the internet as an avenue for monologues to the self

michael jackson look-alike walking silently among the sea of people at hollywood

kt tunstall’s boo hoo serenades my ears the whole weekend.

as having you here
as knowing you're near
as feeling you there
as knowing you care
as whispering in your ear
as my hand through your hair
as knowing you're there
yes, i miss you, bad.

*****

when the news of fernando poe jr’s death reached me, i was in front of the computer, tweaking my blog template, doing my usual blog rounds, laughing with kel, and surfing the internet while doing my ten-paged short story paper to be passed at ten in the morning.

when michael jackson was rushed to the hospital, i was in front of the computer, pretending to be busy, secretly doing some blog rounds, and checking google, msn and what have you for updates. just minutes later, the fm tradio announced his death. i was checking some credible sources at the internet back then while encoding data and dealing with lots of numbers needed at the end of the day.

channeling miss saeki

whenever the spotlight of irony licks every vulnerable area of his naked body, he closes his eyes and would always find himself lost inside the labyrinth of pain and pleasure. there, he bathes and basks under the downpour of both happiness and loneliness. it was like an over orgasmic intercourse- you want the pleasure, but the pleasurable becomes unbearable you feel like your being is about to explode and you come to the point where you can’t take it anymore that you want it to stop.

“i wasn’t alone but i was terribly lonely. because i knew that i would never be happier than i was then.”

this is the toll of irony, the curse of being happy. he is happy in many levels. he is happy and contented with what’s happening lately but he is also afraid. the fear of the fading of happiness, the fear of not experiencing the same level of happiness blankets him at night.

maybe he should go look for that entrance to that plane or dimension or universe where time is irrelevant. in that place, maybe it is possible to stay ecstatic in orgasm for as long as he likes. perhaps it will be possible to stay happy for eternity. who knows?

but see, that entrance is a farfetched idea, a fiction, or an invisible, metaphysical, or mythical concept.

“but if you knew you might not be able to see it again tomorrow everything would suddenly become special and precious, wouldn’t it?”

well, maybe that’s the key to preserving some of the many aspects of his happiness- making the simplest of things special and precious. he should spend each day, each moment, each second as if it is his last.

he relaxes himself with those thoughts. goes back to his book and imagine the notes of kafka on the shore playing inside his imagination. later, he will tell the important people of his life how much they mean to him.


*****

all quoted texts are lifted from the lines of miss saeki from haruki murakami’s kafka on the shore translated by philip gabriel in english

lola techie wants you to superpoke her

learn more about this techie lola for the win here

at 23

i got one hand in my pocket and the other one’s making a peace sign!

(unsure)

truth be told, i think i will never be a fan of this increasing level of sensitivity that time has been injecting to my system since that wednesday, during the egyptian month of mesore, the fourth month of the season of shomu (harvest) under the chinese year of the tiger.

placing many levels of meanings on the simplest of things only complicate the matters of the mind, the soul and the heart. quoting goethe, it was as if “everything’s a metaphor.”

i am thinking if giving meaning to almost everything (as in every little bit of detail that concerns and occurs to your life) actually does make life more meaningful.

what if one day, out of sheer whim, you created an unadulterated metaphysical world intended to paint colors and smiles to somebody’s gray morning but a seemingly impenetrable wall rooted deeply on the commonly conceived reality counters you and all your intentions? shouldn’t you feel a bit shattered? should you put meaning even to the most arbitrary characters of a simple sentence? maybe not if you have a really deep connection with this person. should you just let meanings escape with each moment like that?

take off the levels of meaning and whatever has occurred will become shallow. provide yourself with the simplicity akin to ignorance and you will experience bliss.

i guess you’ll never know when the tiniest fire of under-appreciation can burn you inside.

may kasabihan nga tayo: pag evil ang ina mo...

wenn deramas’ ang tanging ina ninyong lahat is not just a wholesome family comedy movie filled with quotable modified filipino sayings, but it is also a satire relevant to the philippine society’s status quo.

ina montecillo’s (the mom president portrayed by ai ai de las alas) statement before she resigns to position caught me.

may kasabihan din tayo, mas maigi pang magbitiw ng maaga kaysa umabot ng dilim, dahil malas daw.
(we have a saying it is better to resign early before darkness catches you. it is bad luck.)

now that's the act of a true, noble mother of family and a country.

true. too much of something will do the country not just bad luck, but chaos.

ina montecillo also adds

ang pilipinas, maraming pwedeng maging nanay.
(the philippines can have many mothers)

the philippines had its mommy cory. now it is under mommy gloria. inang gloria.
and what a mommy this inang gloria is! (inang gloriang yan!)
read the news, inform yourself for chrissakes.
the pressing situations of our time should have taught most of us filipinos that not all mothers know what’s best for their children. there will always be evil mothers out there.

and kapag evil ang ina mo (if your mother is evil) what would you do?

