redplanet

Old toys

2010-01-28T14:40:00.049+08:00

A happy memory from childhood in the 70s was that of our mother being a part-time sales agent for those Tupperware products. I can still recall the weekend Tupperware parties at our place that gathered neighbors and my mother's colleagues from the hospital. Had good times looking at all those colorful catalogs of plastic home products, and matching such images with the few samples that mother gets to show to her prospective clients and buyers. But the really fun part of this whole Tupperware selling business, and the one thing that drew the interest of both my brother and me, was the fact that if mother got to sell a certain number of items and earned the required points, she could get us these wonderful toys for free.

And that's how we got this set of building blocks which were not really blocks but square tiles, around 1 inch x 1 inch, that came in red and blue colors. A good part of the set consisted of white rectangular blocks of connectors with grooves that let you slide in the tiles' edges. The set also included these black round pieces, often used as wheels, but which could also serve as interesting accessories like headlights, lifebuoys tied to the side of ships, round windows, and just about anything else that young playful minds could imagine. These wheels came with yellow connectors that went through the center. So, that's all there was to it really. Not as complicated as your average Lego set nowadays. But with just a box of this Tupperware Build-O-Fun, you can already build a train, a car, a ship, a spacecraft, and an airplane.

My brother and I had some really good times building all these things, copying the pictures at first, then moving on to experiment with our very own designs. And this was how one day I created my "inter-dimensional telescope", which, as its name indicated, allowed one to take a close look into other realities and universes. An activity that took up much of my playing time and imagination during the next few days. Pieced together this tube-like object from the Build-O-Fun's red and blue tiles -- a tile for each of the four sides, and about 5 to 6 tiles long. Then I filled it with all sorts of small objects, including a green plastic model of a World War II machine gunner, shredded pictures from a landscape magazine, strands of differently colored threads from my mother's sewing kit, marbles, small playing cards (called "tex"), rubber bands, tiny pieces of broken toys, star apple seeds, pieces from my rock collection.

Kept the tile at the other end of the tube slightly unaligned, which left a small slit for one to peer through. And that's how I was able to get a good glimpse of the alternate realities that those cartoon series on TV were talking about. Just had to shake the tube to see a different picture each time -- from the small green arm perched on a rock inside a cave, or a scene from that Tarzan or Zorro tex seen through the distorting lens of a marble-like universe, to the weird multicolor clouds of a gaseous world, and black alien pods in an underwater tunnel. Most of the other kids in our neighborhood will take a quick peek through the slit and either confirm what I saw with this "I need to get mother to buy me the same vitamins he's taking" look on their faces, or persuade me afterward to build a plane or a bus with our Build-O-Fun set. That's when I realized that a toy can be also a personal thing for kids.

But if my brother and I had some experiences back then that could have had something to do with any iota of creativity and inventiveness that we have now, these should include the Build-O-Fun. Guess one couldn't find this toy anymore in the market. A recent casual search online brought me to this advertisement for a vintage 1966 set (with the box "a bit tattered" but otherwise in excellent condition). Comes to around 10 bucks. But I need to pay another 7 or 8 bucks for the shipping costs from Melbourne. I wonder if my daughters will enjoy it.

Homesickness

2010-01-22T19:03:00.004+08:00

Another day about to end. In a hotel room somewhere in cloudy Jakarta. Mind burdened with thoughts of what the universe had to go through to bring about this existence. Pulling together matter's building blocks out of pure energy. Out of nothingness and chaos. And now a mind that doubts the reality of that existence. Or perhaps the meaning behind it. Been quite a while since the last of these existential anxiety attacks. Where was it? In another foreign country? No, it was back home. In an old room infested by dog ticks. Hundreds of them, crawling on the wall. And under the mat, the thin mattress, the sheets, the pillow. Surrounded by shelves overflowing with books. Music piercing the thick silence of the night. Blocking lonely thoughts for a few seconds at a time. A small electric fan nearby to cool the body and soothe the bites -- the hardening, poisoned layers of skin -- from those pesky little creatures. Making life bearable. Wondering now if everything is just a conjured reality. Like John Irving's story about Thomas Mann's daughter and her dog who plays the piano with its nose. Which is more real -- that drab empty tale of suffering, or this fantastic experience of restlessness that now unfolds in such an elegant room? With its centrally monitored and controlled air conditioning system and cable television. Clean, comfortable bed. Wonderful bathroom. What brought this body to such a place? What decisions and actions, what circumstances and coincidences have led to this crazy turn of fate? Maybe it has to do with aging -- the onset of a mid-life crisis or something. Or, it's probably just fatigue and lack of sleep. Dinner? This pain behind the neck and shoulders. That piece of information from Irving, about Mann's descendant teaching political science at Dalhousie University where a consultant from another project -- another life -- also worked. A connection that really doesn't make sense. Except for those flimsy meanings that the mind tries to create. Much like a universe that conjures energy and matter.

The Age of Stupid

2009-10-19T01:14:00.076+08:00

It’s a film on climate change written and directed by Franny Armstrong. Watched the Manila premiere recently, organized by Greenpeace, Oxfam, Christian Aid, the World Wildlife Fund and other groups. Found out from the Wikipedia that Franny Armstrong also directed the film McLibel in 1997 about that famous court case which pitted two London Greenpeace (not connected with Greenpeace International) activists against corporate giant McDonald's. McDonald's Corporation sued the activists for passing around pamphlets which claimed, among other things, that the fastfood company is responsible for starving people in the Third World, destroying tropical rainforests, selling unhealthy and addictive food, even torturing and murdering animals.

But I’m digressing. Back to The Age of Stupid. The movie features actor Pete Postlethwaite (In the Name of the Father, The Usual Suspects, The Shipping News, The Constant Gardener) as the lone Archivist – one of the remaining homo sapiens in the post-2050 Earth devastated by a runaway global warming. The Archivist stays in a tower-like, multi-storey structure that stands somewhere in the middle of the Arctic Ocean. This futuristic building houses preserved plants and animals in formalin-filled containers, and a whole floor of these computer servers that store all the accumulated knowledge of human civilization. From these electronic files, the Archivist collates and composes recorded messages that he then beams to space for anybody (read: aliens) who may be listening.

The real meat of the movie though are the separate documentary stories that look at climate change issues from the eyes of people in different circumstances around the world: the Indian executive who is setting up the first cheap airline company in the country; the green activist in the UK who faces tough opposition to his proposal of building wind farms in the countryside; the poor African woman who dreams of becoming an excellent medical doctor and of enjoying the good life in the First World; the two Iraqi kids who are trying to deal with the war’s impact on their young lives; the bike-riding geologist who used to work for Shell’s oil exploration business and who had some philosophical insights after losing everything to Hurricane Katrina. By linking and putting such narratives side by side, Armstrong has created a powerful picture of this intricate web of causes and effects that constituted climate change issues and the contradictions that defined efforts to navigate such complexity.

Like that conflict between seeing the film and babbling all night about how powerfully it conveyed the urgency of acting to address climate change, versus actually doing something. Coming out of the movie house, thought about how many of those who watched the film that night for instance would seriously consider cutting back on their plane rides in the coming days. Perhaps the planet would be extremely lucky if there were just one or two jet setters in that crowd who would volunteer to do so. But the very sad fact is that once we’ve come to know the impact of our actions, we seem to always find some clever ways to rationalize our environmentally destructive lifestyles. Drawing that line between what is stupid behavior and what is not may not be enough to push us out of such complacent attitude to global warming. I would still love to wear that shirt though (if only I could get one: attention Greenpeace).

Social networking

2009-10-11T09:59:00.016+08:00

My short, inconsequential social networking stint ended officially when I deactivated my Facebook account the other day. Took me about a year to convince myself of starting one. Spent just a few seconds deciding to close it down. Good friends who have created their FB profiles and sites, including colleagues at the office who have all jumped into the social networking bandwagon, made their pitch about its fun features. A blogger these past few years, and quite a slow learner of new things, I became a sceptic and hold out. Just couldn’t imagine that I’ll have time left for social networking with all the emails accumulating in my inbox and the tasks of maintaining my three blogs.

Then one day, suddenly found myself with an FB account. Took me a few days though to build enough confidence and post something in my status. As with my ten or so e-groups, I became a lurker for a while. Buoyed by the interest in other social networking sites that co-workers were trying out, I soon changed my profile picture from one wherein I had my back to the camera to that which had my face in full view. After some time, I was already posting messages, status updates, notes, videos, pictures, and comments on an almost daily basis. Even chatted with friends up to the early hours of the morning.

So, what made me give it all up? First, found out that I really didn’t have the constitution for small talk: conversing on just about anything under the sun, what young Pinoys now call chika. I’m just too lousy in keeping up a conversation, even online. Second, I’m just too wordy for FB’s main mode of exchange which is something like a cross of the online discussion board and the instant messaging services. Doing a Hemingway is simply well beyond my writing style with its winding thoughts and convoluted syntax. Finally, realized that there’s little space for reflection in these social networking sites. Everybody’s just busy building their virtual farms, getting their Chinese or Japanese names, peeping into each other’s lives, watching those inspirational or funny videos, advertising their latest fads and causes, or fishing for a partner.

Back to the batcave.

A moon's dark side

2009-10-07T17:00:00.025+08:00

Now that I’ve really thought about it, the only opening line from a movie that I can recall with some certainty is that of the 1990s flick Flatliners. Had to spend several minutes recalling the movie’s title. And had to search Google for the name of that actor who spoke the said line. Only two things kept flashing in my mind: the face and the fact that the guy was in a recent television series called 24. Couldn’t remember that Joel Schumacher actually directed the movie about a group of medical students who experimented on experiencing clinical death and being resuscitated back to life. It was the opening line that struck a chord and stayed in my mind all these years like soot on the wall: “Today is a good day to die”. It was fearlessly depressive.

* * *

Asking her why their organization decided to put up a regional office in Bangkok even though their regional development strategy didn’t really put Thailand in the priority list, a friend just shrugged. “It’s all about leadership in the region. For instance, what has Manila said about the situation in Burma?” I really didn’t know how to answer that. Said I’m not even sure if the Philippines now has proper trading relations with Myanmar (as Burma is called today). But my acquaintance’s comments made their mark. At the airport, I bought myself a copy of this slim volume entitled Finding George Orwell in Burma. It was written by a British author under the pseudonym Emma Larkin. I’m now in page 130, where she writes on Orwell’s essay Literature and Totalitarianism. Orwell: “The imagination, like certain wild animals, will not breed in captivity.”

* * *

An afternoon in Manila after a devastating typhoon in the early 21st century: like being sucked into limbo where time seems to be at a standstill. Forcing one’s self to work has turned from tolerably bad to excruciatingly worse. Emotional weather report (with special credits to Jessica Zafra): flatline, with possibilities of dipping into another record low. Should take Nietzsche’s ideas seriously and try to look into the gastronomical reasons for such depressive states. Does it have something to do with the brown rice? Or perhaps the canned milkfish? Was too much sugar the culprit? Surprised at one’s impulsiveness, but felt liberated because of it. Looking forward to a really good run and sweating off all these psychological and spiritual clutter.

The image above is from this site.

Protozoan at the airport

2009-09-26T17:57:00.053+08:00

It happened again! Have this pesky thing that never fails to cause some unfortunate incidents with immigration officials at airports. In the Pinas, old people would have inquired if I had that balat hidden somewhere. The term actually refers to a birthmark that is supposed to make one a sort of magnet to all the unluckiness and negativity in the world. Used to think that it probably had something to do with my appearance. Either I looked like a member of some local terrorist cell, or a plain bloke from the rural areas who had been duped by illegal job recruiters into leaving the country and taking his chances in some god-forsaken place.

Guess it's more of the latter. But now I'm quite certain that it has something to do also with the intelligence level of some immigration officials. Like this amazing guy at the immigration counter of the old international airport in Manila who had an IQ level equal to that of a paramecium. When I stepped in front of the counter and handed him my passport and boarding pass, the first thing he asked was whether I'm traveling with this other guy who came before me in the line. Said I wasn't. Discovered later that there was this group of blokes who were all headed for South Africa through Bangkok. And this pea-brained Filipino immigration official was starting to get uneasy with all that data even before I reached his cubicle.

Upon seeing my passport and thus noting that it had a South African visa stamped on it as well, he quickly instructed me to proceed to the immigration office together with this group that he and his fellow immigration officials at the other counters quickly suspected of trying to leave the country illegally. Quite in keeping with his limited single-celled thinking process, he didn't even bother to check the date on my old visa. Had he done so, he would have found out that I had been to South Africa almost three months ago and that the visa was expired for more than a month. He didn't ask me for any identification paper, nor inquired about my real destination or my purpose in traveling to Bangkok. Had he done so, I would have shown him my university ID and travel pack that had the addresses of the office in Bangkok where I'm attending a meeting the following day and the hotel where I will be staying for the night.

But another nasty thing about these life forms masquerading as intelligent human beings is that they behave rudely most of the time. Much like real protozoans gobbling up other small cells. Asking him why I had to wait and go through the interview with their supervisor, this government official turned, pointed an accusatory finger at me, and nonchalantly announced to the world that I was a liar. After what felt like an eternity at the supervisor's office, everything was finally sorted out and I got the stamp on my passport. Doing my breathing exercises later at the boarding gate, thought about why the Philippine government is wasting our money to pay unthinking scum-dwellers.

(Image above courtesy of Wikipedia)

A dialogue at 22,000 feet

2009-09-25T17:50:00.022+08:00

Woman: Perhaps it’s not really jealousy. Maybe it’s just being a bit sad because your partner suddenly becomes interested or shares some time with another person. And besides, there’s this desire to share the partner with other people, with the world. – Man: I’m afraid it’s still jealousy. The disgruntled philosopher once called it the “lust for possessions”. It’s just the other side of what people usually call love. Though in that case you’re describing, it’s lust by a weaker nature. Somebody who agreed to give up the power over the loved one, power that should have been exerted with the aim of nothing less than total subjugation and exclusion of others in the equation.

Woman: Are you saying that love is just a constellation of all these emotions like lust, greed, possessiveness, domination? Is that all there is to it? And no alternatives? – Man: You see, our disgruntled philosopher considered the common folk’s version of love, particularly sexual love, as essentially an exercise of power over other people. Love is something that paradoxically involved both benefiting or hurting the object of one’s power. And, this has been the dilemma for such a glorified notion of love – that you hurt those you care about the most, while showering them with your own benevolence. The alternative is going beyond this kind of love and wanting a higher ideal.

Woman: A higher ideal? – Man: The disgruntled philosopher often calls it “friendship”. Woman: Some kind of open relationship? – Man: Perhaps not really in the sense of allowing oneself to be swayed here and there by the prospects for new conquests. But something based more on a willful and calm acceptance of people's individuality. As with Napoleon’s explanations for his infidelities: “I have the right to answer all accusations against me with an eternal ‘That’s me’. I am apart from all the world and accept conditions from nobody. I demand subjection even to my fancies, and people should find it quite natural when I yield to this or that distraction.”

A book, a miracle, and fate

2009-09-22T08:07:00.017+08:00

Been reading The Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols these past weeks. Read it once before. Or, more accurately, started reading it and stopped somewhere in the middle. A few characters’ names still sounded familiar, like those of Joe Mondragon, Amarante Cordova, and Ruby Archuleta. Though quite distant by now. This was the only trilogy that I read from the third volume down to the first. And not because I still haven’t bought the other books in the series. Already had the complete set of pocket-sized editions from my favorite secondhand bookshop before I began poring over The Nirvana Blues. And for no apparent reason. It’s just that intuitive side telling me that I should start there, at the end of this hilarious tale about common folks struggling against the rich and powerful.

Couldn’t recall anything now from both The Nirvana Blues and The Magic Journey except that there were enough materials there to keep me going until the middle of the first book. The Milagro Beanfield War shared the same propensity for wild story-telling. The main plot started with Joe Mondragon’s revolutionary act of illegally tapping into the old Indian Creek and diverting it to his puny bean field in the small town of Milagro. But sprinkled along this main storyline are quite a load of interesting small town tales that could make up several episodes in a television series. There’s this mini-tale on the insane Cleofes Apodaca who drowned in the pit he kept digging to free his lost dog that he believed was trapped somewhere under the earth. There’s the story of old Amarante Cordova who for several years kept on calling his children for those final family gatherings before his supposed demise, but who just wouldn’t die.

Then there was the young Herbie Goldfarb, draft-evader and community development volunteer, and his crazy misadventures in that tension-filled season in Milagro. Couldn’t help recalling my own undergraduate fieldwork among poor rural folks here in Pinas. Those nights of finding our way through banana fields, soaking wet from the rain, dead drunk from all those shots of lambanog that the local farmers kept on offering to us. Got this new Owl Book edition of The Milagro Beanfield War, printed in 2000. Was in my room one day at my parents’ house. Saw my old copy of the book, with the black cover and the smiling skeleton figure of a Mexican revolutionary in front. Picked it up and thought of starting again with John Nichols’ trilogy. This time, with the first volume in the series. Later, found the Owl Book edition with the author’s afterword written in 1993.

It was only during my third visit to the bookshop that I finally thought of buying my new copy of the first book in the New Mexico trilogy. Almost halfway through the book now. Been planning to go through that John Nichols autobiography after this, before I go through the next titles in the trilogy. It’s like being addicted to watching this television series called Northern Exposure back in the 90s (but that should be the topic for another blog entry). Now I’m finally starting to write some blog entries about the whole experience of reading the trilogy. And something at the back of this head tells me it’s destiny at work all over again.

(Re-posted from Lectiograph)

Excerpt from zazen journal

2009-07-12T10:17:00.012+08:00

9 July 2009
Thursday
8:58 a.m.

Still had a continuous stream of thoughts. About work, relationships, a dream of waiting at the airport (on the way to a place somewhere in Cambodia or Myanmar), the sitting itself. But a big difference from the previous zazen: the thoughts seemed to have less power this morning. And it was easier pulling back awareness to the breathing and the present. There was the same heat or warming up of the body toward the middle of the sitting. Felt it at the back first. Then it radiated to the abdomen and the arms. The pain from yesterday's workout lessened with the onset of this warming effect. There were some distinct moments of stillness, of open space. Came with two or three breaths at a time. Much focus on the breathing and the now. And everything seemed to have retreated in the background.

Much peace and tranquility.

Pop icon

2009-07-05T13:46:00.023+08:00

You were just a fourteen or fifteen-year old kid growing under one of Asia’s long-running dictatorships back in the 80s. One fine day, some of your classmates in high school, probably bored with their lessons on conjugating Spanish verbs, started having this nasty notion that you bore an uncanny resemblance to the zombie-looking Michael Jackson in that famous Thriller video. Must have had something to do with those big deep-set eyes and bony sunken cheeks. How do you think would your pubescent self-concept take it? Well, as one of the nerdy bunch then, you just tend to take everything in stride. Besides, you might have provided everybody quite a clear idea of what a walking corpse looks like, but that scary apparition is still Michael Jackson. Every adolescent who has some iota of a desire for coolness back then must be into MJ’s songs and dance moves. MJ is hip personified. And if you have to resemble even somebody from the pits of Hades to be identified with the guy, so be it. And that's true especially if you don’t have a single piece of a performer’s genes in your body.

Fast forward to the present, 2009. You go to breakfast at this hotel’s café somewhere in Manila, with a slight hangover from two cans of beer the previous night. Your Cambodian friend at the other side of the table tells you in garbled English that some famous person died. Was that MJ’s name he just mentioned? Yes, it was. He mentioned the name several times to make sure he got it right. But nothing seemed to sink in. Finally, back in your room, you put up your laptop’s browser and there it was. The King of Pop is gone. One part of your brain tells you that everything is fine. Francis M., a local icon, died in his early 40s. There are only two Beatles left on the planet. MJ is dead at 50. People die. It’s not really about the number of years you spent breathing on the planet man. But there’s that other part that clings to the surreal in what had just happened. Icons are not supposed to fade away and then stop breathing just like that. They either die at the height of their glory and turn into legends, or they become legendary period. So you’re in this state of disbelief for a few days.

And then you think about getting that 3-CD compilation of MJ’s songs. Just to hear “Ben”, “I Will Be There”, “Heal the World”, “You Are Not Alone”, and "The Girl Is Mine" (with ex-Beatles Paul McCartney) a few more times. Before they fade in your consciousness.

100th post: An African memoir

2009-06-18T18:21:00.029+08:00

I was brought out of my nap during the the long flight from Singapore to Johannesburg by the muffled sound of footsteps on the carpet. The plane’s lights came on again prompting the crew to head for the meal storage section and begin preparing breakfast for the passengers. My eyes were still having difficulty adjusting to the bright yellow glare of the cabin. So I tried looking out of the window through which the soft early morning sun rays were starting to pour in. And there it was, the vast African landscape below me. Nothing but miles and miles of flat lands and grassy plains running all the way to the horizon where a yellow orange burst marked the coming sunrise. Wondered then how this immense landscape influenced the African people’s psyche. For someone who came from an archipelago, where only a few hours of travel to any direction would take you to land’s edge, this realization of the African continent’s breadth is simply an amazing experience. Mind-expanding and disconcerting at the same time.

A few hours later, our group was driving through a small section of this landscape, somewhere in Johannesburg. I was sitting beside this American lady who was the big boss for our project with the Bank. My unconscious mind, hoping to start a conversation, was busy trying to retrieve some compromising bit of information from Naomi Klein’s book The Shock Doctrine. Something about how the Bank had helped impose the Milton Friedman brand of unhindered market capitalism to developing countries through its structural adjustment programs and created havoc in these countries’ economies. My conscious mind was indifferent to these machinations of its naughty counterpart and was still absorbing the South African landscape. There were just brown grass, scraggly bush, and stunted savanna trees everywhere. In some areas, the blackish remains of extensive bush fires were still pretty much evident. And, as if echoing those heretical meditations of my unconscious, there were the large government housing areas and the equally big sections of informal settlements.

I’m not sure if my seat mate recognized those makeshift cube-like dwellings of the poor black folks made from scrap aluminum sheets. Perhaps the chilly air of the South African morning has created in her an anticipation for the hot coffee and our warm beds at the hotel. In the end though, she would still beat me to the small talk with this curt noncommittal question about how I was taking in South Africa so far and whether it was my first time in Johannesburg. I gave affirmative answers, trying hard to sound genuinely excited and interested in our exchange. Nothing more would follow. Our van was soon within the premises of this rustic hotel-cum-country estate which would be our residence for the next two weeks or so. After depositing my luggage and backpack in the room and putting on additional layers of clothing, I was out in the nearby fields, taking some pictures of the buildings and the trees. My unprotected hands were freezing in the cold spring air and I would soon be having some trouble pressing the shutter of my mobile phone’s camera.

But a certain mystery in the landscape egged me on.

On democracy

2009-05-27T19:33:00.035+08:00

Been attending this workshop on leading democratic reforms in the Philippine bureaucracy since Monday. The group had an interesting discussion this afternoon on the nature of democratic changes that civil society organizations (CSOs) and reform-oriented bureaucrats should be aiming for. A fellow participant from the private sector proposed a return to an "ideal" version of representative democracy: with majority rule as one fundamental guiding principle, electorates essentially giving up part of their decision-making powers to chosen representatives within government, and citizen participation in public governance to be seen as an extraordinary measure that should be removed as soon as an effective representative system has been attained. Everybody was squirming in her seat, and the discussion dragged on for another hour or so. My free market ideology detector was busy reflecting on possible links of such views with the tenets of the Chicago School of Economics' version of capitalism.

Had another round of discussion afterward on the same topic with my colleagues at the School of Government. By the time we parted, my mind had come out with three reasons why I'm not in favor of such type of democracy for the Philippines. First, on a pragmatic level, the proposal goes against recent trends in democratic governance and practice. Even bureaucrats and politicians in the more developed countries have recognized the expanding gap between citizens and government, the growing incapacity of government to deal with complex social problems, and thus the increasing need to bring back people's trust and their more direct and sustained involvement in governance. Second, the persisting poverty, disempowerment, and marginalization in many countries like the Philippines has effectively disenfranchised some groups or sectors whose voices are therefore not heard in crucial government decision-making processes. And strictly representative systems do not provide effective mechanisms to correct such existing power imbalances in society.

Finally, like my colleagues and former comrades, I want to see an expansion of the democratic project to other areas like the economy. And being able to choose your representatives in government during periodic elections is really meaningless if you're surviving on less than a dollar or two each day, or if you're living in slums under bridges or beside huge garbage dumps. For whatever it was worth since it took over autocratic monarchies as the preferred governance system by many societies, representative democracy has shown many limitations and many democracies all over the world (and that includes the United States) have tried to move beyond such form of government.

Waiting game

2009-05-27T00:21:00.027+08:00

It’s probably still the Philippines’ most picturesque volcano. Its near cone shape seems unsullied despite several eruptions and some restless rumblings through the centuries. There’s this local belief that a clear view of Mt. Mayon’s tip is a lucky sign especially for the non-Bicolanos like me. Recalled a quite similar folk story about the cloud cover that is supposed to alternate on the peaks of Mts. Banahaw and San Cristobal in Quezon (something more to do with the good and evil theme, like the yin-yang principle). But the image that immediately came to mind with the Mt. Mayon version is that of a shy native girl of the olden days who dutifully covers her face in the presence of male strangers or suitors. That rare unhindered glimpse of a smile or the whole face can already be construed as a propitious signal for any man who has amorous interests.

The first time I went to see Mt. Mayon was from the now famous Cagsaua site with its half-buried church bell tower and ruins. True enough, the first few pictures I took of the volcano had the peak always lost somewhere behind a thick cloud cover. With my 2.0 megapixel cellphone camera in hand, I tried to imagine cajoling the mountain to show her complete form. But, sad to say, I didn’t get my wish. If I had been wooing a girl back in college, friends would have said I’ve been busted or basted. Which back then would have called for several bottles of beer. However, five months later, I was coming down from a plane at the Legazpi airport when I noticed many of the other passengers taking pictures as soon as they’ve set foot on the tarmac. I turned around upon reaching the ground, and there it was: the uncovered peak.

A few days later, I was back at the airport. And the peak was still bare. There was even a thin wisp of smoke coming out from the top. Strangely, instead of the girl, I had this image of the solid stillness of a mountain during my zazen practice. The word “enlightenment” also appeared from somewhere and got stuck in my thought bubble. The mountain reveals itself, unmovable and tranquil.

