Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Showing posts with label philosophy. Show all posts
Tuesday, February 5, 2013
Some Nights
"Well, some nights I wish that this all would end
'Cause I could use some friends for a change.
And some nights I'm scared you'll forget me again
Some nights I always win, I always win..."
_____________________________________________
'Some Nights' is the second single from the album with the same title of American indie rock band Fun. The song was written by Jeff Bhasker, Nate Ruess, Andrew Dost, and Jack Antonoff.
Labels:
God,
love,
music,
philosophy
Monday, July 18, 2011
Anatomy of a story, or: The Little I Know About Women
by Ewong.
for the girl across the big room.
Strangeness springs from hospital hours, among first-time residents gone mad from illness, of affairs both of the heart and gut. It was the final week of summer.
Now rains have come, and rains have gone, and summer seems to have claimed upon the earth and its drenched-souled men again. A certain change has filled up the uncertain emptiness, or returned to the old feelings apparently long gone: a change for the better, the elders would say -- but who really knows what's even good?
Someone looks up the book of words and discovers this relationship disparity between a pair -- a lover can be a friend, but the latter can't necessarily stand for the former. Some book, indeed. It is definitely not the dick-tionary. Let me read (it/you) further.
Cut to:
Her sister a few weeks ago she tutored about the reproductive system -- apparently the first topic in grade 5 science class. In her best attempt at sounding clinical, and quelling all malice and awkwardness pressed by such unnerving anatomical concepts, and with the textbook and internet both open, she taught her the mechanisms behind human organs called penis, vagina, scrotum, testes, and fallopian tubes. It was torture, for both of them. There were daunting terms like 'fertilization' and 'menarche.' At the end of her teaching, the fifth-grader was still confused as to who possesses the 'vas deferens,' man or woman? There is a vast difference. But she, the younger one, doesn't need to understand it all now.
Even the older one has not fathom much of it yet.
Fact: The human circulatory system is a better subject. And much more romantic.
Dissolve to:
Something Theatre proudly presents "The Indefinite Pronouns"
Someone wrote somebody a poem. Or poems. Someone likes somebody. Someone, perhaps, is already in love with somebody. Someone fears. Somebody feels. Someone feels something else, though -- like that of being stalked. Somebody hopes for something else. She says, or does. He says, or does:
a) Too much?
b) Too little?
c) Too soon?
d) Too late?
Sometimes someone thinks that somebody is onto something.
Music: Summertime, and the livin' is easy.*
Summer, it feels like summer all over again. Summer, o how it rhymes with forever, but these are words not fit for a beautiful poem, in a beautiful book of beautiful poems that is published in some other beautiful world.
One of these days, someone is going to have his or her heart broken. Or more likely, both of them, only over some other someones. Characters from different books, they are. Or different volumes of the same set of books. Like encyclopedia, a kind of literature which sounds like a dream from the ancient times. But now, encyclopedia that comes back to life -- but in digital format.
Cut back to:
Hospital hours. She will never forget how her own heart beat ever so slowly in her last days in the room. She feared. She felt. As if for the first time. She did not die, of course, but something else died, and something else was reborn. And he, the object of her subtle affection, was somewhere else. In another hospital. In another sense of words, in the vocabulary of the cyclically ill and broken.
There are three characters in this story set in summer that's not really summer. Or shall we better call it the rainy season without the rains?
Metaphor by morphology: Rains are like tears. I hope no one of these characters has cried, or is crying, over the other yet. That would be (too much/too early) a drama.
I would write them in the same book. One that does not have entries (yet) for fallopians or androgens. If I scanned the pages, I would chance upon this word: kiss. But this is like a drunken part of speech. As a back-story, I would write that it was a very short instant, void of any romance or anything like that, certainly one that doesn't count as a 'kiss.' Simply a casual touch between a man and a woman. And this is neither a good time to mention the word 'lust.' Let me annotate on this for revision:
"a very brief, prurient encounter."
She feels that they are on the same page. It's been awhile since she felt like this. She raises her hands up against the bright, blinding incandescent light to count her fingers. She reckons one hand is enough for her counting. Nevertheless, she thinks that he, the present object of her subtle affection, was, or would be, in a significant non-physics-sort of movement:
a) moving closer?
b) feeling weightless?
c) orbiting toward a center?
d) falling a freefall?
Music: We could have been so good together, we could have lived this dance forever.*
There are also some minor characters that, if I may bravely claim so, could be reminiscent of Francois Ozon's brilliant film 8 Femmes, adapted from a play. All the women there loved the man, but who "killed" him?
I have not written a poem for a long time now. (This statement could serve as a clue.) Is it time for me to learn the play? (This statement is not pun-ny at all.)
I haven't read a book lately either. I haven't read much at all. I fear that I can no longer read well. I've been misreading words lately. I've been misreading people too. I could be misreading myself. I need to bring out the dictionary and chew the pages off, from A to Z.
