HAPPY NA WEEKEND PA

1. i stayed with my mom, who lives with a sister and b-i-l, over the weekend for company. they were out of town while the kids, out of school for the summer, were on their own personal journeys. i was particularly amazed with the younger daughter c. she's 18 and just graduated from high school, and with friends, she's embarking on a conscience trip to the remotest parts of india.

2. i have a friend from the philippines who came back from a conference in mumbai. he said that when he got back to the philippines, that's when he truly appreciated his country.

3. i had long been fascinated with india. not only do i want to go there, i had also wanted to expand my reading of indian literature beyond the victorian influence of the west. of course like many of us, the experience was limited to high school's/college's reading requirements on ramayana and mahabharata, and a little of rabindranath tagore. when i was in new york, i was lucky to get hold of this collection of essays by the indian intellectual a.k. ramanujan, and it was through him that i encountered the theme of one body's relationship to history, borne by the conflict of a hindu upbringing and an american environment.

4. no, i had never read salman rushdie. shame.

5. yesterday i cooked for my mom and my brother (to whom i lost in tennis again, as if i ever won, 6-3, 6-1). paksiw na lapu-lapu was my gastronomic means of affection (even if i wanted to give my tennis tormentor nothing but bones) and it was, for all my humblest opinions, nothing but fantastabulous - lots of ginger and garlic and bitter melon and eggplant, and two fat and very fresh snappers just seemingly out of the ocean. the bad thing, though, was right after cooking, the kitchen smelled of something resembling body odor. i had always thought that duct tape was the most important thing in any house. yesterday, i thought it was chinese incense.

6. when night came, instead of the usual reading, i watched dvd. dr. zhivago romanced me once more.

7. hayy, bakit may weekdays pa.

MOMENTARILY NATURAL

I can see two of my favorite poets, Margaret Atwood and Wyslawa Szymborska, in this photograph -












And I can feel Szymborska in this Attwood poem -

The Moment
by: Margaret Atwood


The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round.

HOUSE ART - UP CLOSE AND PERSONAL

I have a sister who, despite being converted American, is a Filipino by heart and an Indonesian by art. She and hubby live in a house where paintings, sculptures, crafts and fabrics are predominantly Indonesian you will be hard-pressed to imagine nobody there is from Indonesia. In fact if you get to meet her at her house for the first time, your initial natural reaction is probably see if her eyes will go sharp and her eyeballs to wickedly move from corner to corner like a Balinese dancer totally zoned-in in her culture.

But there is no difficulty in understanding my sister's and brother-in-law's affection for Indonesian Art: they are very intricate, elaborate, and speak highly and mightily of their niche in this Westernized earth. And in a strong parallel to their poetry which tends to purify the language of the tribe, Indonesian art is basically, understandably, a beautiful expression of tribal art.

It is for this reason (or something we may call as artistic osmosis, for hanging out in their abode way too often) that I came to appreciate Indonesian art as well, and one of pieces I acquired and got to treasure most in my own humble personal collection is an Indonesian-inspired painting of a mask where the medium and all trimmings are indigenously Javanese. Painted by an artist who goes by the name Suryono, this particular piece (one of a pair) was done with a technnique that is not quite simple in its process of fulfillment: with a brush known as tjanting, melted beeswax is handdrawn onto cotton fabric to create the design - the wax acting as resistant to stop the dye from penetrating the covered areas. Brittle paraffin wax is then used to create the cracked effect, and bees wax is used for solid colors or white ares. After each application of wax, dye is carefully applied by immersion or by sponge application. At the end of the process, all the wax is boiled out leaving the finished painting in all its range of color and detail.

And so, when you get to visit me, this (and its pair) are the first you will probably lay your eyes on.

Or I must say, the first who will lay eyes on you.

SUNDAY, LIVE

I just can't stop listening to this poignant song...

