un[titled] un[finished]

They were on the platform of the old train station. On any other day, the roofing  would collapse upon the two boys with tossled hair; but today it decided to stay in tact despite the decrepit contraption.

*                             *                                 *

d’oh!

Sourced from this part of the interweb

ignore me, I’m actually poor

A friend tells me she gauges her appearance by promo peoples’ approach towards her. So if those men with pointed shoes, long sleeved polos and well pomaded hair insist on spraying the latest Bulgari scent on you, take it as a compliment. It means you look like you can afford it. You appear elegant. The same goes for people who hand out glossy paper flyers on condos & townhouses. However, if the flyers advertise  overseas jobs or herbal meds, then the above rule does not apply. They’ll hand it out to anyone who has a free hand. That’s why I try to avoid eye contact with them; and keep both hands full.

Everywhere, most of the time, we are judged by our physical appearance. What a sad, sad world.

 *          *          *

I leave you with a Gilmore Girls line from the very indifferent, most lovable egotist, Michel:

Michel (on Jackson’s family staying at the Inn):

“They’re so cheap, they get paper cuts on their wrists from prying perfumed magazine pages…”

how I discovered the wonder that is Jhumpa Lahiri

Work has been a little stressful, just a tad bit. Only because we’ve been procrastinating for 6 months before the actual work went ‘live.’ So, yeah, let me rephrase that: the workload is starting to grow heavy.

But still there are days when there are no tickets to work on, so for entertainment –in a form not so colorful, or interactive, that might be too conspicuous for the bosses–I revisited DailyLit.

That day, it was offering a free Jhumpa Lahiri short story. I was clueless, and didn’t know the prestige attached to that name. I simply read the Preview (first installment) and then I got hooked. Unlike the other classic materials on the site where you can read the work in its entirety, this piece had to be sent to you in installments, via email. (Probabaly because it’s a new upload) So I clicked the Subscribe button.

In a certain degree, Lahiri writes like Oates. But her power lies not so much in the manipulation of words to evoke an emotion, it’s in the straightforward telling of the tale.

After reading Hell-Heaven, I had Veto download The Namesake –Lahiri’s novel-turned-film. It was just as beautiful. I bet the book was much better:

I leave you with:

bieber has the exact same problem

Sourced

 
  Sourced from this cool site.

Adolf

Adolf,

You’re the biggest megalomaniac ever to walk the earth; thus, you’re the saddest excuse for a human being. I hope you’re uncomfortable wherever you are.

~anti-Third Reich

death, labour, & fear: my young self’s precocious introduction to the elements of life

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It was the morning that the dog got rabies. I remembered because it left mother no choice but to hit the dog’s head with a shovel. And before she did, she threw a sack on the puppy to keep it from running around like mad, growling and salivating and threatening to bite. We were five small children getting ready for school and the three-minute walk that would take us there. We looked on as the small heap under the sack lay motionless after the third blow.

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One gloomy afternoon, after mother had retrieved the not-really-sun-dried pieces of apparel from the clothesline, she called me into the living room. The clouds were swollen with the notion of rain and she said I’d better get inside the house and help her fold the laundry. I was bad at folding shirts and shorts. She didn’t mind. After a while, when I gave up altogether, someone –my sister or my father, I can’t recall now–someone came in with a toy and I abandoned my duty (or my mother’s attempt at introducing ‘work’ into a child’s routine). It was a light, plastic toy in the shape of an alligator (or crocodile, I was to know the difference at a later time) and it had a basket on its mouth with a lightweight ball. You were supposed to blow into the small opening on its tail-end and it would send the ball afloat. It was a much better case of worry to keep the ball afloat than folding the shirts into neat squares.

 ============================================

Before that moment, I didn’t know the earth was so fragile that it could be quaked. My mother, and someone else–probably a nanny or a niece–were having fun just teasing me, the only child at home. I’m guessing it was a time when my older sister was in pre-school and Mama was still pregnant with my younger sister. On that lazy afternoon they found amusement in rolling me into the carpet and lifting me up to my feet. Of course, I had lost the facility of my limbs and could only mince through the living room wrapped in the stiffness of the carpet. Apparently I looked funny because my movements set them off to boisterous laughter, and as with any child the proportionate response was to keep at it. I was several steps from mother when I started losing balance. The adults started saying ‘It’s an earthquake…’ and I didn’t know what that meant. I had only to look at their eyes and recognize alarm and agitation. Mama started to walk towards me and struggled to un-roll me. I had started to cry.

