Reading Moratorium

No reading of books outside work until the end of the month. Got to rest eyes. Suddenly became nearly blind the previous night. Don't want to wear glasses.

Joker

I don't want to kill you! What would I do without you? Go back to ripping off mob dealers? No, no, no! No. You...you...complete me.



Archived--for now, at least. Dropped by a studio and had a new photo taken. --->
(Ugh. All these commas in the proper place eight hours every day makes me want to be some community scribbler in the Stone Age.)

Dynamo

From last-minute replacement to scene stealer. Cyrus Baguio. Superstar.

Photo from PBA Online.

Way to go, Team Pilipinas!

This is just not me, but when you share a TV with college kids, you just have to be stuck with b TV--and get hooked.

Tortured in Santo Domingo

This should have been titled Oscar's Tragic Quest for Pussy. In expletive-laden fragments, Junot Diaz equates love with lust.

Another thing that I don't find endearing is Diaz's portrayal of Dominican Republic. He sets the country's political turmoil as the background of his story. Abuse of power, oppression, and torture come aplenty in the lives of the characters. However, instead of making a point against those ills, Diaz glamorizes them. The book lacks compassion.

American critics, though, couldn't rave enough about Oscar. It won the Pulitzer and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Michiko Kakutani of the New York Times, a b--tch in her own right, says "[Diaz has] written a book that decisively establishes him as one of contemporary fiction's most distinctive and irresistible new voices." Distinctive? I see the poetic arrangement of words less as a skill than as a handicap common to non-native English writers. As a reader who is non-English, I appreciate more a prose that glides smoothly in the tongue.

How the Sto. Niño became a dancing doll

Here's Sinug, the grand prize winner of Sinulog 2008 Short Film Festival. Don't mind my anti-Catholic title there. This film is visually dazzling (daw Slumdog).

Friendster deleted

I have just deleted my Friendster account. I long wanted to do it, but couldn't find the delete button. Slow me, I figured to Yahoo! the process just a minute ago. As a remembrance, I'm saving here my primary photo.

Facebooking

I'm on Facebook now. I found out there's a blog there--"Notes" to be more accurate. I might or might not permanently move there.

Tell me your secrets

Every time I surf the net, I almost always visit PostSecret. The postcard above caught my attention a while ago. But it's not the card that sounds so true for me. It's this e-mailed response:

I wish I could believe in God because I feel like I am missing out on a lot of potential happiness or comfort. Unfortunately, as good as it may make me feel in some ways, the part of me that I respect most is the part of me that won't allow me to believe.

Good-bye, Francis

You made me laugh,
you made me cry,
you made me believe.

You made me want to write.

Now you're with Eugene and Oliver
who when you were five
you had to fed with water and sugar
as they wailed and wailed
with hunger
in their prams.

You played the role of the father
that they had yet didn't have
but a brother's tiny hands
could only steal bananas.

Now you're in a Limerick
without the damp
without a River Shannon
that takes little twin boys away.

Thank you, Frank
and farewell.

The ship is sinking

It's Monday, and we have no work! Yahoo! It rained and a pipe in our building leaked. We had mini waterfalls around us. Several computers got wet and grounded. The clinic transformed itself into a a bathroom cubicle with a full-blast shower. So some 150 of us employees were ordered to go to the lobby.

The place was noisy and jam-packed. The floor was wet. Water dripped heavily from the stairs. Poseidon and Titanic come to mind. Incidentally, the design of our building is similar to that of a ship--leaning, whitewashed walls; curved ceiling; lightweight materials.

We hushed each other when a manager stood up in a railing to give an announcement. I thought he would say, "The ship is sinking, group yourselves into . . ." Instead, he told us to go home.

I'm happy I can start reading Junot Diaz's The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. But I'm also worried for the company. It's a significant loss on income and productivity. But well, I could use a rest day.

Dragging

I watched Harry Potter 6 yesterday. There isn't much to talk about it. I've said it all in the title of this post.

I don't know why I never enjoyed the movies as much as I enjoyed the books. Heck, I didn't just enjoy the books. I was bowled over by them, as though J. K. Rowling cast a wand at me and shouted, "Stupefy!"

The first movie was actually the reason why I was among the last of the muggles to be bewitched by the Potter series. Without being able to read the book, I watched the first movie in the cinema--and didn't like it. For years, I never felt the urge to read the book. I didnt watch the succeeding movies too. Even when they were shown on HBO, I was never able to sit all throughout any of them.

Then one ordinary afternoon in college, about seven years later, I rediscovered the chosen one, in the printed pages. Weird, I can no longer remember who owns that book and how I came across it.

After reading the first book, I couldn't get enough of Harry Potter. So I had a reading marathon, straight to the seventh book. And the nice thing about it was, all the books were just borrowed from friends and friends of friends.

Brainless

The intellectual's Slumdog Millionaire

Morbid week

Book I've read: The Murderer Next Door. It says everyone of us is capable of killing. We evolved that way. Humans kill in order to survive. Everyone of us have homicidal thoughts; some are just pushed to the edge that's why they acted on their instinct. But the most interesting information the psychologist author says is that most murderers are actually ordinary people, not psychopaths you see in slasher movies. You are safer with Hannibal than with the person beside you right now.