Blog ranking

2009-05-22T23:53:00.012+08:00

Growing tired of this site that ranks blogs by Pinoys according to the number of unique hits or visits within a given period. One thing that initially interested me about this top blogs site was the counter that they provide to site members. The counter tells them basically what position their blog occupies in the ranking. Used to be in the top 300 to 500 of the ranking for personal blogs with my redplanet. Lately, found out that my blog's ranking has taken a nosedive below the 800-mark. Tonight, I realized that I've been bumped off the entire list altogether. So, my problem right now is how to get back to the ranking. Have a feeling that posting pictures along with the actual texts for each entry have a large role to play in staying at the top. I've actually thought of taking out the counter (again) and dropping off from this ranking game before it gives me the aneurysm. But then, thought I should take this as a challenge and aim to be number 1 instead. So, for starters, I'm pasting some pictures here from my recent trip to the beach somewhere in the Bicol region. By the way, there's absolutely nothing wrong with your laptop or PC -- it's just my sepia period. Should go well with this blog's color scheme.

Staying afloat and alive

2009-05-11T00:51:00.048+08:00

My music listening life reached a kind of fork on the road yesterday. Was initially thinking of getting myself a copy of the Grammy award-winning collaboration by Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. But then this feeling of being a bit bored with commercialized mainstream sounds hit me with the same force as a fifth vegetarian burger in three days. You know you can still take another one. But on second thought, a break would be such bliss. Realized that this aural craving for the uncommon had been going on for some time now. It started last year with the acquisition of Marcus Adoro’s surfing-inspired debut Markus Highway and Dong Abay’s post-Yano obra Flipino.

Anyway, in my regular weekend scouring of record stores yesterday, found myself suddenly taking some interests at these stacks of unfamiliar albums by new indie artists. Went immediately into my obsessive-compulsive mentat mode in deciding which one to buy. Read the black sticker in front of each album that had nuggets of information about the artists and the songs. In just a few seconds, my thoughts were transfixed on this album that the sticker described as dealing with isolation and the struggle of the individual to fit in. Themes that struck a chord or two. Went to a nearby internet shop to check out the artist’s blog and hear some sample tunes.

Some minutes later, had a copy of How to Swim and Live, which is supposed to be Little Name’s debut album. Contrary to my gut notion, the album was not the work of a band. Little Name is probably as much as to Lee Barker of Liverpool as The Martian is to this blog’s author. And the angst is not that obvious the first time you listen to the songs. The melodies are unabashedly pop with some jazzy guitar, synth, and trumpet sequences mixed in. Result: tunes that are like 60s tracks by Burt Bacharach or Sergio Mendes sucked in a wormhole and teleported to the early 21st century.

As with any work that tries to pack in some substance, the real secret though is in the lyrics. It gives a crisp description of alienation. It has that distinctive sarcastic color. Sometimes, it's depressing. Which all contrast sharply with the cute tunes one hears from the album. My favorite lines are from track 8, Nobody Loves You:

I always thought that it would be much easier,
To get away with murder,
Than to get through you.

I thought someday, we'd put our
differences aside,
And run away to Ambleside,
Raise chickens by the lake.

Nobody loves you,
And it's easy to see why,
Nobody wants you baby,
And it's all because of lies,
And your tissue thin disguise,
That hides who you really are.

Just a few playback and found myself already singing the chorus line. Talk about stickiness factor. Lee Barker’s easy-going rhythm makes everything quite chewable though, as if you can stay forever above the murk. Which is enough to make How to Swim and Live one of those remarkable first efforts. And Little Name an artist to watch in the coming years.

Updates, updates

2009-05-02T20:15:00.029+08:00

It’s a windy Saturday afternoon. Two storms are supposed to be brewing in the south. Guess that signals summer's end in this part of the world. Global warming has raised mean daily temperatures that one can hardly tell anymore what time of the year it is. Near the window, Tracy Chapman’s Telling Stories playing from a stereo. Trying hard not to think about work. This neat stack of books at the edge of the table, waiting to be read. Then this thought about not being able to write anything in the blog these past months. And one or two people who visit it asking what its author has been up to recently. So, this idea of putting together another list. Existence in my own corner of Gaia:

Among the seven or eight titles in the stack is Norma Klein’s The Shock Doctrine. Currently in that part where the author narrates how Bush Jr., Cheney and Rumsfeld practically passed on most of government’s core functions to private contractors in the aftermath of 9/11. And we thought clientelism and state capture are things that can only happen in such less developed countries as the Philippines. Definitely an eye-opener.

I’m now wearing glasses. Thanks to all those long hours of staring at the computer without enough breaks. Or, maybe just a part of the natural aging process. Went to this eye doctor at the mall recently. Made me peer through a machine where I saw a blur that slowly sharpened into an image of what looked like a lone sunflower in a green field. And the findings: one eye is far-sighted, the other near-sighted, and some astigmatism.

Finally, internet connection at home. Or, wherever I may be in the country. Well, at least whenever there’s a strong signal from one of these local mobile phone companies. Comes in the form of this black USB stick that goes well with my new laptop (one perk from my new project). I just plug it in, and wallah. Drawback: you now can’t cite having no internet connection as reason for not submitting your work on time. One good thing about it though is that I can now blog anytime I want.

Got a new project at the School. It’s all about promoting the role of citizens in monitoring government performance. I’m supposed to be into training and capacity building. But I still get goosebumps whenever I’m asked to present all these concepts to people. And I’m not sure if my recent trainees learned anything from me. The pay is really good though. I can opt to work at home. Plus I’m learning a lot from my new boss.

Excerpt from running journal

2009-02-28T20:58:00.022+08:00

This is my 32nd entry in this running journal. About five months ago, I resolved to run my first ever marathon somewhere around my 40th birthday. That will be on October of this year. I started the running journal basically to document the year-long training program that I have committed myself to undergo in preparation for this big event. As it turned out, the journal went beyond the original idea of being just a simple training log to include other things related to running. In time, I was doing cursory reviews of running books. I wrote down my thoughts on articles and information about running. I made quick surveys of albums and songs that I felt would make great listening materials during training and in races. I logged in my observations of people, places and insects I encountered along the running tracks. I did the martian’s favorite pastime of writing down thoughts that teetered at the edge of awareness, while the brain struggled with the body’s steadily accumulating oxygen debt. I made some forays into both the philosophical and crass aspects of this peculiar post-modern human activity of regularly driving one’s self to exhaustion for a host of reasons but which could all be reduced to the plain desire of being able to add surviving 44 kilometers on foot to one’s growing list of lifetime accomplishments.

The writing essentially sustained the running, and vice versa. Before the recent trough in my training, the prospect of writing about my running experiences in this journal has been one of my motivations for actually hitting the road, even in the middle of the night. The writing continues to nourish the desire to run. It has in fact turned into something like a belayer’s line – something to hold on to or hang from when quitting has appeared again as an enticing option. I was initially thinking of publishing the whole journal online as a PDF book. Saw this e-book on the zen of blogging once, and I instantly conjured the idea of having this whole set of titles (on just about any topic I could think of) uploaded in my blog (have started a number of writing projects already). And then, there’s also this thought about publishing all these stream-of-consciousness notes and blog posts into a volume of “The Martian’s Chronicles”. Wonder if I could find a spaced out publisher or donor to sponsor this collection.

Anyway, so here I am once more trying to write some thoughts about my recent runs. I resumed running (again) last 20 February. It was a two-lap run around the UP academic oval. I suffered throughout the entire effort. My muscles were aching. My lungs felt like they were about to burst any moment from breathing in all that super-heated carbon monoxide-filled afternoon air inside the campus. My run was frantic, like I was trying to save my dark hide from sword- and spear-wielding orcs inside Mordor. Halfway through my first lap, I already knew I won’t make it past lap two. I was right. By the time I reached my 2.5 or 2.6 kilometer mark, somewhere in front of Vinzon’s Hall, I was already considering diving on the curb and letting my imaginary pursuers devour me head to foot. I was definitely reaping the karmic products of taking all those long rest periods since the start of the new year. Three months worth of conditioning appeared to have just flown out of the window and disappeared completely. I was back to being a regular exercise-deprived slob.

I hoped for a quick follow up in the succeeding days. But it came five days later, on 25 February, with a 2.5 laps run (around 5 kilometers). My lap times were a bit better than the previous one (lap 1 – from 14:20.9 to 14:10.6; lap 2 – from 15:08.3 to 14:14.4). Ran an extra half lap this time (around 8:30 minutes). The run was better than the previous one. The air wasn’t too humid. Had a slight breeze or whiff of cool air at some point. My total running time was not that good though (36:55.9). If I was running a 5-kilometer race, I wouldn’t have made it to the top 50. The earphone adapter to my mobile phone was also not that cooperative at the beginning. Had to twist and adjust it to hear Jack Johnson’s Sleep Through the Static. But overall, the run was not that bad. If I was not scheduled to pick up L. at UST, I would have done a full third lap.

New year texting

2009-01-03T13:09:00.034+08:00

Since I’ve started owning mobile phones in 2001, I haven’t really paid much attention to text messages sent in the heat of the new year’s revelries or its aftermath. I’m busy either having my fill of the new year’s dishes, or devising ways to better keep my resolutions for the next twelve months (well aware of the fact that these are bound to fail miserably by the third month). Though I did remember one new year’s eve when I actually texted back some wishes to friends and workmates through my old Nokia 3330. Sending such text messages was in fact the only thing I could do then with my cell phone as its defective battery couldn’t last even through a ten-second call. I composed a one-liner message that had something to do with living a meaningful and authentic existence. It must have been inspired by this book on Buddhism that I was reading at that time. Unlimited prepaid texting was still a new thing to me then, so I had fun replying to several people who sent me their new year’s greetings.

This year I sent only three text messages. No embellishments, just a simple “happy new year” followed by the name of the recipient. I sent the first one of such messages to my eldest daughter who I dropped off earlier at her mother’s place, after a last hour DVD-buying trip in Quiapo. I didn’t get any reply. Maybe I should have inserted that exclamation point or added anything to signify that I was happy to have been with her even for just a few hours before our separate noche buenas. The other two I forwarded to my brothers who sent their own text messages a few minutes earlier. My youngest brother, now based in the southern part of the Philippines, sent one obviously addressed to men. The message humored the reader with flatteries until the end wherein the sender extended his new year’s greetings as the supposed head of the group who exceeded the members in all the aforementioned testosteronic traits. My other brother and sister-in-law who reside with their children somewhere south of Manila sent this text message wishing fulfillment of one’s dreams during the previous year and continued blessings throughout the new year. It then ended with the usual religious reminders. Both messages must have been received from other people and forwarded to me.

As with the previous eight years, got a few more of these new year messages from other people who I wouldn’t have expected to spend one piso texting me. From an employer who was following me up on my documentation work a few days before christmas, I got this curt greeting: “Happy new year to you and your family”, followed by the ever-present umlaut (in lieu of a smiley). He re-sent it an hour later (must be paranoid already since I didn’t claim my cheque before their office closed for the holidays and I have yet to email the final draft of the workshop proceedings). A former classmate from high school, who is now a training officer in a popular local fastfood chain and still an undisputed leader of our batch (organizing reunions, batch parties and out-of-town trips) sent this one: “YEAR END is a special time for me to thank those who have touched my life. People who have given me hope, faith, and love. People i cherish … Happy New Year!” Almost a day after I got her message, I’m still trying to figure out how I was able to do those things she described in her message and why she included me in her list.

A friend and former comrade from college sent this text message: “a RELAXED mind, a PEACEFUL soul, a JOYFUL spirit, a HEALTHY body & a heart full of LOVE … all of these r our wishes 4 you n your family. HAPPY NEW YEAR!” That put a smile on my face. I couldn’t imagine him sending that kind of greeting more than a decade ago, when we were still serious believers in an upcoming revolutionary upheaval in society and when a few of us seemed confused on which should come first: getting that elusive college degree or starting to earn money. I think he was one of those who went for the latter option. Nowadays, he employs several people in their medical transcription business and drives around in his new fancy car. It’s amazing what a rewarding job and a comfortable family life can do to one’s political outlook and mental state. One time you’re sporting a tubao (a colorful cloth worn by indigenous people) and that faded Che Guevarra shirt -- a common activist garb in the 80s. The next thing you know, you’re a kind of a Jedi master blurting out those zennist lines.

A resource person in one of the trainings I facilitated in 2008 sent this one: “Wishing you Prosperity, Wealth, Good Health, Peace, Luck & Happiness in the coming year. A blessed New Year to You and Your Family.” And from a former team mate during field work in college: “Faith, Friends & Forgiveness, Health, Hope & Happiness, Love, Long Life & Luck, Peace, Prosperity & Patience are the 12 things I asked the Lord for you and your family for the next 12 months of 2009, Happy New Year! …” (Notice how the second message built on the first one.) These two made me wonder if it’s possible to have new year messages with more specific wishes, more fit to the recipient’s needs or context, rather than all these big words starting with capital letters. Realized though that it could be quite taxing for the sender to compose dozens of customized greetings to send out to relatives, friends and acquiantances. One might have to start composing weeks before new year’s eve, or even hire a creative writing graduate to spin out all those nice text messages. Well, just a thought.

And here’s my favorite one from another high school batchmate (rough translations in parentheses mine): “Mga resolutions ko (My resolutions for the new year): 1. D na ako mangangako (I’ll stop making promises), PROMISE! 2. D na ako mg-iingles (I won’t use English). Nvr Again! D na ako mgsu2gal (I’ll stop gambling). pustahan p tyo (wanna bet on it)! 4. At d n ko magsa2lita ng tpos (And I won’t speak with finality). Period! Happy new year!”

Perhaps the senders of these text messages were also just taking advantage of some unlimited texting promo from local mobile phone companies. Or maybe they were just weeding out names from their phone directories, finding out who were still actively responding to their messages and who were not. Waking up to a rainy and windy new year, I wondered how many times these text greetings were received, forwarded and re-sent in the course of a night. I wondered if the number of text messages one received during the new year is in any way indicative of the extent of one’s social network. Couldn’t help but notice that I got fewer messages this year. Does that mean I’ve been more anti-social during the previous year?

Maybe I should rid myself of mobile phones altogether.

More on the reunion concert

2008-10-21T15:06:00.019+08:00

And what a redemption it was.

The music video on the screen was finally replaced by a countdown indicating exactly ten minutes before the concert start. Prompted by diehard Eraserheads fans among those in the SVIP and VIP sections, the crowd began accompanying the last ten seconds of every minute as if these were the final ticks before the big bang, and with much cheering and laughter after each “zero”. My throat was already dry and itchy from all that shouting by the seventh or sixth minute, and I was coughing my heart out afterwards. Funny thing was, I didn’t even hear my own voice amidst the noise. It was akin to those emotionally charged scenes in artsy films when the audio suddenly shifts into a paranoia-inducing hum, steadily grows into a loud heartbeat, or just disappears completely. And by the time the crowd was supposed to be chanting the final five seconds, the numbers were already lost in the wild din. Hands were raised in the air, necks stretched towards the stage, and minds dipping into an ecstatic state as fireworks, lights, Ely’s voice, and the opening riffs of “Alapaap” (Filipino for “sky” or “heaven”) exploded on stage.

And the rest was history, as they say. For the next half hour or so, everybody was in a total frenzy jumping and singing along with their favorite E-heads songs that Ely, Raimund, Buddy, and Marcus dished out on stage. And they were quite good too. More than the much touted month-long rehearsal before the concert, I thought the guys’ engagements in the post-heads period contributed a lot in terms of polishing their performance skills and actually improving their musical styles. Besides a host of other things, including taking on bass guitar chores for another legendary local band The Dawn, Buddy had been busy composing and providing soundtracks for friends’ videos and documentaries (did it in fact for this study tour video that my former NGO produced a couple of years ago). Raimund, perhaps the most musically active of the four, did a lot of producing for other local bands, composing for local ads and movies, and experimenting with his Squid 9 persona, apart from eventually front-acting for Sandwich. Marcus, went on a surfing pilgrimage to Ilocos before coming out Eric Clapton-style with his own album. And, of course, Ely stayed at the forefront of the Pinoy rock scene with his new bands (and learned all about what he called “guitar-driven” compositions).

Which made the reunion concert, I think, just something to make the kids and the not-so-young fans happy. The Pinoy fab four have simply outgrown the band. It’s like Paul rattling on about missing John and the other guys as sounding boards for his own creative process, and nothing more. “Real Love”, that technologically-assisted collaboration to bring in the voice of the late John Lennon, was but a shade of the classic Beatles tunes. Midway through the reunion concert, some of the brash fans in the audience started shouting “group hug”. Perhaps they also felt the subdued detachment among the four men on stage. Each seemed to have his own mini-stage on top of this cylindrical platform that bore him since the start of the concert. Raimund would occasionally stand up from his drumming duties, and raise his hands which the fans would take as a cue to start another round of applause and hoots. Buddy would throw a mineral water bottle to the audience, take off his white blazer and get back to his guitar playing. Marcus seemed so caught up with the performance he appeared like he was in another plane altogether. And the frail-looking Ely would stay cool, though a bit stiff, throughout the concert, hitting those difficult notes competently and sometimes prompting the audience to sing along or play fill-in-the-missing-lyrics.

I couldn’t tell from their performance if they were enjoying being together again. But in the same manner that they could play together well despite such lack of presence as a group, I concentrated on just enjoying my first Eraserheads concert.

Concert of the decade

2008-10-06T18:41:00.042+08:00

And now, finally, it can be told: yesssss, I was at the Eraserheads reunion concert. And that’s my picture above, showing off my green VIP wristband (thanks to a friend who was a friend of Buddy’s partner), my half-full Vitwater bottle (I think it was lemon-flavored, and quite overpriced), and my maroon Marvin the Martian shirt (oops, sorry, he’s on the front part). In the background is the giant stage with this really BIG video screen that, as a fellow e-heads fanatic noted, was something like the ones you’d see in those whirlwind Oasis concerts. Which only goes to show that the fab four from the University of the Philippines, who used to perform in makeshift stages and do these cheap gigs around the city, have really hit the big time. They’ve sold millions of albums, overturned the whole Philippine music industry almost overnight, won the MTV award, and did some successful shows outside the country. And, perhaps thanks to their decision to finally split up after that line of chart-topping songs came to an end, they’ve attained legendary status among the rock-and-rollin’ generations of Pinoys who are now either working their butts out somewhere around the globe or busy spending their relatives’ hard-earned money in SM malls around the country.

Which made me think when I first heard about the reunion concert: what the hell are these guys thinking now? They're already living legends, for buddhasakes. They’ve accomplished what Robert Jaworski did in almost two decades of playing Philippine basketball. They’re still selling records with their new bands and projects. And now they’re willing to give it all up for another night of fame. Well, as Nietzsche lamented more than a century ago, reflection seemed to have really lost its dignity among today’s fast-thinking homo sapiens, including the modern Pinoys. Maybe it was a desperate effort to prove once and for all that they’re not following in the footsteps of John, Paul, George, and Ringo who remained steadfast to their no-reunion position. Maybe the concert was going to be some kind of tribute to their leukemia-stricken contemporary and friend Francis M., the Pinoy master-rapper who went on record after Ely’s first angioplasty that he thought it was high time for the guys to consider performing together again. Or, maybe it’s just all for the fun of singing the old songs and reliving the whole e-heads experience, while Ely can still hold the guitar and belt out those iconoclastic lines.

What the heck, I thought. If there’s going to be another Eraserheads concert, not even Nietzsche turning in his grave could stop me from being there. It was actually my first ever e-heads concert. I’ve bought all their major albums in cassette format. I dutifully replaced all of them when compact discs and CD players became the norm. I even have an autographed copy of the Fruitcake book (which I gave as a gift to my eldest daughter when she graduated from pre-school). But, believe it or not, I’ve never been to an e-heads concert before. Last year, I bought this bootlegged CD with a scratchy recording of their performances in a bar in Quezon City. Not the same thing as being in a live gig or concert though. Used to get the latest news or “tsismis” about their gigs, TV appearances and major concerts from articles in these cheap music magazines a.k.a. “songhits”. It was from these features that I learned how Ely, Raimund, Buddy and Marcus were able to slowly polish their live acts (which reviewers then often cited as their weak point). Nope, definitely not the same thing as hearing the guys live, today, years after that trend-setting Ultraelectromagnetic Pop album. It was like going to People Power 2 in EDSA, after you’ve missed People Power 1 in 1986 and you’ve been pretending all those intervening years that you were a true-blue activist.

It was a chance to redeem myself.

Back to Zen

2008-07-22T14:47:00.020+08:00

Reading Jiyu Kennett’s Selling Water by the River for about a week now. Thought it would be nice to have some break from Stephen R. Donaldson’s Thomas Covenant trilogy. And especially after those really protracted battles and tragic denouement in the second book, The Illearth War. So I'm now back to sitting, counting breaths, shikantaza (just sitting and being aware of the breaths) and all those terse Zen riddles. But Kennett’s book has its own peculiarities from the other Zen manuals in the past. For one thing, the book is really old. The pages are all brownish yellow and have that familiar musty smell. Some would probably have crumbled to the touch at the time of purchase. Recalling this natural treatment from somewhere, placed Kennett’s book inside a resealable plastic bag and mixed it with baking soda. Sealed the plastic bag with the book inside for about a month or two. The powder was supposed to absorb some moisture from the pages. Taking the book out recently, noticed that most of the pages were softer and felt more like new paper again. Not so much change though with the smell and the color.

In terms of the content, some things also stood out in Kennett’s book. There’s the usual story of Shakyamuni Buddha and his enlightenment. But this is followed immediately with a brief chapter on the essential “doctrines” or ideas in zen, including no-soul, karma, rebirth, the four noble truths, and impermanence. With the next chapter that traced the roots of Zen practice in Theravadic Buddhism, thought this explanation helped a lot in grounding Zen for the new trainees and lay practitioners. Somehow, the instructions on sitting and breathing, including the pointers on what to avoid and what to be careful of in practice, were less mechanical and more practical. Perhaps the fact that the author was a woman had a lot to do with this. Joko Beck’s teaching on Zen and Buddhism had a similar air of practicality about them and intimate links with everyday life. Master Kennett’s chapters on the hearts of compassion, love and wisdom, and how to nurture these in practice, form the core of Selling Water by the River and deepen readers' understanding of Zen’s relevance in the journey towards truth and enlightenment.

Of course, there’s the puzzling title of the book that puts one into a thinking mode from day one. Like all those wonderful Zen riddles, this one taunts the mind to come and try to unravel a hidden meaning. But the meaning always seems to elude one like a wild bull. One would have to struggle first with the fear and anxiety of coming near the bull. Then there’s the almost unbearable task of holding the bull by the horns (in all its great bulk and strength), looking at it straight in the eyes, and forcing out the one truth from its own mouth. Only to realize that everything was just an illusion. There was no bull in the first place. Well, there’s still half of Master Kennett’s book to finish.

A quote from the book (explanation in parentheses mine):

The motive for coming to a Zen temple is all-important. It was Shakyamuni Buddha’s love for the world that made him go in search of the cause of suffering, old age, decay and death; and at a later date he trained simply for training’s sake, albeit in the service of mankind. Those who wish to study Zen should consider this point carefully. The purpose of Zazen is not to think about gaining anything; this will become clearer as I progress. Shakyamuni Buddha had already found the heart of Kanzeon (heart of compassion) prior to setting out on his journey. He was, in fact, already half-enlightened.

(Cross-post from Lectiograph)

Call of the wild

2008-07-16T18:21:00.022+08:00

Saw the VCD a few months before with a 275 piso price tag on it. Had been planning to get myself a copy of the Sean Penn directorial job since I’ve read the indulgent article in Time magazine. And in light of my unsuccessful attempts to find a used copy of Jon Krakauer’s book. So, I was really tempted to buy the 275 piso-disc. But my unflinching bargain shopper’s instinct reasoned out that the price will still probably go down. Especially when the record store owners realize that not too many people will be interested in watching a whole movie about this American kid who after graduating from college willingly abandoned a comfortable life, donated all his savings to charity, headed out into the wilderness, and turned up dead somewhere in the Alaskan landscape. Last night, I visited my lunchtime record nook in the mall across the office and saw several copies of the Into the Wild VCD selling for only 75 piso. Quite a long movie at 148 minutes. But a really good viewing experience. One is simply awed by the raw passion for the wild and new experiences that Emile Hirsch was able to portray as Christopher McCandless. Had a hard time though digesting some knotty lines from Penn’s script. The landscape shots were amazing and appeared to be bleeding out of the screen (not sure if it was intentional, or if there’s something wrong with my VCD copy – but I think the effect is further magnified by these shots wherein people and their contrivances seem to fall out of the frame). Eddie Vedder’s soundtrack brings to the fore all the pain, anguish and fear from the characters, and seems to work out its own process of transcending these emotions within the film. Memorable line from the movie: “Happiness is unreal if not shared”. McCandless has lived to the fullest one vital aspect of our existence: that of the “supertramp”, the solitary search for meaning and some of the basic truths about ourselves.

Rhea

2008-07-15T17:43:00.026+08:00

It must have been the early morning sunlight steadily pouring through the glass window of the hospital. Everything in the nursery seemed awash then with a soft golden glow. It was the first time I saw her since she came out of her mother’s womb. Her skin was so fair and radiant that for a moment I thought she was going to disappear and turn into pure light. Peace and contentment emanated from her face. Past sorrows and worries of people around her simply dissolved in that impervious aura of tranquility. Yasodhara would have been her name – Prince Siddhatta’s cousin, wife and disciple. Instead, the older sister would name her after the lead singer of a popular Irish band. But through time, everybody would settle for the nickname. Goddess of fertility, flow, comfort and ease.

Though her existence in the next few years would be far from being always smooth, comfortable and easy. At two, she would spend a year with her aunts and cousins, away from her sisters and parents. The first time I visited her during this period, her reserved smiles barely revealed the bubbly demeanor of her first year. Her eyes, however, had retained those silent look of acceptance and equanimity. Not the fearful and stubborn spirit of her older sister. Rather, it was more like the pliant strength of water that is able to flow easily around rocks and obstacles and to move on no matter what. A paralyzing sadness gripped the soul at the thought of her plight at that point and my own responsibility in it. But one thing her attitude then taught me was that hate could never put an end to vindictiveness.

Lately, I’ve been taking her and her younger sister out to the malls on weekends. The light that suffuses her being has not diminished a bit. On the contrary, it has grown and deepened through the years. One could perceive it in her sincere concern and curiosity whenever she inquires about me and her mother. A quite natural facility for silence and reflection now shows whenever she’s faced with a question or with the opening lines of a storybook. During one of these outings, she coaxed her mother into allowing her and her younger sister to spend the night with me at their grandmother’s place. The next day, waiting for the rain to stop at their grandparents’ house, she was impatient to go back to their mother’s place, worried that her mother might already be missing them.

