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take me to the riot, torquil and co. :) going to singapore this january for one of my three-musical-acts-to-see-before-i-die -- Stars!!!
but wait, there's more! i'll be with two of my best ladies, pats and leica, swooning over a band that played an important role at important junctures in our lives. this is going to be excellent!
...and on the following day that we got the tickets, guess what? i heard that Swell Season (number two among the three) will be in Australia, South Korea and Japan early next year, too.
Dave Matthews Band (guess what spot they occupy on my list?) na lang, pwede na rin akong mamatay.
It's a dream I've been nurturing since I started dutifully following Ian Wright's exploits on Lonely Planet. We are now in the year 2008, and that was back in 1998--10 years and still an unrequited love. You wouldn't think I've been harboring such notions just by looking at my grande Starbucks tea frappe and perfectly applied eyeliner.
My friend Eric, whose now in Cambodia, laments the absence of the ubiquitous chain in his new home city, yet he makes me salivate by announcing that massage places litter the streets like 7-11s. I want to visit him in Cambodia, Pats in Singapore, dear Ryan in South Korea, Rony, Gerwin and Charlie in Singapore, life partner Louie, sexy Ems and Lifebunny in Hong Kong, Jon in Spain, Janne in Finland, Donna in the UK, Graeme in Scotland, Dwayne in Indiana, Yas in Dubai, maybe Emi in Romania, Essi wherever she is at the moment...
During the bad in-betweeners of my life, I swung from blaming family and circumstances, to blaming myself--both in highly passionate ways that boggle the mind.
Still, there is a shining nugget I managed to pick up--strength. Life's hell-bent ways gave me tree-trunk-like sea legs, and I want to keep using them.
Now that life is being quite kind and cushy to me, I can't help but look for the imbalance that only a churning ocean can provide. I long for the comfort that I've always found in constant change.
Instead of expecting the unexpected, I don't expect at all. Deal me what cards you will, and with those, I'll play like a loony. I'll probably even wager (and lose) everything, yet find redemption in smiling like a drunken sailor.
In life, I can strategize, plan and mind-f**k like the best of them. But I'd rather I didn't. I really would much prefer to be thrown somewhere and I'll be happy to learn how I'll deal with it. I can't imagine a purer heaven. Give me something and some things never to be defined. Give me the raucous, the sweaty and the revolting. Challenge me in ways that will make me rant and spit and give birth to strange, unwieldy energies.
I have always believed that by traveling, my sea legs will find happiness.
I want to talk to different and differing people, be forced to eat strange food, work for my breakfast...
You know what they say about potential? I can do it, therefore I must do it.
Damn the comfort zone and its accompanying delusions. I am dying to have a taste of the biggest possible perspective by constantly being in motion.
I want to see The Frames live in Ireland, Dave Matthews Band in Virginia and join the Burning Man community at least once. There are also fairy conventions in various part of this weird, wonderful world. Yes, I want to be there, too.
Sometimes, I think I'm too old to start backpacking, Couchsurfing and going on trips that plenty of those half my age have probably already enjoyed. But I reckon I can always lie and say i'm only 27.
Until when shall I keep to where the Starbucks stores are aplenty?
John Carney is a sneaky bastard. With a super modest budget of only $130,000 and two non-actors in the lead roles, he was able to release a wee movie that made big waves in the indie festival circuits. If it weren't for Diablo Cody's very PR-able persona and the built-in American/mainstream audience of Juno, Carney's Once would have been 2007's authentic little movie that could.
The film begins unassumingly enough. We meet Guy (Glen Hansard) out in the Dublin streets, earning a little extra during the day by singing covers. In the evenings, he wails his way through original compositions that get the attention of Girl (Marketa Irglova), a Czech immigrant living with her mom and daughter in Ireland.
In the course of a week, they discover exactly why they were meant to meet each other at that particular time of their lives--to make music that becomes more beautiful in every line they don't sing. And in between composing new songs, going on impromptu trips and enjoying the well-concealed frenzy brought on by limited togetherness, Guy and Girl find what everyone craves--real connection.
Carney's budget did not leave much room for sweeping shots and grand vistas, but the few scenes he picked to be most dramatic work to full effect. Expect to be overwhelmed with silently growing emotions by the final scene.
Hansard and Irglova, both real-life musicians (and now real-life lovers), make the whole film look like a lovely intrusion into a blossoming romance that never quite get there due to prying eyes. It's the expectation that Carney weaves so well, so much that you'll hate the well of intense feelings Once will undoubtedly leave in you.
Once won the World Dramatic Audience Award at Sundance and continues to enjoy a 97% rating at Rotten Tomatoes. Unsurprisingly, as the music alone is incredible. Hansard's intense, soaring vocals and open-hearted compositions work perfectly with Irglova's plaintive style. The theme song Falling Slowly's tentative opening notes make you sit up, and by the time the song (and the scene) sweeps you up, you'll have fallen for the potential of their love and remember when you were hopeful, too. Critics were unanimous in declaring Once as the musical film of this generation.
