8.31.2011

Those lonely roofs

Taken inside the Mandalay Castle in Burma

The song of the bum & the cry of the yuppie

Once upon a time, I used to write for the Metakritiko section of the Philippine Online Chronicles. I wasn't very diligent at it and I haven't always been proud of every end product (often, there's the compulsion to edit & edit & edit long after it has been published), but there's one particular feature which I will always have a soft spot for, "Dylan and Dylan: the Poem as Compass and the Song as Road Map," if only because it was about how a song (Bob Dylan's) and a poem (Dylan Thomas') got me through two different points as I grappled my way through the 20s (why are you so complicated, 20s?). The involvement of the two Dylans was pure coincidence, too. That it was quite personal made me really hesitant to publish it at first. Anyway, just thought it'd be a good time to blog about the link after that Haruki Murakami quote in my earlier post. That Murakami's character describes Bob Dylan's voice as being "like a kid standing at the window watching the rain" brought me back to the first time I heard the man. That day at the beach, Dylan's voice was like gunshot and his song ("Like a Rolling Stone") pierced through my life (not an original idea, Greil Marcus says as much, but does it more eloquently & sociologically). To be dramatic about that first encounter with Bob Dylan, I was forever changed.

Hey Universe, I know you're listening, throw a new song and poem my way soon? <3, Me


Songs and Rainy Days

“Say, isn’t that Bob Dylan you have on?”
“Right,” I said. Positively 4th Street.
“I can tell Bob Dylan in an instant,” she said.
“Because his harmonica’s worse than Stevie Wonder?”
She laughed again. Nice to know I can still make someone laugh.
“No, I really like his voice,” she said. “It’s like a kid standing at the window watching the rain.”

Hard-boiled Wonderland and the End of the World, Haruki Murakami

8.28.2011

Hope

All the world is made of faith, and trust, and pixie dust.                                                                                                    
J.M. Barrie

8.27.2011

Zero

Celebrate aloneness, celebrate your pure space, and great song will arise in your heart.
  Osho

8.24.2011

The kind of film that can break a heart

The Trailer
The Banter
An excerpt from the book:
            ‘Dex?’  
            ‘Hm.’
            ‘Let’s just cuddle, shall we?’
            ‘Of course. If you want,’ he said gallantly, though in truth he had never really seen the point of cuddling. Cuddling was for great aunts and teddy bears. Cuddling gave him cramp. Best now to admit defeat and get home as soon as possible, but she was settling her head on his shoulder territorially, and they lay like this, rigid and self-conscious for some time before she said;
            ‘Can’t believe I used the word ‘cuddle’. Bloody ‘ell – cuddle. Sorry about that.’
            He smiled. ‘S’alright. Least it wasn’t snuggle.’
            ‘Snuggle’s pretty bad’
            ‘Or smooch.’
            ‘Smooch is awful.  Let’s promise never, ever to smooch,’ she said, regretting the remark at once. What, together? There seemed little chance of that. They lapsed into silence again. They had been talking, and kissing, for the last eight hours, and both had that deep, whole body fatigue that arrives at dawn. Blackbirds were singing in the overgrown back garden.
            ‘I love that sound’ he mumbled into her hair. ‘Blackbirds at dawn.’
            ‘I hate it. Makes me think I’ve done something I’ll regret.’
            ‘That’s why I love it,’ he said, aiming once again for a dark, charismatic effect. A moment, then he added ‘Why, have you?’
            ‘What?’
            ‘Done something you regret?’
            ‘What, this you mean?’ She squeezed his hand. ‘Oh, I expect so. Don’t know yet, do I? Ask me in the morning. Why, have you?’
            He pressed his mouth against the top of her head. ‘Course not,’ he said and thought this must never, ever happen again.


The Music
And look: Emma Morley's mixtape (she makes 2 for Dexter, one in 1989 and another in 2000), which already sound like the kind of songs I'd be playing if I want to feel the glory of getting my heart smashed into bits (let's check-- 11 of these are already on regular shuffle rotation in Sunshine the ipod):