Such recent encounters have made me reflect on my own place in her and her sisters’ lives these days. It has always been a shifting thing for me the past three to four years, filled with doubts, uncertainties and loose ends. In one of his books, Stephen Donaldson had one major character describe her father’s role in her upbringing: “He shielded my heart from unjust demands. He taught me that the anguishes and furies of my parents and their parents need not wrack or enrage me – that I was neither the cause nor the cure of their pain. He taught me that my life is my own – that I could share in the care and consolation of wounds without sharing the wounds, without striving to be the master of lives other than my own.” I just hope I live long enough to share these lessons to her.

Everyday i have the blues

2008-07-11T13:48:00.022+08:00

Been listening to John Mayer’s Continuum these past few days. Found the CD on sale (only 199 piso) at a record store near the office. It had been in the rack for discounted music CDs for more than a month. Recalled watching Mayer’s performance in a David Letterman show once. There was this scratchy, gritty, heavier, more complex feel in the new sound. Quite different from the boyish, unabashedly pop-inspired tunes of the first studio albums. But what really clinched things for me was reading somewhere about how Mayer had turned to the blues genre for inspiration. In the Continuum album sleeve, there’s an acknowledgment to Eric Clapton for staying “cool” despite knowing that Mayer has been borrowing some guitar riffs from him. But there’s a lot more in Continuum than being just another of those blues-influenced album. Waiting on the World to Change puts a nice cruising beat to a stylish Gen-Ex theme song that throws sharp jabs at war and misinformation in the media. Mayer’s husky voice really surfaces in Belief and sounds uncannily like Gordon Sumner’s. The poetic lyrics and haunting chords in Gravity pulls you down to emotional depths before releasing you in a cathartic daze. Contrast these with the steady rhythm and intensely reflective words of Stop This Train. There’s also a very competent cover of Jimi Hendrix’s Bold as Love. My favorites: Slow Dancing in a Burning Room and I’m Gonna Find Another You. Great work. In fact, thought there was a need to increase the dose a bit. So decided to buy the two-CD collection Where The Light Is (Live in Los Angeles) as well.

The petridish saga

2008-07-10T16:31:00.019+08:00

It was the last day for submitting scholarship applications to this country’s embassy in the Republic of the Paramecium. The week before that was spent worrying on whether the necessary supporting papers will be delivered on time. But this morning, everything was finally in order. The only thing that needed to be done was to be at the embassy before 12 noon. Piece of cake. Scenes and dialogues from a Looney Tunes episode were running in the head. The family went on vacation and left Sylvester the cat all alone in the house. The poor cat frantically searches around the kitchen. Relief at a shelf full of canned food. Then that memorable line, “All I need now is the ca-aan opener.”

Yep, all that was needed that morning was to get into the embassy on time, submit the papers, and head for the office before the boss did. The only problem is that to do all these one had to take the strong republic’s ultra-modern light rail system. There goes all hopes for a quick happy ending. One small mouse had the can opener and gives the cat one hell of a time. But wait. Going up the station, one finds an orderly line of people heading to the disembarkation platform. Maybe the managers of the MRT in the Republic of the Paramecium have finally worked out some system in getting people safely into their trains. At last, some signs of intelligent life in the land.

But alas, falling into that line, one ultimately found out that everyone was directed back to the loading platform at the other side where an impatient mob awaited the arrival of the next train. One had to go through again the harrowing experience of being pushed and crushed by that mindless mass of humanity. So apathy finally gave way to a firm resolve for action. And before the brain that had been reduced into an unthinking automaton by a mismanaged train system knew what was happening, one was suddenly standing in front of the MRT station supervisor and eyeing him through orange-tinged sunglasses.

The argument focused on the need to manage the unruly crowd at the loading platform and on assigning more security guards to do this. In response, the supervisor harped on limited resources and personnel. The guy was uncommital about making changes but remained quite polite, even suggesting that a letter should be filed to the managers at the central office. But there was this other guy, an assistant or head of a unit in the MRT station, who had a different appreciation of the problem: people were simply undisciplined; nothing could be done about it; and, thus no system would work. When informed that a dean in a university and a boss both lost their mobile phones recently in the chaos persisting in the train station, the guy did not hesitate to blame the victims saying they shouldn’t have rushed in with the mob.

The encounter ended quite civilly. Insight: if those two guys at the MRT station represented the common lot of government people in the Republic of the Paramecium, half of them would have to go through some kind of seminar to improve their creativity, and half would have to be fired outright – like that poor assistant, they would be better off finding another job where they could at least do something and be of use to themselves and to society. At the office later in the day, one finally got a sense of accomplishment at being able to implement what used to be only crazy plans written in blog postings.

And, oh, the embassy people received the scholarship application before the deadline.

Another passing shadow

2008-05-09T11:40:00.052+08:00

It was one of those days when you wake up feeling as if things have been suddenly put on fast forward while you were obliviously dozing off to Never Never Land. Only this time you weren’t coming from a cute little dream about flying boys and girls that your kids love to watch or read about. Rather, it was that quite familiar sensation of falling fast from a height. And it was not your bed you'd land on, but a casket. You quickly recognized your face in that split second before you hit the ground. Then the point of view changed from that of the falling heap of flesh to the cold cadaver that was about to be crushed underneath. It was one continuous flow, a seamless series of images on film. No camera tricks. Just that singular sensation of falling and that sudden shift in perspective that has no determinable beginning. Only a predictable end. Or does it? Because what you first thought was a corpse suddenly opened its eyes and jerked up gasping for air. You realized you’re awake. But reality somehow retained that hazy quality of a dream. Like there was a small glitch in existence, and everything was fine and running again.

You are assailed by all these thoughts and images the moment you opened you eyes for the second time. Past, present and future scenes in one strange brew inside you head. You were moving to another house once again. A wan smile forms in your mouth at the thought that you’ve done this several times before, in another life with other people. You had this rickety cart then with all your things – covered appliances, rolled up mattresses, disassembled shelves, boxed books. You tied everything down on the cart and you pushed this whole pile along the road side. A cold drizzle bathed your sweaty face and arms while the exhaust from passing vehicles mixed water, perspiration and dust into an oily grime on your skin. This time you’re calling for a trucking service. You try to take down the rate and other details from a woman at the other end of the phone. Her voice comes out muffled with all those noises coming from the television. The old man is slumped on the floor and reading aloud a passage from the bible.

You then recall the many times you imagined strangling this pastor who you believe has brainwashed your father into this mindless and bigoted state. What else should one do with someone who calls every woman a sinner when she challenges her husband’s views or goes against his wishes? But you realize that like all charlatans, this wily creature is simply taking advantage of your father’s fear of inevitable death. Just like your mind has been obsessed with thoughts of your own demise these past few days. And visions of a car or plane crash keep flashing in your head. Or you become more anxious over these recurring migraines and numbness in your shoulders. There’s only this oppressive listlessness that seems to have taken over your entire being. And in one of those restless wanderings, you come upon this book that tells of ghosts and other things that refuse to die. It speaks of apparitions at the dinner table, of a dog that plays with something or someone that couldn’t be seen, and of these eerie visitations in one’s sickbed. Very familiar.

Confusion sets in. And panic at the thought of things that have to be done and the lack of will to see these through. It was quite something to push back the depression and picture oneself as somehow lording it over those dark episodes of the soul. There is this persistent image though of being carried away and languishing in pain afterwards. You try to write it all down. But what ultimately comes out is this whole mess of still-born ideas, half-muted emotions and amputated tales. One should not even try to put much sense into it. There’s this new song by Neil Young that you’ve been listening to while you were trying to put everything into words. It must have been inspired by Young’s bout with aneurysm. It’s only a dream, he says. One just hopes that all those bad things never come true. Everything is supposed to fade away, leaving memories that aren’t staying anywhere as well.

Handling ennui

2008-05-06T16:11:00.045+08:00

Bought this plastic board that went on top of the computer monitor at home. The board’s front end attaches itself to the monitor’s black surface through Velcro strips. Two adjustable “legs” support the board at the other end, with small rectangular “feet” standing awkwardly on the monitor’s perforated body. The thing looked pretty stable. Placed several books and a stack of CDs, along with other knick knacks, on it after assembling the whole contraption and adjusting the legs. Was thus able to clear some space on the work station, beside the keyboard. Couldn’t imagine putting something liquid and hot on the tray though. Been wondering also if the design is earthquake-proof.

And then there were these latest book acquisitions. Late for an early morning meeting at an old hotel southeast of Manila, drifted instead to this secondhand bookshop in one of the city's newest shopping complex. “The Earth Has a Soul: The Nature Writings of C.G. Jung” edited by Meredith Sabini was to end up as the only purchase for the day. A prize catch though, and for only 140 piso. Google has uploaded portions of the book for browsing. The other book was John Keane’s “Vaclav Havel: A Political Tragedy in Six Acts”. Got the paperback edition from an earlier book-hunting trip. More expensive at 220 piso. Found out later that it was an authorized biography.

Me not paramecium

2008-04-29T13:23:00.056+08:00

Nothing much has changed with the metro rail transit (MRT) system of the good old Republic of the Paramecium since my previous rants here in the blogosphere. People who run it remain unconcerned about the safety of the riding public. They are not doing anything at all to address the problems that stare them at the face everyday. They rely on the lure of modern technology and its promised speed and ease of travel to deprive passengers of the use of their human intelligence. The latter are thus slowly reduced to acting like those single-celled organisms that mindlessly push their way through a crowded petri dish.

Standing again at that dreaded loading platform one afternoon with other desperate passengers, I noted in a zen-like fashion all these violent ideas wafting through my head. What if I aimed and threw a fist-sized rock at that fluorescent lamp or that overhead camera? How about landing some Jackie Chan flying kicks at the coaches as they pass by? Throw tomatoes or some paint balls at the glass windows? Anything to rouse anger and discontent among the other passengers, and make them realize that what they’re getting is one lousy service.

Realizing however that I did not have even half the guts to do such nasty things, I started thinking of more creative, less confrontational modes of rebellion. I invoke the rights of citizens to go against and subvert any governance system that has failed to uphold the social contract. People who run such a system don’t deserve the authority accorded to them. Their incompetence should be brought out to the light of day. So here’s an initial list of some strategies that I’m thinking of trying out:

Pose as a student researcher and conduct ambush interviews with these automatons who run the MRT stations. Ask them a few enlightening questions that should make them stop and feel some discomfort at their own stupidity (if these are not too much to expect from them) or allow me to learn more about their moronic system. “Why are there so many people who are having trouble getting into your trains? Why are you charging people additional fares for not arriving on time at their chosen destinations? Shouldn’t you be returning their fares instead, since they were not able to get on your train (and that is what they’ve paid for in the first place)? Why do you keep asking people to step back from the platform's edge when you know they have to do that to have some chance of getting into your overflowing trains? Shouldn’t MMDA enforcers issue tickets to your trains for overloading?” This is called participatory research and its supposed to be a great learning strategy for both researcher and respondents.

Record on video some of those “dramatic” scenes from the MRT station: passengers’ faces showing a “just escaped from hell” sort of relief as they come out of a crowded coach; macho guys pushing their smelly bodies through the wall of humanity at the coach’s entrance; the big crowds that often form at the loading areas. One time, I saw two young men came out of a coach trying to grab each other’s throat. Too bad I only thought of taking out my mobile phone and its two megapixel-camera after they realized they were making quite a scene and just decided to call it quits. But videos of such scenes could be very good materials for Youtube or other file sharing platforms that are becoming popular now. “This is how we do it in the RP”, “This is how a strong republic looks like” or “People’s lives keep getting better in the RP” are some possible titles. This strategy involves shaming one’s people and culture, so I need to place a note to myself here that I should use this only when my capacity for self-deprecation is at its highest.

Try to get inside one of those overcrowded coaches with the intention of preventing the doors from closing and therefore delaying the train for a few seconds. This should rouse this dim-witted guy called “security guard” from his languid state at the booth near the front end of the train and do his job of enforcing order. Quickly get off the train when he comes near the coach or as soon as he asks people who were not able to get in to wait for the next train. Wearing a big backpack and standing at the right spot near the closing door should make it appear to the other passengers that you’re not really aware you’re the idiot causing all the delays. This strategy is called direct action and is meant to get quick results towards one’s objectives. This also calls for a lot of daring and preparations for any detrimental consequence like being arrested. Although if I could make myself look innocent enough, I figured I could get away with two or three runs before I get a crisp slap at the back of the head.

Write an email or send a text message to policy makers and implementers. Yeah, I know one should be really dumb to expect anything good will come out of this. But, surely, even the most hopeless paramecium could learn a few tricks given enough stimulus. First stop of course is the Light Rail Transit Authority (LRTA), email address (lrtamain@lrta.gov.ph). They also have a feedback form on their website. Senator Juan Ponce Enrile (senator_enrile@senate.gov.ph) heads the RP's Senate Committee on Public Services. The wise though quirky Senator Arroyo (office_sen_jokerarroyo@yahoo.com) serves as his deputy. Why not also text “Metroguwapo” himself, the MMDA chief Bayani Fernando (0920-9389875)? If my hunch is right, the guy would be aching to poke his nose into the MRT’s operation once he finds out how this mass transport system is turning into a big rotten spot in his urbanidad scheme for the metropolis. This strategy is like reaching for the moon and the stars, but could be an effective anger management tool, just to let off some steam while you muster enough will to do more drastic things (like those outlined above).

If you are part of the MRT-riding public, have experienced the same problems, and want to do something about the situation, you can add to this initial list and I’ll post an action report if I decide to actually try out your idea. Better if you also try out some of the things yourself and write to me about it. Let's show these guys at the MRT how to use a brain.

Mind haunts a place

2008-04-22T18:07:00.029+08:00

There’s this residential area near the university that seems to be intimately linked with the present existence. Just like the university, this subdivision – with its blocks of sprawling houses and quiet gated streets – has its way of intruding into one’s consciousness. If there’s a sense in describing oneself as haunting a place even if one is still very much alive, this is exactly how one would feel upon coming to an awareness of such encroachment. It’s like slowly realizing that one has been a sort of prisoner all these years, that no matter how many miles one has flown away from a certain point of origin, one’s life will ultimately be pulled back to gravitate around a few significant places. Yet, there’s also this sense of being set free from some drab view of the past, and being made to see such places and everything on it in a totally different light.

Such were the thoughts that flitted through a weary mind as it came across this tree along one of the subdivision’s main streets. For the past several years since the road has become a daily path to and from work, the tree has constantly drawn attention to itself, as if its very presence is meant to proclaim the rootedness of nearby beings to the land. Its dark green foliage beckons from a distance, providing a sharp contrast to the early morning light or the reddish haze of dusk. Its gnarled branches, buttressed trunk and aerial roots project the image of an old defeated creature forced to retreat to its side of the asphalt-covered road. The tree’s overall form and shape lure the mind to anthropomorphism and before long elicit the title manang – Filipino term for a mature woman, like an older sister or an aunt.

Google confirmed an initial hunch: Manang belongs to the ficus genus, with around 800 species of woody trees, shrubs, vines, and epiphytes (organisms that grow attached to living plants). Filipinos call this particular tree variety balete and many still avoid any individual tree, especially the more weird-looking ones, for fear of spirits or ghosts that are believed to live inside it. Thanks to such indigenous beliefs and knowledge systems, a professor in biodiversity conservation once pointed out, some of these ancient trees have been left standing amidst the relentless onslaught of what many humans have come to call as “development”.

Passing by Manang’s abode one gray afternoon, the eyes are quickly led to the fresh red stipules sticking out of the clusters of newly formed leaves. It’s like Manang has turned into an armored animal ready to defend itself again and the few square meters of ground on which it stood. The heavier crown now droops a little towards the road, casting a mysterious shade on the concrete wall behind it. Only a few other beings remain within the subdivision that hold together the land and its residents in such an enchanted relationship across space and time. If the mind only dared to listen, a wispy voice should come through the engulfing silence.

Mistaken identity

2008-04-14T16:36:00.014+08:00

“Messenger ka ba? (Are you a messenger?)" It was the second time she asked me the same question in about a month. As with the first incident, the Twilight Zone tune immediately started playing in my head. Then came that brief moment when I started wondering why such things happened to me, of all people. Was it because the clothes I’m wearing during those days that she saw me at her canteen were so unlike those worn by these rich law and business students that she served? But I remembered seeing her also behind the cashier counter on days when I had my polo, slacks and leather shoes on, and my head was throbbing from pretending all day long to know how to design a training program that I haven’t even taken up before.

Maybe it was because of my kulay lupa (dirt-colored) skin that puts me in the league of the school’s security guards, janitors and other blue-collar workers. That would surely explain why my attire seemed to make no difference in the way she regarded me. For just a few seconds, as I finished my lunch in a favorite corner, I relished the thought of being seen as part of the masa or low-income groups. With the way fate changes for most of us, there’s really nothing that separates me from these poor people except the kind of job that I have now and the few clothes that cover my back.

So, who cares if she mistook me for somebody she knew from her circle? Not bad, not bad at all. Unless, manang there was thinking of her long lost crush who happened to work before as a messenger. Or she’s a member of a local religious group who’s desperately waiting for the coming of a “messenger” from heaven to announce the end of days. I hurriedly took my plates and leftovers to the cleaners’ counter, and scampered for the nearest exit.

Slowing down

2008-04-01T18:33:00.026+08:00

After reading Eric A. Davidson’s You Can’t Eat GNP and Greenpeace’s seven (7) “climate saving” tips, I’ve been thinking of ways to renew my flagging individual activism on the environment. For instance, I’ve been taking note of the kind of garbage I’ve been producing lately at home and at work to see how I can properly manage these. Waste segregation has been a continuing struggle for me through the years. Reflecting on it now, I felt that I’ve not been so consistent in my practice. Reinforcing factors were really crucial in my experience. Thus, it was always easier to separate the biodegradable from the non-biodegradable wastes when there were separate garbage bins or trash cans around. And it took little effort to tell the cashier at the bookshop not to put my purchases anymore in plastic bags when I had my backpack or shoulder bag with me, or when I had my hands free. Taking stock and planning were therefore important.

Many times though, it was really a matter of paying closer attention to my practice. I realized that it was always convenient to follow what many people were doing or to simply revert to what I’ve been used to. There was this constant need to remind myself on what it takes to be green and how this lessens my impact on the environment. Which was quite difficult. Thought that it was similar to doing zazen and keeping one’s awareness on the breaths. It doesn’t take long before your mind wanders again to other things. It’s one continuous process of always bringing back your attention to your breathing. Slowing down one’s mind and existence to pay attention to one’s actions was key. So, inside the bathroom these days, I’ve been trying to stay conscious of how much water I’ve been using. All the while, I kept running in my mind the information I got from Davidson’s book about the rate of groundwater replenishment by rainfall and how in many places today this is often not enough to cover the rate at which water in available aquifers are being used up.

Being different

2008-03-31T10:36:00.029+08:00

Was struck recently with this news that young people who sport a goth look or who are seen as being too "emotional" for comfort are now being branded as “emos”, short for people who emote a lot, by their peers. Had to check first with msword’s thesaurus if there is actually an “emote” in english. But only found “emotive”. Following a hunch that it was not the word I was looking for, I checked the Webster’s Universal Dictionary and Thesaurus (1993 edition). And there I found again the word “emotive”, meaning “characterized by or arousing emotions”. I was right, it was not the word I was looking for. A few entries up however was “emote”, an intransitive verb that referred to the display of emotions in a theatrical manner. A closer adjective in Filipino would have been maarte, which had several meanings in the local language like being picky or choosy, hard to please, too sensitive or emotional, angst-ridden, depressive, or melodramatic. In other words, acting like someone who’s running for an award in the FAMAS (the local counterpart of the Oscar’s). Found this Urban Dictionary site which gives some interesting definitions for emo.

Anyway, just had this thought that it seems tables have been turned for nonconforming individuals in society. About a decade ago, back in college, fine arts students who come to class in jeans that looked like they have been pelted with mortar shells or rifle bullets and shirts that appeared to have been retrieved from the dumpsters were treated like rock stars. Rich students, the so-called “101 kids” (because they liked to hang out in front of the college registrar’s office, room 101), who wore black and had eyeliners were like movie idols to ordinary folks like me who just did not have the stomach to do a similar act. Fortunately, during those days, there was another option for those of us who were somewhat fashion-challenged: going deep, thinking more profoundly, being an activist, serving the people or the country. A common thread running through all three types is the contempt that many young people then had for the uncomplicated life, for uncritical conformity to society’s norms, for conservatism of any kind. That’s also why we had the term “nerd” which was somewhat condescending, and sometimes derogatory.

Probably like emo now. So, is the use of this term another sign that the world has indeed swung politically to the right and that young people nowadays are starting to be more comfortable with being part of the common lot? Are they afraid to stray from society’s standards? Or have they been so homogenized, so spiritually and intellectually stunted by current fundamentalist and consumerist ethos that they have completely lost the capacity to imagine a uniquely individual existence? Would they be contented with just having a normal life: growing up, finishing school, landing a 9 to 5 job that pays them well, acquiring a condominium unit, car and some other property, starting a business, becoming famous, marrying, having children and dying with a stack of cash and bank books under their bed? But, perhaps the underlying derisiveness in "emo" points to contempt for skin-deep or cosmetic rebellion, and the desire for deeper and more meaningful dissent among today's youth.

If that is the case, then I think I can breathe a little easier.

Adventures in the RP

2008-03-25T16:17:00.049+08:00

Folks, welcome to the Republic of the Paramecium. They have a metro rail system (MRT) which their wise leaders have lauded as signaling the nation’s confident march into the 21st century. The only problem is that managers of this modern public transport system have intelligence levels equal to that of single-celled organisms. So at any given day of the week, especially during rush hours, you will see people risking limbs and lives by stepping near the edge of loading platforms and keeping their noses within inches of the passing trains. They have to do this if they want to have even the slimmest chance of getting half of their bodies inside the crowded coaches. In fact, “crowded” is very much an understatement at such moments. “Overloaded” would be a more realistic description. Both desperate folks who just want to get home fast and brutes who are used to having their way in such situations would have to squeeze through the packed coaches, often relying on the push of the growing mob behind them to get in.

Meanwhile, managers and security guards at the loading station would be busy carrying on with their seemingly unproblematic existence. Inside their air conditioned ticketing office, the managers would keep on playing this announcement over the public address system advising passengers to stay behind the yellow line for their own safety. Their equally unthinking stooges would then be blowing their whistles and waving their sticks through the air to warn people that they should step back from the edge of the loading platform. Of course, nobody cares to follow them or their advisory. Because you have to be in front of the mob to be in a strategic position to worm your way through the coach’s entrance when the train stops. And you can’t afford to wait beyond forty-five minutes for a half-filled train to pass by, or you’ll be charged an extra amount (equal to the fare you paid at your point of origin) as you try to get out of the station at your destination.

All these time, any creature with an iota of what can be considered as human intelligence would perhaps be wondering why people managing the loading station couldn’t just call the central office, and place an urgent request for an empty train. Such creature has to be reminded, of course, that an advanced technology does not necessarily imply the presence of thinking human beings. A high tech transport system like the metro rail transit in the RP can well be operated by creatures less smart than a bug. That should say a lot about how user-friendly these technologies are.

Paranoid

2008-01-26T13:09:00.002+08:00

Yep, that’s how I ended up after watching the latest adaptation of The Omega Man, dubbed I Am Legend featuring Will Smith. During lulls at the movie house, kept looking at the empty seats near me to see if there were any of those rabid people lurking in the dark (as if the virus that wreaked havoc to New York in the movie had suddenly jumped out of the screen and infected the unsuspecting audience). In the jeepney, kept staring at the other passengers to check for any signs of them turning into those hairless corpse-like monsters in the movie. Don’t know why these post-apocalyptic plots – of being stuck in a world full of brain-sucking zombies, mutated homo sapiens, or virus-deformed people – strikes a chord. Something close to primal fear: turns the guts inside out, softens both knees into a gooey state, but brings a certain excitement that makes you wish to stay in that world, with that experience.

The Charlton Heston flick gave me those adventure-filled nightmares where I live in a high-tech subterranean fortress and conduct all these raids on zombie hangouts with my ubercool armored van (see my earlier post on this). Just found out from Wikipedia today that this screen-adaptation of the classic 1959 Richard Matheson novel was actually the second one. The first was filmed in 1964 with the title The Last Man on Earth and with Vincent Price in the lead role. That makes the current Will Smith version the third one. Director Francis Lawrence decided to use Matheson’s original title for the novel, but changed some details. Instead of a biological war between China and the Soviet Union causing the spread of the deadly virus, Lawrence had this story about a viral cure for cancer gone awry. And the menace to army doctor Robert Neville and other survivors have been somewhat “upgraded” with all these blood- and flesh-craving nocturnal humans holed up in the dark nooks of the city. Heston’s albino adversaries in the earlier version at least have some human intelligence left in them to conduct a trial and sentence him to death.

Which makes the latest movie scarier and more paranoid-inducing. Thought Will Smith did a great job here portraying one of the last persons on the planet employing his physical, psychic and emotional arsenal to stay alive and sane in a ravaged world. And considering that it was quite challenging to maintain interest for most of the movie’s opening sequences with only him and the German Shepherd on the big screen (although Lawrence and the material itself should also get some credits for this). That scene where he was forced to strangle his infected and slowly mutating dog was perhaps one of the film’s most powerful. Another was the subsequent one at the video store where, bereft of a living companion, he was finally forced to say his teary hellos to a mannequin.

What’s that noise? Have to go. Not a soul with me here at the office.

Like a rollin' stone

2008-01-23T14:28:00.003+08:00

Bought this 2-CD compilation of the Rolling Stones’ hits. Been my only companion these past nights. Thinking of a way to describe Mick Jagger’s unique voice, came up with the image of a madman being strangled to death. It’s simply hypnotic. Coupled with the raw, bestial rhythms of the band, there’s simply nothing else like it to accompany you on those long, solitary journeys to work. The eerie psychedelic track 2000 Light Years From Home could actually provides an excellent background music to this existential experience: Freezing red deserts turn to dark/ Energy here in every part/ ... It’s so very lonely, you’re two thousand light years from home. And the search for reasons goes on.

Finally had the chance to listen to the clean, high fidelity version of Sympathy For The Devil which served as the closing track to that Denzel Washington-starrer film about a murderous demonic spirit. Still a totally different experience from listening to the live, scratchy recordings of this song from my mp3 collection. The song is said to echo the plot of a Mikhail Bulgakov novel, The Master and Margarita, about a visit of the Devil to the former Soviet Union. Recalled sending the song's lyrics one afternoon to an irritating anonymous texter. Probably didn’t understand my intentions: she texted back to say it was “cute” and to ask if I would be interested in being her textmate.

