Tuesday, August 31, 2004

We spent today at the zoo. Man it was big. It was a series of hills, some were really steep. We were so tired by the end. But we saw lots of different animals: ducks, lions, tigers, pygmy hippos, a rhino, orangutans, chimps, herons, birds, zebras, meerkats, otters, penguins, etc. The kids seemed to love it. My favorite was the polar bear. He was so cute. He was chewing apart a plastic trash bin. That was his chew toy. He was HUGE.

Then in the late afternoon, we went to visit Uncle Bruce & Aunt Liz at Dalgety Bay. They have a lovely home with a gorgeous view of the river and the giant suspension bridge we rode in on. We had supper there: a giant slab of chicken, wrapped in bacon, bread with margarine ("marge"), some peas, and potatoes.

I understand Super Size Me is showing tomorrow in the Philippines. Everyone should go watch it.

Monday, August 30, 2004

We are now in full-on tourist mode.

Last night's Hives gig was terrific. A real rite of passage for me. I've never been so crushed in my life.

Today we went to the Museum of Childhood and the Writers' Museum. One of the best things that ever happened to me happened right after we left the Writers' Museum. We were walking down Royal Mile, watching all the street performers for the Fringe Festival, when someone comes up to us. Frank Cottrell Boyce. Who then introduced us to 2 of his sons. They were just killing time too, walking around. But Neva and I were flabbergasted. The man went out of his way to greet us! What a nice man. We were walking in a daze for a short while after that.

Then we saw this magnificent little juggler kid, right on Royal Mile. I swear, he was hilarious. In fact, I have proof. I taped a couple of minutes of his routine. He could juggle, but most of the audience was just there for his jokes.

Then we saw one of those human statue guys painted all in gold, but the interesting thing was, some girl in the audience (who may've known him) kind of challenged him, standing in front of him. They were locked in a staredown, and a crowd was gathering. It got to the point where some guy put a coin at the foot of the girl and everyone laughed (because you're supposed to put coins in the guy's basket; he's the performer).

Then we found the second comic book store in Edinburgh, which paled compared to Forbidden Planet, though there's one book I might return for. Then we went to a bargain bookstore, and I found a nice coffee-table size book of Guido Crepax's erotic epics for only £10. Which is about a thousand bucks, but the book was originally over £30.

I severely overestimated the amount of film to bring. As in, I brought 30 rolls. To give you an idea, I haven't changed film once. In any of my film cameras. So even my lomo, the film I'm using is the one I began back in Manila.

But at least we're in tourist mode now. I've been taking lots of pictures today.

And now I'm enjoying nutella on toast. Good stuff.

Sunday, August 29, 2004

Some sad news as I found out via email that my uncle passed away just the other day. That's 2 siblings my dad has lost in less than a year. :(

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Today Neva and I gave in and finally had our fast-food fix of the trip: a Big Tasty at McDonald's, which is basically the same patty but with different sauce. Bleh.

I watched Oldboy, which is fantastic. It just left me stunned. Director Park Chan-wook was there, he gave a short intro before the film began. After there was a Q&A, but I had to leave to interview Frank Cottrell Boyce. Neva came from his event. So I was able to meet and interview another of my heroes. Boyce wrote Welcome to Sarajevo, Hilary & Jackie, & 24 Hour Party People, among others. He was really nice and accomodating, very friendly. We ended up talking about Takeshi Kitano at one point, because he's a fan. His first book, Millions, which he was promoting at the Book Festival, was made into a film by Danny Boyle. I read the first few pages and it sounds good. In a little while we are leaving to watch The Hives.

Today is the last day of the Film Festival. :(

Saturday, August 28, 2004

TANGINA I MET CHRISTOPHER DOYLE!

