Weather Weather Station Chuva to be called Frequently Asked Questions To U - shortened as FAQ U - but I decided against it because I am prim and proper like my girlfriend thought I was, and so let us just play up to her thinking and act like you did not read anything about this or that from me, hokay?

And so that explains the boring title we go off into, and find ourselves trapped into this corner -

1. Do you dance? If yes, what kind, if not, why the hell not?
2. If you can bribe a friend into reading a specific part of a specific piece of literature, what will it be, and why?
3. If you were at the best of age and health, with the greatest trainer and coach at your command, which sport (and position, if team sport), would you have been a world class at?
4. What book are you reading now?
5. Which food are you craving to eat now?

ABOUT FACE

I just got back from the Orange Bowl in Downtown Miami and experienced once more the dreadful sight of sport's funeral - you can hear a pin drop in the midst of 40,000 fans absorbing the pain of yet another loss to Georgia Tech in eerie silence. The University of Miami's Hurricanes have learned to coincide with the season; they are legends of the fall. Quarterback Kyle Wright have not learned to coincide with the sound of his name, he must really be Kyle Wrong.

Welcome to college football. One school's glory is another school's shame.

Welcome to South Florida with teams all missing in action. The Marlins did not make the playoffs. The Dolphins are a horrible 0-5.
The Heat are 0-3 in preseason. And now the Hurricanes are 1-2 in ACC.

Better turn this jinxy table around. Pray tell, who can I root for when I get back to Manila?