And there’s that operatic opening to You Can’t Always Get What You Want featuring the London Bach Choir. The song is supposed to be the Stones’ Hey Jude. The first time I heard the Stones' version, I had visions of dying prematurely and of angels humming the tune. Then I’m suddenly reincarnated as a blues-rock star in another dimension. My daughters in the audience, I get to perform covers of Honky Tonk Women, Let It Bleed, Paint It Black and Jumpin’ Jack Flash. And, as an encore, Wild Horses – a recent discovery from the Stones’ discography, and now one of my favorites. Said to have been started by Stones' guitarist Keith Richards who regretted leaving his newborn son, Marlon, to join the band's tour.

Childhood living is easy to do
The things you wanted I bought them for you
Graceless lady you know who I am
You know I can't let you slide through my hands

I watched you suffer a dull aching pain
Now you decided to show me the same
No sweeping exits or offstage lines
Could make me feel bitter or treat you unkind

I know I dreamed you a sin and a lie
I have my freedom but I don't have much time
Faith has been broken, tears must be cried
Let's do some living after we die

Wild horses couldn't drag me away
Wild, wild horses we'll ride them some day

Friday blues

2007-12-20T10:30:00.006+08:00

You wake up alone (that is, on your side of the bed). It’s 3 in the morning. Your skin tingles in the cool December air that is seeping through your thin clothes. The thought of snuggling under the blanket with your partner flits through your mind. But you remember she went to bed late the previous night and may not want to be roused that early. Besides, there’s still this unspent tension from your discomforting silence lately. Mental note: how to convince people that you’re not necessarily bored or anything when you don’t say a word. You get out of bed realizing you need to leave for the airport in an hour.

In the cab, on the way to the airport, you panic at the thought that nobody was up to even see you out of the house. If your plane crashes somewhere, the last image of you they’ll ever recall will be at least 8 to 10 hours past. On second thought, you realize it will be perfectly fine. Then you imagine all these possible scenarios in your upcoming meeting with people you’ve never met before. You begin to feel the jitters as the cab driver tries hard to strike up a conversation and stay awake. Then you wonder why all these are happening on a Friday morning. Friday is supposed to be your favorite day of the week.

Fast forward to the post-meeting scene. You’re helplessly wandering in unfamiliar streets looking for a vegetarian restaurant. The Dalai Lama’s words (“Fishes are not vegetables”) keep running in your mind. Not finding a vegetarian eatery, you end up in a fastfood joint with a fish burger, some salty french fries, and an iced tea. So much for the Dalai Lama’s dietary prescriptions. Maybe next year. At a bookshop after lunch, you get a sign that your fate is beginning to turn around: you were about to leave the store when you find this book on writing children’s stories in the bottom stack.

Fast forward again. It’s night. You’re back in Manila, drinking beer and eating mushroom sisig with friends. The Hunk is as hunky as ever. Pious Agnostic provides a luminous presence to the occasion. The Jerks, one of the best bands to come out of this part of the globe, is dishing out classic blues, rock and reggae tracks from Stephen “Stevie” Ray Vaughan, the Rolling Stones, The Police, The Beatles, and Bob Marley. By the time Chikoy Pura and his virtuoso bandmates get to play the Stones’ “Honky Tonk Women”, you feel like you’re almost ready to celebrate the new year.

Friday blues is history.

When you reach the bottom line
The only thing to do is climb
Pick yourself up off the floor
Don't know what you're waiting for

Bottom line, Big Audio Dynamite

Wired existence

2007-12-12T16:02:00.040+08:00

Gave up my old phone for a phone-walkman that my partner bought from Singapore. Existence has never been the same. There were those bright, warm days when coming out of the house, and with Sandwich’s Butterfly Carnival playing in my ears, I would have futuristic visions of electronic chips implanted in my brain and blasting out rock n’ roll tunes in my head. The new earphones are so different from the ones we had in high school. The latter went into and hang from your ears like stiff cotton buds.

The new earphones have these soft rubber caps that fit snugly around your ears’ holes and seal them like wax. The result: you can barely hear anything other than those mp3s playing from your phone, and you feel like your whole reality has just been sucked into an extended music video. Prudence would often remind me though that I shouldn’t be always living like this. So I’ve listed down situations that called for a wired existence:

You are late for work again. For the third time, you've chickened out from getting into the train full of people who are all squeezed together like sardines in a can. You need to know when your irate boss will call or send an sms to ask where the hell you are. So you decide right then and there to just relax and meditate on what the Dalai Lama calls your own “insubstantiality”.

You’ve been asked to finish this big training proposal before the day ends, from rationale and objectives, down to the outputs and possible discussion topics. Your boss volunteers to write the cover letter and the resource persons' profiles. And you feel like banging your head against the concrete wall behind you.

You’re on the bus. And wallah, they’re playing that old action flick featuring (tantararan) Dolph Lundgren shooting (shouldn’t he be doing all those round kicks instead) at this guy sporting a Pancho Villa moustache who shoots back before scampering away from the scene. Lundgren later kills the guy.

On the traveling bodhisattva

2007-12-10T15:48:00.019+08:00

So, the traveling bodhisattva moved to a new place last July. It still stands on top of a pile of used papers. The new work station is bigger, but the bodhisattva’s alter ego remained bent on keeping it uncluttered. Even the cushioned dividers have been freed of notes or photos these past six months. A sharp contrast to that of the other work stations. A computer, printer, calendar, and phone have been the bodhisattva’s only true companions at night. Not much view outside either. In fact, none at all (unlike the previous place which had a window where one can take quick looks at these passing people in a nearby apartment building). The new place is on top of this four-floor structure at the outskirts of Manila’s busy business district. It’s modern, cozy, sleek. But lacks enchantment. Seems like the bodhisattva provides the only sign of a sane, authentic, soulful existence in this place. Behind its mirthful demeanor, the bodhisattva now reminds its friend of that constant tension between what one desires and what simply needs to be done. And a way out?

Back in Kendari

2007-12-04T16:46:00.064+08:00

A clear sky, not too sunny, greeted us in Kendari City, southeast Sulawesi on the first morning after our day-long trip from Manila. Occasional drizzles, short ones, will come in the afternoons and evenings of our entire stay in this quiet city near the eastern end of Indonesia. But not on this morning, technically our first day in Kendari. During the flight from Singapore to Jakarta, between those gut-wrenching shakes and bounces of the plane, I kept thinking that this could well be my last visit to this place. Our project is ending in January next year. And if we don’t get something going on before the year ends – perhaps a short-term research or a second phase for our present project – it may take some time before I can come back to Kendari.

So, coming out of this cheap hotel on the first day of our visit, I was in a “maximizing experience” mode which was to last until day five. It was a good thing somebody from the Center was able to come with me this time. No trouble doing things that were a bit out of the ordinary. Finally had this chance to walk from the hotel to our NGO partner's office (about two kilometers). Woke up one windy morning and jogged around this sprawling structure at the heart of the city. Bought ourselves some cargo pants (which seemed to be a fashion trend nowadays among those young Indonesians). Had our fills of saraba (ginger drink with coconut milk, honey or brown sugar) and sago palm starch. We went snorkeling at the reef's edge in Bajo Island. Got ourselves drunk the night before our flight back to the Pinas.

Had this terrible headache on our way back to Jakarta. Got some relief only after drinking soya milk and eating a bowl of this hot, reddish soup. During those long flights and lay-overs, kept wracking our brains out on how we can finish that research proposal.

Global warming

2007-10-25T15:59:00.005+08:00

This is a reply to a friend's confused email about S. Fred Singer's article "Global Warming: Man-Made or Natural?". Another friend's response to my email gave me the idea to post it here.

hi:

if i'm not mistaken, this is the same person hired by tobacco firms in the U.S. some years back to spread information against the emerging scientific and medical consensus on the link between lung cancer and secondhand smoke. the guy is really notorious for putting his scientific credentials behind such controversial positions. needless to say, he's making big bucks out of it.

just some notes regarding his claims on global warming:

1. that most of the IPCC panelists have no scientific credentials: this is false information. most, if not all, of the lead authors, contributing authors, editors and reviewers to the IPCC technical reports work for universities, monitoring stations, laboratories, research institutions, government bodies, and private scientific organizations in different countries. the names of these people and their institutions are listed in the appendices to the technical reports.

2. that some members of scientific bodies (like the American Meteorological Society) might not have had a say in the formulation of these groups' consensus statements, and that such statements are therefore not reflective of these groups' real positions on climate change: these are not true. the processes of drafting these reports and public statements involved a lot of opportunities for criticisms, comments, and revisions from the members of these professional societies.

the hypothesis that such processes may have downplayed dissenting opinions from the members was tested with a study done by naomi oreskes (department of history and science studies program, university of california at san diego, in science, 3 december 2004) on 928 abstracts published in refereed scientific journals between 1993 and 2003. the abstracts were searched in the ISI database using the keywords "climate change". 75% of the abstracts were categorized as explicitly or implicitly accepting the consensus view. 25% raised methodological or paleoclimatic issues (uncertainties about past climatic changes from evidences in glacial deposits, fossils, and sediments).

none of the papers disagreed with the consensus position. it might be argued that the authors belonging to the 25% group might believe that the current global warming is natural. however, none of the papers in this group argued that point. the conclusions: scientists publishing in the peer-reviewed literature agree with the IPCC, the National Academy of Sciences, and their professional societies; the impression that there is disagreement or discord among climate scientists, that some sectors are trying to spread, is incorrect.

3. that the creation of so-called "scientific consensus" is not science or how science is supposed to proceed: may be true, but is misleading in this case. first, even if there is a scientific consensus on climate change, there is nothing in the supporting arguments and evidences to say that the consensus can never be wrong. a healthy dose of skepticism has always been the hallmark of the scientific method, and this is not being abandoned with the current consensus on climate change and global warming.

second, i don't think there is any step or statement in any formulation of the scientific method which says that one can not act based on any contingent knowledge resulting from its application. as oreskes puts it: "if the history of science teaches anything, it is humility, and no one can be faulted for failing to act on what is not known. but our grandchildren will surely blame us if they find that we understood the reality of anthropogenic climate change and failed to do anything about it."

4. that the climate has not warmed in the past eight years, even though greenhouse gas levels have increased rapidly: this is misinformation. both surface air temperatures and subsurface ocean temperatures have been increasing during the past 50 years. global warming (based on surface temperatures) is about 0.65 degrees centigrade. much of this warming is due to the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. and most of the extra greenhouse gases came from human activities. these are some of the conclusions reached by the IPCC and the National Academy of Sciences in their public reports.

5. that the supposed disparity between observed and predicted warming indicates insignificant man-made greenhouse contribution to global temperature changes: is dubious logic from false information. current climate models that consider both natural factors and increased greenhouse gases and aerosols are able to reproduce the observed global temperature changes. models which consider only natural factors are unable to reproduce such observed data. thus, at the very least, the disparity between observed global temperature data and predicted global warming based on existing climate models tend toward the contrary conclusion: that warming is unlikely to be entirely natural.

i won't go anymore to the claims regarding possible natural causes of global warming. these factors (like solar variations, feedback effects of water vapor, etc.) have been adequately covered in recent IPCC reports and are subjects of continuing studies by experts. there is really no reason to believe that their contribution to the present global warming can not be ascertained with better instrumentation and more researches in the future (in much the same way as the heat signatures of urban centers were earlier ruled out as a possible factor in the observed temperature changes).

groups and individuals who wage a constant war on the current consensus on climate change harp on these complicating factors much like lawyers of accused criminals try to suggest alternative crime scenarios or plausible alibis for their clients. they seem to be working on the frame that any small doubt cast on the current consensus on climate change could easily invalidate the growing body of evidence on anthropogenic contributions to global warming. that's how lawyers and economists work. that's not how scientists work.

pislabenrakenrol,

the martian

Mindanao journey

2007-09-14T11:01:00.004+08:00

Butuan City. A long line of travellers on their way out of the airport's arrival area, waiting for their turn to have tags in their baggages checked by the guards. Was determined to claim the distinction of being the last person to exit. Until this guy who was a few positions ahead of me in the line stalled everyone behind by losing his stubs. The guard had to ask for his ID card while checking the sealed boxes he had with him. Felt sorry for the poor fellow when it was my turn to squeeze through the crowd and leave behind all the ruckus that he unwittingly created.

Had to congratulate him though for stealing the last-person-out title from me. Went to a nearby restaurant for my first fill of kinilaw (raw fish in a spicy concoction of vinegar, ginger, onions, and chili) and guso (seaweed) salad. All the time, kept thinking about the Pinoy's lack of drive to change things and come out with systems that could make life a little better. Or is it the apathy of people like me who choose to just let such things be and get on quickly with the more comfortable and pleasant aspects of their lives?

On the road from Surigao City to Cantilan, Surigao del Sur. Had to catch the 3 a.m. bus from Butuan to Surigao City. Felt like a Neo who had just been reclaimed from the vast human farms of the ruthless machines: body resisting every movement as if all its muscles have suddenly atrophied during my aborted sleep. Reached Surigao City in such a gooey state. Everything appeared to be going quite well in the bus from Surigao City to Cantilan though. Until the bus came to the unpaved portions of the road going through the famous red hills (the gold, iron, and nickel mining sites). With all of the bus' windows down and doors shut, we still found ourselves bathed in this thick cloud of brown dust inside.

Just tried to imagine this futuristic bumpy ride across the dusty Martian landscape to amuse myself. But there was this nagging thought about not taking the "blue" over the "red pill" when there was still a chance to decide on going through with this field research. In Cantilan, a local government official will be telling me the story of how the district's representative in Congress tried to stall road building a few years ago in an effort to squeeze out more bribe money from the Japanese construction firm that won the bidding process for the project.

Mind gives up

2007-07-28T16:00:00.004+08:00

It was probably the worst welcome at the airport I've been in three years. For almost two hours at the waiting area, tried to build up the will to ask her as soon as she arrived to give me a warm hug, or else ... Or else, I was thinking of leaving right then and there. It was really a rip off from this movie about a young mother dying from cancer who decided not to inform her loved ones of her affliction. She made a list of things that she had to do before dying, one of which was to make somebody, a stranger, fall in love with her. One night, she went to the house of this man she met at the laundry and in a very intimate moment said to him straight-faced, "If you don't kiss me right now I'm going to scream," or something to that effect. And she got another tick in her wish list.

Yeah, I know, it's mushy. But as a friend once told me in the course of one of my depressive antics, we need some drama in our lives once in a while. Makes it more colorful and worth living. (Actually, it was her dad who said that.) So for two hours, I warmed my butt on the hard plastic chair at the airport, closed my eyes a couple of times to ward off drowsiness, tried reading Murphy's 108 American Zen Stories, and rehearsed the made up scene in my mind. When she sent a cryptic text message saying she was waiting for her luggage, I knew at once my plan was starting to go haywire. On previous occasions, she would text me first as soon as the plane landed to say she had arrived safe and sound.

My fear was confirmed when I approached her as she was coming down to the airport taxi station with her baggages. With her quite distinctive stinging coldness during such situations, she asked about my officemate who had been confined at the hospital. There goes my dramatic scene and line. I can see my hard-won tranquility tumbling down the airport road and being run over by the baggage cart of this guy who got warm kisses from his wife and kids. In the taxi, on our way to her place, she kept telling me how her mind just went blank after reading my text messages the night before about not knowing how to deal with her, thinking of letting her go, etc. She asked me what I meant with those messages.

For what seemed like endless minutes, it was a monologue as I can only twitch in my seat, take deep breaths, and look out of the taxi's window. But without really seeing anything out there. For a while, my mind tried to come out with an explanation, an idea, or anything that can start what normal people would call an exchange. I really wanted then to get into this dialogue with her, like what she said we've been doing these past years. But nothing came out of my head. There was only this numbing feeling of futility and a sense of being in the same situation many times before. I can almost see where things would be heading once I uttered a word. So, I just reached out and kissed her forehead. After a while, she leaned her head on my shoulder. And then this calming silence.

We had a lighthearted conversation the following day.

"Suppose someone has hurt my feelings -- or so I think. What I want to do is to go over and over and over that drama so I can blame them and get to be right. To turn away from such thinking and just experience the painful body (that accompanies the thoughts and emotions) is to forget the self. If you really experience something without thoughts, there is no self -- there's just a vibration of energy. When you practice like that ten thousand times, you will be more selfless. It doesn't mean that you're a ghost. It means that you're much more nonreactive -- in the world, but not of it."

"With unfailing kindness, your life always presents what you need to learn."

- Charlotte Joko Beck

The dharma of the rubber duckie

2007-06-12T12:44:00.006+08:00

Bought this Sesame Street video recently for my daughter entitled "Put Down the Duckie". It featured this great opening segment with all of the human and puppet characters dancing to a jazzy rendition of the Sesame Street theme song by Gladys Night and her band. Phil Donahue, star of the first tabloid talk show in America, interviews some popular figures and ended up being chased by the Count and Oscar the Grouch's gang who just couldn't get enough of saying their opinions on video. (By the way, did you know that NBC's corporate executives axed Phil's other show apparently because they didn't want it to become the sole voice of dissent during the early years of the Iraq war?) Bob does his famous segment "People in Your Neighborhood", with very special neighbors in the persons of Martina Navratilova, Barbara Walters, and Ralph Nader. Alistair Cookie, a.k.a. Cookie Monster, hosts the "Monster Theater" featuring fuzzy Grover in the eerie but funny "The Thirty-Nine Steps".

The main feature, however, and from where the said video got its title, is Ernie's musical number where an avian mentor and all these guests urge him to set aside his favorite toy so he could play the saxophone better. Celebrities including John Candy, Celia Cruz, Danny De Vito, Pee Wee Herman, Ladysmith Black Mombazo, Jeremy Irons, Wynton Marsalis, Paul Simon, Itzhak Perlman, and Pete Seeger had their cameo performances, dancing to the music or singing the chorus line "put down the duckie". Near the end of the song, Ernie finds out that releasing his rubber duckie doesn't mean everything is finished and goes to naught between him and his squeeky toy. There will always be an opportunity to pick it up and play with it again in the future. So, Ernie throws away the yellow duckie and concentrates on playing his saxophone (and man, the puppet sure knows how to play his sax!). Makes one think about how much energy we're putting into holding on to our attachments. Letting go, like putting down the duckie, should not look too frightening or daunting once we realize that the act is not supposed to banish such desires, but is only meant to reclaim much of the useful energies that we invest into them.

The Put Down the Duckie video has other interesting segments. Check out James Taylor's cute number with some of the Sesame Street kids, Pattie Labelle's song "I Miss My X", and Hugh Down's (co-host of ABC's 20/20) investigation of the cookie jar caper by you know who. My other favorite segment is the animated musicale on the alligator king and his search for an heir among his seven kids. But it's a topic for another dharma post.

The dharma of crossing the street

2007-06-08T18:33:00.005+08:00

My favorite English teacher back in high school would often remind us to begin any composition with a knock out opening sentence or a few crafty lines. Something that would entice readers to move on to the next few paragraphs. Excellent writers, according to her, could do this while describing the setting in one smooth stroke, thus hitting two birds with one stone so to speak. And then she'd start reciting the opening lines of Edgar Allan Poe's The Cask of Amontillado. "The thousand injuries of Fortunato I had borne as I best could, but when he ventured upon insult I vowed revenge." But that is a topic for another story.

It was my third year in college. Late for my early morning class, as usual, I was rushing with this throng to cross a major road somewhere in Quezon City, near the university. Pedestrian overpasses were still a thing of the future back then. It was just the good old white stripes on concrete, marking where people could supposedly cross the street. But in Manila during those times, as it is now, drivers suffer from serious "motion sickness". Once they step on the gas and their vehicles begin to move, they are quickly engrossed with the sensation of movement, short-term memory loss sets in, and they forget that their cars, jeepneys, or buses ever had a contraption called a "break". So pedestrian lanes are just decorations, something to disturb the monotony of urban grayness.

Anyway, there I was crossing the street when a woman cut across my path and sprinted to do the same to this jeepney that stopped right in front of us. At that instant, no more than a blink of an eye, another jeepney made a dash next to the one directly in front of me and hit the woman head on. The other vehicle was blocking my view so I didn't see anything. But I distinctly heard the woman's cry of pain as a crowd started to gather around her. Since then, I developed a fearful respect for roads especially busy ones. For some time after that experience, it bordered on phobia, and I had to find other people to shield me (unknown to them) whenever I cross the street. Good thing some city governments have put up more overhead walkways recently, or I'd still be having trouble getting around the metropolis.

The other day, I was trying to cross a two-lane road near my place of work. As usual, I was having trouble finding the right moment to do so with all these vehicles rushing to take people to the malls or to their homes. So I took a pause right there on this island in the middle of the road, letting other people pass me by. It was at that moment that I became fully aware of this "flow" on the road, with all these passing vehicles. It was like finding the essence of something. And I thought then that crossing the street involved processes similar to those expounded in this new theory of learning (theory of u) that we were trying to explain to participants in a workshop on organizational learning. It involved taking that pause, suspending one's judgment, sensing, orienting yourself to the emerging understanding of the ever-changing situation, and acting with the swiftness and agility of a samurai warrior. The depth of the silence and understanding before the action determine the latter's decisiveness and appropriateness.

And so it is with writing, as it is with life.

At the bakery

2007-05-31T11:07:00.001+08:00

The air in their mother’s place was becoming more and more humid by the minute. The two little ones were restless. The older one wanted to watch her favorite Sesame Street video in the laptop. But spent most of the time in front of the television instead, staring at these colorfully costumed characters and dazzling special effects. The younger one found some books, obligingly sat beside me, and listened to my monotonous voice droning away at a carefully invented story about cheerful raindrops falling from the sky and animals coming out of their eggs. She too grew weary of this after a while and soon headed for their room, never looking back. I began packing away the laptop, thinking I should go and let the little ones have some rest. It was getting late. The older one noticed me and came near to lean on my leg. I asked her if she wanted to go to the bakery with me, remembering that I still haven’t had my dinner. She was excited and went to look for her slippers. And we were soon out in the streets, feeling the cool air on our skin. Along the way, she drew my attention to the moon, a hazy patch of light behind dark clouds. At the bakery, I bought some slices of what looked like banana bread and some of those small macaroon-like delicacies, while she watched the yellow lovebirds nearby. We quietly munched away at our small feast right there in front of the bakery. Pushing everything down with gulps of cold softdrinks. Her small bites were punctuated by tranquil smiles at the noise of passing jeepneys and the sight of brown cockroaches scurrying beside the road. My mind, worn down by fears and worries, was basking in that momentary peace. In a few minutes, I would be saying goodbye again to the little girl and her sisters. But I was thinking then that if I were to choose the scenes from this life that I wanted to be played in my mind during my last few hours, I would definitely include this one.

The dharma of the tramp

2007-05-03T17:10:00.004+08:00

Remembered those afternoons in my childhood years when Charlie Chaplin's silent movies were a staple of my tv viewing habits. Color televisions were still far from being the norm in our barriotic neighborhood then. So the Tramp's blurry vintage films were as good as any of those old, black and white Pinoy movies, those prime time cartoons, soap dramas or gag shows, or those late night French movies that took up most of my early boob tube mediated learning experience. Looking back, there was a certain enigmatic quality in those Chaplin films that seems to attract a young impressionable mind, a quality reflected in the Tramp's irrepressible composure and dignified demeanor amidst adversities.

Years later, thinking of VCDs to watch at home with my daughter, thought of buying this boxed set of eight to ten Chaplin classics. Not able to muster enough will to charge my overused credit card, had to content myself with paying in cash for a single VCD, The Gold Rush. Some more years later, and after watching The Gold Rush one or two times during that period, would finally decide that it was a good buy. Don't remember if my eldest daughter ever watched it with or without me around. My second daughter, who still can't get over her fear of loud opening introductory sequences, would be running out of the room as soon as she hears the narrator's baritone voice describing the gold prospectors' hardships in the snowy Alaskan landscape. That leaves just me in front of the PC monitor, hypnotized by Sir Charles Spencer Chaplin Jr.'s performance.

A memorable sequence had the Tramp ("The Lone Prospector") and Big Jim McKay (played by Mack Swain) freezing and starving in a mountain cabin. The Tramp calmly cooks one of his boots like a professional chef, carefully pinching and checking on the stewing leather, while his would-be "customer" incredulously awaits their not-so-ordinary meal. With that famous facial expression -- stoic yet able to elicit much comedic pathos from viewers -- the Tramp lets Big Jim choose between the upper and lower portions of the cooked shoe, puts salt over his own piece, separates the shoelace in another plate, and gingerly eats the lace like some kind of black noodle or pasta. In another scene, the Tramp makes elaborate preparations for a New Year's Eve party with his love interest, Georgia (played by Georgia Hale), and her friends. Waiting for his guests, the Tramp imagines entertaining them with his famous dancing rolls routine using two French bread rolls speared with forks.

The Gold Rush is said to be one of Chaplin's favorite work, one of his films wherein the story was already laid out and written before actual shooting began. The film was shot within a 15-month period between 1924 to 1925. First shot as a silent film, it was later re-released with added narration and music in 1942. Guess who the narrator was? Yup, it's Sir Charles himself. And dig this, he also composed and arranged the music. More on the film here. The boot-eating scene took three days and 63 takes to shoot. The dancing bread rolls sequence became so popular with audiences that projectionists in European theaters sometimes gave in to demands to stop the film and replay the scene. More trivia here.

Few can go through life's ups and downs with the same unruffled intensity as that of the Tramp. While almost everyone seems to be busy looking and settling for some place or realizations as "home" or as basis for some enlightened state, the Tramp shows how anywhere can serve as home and how one can find peace with the search itself.

Retreat journal 4

2007-04-06T16:51:00.003+08:00

Excitement over ideas in Joanna Macy's World as Lover, World as Self. Beginning to grasp the power of this notion of "dependent co-arising". Each moment is not predetermined solely by past decisions, but also by present intentions and actions. Related to this is the idea of mental habits or memories shaping consciousness, influencing actions and where such actions will lead to. There's an overall feeling of release, of being unburdened, with the thought of the freshness of each moment. Fate constantly being shaped by what one does in the present and in the future. A text message saying they just passed Taytay.

* * * * *

Finding it hard to write again. There's this thought of having put down on paper everything that needs to be written. There's also this feeling of the futility of the whole thing. Like words losing their meaning gradually as they are repeated in every page. Lying in bed, there was this fear of the writing and the meditation serving as props for the illusory self. Panic and groping for the proper response. Went back to the practice of taking mental notes of everything.

The fear subsided. Lightness has come back just now with thoughts of persisting with the practice of loving-kindness. Of training the mind to nurture thoughts of concern and compassion for others. To the point of not being conscious at all that one is training. Have to learn to persist and plod on, just continue with loving-kindness.