He gave a fantastic, inspiring talk, living up to and exceeding the character I expected him to be. I got a super-short interview with him, some pics, some autographs (he signed my Happy Together DVD!), and one of the best feelings of the day, of this trip, of the year, was handing him Hey, Comics!. It hadn't occurred to me how serendipitous his surprise appearance at the Edinburgh Film Festival was-- first, the only DVD I've bought so far is Happy Together (because the R2 version has the one-hour documentary Buenos Aires Zero Degree), and secondly, my story in Hey, Comics! was DEDICATED TO HIM! So I showed him that, and he seemed genuinely happy, and even showed it to the director he was sitting beside (who I didn't know). And then we just HUNG OUT for like 2 hours! There was a small group of us listening to him talk, asking him questions, while he slowly nursed his beer and held court for all us rapt film geeks.

Today is my favorite day of this trip so far. :) Even though I did the least (another irony); a lot of the day was spent just waiting for Doyle to be available for an interview.

WOO-HOO!!! :)

P.S. Alia, I got an autograph for you.

Wednesday, August 25, 2004

Watched 3 great movies today, almost back-to-back: Antonia Bird's harrowing The Hamburg Cell, her first film in I think 5 years, which is going to be shown here on cable in September; a Chilean film called Machuca which is brilliant and powerful, one of the best coming-of-age films I've ever seen; and a French thriller called Hanging Offense, which is so precise it's breathtaking.

I'm lucky everything I chose to watch today was good, and inspiring in different ways. :)

Neva went to a talk given by Amos Oz.

A sudden addition to the program is Christopher Doyle giving a talk on Saturday. Got tickets already. :)

I've run out of credit, so don't be offended if I didn't get to reply to you. Which reminds me, how do I get credit?

Tuesday, August 24, 2004

Today I watched Saved!, which was very good, though had a Hollywood-ish ending. Everyone in it's good; the surprise is Macaulay Culkin. It reminded me of those films like Pretty in Pink where everyone, including the supporting cast, will one day be big. Martin Donovan's entrance is a classic. Then I went back to Forbidden Planet alone, as Neva went to a knitting class and had another Book Fest event. At Forbidden Planet I got myself some gifts. Still no comics, though I now have my eye on an art book or 2. I did get myself an issue of Giant Robot, an issue of Comic Art (which I'd never heard of, but the contents were intriguing [Crocket Johnson & Art Spiegelman features] and the production value was good), and 3 issues of The Comics Journal. And Comic Book Confidential, a documentary I first was lent by Mark Escaler back in college, only £6.

Had my lunch, which was a Pop Tart, in the park. Fed the pigeons my crumbs, and suddenly there was a whole gaggle of them around my bench.

Then I watched Alex Yang's Taipei 21, which wasn't bad, but I felt had room for improvement. Then I watched Rogue Farm, a 20-something-minute animated short from the UK, which was pretty damn good. Advertised as "the first UK anime," it was an adaptation of some sf short story. Then Neva came and picked me up, we went home for dinner, a lovely bolognaise that Rachel made, and Rachel surprised me with some gifts: the Franz Ferdinand album and a hat that plays music.

Then we had to race back to the Filmhouse, where I interviewed Taipei 21's writer/director, Alex Yang.

And good night. :)

Monday, August 23, 2004

I remember that, exactly a year ago, I didn't really have a birthday dinner; I was too excited because it was our last chance to watch Dogville at Cinemanila. Today, Dogville comes out on R1 DVD. Just a little pimple of a footnote.

Happy birthday to Bodge! And a belated happy birthday to Carlo Eustaquio and Rude Rudy!

*blogging interrupted because Neva and Rachel just burst in with a birthday torte! It tastes great! Yum! It's like a thin layer of cake, then mousse, then icing. :)*

Thank you to everyone who texted, it really meant a lot. :) We're 7 hours behind over here so I got them all on the 23rd, but who cares? It's the thought that counts. I woke up this morning to messages from my mom and Jeline. Neva woke me up with a Mirrorball shirt. :)

With the cancellation of The Beta Band gig I'm not sure what I'm going to be doing today. Neva's attending Rachel's class later this afternoon so I'll actually spend part of today all alone. Boo hoo. Nah, that's fine, actually. In high school I used to spend birthdays entirely by myself, disappearing from the house early in the morning and coming home whenever I felt. O diba? Emo before there was emo! I would walk around, commute, just do whatever. A day of reflection and thanksgiving.