Montage during the internal monologue (voice-over) of a deaf-mute:
Fiction: He would have killed the 8 women, if he had the chance. But that wouldn't be a musical comedy-slash-mystery-thriller anymore. That would be a massacre of hearts.
Art: And then the image of hands. Hands.
Music: My hands are [not] small, I know, but they're not yours, they are my own.*
Melodrama: But you can hold one of mine now.
(...for the other is doing the writing.)
He is on his way to the bookstore to look for this best-selling title published in some other world: Complete Idiot's Guide to End Quickly the Falling Slowly.
He would read it, and then hand it to her as a gift to commemorate their end of friendship.
Excerpt from the preface of a book that must have been either poetry or biology: "It's amazing how testicles and fallopian tubes are so alike and different at the same time. Both are in pairs. Both secrete the gametes. Both have reference to what are called 'eggs.' But the former is outside, exposed to the harsh world, while the latter is sheltered deep inside, lonely and longing. And that is why nature compels them to always meet halfway."
She (from outside, looking in) cannot remember if there was any other male character in Ozon's film. But in this other story, she (from inside, looking out) realizes that there is another man.
Caption of a photo from a book from another world: If (you/he) were an egg, I would break (you/him) into a bowl of hot Soup no. 5.**
And the plot suddenly becomes culinary.
There is no end to this story.
____________________________________________
*Lyrics quoted are from the songs "Summertime," "Careless Whisper," and "Hands."
**For the non-Filipino readers, Soup no. 5 is a special dish with cow testicles, sometimes penis, too.
for the girl across the big room.
Strangeness springs from hospital hours, among first-time residents gone mad from illness, of affairs both of the heart and gut. It was the final week of summer.
Now rains have come, and rains have gone, and summer seems to have claimed upon the earth and its drenched-souled men again. A certain change has filled up the uncertain emptiness, or returned to the old feelings apparently long gone: a change for the better, the elders would say -- but who really knows what's even good?
Someone looks up the book of words and discovers this relationship disparity between a pair -- a lover can be a friend, but the latter can't necessarily stand for the former. Some book, indeed. It is definitely not the dick-tionary. Let me read (it/you) further.
Cut to:
Her sister a few weeks ago she tutored about the reproductive system -- apparently the first topic in grade 5 science class. In her best attempt at sounding clinical, and quelling all malice and awkwardness pressed by such unnerving anatomical concepts, and with the textbook and internet both open, she taught her the mechanisms behind human organs called penis, vagina, scrotum, testes, and fallopian tubes. It was torture, for both of them. There were daunting terms like 'fertilization' and 'menarche.' At the end of her teaching, the fifth-grader was still confused as to who possesses the 'vas deferens,' man or woman? There is a vast difference. But she, the younger one, doesn't need to understand it all now.
Even the older one has not fathom much of it yet.
Fact: The human circulatory system is a better subject. And much more romantic.
Dissolve to:
Something Theatre proudly presents "The Indefinite Pronouns"
Someone wrote somebody a poem. Or poems. Someone likes somebody. Someone, perhaps, is already in love with somebody. Someone fears. Somebody feels. Someone feels something else, though -- like that of being stalked. Somebody hopes for something else. She says, or does. He says, or does:
a) Too much?
b) Too little?
c) Too soon?
d) Too late?
Sometimes someone thinks that somebody is onto something.
Music: Summertime, and the livin' is easy.*
Summer, it feels like summer all over again. Summer, o how it rhymes with forever, but these are words not fit for a beautiful poem, in a beautiful book of beautiful poems that is published in some other beautiful world.
One of these days, someone is going to have his or her heart broken. Or more likely, both of them, only over some other someones. Characters from different books, they are. Or different volumes of the same set of books. Like encyclopedia, a kind of literature which sounds like a dream from the ancient times. But now, encyclopedia that comes back to life -- but in digital format.
Cut back to:
Hospital hours. She will never forget how her own heart beat ever so slowly in her last days in the room. She feared. She felt. As if for the first time. She did not die, of course, but something else died, and something else was reborn. And he, the object of her subtle affection, was somewhere else. In another hospital. In another sense of words, in the vocabulary of the cyclically ill and broken.
There are three characters in this story set in summer that's not really summer. Or shall we better call it the rainy season without the rains?
Metaphor by morphology: Rains are like tears. I hope no one of these characters has cried, or is crying, over the other yet. That would be (too much/too early) a drama.
I would write them in the same book. One that does not have entries (yet) for fallopians or androgens. If I scanned the pages, I would chance upon this word: kiss. But this is like a drunken part of speech. As a back-story, I would write that it was a very short instant, void of any romance or anything like that, certainly one that doesn't count as a 'kiss.' Simply a casual touch between a man and a woman. And this is neither a good time to mention the word 'lust.' Let me annotate on this for revision:
"a very brief, prurient encounter."