* * * * *

Sat again for a few minutes before starting to write this entry. There was an effort to bring back awareness to the breathing as thoughts slipped in and disappeared. Then realized that being conscious of the act of focusing on something was itself a thought. Concentrated on emptying the mind. Felt such void a couple of times, when thoughts of breathing, effort, and other things disappeared for a few seconds.

* * * * *

No further message from Palawan. They must be staying in Puerto tonight. Went down again to the dining hall. The helpers were already cleaning up leftovers from the afternoon's snack. Took some bread and butter. Made a warm chocolate drink. The only meal for the day, and the last one for this retreat. Passed by some of the other people doing their retreat. Wondering what they were thinking. Hardly had time to join them in any activity here at the center.

Retreat journal 3

2007-04-05T14:49:00.001+08:00

Woke up feeling restless. Checked the phone for some messages. Nada. Must have left her phone and gone somewhere with the others. Feeling some stiffness and pain on the shoulders. Maybe from all the writing since yesterday. Thought for a while if it was better to have brought the laptop instead. Leaving the phone on, just in case she sends a message or decides to call. Knew right from the start that I wouldn't be able to keep up with this complete silence thing for three full days. A day and a half wasn't bad at all.

"Then, Bahiya, thus must you train yourself: in the seen, there will be just the seen; in the heard, just the heard; in the sensed, just the sensed; in the known, just the known. That is how, Bahiya, you must train yourself. Now, when, Bahiya, in the seen there will be just the seen; in the heard, just the heard; in the sensed, just the sensed; in the known, just the known, then Bahiya ... you will not be in it. And when, Bahiya, you will not be in it, then Bahiya, you will not be 'here' nor 'there' nor 'midway-between'. This itself is the end of suffering." (Udana 8, in "World as Lover, World as Self" by Joanna Macy)

Thinking now of how to live in the coming days. There's a sense of movement towards acting without attachments to some permanent idea of self. An intention to train the mind to see, perceive, feel, and know things just as they are. With no resulting movements toward judging or clinging. There is now some understanding that all the fears in the past come from these movements of the mind. Need to hold back, suspend, just know. Just seeing this form -- body and consciousness -- just living, working to ease suffering in others with each passing moment. There is no "I" because there is no self that lasts or stays the same. Passing feelings and thoughts could not prop up such illusory self for long. Focus on intentions and actions. Identity is in one's actions.

Retreat journal 2

2007-04-04T14:50:00.006+08:00

Was brought back to wakefulness by the ringing of a bell or gong nearby. With eyes still closed, thought it was the signal for snack or maybe late lunch. There was still some ringing in my head when I got up from bed. Realized I was already feeling a bit dizzy from my fasting. Tried to guess from the light outside what time of day it was. Couldn't tell though. Was tempted for a second to turn on my phone and take a peek at the time. Unbelievable how our lives are ruled by clocks and by our concepts of time. Everything we do falling into neat schedules that have been set in advance for weeks, months, and sometimes years. Wondered how this affects the way we experience each moment. Does awareness of each passing second, minute or hour bring a deeper appreciation of what is happening? Or is everything just a desperate effort to fill every moment with some activities or pleasures before things come to an abrupt end? What would it be like to be oblivious of time, and just experience the present as it is?

* * * * *

Writing has been not only a haven for me these days. It has also become a mode of knowing, of learning some small truths. Sometimes, there's an uncomfortable feeling of finality after having set down words to stand for ideas, emotions, and other mental states. As if everything has been mapped out: thoughts and emotions that can be set aside or forgotten altogether, memories that can be recalled easily and brought back to life when needed, etc. But there's also a feeling that things are moving with the writing. Writing as a mode of knowing shapes reality, even as the universe shapes inner reality. Just thought of that now after reading about "dependent co-arising" in Macy. The "knower" and the known are co-dependent and influence each other. Never looked before at the act of writing in this light.

Retreat journal

2007-04-03T23:56:00.009+08:00

Had late lunch this afternoon at a fastfood joint near the office. My mind still going through all the stresses of the day. Another boring emergency meeting when I arrived at the office. My list of deadlines and things to do got a little longer again. A virus in my USB stick infected my office PC and disabled my internet browser. Had to rush off to meet my daughter and accompany her to the university where she's applying for college. All the while thinking how the hell am I going to produce the downpayment for her tuition.

Ordered a value meal with my usual fillet of fish burger. The girl at the counter convinced me to buy a float which entitled me to a stub for their promotional gimmick. They're giving away 400 iPods. Had to pay an extra 20 bucks though for the float. Went to a corner table and contentedly ate my lunch (at 5 in the afternoon). Occasional thoughts, of my partner, her husband, and daughter enjoying their summer vacation together with friends somewhere in Palawan, slipping in and out of my mind.

Suddenly had this idea of asking the universe for a sign. Some clue that it was aware of my plight, and even as all things seemed arrayed against me at that moment, everything good and just in it was already preparing a more blissful future. Then noticed the stub on the red tray. Told the universe then that winning an iPod would be a good start. Scratched the stub. Nope, no iPod. But wait, I won an apple pie.

Asked a nearby fastfood employee to get my prize. Happily feasted on my dessert afterwards. On the way home, kept thinking of Jung's synchronicity -- a "meaningful coincidence". I got my sign from this chaotic universe alright. Not exactly what I expected, but a meaningful one nonetheless. After all, I was hungry at that time. What would I need an iPod for? Thought about all these wishes I've been making -- about work, career, family, love. Knew then that heaven won't grant me all these things in the best possible way. But there was some faith that all the answers were forthcoming. And each would be good.

Dear Prudence

2007-02-15T19:03:00.002+08:00

I miss this early evening TV show, Sick O'Clock News, that spoofs political personalities and events in the Philippines in the late 80s. I'm sure its producers and writers would have plenty of materials to work on if they were still around today. But then again, maybe there's really no need for their show these days. Our politicians have become such masters in the craft of entertaining people, their acts could rival that of Bitoy and his Bubble Gang (a popular and more contemporary gag show in local TV). Take the case of these people in the Commission on Elections (COMELEC) who would like to portray themselves respectable overseers of the country's electoral process. For several years now, this body has been warming its butt on the proposal to automate the Philippine electoral system. Years ago, a number of its commissioners appeared on TV inspecting these vote processing machines touted as a technology that would make snail-paced tallying a thing of the past.

Then, as in a classic Charlie Chaplin movie, the poll body found itself in a comic situation as cases were filed in court supposedly because of irregularities in the purchase of the computers and vote counting machines. An almost predictable twist for pinoys who have grown quite familiar with these outdated political tactics. Street corner wisdom then rehashed its view of the COMELEC as a mere stooge of Malacañang and saw this turn of events as just another desperate attempt of those in power to prevent the installation of a system that would make it difficult for them to cheat during elections. Years later, after several alleged aborted attempts at toppling the government by groups who have accused those in position of massive cheating in the last elections, the courts would clear the COMELEC of graft charges in connection with efforts to automate the election process. And so, the assumption of ordinary folks like me was that with the legal hindrance finally removed, automation could proceed as planned and we could all enjoy an anguish-free vote counting process in the next elections.

The other day, one broadsheet announced that an advisory council has recently recommended (the second one to date) scrapping of plans to implement partial automation in the next polls. Citing the difficulties in determining the best available technology to use for the proposed automation of the election system in at least six (6) cities and six (6) provinces, and doubting the readiness of pinoy voters for automated elections, the head of the advisory council described their decision as one involving more the question of "prudence rather than possibility". Now, that is truly one for the Sick O'Clock News. The technology was there, ready for use, three years ago. What difficulties were that poor schmuck referring to? If people in the COMELEC had some amount of that human quality called foresight, they would have prepared for various post-court case scenarios and would have been ready today as before in putting the automated system in place. They are not being asked to automate the whole country yet.

And that argument about pinoy voters not being ready for automated polls is just plain pathetic and lame. It's as old as those used in that old debate about the chicken and the egg. When will our voters be ready for the automated setup if we're not doing anything towards installing one and preparing them for it? Again, this should have been a matter of foresight on the part of our esteemed commissioners in the COMELEC. Would we rather have vote counts that last for weeks and months, thus opening our whole electoral process to charges and actual acts of cheating, or should we make those willful decisions now and act decisively to ensure quick and clean elections? By the way, "prudence" came from the Latin word "prudentia" which means exactly foresight or sagacity. Being sagacious is not simply having the ability to judge rightly or virtuously in a given situation. A sagacious decision becomes virtuous precisely because it is farsighted and wise. And finally, one hallmark of wisdom is the ability to apply common sense which obviously is lacking in our poll body.

Just found out from the egroup of my former organization in college that the Philippine Political Science Association will be having a conference soon to reconsider our representative democratic setup. I was thinking of suggesting the topic "Institutionalizing Philippine Comic Democracy: Prospects for Governance as Entertainment in the 21st Century". I do hope somebody will write a paper on this.

Mindscapes/mind escapes

2007-02-14T15:12:00.021+08:00

Mascot for the year. It's a shiny dark brown (maroon?) figurine of a bald and pot-bellied Buddhist sage. Given to me by a former colleague as a gift for the new year. About 4 to 5 inches tall, and heavy (some kind of stone maybe). He carries a tree branch on the right shoulder, with what seems to be all his life belongings tied in a bundle at one end behind his back. A rustic jug dangles from his left hand, containing perhaps some wine or just plain water. A wide smile on his face as he turns towards his left. A lone traveler no doubt, and a happy one at that. Someone who appears to have left everything important behind and yet carries with him a treasure trove of wisdom and experience. A nice image for all the actual and inner journeys that will have to be made this year.

Song for the month. Eric Clapton’s Lonely Stranger is not really a new song to me. I bought a cassette tape of his Unplugged album years back, when CDs and DVDs were still items that could be found only in science fiction. In fact, what I have now is my second copy of the album. A cheap boom box that had a hard time playing 60- and 90-minutes tapes finally gave up on my first copy and ruined it for good. But the blues riffs were so hypnotically good that I simply had to buy that second tape. Clapton won the 1993 Grammy’s Album of the Year and Rock Male Vocal awards for his acoustic performance in Unplugged. Lonely Stranger was one of several songs written by Clapton for his four-and-a-half year old son, Conor, who fell from the 53rd floor of a New York condominium unit in 1991. Of course, Tears in Heaven was the one that subsequently became more popular and got associated with that tragic episode in Clapton’s life. But I’ve come to love Lonely Stranger more (jives well with the martian’s alien mien, like Sting’s Englishman in New York). Especially during these past few days when I got a chance to borrow my partner’s CD of the Unplugged album, rip the tunes into my office PC, and hear Lonely Stranger once more. Ok, I’ll stop with the blah-blahs here and just let the lyrics take care of the rest:

I must be invisible
No one knows me
I have crawled down dead-end streets
On my hands and knees

I was born with a ragin’ thirst
A hunger to be free
But I’ve learned through the years
Don’t encourage me

‘Cause I’m a lonely stranger here
Well beyond my day
I don’t know what’s goin’ on
I’ll be on my way

When I walk, stay behind
Don’t get close to me
‘Cause it’s sure to end in tears
So just let me be

Some will say that I’m no good
Maybe I agree
Take a look then walk away
That’s alright with me

Thought for the week. “Conversation with death” is an old idea of native American Indians about the dialogue that is supposed to take place between a predator and its prey. A mere eye movement from a deer, according to this thought, could convey calm acceptance of its inevitable fate in the paws of a transfixed lion nearby. In that short span of time before the predator lurches forward, the prey is able to seal a compromise with its hunter: its body and energy in exchange for the predator’s respect for its spirit. David Wicinas devoted some pages of his book, Sagebrush and Cappuccino: Confessions of an L.A. Naturalist, in expounding on this ancient wisdom. His reflections: most religions and philosophies teach people to converse with life, how to live it right and well. Very few instruct women and men to carry on this discussion with death, and thus prepare themselves to face it with dignity and confidence when the moment comes. Many people thus spend their lives oblivious of their entropic destiny, or consciously trying to escape thoughts of death.

Word for the day. “Crepuscular” is a biological term used to refer to animals that become active only during dawn or twilight. As an adjective, it is used to describe something that is dim or partially devoid of light or brightness. This is another find from Wicinas’ book. Used to think that I’m a nocturnal animal. Thanks to Wicinas, my pretensions at a vampiric existence are officially over. I now consider myself, more appropriately, a crepuscular creature. Much like Spencer Brydon, Henry James’ character in The Jolly Corner (though there is no autumn in this part of the world):

He sometimes came twice in the twenty-four hours; the moments he liked best were those of gathering dusk, of the short autumn twilight; this was the time of which, again and again, he found himself hoping most. Then he could, as seemed to him, most intimately wander and wait, linger and listen, feel his fine attention, never in his life before so fine, on the pulse of the great vague place: he preferred the lampless hour and only wish he might have prolonged each day the deep crepuscular spell.

Star logs and blogs

2007-02-05T18:26:00.006+08:00

One nostalgic thing about each episode of Star Trek (it doesn’t matter which crew) is when the captain of the ship USS Enterprise (again, it makes no difference whether it’s Captain Jean-Luc Picard or it’s Captain James Tiberius Kirk, though I think Captain Picard says it a little better) declares his star log entry’s reference number and starting lines. It has always inspired me to make some record of events and thoughts in this life, and give such transient phenomena some form of independent existence outside of my very limited consciousness. When my father came back from Saudi Arabia with all those cassette tapes that we used to send him in lieu of letters, I erased all the tapes’ contents and recorded things that came to mind. It was a weird experience at the beginning listening to my own voice telling me that I was supposed to be taking my afternoon nap (but still a lot better than my mother doing it for me). Nonetheless, I longed for my own command center and captain’s seat at that point.

Then of course, Doogie Howser came along and added to young boys’ imagination the idea of recording everything in a personal computer. It was a complete paradigm shift. Star Trek, space travel, and command centers were all in the realm of fantasy. Having a PC then was something in the here and now. If only we could afford to own one. There would be no need to come out with secret codes like those used by the katipuneros (pinoy revolutionaries circa 1896) and conceal your journal entries from prying parents. Parents wouldn’t know how to use PCs. You could work on your journal entries in the middle of the night, when everybody else would be fast asleep. And you don’t need to think about stashing away all your cassette tapes in a chest buried somewhere in the backyard. Bits and pieces from your inner world will be safely copied and stored in the PCs hard drive, protected by passwords and a single click on the mouse.

As it turned out, it would take a few more years before PCs became common household gadgets among pinoy urbanites. Back in college, we still had to write on hardbound logbooks, paste typewritten poems and compositions, and burn the edges of pages (to produce some angst-filled effects). Imagining myself to be a good writer, I would soon buy my own logbook to bring home and fill with my own musings and doodles. I never did discover what eventually happened to that logbook-cum-journal. But I’m certain that my brothers managed to take more than a peek at its contents. Scrounging among their old notes and papers one day, I would chance upon a familiar love poem that one of them had submitted as a homework in a college course on creative writing in Filipino. There’s still a clear picture in my head now of the musty chaotic room where that poem was written in under ten minutes. Based on the comments in my brother’s notes, his professor seemed to have been quite amused.

Fastforward to the internet age. Web logs or blogs have completely revolutionized the whole journal- and diary-writing world. Gone are the neurotic concerns for secrecy and privacy in writing about one’s life. Bloggers can share their own nooks and crannies of human existence, and still remain safely anonymous or unknown except to a small number of friends who are themselves fellow bloggers. And the fun part is that you can access your blog almost anywhere, as long as you can secure an internet connection. So it’s like publishing you own autobiography, thesis, novel, or whatever, and having the option of defining who your readers are going to be. I was wondering what our psychologists, sociologists, and communication experts would say about the art of blogging and bloggers’ personalities. As a good friend often muses nowadays, it’s technology making this sphere of human activity – writing, sharing information – accessible to everybody. Here’s to another year of authentic, meaningful, and fearless blogging! Bloggers of the world, unite! We have nothing to lose but our neuroses!

Another year in this lifetime

2006-10-28T12:09:00.011+08:00

Got another year older recently. Was wondering about the things that I’ve learned so far about this life in general. And whether I’d be able to write something like Paolo Coehlo’s Warrior of the Light soon. Or like this book by John Fowles, The Aristos, that I’ve acquired from a secondhand book shop here in Manila (have to remember to write something about it in the Lectiograph). Wrote down his views on existence in the form of these numbered aphorisms. Nietzsche did something similar with a few of his works. And I think Kafka too, in his obscure notes. Well, Doogie Howser’s diary entries and Bob Ong’s Stainless Longganisa could fall within the same league, except that their scope were quite limited to medical practice and writing respectively (and I don’t think they ever numbered their witty ideas). Better start my own lists now.

Possessing and letting go

1. Sometimes, the best way to gain a hold or knowledge of something or someone would be to let the thought that you are bound to lose it or that person possess your entire being every waking day of your life. Only by fully realizing the impermanence of love and the loved one are you able to grasp the truly unchanging nature of these phenomena. As the old saying goes, if you love something or someone, set it or that person free. But sometimes, thinking like this is only a sure way to start feeling gloomy and thus torture yourself unnecessarily.

2. By letting go, you may lose something or someone invaluable. Or you may decide to drastically severe your attachments to an idea or feeling about it or that person. And this can be a really painful, gut-wrenching, life-changing experience. Whether you put an end to it or get to keep the relationship, you can get over the pain by thinking that freedom is also gained in the process of giving up. Pain, like all other states, is transient and can be willed to pass through your being without leaving heavy marks. Meanwhile, you can always wallow in your depression.

3. Possessing and letting go should be both acts of will if they are not to degenerate into unconscious desire and breed attachment. It is only by willing that you avoid being completely engrossed in either state and thus see that they are not mutually exclusive. It is by willing that you learn to possess the blossom’s beauty with your whole being while maintaining its integrity. Willing is the key to the Middle Path.

Edge-thoughts for the week

2006-10-16T08:10:00.003+08:00

My new bamboo lamp. Bought this “thing” recently for 350 piso. The seller was a semi-naked pot-bellied guy who lives in this house that had a “for rent” sign on its gate a few weeks ago. The thing is a 3 to 4 feet long bamboo that was cut open to reveal the two nodes inside. Black paint on the outside, orange on the inside. It stands on a square wooden base that had been painted all black as well. A 5-watts bulb on each node. Used to be red bulbs. Too dark for my room. Replaced them with clear bulbs. But too bright. Finally settled on two yellow bulbs. Pure enchantment.
An ex-university president lecturing on Marxism. Says Marxism will remain relevant as long as there is inequality and poverty in the world. Don’t think there’s any problem with that. Ideas will always be sensible as long as the realities that have spawned them can still be proven to exist. As the old guru himself puts it, it’s how the ideas are applied and the people who put them into practice that are usually problematic. This is also the case with religions and cults. Believers who came after the revered sources will always be expounding on the “truths” of these ideas and trying to make them a reality. Until then, everything will just be a matter of faith. Be it an irrational trust on a mystical, off-worldly experience. Or a stubborn confidence on some scientific, dialectical rationality. More on the lecture in my friend's blog.
A movie about “rats”. Well, not really rats, but moles. On the surface, Scorsese’s The Departed is a really good take on the world of gangsters, law enforcers and spies. But as always, the really fun part is at a deeper level where the film tries to grapple with ideas of truth, identity, guilt, retribution and justice. What goes on in the head and guts of someone whose whole existence is built on a big lie? The original Hong Kong version of the film (featuring Tony Leung whose role was played by di Caprio and Andy Lau whose shoes were filled in by Matt Damon in the Scorsese remake) had a bit more interesting albeit somewhat depressing ending. Just for that, it was still better than the Hollywood version.
Seeing an old friend. She paused for a while as she tried to figure out how many years have passed since we’ve last seen each other at my parents’ house. My eldest child had just turned one or two then. She already told me the story (during the visit itself, or in a recent email), but it must have slipped my mind. She and another classmate did not go to our place because of the baby. Somebody from work had informed her that I was somewhere in the southern part of the country dying from a critical injury. My gutsy friend gave the informant some serious tongue-lashing the next working day.
March of the penguins. A co-worker has recently downloaded the award-winning documentary in DVD format. Had the CD for almost a month now, but found some time to view it only during the past two days or so. Have already seen it twice. Haven’t seen the local version dubbed by a popular actress. Bet Morgan Freeman’s narration is still better. His voice is hypnotically tranquil. A sharp contrast to the harshness of the Antarctic environment. Thought penguins would make very good Gaian ambassadors to alien civilizations. NASA should consider sending these birds to space instead of those hairy impulsive mammals.

Copy controlled discs

2006-09-07T13:21:00.003+08:00

Was supposed to compose the third part of the motorcycle diaries today. But had to set it aside to write something about my encounter with this latest scam by big business in the recording industry. Bought four music CDs from various mall sales here in Manila recently. Got each CD for only 200 piso. That means 60 to 70 percent discount for each CD (music CDs by local artists come at around 300 piso, while the cheapest imported CD has a 500 piso price tag). The first CD I bought was this collection of blues tunes by women artists (Lady Sings the Blues Volume 2). The CD played well in my home PC's CD-ROM drive. But when I tried to play it in my regular stereo CD player, there were loud clicking sounds at about 3-5 seconds interval in every song. Thought at first that I simply ran out of luck with my bargain hunting sprees and that I was finally duped into buying a damaged product. But then came my latest purchases: Genius Loves Company (Ray Charles duets with various artists), The Very Best of Cat Stevens (under the A&M label), and the two-CD Acoustic Nights (featuring various artists).

Copied the Ray Charles CD in my office PC, using Windows Media Player. The same night, tried playing the same CD in my home stereo. Guess what came out? Yes, the same clicking sounds every 3-5 seconds or so. Fortunately, this time, my stereo's CD drive got a bit smarter and was able to get over the nasty habit after a while. What caught my attention that night was this "Copy Controlled" label on the CD. Thought I might have finally attracted the ire of the gods of technology with my latest indiscretion of copying the songs to my office PC. Searching the internet, what I discovered was this greedy scheme of record companies who are intentionally producing all these audio materials with corrupted data to fool or confuse computer drives and thus prevent people from copying their products. This is essentially what copy control is all about. Well, apparently, the technology has backfired: audio materials with copy control sometimes don't even play normally in ordinary CD players.

So, in the US and in some countries in Europe, individual consumers have brought up class suits against these companies for selling defective products. Yup, you read it right: copy controlled CDs are essentially defective by nature. In fact, experts in the field don't even consider these things as normal compact discs as these products don't meet the so-called Red Book standards for audio CDs. As pissed off as your friendly martian here, members of some consumer groups in the US, Germany, Sweden, Brazil, Canada, Finland, New Zealand, France, Israel and UK have started campaigns to list down copy controlled discs and warn the public about such products. Some have already called for boycotts of record companies who continue to sell these discs. Wonder why they haven't started one here in the Philippines. Perhaps this is the reason why we now find our record stores here stuffed with all these corrupt audio discs that are being sold to the public as quality imported CDs.

Still have to find out if my Cat Stevens and Acoustic Nights discs have the copy controlled marks. Meanwhile, beware of buying the Lady Sings the Blues Volume 2 and the Genius Loves Company discs. If you have already bought your own copies of these discs, search the internet for help in copying them to your PC or to a clean CD. For more information about copy controlled CDs, go to the Kuro5hin site or the Wikipedia article. For help in copying these defective audio discs, you can visit this article by Mads Haahr (I haven't really tried it myself; but I plan to in the coming days). For information on the international campaign for digital rights, go to the Campaign for Digital Rights site. And next time they tell you that piracy kills the music industry, mention copy control.

Motorcycle diaries 2

2006-08-21T14:33:00.029+08:00

2 August. Three motorcycles left the office of this environmental group based in Kendari. I was a backseat passenger on one, with this fortyish Indonesian guy as my driver and travelling buddy. Pendoks and Junet rode together. Amir took the third bike going to Anda's place where we would be picking him up. Anda would later be driving, with Amir as his passenger. Coming from the hotel with my backpack and laptop, I kept wondering how I'll be able to balance myself on a two-wheeled vehicle with my hands full. But somehow, I managed to do it. And so I was off now on this 8-hour journey into the Sulawesi forests. Our convoy rode on northwards for about an hour or so. My knees were shaking, though I was trying hard to relax. Kept thinking that Kantan could lose his balance if I were to make any sudden movements. I was limited to shifting my body weight from left to right and vice versa. Or to wiggling my toes. The wind hit my face hard. And I found out that if I opened my lips slightly, it would curl backwards towards my gums. Did it a couple of times, just for fun. By 9 a.m., we were still on paved roads. We've been on the bikes since about 7 in the morning.

9:30-11 a.m. Our first stop coming from Anda's place was a gasoline station. The next one would be some food stalls standing by the roadside. Ate corn direct from the cob and two hard-boiled eggs. Then pushed it all down with extra sweet native coffee. I would have also eaten noodles with chili sauce. But I was thinking we were just having our breakfast, and would soon be stopping again somewhere along the way for lunch (which was not so, as I would find out later). We were soon back on the road again after that belly-filling stopover. By around 10:30, Kantan motioned to a sign on one of the establishments by the roadside to indicate that we have just entered Konawe district. Had no idea how large a district in Indonesia was. But I knew that after Konawe would be Kolaka district. And that's where Alaaha village would be located. The road was still good, and Kantan and I were riding at full speed, sometimes overtaking Anda and Amir who were at the lead of the convoy most of the time. By 11, we came upon this fork in the road: the paved road continuing to the right, and a rough road going straight ahead towards the mountains.

11-2 p.m. My first taste of rough road on a bike was not so bad. After almost an hour of passing through it, we saw Anda and Amir resting by the roadside, in front of this big native house (which I learned later was built by members of an indigenous mountain tribe who have assimilated some of those mainstream Indonesian ways). After a few minutes with no sign of the third motorcycle, the Indonesians decided to send Kantan back and look for Pendoks and Junet. Meanwhile, the owners of the house offered us some chairs in the front yard. Citing the heat from the noonday sun, they asked us later to wait inside the house. My companions shared with the owners a few information about where our group was going and what yayasan we belonged to. Kantan came back a few minutes later, followed by the third bike. Apparently, Pendoks had some mechanical problems with his motorcycle and they had to stop by a shop for some repairs. We were soon on our way again. By around 1 p.m. we encountered our first whiffs of cool mountain air. The road had also turned from bad to worse with all the gaps or streams we had to cross using the log bridges. Some of the logs were worn out or not placed properly, so I had to get off at times and cross these muddy and slippery logs on foot. The routine however provided relief to my sore butt, and was a welcome activity.