***

may kasabihan tayo, ang mga taong magaling magpatawa ay puno ng kalungkutan.
ang pelikulang akala mo puro katatawanan lang, papaiyakin ka din pala.

:)

murder well done

saw this over someone's plurk. apparently, they say this was quentin tarantino's brief letter to brilliante mendoza regarding his film kinatay.

arbitrary tragedies

zune has been on “surprise me” mode since monday. surprisingly enough, most random songs that play from the thousands and thousands of collections fit the mood of each minute of the day.

when amy winehouse and charlotte church sings their rendition of michael jackson’s beat it, the player makes a suicide jump from its hook at the sides of my pants pocket to the almost wet street downtown.

godblessthiszune. no scratch whatsoever after the suicide jump. earplugs still play good music to the ears.

the past few days also brought a random playlist of emotions. happy-sad-happy is not a popular pattern anymore.

weather is fuckin unpredictable. one minute the sun will peep then next thing you know, the clouds are raining on you. this erratic weather pattern reminds me of los baños- random people, random challenges, random acquaintances, random reliefs, random friendly advices, random foodfest, random dickery, random lifestyle. it was a life spent mostly in “surprise me mode.”

random sentences come out like smoke from my mouth because of the frothing, the overflowing, and the boiling of emotions. i must find an effective way to vent this out without harming other people. some people are not comfortable with surprises.

story of an

an is the living irony standing in the midst of the atmosphere of chaos inside the children’s ward at one of the public children’s hospitals at the metro. she is the calm among the wailing, the crying, the shouting, the cursing, the hollers, and the diverse assembly of noise coming from the deepest of human sorrows, pains, frustrations, fears and anxieties.

she only creates sounds on rare occasions. she rarely speaks. she can barely move her mouth. her physical condition deprives her of the free ability to articulate her thoughts and her feelings. on her face you can see lumps of different shapes and sizes mushroom everywhere, dominating most of the spaces that used to be the area surrounding her eyes, her ears, her nose and her mouth. from her neck down to her feet, there are smaller lumps, scalded skin, and swollen muscles. her back rests on two pillows clothed in off-white hospital pillow cases. her mouth rarely moves, but her eyes serve as a pair of wells that communicates her emotions. she makes minimal movements but you can tell from her eyes the innocence of her questioning looks, the curiosity, the happiness, the sadness, the contentment as well as all the other mixed breed of emotions populating her face in the form of tiny fragile diamond beads that break into smaller pieces upon contact to any part of her body.

like any other patient admitted at the hospital, an is accompanied by her parents. her mom sits on a nearby monoblock chair a couple of steps away from her bed. her dad walks back and forth the room to the window closest to her bed. they rarely make any physical contact with an. not if they can avoid it. probably their closest and most intimate encounter with their daughter is when they both grab her on the arms and continuously shake her to control her from crying. they shake her as if hoping to shake all the beads of tears off her eyes. this particular scenario greets a close friend, nurse nene.

the moment nurse nene see an cradled by her hospital bed, she experiences the sudden urge to move her- away from her parents, far from the shackles of her physical condition, but she can’t. aside from her position and assignment that hinders her from helping an (she is assigned to a different patient, same room with an), the parents, which both possess the eyes of cerberus, carefully guards the perimeter of their daughter’s bed despite wearing faces of disgust and angst.

nurse nene can only decipher much of what the eyes of an are saying. sometimes, nurse nene will tell the fellow-nurse assigned to an to help the patient and to ask the parents to avoid hurting their daughter but the nurse-in-charge for an is already stifled with fear form the piercing eyes of the cerberus couple.

one day, nurse nene overhears the parents arguing with the nurse-in-charge assigned for an. the father insists that they have no more money to spare to sustain the medication for their daughter. armed with bloody red eyes and a an aura of fury, he throws a fit, bathing the nurse-in-charge with fear, sending her out of the room in a heartbeat.