She feels that they are on the same page. It's been awhile since she felt like this. She raises her hands up against the bright, blinding incandescent light to count her fingers. She reckons one hand is enough for her counting. Nevertheless, she thinks that he, the present object of her subtle affection, was, or would be, in a significant non-physics-sort of movement:
a) moving closer?
b) feeling weightless?
c) orbiting toward a center?
d) falling a freefall?
Music: We could have been so good together, we could have lived this dance forever.*
There are also some minor characters that, if I may bravely claim so, could be reminiscent of Francois Ozon's brilliant film 8 Femmes, adapted from a play. All the women there loved the man, but who "killed" him?
I have not written a poem for a long time now. (This statement could serve as a clue.) Is it time for me to learn the play? (This statement is not pun-ny at all.)
I haven't read a book lately either. I haven't read much at all. I fear that I can no longer read well. I've been misreading words lately. I've been misreading people too. I could be misreading myself. I need to bring out the dictionary and chew the pages off, from A to Z.
Montage during the internal monologue (voice-over) of a deaf-mute:
Fiction: He would have killed the 8 women, if he had the chance. But that wouldn't be a musical comedy-slash-mystery-thriller anymore. That would be a massacre of hearts.
Art: And then the image of hands. Hands.
Music: My hands are [not] small, I know, but they're not yours, they are my own.*
Melodrama: But you can hold one of mine now.
(...for the other is doing the writing.)
He is on his way to the bookstore to look for this best-selling title published in some other world: Complete Idiot's Guide to End Quickly the Falling Slowly.
He would read it, and then hand it to her as a gift to commemorate their end of friendship.
Excerpt from the preface of a book that must have been either poetry or biology: "It's amazing how testicles and fallopian tubes are so alike and different at the same time. Both are in pairs. Both secrete the gametes. Both have reference to what are called 'eggs.' But the former is outside, exposed to the harsh world, while the latter is sheltered deep inside, lonely and longing. And that is why nature compels them to always meet halfway."
She (from outside, looking in) cannot remember if there was any other male character in Ozon's film. But in this other story, she (from inside, looking out) realizes that there is another man.
Caption of a photo from a book from another world: If (you/he) were an egg, I would break (you/him) into a bowl of hot Soup no. 5.**
And the plot suddenly becomes culinary.
There is no end to this story.
____________________________________________
*Lyrics quoted are from the songs "Summertime," "Careless Whisper," and "Hands."
**For the non-Filipino readers, Soup no. 5 is a special dish with cow testicles, sometimes penis, too.
Labels:
fiction,
heartbreak,
love,
new beginning,
philosophy,
sensual,
summer
Thursday, March 24, 2011
On practising the noblest form of shopping
by E Wong
When you hear someone say all my meager annual bonus just went down the drain, you know this is some sort of an all-too-familiar tragedy, but in my case, "drain" is the UP Press's 46th anniversary month-long sale; and thus, needless to say, it is good, guilt-less spending.
So yesterday, the money which I originally intended for an 'unplanned' weekend adventure somewhere up north was spent instead on these eight awesome poetry books:
An Edith Tiempo Reader Edited by Gemino Abad, et. al.
Six Poetry Formats and the Transforming Image: A Monograph on Free Verse by Edith Tiempo
Commend Contend/Beyond, Extensions by Edith Tiempo
Mostly in Monsoon Weather: Poems New & Revisited by Marne L Kilates
The Garden of Wordlessness: Selected Poems by J Neil C Garcia
Passage: Poems 1983-2006 by Edgar B Maranan
Marginal Bliss by Carlomar Arcangel Daoana
Onyx by Romulo Baquiran, Jr
All the books above are UP Press titles (with 20% discount), except for Maranan's book which is published by Bookmark (5% off). The student editions of Daona and Baquiran were on sale for only P50 each! I spent more than a thousand bucks for all these--still quite a lot, I know, but I think it's all worth it, considering these are 'real literature' by acclaimed Filipino authors. And also, I feel good being able to somewhat 'help' our struggling local publishing industry. And yes, there's a vast presence of literature in the internet, but nothing will ever beat the intellectual and emotional experience of the book.
Having spent a good hour at the store, I realise that buying books is a therapeutic, even orgasmic, activity. It is probably the noblest act of shopping. Unlike purchasing food or clothes, you don't literally taste the product or try it on... but you do it on a literary level. Book shopping is definitely way way harder than the tough task of choosing the right brand of peanut butter or whitening soap. It knows no hurry; you skim and scan, you browse the pages, read a line or stanza or paragraph. Sometimes you end up finishing the whole poem or story or essay or chapter of a novel. Most likely you'd be going back and forth to the shelves, a Shakespearean question repeatedly arresting you: to buy or not to buy? And when something strange strikes your soul--a phenomenon not defined by even the long years of commercialism--you finally buy it.