Well, enough of that. I'd offer you some torte, but... :)
We just came from doing the groceries! At 10 in the evening. Huzzah! They have Maltesers ice cream bars here and they are amazing. :)

Today was mostly spent shopping, would you believe that? We got tired of events and decided to be touristy. So we went to Forbidden Planet, a famous chain of comics stores, and I went agog. I didn't really buy anything, just 2 posters, because the comics are *gasp!* cheaper back home. But they had so many wonderful books, indie books, foreign art books, shirts and posters and toys and lunchboxes and things. Then we looked at some shoes and some clothes, which were too expensive but nice to look at. Then we went to HMV looking for steals. A PS2 here is 99 pounds, so that's 10000 pesos. Is that a good price? But then you'd have to deal with it being a PAL machine, and the plug is that damn 3-pronged thing, and on and on. I have bought only one DVD while I've been here, but there are some I'm considering, including the 2-disc Special Edition of Battle Royale, the 3-disc Special Editions of Black Hawk Down and Panic Room, and Jean-Pierre Jeunet's first film (with Marc Caro), Delicatessen. There is also a 2-disc Fifth Element here.

Then we went to this discount book store where I got this nice design series of books: 9 slim volumes in a handsome slipcase. Originally 48 pounds, I got it for 5.

Yesterday we took the tour bus, and sat on the upper deck in the freezing cold wind. Did you know the Scottish invented umbrellas? They also invented income tax. We were shown the castle that was the model for Hogwarts, the small cafe where Rowling wrote the first few books, and the art school where Sean Connery posed nude to put himself through school. Also, the apartment of Alexander Graham Bell and the dwelling of the man who inspired Stevenson's The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde. All very fascinating. Oh, and Neva met Muriel Spark.

Unfortunately, we had some bad news today: The Beta Band cancelled their gig tomorrow. So not only do we have to figure out how to get a refund for our tickets, we also have no tickets for the sold out Sons & Daughters/Fiery Furnaces gig.

Blast.

Saturday, August 21, 2004

Today is our last major day for the Book Festival, which includes Jeanette Winterson in 2 hours and Alex Garland in 5. Yesterday we met and interviewed and attended an event by Iain Banks. After the signing we had to rush down 4 or 5 blocks to watch Richard "Kenny" Kenworthy of Shynola interview/rib Dougal Wilson.

In good news, we finally got an adapter that works. So now I can charge my phone, and the cameras, and Neva's laptop, and was finally able to export my pics. I am REALLY happy with some of the Massive Attack pics; one is Neva's new wallpaper. But unfortunately I can't seem to export to this PC with the internet connection. I'll figure something out.

And what is that fucking Blogger searchbar up there?! It looks like shit! I'd rather have the customised ad back. At least those were useful. And why do some blogs have it and others don't?

Friday, August 20, 2004

My feet and legs HATE me.

It's the morning after Massive Attack, and it was a terrific show. Just everything I wanted from it, and more than I expected.

Alas, we submitted requests for interviews/passes for Walter Salles events too late, and weren't able to see or attend any of The Motorcycle Diaries screenings (they were all sold out by the time we got to Edinburgh). Diaries will get a general release in theaters here at the end of the month, though. We missed Fahrenheit 9/11, which wasn't in the Festival but was in the local theaters. The day before, we watched Super Size Me and loved it, and I got to attend the Peter Biskind talk at the Book Festival, and got my book signed. :) Then we watched a collection of animated music videos that was inspiring. Yesterday, we watched an American DV indie called Dear Pillow, and then attended a talk on travel writing which included Irvine Welsh, and got our books signed. And then Massive Attack.