Find Love
by: Clem Snide

Don't let hurricanes hold you back
Raging rivers or shark attacks
Find love, and give it all away
Find love, and give it all away
Wrestle bears bring them to their knees
Steal the honey from killer bees
Find love, and give it all away
Find love, and give it all away
Don't be scared to connect the dots
And dig for gold in the parking lot
Find love, and then give it all away
Find love, then give it all away
Find love, then give it all away

SATURDAY, LIVE

sometimes i think the world's biggest mystery is my physiology. everyday from monday to friday where the alarm was set at 5:30 am, i always hit the snooze and beg for two 5-minute addendums to precious sleep. but this saturday morning where the time was adjusted to 7:30 am, i woke up at 5am with eyes dilated as those of a dilated emoticon's.

i turned the lamp on and soon enough my eyes were searching around the room for nothing in particular. or maybe i was in the lookout for reason in some dark corner which might otherwise tell me, somebody out there urgently needs you. stand up. go.

but none of that bull. i certainly did not feel sleepy if my life depended on one final sleep.

i did not stand up but instead let my hand do the walking. the walking hand felt whatever was on the nightstand and grabbed anything recognizable. zephyrhills bottled water. glug glug. cellphone. 4 fwd email messages from eldest sister - (quick gossip: americans don't use the word eldest; you tell them that and they retort, you mean, oldest?) - and as if on cue i deleted all of them without knowing their subjects, much less reading their contents. my sister's forwarded messages were so historically bad that the two times i read them in full, i was thinking if she had not heard of the word spam.

there was another message from a fraternity brod who was asking a final headcount for our 4th of july reunion in upstate ny. i will reply later, i told myself.

i dispatched my hand further. bolanos' book was there, marked from where i left off last night. and then i felt something that my knowing hand knew was a good feel. a dvd.

(there were 4 dvds i bought a couple of weeks ago: "turtles can fly" which i watched last week and consider as one of the most beautiful i've ever seen - i will do a review of this in the near future; "tony takitani"; "italian for beginners"; and "eat, drink, man, woman".)

that dvd was the ang lee movie.

with an L position i settled my back against the headboard, put a pillow on my lap, put the player on the pillow, and on to the movie i went...

i had been eating chinese food most of my long life but seeing the first 5 minutes of the film made me want to rush to my favorite chinese restaurant, beg them for mercy, and ask for a quick serving of steamed pork with scallions done a la eat, drink, man, woman. believe me if i tell you that none of the iron chef reality shows will hold a candle to the first 5 minutes of this movie.

and then it ended, basically, with the words flowing from the mouth of the loving father to daugther, i can taste it.

the movie, indeed, left a great taste in my mouth, and after i put the dvd player back to its place and fixed the bed, fixed the self, fixed breakfast, i already knew what i did not know previously: great chinese food and a great chinese movie was the sole reason for that dilation.

have a great weekend, all!

GISING NA, SUMMER NA!

hayy buhay, summer na samantalang di ko man lang naramdamang lumamig. officially chuva, day one daw ng summer ngayon, just because.

sarap sanang magsummer bakasyon, o summer vacay ika nga ng naglahong si schadenfreude, kaso lang kailangan ng pera. labo. wa ako nun. gusto ko pa naman sanang magpunta sa antarctica, malamig daw kasi dun, kaya sana me mag-importa sa aking penguin. o kahit mukang penguin.

kanina pauwi ako bumuhos ang ulan. pag summer araw-araw umuulan sa miami, pero minsan patumpok-tumpok lang, yun bang humakbang ka ng ilang hakbang e di ka na mababasa (unless may ginagawa ka't di mo mapigilan ang mamasa-masa, vastos). tas minsan nagmaneho ako papuntang fort myers, dun sa I-75 na tinutugis ko, biglang bumuhos ang ulan ng pagkalakas lakas, tas nagulat ako, dun sa kabilang side ng highway, di umuulan, kahit ga-patak wa.

ika nga, rain or shine, life is not fair.