Motorcycle diaries 1

2006-08-07T11:53:00.024+08:00

A few months ago, in a job interview, I found myself struggling over the question "What is advocacy?". Last week, I was listening to members of an Indonesian environmental group as they tried to explain how their media campaign and advocacy work have been intimately tied up with organizing efforts in the forest communities of southeast Sulawesi. Thus, in a few weeks, I moved from the verge of unemployment to the helm of this new project on online learning and networking for natural resources management in southeast Asia. Talk about meaningful fortuitous events. Anyway, so there I was. After almost a 10-hour trip from Manila (going around the long way to Singapore, Jakarta in Java, and then on to Sulawesi), I finally arrived in the new Kendari airport, in one piece but hungry and sleepy. It was almost 2 in the morning when I laid my back on the musty hotel bed, still thinking about the orientation workshop I would be conducting in a few hours. And the 8-hour motorcycle ride that we would be taking later to this forest village west of Kendari. Which prompted me to write my own motorcycle diaries (with apologies to the producers of the film on the life of the great Argentinian comandante).

31 July. Day 1 of the workshop. There were 8 to 10 participants from the Indonesian organization. Most of them were in their mid to late 30s. From their early student activist days in the universities and in the local movement for democracy, these young dynamic people have now moved on to address illegal logging and other environmental issues in various parts of Indonesia. Armed with just cameras and their skills in gaining the trust of the local people, these green warriors would move into forest communities, live there for weeks and months, learn from the local inhabitants everything about the illegal activities going on in the uplands, and conduct a media campaign when they got back to the cities. In a few years, they were able to set up a legitimate yayasan (association), a fully operational community radio station, and a local television outfit (the only local tv station in Kendari). They have kept alive an activist, "anything goes", highly adaptable culture: working beyond office hours, wearing casual attires, eating with their hands, sleeping just about anywhere. They ask sharp questions, and openly show their impatience with long-winding explanations and theoretical discussions. I decided to make adjustments with my presentations and group activities for the second day.

1 August. Day 2 of the workshop. I would be discussing with the group the monitoring and evaluation system, as well as the research and the learning materials development components of the program. Eventually gave in to the participants' proposal to start late as they really worked hard the previous night, listening to me explain how to register and post their comments on the online discussion board. I checked my emails while I let them discuss about their institution's commitment plan for the e-forum. Finishing early in the afternoon, I had a chance to visit their television station. I asked these two guys at the programming office: "What if a rich, powerful person involved in illegal logging offered you a big amount of money to air something in support of his/her activities?" In broken English, the two young Indonesians told me how they have indeed received such offers in the past and how they have adamantly refused, explaining that it was already a matter of principles and therefore non-negotiable. I smiled at the thought that the elves still have their allies in these parts of the world.

2 August. At 30 minutes before 6 am, I was already doing the modified sun salute inside my hotel room. Kantan, (in his early 40s) who would be my riding partner, would be fetching me from the hotel with his bike. At 10 to 6, the hotel guys knocked on my door and informed me that the taxi was already waiting outside to take me to the airport. Certain that coup d' etats were quite uncommon in Indonesia at this point in its history, I tried to explain in sign language that I was not yet leaving Sulawesi and that I was supposed to be picked up by this guy in a motorcycle. Realizing their mistake, the hotel people offered me coffee and some bread for breakfast. While I was drinking my extra sweet coffee, the polisi (police or security guard) and the guy at the receiving counter told me how they mistook me for an Indonesian. I said they were not the first to think so, and told them about the ticket girls at the Jakarta airport and the people in Bali back in 2005 who thought I was from Manado. Kantan arrived almost an hour late. We headed first towards the office where I plan to leave my backpack and laptop. The two other motorcycles, and our four companions who'd be riding on them, were also waiting at the office.

Uncertainty and complexity

2006-06-07T20:25:00.004+08:00

I used to think that being uncertain and reveling in it was a passing fancy of the young. Wisdom in old age then meant a progressive shedding of all indeterminacy and ambiguity. I am now more inclined to believe that being unsettled or in doubt, even at my age, is really not something to be much worried about. In fact, I think I would feel uncomfortable if I became more sure and confident about a lot of things as the years go by.

I sometimes marvel at the ease with which friends who've been with me for a tiny fraction of my waking life and who have barely skimmed my thoughts and experiences could pronounce such cold judgments on my actions. One friend whose every sentence was peppered with words like "contradictions", "conflicts", and "probabilities" some years back, now sounded like having no trouble whatsoever in diagnosing other people's sanity. Another friend recently noted our penchant for the Filipino word dapat ("ought to", "should", "must").

Reflecting on these on my way back home, I shuddered at the thought of consciousness' entropic movement towards certainty. It's like the mind slowing down, being contented with a few aphorisms about existence, and settling into this rut of boxed ideas and experiences. Years after I took my English composition course in college, my Jesuit teacher's words still echo in my mind: "Make your thoughts simpler; life is already too complex as it is." But my whole being has always rebelled against his dictum. Life processes and human thinking will always resist efforts to fit them into neat, little containers.

Random thoughts

2006-05-23T14:16:00.005+08:00

Yes, I stole a friend's blog title for this post. But I am quite confident that I will be forgiven for this indiscretion. I'm so bored right now writing all these articles for our newsletter. Creativity is almost down to zero. I can't even come out with an interesting title for this piece. I imagined that jotting down all these thoughts, as I become aware of them amidst the chaos in my head, is a better activity. Actually, the ideas listed here just hit me earlier while I was on my way to the office. Finished reading Bob Ong's book, Stainless Longganisa. The book amply demonstrated the underlying profundity of quite simple thoughts. Reading Stainless is really one mind-expanding, stress-busting experience (i.e., if you're a Pinoy).

Should the state of being a traditional politician, especially here in the Philippines, be considered a serious psychological disorder? They often talk and act weird. They definitely inflict a lot of harm on other people. Sometimes, as my good friend once observed, their actions impact very negatively on their own images and positions. There's this famous case of a lady senator who has repeatedly promised to shoot herself or do all these crazy things in public if proven wrong with her claims. She was in fact proven wrong a number of times. Asked by a journalist if she's finally going through with her self-imposed sentence, she gave out one of her maniacal laughs and admitted to being a liar. And then, there's former DENR Secretary Mike Defensor ... but, that's an entirely different story altogether. I think it was a case of an alien conspiracy aimed at wreaking havoc on the country's environment and government.

What is it in the written word that sometimes makes it more powerful than the one spoken in a face-to-face exchange? Is it because of this fear of anything recorded or documented, and therefore couldn't be easily erased or deleted? Or is it because we all know that a written word is something that couldn't have been easily conceived and brought forth into this world, as is the case with its more impulsive oral counterpart? Realized again the power of writing and its product when I received today an email from an old friend in college. Obviously slighted by my recent attacks on her ideas and opinions from an earlier exchange, she advised me to "get a grip of myself". Never expected that I could ever be perceived as insane with the things I write or because of the way I write them. Oh well, as somebody said it once, those are the risks of the trade. From where I stand, the only choices are to face up to these dangers or retire your pen (or keyboard). I couldn't stop my writing. But I could take Foucault's advise and send an even stronger message by staying silent for a while.

My boss recently brought to my attention (in a very indirect and subtle way) my lack of initiative. I've often wondered about this situation too: why can't I bring myself to initiate projects or volunteer for work here at the office? And then I thought about how my boss swamps me with all these work that I hardly have enough time to do. Trouble is, I don't have the guts to say no. And I take our office's standards regarding quality of work quite seriously. So, I usually find myself always trying to catch up with my so-called "backlogs". Which I think is precisely the reason why I'm having difficulty starting out or signing up for new work. Because that would only mean a higher pile on my workstation or a longer list of things to do. Then I thought of how bosses are supposed to be the ones calling the shots and ordering things around the office. Taking the initiative in the project is their job, not mine. So, most of the time, I end up wondering why I even bothered thinking about my lack of initiative in the first place.

What if I resign from my job and just blog all day? Minus time spent on sleeping (about 5 hours), on eating (3 hours), watching tv/reading/etc. (4 hours), that would be 12 hours a day, 84 hours in a week, approximately 4,380 hours in a year. If I get to live to 64, and assuming that my gray matter can still work out the answer to the question "who am I?", that would be 118,260 hours of blogging. Will I be able to fill up all the virtual space assigned to my blog by blogspot.com? And what would happen to the archives list by then? Will it be truncated at some point, or will it just keep on getting longer until it spills out of the page and my blog displays an error message? What if I die at some time in the future and people who used to know and visit my blog also died or have completely forgotten its URL? What would happen to my blog then? Perhaps a more existentially meaningful (isn't that an oxymoron?) question is: should I go on toying with these inane thoughts inside my skull or should I just bear with my boredom and get back to work?

My E-heads countdown: intro

2006-05-11T11:37:00.010+08:00

Been thinking of a way, apart from counting breaths, to take my mind off some stressful things these past few days. Luckily, I chanced upon Charles and his Heartache with Hard Work blog. Unfortunately, the guy beat me to the Beatles list. Which is just fine as I don't think I'm competent and stout-hearted enough to take on such a colossal project. So, have to content myself with a smaller and more local undertaking. At one point during the height of their popularity, fans and reviewers referred to the Eraserheads as the Pinoy version of the Fab Four. I've been an avid follower of the E-heads since their Ultraelectromagneticpop days. And I have copies of almost all their albums (except the Fruitcake EP; but there's always the internet for that). So last night, coming from another nerve-wracking encounter with an ex-partner, turned on my computerized "jukebox" and started listing down my favorite Eraserheads songs.

The materials

The countdown hopes to include all tracks from the 10 albums released by the band from 1993 to 2003. I've recently acquired a bootlegged copy of the indie-released Pop U, so I've decided to include the songs there as well. I don't have the Fruitcake EP (anybody out there who's willing to sell me an original or even a bootlegged copy?), so I will be basically relying on information from the internet and from my own memory of the songs in the EP as they were played on the radio almost 10 years ago in 1996. I've included BMG's Dekada '90 Singles compilation as it has the band's own rendition of that Ryan Cayabyab song popularized by Basil Valdez. And finally, the countdown will also include songs from the 2-disc Anthology (2004) that have not been previously released in the other albums. Nope, I have not included songs from the Please Transpose EP with Kris Dancel on vocals. Sorry guys, but I'm one of those irritating purists who consider the original foursome of Ely, Raymund, Buddy, and Marcus as the real E-heads. Neither have I considered tracks from other compilations like that Philippine Centennial release, that tribute album to the Hotdogs (a popular Pinoy band in the 70s), or that Nescafe concept album that had the guys performing APO songs. So, if I'm not mistaken, that would be 140 songs, avoiding overlaps (except in the cases of Walang Hiyang Pare Ko and Pare ko which are counted as two songs, and of the two versions of Fruitcake) and including fillers (thanks to tabulas and to highfiber's E-heads Project for the info).

The method

I've previously selected 75 of my favorite Eraserheads songs from all of the materials mentioned above and saved them all as wma files in my pc jukebox. I'll start ranking these songs first. Then I'll move on to the other songs not included in the list. This is a personal list, and thus very subjective. Other E-heads fanatics may rank these songs very differently. And as Charles pointed out, one's personal choices could change drastically through time. My number 1 song today may not be so tomorrow or a few days from now. Songs can move up or down the list depending on a lot of factors including my stress level, my sex life, the book I happen to be reading at the moment, whether or not Mike Defensor's recent antics have again caught the headlines, and of course, the weather (I'm only happy when it rains). I'll try to do at least three songs per post. And as I couldn't afford to be depressed all the time, I may have to write on less serious things in-between my posts for this countdown.

The standards

I am not a music expert. So, I'll try my best to consult The Free Online Dictionary when using some of those musical terms. Beyond that, I have to apologize for any inaccuracies or objectionable points that may appear in the review. The melody is usually what initially catches my attention in a song. Then I look at the lyrics. Sometimes I read the album jacket for production information. At this point, I then usually begin to notice the instrumentation. I could then do research on some interesting trivias about the song. Finally, I take note of my overall impressions, reactions, thoughts and associations in relation to it. So, these are probably some of the things that would go into my review (not necessarily in that order).

Low tech

2006-04-21T11:47:00.006+08:00

Have this on-going romance with old things and outmoded gadgets. Colleagues here at the office have long ago switched to memory sticks in storing and transferring their computer files. And they've recently listed a 40 gb external hard drive among future office purchases. Been dreaming for about a month now of buying one for my own use. Problem is, some other expense always seems to crop up whenever there's extra money available for it. So, have to content myself at the moment with this 250 mb zip disk and the older 1.4 mb floppies.

The zip disk comes with a drive that has this small window on top and a thin flexiglass cover. One day the cover fell loose from all that carrying and reconnecting. A few strips of packaging tape now hold it in place, which make my zip drive look like the frankenstein of all zip drives. Have to carry the whole contraption, with all the connecting wires and power cables, in my backpack when there's work to be done at home or when my home pc's antivirus system needs updating. Been running this scene in my head where unsophisticated mall guards mistake my monster-like zip drive for a home-made bomb.

Still have this boxful of floppies at home. Can't imagine now how my masteral thesis got through to its final form with documents and drafts saved in these storage devices. Have a personal project of converting all my personal files (now running around 40 gb) into pdf and saving them in separate floppies. A major problem of course is the regular wear and tear of these diskettes over time. Have to take care of these museum pieces (floppies were first created by IBM in 1967) like a carton of eggs. Always have at least one floppy with me when going to the office. And that would already be like Batman carrying with him the entire Batcave computer's memory. With data contained in that floppy, my office pc can update my personal budget and parenting schedule, print out my monthly calendar, record entries in my journal, and display posts in-progress for this blog.

Kids who now play basketball with oldies like us call such things bulok (Filipino for "rotten") or panis ("spoiled", especially food). The more modern term would be lotech or low tech. The same terms would perhaps apply to my VCD collection which has been recently made obsolete by my brother's more interactive and advanced DVD discs. There's this certain satisfaction, however, in using such artifacts. And not just because one makes do with what one can afford at any given time. People now use and experience things more transiently. So low techs or technological laggards like me are left to benefit from more intimate and romantic interactions with these old gadgets.

With every visit to a former partner's house these past few weeks, been taking two or three of these audio cassette tapes with me. There must be fifty or more such tapes in my old collection. These tapes had been an integral part of my daughters' musical experience until about two years ago when all my things had to be moved back to my parents' home. Was thinking then that my oldest daughter would continue playing the tapes if these were left at her mother's place, remembering our early morning preparations for school or our weekends at home playing pc games while the stereo blurted out scratchy music from these old records.

But, found out some days back that the tapes have only provided a good resting place for dust and ants. My daughter has her own CD collection now. So, plugged my stereophonic home PC speakers to this old cassette walkman from the office. And, been spending some solitary nights in Tartarus lately listening to my old cassette tapes: REM, U2, The Smiths, Tears for Fears, Smashing Pumpkins, The Teeth, Natalie Merchant, The Cranberries, Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Eraserheads, Moonpools and Caterpillars, Lemonheads, Sandwich, Rizal Underground, Paul Simon, Garbage, Sheryl Crow. There are more to come. Many of these records are already out of circulation. Bet one couldn't even get CD copies of these in major stores here in Manila.

Am thinking of writing this popular tv host whose weekend program features poor schmucks like me and grants their wishes. Sure would like to have a good stereo with tape decks and a 5-rack CD player.

This is the song I've been singing my whole life
I've been waiting like a knife
To cut open your heart
And bleed my soul to you
I did it all for you
You and you and you and you

The Crying Tree of Mercury
Machina/The Machines of God
Smashing Pumpkins

The Demimonde

2006-04-18T10:28:00.022+08:00

Said something about the demimonde in a previous post. Wikipedia provides the common dictionary definition pointing to a class of women in the 19th century who maintained wealthy lovers and whose conduct fall beyond the ambit of socially acceptable standards. Kim Stanley Robinson used The Demimonde in his Mars trilogy to refer to this loose group of settlements that existed outside the network of colonies administered by the Terran authorities. His fans have set up an e-forum (also called The Demimonde) where they discuss topics ranging from the Mars novels, SF, politics, ecology, spirituality, science, and just about anything under Sol.

Recently formed my own demimonde, creating links to these friendly blogs, sites and other online resources that take up much of my regular net surfing time. Have always wanted to keep these links out of redplanet, make this blog a cyber dead end, a virtual "black hole" that sucks in consciousness and leaves it counting breaths in limbo. Changed my mind. Realized that true fringes out there are neither well-defined nor self-contained. Edges rarely extend infinitely and often overlap. So, redplanet will have its own demimonde. Topping the list would be the Lectiograph which is actually a spin-off of previous posts about books. Encountered this fantastic application from Jon Aquino's blog that captured the whole lectiograph idea plus more.

Have always wanted to share my growing library at home with other people. Been exploring with some friends this idea of forming an online book discussion group where they could share their books and exchange reading experiences. Found out that the Ning application could now make this possible. Still need to try out its other features. But here are some of the things that it could do:

My editorial review. This is of course the regular thing: teasers, initial impressions, reflections, interesting quotes, etc. There's some limitation when it comes to the fonts and the presentation (no paragraph breaks, text colors, block quotes). My temporary solution: include dates within the text. Apart from indicating how recent the information is, these serve as good text breaks.

Reading status. Now here's the really fun part. Each entry in Ning provides information on the books' status. Individual readers can log in, create bookshelves, include titles from their own physical collection, get to compose their own reviews, include titles from other bookshelves, and indicate which books they want to read, are currently reading and have finished reading.

Emailing tool. Each entry has an email link that allows readers to invite others to read a book, share comments and reviews, track down a title, or simply keep in touch. Haven't really tried this feature. Not sure if it provides its own emailing page or simply opens up the browsers' own emailing application. But it's really a convenient way to pass on information on one's lectiograph.

Have posted only one title so far in my bookshelf. Would be glad to lend it to a friend who is living somewhere in Manila and promises to return it in good condition after a good reading experience.

When it rains

2006-04-10T12:49:00.004+08:00

got the unbelievable news last friday. after several revisions, our new project proposal has been disapproved. this new project would have let us introduce community-based coastal resources management as a strategy for post-tsunami rehabilitation work in this south asian country. i think it would have been a pioneering work for a Philippine-based NGO to say the least. our prospective donor's comment: the proposal can not be approved in its present form. after all their previous comments on a number of things, including project management, the budget items and training activities, this was a real bummer. losing his voice to a long-drawn bout with flu, my boss strained every neck muscle in registering his comments during our discussions on the proposal. and we even posted last week a job ad for two project managers, confident that we'll have the new project by the end of the month.

what's worse, that project would have assured us of badly needed funds to keep us going for a few more months while our other proposal was being processed. now we're left with practically zero options. this morning, our network coordinator (my team mate), tendered his resignation. i had been expecting it for about a month now. but i was still a bit surprised when our boss announced it. i realized i was surprised at the news more for what it could mean to me rather than what it implied for my colleague or for the office. after almost four years of sweating it out in front of this pc (i didn't even have the chance to work in the airconditioned room upstairs), i may now need to move on again. oh well, as an old friend in college used to say, that's life.

Not enough madness

2006-04-03T13:15:00.013+08:00

Attended this small forum on the WTO and local fisheries last Wednesday. Representatives of other nongovernmental organizations were also there, including member organizations of this local coalition working on fisheries reform. A colleague shared some of the discussion points in a civil society meeting held earlier in Bangkok. It was a fairly simple and straightforward presentation. WTO, trade and other macroeconomic issues could really give an ordinary citizen in a not so poor country like the Philippines (just found out that the UNDP has recently placed the country in the medium development bracket along with Malaysia, Thailand, China, Vietnam and Indonesia) a terrible case of migraine. Actually had some qualms about attending as I was not so knowledgeable on trade and fishery issues.

The ensuing discussion among these local "experts" on the WTO and trade issues was however enlightening. Not only for the new information it provided, but also for the insights it yielded on what some development workers in the country are thinking. For one, I learned that some of these local NGOs were advocating to maintain the country's policy flexibility ("water level" in the experts' lingo) in terms of setting tariffs on so-called "non-agricultural commodities" like fish and marine products. I thought such call made a lot of sense considering that the WTO negotiations were trying to force countries to peg permanent tariff levels as a prelude to a completely unrestricted global market.

At this point, a representative from the country office of an international donor agency asked the group for ideas on how the country could better maximize whatever policy space it could gain from the WTO negotiations. This question, according to her, should be tied up with the group's vision for the fisheries sector: is the future going to be a "network" of small, sustainable, community-managed marine protected areas?; should the country take up again the expansion of its own aquaculture sector that promises quick cash but entails clearing of its remaining mangrove areas?; and what of those big commercial fishers?; how could such trade flexibility be used to support local efforts at sustainable management of marine resources?

For a few seconds, only the humming of the air conditioner could be heard in the room. Brains that were previously reciting technical arguments on why WTO and trade liberalization are the bane of the livelihood and self-reliant existence of small producers and poor people all over the world were suddenly left wondering whether they should get that extra cup of caffeine or just let drowsiness take over. A few finally found comfort in the old reliable lines of thought and continued their critical or sarcastic tirades against global bullies and their local stooges. My own gray matter was busy processing a new information: some local activists have an overdeveloped faculty for seeing what's wrong with their world, and display an almost total lack of capacity for imagining what they want to create in its place.

Time to pause

2006-03-22T09:47:00.011+08:00

Finally had a chance to watch Jet Li's Fearless a few days ago. Actually, only a part of it as the movie was almost halfway through by the time I arrived at the place. I remember being a big fan of Chinese-style martial arts as a kid. My father, who has always been an advocate of physical fitness in the family, would include Ed Spielman's Kung Fu in our regular prime time TV viewing schedule (along with The Wild Wild West, Bionic Man and Wonder Woman). My brothers and I got our first lessons on Asian martial arts philosophy from David Carradine's character Kwai Chang Caine. As my father used to remind us after each Kung Fu episode: never use violence except as a last resort and for defensive purposes only.

Don't know how my brothers eventually took that teaching to heart. For a while, we were enchanted with the thought of learning a few martial arts tricks and actually spent some time poring over this karate book that my father bought for us. But throughout most of our teenage lives, I suppose all of us adopted a more pacifist attitude, thinking that running was still a better option than slugging it out with an aggressor. In fact, I still recall the night when my two younger brothers went out for a drink with friends and got into a shouting and stone-throwing match with the local tambays (Filipino for bums). With guitar in hand and the barangay tanods (local volunteer peacekeepers) on their heels, my brothers negotiated dark detours and arrived at our house half-drunk and drenched in sweat.

I have since recognized how violence is intricately woven into our modern, market-homogenized, ecologically-alienated lives. (Perhaps I should insert "male" before "lives".) In most cases, it shapes our whole personality, it defines who we are, without us even knowing it. It's like each of us has been unconsciously nurturing a Mr. Hyde within and the monster rears its ugly head once in a while. Make that "most of the time", especially for those who have surrendered their lives to this fearful shadow. My father was wrong. The problem was not about deciding when to be violent or when it is justifiable to be so. For many people, particularly men, the problem is how to prevent their violent natures from inflicting harm on others and taking over their own lives.

Master Yoda, the little green warrior in the Star Wars movies, has some insights on what animates this dark side:

Fear is the path to the Dark Side. Fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate; hate leads to suffering. (Master Yoda to Anakin Skywalker in The Phantom Menace)

In Fearless, Jet Li's character failed to appreciate such wisdom early on and became entwined in a series of events that led to the death of his mother and daughter. Wandering aimlessly, Jet Li soon found himself in a village where he would be getting some lessons on coming to terms with his violent nature and achieving peace with himself. In one scene, he was helping farmers transplant rice seedlings into their terraced land. He was slow at first, but found an opportunity to make up for it and get ahead of the pack by taking advantage of these periods when the farmers would stop planting, stand up and close their eyes to feel the cool mountain breeze. But, the farmers later had to go over Jet Li's work again as the planted seedlings didn't have the proper spaces between them. Learning from this, Jet Li would soon be doing the ritualistic pauses and taking in those head-clearing breaths.

A Nietzschean synthesis

2006-03-13T17:41:00.044+08:00

I'm still wrestling with Nietzsche's ideas in The Birth of Tragedy (1871). An English translation by Ian C. Johnston of Malaspina University is available online. I copied the whole thing in HTML, pasted it in MsWord, then converted it to PDF. The entire file is now only around 305 kb. And one more good thing about PDF is that you can display the file in "facing pages" layout. Gives you an illusion of reading a printed book. That should help with the reading. Understanding Friedrich Nietzsche's work however is something else. Sparknotes provides a good albeit quite opinionated summary of the main ideas.

In The Birth of Tragedy, Nietzsche expounded on the meeting of what he called Apollonian and Dionysian worldviews in the Greek tragic drama form. Apollonian culture was associated with the logical, rational and individual experience. Its aesthetic sensibility treated works of art as "appearances", something to be observed and reflected upon. Dionysian culture on the other hand was identified with the intuitive, artistic and public experience. Aesthetically, it judges art objects based on their capacity to move beyond the "illusion" presented by the art object and reveal the essence of things which it was supposed to embody.

At a certain point, according to Nietzsche, Greek tragedy represented the meshing and balancing of both Apollonian and Dionysian elements. And the tragic drama thus presented a way for the Greeks to face suffering and death -- the inescapable givens of the human condition -- with noble pessimism. Not by renouncing this world and relying on an external savior and the promise of a better existence beyond. But by embracing life and experiencing oneness with other beings who share the same fate.

This experience of "primordial unity" is essentially a participative public phenomenon, something that was lost with the later insistence of Greek playwrights like Euripides to confine the tragic form within the ambit of Socratic rationalism. For Nietzsche, this movement in Greek thought to kill the Dionysian strand heralded the advent of today's dominant culture which is characterized by its obsession with knowledge and its unflinching and unbounded trust in human thought. In this, I think Nietzsche echoed the post-modern criticisms of the modernist worldview: its emphasis on "eternal" and "universal" truths, the exalted status it conferred on the theoretical man, its vision of a homogenized individual, etc.

A good friend has recently shared in an egroup some thoughts about the advent of a new period of "discursive contestation" in Philippine politics. With "people power" and other similar participatory processes being easily co-opted or "domesticated" by elites, my friend has pointed to a need for engaging again with social actors in an on-going process of "re-defining" and practicing democracy. Reflecting on Nietzsche, some questions come to mind. What should we aim for with such an engagement? Where should such process lead us? Where should discursive contestation take place?