The theme is sure to touch many. Indeed, who doesn't have a short, profound affair that changed one's life? The trailer harps on the painful question: How often do you find the right person?
And like this treasure of a movie, such things only happen Once.
The only thing left for me to say is Thank You to everyone involved in this project, and to my sister K for showing it to me. I have never loved a movie as much as I loved this one.
On its very scruffy sleeve, Once wears a heart that's immense.
With Pi and Aldwin :) non-highlight: had to buy Very Expensive shorts as my trusty blue ones finally gave up on me. Wala namang swim shorts na okay yung fit sa kin dun sa ukay-ukay sa plaza. deng.
the truth is, i'm not particularly very good at it, but this thing that my friends introduced me to makes me feel like nothing else.
i started surfing in 2005, before la union was as popular and crowded a destination as it is now, but still many years after my friends first got into it. i would probably be a third or even fourth generation model if surfers were marketed like ipods.
generally, i'm pretty resilient but many, many, many things have really started beating on my armor. sometimes, i really do feel there's nothing left for me on this planet, except for trying to take care of my internal organs so someone can make use of them when i can't anymore. and in between seriously considering if i have mononucleosis or, well, that thing that will put you in the 7th circle of dante's hell, is the shining thought of paddling out towards the horizon.
everytime i catch a wave, life feels completely peaceful. i don't have a care in the world but for the speed of the water that's carrying me, the wind on my face, and the shore that's coming up to greet me. then i paddle back out, raise my upper body with every wave i meet, and crash down on the water with the board as my protector. there's nothing more exhilarating than maneuvering myself in a current that's always changing and deserves the utmost respect. the perfect marriage of man and mother earth.
and when the city, with all its unnecessary trappings and misplaced priorities, staggers me with a sense of profound futility, nothing jolts me awake quite like the thought of hopping on that bus and getting ready to greet the water. and i move on with a renewed sense of joy, looking forward to my next surfing trip.
the mighty, mighty water and what it can do to and with you, that's something to worry about, not the rules that the modern world dictates. money, sex, beauty, social image, i don't really care. what would hefty savings and "name" mean if i went through this life an empty shell--cooing over my next gadget or fashion purchase, or worrying too much about money that i've forgotten the richer gift of loving?
and when the story feels like it has gone on too long, has become too tiring, or is going around in circles, an ending seems the best solution. or i can just throw the book out.
and once more, i retain my tenuous hold on the tether to life for just one more ride, or even just one more wipeout. the water--it keeps moving me along :)
while i await ron perlman's red-horned goodness with bated breath, i just saw a movie that is now entrenched as "my best movie for 2008" (and maybe til the next year, and the next, and the next...). thank you, k, for coercing me to see it
i'm still a little sniffly and i've yet to compose my thoughts, but i hope to be able to write a review that will do it justice
Once is a movie that tells what happens when random guy meets responsible girl... through achingly earnest music. there's a very, Very personal connection i made with the film when it ended. yep, sometimes, once is enough, but it's also often all you'll get... still, it can be cosmic and beautiful, leaving an incredible impression on your heart.
yeah, he looks like him, too... "take this sinking boat and point it home. we've still got time..."
the good heart of client Greenwich and their endorser, the forever cute John Lloyd Cruz. to while away time, we imagined ourselves on the beach and played with the Aeta kids.
i asked this group before if we can implement a game in Manila (yeah, yeah, fat chance) and i got a response from Eevil Midget of their Shadow Government, with side comments about how his Supreme Commander and Mustache Commander have preferences for strip clubs. I refrained from emailing my well-composed fire-and-brimstone response.
ah, well. someday, soon. i can feel it in my twinkle toes.
Hawaii was great fun, although i did have a minor accident involving a 20-storey plummet. Good thing the hotel administrators were very helpful. i was trying to pose for a panoramic shot when the wind blew me down, down, down from the 20+ floor to the 4th. Enrie, who was taking my picture, quickly ran down to see if i was alright. the door to the patio where i fell was locked, so she had to call the guard and ask for help to look for me. At first the guard couldn't understand what i looked like and then he found me, looked at Enrie, and said, "is this it?" lovely, hilarious moment :) i'll come back with my surfboard before i die =D
Now this is a comeback. After all the trouble with booze, drugs and (was there?) a drunk driving charge, former heir to the serious-actor-slash-matinee-idol throne Robert Downey Jr. shows he still has what it takes to wow audiences. This may even be his blockbuster-est movie yet. What could've been a hokey let's-turn-over-a-new-leaf story was more believable from across Downey's eyes (the same ones that made you cry in Chaplin).
the other nuts: Jeff Bridges - Whoa!!! I didn't think he could be that menacing, in a very human way, too. Made it more disturbing. Gwyneth Paltrow - Never liked her much but she was woefully underused here. Maybe they have plans for the second.
and my super squeal moment: yes, nick fury and s.h.i.e.l.d.!!! i clapped my hands like a giddy kid shrieking "whoo! nick fury and s.h.i.e.l.d.!" while remembering how fun it was to geek out over comic books with my brother when we were younger.
that's all, you guys have already said everything else :D
