Welcome 2010, please be nice

So this is the new year/And I don’t feel any different
-The New Year, Death Cab For Cutie (2004)

Bagong taon, lumang problema
-Rivermaya (1999)

Happy new year! Nothing new to report, though. Halfway into January, I haven’t done anything remarkable yet, other than finish the things I put on hold in December. I didn’t come up with a list of resolutions because I’m pretty sure I won’t be able to keep any, but just for the hell of it I guess this can be my general mantra for 2010: BE KIND. I just want to be kinder to myself and those that matter to me this year, and I wish that 2010 will be kinder to me, too. (Chummy, I know).

Here’s what I remember most about 2009, in unordered Tags:

VJ, paspas, Nerdita, Maginhawa, Justice and Tenure for Prof. Sarah Raymundo, Cubao, Krispy Kreme, Gateway, boots, fucked-up sleeping schedule, exercise, running, 4 rounds for the win, fun runs, marlboros, movies, UP, Ondoy, Michael Jackson, Cory, MJ night 24th birthday bash, coffee, red wine, Acad Union, No to Cha-Cha, dvd series marathons, staying up late until the sun came up, classes, graded observations, Trellis, UST criticism workshop in Baguio, Hotel Paladin, 99Q,  DECL, Lec&Kat Year 5, Team Redeem, Eraserheads: The Final Set with Lala, Friuli, sneakers, Titus, Kule, Bohemian Nights Redux, 500 Days of Summer, Le Ching, Matabungkay, Summer Classes, MA, Mogwai, hanging out at Technohub, Vlad’s booklaunch, Francis M, Lec goes back to school, Amano’s, ROC, Poetry, Regina Spektor, There is a Light that Never Goes Out, heartbreak hill, lazy days, coffee with the folks on Sundays, bills, housemates, Calle Luz, hanging out with the usual suspects, Palanca, Revolutionary Road, deliberate prose, writing exercises, Ampatuan massacre, backhoe, nameless runner crush, PCED, Le Ching, microwave accident, Saramago, beer, vargas museum cafe, Kung Tayo’y Mga Paru-Paro, I’m getting ready to theorize, Talakayan sa Likod ng Karatula, telebabad, tatlong oras ng videoke, consumerism, GMA Washington/NY dinner, Serendra, Maria Cafra, Che, Barrack Obama, Peter Paul and Mary, Facebook is a Monster, Touchscreen is In, COMELEC registration, GMA’s 9th SONA, The Origin of Love, Batman, Let The Right One In, Kings of Leon, Nicole “recants”, US recession, The Reader, weekday dinners, The Corrections, Cat’s Eye, Fascism, Little Quiapo, nostalgia, Ingrid Michaelson.

Mogwai

Videoke night

Kat & Lec Year 5

Quiapo

UST Criticism Workshop

Eraserheads: The Final Set

UP Fair

Summer

Vlad’s A-Side/B-Side

At Mandaluyong

No to ChaCha!

MJ night/Birthday

Despedida for Bomen, Jhonathan, Nerve

Dalaw sa Kule

The History Boys

Catching up session

Titus’ baptism

VJ’s party/Paspas booklaunch

Condemnation Rally

Race and shine

Last race for the year

Justice and Tenure for Prof. Raymundo!

CONTEND christmas party

Yoko Ono recommends

Here’s something emo for the new year:

RT @yokoono Write down a sad memory. Put it in a box. Burn the box & sprinkle the ashes in a field. Give some ashes to a friend who shared the sadness.

Away We Go

Sam Mendes’ Away We Go just made it to my top 10 movies of 2009 (a list which I have yet to write).

It’s like a grown-up and refined 500 days of summer, and if you’re an Eggers fan like me you’d use his name to describe the movie in a nutshell. It feels like an Eggers movie, it’s so very Eggers-esque! I don’t have to time to write a proper review, but here are a few things to note:

1) Alexi Murdoch soundtrack. The scoring was just perfect, Murdoch plus a Bob Dylan and Velvet Underground here and there and that’s that.

2) No special effects whatsoever, which I absolutely loved. Just the simple text inserts of places where the main characters went.

3) No flashbacks! Pure good acting and dialogue.

4) It’s not overly dramatic, just the right mix of drama and comedy.

5) I totally bawled while watching the ending.

6) From Revolutionary Road to Away We Go–makes you appreciate how Sam Mendes can direct extremely different movies.

It’s the perfect coming of age movie for quarter-aged “fuck-ups.” If you’re in your twenties and you feel like a fuck-up, watch it before this terrible year ends, it will give you something to look forward to/hope for next year. Away we go!