I think what this current impasse presents to us is nothing less than an opportunity to confront again our whole political culture. In Nietzschean terms, recent history has already shown Filipinos the limits and dangers of a unidimensional weltanschauung. Almost two decades of martial law and Marcosian dictatorship has demonstrated the horrors that could stem from the Apollonian cult of appearances (Filipino ideology, developmentalism, technocratic rule, reliance on state-sponsored solutions, and a persistent popular attraction to discipline and order). Recent episodes of popular revolts meanwhile have illustrated dark aspects of an unbridled Dionysian collective ecstasy: a seemingly natural tendency to revert to elite rule -- an Apollonian requisite, the degenerative distortion of the participatory, life-affirming and transformative ethos of the collective experience, or a possible descent into chaotic mob rule.

For those who want to break this impasse, and make way for deeper and more meaningful social transformations, I think the task now is to weld a new organic synthesis of Apollonian and Dionysian cultural elements. Such forces should now take on struggles or social experiments where there are greater possibilities for still emerging or existing forms of governance to accommodate processes that would allow marginalized sectors to learn from the experience of shaping their own collective future, while still retaining enough "rules" and building blocks for molding new relations and structures. Much like the way the chorus and actors in Nietzsche's ideal Greek tragedy facilitated that primordial unity among the viewers by giving expression to Dionysian essence.

Preoccupied with its "transitional revolutionary" activities and fixated with its own statist project (on which implementation of its blueprint for a transformed social order depends), I don't think the Philippine left is in a position today to pursue such a historic synthesis. Come to think of it, I don't think it has ever been seriously involved in such strategic effort to reshape Philippine political culture and reality, and give Filipinos a taste of its utopian visions. But then, I could be wrong. Maybe I should just confine myself to Nietzsche and Greek tragedy.

A brief interlude

2006-03-09T14:28:00.011+08:00

a few more arrests yesterday here in manila. one of those arrested at the international women's day rallies was a female representative of a party-list group who was violently dragged and carried away to a waiting police vehicle. footage of the rallies aired on a prime time television news program last night showed in one scene a police officer assuring a group of women that his dispersal unit were not there to arrest them. the grateful women applauded these gentlemanly words. but then the police officer quickly added that women should be at home and not making all those disturbances in the streets. the footage abruptly ended at that point, catching just a few boos and scowls from the dumbfounded protesters. government got a break today from a major daily which headlined the results of initial investigations into this tragic television game show stampede instead of the long-running exchange on 1017. there's an article in the business section saying that government economic planners are worried over the continuing appreciation of the peso. it seems exporters are having a hard time adjusting to the changes. there has been another rollback in the prices of cooking gas. my good friend, one of those few avid readers, has reprinted some of my recent postings here in random thoughts. another summer fast approaching, perhaps bringing with it another dreaded separation. i've been doing some mental workouts in-between these brainless activities here at my station -- digesting Nietzsche's musings on the Apollonian-Dionysian unity in Greek tragedy, and reflecting on what this could mean to recent political events in the Philippines. beyond our blue cloudy sky, mars is as rusty as ever, still prophetic in its dusty bareness.

On legitimacy and leadership

2006-03-03T14:30:00.088+08:00

The little things I know about politics and political science I learned either from those highly rhetorical discussions in my student organizations or from all those reading assignments in my political science subjects (which were also quite few) back in college. Based on my limited knowledge on these subjects, and on additional bits of information and rumors that I stumbled upon recently, I have come to the conclusion that there is really no state of emergency in the Philippines. Well, at least not in the manner and for the reasons that the present administration would want us to believe. Instead, what we have in today is a government struggling to assert its legitimacy.

I believe it was the Italian communist Antonio Gramsci who dissected state power into its two components: the ideological and the repressive. In simple terms, the state inspires allegiance and obedience from the people either by convincing them about its legitimacy and the righteousness of its actions, or by threats and actual use of force. Institutions, like the family, schools, media, and religion, have big roles in legitimizing state power by molding us into "good citizens", convincing us not to get involved with state affairs, or by simply not doing anything that could interfere with "state business". In "normal" times, threats to use force or even using "mild" force are enough to make people obey laws and are therefore much evident in our daily lives.

But here's the interesting part: Gramsci's theory also tells us that when the ideological processes of the state lose their efficacy, it is compelled more and more to rely on its repressive instrument. It replaces the carrot with a stick, so to speak, to make recalcitrants dance to its tune. Thus, if people continue raising questions regarding the credibility of the last elections and thus the legitimacy of elected leaders, despite the President's admission on national television of her "lapses in good judgment" in talking to an election official on the phone while votes are being tallied and her assertions that it does not in any way constitute cheating, the government could be forced to use measures that are more drastic than harassing or maligning supposed witnesses in the case. And therefore, with persisting rumors of coups or military personnel switching over to the other side, the government declares a state of national emergency.

Now, as one young lawyer who is an expert on constitutional matters puts it, such declaration of a state of national emergency based on the Philippine constitution, should be nothing more than a declaration of fact. It's as good as a declaration that the national color for the day would be beige, or that the martian's birthday would henceforth be known as National Red Planet Day. But President Arroyo went a little bit further by appropriating for herself powers to legislate, delegate legislative powers, and take over businesses that are deemed to affect public interest. A friend and fellow blogger has qualms about considering Proclamation 1017 as a full declaration of martial law as its "casualties" are way below that of Marcos' actions in '72. Well, to borrow from a term from the 80s, I'd like to call it "low intensity martial rule".

I don't think this government meant 1017 to be a permanent thing or to have that broad impact in the first place. It was just a kick in the butt, a not-so-gentle slap in the face, of restless groups in society who are itching to bring about another change in administration. It was a calculated move to assert ideological dominance in an institutional arena such as the media which for a while has appeared to have forgotten to pay homage to the Prince. It was a deliberate offensive to whip into submission so-called "disgruntled groups" within its repressive apparatus, the military, who are mouthing dangerous anti-hegemonic statements on "protecting the people". It was a measured act to remind leftists forces who have entered the legal parliamentary arena, that there are limits to what they can do within the present dispensation.

So, what more can we say now that the President has lifted the state of national emergency? Some elements of the grim and determined bunch of so-called "progressives" in Philippine society have predictably began calling Arroyo's recent move as a "trick", alleging that martial rule is still pretty much in the air despite 1017's revocation. In the case of these groups, one reason why nothing positive came out from this recent hoolabaloo is the fact that they have become so predictable and passe. Attending this forum on 1017 at the university, I was taken aback by this young long-haired emcee, supposedly from this "activist school" (whatever that is) of a known NGO, whose language sounded much like an echo from the First Quarter Storm. Compared to it, the use of Filipino by an Iglesia ni Kristo (Church of Christ) minister would sound more timely, natural, sincere and nationalistic.

As such, the left is far from being a hegemonic counterpoint at the moment. It faces serious challenges that prevent it from attaining some form of moral and intellectual leadership over society. It has yet to heal the real divide that appeared between it and the desperate poor during EDSA 2 when it stood side by side with sections of the rich and influential sectors to overthrow another elite political figure who was popular among the marginalized and the oppressed. A crack in reality was somehow opened up by the recent proposal of one group within the left to establish a transitional revolutionary government with a "blueprint" for a viable Philippine society to substantiate it. But without names being brought up, the middle class, much less the poor couldn't be expected to bite into such a scheme. I heard that a popular professor from a premier university has gained some support from various sectors to lead such a government. I wonder how they will work on this and convince him in the coming days.

My own proclamation

2006-02-28T15:18:00.035+08:00

Whereas, the Philippine government has yet to cite sufficient indubitable evidence to support claims that “some elements in the political opposition have conspired with authoritarian sectors of the extreme Left represented by the NDF-CPP-NPA” and that there is now so-called “tactical alliance” among these elements “engaged in a concerted and systematic conspiracy ... to bring down the duly-constituted Government elected in May 2004”;

Whereas, sufficient and credible evidence that such “conspirators” have repeatedly tried to bring down the President are also lacking at present;

Whereas, the government have yet to cite instances to support allegation that statements of the aforementioned conspirators have been “recklessly magnified by certain segments of national media”, and have yet to clarify to the public the exact meaning of “reckless magnification” and whether such offense (if indeed an offense) is not sufficiently covered by existing guidelines and codes of conduct of responsible journalism;

Whereas, repeated assertions by present government that it is “in control of the situation” and those opposing it remain a small segment of the population contradict its claims in Proclamation No. 1017 that the series of actions of supposed conspirators “is hurting the Philippine State – by obstructing governance … and sabotaging the people’s confidence in government and their faith in the future of the country”;

Whereas, the positive growth rate of the Philippine economy since 2002, the recent upsurge of the peso against the dollar, the robustness of the stock market, and continuing positive outlook of investors all contradict the government’s claims that the supposed actions of the conspirators are “adversely affecting the economy”;

Whereas, government’s claims that activities of the supposed alliance of the extreme Left and extreme Right forces create openings to intensify their aims to bring down the democratic Philippine State are negated by recent events and by its own confident pronouncements that it is and will be able to meet any threat to the republic;

Whereas, the Philippine Constitution gives the President as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces sufficient powers to defend and preserve the democratic institutions and the State without resorting to additional or extraordinary powers or functions as in the case of martial law or in a declared state of national emergency;

Whereas, it remains to be proven that activities cited in Proclamation No. 1017, including their “consequences, ramifications and collateral effects”, do constitute a clear and present danger to the safety and the integrity of the State and of the Filipino people;

Now, Therefore, I, the martian, a tax-paying Filipino citizen, by virtue of the rights granted to me by Section 4, Article 3 of the Philippine Constitution which states that: “No law shall be passed abridging the freedom of speech, of expression, or of the press, or the right of people peaceably to assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances,” do hereby declare as a statement of fact that there is no state of national emergency today in the Philippines, and that I hold President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo accountable for any infringement of basic human rights that may result from her declaration of a state of national emergency.

In Witness Hereof, I have hereunto set my hand.

Done in the City of Manila, this 1^st day of March, in the year of Our Lord, two thousand and six.

Signed

the martian

"I don't want political leaders telling me what to think; we should be telling them what to think and do." the Beachblogger

A good friend

2006-02-15T12:52:00.000+08:00

It was my oldest daughter who prodded me into getting another pet dog. I think it was sometime in 2001. And pretty soon, we had this hyperactive male dalmatian wreaking havoc in our yard. My daughter named him "Buster". I would have called him "Bozo" or "Charlie" as he was more of a clown to me than a dog. But I started believing that I had this unlucky streak in naming dogs. You see, my mother used to give us local puppies (askals, or asong kalye in Filipino, literally street dog) before we got Buster. I did the naming of these puppies back then. And all eventually died. So I let my daughter choose a name for the new dog. The dalmatian was simply too expensive to satisfy my anti-superstition quirks.

About a year later, we acquired this female labrador puppy. My daughter named her "Lassie". I would have called her "Sadie" (from that Beatles song) or "Bonnie" (from Bonnie Abbzug in Edward Abbey's Monkey Wrench Gang). But the name Lassie stuck. And years later, with our neighbors complaining of the stench in our front porch, I would be walking Lassie and Buster around this neglected park early in the morning and late in the evening, rain or shine, trying to get them to empty their bladders and intestines before bringing them home. Like Buster, Lassie was brimming with canine energy. She used to do these crazy sprints, running after Buster in the yard and throwing her 55 to 60-pound body in the air, her prim brown coat shining in the early morning light, as Buster tries to jump over her.

I was anxious the first time we left Lassie with this guy and his stud labrador. She was supposed to stay there for three nights. But when my father and my brother came back the following day, the guy asked me to bring Lassie home. My dog kept him awake the whole night. Guess she was not really used to being away from us. After one of her unsuccessful pregnancies, I remember bringing Lassie to this clinic somewhere in Quezon City to have her womb x-rayed. Earlier, the veterinarian suspected that Lassie's dead puppies were still inside her body, decomposing there and slowly poisoning her system. So we waited in line at the clinic, Lassie calmly sitting through her fever, and with all those folks occasionally glancing in our direction, perhaps wondering what a dog was doing in a clinic reserved for people.

I still can't understand why Buster and Lassie ended up with me when I transferred to my parents' place. I thought my oldest daughter would either insist on having the dogs with her or in visiting them regularly at my parents' house. It was more because of the second prospect that I agreed to take the two dogs with me. Anyway, I thought, my daughters would still have one labrador left with them to take care of. Not having the good sense to bring along with me some pictures from the family albums, Lassie would soon become my only link to those precious moments with my daughter when we were all playing in the yard, walking in the neighborhood, or strolling around the campus. Moments that are now slowly fading into the distant past. Desperately longing for the presence of another being in my room, or finding my mind too restless to think of anything else, I would sometimes let the yellow labrador in and just run my hand through her thin coat.

Arriving at the office today, I got a call from my mother informing me that Lassie had died. My immediate reaction was to ask about my parents' plans for burying her body. But I saw my mind then already racing to recall all those times during the past few weeks when Lassie would come running towards the gate as soon as she hears the softest clink of my keys. Or those mornings when she would have this dour look behind the wire fence as she waits for me to get my ride to the office. I now regret failing to give her the regular weekend bath last Saturday. Had a meeting the whole afternoon today. All the time, I kept thinking how I'm going to tell my oldest daughter about Lassie's death. Both of us lost a really good friend.

Of guerrillas and wanderers

2006-02-09T12:05:00.000+08:00

Just realized this is only my second post for the new year. It must be some kind of blogging inertia. A brain spewing out all these crazy ideas will continue to do so unless acted upon by an outside force. And a brain at rest will continue towards stagnation unless stimulated again by an external event. With my apologies to Sir Isaac Newton. I wonder how that would translate in terms of thermodynamics. But somebody really ought to write something about it one of these days. Anyway, in between those eye-straining and finger-stiffening work in front of the office computer, and those back-breaking chores at home, this 1,300-gram (more or less) chunk of gray matter calling itself "the martian" has also been busy making some mental notes of possible blogging topics and filing these for future use. (Got this "mental notes" image from James Clavell's Shogun. I always get a real kick out of imagining myself as Lord Toranaga, that cold, calculating Japanese daimyo who ended up as shogun in Clavell's novel.) So the past four weeks or so have not been a complete loss. Lemme see, where to start ...

Blogs, blogs, blogs. Surfing through the blogging world, unlike writing in my blog, has not yet petrified into a hobby for me. But I do take a peek at other blogs from time to time. Boredom has this almost mystical quality of stopping the flow of time, during which a numbed human consciousness can take stock and try to restore its dynamic and creative quality. (Wow, where did that come from??) Guided by blogspot's Blogs of Note, I recently chanced upon these interesting blogs during such boring enigmatic moments at my work station:

The Dormitory Boys These guys remind me of Roberto Benigni's existential stance in La Vita e Bella (Life is Beautiful). Life sucks but it doesn't mean you can not have a really great time.

Tales of the Freeway Blogger I really admire this guy's passion and artistry. Boring Filipino leftists can learn a lot from him.

David Baldinger: Cartoonist & Photographer Nice political cartoons and personal pictures. And another Gormenghast and Dune fan.

A guerrilla in Bolivia. Walking into an office at night on a Sunday, a paperback copy of the great Argentinian doctor's diary, its pages all yellow and almost crumbling to the touch, found its way into my hands. Been reading it since then (alongside Brian Aldiss' Helliconia novels). The Ramparts Edition of The Diary of Che Guevara from November 1966 up to the final days in La Higuera, Bolivia in October 1967, includes photographs as well as reproductions of the original notebooks and Spanish transcripts. Had the chance to read other books on Che, written by people who knew him. But reading his own diary, with its terse entries written in the thick of battle, is quite a different experience altogether. This comes at the heels of watching the equally memorable Walter Salles' The Motorcycle Diaries. Coming to my own office late on a Monday morning, this Yahoo News item on a socialist winning the presidential elections in Bolivia and the challenges facing him (with more than two-thirds of the 8.5 million Bolivian population in extreme poverty) greeted my eyes. It has been almost four decades since Che's death. I wonder how its meaning resonates among Bolivians today. (Read this interesting article by David Rieff in Truthout.)

The wanderer. Marshall Sahlins considers hunting-gathering groups as constituting the original affluent societies, notwithstanding their poverty. Among Pinoys, the descriptive acronyms NPA (no permanent address) and TNT (tago nang tago, always hiding), have come to be associated with different kinds of people who are forced to move from place to place for various reasons. Walking out of this fastfood joint close to midnight, and again sometime way before dawn, I had this thought of me being a kind of wanderer. Which, following Sahlins' ideas, may not really be a bad thing at all. Well for one, you see and experience more things than the average sedentary guy. Plus you have a crack at these precious insights on life. Like, you realize that you can actually manage with just a few belongings (in my case, what's inside my backpack). As Sahlins puts it, affluence is not always about owning more, but also about wanting less. As a wanderer, you are also constantly reminded of the transitory nature of things. That there is really no permanent "home", just as there is no permanent "here" and "now".

I went out walking
Through streets paved with gold
Lifted some stones
Saw the skin and bones
Of a city without a soul

The Wanderer
Zooropa
U2

Tartarus

2006-01-20T12:28:00.000+08:00

There was this very distinctive, recurring dream in childhood (probably from watching all those replays of that classic Charlton Heston flick, The Omega Man, on tv). There was a nuclear war that wiped out a big chunk of the human population and laid many places to waste. Most of those who survived became zombie-like beings who craved for the brains of those who were not affected by the radiation. We were among those who remained regular homo sapiens. And we lived underground. Under our house, that we abandoned due to the threats posed by the brain-suckers, we constructed this very big and complex headquarters complete with all the high tech gadgets and amenities that allowed us to go on with quite a comfortable albeit dangerous existence. We had this great van with powerful computers and all kinds of weapons on-board. And from our secret underground complex, we would emerge into the zombie world riding our van. We’d be searching for other people who managed to avoid contracting the dreaded brain-craving disorder. Brainless zombies would be throwing themselves at our vehicle, hoping to slow down our regular patrols and get a shot at sucking our brains out.

It was hell on earth. And our HQ in the dream was a Tartarus of sorts, a place found way down below Hades. Read about this place first in Stephen Baxter’s Titan which tells of a human expedition to the Saturnian world. Thinking of a call-sign for their base on Saturn’s methane-covered moon, the few remaining astronauts decided on Tartarus. In Greek mythology, before Zeus’ and the other gods’ time came, there were the giant Titans, children of Uranus and Gaia, sky and the Earth. There was Cronus, the leader, Rhea, Tethys, Iapetus, Hyperion, Phoebe, Oceanus, Coeus, Crius, Mnemosyne. Their stronghold was Mount Othyrs, the counterpart of Mount Olympus. Cronus overthrew his father, Uranus. But soon after that, a ten-year battle between the Titans and the gods, led by Zeus, erupted. Zeus enlisted the help of the Hecatoncheires, the hundred-armed giants. The Titans were defeated and were imprisoned in Tartarus. The Hecatoncheires were appointed prison guards.

Finished constructing my floor-to-ceiling bookshelf a few days before the start of the new year. Spent a little over 2,500 pesos, which included the price of the varnish. The shelf has seven levels (eight if you include the space above the topmost board). Arranged neatly within its numerous compartments, my six boxful of books don’t look too many. In fact, I still have some compartments left for vases and indoor plants (and for my future audio and video system). Staring at the whole thing from where I lay at night, on the floor, I imagine seeing the massive, threatening walls of Tartarus. Plan to construct another shelf-cum-work station along the other walls in my room as soon as I have enough funds to buy more construction materials. I’ll then be literally surrounded by words contained in books. With an internet connection for my computer, a stereo and a tv set (and maybe a dvd player), guess I wouldn’t mind staying in this “prison” even for a thousand years (if I get to live that long). Could fill up megabytes of disk space with my notes and journals. Maybe I could even put in a few novels and children’s stories.

So I’ve named my partly renovated room, my HQ, Tartarus. My muse said it doesn’t sound that good. True, it’s not very lyrical (well, it used to be the Batcave, until I realized I’m not particularly fond of bats or caves). But I still like the idea of a comforting prison as I did then, when I was still young, dreaming of isolated strongholds underground that protected me from cruel, scary people outside. Must be some kind of womb-fixation, as an ex-partner used to say disdainfully. I’d like to think now it’s a lot better than being in either heaven or hell.

Lectiograph 2

2005-12-15T13:35:00.000+08:00

Books I'm planning to read:

The Primal Scream Primal Therapy: The Cure for Neurosis by Arthur Janov, Phd. (1970). Yes, this is the book that inspired one of the most successful singing duo in the 80s, Tears for Fears (and also one of my favorite. though i have yet to lay my hands on CD copies of their albums. i can still remember patiently waiting for this local radio station to play everybody wants to rule the world back in the 80s so i can record it in my cassette tape). In fact, the band's name was taken from a phrase from the book, "tears as a replacement for fears". Both Roland Orzabal and Curt Smith were deeply into so-called primal therapy when they formed TFF. Earnings from album sales were supposed to finance their primal therapy sessions with Janov (must have been one expensive therapy). And apparently, the titles of two songs -- Ideas as Opiates and The Prisoner -- from their first album, The Hurting, were also derived from chapters of The Primal Scream. After 13 years of separation and a string of solo albums, Roland and Curt are back with TFF's recent album, Everybody Loves a Happy Ending (that record stores here in Manila have yet to procure).
War With The Newts by Karel Capek (1936). Sorry, don't know how to make that Czech diacritical mark above the "C" (that one site described as a "convex-down bow" and is supposed to be pronounced as "cha", as in "Chapek"). Anyway, got my battered and yellowing copy from a popular shop here in Manila that sells second-hand books. For only 21 pesos (almost half a dollar, U.S.). Been in my shelves for almost seven years now. Which means, I should really read it soon. Read the synopsis of War With The Newts from one of these Capek sites. And I thought the theme has a startling resemblance to that of the Matrix movies: Capek's novel had humans enslaving this race of intelligent amphibians; the Matrix world had humans initially oppressing machines. By the way, Capek is also famous for coining the word "robot", from the Czech "robota", in his play R.U.R. or "Rossum's Universal Robot". Years later, Asimov would invent his own concept of "robotics" and formulate the Three Laws of Robotics.
Antarctica by Kim Stanley Robinson (1998). Have I already mentioned that Robinson is my favorite sf writer? I have read the Mars trilogy and the prelude book, The Martians (well, partly -- i wasn't able to finish it as i also lost my copy somewhere. which could be the last extant copy here in the Philippines right now. damn). I've also read Icehenge which is about human expeditions to Pluto. But Robinson is also known for his novels that are closer to home. Like Antarctica. Don't know much about literary works that feature the barren, cold environment at the earth's poles (does shelley's frankenstein count?). I started reading this nonfiction book on the arctic by this naturalist-environmentalist. But I also wasn't able to finish it. Coincidentally, I've been scanning this paper on "rapid change, resilience and vulnerability in social-ecological systems of the Arctic" that my boss passed on to me recently in preparation for writing the proposal of our project's next phase. So, this should be a good read.

Next, Books that I've already read but am planning to read again . . .

My luckiest month

2005-12-12T10:31:00.000+08:00

i remember it was also a cold night in december when i lost my first mobile phone. i was wearing a regular polo shirt and jeans then. still, i must have been overdressed for that dark, crowded place along the highway where i got off from this bus coming from a friend's place somewhere north of manila. i also recalled taking out my phone once or twice to check for messages in my inbox. it was enough to attract the attention of these shady characters that night who were out to victimize unsuspecting people like me. i was squiggling my way through this whole pack of people who were all trying to get on another bus when i felt an elbow pressing against my right side. seconds later, i found myself standing on the bus, breathing hard to calm myself. i just realized my pocket had been emptied and my nokia 3210 unit had been snatched. i remember staring at the faces of these guys who had a funny look on their faces. i was thinking they must have noticed something and knew even before they took their seats that i was in for a big surprise.

five years later, on another cold december night, i lost my second mobile phone. this time, there was nothing forced about the whole thing. my phone just decided to leave me for another owner. must have resented being neglected these past few days. it kept on complaining about the fake battery pack i bought to replace the busted one from the factory. mumbled this weird phrase -- "contact service" -- whenever i plugged it up or turned it on for the first time. sometimes it would have this catatonic look on its face. you'd then have to wrack your brains out dismantling it and trying to figure out what the hell's wrong with it. it even had some beige paint on it when it ran away the other night, fresh from my recent room renovation project. i was still trying to contact it yesterday, hoping to convince it to return. but to no avail. so now, i'm slowly pushing myself again to get pass through the denial stage of losing something.

my nokia 3310 and i had some good days together. i still remember those rainy saturday mornings when it woke me up for my masteral classes. and those hectic days in another country when, not having any roaming privileges, my mobile phone patiently showed what time it was back home, or helped me look busy whenever my tagalog-bred jaws grew tired of conversing in english. i recall those precious moments of composing catchy ring tones with my daughter (until the day she replaced her unit with one that played polyphonic tunes). guess i will miss my mobile phone badly in the coming days. a week before its unilateral decision, i was in fact trying to imagine a life without it. thought then that i could survive a cellphone-less existence in much the same way that i've been able to get on with a meatless diet these past five to six years. just wonder now how this would impact on the quality of my communication and my relationships with other people. it's terrifying, but exciting too.

though i really can't understand why of all the months in a year i have to lose my phone in december.

"A sense of humor, properly developed, is superior to any religion so far devised."

Tom Robbins
Jitterbug Perfume

Lectiograph

2005-12-06T13:53:00.000+08:00

Walking to the office this morning, I was thinking of a word to describe a captured image of one's "reading life" -- sort of a mental picture of the books one is preoccupied with at any given period. The word "bibliography" came to mind. So I searched for its definition and etymology in Google. Found out that it came from the Greek word bibliographia meaning "the writing of books". The first time it was used in its modern sense to refer to a list of books on a particular subject was in 1869. Interesting, but not quite the word I was looking for. Finally deciding that the concept was too complex for a Google search, I tried inventing a term. And I came up with the title for this post. Lectio is of course Latin for "reading". But it also means "picking out", which is even closer to what this post is all about.

I painted my room beige last Saturday. The night before that, I had to remove all of my things and pile them up somewhere in the kitchen. And these things included my growing book collection. With my eyes squinting and my nose starting to itch from the dust, I realized I have about half a lifetime left to read all of my books. So, as I was putting them back into these boxes, I picked out titles that I would be prioritizing in the next few weeks. That yielded around ten to fifteen books. The next thing I did was to plan out my strategy. There was this erotic film that I saw last week at the university film center, "The Pillow Book". And the pillow book is just that: a bedside reading material that ends up under one's pillow. But this ancient pillow book in the movie was very peculiar as it contained nothing but lists of things. That actually provided the initial inspiration for lectiograph.

So, here's my current lectiograph.