You might misinterpret me. I might not able to capture in the words above the essence of the book. But I tell you, it's good. The writing isn't brilliant or gripping, but reading the grim facts of life in plain and simple--albeit bland--English is worth your while. The case the author makes is so simple it makes sense. Some people though would disagree with him--especially those who believe that man is created in the image and likeness of some supreme being.

Book I'm editing: Technician's Guide to Posmortem Examination. Do I have to explain why?

Book I'm about to read: The Mammoth Book of Crime Scene Investigation. It features over thirty real-life crime scene investigations solved by forensics.

Got to go and start eating this book. It's weekend! Got no work! I can read what I want, not what I'm assigned to read. Yahoo! I've never appreciated weekends this much.

Daylight

I've got a word accepted in the open dictionary of Merriam-Webster Online.

















Ssssshhhhh. This means I'm using the (limited) internet access of my PC at the office for a non-work-related activity.

I [heart] Cebu

In my second or third day in this city, some friends back home texted me asking how I was doing. I replied, "I love this place, and I think it's going to love me back." Six weeks later, I'm still feeling the same. Affection, though, is not really the right term for what I feel for Cebu. "Comfortable" is more like it. When I came here, I never felt apprehension or any negative feeling. It was like walking to the next corner of a familiar neighborhood, even though I'd never been here before.

I think age 23--last year--was the worst year of my life. This year is going to be the best--and it will happen here.

Holier than man

I've just finished Jiang Rong's Wolf Totem, and my nose is still clogged up. The book is supposed to be bloodcurling, rugged, and hence masculine, but tears would just well up in my eyes every thirty pages or so.

This book is ultra special. This is the first book I bought here in Cebu, and I bought it with the check PDI sent me for "Worth a million." But Totem occupies my current most-favorite list not because of those awful high school-y reasons, but because of the author's sheer masterful storytelling. It's a novel that reads more like an action-packed socio-politico-cultural documentary. I can only agree with San Francisco Chronicle, which describes it as "an intellectual adventure story . . . Five hundred bloody and instructive pages later, you just want to stand up and howl!"

Wolves now are the holiest creatures for me, even holier than human beings. Like the nomadic Mongols in China (or, at least when modernity has not yet destroyed their practices), I want a sky-burial when I die. I'd like my corpse to be taken to the woods, where wolves will eat my flesh and bring my soul to the grassland god, Tengger.

Judiciously

After the "Syudi Rolly" episode (Yes, it is almost history. I'm no longer rendering so much overtime work. Got burnt out after one week--one week!), I'm stuck with another monicker: Judiciously.

No, it doesn't have anything to do with my second name (Jude). It has something to do with what I said during our monthly calibration (That's "meeting" for you.) As it happens, each new editor are compelled to ask at least one question. So I made one about introductory phrases. I told them I'm confused whether to put a comma (an issue so significant it could be the solution to the Arab-Israeli conflict) or not in some introductory phrases. "So what I do," I said, "is I do it judiciously--"

An uproar followed, with some jumping at the nearest PC and acting as though they're checking the word out in Merriam-Webster online. When the noise died down, some reviewers answered my question--and each wickedly used "judiciously" at least once. Now they seem to be taking every chance to tease me with the word.

That's it. Next time I've got to pick my words more, well, judiciously.

Syudi Roll-e

I'm becoming so addicted to my work that some of my officemates have given my name a new definition. Roll-e, in their dictionary, means "someone who works without eating." So when break comes and someone has not yet logged off from his workstation, the others would tell him, "Syudi (Don't be), Roll-e." (I've been assuming syudi is a Cebuano word, but as I am writing this, I realize it may be gay lingo.)

They invented the term, though, out of misconception. I eat, of course. It's just that in my first day of live work, I told my fellow newbies to go ahead for lunch. I decided later not to follow them outside the building and ate instead at the office pantry. When they came back inside, I was already back in my cubicle, hunched in front the PC. And when the afternoon break came, I didn't go out at all. I told them what really happened a day or two later, but the Roll-e definition had caught on.

With the way I've been holed up in my cubicle, however, I might as well not be eating. My office hours is from nine in the morning down to six in the afternoon, but I stay until nine or ten in the evening. Some older officemates have been warning me about being burned out, but I'm not really trying to kill myself or anything. I'm just indulging myself while I'm still fascinated with my job.

But if you think I'm being too workaholic, wait till you meet my officemate M. She does early OT, from eight to nine a.m., and she stays late in the evening. I always leave the office ahead of her. Once last week, she even stayed until one in the morning.

What we do is more because of passion for our work than for more OT pay. We only get paid for OT until nine in the evening, and last week, my plotted schedule was only up to eight p.m. The extra hours is charity work. I don't mind not being paid for those hours. I enjoy my work and I learn a lot. It's both challenging and fulfilling. I'm a fish in water. I'm a carabao in a muddy pond. I get nourished more by my work than by food.