Dear Holden

Holden,

mga rukdug nin dunong [morsels of wisdom]

Premise:          Facebook is an alternative reality even for pre-teens and it encourages precocious non-physical pubertal
                      qualities in otherwise innocent boys.
Scene:                      sa loob ng tricycle
Sharing seats with:     a grade schooler
Sa likod ng driver:       kaklase ng gradeschooler na katabi ko

Overheard conversation:

Li’l Boy #1: May bago ka bang friend sa facebook?
Li’l Boy #2: ‘Di ko nga alam kung i-aaccept ni M’am Lana eh…’

Conclusion: Ka-blagh!

*        *        *

If your fiance starts calling your favorite game StarCrap 2…it doesn’t mean she loves you any less.

*        *        *

Our Lady of Guadalupe~

Nevermind the weeds amongst the Jesus and the soldiers under Pontius Pilate’s command, just walk the steps, winding up, towards the oratory. Do not fail to stop half way and look at the city below. To your right, behold the sea; and the mountain called Sleeping Lion. Even the unimaginative can see that it does, indeed, appear to be a lion at rest (perhaps after crouching and tailing and devouring a prey). From up there you can see a ship-like building. It’s the Pacific Mall-Gaisano, the emergence of this Cebu-native enterprise has not threatened the local ‘mall’ LCC. [I have not gone up there now that Embarcadero is almost completed, so I can’t tell you how it looks from that vantage point].And my mother is glad that LCC just bent under the foreign giant, because if it had broken, then that meant losing the familiarity of aisles when grocery-shopping.

Let’s go there together. Because I intend to override memories involving a horrid person. I want to hold your hand when you read the metal plate outside the oratory’s door, and you notice the groundbreaking was the same as my birthdate. Remember on New Year’s, San Sebastian Church & after the mass we stood outside to read the embossed plates on the walls. I was incredulous that every part of the church was made of steel, as you claimed they were. You started knocking on a column and I was partly ashamed but mostly amused. 

Crowds grow in number during Holy Week. Groups would start at the bottom, and make their way up, stopping of course at each ’station.’  Most of them do not know what prayer truly means. It is believed that if you do this for seven days into Easter Sunday, your prayers will be heard.

When I bring you up there, I will not pray for anything. I will just thank Whoever’s In Charge of this sometimes cruel & sometimes kind cosmos.

Because I have found a milkweed amongst the grass.

nung masiraan ng bait ang manunulat

Minsan naiisip ko medyo baliw nga ako. Kasi nung nabalitaan kong namatay si Heath Ledger, tinawag ko ang kaluluwa niya. Sabi ko, ‘Tol, dito ka na lang tumambay kasama ko.’ Naglalaro kasi ang ideya sa utak ko, na pwede ko siya maging musa. Matalino naman yun eh. Bukod dun,crush ko siya nung mga panahong siya si Patrick Verona. Ewan ko ah, pero seryoso talaga ako when I tried to summon his spirit–kasi malamang he was at an unrest sa mga panahong yun.Naisip ko baka malungkot siya.Naisip ko pwede ako maging ‘medium,’ kakausapin ko si Matilda para di siya malungkot. Pagkakataon ko na din na masabi kay Michelle Williams na ayaw ko kay Jen, dahil ang debosyon ko ay para kay Joey Potter lamang. Pero, marahil, hindi ko rin sabihin yon. Nagluluksa pa siya eh.

Nung pinaniwala ko ang sarili kong posible ngang rumesponde siya, naisip ko yung mga pelikula kung saan nakikipag-usap sa ghost yung bida. Mukha silang tanga. Para silang baliw. Sabi ko, ok yun ah. Ok sakin yun. Alam mo kung bakit ok? Kasi sampu sa mga taong nakapalibot sa’yo, dadalawa lang yung may kwentang kausap. 

Mr. Cobb I Think I Need Your Services

There has been a general shortage of literary brainfarts.
Mr. Cobb, I need you to teach me how to guard my subconscious.

Meet me after midnight.

[I have this theory that someone has been stealing from me].
Let’s catch the motherfucker.

me, myself & my alters

Dear Nikola

My Darling Mr. Tesla,

If fate (or the science of time) had permitted it; if I had lived in the same century as yours, I would’ve been glad to walk with you — three times around the block — before entering a building. Leave it to me to ensure that they give you a room with a number divisible by three. Do not worry, I abhor pearl earrings & have no penchant for jewelry altogether. I respect your celibacy. That is perfectly fine by me.We can take a stroll & summon the pigeons.

Your happiness is my mirth.

Sincerely,

~ x ~

from Paris with love

Today I was thinking of a perfume I once had back in elementary. It was a present from Tita Fe (who was then in Paris), at a time when the post office could be trusted with little packages from Europe. I couldn’t remember the name but only knew that it sounded like Shelfari — the social networking site for bookworms. (and yes, I have an account).

So Mr. Google sorted it out for me.The scent is now discontinued, though.