Unfinished Sympathy - Massive Attack
There is a Light That Never Goes Out - The Smiths
Fight The Power - Public Enemy
All I Want - Joni Mitchell
Sweet Jane - Cowboy Junkies
This is Love - PJ Harvey
Fade into You - Mazzy Star
On Saturday Afternoons in 1963 - Rickie Lee Jones
In My Life - The Beatles
Days - The Kinks
Walk on By - Dionne Warwick
Baby - Os Mutantes
These Days - Nico
Company - Rickie Lee Jones
Waterloo Sunset - The Kinks
Aria from the Goldberg Variations - Glenn Gould
You've Got to Hide Your Love Away - The Beatles
Pitseleh - Elliot Smith
Lover, You Should Have Come Over - Jeff Buckley
All to You - Ellen Mcilwaine
Dedicated to the One I Love - The Shirelles
Corrina, Corrina - Bob Dylan
Each and Everyone - Everything But The Girl
Nothing in this World Can Stop Me Worryin' 'Bout My Girl - The Kinks
Vitamin C - Can
Good Fortune - PJ Harvey
My Sweet Lord - Nina Simone
St. Swithin's Day - Billy Bragg
I Know It's Over - The Smiths
Dress - PJ Harvey
Northern Sky - Nick Drake
I Say A Little Prayer - Aretha Franklin
It Could Have Been A Brilliant Career - Belle and Sebastian
Protection - Massive Attack
Uncertain Smile - The The
Who Knows Where The Time Goes - Fairport Convention
Missing - Everything But The Girl
Pearly Dew-drops - The Cocteau Twins
Cruel - Prefab Sprout
Heroes - David Bowie
Magic in the Air - Badly Drawn Boy
Needle in a Haystack - Martha Reeves and the Vandellas
The Bottle - Gil Scott-Heron
Gloria - Patti Smith
Shipbuilding - Robert Wyatt
Love and Affection - Joan Armatrading
I Heard It Through The Grapevine - The Slits
All Day and All Of The Night - The Kinks
The Boy With The Arab Strap - Belle & Sebastian
Once Around The Block - Badly Drawn Boy
That Summer Feeling - Jonathan Richman
I'm A Believer - Robert Wyatt
Long Hot Summer - The Style Council
Can't Find My Way Home - Ellen McIlwaine

For more One Day insights, check out David Nicholls' page here: http://www.davidnichollswriter.com/one_day/4

A soundtrack, lines here and there, an amazing trailer, are things we go by when we decide whether a movie is worth our time or not. Based on the book excerpts available on David Nicholls' website and on the director's taste (Lone Scherfig, the same genius who directed An Education), I already know One Day is a must-see. It's even promising to be Up There with Reality Bites, Almost Famous, Sense & Sensibility, Elizabethtown, An Education, Toy Story 3 (I kid you not) in that it's somewhat perspective-altering or perspective-considering. 

I'll stop the sappiness now and, together with Turtle, just promise to survive seeing this film. :)

8.22.2011

Wanderlust Buddies

This weekend turned out to be one of those times when you realize just what amazing friends you keep- people who love to travel, who will not think thrice about incurring debts (I say thrice because we do think twice about it) just to cross over the Atlantic, who dream of seeing all the continents (at least two want to end up in Latin America), and whose notion of envy is piqued by someone taking Singapore Airlines because we're all just really so used to flying budget.

What's even more amazing is that it was actually an "overlapping circles" night, i.e. people brought other friends over- Turtle & I invited Ikka, Lira took Jenette, at least four of them met Gwen & Froi for the first time -- & everyone ended up having a blast- laughing much and often.

Last night, the talk was about
...places in the Philippines we have yet to go to, either together or individually (El Nido in Palawan tops the list, followed by Vigan and, er, Baguio)
...future travels- long and short ones (Sagada, Batad, Bontoc, Davao, London, Italy, Japan, the Himalayas)
...past dalliances (Laos, Nepal, Colombia) and ice creams, nay, gelattos that make you think you're in Italy, along with airplanes and luxury flights and baggage allowances. There were fish lumpias, tuna sisigs, bottles of beer, fake mojitos, siomais, noodles.

Stories about lamang lupas were also swapped (Lamang Lupa, definition: creatures of the dark, traces of which just ought to be buried beneath the ground *Turtle, if you're reading, pahiram muna*), along with drunk texting anecdotes and jaw-dropping tales about other people publicly ranting about their, um, lamang lupas on Facebook, photos included (apparently, that happens. So careful how you treat your respective sinisinta at iniirog right now). Oh yes, grave grammatically-erroneous statuses were also the subject of much giggling (Jenette: "'I'm depress' LIKE!").

Looking around, it was just really gratitude-inducing to be surrounded by these adventurous, smart, and funny human beings (Kitty & Nica also pretty much said the same things today on FB). It's like the Universe telling you, "Hey, hey the company you keep is not bad at all!" 

To that I say, "Cรจ zรน tin ba deh." (That's a thank you in Burmese.)

8.20.2011

The Gospel of Chanel

There is no time for cut-and-dried monotony. There is time for work. And time for love. That leaves no other time. 
Coco Chanel

8.19.2011

U Bein Bridge at Sunset

Taken while crossing the Taungthaman Lake in Amarapura, Mandalay in Myanmar

It's time to miss other cities. Saying goodbye to the Japan posts, for now. :)