Wickedly funny

These blogs have been distracting me lately:

Good Times Manila
Do you know that Mel Tiangco can make her vagina do the news and Jessica Soho has been mistaken for a humpback whale while scuba diving? Check out the latest "news" from this site.


Tunay na Lalake
What do Undertaker, tarsiers, and Annabelle Rama have in common? They're "lalake" in the truest sense of the word. How about Jinggoy Estrada, Chito Miranda, and Arnold Schwarzenegger? They're not "lalake" enough. For enlightening explanations, visit this blog.

The Professional Heckler
Manny Villar: Ito ang C5 road. Ang hindi alam ng marami, ang aking lola, si Apo Matea ay pumasok na construction worker habang itinatayo ang C5. For more quotable quotes, come here.

My atheism

Last week, when I filled out my personal data sheet for my company's records, I wrote down a simple word for the "Religion" entry: "None."

From hereon, I'm going to do the same in all my public or legal documents. I'm going to be more open with my atheism.

Yes, I don't believe in G--. I don't believe in heaven or hell. I don't believe that men have a soul. I believe that when we die, we're gone forever.

No, I'm not into occult. I don't worship the devil--I don't believe such a thing or entity or whatever exists. I don't believe in ghosts and zombies and paranormal stuff.

Yes, I believe in science and reason and logic. Anything that cannot be supported by that is a sham for me.

No, I don't hate religion. It doesn't work for me, but I respect other people if they get their strength from it.

I have good friends who are staunch Christians. And they will remain my friends so long as they don't force me to accept their faith and they don't tell me that I'll go to hell if I don't.

______

Image from Wikipedia: The Greek word αθεοι (atheoi), as it appears in the Epistle to the Ephesians (2:12) on an early 3rd-century papyrus. It is usually translated into English as "[those who are] without God".

What you say

What you say about me will affect not how I see myself but how I see you.

This cross smells fishy

Nearly a month ago, in my second or third day here in Cebu, a friend brought me to the kiosk housing the famous Magellan's Cross. The cross looks like cuts of ordinary plywood pieced together. The inside part seems hollow. Then I read these words engraved in the pink stone on the base of the "relic":

This Cross of Tindalo Wood

Encases the Original Cross Planted

By Ferdinand Magellan On This Very Site

April 21, 1521

Right away, I sensed something wrong. The original cross was made of wood, but obviously, no effort had been made to cure it or keep it in a special environment. So how was it able to survive five centuries?

I didn't dwell much on the thought, though, because I was more surprised by the disorganized arrangement of the Basilica Minore del Santo Niño and its surrounding buildings. One bad architecture sits cramped beside another. The church has been under a long succession of curates, and it seemed to me that each one of them decided to commission an additonal structure according to his (tasteless) wishes.

The stinky information about the cross came into my mind again yesterday, when I came across this article from the Philippine Daily Inquirer. My, was my suspicion right!

The authority in charge of the place is deceiving the public. The fact that it concerns a religious object makes the act all the more shameful. And the sad thing is that there is no need for it. For a true pilgrim, the spot should be holy enough even without the very cross Magellan erected.

Midnight all throughout

Twilight

Stephenie Meyer

Borrowed from someone

The premise is interesting enough: vegetarian (sort of) vampire boy falls deadly in love with sweet-smelling warm-blooded girl. The fascinating element, however, ends there. The book has its charms, but it simply pales in comparison to Harry Potter when it comes to wit and to Interview with the Vampire when it comes to depth. As to the kilig factor, well, a bookworm like me is not qualified to judge. But I guess Helen Meriz, the dead Filipino romance writer, could do it better than Stephenie Meyer.

The novel that should never end

The Pillars of the Earth
Ken Follett
National Bookstore-Ayala Mall
P335

The joy of reading this book is in being with the characters in every twist and turn of their tangled fates. Every single page is enthralling. Every twenty pages or so has a climax. Follett describes action in a clear and taut language that you feel caught in the middle of it and whatever peril there is on the character's life is also a peril on yours.

There is really no need for this story to have a major finale. So it is sad that Follett packs the final part with resolutions. The conventional manner of ending a novel doesn't work so well with Pillars because its plot is not built up like a conventional novel's. It is more like a soap opera composed of breathtaking, semi-independent episodes.

Reading a conventional novel is like treading a gigantic inclined plane; you rise higher and higher until you reach the end of the plane--the climax. But that's not the end of the journey yet. In the trip to the last page, you take a steady slide on a steep slope. Reading Pillars, meanwhile, is like having a trip over a long straight queue of hills. (It's 900-plus pages.) The construction of the cathedral, where the story revolves,should naturally come to an end; but the struggles of the characters should not.

Selfish love justified

Drowning Ruth
Christina Schwartz
Bought for P49 at Book Sale-SM

This book is a heart-tugging justification of selfish love. It contradicts my personal views on family and relationships, but Christina Schwartz weaves the story deftly that it only seems fitting for the novel to end the way it does.

Reading this made me appreciate more the beauty of nonlinear narration, which Donna Tartt employs more effectively in The Secret History.