Angus's cousin Rachel, who lives here in the flat we're staying at, wants to watch The Charlatans so we probably will.

Ironically, while this may be the busiest I've ever been (no time for reading or music, just wake up, internet research, leave for screening, rushing to/fro events, scheduling, etc.) and it's just going to get worse, I've probably never been healthier (sleeping times: 10,11 PM- 7,8 AM; lots of walking, no soda [too expensive], almost all meals either sandwiches[homemeade]/soup[cheap!]).

I miss everyone back home. :(

Wednesday, August 18, 2004

Dammit there is SO MUCH I want to blog about but everytime I'm exhausted! This is the beginning of our second day, and we are about to leave to watch Super Size Me (at 9 AM!). I want to blog about it all in proper order, though, starting with the trip and everything. I also probably won't be able to upload the pics just yet. Our adaptor conked out so we can't charge anything just yet-- phone, laptop, cameras. Thus I also can't export the pics to the laptop and the memory card is filling up! We need to buy a new one today (outlets here are 3-pronged 240V). It's fricking cold, like Baguio in December but at 330 in the morning. ALL THE TIME.

Neva met Alan Hollinghurst yesterday. I'm going to try and meet Peter Biskind today, and hopefully Walter Salles on Thursday, right before we watch MASSIVE ATTACK! Wooh!

Saturday, August 14, 2004

Ahm'a Gooin Tae Scootland!!!

I'll be flying out in a few hours to Edinburgh, Scotland. Will be there for about a month. So don't text me unless you want it to cost 15 pesos. I can be reached at the usual email addresses or on Friendster.

Anybody who's been to Edinburgh or Amsterdam and would like to offer tips/places to go to, I'm all ears. :)

You kids behave while I'm gone!

Friday, August 13, 2004

It amuses me that I seem to have made a big deal out of deciding what book to bring on the trip. The earliest contenders were the remaining chapters of C.S. Lewis's Space Trilogy-- I recently finished Out of the Silent Planet, enjoyed it, but don't have Perelandra or That Hideous Strength. Then it fell out of favor because it's two books. A good candidate was Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, which at 700 pages will probably hold me for the whole trip. But now I can't find the edition I like. Maybe the copies were brought to the book fair. Another good candidate was my big-ass hardcover collecting all of Douglas Adams's Hitchhiker's Guide books. Especially since I finally saw the teaser trailer, I figured I should get to reading it already. But it, too, got axed when I realized I don't want to be carrying around a big-ass hardcover everywhere I go. And it won't fit snugly in my bag. So am I back to Necronomicon? What is most likely is I will shrug, say "Fuck it," and just read one of the Iain Banks books Erwin gave me to get autographed.

Now that I'm about to leave I suddenly notice all these books I want to buy. There's 2 Guardino Blacksad albums at PowerBooks. A Gahan Wilson graphic novel that looks interesting. At Fully Booked, the new edition of Paul Karasik and Dave Mazzuchelli's adaptation of Paul Auster's City of Glass. New copies of Paul Auster's City of Glass, as well as Oracle Night, which I never even heard of. Marjane Satrapi's Persepolis. Joe Sacco's Notes from a Defeatist. Posy Simmonds's Literary Life. Peter Kuper's adaptation of Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis. Neil Jordan's first novel in 10 years, Shade. The Collected Fiction of Neil Jordan, collecting 3 of his 5 novels. By Chuck Palahniuk: Fugitives & Refugees, and Non-Fiction. Michael Chabon's A Modern World & Other Stories. The new Steve Martin novel. Grrah!

By the way, they also have new copies of Chris Ware's Quimby the Mouse and the McSweeney's 13, the comics issue.

Did you know that Jude Law has a tattoo of Rorschach from Alan Moore & Dave Gibbons' Watchmen? Just a little geek factoid for ya. He wants in on Darren Aronofsky's film adaptation.