from what nurse nene gathers, an’s parents often quarrel about money and who should take responsibility of their physically challenged daughter. a day at the hospital will never be complete for an without hearing the countless blames and shouts from her parents. most of the time, nurse nene hears the parents’ arguing about their regrets, their life, their poverty, yada yada yada, bounce back and forth the flaking whitewashed walls of the hospital. pity those people filled with rants, thought nurse nene. poor an having her ears exposed to the constant flow of rants from her parents.

the fragile little patient who rarely moves and talk and shares the not-so-big hospital room, sans with proper air conditioning and ventilation, with 5 other patients of different diagnosed conditions, appears as if life slowly escape her body through her few remaining open spaces. the only evident flicker of life from her are her constant blinking and her occasional crying. sometimes, nurse nene would see the sides of her mouth twitch, giving the impression of a smile. an is a fighter, nurse nene remarks. she must survive.

the following the day the nurse-in-charge returns. this time, with the medication needed for an’s treatment. nurse nene sees how an’s parents bully the nurse-in-charge saying that they do not need the medication and that they have no money for that. the nurse-in-charge argues with them. there is a budding uproar in the room. things happen as if all the other noise of the hospital are instantly muted. there are shouts, yes. tears well up an’s eyes. the mother blames an for their misfortunes. the dad lifts a hand over an’s lump-filled puffy face. the nurse-in-charge stands at the middle ground. and with that, a swish of an arm decorated with monochromatic tattoos, sends an’s medication flying to the wall. crash. and the natural environment of chaos soon returns to the hospital. everybody went back to their own businesses. nurse nene is showered with shock, devastated. she feels like crying but she cannot. she is a public servant who must master her emotions. she sets off to work to treat her other patients.

the anger and the indifference of an’s parents kills her faster than her physical condition. the resident doctors of the hospital says that an could still live for 2 years- 2 more long years of hearing the rants and the rage of her parents.
emergency calls nurse nene’s help to the other rooms of the hospital. for the whole day, the thought of an enduring the wrath of her parents does not escape nurse nene. she utters a short prayer for the eight year old kid.

the following day, an exceptional calm greeted nurse nene upon her entrance to an’s hospital room.

there are no wailing, no crying, no shouting, no cursing, no hollers. there is a congregation of silence. nurse nene stops halfway to the room when she see an’s bed empty. the guards of the underworld are also absent. the sheets are replaced, the pillows tucked right to their place. before nurse nene could open her mouth to ask questions to the other people around, a faint sob breaks the wall of silence. an was ushered to the underworld hours ago. nurse nene is late to say her goodbyes. people at the room say they heard the parents say “buti nga!” (good for her) right after an’s last breath escapes her.

Virgin Labfest 5 Schedule

Now on its fifth season, the WritersBloc Inc. (one of the most prominent organizations of playwrights in the Philippines)
in cooperation with the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) invites you to the annual Virgin LabFest.

VIRGIN LABFEST ANTHOLOGY BOOK LAUNCHING: June 23, 6pm Little Theater

SET A: School of Life (Mga Dulang Walang Pinag-aralan)
MPC ni Job Pagsibigan, directed by Dulaang Sipat Lawin
Ang Huling Lektyur ni Misis Reyes ni Tim Dacanay, directed by Hazel
Gutierrez
Pandaraya ni Oggie Arcenas, directed by Roli Inocencio
June 23: 3pm, 8pm
July 4: 8pm
July 5: 3pm

SET B: It's Complicated ( The Buhul-Buhol Trilogy)
Salise ni J. Dennis Teodosio, directed by Roobak Valle
Ang Mamanugangin ni Rez ni Clariza Estuar, directed by Paolo O'Hara
So Sangibo A Ranon Na Piyatay O Satiman a Tadman ni Rogelio Braga,
directed by Riki Benedicto
June 24: 3pm, 8pm
July 3: 8pm
July 4: 3pm

SET C: Blood Sports (Trilohiyang Dinuguan)
Kitchen Medea ni Kiyokazu Yamamoto, directed by Yoshida Toshihisa
Doc Resurrecion: Gagamutin ang Bayan ni Layeta Bucoy, directed by
Tuxqs Rutaquio
Asawa/Kabit ni George de Jesus III, directed by himself
June 25: 3pm, 8pm
July 3, 3pm
July 5: 8pm

SET D: The Family That _______s together (Tatlong Dulang Walang Diyos)
Boy-Girl ang Gelpren ni Mommy ni Sheilfa Alojamiento, directed by
Carlo Garcia
Maliw ni Reuel Molina Aguila, directed by Edna Vida
Cherry Pink and Apple Blossom White ni George Vail Kabristante,
directed by Paul Santiago
June 26: 3pm, 8pm
June 30: 3pm
July 2: 8pm