Of course it helps if you know the author or if he/she has achieved some fame or notoriety or has an intimidating list of awards and previously published books. Nonetheless, you make your decision not on nutrition facts or expiry dates or newness of the whole package, but on the "promise" of words printed on paper. And who buys "promises" these days?
So shopping for books is a great activity, and this I recommend to everyone (especially on paydays). It is almost as surreal as the act of reading--which, by the way, I am not very good at. My friends have this wrong notion that I am such a bookish person, but I'm really such a slooowww reader that I'd always say it took me a hundred days to finish Garcia-Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. And so with these new titles I bought, I'm giving myself a conservative eight hundred days to finish reading them all.
Being back in the campus halls was another story. I sneaked into AS (sneaking, I realised, was unnecessary as the guards at the entrance weren't too strict after all) and stayed in CASAA for awhile. It amuses me that nothing much has really changed, except perhaps that everyone seems to be using laptops now. But all else is the same. [Well, maybe not the students, for the too-strong smell of the (upper) bourgeois was unmistakeable. How many of these kids came from public schools? From the provinces? Am I in La Salle? Is this Ateneo de Diliman?] But I mean my feelings for, about, and in UP were the same. I could have entered any classroom and just get lost again in the strange 'at home-ness.' Or get found is what I mean?
I remember a friend saying that we should not be working in the BP__ industry, for this is not where we belong. Then the UP thing got into the conversation, and suddenly, we were back in our former selves, well-bathed and basking in the old ideals of the university, perhaps last seen and felt genuinely during the beginning of the past decade, when an academic unit was still just worth P300...
But like I've said, this is another story that warrants another article. Something I better not dwell on for now. :-)
__________________________________________
The UP Press anniversary sale is until March 31. The bookshop's new location is at the ground floor of the printing office itself, along E delos Santos St., near the UP Police Station. (Those who try to steal books will go straight to jail!)
When you hear someone say all my meager annual bonus just went down the drain, you know this is some sort of an all-too-familiar tragedy, but in my case, "drain" is the UP Press's 46th anniversary month-long sale; and thus, needless to say, it is good, guilt-less spending.
So yesterday, the money which I originally intended for an 'unplanned' weekend adventure somewhere up north was spent instead on these eight awesome poetry books:
An Edith Tiempo Reader Edited by Gemino Abad, et. al.
Six Poetry Formats and the Transforming Image: A Monograph on Free Verse by Edith Tiempo
Commend Contend/Beyond, Extensions by Edith Tiempo
Mostly in Monsoon Weather: Poems New & Revisited by Marne L Kilates
The Garden of Wordlessness: Selected Poems by J Neil C Garcia
Passage: Poems 1983-2006 by Edgar B Maranan
Marginal Bliss by Carlomar Arcangel Daoana
Onyx by Romulo Baquiran, Jr
All the books above are UP Press titles (with 20% discount), except for Maranan's book which is published by Bookmark (5% off). The student editions of Daona and Baquiran were on sale for only P50 each! I spent more than a thousand bucks for all these--still quite a lot, I know, but I think it's all worth it, considering these are 'real literature' by acclaimed Filipino authors. And also, I feel good being able to somewhat 'help' our struggling local publishing industry. And yes, there's a vast presence of literature in the internet, but nothing will ever beat the intellectual and emotional experience of the book.
Having spent a good hour at the store, I realise that buying books is a therapeutic, even orgasmic, activity. It is probably the noblest act of shopping. Unlike purchasing food or clothes, you don't literally taste the product or try it on... but you do it on a literary level. Book shopping is definitely way way harder than the tough task of choosing the right brand of peanut butter or whitening soap. It knows no hurry; you skim and scan, you browse the pages, read a line or stanza or paragraph. Sometimes you end up finishing the whole poem or story or essay or chapter of a novel. Most likely you'd be going back and forth to the shelves, a Shakespearean question repeatedly arresting you: to buy or not to buy? And when something strange strikes your soul--a phenomenon not defined by even the long years of commercialism--you finally buy it.
Of course it helps if you know the author or if he/she has achieved some fame or notoriety or has an intimidating list of awards and previously published books. Nonetheless, you make your decision not on nutrition facts or expiry dates or newness of the whole package, but on the "promise" of words printed on paper. And who buys "promises" these days?
So shopping for books is a great activity, and this I recommend to everyone (especially on paydays). It is almost as surreal as the act of reading--which, by the way, I am not very good at. My friends have this wrong notion that I am such a bookish person, but I'm really such a slooowww reader that I'd always say it took me a hundred days to finish Garcia-Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude. And so with these new titles I bought, I'm giving myself a conservative eight hundred days to finish reading them all.