Thursday, August 12, 2004

We’re leaving on Sunday night! It’s getting exciting, and getting panicky. We went shopping for some warmer clothes yesterday, and it tired us out so much that we weren’t able to catch the Insiang screening at UP. I did however get new sneakers since we will be doing lots of walking there, and a nice new bag that has pockets that seem perfect for cameras. There is only an unfortunately ugly logo that I tried hard to remove but can’t; it’ll damage the bag.

Caught The Village last night. It’s a farce. Shyamalan’s definition of cinema seems to have exhausted itself, reached its limit, because this feels less like a film than a stunt. Personally, I wanted dinosaurs to be the creatures, and for Zatoichi to show up and teach the blind girl how to fight, but that’s just me. Unfortunately, I was able to guess almost every “surprise” and “twist,” mostly by telling Neva ridiculous jokes to pass the time. My favorite may have been “I hope Joaquin goes into the forest and then catches Shyamalan’s film crew and they all go ‘Shit! One got out!’ and strafe him with tranquilizer darts.”

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“I don’t have to shave every morning or go to the barber so I’ve got all this extra time to spend in the endless delight of being me.” – Alan Moore

Though he is a personal hero of mine and my favorite writer, I still find myself surprised at how funny he is. Check out the interview, which also has this choice excerpt: “I used to think that I was writing poetry when I was a teenager but that is a common delusion amongst teenagers. Poetry is the easiest thing to write and it’s the hardest thing to actually write well.”

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I’m excited about the new William Shatner CD, Has Been. Produced and co-written by Ben Folds. Their previous collaborations, “In Love” & “Still In Love,” from Fear of Pop’s Volume 1, are, no joke, some of my favorite songs ever (and I dearly wish for there to be further volumes of Fear of Pop, Folds’s solo side project, even if he’s effectively a solo artist already). The cover of “Common People” I linked to is from the new album. Not only is Aimee Mann one of the guest singers, but one of the songs was co-written by Nick Hornby.

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Rommel Joson has a website. Check it out.

Friday, August 06, 2004

Well, our visas just arrived the other day so I guess I can talk about this now that it looks like it's going to happen: Neva and I are going to Scotland in about a week! :) I'm pretty excited, but trying not to be because I'm afraid I'll jinx it or my karma will go bad. But I've never been to Europe, and haven't been out of the country in a good long while. '01 or '02. We will be staying in Edinburgh for about 3 weeks, then have a short stay (right now it's only 12 hours, but we're trying to figure out how to make it overnight) in Amsterdam. The whole thing, besides a family vacation for Neva, is for us to attend the Edinburgh International Arts Festival, one of the biggest, if not the, festivals of its kind in Europe. During the month of August, the entire city goes nuts because their film, music, and book festivals all take place! There's also festivals for theater, dance, and children's programming. Since Neva's stepdad is from there, they have a flat, and that's where we'll all be staying. So we're covered for lodging. We'll mostly be walking around to save on transpo fees, because EVERYTHING is expensive there. As in, we're planning to eat sandwiches and baon as much as possible because a Happy Meal goes for about 3-5 pounds, and I won't feel too good knowing that little burger is 300-500 pesos! Also, we need to save what little money we have for the events we're going to attend. Sadly, few of the events we want to go to are free. Even with the film festival, which I am dead excited about, we have to be really selective about what we're going to watch, considering carefully what's likely to come out in the Philippines, what we'll get to see on DVD, what will likely come out on pirated, etc. :) The average ticket price for a movie is 8 pounds! 800 pesos!

So please give us your travel tips! We're already stocking up on batteries, film, and medicine just in case. Anybody reading this that's been to Edinburgh, Glasgow, and Amsterdam, please recommend things to do and places to see! I know very little about these places besides the Loch Ness monster & Trainspotting (and legal weed and the red light district in Amsterdam's case) so any info would be appreciated.

