Year: 2010

synecdoche, this place

Synecdoche, New York

Photo from Amazon

Quotes from IMDB

Written and directed by Charlie Kaufman, which was enough to make me want to see this film. Just dove into it not knowing the story, and not knowing how to see the story. A mistake.This is a film where the edges blur, where dream and reality merge and interact. I was a stubborn viewer; I kept insisting that everything I saw onscreen was literal. And so the images came and I just filed them away as frustrating and inaccessible. One character lives in a house that is eternally on fire, and I kept thinking “fireplace gone awry” and “arson” and finally, “what the fuck?” Only after I saw the film did I realize I was looking at it the wrong way. It is a dream. It is a view of a life that looks in places other films avoid – from a bloody stool to a man’s many neuroses. It is a synecdoche – a part for a whole, a life representative of other lives. (“What was once before you – an exciting, mysterious future – is now behind you. Lived; understood; disappointing. You realize you are not special. You have struggled into existence, and are now slipping silently out of it. This is everyone’s experience. Every single one. The specifics hardly matter. Everyone’s everyone. So you are Adele, Hazel, Claire, Olive. You are Ellen.”)

Only in looking back did I fully realize how brutal this film is, how big and incredible and haunting and ambitious. And frightening. And sad. It is a story of a life (“As the people who adore you stop adoring you; as they die; as they move on; as you shed them; as you shed your beauty; your youth; as the world forgets you; as you recognize your transience; as you begin to lose your characteristics one by one; as you learn there is no-one watching you, and there never was, you think only about driving – not coming from any place; not arriving any place. Just driving, counting off time. Now you are here, at 7:43. Now you are here, at 7:44. Now you are…Gone.”) – a life I didn’t want to have, but probably had or will have (for don’t we live many lives, don’t we suffer and un-suffer from many crippling sadnesses?), even for just a moment or two.

In the Loop

A comedy about the bureaucracy and sound bites and leaks and spins, and  how a single word in an interview (“unforeseeable”) can lead to war . Ah, politics. Also says something about climbing the mountain of conflict, like a Nazi Julie Andrews. Really smart writing.

Percy Jackson and the Lightning Thief

Stupid film. Didn’t even bother to finish this.

new story

I just heard from Lit Ed Sarge Lacuesta that my story “Sand, Crushed Shells, Chicken Feathers” will be appearing in the March 22 issue of the Philippines Free Press. Based in part on my grandmother’s witchcraft stories, and in part on a drug addiction docu I saw some years ago. (Yes you read that right.) Do buy a copy! :)

* * *

I wasn’t able to attend the Gaiman event (work and all), but hey congrats to the winners! Rocket Kapre’s got a partial winner list here. Here’s a full list from Bibliophile Stalker.

I felt bad for Manix’s disqualification. I mean, Fully Booked did take a looooong time to announce the winners.

But anyway.

temporal

I get bored a lot lately. I’m struggling with this story I’m trying to finish – I’d write continuously and just hit a brick wall. It’s infuriating. But then – Lent is coming, which means more time to sleep and be with the family in Bulacan. More time to write. Also, the boyfriend and I are celebrating five months today. That doesn’t sound too bad.

And I found this poem! Stunning. Boredom brings great things. Sometimes.

Source.

New York City as Temporal Measurement*

* This is not to be confused with the smallest measurement of time.

Hossannah Asuncion

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Policy mandates a period of 30 seconds for subway doors to remain open to allow for the flush of entering and exiting people. An observational study has shown, though, that the doors remain open an average of 12 seconds. This is enough time for two people in love to separate, but as was one instance on May 18, 2007, it is not enough time to reunite.

______

You know you are close to the end when your train pulls into the station with droplets of rain clinging to its sides.

______

Ways we successfully pass time from Manhattan to Queens, Queens to Brooklyn, Brooklyn to Brooklyn:

The NYT crossword puzzle (Wednesday).

Cat Power’s rendition of “Silver Stallion.” (Repeat as necessary.)

A game of “Who would you eat? Who would you fuck?”

If, by chance, you have a moment to love something, anything, with heartbreak, choose
to do so. Exercise, though, what is advised and advised and advised as caution—
consider the consequences of such seconds.

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Tapping the face of your father’s watch will not stop you from disappointing him today. You will do so again tomorrow. And the day after.

______

stories galore

It’s true: gorgeous stories can save us from the atrocious heat. (I went home to Bulacan this weekend, and several rice fields had turned brown. Depressing. I’ve never seen anything like it in the twenty or so years I’ve lived in the province. At home I had one glass of halu-halo after another. Bless my parents.)