Being back in the campus halls was another story. I sneaked into AS (sneaking, I realised, was unnecessary as the guards at the entrance weren't too strict after all) and stayed in CASAA for awhile. It amuses me that nothing much has really changed, except perhaps that everyone seems to be using laptops now. But all else is the same. [Well, maybe not the students, for the too-strong smell of the (upper) bourgeois was unmistakeable. How many of these kids came from public schools? From the provinces? Am I in La Salle? Is this Ateneo de Diliman?] But I mean my feelings for, about, and in UP were the same. I could have entered any classroom and just get lost again in the strange 'at home-ness.' Or get found is what I mean?
I remember a friend saying that we should not be working in the BP__ industry, for this is not where we belong. Then the UP thing got into the conversation, and suddenly, we were back in our former selves, well-bathed and basking in the old ideals of the university, perhaps last seen and felt genuinely during the beginning of the past decade, when an academic unit was still just worth P300...
But like I've said, this is another story that warrants another article. Something I better not dwell on for now. :-)
__________________________________________
The UP Press anniversary sale is until March 31. The bookshop's new location is at the ground floor of the printing office itself, along E delos Santos St., near the UP Police Station. (Those who try to steal books will go straight to jail!)
Labels:
books,
philosophy,
U.P.
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
On the utter randomness of things
by E. Wong
__________________________________________
*artwork: "Number 8" (Jackson Pollock, 1949)
**poetry written sometime in April 2010
***as this is the poem after which this blog is named, this pretty much expresses my consciousness of the world, my concept of love, my faith in entropy, and....
gravity
how it falls
heavier
heavier
the further our attempt at measurement
somewhere a faucet cries alone
its drama felt the house over
time
explodes then be consumed
by mercy of earth always always
without fail almost finally defining
forever this is nature of space you say
what is invisible or abstract
occupies endures
suppress not
voice inside tell me
baby sparrow breaks out
from mother’s shell yawns like sunshine
if too loud
let out like lahar create
ruins beautiful
beaches pristine
I believe you say
probability
humankind’s best friend
God’s greatest invention
so trust again I may
out of everyone in the din
we will be found
together
when at last a thing becomes an object
we do only two acts of love
we sin
then
we sing
__________________________________________
*artwork: "Number 8" (Jackson Pollock, 1949)
**poetry written sometime in April 2010
***as this is the poem after which this blog is named, this pretty much expresses my consciousness of the world, my concept of love, my faith in entropy, and....
Labels:
love,
new beginning,
philosophy,
poetry
Monday, February 14, 2011
How to spell 'Melancholy'
by E. Wong Martin
for Mitsiku
.
for Mitsiku
Our lesson for today is about happiness
and how one writes it with a capital letter,
perhaps bold, or do you prefer
italics? The principal says
that it may be found among the piles
of unread books, or the mouldy sandwiches
from the canteen. Now we will give you
ten seconds
and ten years to spell it correctly,
and when in doubt, you may consult
our school janitor—just please do not insult
him on how he always stinks of beer
because it is not alcohol you smell
but the long years of sweeping,
and waiting, and weeping, and cleaning off
semen or dried tears on the floor.
You are not required to turn
to your science books, as they don’t yet
have a theory on fireworks and sex,
or forgiveness
and loss. But when you say
‘one,’ it means ‘two-halves’—simple
as that, really. Do not tell anybody,
but math is the secret spouse
of grammar. Probability (or is it
statistics?) has it:
One day, someday,
you can write it again, perhaps faster,
perhaps with bigger letters, perhaps
in Bisaya or French, or even sign
language.
Remember, left or right
hand, it doesn’t matter, for as long
as you have an eraser ready.
Remember, wrong or right,
we do not deduct points for as long
as you do not cheat.
Do not put any period, too—
now this is very important in all writing.
Most of all, when you do,
close your eyes, but keep
that thing in your chest open…
now what’s that called again?
.
Labels:
dog,
happiness,
heartbreak,
love,
new beginning,
philosophy,
poetry
Saturday, January 1, 2011
To Owe Juan One
A New Year Monologue
What comes next may not necessarily reflect the pun and fun in the title of this post. But for the sake of instant creativity, let’s say I’m calling my blogsite Juan, which, yes, could also pertain to the archetypal Filipino—but I digress too quickly like always, and to imply that I have so much social relevance in me may sound pretentious—so let’s just go back to “Juan,” my blog personified with a new name, but just for today, alright, and let me say then that I owe him big time, because I haven’t paid my respects to this sweet electronic home of mine, I haven't blogged for so long, and so, indeed, I owe Juan one.
It’s amazing how that previous paragraph counted more than a hundred words already yet had very little essence. Life, my life, that is, may have been like that lately. Too many events, developments, if you will, but hardly enough significance. Or maybe this is just me indulging in self-pity again. I guess it’s because I’ve been listening more and more to D____ R____’s songs in the wee hours of the morning, which is considered taboo: You do not listen to D____ R____ in the darkness of the night lest you will be driven mad by the most artful, romantic, and poetic but nevertheless suicide-inducing music ever!