Breaking News

Breaking News
(Katrina Macapagal)

I.
Shortly
after we celebrated
the boxer who nabbed
another world title,
we gaped at his wife
who sobbed in church,
and swapped stories
about the other woman.
Seems like the slaughter
in the twelfth round
spilled outside
the boxing ring,
to the delight of
our new intellectuals
(a boy and the daughter
of the dead matriarch),
who ran out of opinions
when the flood
of philanthropic acts
subsided. Nobody
had forseen
that the frenzy
would be
interrupted
by faint gunfire
and cries from
fifty-seven dead,
buried somewhere
far from sight.
After all, we imagined,
a tragedy isn’t a tragedy
if it doesn’t happen
on TV.

II.
And so we heard
about the massacre
that occured in a place
where Progress is a forgotten word,
where victory
belongs to the lord who owns more
gold and bullets
than the lord next-door.
The killing spree was quiet
and swift, muffled
by the bloodied soil
turned into a secret grave
for men and women
who were just passing through,
and who never thought
that doing what they had to do
was a crime punishable by death.
He who uttered
the order to shoot knew
that this, too, shall be ignored–
this was but a fair exchange
for a job well done
a few years past, when he made sure
that all ballots bore
the president’s name.
When he visited the palace
of his queen, she shook
his hand to seal the deal.

III.
What of good news? Just when some
have boldly proclaimed
that where we come from
everyone’s a hero (says ABS, GMA,
and of course, CNN),
we find ourselves
stunned that such savagery
still exists
in this day and age. Perhaps
we always knew,
we just failed to imagine
that the worst tragedies
are those that strike
after momentary victories.
On TV, we watch an
all-too-familiar spiel:
I am sorry, all will be well. But
we know enough
to see what the camera doesn’t show–
trembling hands smeared
with the blood of the dead.

Best scenes in 500 Days of Summer (and then some)

My top 5 best scenes in 500 Days of Summer

1) Train scene

2) Split screen (expectations vs. reality)

3) “It’s love, not Santa Claus”

4) JGL dance routine to “You Make My Dreams”

5) “To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die”

6) JGL singing “Here Comes Your Man” (The Pixies)

Finally, 500 Days of Summer is being shown in local cinemas. I managed to watch it already about a month ago through torrents download–crappy quality but good enough (if you can ignore the watermarks). I’m planning to watch it on the big screen tomorrow, so in light of that here are some of the scenes I’m looking forward to watching again:

Top 5:

1) Train scene-because it reminded me of Before Sunrise. I like how this scene highlights the contradiction between the fast-paced train versus and the seemingly slow movements/human interaction inside the train.

Screen cap grabbed from Jayson Fajarda's album in facebook

2) Split screen (Expectations vs. Reality)-This scene killed me! I’m sure we’ve seen this before in other movies, but it was perfect for this movie in particular. It sealed the deal that this movie will be the formulaic indie love story movie (next to Garden State). It also revealed that the movie was indeed directed by a music video director. The entire movie actually seemed like an extended music video.

3) “It’s love, not Santa Claus” -The line that captured the personality of Tom: the hopeless romantic bordering on pathetic who believes in soulmates, true love, and perhaps even Santa Claus.

4) ”To die by your side is such a heavenly way to die”-The scene that captured the personality of Summer: kooky, weird, free-spirited girl, totally unlike Tom. A bit of a bitch in the end, if you ask me.

5) Bench scene-The part when Tom and Summer saw each other again after some time, and Summer delivered the killer line: “What I was never sure of with you.” Won’t write the whole dialogue exchange here because I don’t want to spoil the movie for you, but this was the most painful, heartbreaking, and enlightening line in the movie. Watch out for JGL’s reaction to this line, he nailed it!

Some other notable scenes:

6) JGL singing “Here Comes Your Man” (The Pixies)-Especially the part when he flipped his hair. Gad, seems like this guy is looking more and more like Heath Ledger, don’t you think?

7) But of course, that Dance scene! Because silly fun dance routines rock!

8) Tom looking at Summer who was crying after watching the final scene from The Graduate. (My friend Sarah pointed out that this is one of the most revealing scenes in the movie). This part hinted at what would eventually happen in the end given that they had different “ways of seeing” things.

If you already have the soundtrack, I think it makes more sense after you’ve seen the movie. Regina Spektor’s “Us” and The Smiths’ “Please Let Me Get What I Want” are perfect for the movie’s plot. I’m not too crazy about Zooey Deschanel’s remake of “Please Let Me Get…”, though.

A few complaints, though. I wish they dropped the precocious younger sister character and the stereotypical douchebag best friend. As my friend Jayson pointed out, Dakota Fanning is so over. And the best friend character can be annoying in some instances.