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Out of the blue, Neva asked if she could read The Invisibles. This was Sunday. I was worried about it, saying there's 7 collections, will you be able to read them all before we leave? Baka mabitin ka. She's on the 7th already. Meanwhile, I've been trying to read Bone quickly but carefully, paying special attention to the detail of art and story. I started from the beginning, even if I've read Vols. 1-8, because here it all is, finally; how could I resist? It's just an utter joy to fall in love with all the characters again. When I'm at Neva's, though, I'm trying to read her copy of Craig Thompson's Carnet de Voyage, which is terrific and inspiring, especially with our upcoming trip. I really wish I could draw worth a damn, because I might've tried making something like it. It's a travel diary that he kept while touring Morocco and other countries, mainly as a tour to support Blankets, but partly to research his next graphic novel, Habibi.

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New Mirrormask pics!





Shit this movie's gonna be so great! Tentative plans are a short theatrical run in January before they go to video.

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I'm listening to !!!'s Louden Up Now while writing this, and while "Hello? Is This Thing On?" was playing I slowly got up and started dancing. That's my exercise for the day. Download it, it's good for your health.

Wednesday, August 04, 2004

Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind is amazing. You must all go out and see it, and do it soon because I think it's probably going to be playing for only a week. I love it Love It LOVE IT LOVE IT. I don't think I've reacted this strongly to a film since maybe Amelie. It further cements Charlie Kaufman's status in my eyes as the best working writer in Hollywood. Everyone in it is good, and the supporting characters' roles in the story are more significant than I expected. Jon Brion's score is perfect, and so is Ellen Kuras's soft colors. The aesthetic is also a wonderful blend: there are the clever tricks you'd expect from Gondry, but incidental in the context of a very gritty, handheld, realistic, unglossy style, which I didn't expect from him. The story is terrific: as good as I expected as regards the central relationship (Jim Carrey-Kate Winslet) but the other things they touch on are entirely welcome examinations of the technology (the temptation to abuse it, moral gray areas, repercussions and consequences, etc.) There's an aspect of it that brought to mind Vanilla Sky/Abre Los Ojos. I absolutely love that the shining, beating heart of the story is still the love story. Not the clever conceit of "what if you could erase specific people/events from your memory?" or the imaginative ways in which they depict memories "vanishing" while the subject is still occupying them. It's still about what we cherish and choose to keep even if they're painful; they're part of what made us who we are, the hammer blows that shape us. And the risks we take, even if we know the possible outcome to be traumatizing, and doing it anyway, and not caring if whether or not that's the brave choice, recognizing that for some of us it's the only choice.

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Powerbooks' annual sale has begun. There are some new editions of Haruki Murakami books you can get, and as usual, it's the time to complete your Calvin & Hobbes collections and buy whatever comics you feel are interesting. The big steal is the Tintin collections; each hardcover collects 3 stories, and are selling for something like 330 pesos, half-price. If I didn't really need to save my money right now I'd plop down the 1800 and get Vols. 2-7. Unfortunately, all Harry Potter books are only on 5% discount. I had to find out the hard way when I went to buy a copy for my godchild. I actually had to use my PowerCard because my discount would at least be 10%. I'd be more understanding if only Order of the Phoenix got the 5%, but no, it's every HP book, even the old ones. Greedy cunts. There's also this Chuck Palahniuk book called Non-Fiction, but I think it's just the UK version of his Stranger Than Fiction. Anybody have more information on this?

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Since Neva gave me 2 surprise birthday parties in a row, she couldn't possibly do it again and still have it be a surprise, so what she came up with was giving me my birthday gift 26 days in advance.



This is the Bone One Volume Edition. It is probably the deal of the year. The entire Bone saga of Jeff Smith, all 9 collections, in one volume, for only US$40. Over 1300 pages. Do you realize what a steal that is? The average price of one of the 9 collections is 17 dollars. So if you bought all 9, that'd be 153 dollars. At which price, you could almost buy 4 of the Bone One Volume Editions. It's a little smaller in size, but not as small as the manga digests you see.