But let’s leave my good friend Damien alone; this post is not about music or suicide or death, but rather self-introspection, new beginnings, and, well, life. Whoever is not urged by the onset of a new year urges to look back into the past year, to see what we have done, what have become of us, and what have not? Positivists would say, count our blessings and aspire for more. Looking back now, my own 2010 has not been that bad. Actually, it was exciting. I didn’t have a car, or got a raise, or have some awesome love/lust life. Nothing “major-major,” really, but still, it wasn’t that bad.
Wait, (as I pause in writing now), I realise that when someone uses the phrase “not bad” instead of “good,” that means something, right? (Shit, now I have just used two indefinite pronouns in one sentence; had I/it been so freaking bad?) Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I could have been so much better. But still, who wouldn’t? Maybe the man (or woman) who won the 700-million-peso lotto jackpot. Well, he/she may be so freaking rich now, but is he/she really happy? (I had to say that rhetorical question, for the sake of emotional argument, but deep-down inside, I really think whoever that super millionaire is must be so freaking happy now.)
Going back to the pith of my post, I’m glad to say that I’m still thankful for everything that went my way in the past year. I don’t intend to define or measure my happiness right now, but let me just say, I’m not “that sad.” So whatever transpired in my 2010 anyway? Well, I finally left ABS-CBN and am now working for a new (non-television) company somewhere across UP. And oh, UP: I was admitted to the open university program last year, but I didn’t, couldn’t, pursue it. Maybe this year? I don’t know, I don’t think so. I visited the campus a couple of times last year and felt that it wasn’t the same great school I left six years ago. But that’s another topic…
So what else? Right, I was in love. Not just once, but twice! (Or thrice was it?) And got heartbroken, too, not just once, but twice! (Or thrice was it?) I, too, may have broken some people’s hearts. I can’t be too assuming; I’m not as hot as I used to be, haha! And I would rather be the “heartbreakee” than heartbreaker. It was an exciting year, I told you. But again, that warrants another blog post.
On friendships, I got into some real serious quarrel with an old friend. And then months later, we’d patch things up. What reconciled us: Distance. I also met a couple of interesting new friends. And interested ones, hehe.
On being an ________, it was generally an uncreative year for me. I did not go back to ___________ like I planned. I still haven’t bought a guitar despite having bookmarked too many guitar lesson websites and even made deals with actual guitar tutors. And about writing, like I’ve said, for a long time I haven’t blogged, which is already the simplest form of writing for me. Which means I did not write at all. Well, I studied and wrote some poetry last summer, but beyond that I had no work of art (or work of heart) that would have been worth publishing and sharing to the world. Plus I got rejected by two national writing workshops, and as usual got depressed and lost confidence in myself, and so I did not submit at all to any writing contest. I could have applied to the Ateneo Workshop, but I was too faithless and lazy to write at the time. The closest I got to being creative is writing English subtitles for indie films. But that wasn’t too challenging. It was more of translation than real writing. I have a whole library of untouched books back at home, and the apartment I now live in has even more awesome books that are just waiting, begging to be read. I didn’t just did not write, I did not read too. This part of my life really sucked. I always thought of myself as a writer who may never change the world, but could his own, yet I was always preoccupied with, uhmm, procrastinating. If I were to make a concrete new year resolution, it should be this simple: To Read and Write.
I didn’t get richer, too. That one’s obvious. Dead broke a couple of times, jobless for a while. Bought a new laptop, though, but no new phone. I’ve never been a gadgety guy, anyway. (Because if I were I wouldn't use the word gadgety.) I didn’t have new shoes or jeans either. And I did not travel at all. No trip out of the country, not even beyond Luzon. Nothing more to put in the log sheet of acquired things. So I’m afraid I’m still someone who could look and sound sosyal, but is so dugyot deep inside.
Oh, yes, but of course, I got a new puppy named Stanley whom eventually got called “Tan-tan” (a pet's got to have a pet name!). A fluffy white bunch of joy who has dugyot blood too but mixed with some handsome spaniel breed, he is the current love of my life. (And he’s turning a year old on 9 January, on the very feast day of the Nazareno.) Tan-tan is like my second child, after my twelve-year-old sister Kim, who is actually my niece, but is really more like a daughter to me. See, that alone sounds complicated. I guess that’s just my life. Not just my 2010, I suspect this new year, too, as all my future years will be.
As far as I can tell I murdered no one, or got anybody pregnant, or stole anything that costs more than twenty pesos last year. If every January I have to be thankful for I’m alive and that my family’s healthy, well, that can’t be too bad, eh? So I guess it was a good year, after all. But who am I kidding? I could be writing this in the new year of 1999 or 2012, and still mean and feel the same. A cycle of regrets and hopes, that’s just how life goes. I think what counts is that one has the sanity and strength to look back and feel, and move on and feel. If we all could feel the energy to be good or power to be better only once a year, then this is the best time for that, when we are starting all over.