Books I'm reading at the moment:

Time Frames: The Evolution of Punctuated Equilibria by Niles Eldredge (1985). Been reading this for some weeks now. Midway, had to pick up John Irving's Water-Method Man to give my mind some rest from all those heavy concepts on evolutionary theory. But Eldredge's book is certainly worth reading. Gives a different perspective on the role of ecological processes on evolution. For instance, generalists (also "k strategists") or species that are able to exploit a wider range of environmental conditions are not necessarily privileged in evolutionary terms. While most generalists would tend to show a lower extinction rate, they also experience less speciation. And with reduced structural variation comes boring reproductive behaviors. Good thing that Eldredge concluded we're not strictly generalists.
Titan by Stephen Baxter (1997). Guess that a fourth of my collection right now would be science fiction and fantasy books. So my lectiographs would probably often include one or two sf or fantasy titles. I've read Baxter's Voyager a few years ago. That was my first encounter with this aeroengineer. Voyager belongs to the alternate history genre of sf and answers the question: what if the U.S. went ahead with a manned mission program to Mars as early as 1996? This time, in Titan, the target would be Saturn's methane covered moon. Years ago, Carl Sagan speculated on the similarities of current Titan conditions to the early life-forming environments on Earth. With the recent Cassini-Huygens mission to the Jovian system, I think now is the right time to read this book.
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone by J. K. Rowling (1997). All these years, I've always relied on my daughter with regard to missing details from the film versions of the Harry Potter mythology. With the more exciting Goblet of Fire, and the latest installment of the printed series, The Half-Blood Prince, thought I had to do something about my ignorance once and for all. So, I borrowed the first book from my daughter's collection and have been poring over it since then. Everything has been preempted of course because I've already seen the films. Just the same, it's still interesting to know that Harry's wand had the same type of phoenix feathers as that of You-Know-Who, that Hagrid's first name is Rubeus, and that Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans could sometimes taste like sprouts, pepper or even booger. Wicked!

Next time, Books I'm planning to read . . .

Futuristic politics

2005-11-17T11:04:00.000+08:00

one of my favorite trilogies is the mars series by kim stanley robinson. and one recurring theme in all of the three books is politics. martian politics to be exact. imagine shipping out to the red planet a hundred (actually, a hundred and one) brains on gaia, with all their scientific, technical and political biases. and then consider the fact that mars is around 220 to 240 million kilometers from us. that would be around 7 to 8 months of space travel. mainly, because of such distance, any future human colony on mars would have this tendency to think of itself as a completely separate socio-political unit. they would be practically on their own out there, with their own little world to govern. and robinson has added utopia-building -- this desire to re-establish human civilization from scratch -- as one of the motivating forces among the future martians.

so you get all these interesting political animals. in blue mars, the first hundred pioneers and thousands of others who came after them have just gone through a successful global revolution that freed the entire planet from earth's control. a worldwide convention was called to draft the first-ever martian constitution. in one of the memorable debates, this popular russian scientist who was part of the first hundred (and whose opinion therefore carried much weight) was arguing for an economic democracy where working people would be assured of the right to own shares in any enterprise and would have the prerogative to either manage the firm directly or hire professional managers to do the job for them. of course, other constitutional delegates questioned his scheme as "socialistic" or "communistic". but the russian guy simply brushed off these terms as mere labels and reiterated the scientific soundness of the proposal, citing historical precedents that have nothing to do with the known socialist or communist states. this ultimately won the day for him.

a bigger political fault line separates the martian greens or those who believe in transforming the red planet's natural cold, arid environment into something more suitable for human habitation (terraforming), and the martian reds or those who believe in preserving the planet's natural barren environment before human colonization. all other interesting political colors fall somewhere between these two poles. in the early novels, there were the esoteric spiritual cultists who hid themselves in colonies under the martian polar ice caps and who believed in organically growing a unique martian viewpoint. maybe a reddish green, or a greenish red political color. or even a genuine mix like brown. fans of robinson have set up this site that features a forum for relevant topics and themes tackled in the three books. one interesting discussion chain asks about the readers' political stance. the forum is called "demimonde", a term which in the trilogy refers to settlements in robinson's futuristic mars that existed outside the network of colonies controlled by the gaian authorities.

Guaranteed to raise a smile

2005-11-15T09:57:00.000+08:00

can't remember now what year it was exactly when i first heard about the eraserheads. my memories of that period are now all tangled up. the only thing i do remember today is that it was on this new fm radio station (i think it was DWLA) that featured budding local talents as well as some of the best creators of world music. don't know if it was the unique mix of local and foreign acts, or if it had something to do with the post-EDSA euphoria that made eraserheads' music then a breath of fresh air for a young ex-activist college dropout bum pinoy like me. growing up with my parents' musical icons of the 50s and 60s, the mushy and glam rock acts of the 70s, and the new wave sounds of the 80s, nothing prepared me for the new and witty eraserheads music. hearing pare ko and maling akala for the first time, i had to finally renounce my self-imposed vow of maintaining a grim, brooding demeanor. the future didn't look that bad at all.

i do remember the night i went home with my cassette tape of ultraelectromagnetic pop. played it so loud in our karaoke that i woke up my parents and got my brothers asking about my new find. don't know which actually came first, but another memory i had of that period was happily walking down morayta avenue, coming from my shitty job in malacañang. my partner had just given birth to our first daughter. i was earning some money, enough to buy a can of milk and some used books every payday. contentment was splashed all over my face as i kept humming ligaya and with a smile. when circus came out, it was pure nostalgia. i was a bum once more and stayed home most of the time taking care of my daughter. but what the heck. i also had my guitar and my song books, and my daughter and i would be spending some afternoons in our room singing alapaap, magasin and kailan. weary from all that strumming, i would then woo my little girl to sleep while reminiscing on those crazy drinking sessions at katipunan or the u.p. sunken garden with college friends.

bought my cutterpillow cassette tape in a shopping mall close to our office. i was finally able to finish my undergraduate studies, and got my first real job with an organization working with urban poor communities. coming home from a seminar with adolescent boys in this rat-infested community in manila, i would be listening to poorman's grave and huling el bimbo as i try to will away the day's depressing images from my tired mind. had a hard time hiding my surprise when i found out that some of my officemates were hob-knobbing with members of the eraserheads. when the christmas album fruitcake and the book came out, i promptly bought my copies and asked my officemates to have the book autographed by the guys. it was my first graduation gift to my daughter who now has this priceless possession standing on her table along with those harry potter and jostein gaarder books.

some months later, i was among the few obnoxious customers who kept on bothering those poor sales ladies at this record store in manila for cds of bananatype and sticker happy. i recall listening to andalusian dog and milk and money with an unexplainable sense of anticipation. i knew then that changes were fast catching up with the band. their tunes and lyrics were getting more polished but complex. gone were the edgy and raw qualities of their initial outputs. can't wait then to hear their next albums. changes soon caught up with my life. i got a new job. we moved out of my parents' house. got a dalmatian and a labrador. then came aloha milkyway, natin 99 and carbon stereoxide. critics kept harping on the new not-so-popular style of these later albums. i simply loved the new tracks' more serious, darker moods. with headphones attached to my home pc, i eagerly listened to the new songs while writing the initial drafts of my masteral thesis. and when music stores placed the eraserheads cds on sale, i decided to replace my outmoded tape collection.

epilogue: more than a decade has passed since that first encounter with the eraserheads. the guys disbanded sometime after carbon stereoxide. attempts at continuing with a female vocalist did not last long. each of the fab four has been busy with his own project since then, recording and performing with new bands and collaborators. rumors of a reunion concert have been quickly dispelled, much to the dismay of their avid fans. meanwhile, younger bands and artists have appeared on the local music scene. with the rising cost of living in manila, i've been taking on these rackets to earn extra bucks and get myself copies of releases by sandwich, cambio, the mongols, pupil and other acts formed or inspired by former members of the defunct eraserheads. and if you still haven't smiled by the time you reach this part, i think you should know that the title doesn't refer to any reaction that this entry might elicit from the reader. it's just a line from sgt. pepper's lonely hearts' club band.

postscript: bmg is coming out with a tribute album, featuring some of the newer bands covering their favorite eraserheads songs. a launching concert is scheduled on 29 november at the university of the philippines. see you there.

Bayani's urbanidad

2005-11-11T14:21:00.000+08:00

One interesting feature of words and phrases that become part of the arsenal of people in power is their effect of shifting the locus of social contention by redefining issues. Dogmatic and unimaginative critics of the status quo find themselves tongue-tied, reciting the same old lines -- unaware of or simply refusing to recognize the fact that the rug has been deceptively pulled from under their feet -- or suddenly praising things that previously embodied everything they hated. Among the enlightened Pinoys here in Manila, the first and the last were the more common reactions when Metro Manila Development Authority czar Bayani Fernando came out with "urbanidad". Fernando's theory is that all of the ills of urban areas like Manila stem from Pinoys' behavioral makeup which simply does not fit with the demands of modern city life. Hence, the need to inculcate urbanidad, which Bayani translates as "urbanity".

Urbanidad has effectively displaced social criticism about urbanization and the problems it has spawned in metropolises like Manila. Instead of government's failure to regulate the number of vehicles in the city based on the actual capacity of existing road networks, discussions and interventions have now focused on how to train undisciplined drivers and commuters in the proper use of roads. Instead of the persisting underdevelopment in the countryside, the continuing influx of poor folks from these areas, and the incapacity of government to provide basic services, people now talk of the impertinence of sidewalk vendors, drug addicts and criminals from the ever-growing squatter colonies. There is also this penchant for quick-fixes, these short-sighted engineering solutions that gloss over insights from more systemic views of the problems. Thus the pink fences and the wet rug-wielding vehicles meant to control hard-headed pedestrians. And the construction of these walls that look like facades of bright, colorful middle-class homes in order to hide the subhuman conditions of shanties behind them.

It took me a year to get my thoughts straight on this urbanidad thing. Growing up in Manila, I was able to see it transformed from an urban jungle to a hellish megalopolis of unending traffic jams, daring crimes, sprawling urban poor communities, rising mountains of garbage, and lung-killing smog. Since the time of Imelda Marcos and her cosmetic "urban beautification" campaign, I've been waiting for the day when all of these problems would somehow be solved or at least mitigated. It may have been foolish. But I was desperate. So when Bayani Fernando came along with his new pet, I held my peace. It was like being starved for so long and then forcibly fed with a completely unfamiliar, almost unpalatable dish. You just let your torturer satisfy your hunger, while hating the whole thing. The only problem is that at the end of your self-imposed ordeal, there's this bad taste lingering in your mouth. And you realize you want to puke.

Development by obfuscation

2005-11-09T15:49:00.000+08:00

My favorite author Arundhati Roy once pointed out how ordinary writers differ from people in power. Writers, especially the good ones, promote understanding of people's complex realities by using words to bridge the gulf between thoughts and experiences. People in authority, particularly those who craft all those nice-sounding policies and programs, use words to mask intent and cloud understanding. I think this holds true for powerful Pinoys today in government who have put forward this idea of "responsible mining" and how it is going to help bring about the long anticipated development of the country. These people are dangling a bone to Juan and Maria -- this possibility of mining firms suffused with civic consciousness and going about tidily with their work. So desperate Juan and Maria are now silently confused, wondering once more whether to put their trust on these people and allow mining firms to wreak havoc on what is left of the Philippines' natural environment.

Because at its core, "responsible mining" is just that: another promise meant to ensnare people's hopes and distract them from all the ill effects of mining. Even more dangerous, such idea lures people into thinking that those who stand to benefit from renewed mining operations in the country would regulate their businesses and that government could just rest on its butt while waiting for all those mining-related economic growth to trickle down to poor people in rural areas. Even as these words are being written, jesters (my apologies to all genuine entertainers out there, i do love to watch comedy shows) in the Department of Environment and Natural Resources headed by Secretary Mike Defensor seem to have already abandoned their regulatory functions. They are now like these thermostats in airconditioning systems, automatically clicking switches here and there when things get hot in the aftermath of environmental disasters, only to relax or completely forget what they were doing as soon as things cool down. Worse, these people have turned the DENR into one big promotional outfit for mining activities in the country.

I wonder what permutations, what convoluted reconceptualizations this responsible mining thing would now take in the face of the recent Rapu-Rapu mining accident in Albay. Toxic cyanide used in removing gold from its ore, and left in the mine tailings of the Australian Lafayette Mining Limited have leaked into the local waterways and contaminated the surrounding ecosystems. In one testing site, local DENR officials detected cyanide level to be about .1ppm (standard allowable level is supposed to be .05 ppm). Responsible mining's number one promotional representative, Secretary Defensor of the DENR, was telling people and local officials in Albay last April 2005 that Lafayette's operation would prove to Pinoys that responsible mining is possible and not just a figment of his creative imagination (see article in DENR website). So, what now? Maybe a "genuinely responsible mining"? Or how about "favorable conditions for responsible mining"? But in all likelihood, the recent accident, as with all the previous mining disasters in the country, would just be swept neatly under the rug of bureaucratic jargon as an "isolated incident". And after all the mandatory suspension of operations and fines have been meted out, everything should return to normal.

Last comic standing

2005-11-08T10:54:00.000+08:00

Got a million things to do. But just can't let this one pass without writing anything about it. I wonder if Secretary Mike Defensor of the Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) here in the Philippines also has an American citizenship. If he has, I'd encourage him to join this show on TV that searches for the funniest people in the United States. There's just no end to his hilarious antics in that god-forsaken government agency. He's on the front page of local dailies again for brazenly approving the re-opening of Senator Juan Ponce Enrile's logging concession in Samar. Enrile's permit to cut trees in one of the country's remaining lowland forests and centers of biodiversity was not renewed by several DENR heads before Defensor. But apparently, according to our intelligent department secretary at present, the past government moratorium was bereft of any legal basis. So, lifting the ban on Enrile's logging business now is supposed to be in consonance with Defensor's "professional and personal commitment" to restitution.

I don't think Secretary Defensor has any clear idea of what he is supposed to be doing in DENR. Or, he's just utterly confused at the moment between performing his function as DENR chief or worrying about his stalled confirmation by the Commission on Appointments, where Enrile is a member. In any case, I find his pronouncements profoundly ridiculous. Granted that the government ban was illegal (notwithstanding the fact that Enrile's logging concession falls within the strictly no-logging zone of a protected area, the Samar Island Natural Park, with its enabling act now pending in Congress), I don't think he should have stopped at that. As part of that government, he should have informed the public of the results of the DENR's supposed studies to determine the sustainable extractive capacity of the forest areas covered by the logging concession. In the first place, that was supposed to have been the main reason for the moratorium imposed by the secretaries who came before him. If Secretary Defensor has a good understanding of his agency's mandate, he should have used the results of these studies to explain to the courts how logging firms like that of Enrile (contrary to his claims) have not really been successful in sustainably managing our forests during the past decades.

While bragging about their efficient and "less destructive", "selective logging" technologies, these firms often harvested way beyond the forest's sustainable yield. Many of them have not done any genuine reforestation. Worse, they have converted what were originally diverse forest ecosystems into monoculture tree plantations. By destroying the country's forests, these Timber Licensing Agreement (TLA) holders and corporate loggers have jeopardized the lives of thousands of subsistence farmers and fishers who depend on such natural resources for their livelihoods and who are immediately affected by disasters like floods and landslides stemming from such environmental destruction. Unfortunately, Secretary Defensor must really have a tight noose around his neck these days. That's why he's rivaling both Jim Carrey and Jimmy Santos with his odiously silly acts and one-liners. Still justifying his decision to renew and extend Enrile's logging permit, he claimed that Samar's people have remained poor because they haven't allowed miners and loggers to operate in their province. Really, I think the guy would make a better comedian than a DENR secretary.

Moderating consciousness

2005-11-07T16:50:00.000+08:00

alone in my room, with its drab faded curtains and flaking walls. lying in bed, but awake. blank stares on the ceiling, tagging mundane thoughts as they flicker in my head. that's gross. kinky. forget about that one. that's stupid. there's this white thing growing, expanding on the surface of that board (dammit, had a hard time replacing it a few weeks ago). must be a new species of termite. or it may be a nest of that exotic wasp that has been attacking trees with red flowers all over manila. maybe just some form of fungus. or it may be a case of alien infestation. have to consult heinlein about it. or niven. or bova. or robinson. or even carl sagan (though he'd surely call it a hoax). wondering if they've already launched project new horizon to pluto. with my name on it. and also the names of my daughters. so now pluto has three moons. charon, you're not alone. nothing is stable now in our conception of the solar system. everything keeps on changing with every probe sent from gaia. funny though how some things seem to resist a highly fluid state. like species back here on earth. species are not immaterial, temporary states in the evolutionary process anymore. as they were thought to be in the time of darwin. they appear to be quite stable. well, in an evolutionary sense (does that make sense?). and evolution is not a permanent, gradual process. it occurs in rapid spurts. punctuated equilibria. at least that's what eldredge and gould would say (or that's how i understood them). got to paint these walls soon. and that ceiling too. people are rioting in france. i wonder how fanny and her family are doing. it's the los angeles syndrome. urban decay and disempowered minorities haunting the modern prince. i'm hungry.

Remembering the dead

2005-11-02T09:46:00.000+08:00

Inspired by the teachings of his new religious sect, my father has been passionately urging us nowadays to turn away from traditional practices of praying for the dead and going to the cemetery on All Saints' Day. "Let the dead take care of themselves," says my father. This was supposed to be the doctrine handed down by the carpenter from Nazareth to his disciples: each of us is responsible for his/her own salvation. So, these past days, it was my father's turn to stay alone at home. My mother went with my aunts to visit my uncle's and grandparents' graves somewhere north of Manila. I went to a local cemetery to visit my son's grave.

Days before, my mother told me about these plans by the city government to finally pave the "road" inside the local cemetery. I had to put road in quotes because the portion of the cemetery to which it refers is now all covered with graves. And as I walked on top of these graves, I found many of them had already been opened by the caretakers and their contents transferred to box-like compartments set against the perimeter walls of the cemetery (the poor people's graves and what they would like to call "apartments"). My son's grave is only a few inches from the edge of this planned road. So his remains would probably have to be moved also to one of these boxes in the coming days.

I paid this guy fifty pesos to clean the small grave and spruce it up with white paint. While he was going through his business, he kept telling me about all these disturbances caused by the road project and the failure of the authorities to inform the public. When I was finally alone (relatively), I lit up two candles and placed them at the foot of the grave. For the nth time, I recalled that stormy night at the neonatal intensive care unit when I held my son's hand while his undeveloped lungs desperately gasped for air. I don't know if this would pass on as prayer. But bringing up that memory whenever I have these existential angst attacks has been an automatic thing for me by now. Like a sort of a ritual.

A few breaths. This life hangs by the thinnest thread of just a few breaths. And we carry on with our sturdiest faith in such reality.

Resistance is never futile

2005-10-27T11:41:00.000+08:00

i'm not through reading this book, the algebra of infinite justice, by arundhati roy. so, technically, this is not a book review. and don't ask me what arundhati's title means. the only thing i know at this point is that infinite justice was supposed to be the original name of the united states' anti-terrorist military campaign in afghanistan. this was in retaliation to the attacks on the world trade center and the pentagon last 11 september 2001. the official position is that the phrase did not go well with followers of islam who believed that only allah can render infinite justice. so bush jr. had his operation enduring freedom. in his introduction to arundhati's book, john berger had a different hypothesis: bush and company couldn't explain what they meant by "infinite justice".

anyway, arundhati's book comes after her phenomenal success with the god of small things. i can still remember reading that book for the first time in 1999. i was dazed after the last page. it was one of those few moments in this life that left their mark on the soul. with a booker prize under her belt, arundhati went on to write three essays on nuclear testing, big dam construction, and privatization of public utilities. all controversial topics in india. these three essays, plus five other political articles are included in the algebra. in the ladies have feelings, so ... arundhati struggles to understand this tendency to differentiate arundhati the writer from arundhati the activist. i share her perplexity: nothing should prevent a writer from taking a position, even in this age of postmodern ambiguity.

which is why arundhati is still one of my favorite writers. i stand in awe at her fearless eloquence. very few writers today have such quixotic temerity to stand in the way of corporate globalization and resist its minions. and, i believe, not always in futility. in arundhati's own words, in the end of imagination: "there are plenty of warriors that i know and love, people far more valuable than myself, who go to war each day, knowing in advance that they will fail. true, they are less 'successful' in the most vulgar sense of the word, but by no means less fulfilled." for my part, i would like to say that words and stories have this uncanny ability to survive and inspire beyond the written page. especially if they were born out of real events and experiences. especially if they were crafted by someone like arundhati roy.

Selective logging is still logging

2005-10-25T09:44:00.000+08:00

A recent article in Nature (Hopkin 2005) reports on how the Amazon rainforest is being cut down at a more rapid pace than what has been previously thought. It seems that past surveys have underestimated forest loss due to selective logging. Within the top five logging states in Brazil, selective logging was found to have been responsible for the removal of around 50 million cubic meters of wood within a four-year period. What was supposed to be a more systematic and less destructive process of extracting timber accounted for the clearing of 19,800 square kilometers of forest per year. That's 3,000 square kilometers bigger than what has been lost due to large-scale clearing (for agriculture, road construction, etc.) within the same period. I can see supporters of selective logging in the Philippine Congress and the Department of Environment and Natural Resources squirming on their seats just about now.

Well, I'm sorry to say this guys, but the story gets more damning than that. Your so-called "responsible loggers" clear forests even in areas within the Amazon that have been set aside for conservation. Let me see, according to the study cited in Nature, that would be about 1,200 square kilometers of forest lands within protected areas where timber are being "selectively" cut down. Apparently, selective loggers have been quite systematic indeed with their work. That's the main reason why past researchers have not been able to easily recognize evidences of selective tree cutting in satellite images. The recent study has to develop a more sophisticated pattern-recognition computer software to spot areas where individual trees have been cut down while leaving the surrounding vegetation intact.

According to the study, selective loggers also tend to target the densest trees in the forest, often belonging to a single or a few species, that are able to retain more carbon in their biomass and thus help in regulating global climate by reducing greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Such harvesting strategy could adversely impact on the forest ecosystem, lessening the occurence of rain in the area while promoting the growth of more drought-resistant species. I can imagine my Filipino friend in Florida, who likes to call me a "wacko environmentalist", raising his objection at this point: "Hey, wait up, but aren't these drought-tolerant species also able to store more carbon in their tissues?" Well, yes, that's true my friend. But such species are also less effective in preventing soil erosion and floods, and in helping the forest recover from disturbances like logging and other forest clearing activities.

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Red planet's ranking

2005-10-24T10:14:00.000+08:00

just found out that my blog is still being ranked in pinoy top blogs. though i've not re-inserted their html code since i decided to erase it a few months ago. (that's why you won't see the pinoy top blog link anywhere on this site. so, can anybody explain to me how these guys are still able to monitor my blog?) thought then that i really don't like this whole idea of ranking blogs a la music videos on tv. a thousand and one things can influence people to visit your site (just as there are a thousand and one things that can make someone buy that album). that would not be reflected in the statistics being compiled and reported with the ranking. besides, i would be more interested in knowing what people think about the things i've written here. and there's the comments portion for that. as long as it's not a spam out to dupe me into buying something. i've also placed a site counter, so that i can monitor if people are still reading my entries.

anyway, i'm ranked 440. that's out of 623 blogs.

Eternal recurrence

2005-10-17T06:19:00.000+08:00

As the Architect in the Wachowski brothers’ film would have concluded, it was an anomaly in an otherwise perfect equation. I woke up on a Saturday morning feeling shitty. And with a terrible migraine. Felt like a vice grip was about to crush my head from the back, behind the ears. Had a tense exchange with an ex-partner the previous night about something that I was supposed to have done a long time ago but still haven’t accomplished. Thanks to my preoccupation with work, other people and a million other things. Quality time with my second daughter mercilessly cut short by a house rule that requires her to be in bed before 10 pm (even if she’s still wide awake, having nothing much to do the entire day except play and take naps). Especially when she’s spending quality time with her father.

Been worrying about and texting a dear friend who has suddenly turned melancholic and weary explaining to other friends why they shouldn’t despise me for my recent blunders. Worn out from putting up a brave front with all those terse, almost uninterested replies I’ve been getting from her the whole day. Was too tired and morose to have dinner. It was way past dinner time anyway. Had some energy left for one or two more text messages. But with no other responses forthcoming (she was probably exhausted from that day-long trip), I went to bed with an empty stomach and a waning will to go through another day. Talked to my oldest daughter in the morning and convinced her about going together to school to pay her tuition. An hour later, she told me she changed her mind and would not be coming along. Seemed then like there was no end in sight for this darkness that had befallen my existence.

In the afternoon, on a bus going home, these fictional dialogues between Nietzsche and Joseph Breuer from Irvin D. Yalom’s When Nietzsche Wept took hold of my thoughts. What if instead of immortality in some supernatural future, this life, this moment that we’re in has been happening and will continue to recur for all eternity. Every choice and action we have taken and not taken, every anxious thoughts, pain or suffering and joy or passion we have experienced, every life lived and not lived, repeating itself infinitely. You can let the “heaviness” of each decision or action and its consequences in this life drag you down like a dead weight around your neck. Or you can simply rise above it all and love life with an “unbearable lightness of being”, basking in the thought that this moment has been here before and would always be overflowing with possibilities for realizing your own liberation.

A great weight was lifted off my shoulders with that realization. The thought that I had willed this life and everything in it kept running through my mind like pictures on a roll of film and gave me comfort. Felt the whole day like a saturated sponge that was already dripping with all these anxieties, pain, sorrow, anger, hatred, confusion. Suddenly, after letting the idea of eternal recurrence possess my entire being, it felt like the sponge grew to infinite proportions. And all those feelings became mere drops in this eternal game of existence. A woman sat beside me, carrying a small pretty girl who kept on crying despite her mother’s soothing efforts. Impulsively, I touched the little girl’s hand and smiled at her. She hid her face for a while into her mother’s bosom. But she had this beautiful smile for me as soon as she emerged. She kept glancing towards my direction as her mother stood up and carried her away. Got off the bus later, ecstatic at having found a kindred spirit.

I no longer feel in common with you; the very cloud which I see beneath me, the blackness and heaviness at which I laugh – that is your thunder-cloud.
Ye look aloft when ye long for exaltation; and I look downward because I am exalted.
Who among you can at the same time laugh and be exalted?

* * *

Courageous, unconcerned, scornful, coercive – so wisdom wisheth us; she is a woman, and ever loveth only a warrior.

* * *

I should only believe in a God that would know how to dance.
And when I saw my devil, I found him serious, thorough, profound, solemn: he was the spirit of gravity – through him all things fall.
Not by wrath, but by laughter, do we slay. Come, let us slay the spirit of gravity!

Thus Spake Zarathustra
Friedrich Nietzsche