SET E: Life is a Trap (Three Plays in Search of Escape)
Isang Araw sa Peryahan ni Nicolas Pichay, directed by Chris Milklado
Paigan ni Liza Magtoto, directed by Sigrid Bernardo
Hate Restaurants ni David Finnigan, directed by J. Victor Villareal
June 27: 3pm, 8pm
June 30: 8pm
July 1: 3pm

VLF 4 Revisited
Ang Kalungkutan ng mga Reyna ni Floy Quintos, directed by himself
Ang Bayot, Ang Meranao, at ang Habal Habal sa isang Nakababagot na
Paghihintay sa Kanto ng Lanao del Norte ni Rogelio Braga, directed by
Nick Olanka
Uuwi na ang Nanay Kong si Darna ni Job Pagsibigan (ahalaw sa kuwentong
pambata ni Edgar Samar), directed by Cats Racsag
June 28: 3pm, 8pm
July 1: 8pm
July 2: 3pm

Staged Readings at the Bulwagang Amado Hernandez (Conference room)
June 25, 6pm : Kataksilan (adaptation of Harold Pinter's Betrayal) by Tim Dacanay, directed by himself
Jun 27, 6pm: Noong Minsan May Nanungkulan sa San Lazaro by Joshua Lim
So (freely adapted from Alfred Jarry's Ubu Roi), directed by Dennis Marasigan
Jun 30, 6pm: Breakups and Breakdowns by Joel Trinidad, directed by himself
July 1, 6pm. SPIT Improvisational session
July 3, 6pm. Creative Writing Workshop showcase -- Facilitator: Glenn Mas
Jul 5, 6pm: American Huangup, directed by Chris Millado

*lifted from the CCP friendster bulletin post

five point palm exploding heart technique

bill kills himself.


early this morning, media reports kill bill star david carradine, 72, has committed suicide in his bangkok hotel room . reasons of his death are still unknown but what will forever be known to the people are his more than 200 screen credits in his entire career. this includes being a kung-fu master and guest appearances at hannah montana movie and the jonas brothers video.

no, it’s not the five point palm exploding heart technique that kills him. press people said he was found hanged on a closet inside his bangkok hotel room.

simba with swords

scar's head mask

the moment elephants, zebras, baboons, white birds, giraffes, hippos, leopards, ostriches, and other animals grace the aisles of the theatre to fill the stage with the lions and the lionesses’ celebration of the birth of simba, i instantly died. but then the call of rafiki and the sounds of the bongos, the orchestra, the percussion, and the live voices of the choir from the pride rock slowly brought life back into my senses to witness the unfolding of a broadway musical production that is conceived from great and detailed artistry, unparalleled musical talents, colors, vision and story.

now i have more than enough reasons to love julie taymor for directing lion king the musical and putting the life and the magic of the african savannah on stage. yes, this production eclipses my so-so reaction against ms taymor’s seemingly beatles mtv remake montage movie, across the universe.

ms taymor and her creative team’s genius craftsmanship are responsible for the detailed costumes and the elaborate set of the production. the lightweight masks and the costumes used, showcasing the mixed influences of local african culture and the disney character features, are designed to not hide the human being. they call it the double event. in every mask, the audience sees both the mask’s static expression as well as the actor’s dynamic changing face. hell yeah it works; though the eyes needs to adapt immediately to all the minute and moving details on stage. it is on this musical where i see mufasa and simba with itak-like swords a la african tribal warriors. beat that!

aside from the story (that most of us are already familiar with), the music of elton john and tim rice (present in the original disney film) plus some additional songs and chants make the production more memorable and heartfelt. hardcore lion king fans will always be familiar with the songs despite some minor modifications from the original movie score. just for the record, my familiarity with most of the songs are hinged on the first ever cassette tape i bought in my life- the lion king original motion picture soundtrack.

the huge moving props and set of the stage and the ever changing backdrops and the technical wonders of the light have brought me in a nearly theatre-production-nirvana state. magical and spectacular are understatements for this production. my senses are caught off-guard. it suddenly dawns to me how i miss theatre productions. the chills i feel sends my eyes to the verge of tears.

witnessing the production, now on its 11th year run, is monumental for me. i remember telling myself and my friends before how i could die right after i see this production. so i died. but then i was born again to thank the universe for the opportunity of seeing simba with swords. rawr!

****




if you are patient enough, you can rummage for the segmented clips of the musical on youtube.