So who is Juan, really? He could be this blog which is a blog post richer today, an impassioned one at that. And Juan could be you, my reader(s), whom I wouldn’t really urge to read my articles here any further, as this is just full of my emotional crap and shitty heart.
Or perhaps Juan is myself, and I am Juan. And I owe Juan so much.
What comes next may not necessarily reflect the pun and fun in the title of this post. But for the sake of instant creativity, let’s say I’m calling my blogsite Juan, which, yes, could also pertain to the archetypal Filipino—but I digress too quickly like always, and to imply that I have so much social relevance in me may sound pretentious—so let’s just go back to “Juan,” my blog personified with a new name, but just for today, alright, and let me say then that I owe him big time, because I haven’t paid my respects to this sweet electronic home of mine, I haven't blogged for so long, and so, indeed, I owe Juan one.
It’s amazing how that previous paragraph counted more than a hundred words already yet had very little essence. Life, my life, that is, may have been like that lately. Too many events, developments, if you will, but hardly enough significance. Or maybe this is just me indulging in self-pity again. I guess it’s because I’ve been listening more and more to D____ R____’s songs in the wee hours of the morning, which is considered taboo: You do not listen to D____ R____ in the darkness of the night lest you will be driven mad by the most artful, romantic, and poetic but nevertheless suicide-inducing music ever!
But let’s leave my good friend Damien alone; this post is not about music or suicide or death, but rather self-introspection, new beginnings, and, well, life. Whoever is not urged by the onset of a new year urges to look back into the past year, to see what we have done, what have become of us, and what have not? Positivists would say, count our blessings and aspire for more. Looking back now, my own 2010 has not been that bad. Actually, it was exciting. I didn’t have a car, or got a raise, or have some awesome love/lust life. Nothing “major-major,” really, but still, it wasn’t that bad.
Wait, (as I pause in writing now), I realise that when someone uses the phrase “not bad” instead of “good,” that means something, right? (Shit, now I have just used two indefinite pronouns in one sentence; had I/it been so freaking bad?) Anyway, I guess what I’m trying to say is that I could have been so much better. But still, who wouldn’t? Maybe the man (or woman) who won the 700-million-peso lotto jackpot. Well, he/she may be so freaking rich now, but is he/she really happy? (I had to say that rhetorical question, for the sake of emotional argument, but deep-down inside, I really think whoever that super millionaire is must be so freaking happy now.)
Going back to the pith of my post, I’m glad to say that I’m still thankful for everything that went my way in the past year. I don’t intend to define or measure my happiness right now, but let me just say, I’m not “that sad.” So whatever transpired in my 2010 anyway? Well, I finally left ABS-CBN and am now working for a new (non-television) company somewhere across UP. And oh, UP: I was admitted to the open university program last year, but I didn’t, couldn’t, pursue it. Maybe this year? I don’t know, I don’t think so. I visited the campus a couple of times last year and felt that it wasn’t the same great school I left six years ago. But that’s another topic…
So what else? Right, I was in love. Not just once, but twice! (Or thrice was it?) And got heartbroken, too, not just once, but twice! (Or thrice was it?) I, too, may have broken some people’s hearts. I can’t be too assuming; I’m not as hot as I used to be, haha! And I would rather be the “heartbreakee” than heartbreaker. It was an exciting year, I told you. But again, that warrants another blog post.
On friendships, I got into some real serious quarrel with an old friend. And then months later, we’d patch things up. What reconciled us: Distance. I also met a couple of interesting new friends. And interested ones, hehe.
On being an ________, it was generally an uncreative year for me. I did not go back to ___________ like I planned. I still haven’t bought a guitar despite having bookmarked too many guitar lesson websites and even made deals with actual guitar tutors. And about writing, like I’ve said, for a long time I haven’t blogged, which is already the simplest form of writing for me. Which means I did not write at all. Well, I studied and wrote some poetry last summer, but beyond that I had no work of art (or work of heart) that would have been worth publishing and sharing to the world. Plus I got rejected by two national writing workshops, and as usual got depressed and lost confidence in myself, and so I did not submit at all to any writing contest. I could have applied to the Ateneo Workshop, but I was too faithless and lazy to write at the time. The closest I got to being creative is writing English subtitles for indie films. But that wasn’t too challenging. It was more of translation than real writing. I have a whole library of untouched books back at home, and the apartment I now live in has even more awesome books that are just waiting, begging to be read. I didn’t just did not write, I did not read too. This part of my life really sucked. I always thought of myself as a writer who may never change the world, but could his own, yet I was always preoccupied with, uhmm, procrastinating. If I were to make a concrete new year resolution, it should be this simple: To Read and Write.
I didn’t get richer, too. That one’s obvious. Dead broke a couple of times, jobless for a while. Bought a new laptop, though, but no new phone. I’ve never been a gadgety guy, anyway. (Because if I were I wouldn't use the word gadgety.) I didn’t have new shoes or jeans either. And I did not travel at all. No trip out of the country, not even beyond Luzon. Nothing more to put in the log sheet of acquired things. So I’m afraid I’m still someone who could look and sound sosyal, but is so dugyot deep inside.