sabi ni u elizerio, "i used to be indecisive, but now i'm not very sure."

ako naman, i used to be very pessimistic, but not anymore because i realized, wala namang mangyayari.

nagluto si ate ko kahapon ng chicken curry. wow, kapatid, ang anghang! sinagpang ko ang isang pagkalaki-laking mangkok ng chicken curry kaya ayun, tanggal ang bara ng ilong ko. kaso lang kaninang umaga, ang bagsik ng uu ko. which led me to conclude -if it's good for your sinus, it's bad for your anus.

inumpisahan ko nang basahin yung nazi literaure of the americas ni roberto bolanos, isang henyong manunulat ng chile (dedo na sya, just because) na nagwento wento tungkol sa grupo ng mga extreme right-wing writers sa americas (north and south) at dun sa mga unang writers, may linkage ang mga manunulat (fictive) kay hitler.

naalala ko tuloy yung kwentong narinig ko 20 years ago.

nung ww11, habang sinasalakay ni anghitler at ng kanyang mga kampong nazi ang europa, nag-utos si bigote na gahasain ang lahat ng kababaihan dun sa isang bayang nasakop nila. que bata, que matanda, sabi ni hitler gahasain daw, tas nun e sabihan ang mga biktima ng "9 months from now you will bear a child and you will name him adolf hitler! hail hitler!". e di ganun na nga ang ginawa ng mga utu-uto. pinaggagahasa nila ang mga bubae sa bayan na yun, tas, sasabihan nila, 9 months from now iha you will bear a child chuva and you will name him adolf hitler, hail hitler!

nagahasa na lahat ang kababaihan except for one lady na medyo patpating tisika at obviously e di tipong lafangin ng mga demonyo. pero dahil sa takot nila kay hitler, ginahasa na rin ng isang walang patawad na sundalo ang babaeng tisika, sabay sabing, 9 months from now you will bear a child and you will name him adolf hitler, hail hitler!

gago, sabi ng tisika habang sinusuot nya ang punit punit na damit. 9 days from now you will have a disease and you will call it sipilis!

ON SUMMER READING

Summer, more than any other season of the year, is when we most read. Booksellers know this, and if you had just been to your friendly neighborhood bookstore, you would have noticed a tableful of classics greeting you up front with a flag that says Summer Reading.

Reading in summer probably quickens the pace of the laid-back moments, or maybe the narrative somewhat cools us off, I don't know, but somehow there are certain writers whose stories connect us to own summer milieu. Take William Faulkner or Eudora Welty, and their Southern yarns bring me to the summer of my own childhood, in my dad's native province, on a carabao back, by the river, at the foot of the mountain; the stories hit the task more than twofold - they make me think back, they make me think ahead, and they make me think about everything else in between.

This summer I have already lined up my own readings. (I have armed myself, too, with a new wisdom from Virginia Woolf to try to become the author, his co-worker and accomplice, rather than his dictator, which will bring unto me something far more definite than a hope that fiction shall be true, that poetry shall be false, that biography shall be flattering, and that history shall enforce my own prejudices.)

And so I will read the following, some old ones, hopefully so, with a fresh pair of eyes:

- Robinson Crusoe (Daniel Defoe)
- Winesburg, Ohio (Sherwood Anderson)
- Over the Edge of the World: Magellan's Terrifying
Circumnavigation of the Globe (Lauren Bergreen)
- Nazi Literature in Americas (Roberto Bolanos)

And if I may ask, in all summer warmth: Is your own reading list ready?

NATURE'S THEATRE

Certain moments of the day - best being right after dusk or closely prior to dawn - I find myself whiling time away more and more at my patio than in my living room with the tv that spurts nothing but a twisted reflection of reality. From the porch the images are more pronounced, the colors are more vivid, the classification is more heavenly, and everything else is free notwithstanding the status of my spiritual subscription.

There are great things out there. They are beautiful.

CITY OF TREES