I wish I had kept the bottle. The cap in this image is different, mine was clear & had the same color as the liquid. How precious it would be to still have it! Oh well. Moving houses, and Reming& whatever else… I’m bound to lose my Agatha Christies, the liquor & perfume bottles we sort of collected…

I might start a new collection: a poker chip from Macau (Miss Catie); a Phone box magnet from U.K. (Miss Donna); the team keychain from Invensys UK, the ‘Catherine’ keychain from Veto. . . Woah I feel much better despite the loss:

inceptiō | inceptus | incipere

I have taken the precaution of not reading too much speculative reviews on Inception. Since the first glimpse of its brief teaser trailer last year, the anticipation just gnawed at me, as I believe, with the rest of the world.

From the last quarter of ‘09 until last Friday, when Inception was released internationally on conventional & IMAX theatres, movie sites have been buzzing unceasingly about this Nolan film which took around eight years to put together. The principal photography began June 2009 & was finished in November of the same year; however Nolan pitched the idea to WB soon after his 2002 film Insomnia.

Inception opens with impressive prosthetics on an aged Ken Watanabe (who plays Saito). This is part of a scene on the last quarter of the film’s run. The idea is extremely novel, and that adds up to the film’s prestige. The first scenes show Dom Cobb (DiCaprio) and his team as they fail on an extraction job involving Saito (Watanabe); the latter reveals later that he was aware of the dream & the intended extraction because it was all an ‘audition’ for another more convoluted job: Inception.

Saito wants them to plant an idea unto Robert Fischer’s (Cillian Murphy) head that would cause the downfall of Maurice Fischer’s (Robert’s father) empire. Saito & Fischer are corporate rivals.

The third dream level was on a snowy mountain fortress and would reveal the ‘idea’ to Fischer.

  

All the while, Cobb was torn between keeping his dead wife’s memory alive & fighting to get back to his children. This struggle was not known to his team, save for Ariadne, who dared go into Cobb’s subconscious one evening while they were preparing for the ‘anti-heist.’ Mal (Marion Cotillard) is The Shade, a figure constantly interfering in Cobb’s dream state, compromising their mission. And she does, on the third dream level, as Fischer was just about to enter the code & find out the contents of the vault. Mal takes Fischer into her ‘world.’

Ariadne, The Architect (Ellen Page) & Cobb are forced to go another level deeper, deviating from the plan. Here, Ariadne successfully retrieves the subject of inception –Fischer; and Cobb was able to finally let Mal go. It is revealed to us that Cobb believed inception was possible, because he had first-hand experience. The Shade was always in his dreams because it was his guilt eating at him for causing confusion which ultimately led to Mal’s suicide.

Almost three quarters of the film, which runs 148 minutes in total, are spent in the dream world. The sequences are so engrossing you might forget the reality that they are all, in fact, just inside a semi-private plane snoozing. The film has us holding our breaths as we fear for their ‘lives.’ The suspense was at its height when their dreamselves needed to be woken up from the bottom level so that consequently, they can be awakened from slumber in the real world.

Notable scenes that had me awestruck were the zero gravity scenes with Joseph Gordon-Levitt grappling the ‘projections’ in the hotel corridors, and him bundling up the unconscious team members and loading them into the elevators to ensure ‘the kick’ with the aid of explosives.

The part where Cobb introduces Ariadne to the dream world–the scenes offered in the teaser trailer–where she pondered on altering the physics of it; is another object for praise. Nolan has succeeded in presenting us with something so impossible and magnificent, it may well be the first time we’ve beheld such beauty in an otherwise frightening scenario.

In true Nolan fashion, he leaves the fate of Dom Cobb on our hands. Did the top cease spinning? Was he on a different realm or on the real world, when finally he was reunited with his children?

Inception has defied physics and challenges the dimensions of the world as we know it, and the vortex that is our subconscious. It will go down in time as one of the best in conceptual, directorial & visual aspects; thus, the LA Times has dubbed it ‘Hollywood’s first existential heist movie.’

In a nutshell: it is revolutionary. Its novelty should earn Nolan the Oscar his genius so dexterously attracts.

*See posts below for Inception posters, billboards & character posters*

The dream is real.

Your mind is the scene of the crime

Inception 3D posters on NY apartment bldgs~

hey

Happy birthday Veto®

.: coordinates :.

I found myself in the pantry, standing by the clear glass windows. The building faced a major road, and cars’ hoods glinted in the afternoon sun. A flyover ran right above that road. From where I stood cars were but toys, and people were minute, agile ants, harrassed by the heat of the pavement. All this I was seeing from my office window. The view was almost blocked by the trees, and then I felt the world mocking me…as I stood there inside, looking at the swaying of the trees. I felt as if I was only entitled to look at its beauty; to look at it but never to feel the breeze that made them dance. To gaze outside and see the sky, the roads crossing, the branches submitting to the wind, to look & behold all that glory, but never to dance amongst it.

I had to take leave.