Oh, yes, but of course, I got a new puppy named Stanley whom eventually got called “Tan-tan” (a pet's got to have a pet name!). A fluffy white bunch of joy who has dugyot blood too but mixed with some handsome spaniel breed, he is the current love of my life. (And he’s turning a year old on 9 January, on the very feast day of the Nazareno.) Tan-tan is like my second child, after my twelve-year-old sister Kim, who is actually my niece, but is really more like a daughter to me. See, that alone sounds complicated. I guess that’s just my life. Not just my 2010, I suspect this new year, too, as all my future years will be.
As far as I can tell I murdered no one, or got anybody pregnant, or stole anything that costs more than twenty pesos last year. If every January I have to be thankful for I’m alive and that my family’s healthy, well, that can’t be too bad, eh? So I guess it was a good year, after all. But who am I kidding? I could be writing this in the new year of 1999 or 2012, and still mean and feel the same. A cycle of regrets and hopes, that’s just how life goes. I think what counts is that one has the sanity and strength to look back and feel, and move on and feel. If we all could feel the energy to be good or power to be better only once a year, then this is the best time for that, when we are starting all over.
So who is Juan, really? He could be this blog which is a blog post richer today, an impassioned one at that. And Juan could be you, my reader(s), whom I wouldn’t really urge to read my articles here any further, as this is just full of my emotional crap and shitty heart.
Or perhaps Juan is myself, and I am Juan. And I owe Juan so much.
Labels:
love,
new beginning,
philosophy,
rantings
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Hinggil sa malayang kalikasan ng mga bagay
by Ewong Martines
*poem is translated from the English original.
Grabedad:
Kung paano lalong bumibigat
Sa tuwing ito’y ating dinadalumat.
Ang tánging tumatangis: isang gripo,
Ngunit ang panaghoy, dinig sa buong bahay.
Mainam na namumuhay:
Isang segundo,
Na lalamunin lang, lagi’t walang-humpay,
Ng hayok na bibig ng orbito ng daigdig,
Wari’y sinusubukang bigyang-kahulugan
Yaong tinawag na walang hanggan. Ito ang katuturan
Ng oras, wika mo: sa ere’y ‘di makita,
Ngunit sa puso’y nakikintal:
Isang musika.
‘Wag pigilin ang boses mula sa’yong loob,
Sabi mo: isang munting ibong maya,
Lumalaya mula itlog ng kanyang ina,
Humihikab nang tila bukang-liwayway.
At kung sakaling labis na ang ingay,
Pawalán na tulad ng lahar na rumaragasá
Na siya rin namang lumilikha
Ng magandang tanawi’t aplaya.
Naniwala ako sa’yong pahayag:
Probabilidad,
Ating matalik na kaibigan,
Pinakamahusay na imbensyon
Ng Panginoon. Winika mo ito upang ako
Ay manalig na sa ibabaw nitong koro
Mga boses nati’y muling magtatagpo.
At sa wakas,
Sa panahong ang isang bagay
Ay naging pakay, may dalawang akto
Ng pag-ibig patungong langit:
Tayo'y nang magkasala,
Halina't umawit.
*poem is translated from the English original.
Labels:
philosophy,
poetry,
translation
Monday, February 22, 2010
The Butterfly
by Ewong Martines
*artwork by Tatiana Zank
My father once told a story that had passed on from his father’s father and all the fathers before him: on the mystery of butterflies. According to him, butterflies don’t die natural deaths. Unless we crush them, or spray on them, or, God forbid, eat them, forever they will fly in the garden of melancholy.
The butterfly, he said, whispers its secrets to the flowers that never listen. It cuddles and caresses them, extolling their scents. But the stamens and pistils, he continued, are lovers who don’t believe the stories of a vagrant rainbow.
So the butterfly flutters away to other flowers that are heedless still. And forgetful. It wanders in the woods, in the rice fields, in the riverbanks, into the oblivious sky, until it reaches where the sun and sea kiss. By then, the butterfly is worn-out, but still beautiful.
And now that I’m flying away, the age-old secrets that I bear are too wonderful to declare.
The butterfly, he said, whispers its secrets to the flowers that never listen. It cuddles and caresses them, extolling their scents. But the stamens and pistils, he continued, are lovers who don’t believe the stories of a vagrant rainbow.
So the butterfly flutters away to other flowers that are heedless still. And forgetful. It wanders in the woods, in the rice fields, in the riverbanks, into the oblivious sky, until it reaches where the sun and sea kiss. By then, the butterfly is worn-out, but still beautiful.
And now that I’m flying away, the age-old secrets that I bear are too wonderful to declare.
*artwork by Tatiana Zank
Labels:
philosophy,
poetry
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