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in the past few weeks, the weather has been annoyingly unpredictable: peak-of-summer sunny radiance in the morning, then sad, gray rains in the afternoon. i'd have much rather preferred real rain, with big, fat droplets that apologize for nothing, than this shy, slothful pouring.
this morning, the day being the droopy kind described above, i was rushing to catch a cab to work (like i usually do, oh, about three times a week).
i saw kyle again playing outside, his yaya nearby. he's the little boy i mentioned in a previous post. i haven't seen him in weeks. and he's not so little anymore. but his eyes are still adorably small, and his hair still fell straight and heavy like that Dutch Boy drawing.
i never saw him holding toys before. but now, he has obviously graduated into more "mature" toys, like plastic armalites. you should have seen him terrorizing this poor cat that looked strangely like a cousin of our Boy Astig.
as adults are wont to do when there are little ones around, i made a face. and mockingly berated him for "shooting" said cat as i was running to look for a cab.
he turned around and pointed his gun at me, half-skipping, half-runnning as he tried to chase and "shoot" me at the same time, face deadly intent.
it was difficult but i outran him, laughing as i slid inside Lulu Love TWX 631 and hearing his toy gun rattling arrogantly in the background.
and in my head there's a beatles song that's playing, something with the words "here comes the sun...little darlin'..."
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?
i remember telling pats before about this idea: leaving a journal somewhere and just let people write in it. thanks to the internet, someone is making this idea work so much more beautifully:
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.
HBO is set to bring Little Britain stateside via Little Britain USA (makes sense, no?). I'm a little (just a weeee bit) nervous about this one, especially after seeing how Flight of the Conchords lost some of their precious flavor (I was happier watching their live sets kahit pa-isa-isa lang sa YouTube). FOTC's still funny, but i guess the jokes become less of a surprise when you've heard them before and already know what's coming. Saw a pre-pilot video and it looks quite promising :) It'll still be Matt Lucas and David Walliams!!! I think they're keeping Sebastian, Daffyd, Vicky, Bubbles, siyempre Lou and Andy and Emily Howard!!!
There's some bad PR going on online, supposedly coming from the GLBT sector of good ol' US and A. I dunno, man. Isn't political correctness tiresome?
I have nothing against their issues against the show, but there are also quarters of the same community who just think it's a good piece of comedy. I think Americans just have to take themselves less seriously sometimes.
* * * Reading a book entitled Adam's Navel: A cultural look at the human body. It's probably going to be one of the most interesting books I'll read ever :) * * * Confession: I have a mad girl crush on Olivia Munn. * * * I still haven't written my Once review. parang ang hirap eh. huhuhu! * * * Sometimes, one can't help but envy those people we make fun of. People who seem to have gone off the deep end to live, well, in a world they'd rather believe in. You've heard of them--conspiracy theorists, the one who believes he's the reincarnation of Jesus Christ, the "witch" hunter...
You read or imagine things that you've come to accept as impossible, or at least belonging to another reality, or another dimension. And here you have people believing such things can happen on ye olde earth. Even if you and I get scared of them, they're seeing something most of us will never have the courage to look at.
when it comes to my addiction for books, i would have to say that the past few months have been spectacular. i never thought i could measure achievement in pages...
ever since we were kids, and especially when i started buying books on my own with saved-up allowance money, my sister always teased me about my collection. she often said i'd probably have a library someday.
when i started working, it couldn't be helped that i get some slack for my book-buying habits. better nga naman kung pagkain na lang, di ba? though i did argue to death that i always got those books on sale...
sooo, i am very happy to say that i am now on my way to curbing my impractical bibliophile tendencies. what i could have bought, i've borrowed. yes, i still can't help but browse through sale bins when they're oh-so-surreptitiously available (it's a conspiracy, i tell you), but, But, BUT i have learned to be so much more discerning before spending even P20 on a bargain book. when i was a kid, a visit to a 2nd-hand bookstore would never be complete without a P100-yield, roughly 4-10 books then; and i also once spent a whopping P7,000 at a book fair.
Now, I can pass by a discount display, check out a few titles, read at least five separate pages, and if i didn't like it, i wouldn't buy it. i know this is probably regular for most of you, but i dunno, it makes me feel like such a winner. it's like i have literary taste or something... ;-)
killing the shopping bug was easy, and refraining from buying CDs was tougher (despite the practicality of el torrente and the mp3), but this... it's like going full circle. books were my very first love and i'm learning how to make this relationship work without hurting any one of us, ensuring that we'll be part of each other's lives for much, much longer :)
Inday by the 2008 Singapore Grand Prix exhibit at Bonifacio High Street. Right before the Eheads reunion concierto. la lang. zoom zoom. (yes, yes, i know F1 cars don't look like this...)
...so the e-heads concert had to be cut for ely's health reasons. damn. i was so looking forward to this. ah, well.
i'm glad the promoters and the band explained it in such a good way, though. i was actually surprised that no one in the thousands-strong crowd boo-ed. poor ely. it must have been something to see such a huge crowd turn out for his old band. hope he's okay.
LeRoi Moore, saxophonist of my one and only Dave Matthews Band, has diedunexpectedly of complications from an ATV accident that happened last June.
i have never seen them live. and now he's dead. i am so seriously sad. i want to cry. i don't want to believe this has happened. sorry, drama. but it's LeRoi. DMB won't be the same. i don't know what to say or do or think. i am grieving over a musician who helped form a big part of who i am. #41, still my favorite song in the world now, won't be the same, ever.
it's on my list of life dreams to see them live...
i will go in this way, and find my own way out... why won't you run into the rain and play? let the tears splash all over you.
rest in peace, o dreadlocked one. thank you. Thank You. THANK YOU. for making music that matters and saves lives.