Still, all in all, this movie would be in my Top 10 films of 2009. Totally looking forward to watching this movie again, with better video and audio quality.

So what are your favorite scenes?

Fuck you, Ondoy!

Even though Typhoon Ondoy has left the country (heads up, Vietnam!), I’m pretty sure a lot of us are still reeling from the tragedy, still muttering a series of expletives under our breaths, the same expletives exclaimed during the heavy downpour. Holy crap. Holy fuck. Tangina. Who would have thought that a tragedy like this would happen? It was mad, mad, mad rain.

On September 26, Saturday morning, I woke up with a text message from my professor in MA class: “Malakas ang bagyo. Wag na tayo mag-klase mamaya, make-up na lang next week.”  I was thankful that my class was cancelled because I wasn’t finished with the paper due that day. I was also planning to check papers that afternoon, so it was a welcome break for me. Like most of us, I didn’t think much of the rain. I thought it would stop soon enough. So when I saw a video on youtube of a car being swept away in what was left of Katipunan avenue, I was still in disbelief.

Just one of the many streets that were flooded by Typhoon Ondoy. Several videos uploaded in youtube show abandoned cars being submerged as the floods rose.

The barrage of images that we’ve seen in the past two days seems to have come straight out of a doomsday movie, especially for those of us who were fortunate enough to remain on dry land. I can never claim to know how it must have been like for those who actually experienced the tragedy, those who scrambled to bring their furniture to higher ground, those who clambered to the roofs of their houses when the water started seeping in, those who saw with their own eyes how their loved ones drowned in the flood. I can only imagine how that must have been like. In this case, no amount of imagining can ever really capture what happened in reality.

Filipino children stand stranded on the top of building escaping floodwaters brought by Tropical Storm Ketsana

Residents cross a flooded highway in the town of Cainta in Rizal province

We were all caught by surprise. Typhoon Ondoy left a lot of people homeless, enraged, and heartbroken. The death toll has reached over a hundred. People, including children, are still missing. Areas in Cainta, Marikina, and Pasig are still submerged in water. Residents in the most affected areas are still waiting for electricity and clean water. In Provident Village, Marikina, there are reports that robbers are trying to break into houses now that the flood had subsided.

Some analysts are saying that Typhoon Ondoy is our version of Hurricane Katrina. The mad rain that Ondoy brought was, in fact, stronger than that of Hurricane Katrina’s: According to a Reuters report: “ The weather bureau said Ketsana [Ondoy] brought the heaviest rainfall in the country in 40 years. About 410 mm of rain fell in 24 hours on Saturday, twice the amount that drenched the United States during Hurricane Katrina in 2005.”

But the analogy does not stop there. Many say that the Philippine government’s response, or lack thereof, to Typhoon Ondoy is similar to the Bush administration’s handling of the Katrina tragedy. The Philippine government does not have enough money and resources for an emergency like Ondoy. In a report titled “Philippine overwhelmed by flood disaster“ we find out that “The Philippine government says it cannot cope with the massive flooding that has displaced nearly half a million people…” So now, as always, the government is imploring private sector and international organizations to help save the current administration’s ass.

Quoted from the Reuter’s report titled  ”Philippines seeks typhoon aid, battles to avoid backlash:”

“This will have a big political impact on the government,” Ramon Casiple, executive director of the Instiute for Political and Electoral Reform, told Reuters, adding it could further sink the popularity of the administration.”

“People are wondering how the government spent its budget for flood control projects. The government was caught unprepared by the heavy rain brought by the typhoon.”

A flood of people east of Manila try to escape the disaster. Photo: AP

So where exactly did the government spend its budget for flood control projects and emergencies like Typhoon Ondoy? Since this is the most secretive, non-transparent administration to date, we don’t really know. But we can come up with intelligent theories. Here’s one idea: “GMA used P800-million emergency fund for foreign trips.” I suppose it’s safe to assume that the devastation caused by Typhoon Ondoy qualifies as an “emergency.” So where the hell is our P800-million emergency fund? And what the hell is GMA doing to address this mess? I hope she’s isn’t planning another overseas trip.

According to reports on prime time news earlier, GMA is already visiting some of the most devastated areas in the metro and has been facilitating meetings to consolidate relief operations. Planning is fine, but these plans won’t come about if we don’t have the funds to pursue them.

We may not know what GMA was doing when Ondoy hit the country, but we do know what GMA’s son, Congressman Mikey Arroyo was doing the day after the country got hit by the most terrible storm in forty years:

At Rustan's: Mikey Arroyo, seemingly in high "spirits." The first gentleman's version of panic-buying.