Up in the Air

Saw the film weeks ago. (Late review is late.) Watched it knowing absolutely nothing about the story. And what pay-off.

Julie & Julia

Great food, but Meryl Streep’s performance is exceptionally delicious. Amy Adams does loss and despair quite well. Oh those sad eyes.

According to the film, Julia Child (Streep’s character) didn’t even know how to boil an egg when she got married. So I can study this stuff? So I have hope? :D

Princess and the Frog

I watched this one with my siblings. How lovely (and clever) to set the story in New Orleans! Great music, and hello 2D glad to have you back. Lookin’ good. :)

Avenue Q

Exactly what I needed to start the week! Princeton (Felix Rivera) wonders what he can do “with a B.A. in English” and ends up renting a place on Avenue Q as he tries to figure out what to do with his life. Sesame Street on meth, y’all. (Seriously: puppet sex = day is made.) Frenchie Dy (Christmas Eve) at times finds it hard to maintain the Japanese accent, but I still enjoyed the performances. “Special” is one of my favorite songs on the soundtrack (I heard the songs first before seeing the musical – seeing it is waaaay better), and thank you Rachel Alejandro (Kate Monster/ Lucy T. Slut) for nailing it. Bravo! :D

Also starring Aiza Seguerra, Joel Trinidad, Calvin Millado, and Thea Tadiar. Showing at the Carlos Romulo Auditorium inside the RCBC Plaza.

Here’s a few photos with Felix Rivera and Lucy T. Slut’s boobies. :)

Later, dinner at Thai restaurant Oody’s and Cold Rock ice cream at Greenbelt. I loved Oody’s food. Flavorful, and inexpensive. I’d eat there again.

a poem for your thoughts

Photo from Tumblr. She’s pretty eee. ♥

Stressing over not writing (as in, Oh my god why am I not writing) is starting to become…stressful, and so I’ll stop worrying about it for now. I’m taking a break! I’ll watch DVDs! And eat! A lot! Read books and think and be peaceful. Lovely. Lovely plan.

Here, read a beautiful poem from Dora Malech while I gather my wits.

Source.

Let Me Explain
by Dora Malech

Spring, and the tulips urged me
stick to schedule, flower furiously.
I asked for mountains but settled
for some flood-buckled linoleum.
Air was the only sure thing
and even she put up a fight.
I called my eyes near-sighted,
my hands near misses, my arms
close calls, my face old hat,
my head a bluff and raised
my body, a wishing machine.
Stars, thanked. Days, numbered.
I wore a coat because you can’t trust
weather and I looked like rain.

a bee in the newsroom

And everybody got free sundaes! :D

Also saw Claire again (she’s there in the third photo), former intern, current Jollibee PR team member, who looked impossibly thin. I mean Claire WHY. (LOL.)

old alice and old boy

Alice in Wonderland

I remember Alice in Wonderland as a series of bizarre vignettes, but dammit, Tim Burton wants a plot. And so spacey young lady Alice runs away from her engagement party and falls down the rabbit hole. Again. Or maybe not? Some of the creatures of Wonderland insist she is “not the right Alice”. What is going on? Burton uses the safe and familiar structure of evil monarch + rebellion + prophecy of an outside champion + slaying of a monster + rightful monarch + return. Newcomer Mia Wasikowska as Alice is surprisingly effective, and Helena Bonham-Carter (“Her name is Um! IDIOOOOT!”) and Johnny Depp are just marvelous. Also, Anne Hathaway cracks me up as the White Queen. Love the music, the costume, the colors, the look. It’s quite an enjoyable take on the tale.

Photo from cgnews

Oldboy

We see a drunk man in a police station annoying the hell out of the officers keeping an eye on him. A friend bails him out. The man uses a phone booth to call his daughter and wish her a happy birthday. His friend takes the receiver as the man waits outside in the rain. After the phone call, his friend steps out of the booth, only to find that the man has disappeared from the sidewalk.

The man is named Oh Dae-Su. He finds himself imprisoned in a room. How long, he asks  a stranger who slides his food through a hole in his door. He has been kept there for two months, he says. How many months more?

He is kept inside that room for 15 years.

Why?

So many things happening in a little under two hours. Boy, this is an exhausting watch. I  like the story and the frenetic pace of the film, but I don’t think I can watch this again. You’ll know what I mean, once you see this.