Apart from the Arroyos, Manny Villar and other seemingly unaffected happy campers (i.e. Gordon),  are using this tragedy to advance their political ambitions. What better time to show concern for the voting public than the day after the flood?

Tulong (raw) mula kay Manny Villar

Despite shameless displays of philantrophy from our beloved politicians, the spirit of volunteerism seems to be at an all-time high. As Dickens would have put it, these are the worst of times, but these can also turn out to be the best of times. Heroes are born out of tragedies. For instance, we’ve heard the brave story of Muelmar Magallanes in this report: ”An 18-year-old construction worker braved rampaging floods in the Philippines to save more than 30 people, but ended up sacrificing his life in a last trip to rescue a baby girl and her mother who were being swept away on a styrofoam box.”

We find other heroes in non-government organizations and disaster relief groups that have been working non-stop in the aftermath. I’ve seen the usual announcements from Red Cross, but a few small-scale groups have also been organizing relief operations and fund-raisers for the victims of Ondoy. Media outfits have also entered the picture. On television, updates from ABS-CBN’s Sagip Kapamilya operation are aired regularly, complete with celebrity appearances including the ever- ubiquitous Kris Aquino.

But, as always, philanthropy is never as happy or glamorous as it seems. As Roland Tolentino puts it in a recent column:

“Kaya ang itatampok ay ang bayanihan, na ang atas ng panahon ng disaster ay pakikipagtulungan at pakikipagkapwa-tao. Ito ang ethos ng telethon, ang kumbersyon ng regular na palabas sa sistematikong pagdulog sa taong may ginhawa para magbigay ng kanyang labis sa taong walang ginhawa…”

And that, I suppose, is the caveat, the fair warning. Behind the spirit of bayanihan, which is all well and good, something that we can indeed be proud of, let us not forget that the very nature of philanthropy reveals that this country is comprised of a few people who have the capacity to help the greater population of the helpless (typhoon or no typhoon). Part of the widespread disbelief in the face of Typhoon Ondoy is the fact that even middle-class and upper-class areas were affected. But that doesn’t necessarily mean that class divisions have magically disappeared, as though swept away by the flood. Only a fortunate few will recover quickly. For those who do not have the resources and capital, recovery will be painfully slow.

Some are quick to say that we should “forget politics” and “unite” in times of tragedy. Unity is one thing. But forgetting politics is another. While we continue with our best efforts to help the victims of this tragedy, let us also strive to make sure that the next time something like this happens, we will be prepared. And if we aren’t, then we know that someone is to blame, someone will be held accountable. Of course, we can never really predict, exactly, the extent of nature’s wrath. But we can always anticipate that emergencies like the Ondoy typhoon are bound to happen. And when they do, the government should at least have a gameplan, and the emergency fund should be available for release promptly and in full.

So fuck you, Ondoy! Good riddance!  But as we bid farewell to the typhoon, we brace ourselves for the imminent aftermath: the daily deluge of disasters that are not caused by nature’s wrath.

*As I write this, I am thinking of ways to help my friends whose homes were wiped out by Ondoy. If you know Mark Abalos and Prech Tayag, please include them in your prayers.

Understanding comics

I’m currently learning how to read comics by leeching off cultural capital from friends. I borrowed Punk Floyd’s readings in his old CL class, copied several electronic comics from Ely and Daryl, and pestered Carl with questions about superheroes. Scott Mcloud’s “Understanding Comics” has proven to be extremely helpful.

I must admit that my exposure to comics is very, very limited. I remember reading some issues that my older brother owned when I was still in elementary, some old copies of Superman, X-men, Spiderman, Hulk, and Ghost Rider. I also remember reading something on mermaids and mermen with powers, which I especially loved because of the illustration. And of course, I grew up reading Archie comics. I don’t remember the titles of the other ones I’ve read, I just remember that they featured a lot of sexed up female characters.

It was only recently that I finished reading the Sandman series and Maus, as well as Daryl’s copy of a recent version of Paul Auster’s City of Glass. From Daryl I also discovered Chicken with Plums and No News Day (? don’t remember the exact title right now, but it’s a chick lit type of comic book). I already have electronic copies of the must-reads: Watchmen, V, and From Hell, the list is getting longer by the minute and I’m already getting flustered because I don’t know what to start with. Thanks Da!

My primary motivation, besides accumulating cultural capital, is that I have to facilitate a discussion on the graphic novel in my intro to lit class. I say facilitate, because at this point I don’t think I know enough to actually “discuss” this genre – I’m practically starting from scratch. Still, I hope I can (and must!) load up on the basics by the end of this month, since I reserved the last week of the semester for this topic. Wish me luck!

The year the music died

And another one bites the dust. I learned the other day that Mary Travers of Peter, Paul and Mary died due to cancer.

Among the recent celebrity deaths, this one hit a nerve. I’ve always loved Peter, Paul and Mary, I grew up listening to their songs because my father digs folk music. It’s a well-known fact that folk music owes  a lot to PPM for popularizing Bob Dylan’s Blowin’ in the Wind and The Times They are A-Changing. And who can forget If I Had Hammer, Puff the Magic Dragon, and PPM’s version of Pete Seeger’s Where Have All the Flowers Gone? I think PPM is one of the few artists/groups that continued to perform in protest gigs even after the folk period. Although the group’s political commitment is, perhaps, limited, we can never deny the impact that their songs have made throughout the years.

image from NY times

image from NY times

Mary was the coolest member of PPM (she was the group’s “sex appeal,” according to reports) , with her bob and beatnik look, and her signature fist-clenching gesture. And of course, her voice was just fabulous.

It seems that 2009 is turning out to be the year the music died (ala the day the music died), starting with the death of local artists earlier this year  (Francis M, Susan Fernandez) and of course, Michael Jackson. Heaven should be rockin’ out right now.

Rest in peace, Mary.

Another little project

Because today was a very stressful day, I wanted to write a quick and rather senseless journal-ish blab about work and how I’ve been feeling this past month. And so I ended up writing the entry below, which after reading I decided to convert into another little project called “Monolgoues,” which I tried to do by adding a profile to the speaker and tweaking what initially should have been my own work-related rant (which theoretically, is of course, still my own work-related rant, even though I added that fictional profile). NOT very original, obviously, total rip-off from Mcsweeney’s “Short Imagined Monologues,” much like my writing exercises categorized as Very Short Stories, which I tried to pattern after Dave Egger’s Very Short Stories in The Guardian and the intros of The Best American Non-Required Reading. No matter, I’d like to believe that we all get our ideas here and there, although I would never claim that these writing exercises originated from my own fresh ideas, as I already mentioned.  And yes, I like writing short fiction, which I file under writing exercises in the hope that I will someday revise or develop them into longer stories. So there you go, the launch of another little writing project, hooray.

P.S. I’m on to Season 5 of the Gilmore Girls DVD set, and I was thrilled to see posters of Derrida and Dave Eggers posted on Rory’s dorm room at Yale. Fan girl mode at the Eggers poster, but I’m wondering what statement the Derrida poster was supposed to say about Rory Gilmore’s personality. Not once have I heard a dialogue about Derrida in Rory’s literature classes, probably because those classes don’t really have anything to do with the show’s conflicts. More of those fictional classroom discussions would have been super, though. I’m trying not to finish season 5 too fast, because that would mean I’d only have one last season to go. Still, I’m glad that Logan already showed up, though it’s also quite disappointing because I think that he’s just too much of a pretty boy for Rory. So anyway, that’s all I had to say in this totally irrelevant post-script.

Monologue # 1: Tired

Monologue # 1: Tired

Retort of Sophia, young call-center agent, 21, college drop-out, when asked by her Team Leader to explain why she fell asleep in the middle of a phone conversation with an American middle-aged male customer who wouldv’e bought the company’s newest exercise product, if only Sophia had answered his question about the bonus features of this revolutionary exercise ball that the company was selling:

“I’m young, I’m restless, and I’m tired. I hate people who claim they’re tired when they have everything in the world going for them in terms of capital (all kinds: monetary, cultural, social). When I say, “I am tired,” I mean tired in a fleeting way, with the full awareness that this shall pass, and that no matter how “tired” I may be feeling now, there are people out there who can claim this with legitimacy. And so, with full awareness of my middle-class sensibilities, let me say that I am tired, yes, but I know that this is just for today, and that there will be other equally, and definitely more tiring, days to come. Just for today I shall allow myself to claim the word. There are so many little things to do that will come crashing down in one big pile, and I’m resolved to cross those things off my list, one by one, day by day, in the best way I can. By “best” I mean, the best of my potential, to the fullest, until I’ve wracked my brain and stretched and pulled my muscles enough to say at the end of the day: “Well, today, given this particular task, I did my absolute best, in all honesty and sincerity, in the most genuine sense of the words “absolute,” “best,” “honesty,” and “sincerity. And if that isn’t enough then I don’t know what is. So fuck off, whoever you are who can never be pleased. I have no regrets, no regrets, no regrets, whatsoever, because dammit I did my best, thank you very much. And I mean this from the bottom of my heart. So, am I fired?”