I realize that the forthcoming Scholastic editions will be in color, and the typos will be cleaned up, but this is the format in which I fell in love with Bone: black and white. I'll probably be picking up the Scholastic versions anyway, since I want to see it in color. Those books will be 10 dollars apiece, so it'll still be 90 dollars total.

So get this! Please! As I understand it, it's a limited edition kind of thing, and when they sell out of it, they're not going back to print.

I love Bone, and wish I was rich enough so that I could get a copy for all my friends. It is THAT good. So the best I can do at this point is tell you all to get it, and not forget about it. At this point, Comic Quest may still have some copies. Neva got CCHQ's last one. When they get more copies I'll do my best to let everyone know.

Monday, August 02, 2004

Neva and I watched Spellbound last night, and it is marvelous, wonderful, stupendous and every other compliment I can’t think of with a short attention span. I guess it has an advantage because the spelling bee is something I can sort of relate to. It was a big thing for me (maybe not for everyone else) during grade school and one of my happiest memories in life is still winning it during 7th grade, my last chance at it, after only coming yea close since 3rd grade! It was funny, heart-warming, and, at times, heart-stopping. When you see some of the kids eliminated, the disappointment really shows and hits you almost as hard. Probably one of the most uplifting films, not just documentaries that I will see this year, or any year for that matter.

Also fantastically stupendous was Comedian, which follows Jerry Seinfeld post-Seinfeld. After he retired the biggest sitcom of all time, he set out to go back to the standup circuit, with the proviso that he would also retire all his previous material and start fresh, which is terrifyingly intimidating to stand-up comedians (one of the rules, apparently, is NEVER open with new material, and Seinfeld’s ENTIRE ACT was new material). It is dead fascinating. It also has an advantage in that I am a huge Seinfeld fan. Here you will get to see how a simple joke develops and grows into a 3-minute bit, over weeks of shows. One of the most jaw-dropping scenes is when Seinfeld actually fumbles onstage and gets mad (“Damn it, what was the point of this?”), and, amazingly, HECKLED. Some woman actually asks “Is this your first gig?” You’ll see Seinfeld worried, angry, depressed, nervous before a show, reverent to his idols Robert Klein and Bill Cosby, etc. It’s also fascinating in that there are all these celebrity cameos by the likes of Chris Rock (who raves about Cosby’s show like your average geek), Colin Quinn, Gary Shandling, Jay Leno, Bill Cosby, and Ray Romano, but they just behave like normal people shooting the shit (well, what did we expect? We’re brainwashed by the mediasphere), talking shop and catching up with each other. It’s juxtaposed with this other comedian, Orny Adams, who is still unknown but has been working the circuit and might get his big break. Before I watched Comedian I was listening to Jerry Seinfeld on Comedy, where he explains why he doesn't use profanity ("It's a shortcut to a laugh."), and in the documentary, when he's not onstage, it's a relief to see that he swears just like the rest of us.

It really is the year of the documentary, isn’t it? Neva and I have, in the last few weeks, been blown away by Errol Morris’s The Fog of War, Jacques Perrin’s Winged Migration, the aforementioned Comedian, Spellbound and Imelda; and still on our to-watch list is War Photographer and Lost in La Mancha. I really wish I was able to catch Bus 174 during Cinemanila. Margie, Quark, and Lia were able to see Fahrenheit 9/11, which I hope comes to our theaters and not just our pirated dvd sellers. Quark and Lia also saw Supersize Me (as did Lala), and Margie also saw The Corporation, whose trailers are very intriguing.
Dear me, I completely forgot to mention that there's some lovely artwork on the walls of SaGuijo, and that the upstairs is an exhibit area. *slaps forehead*

My friend Carlo Eustaquio is practically giving his paintings away for free. Get the details here. I love his work, so that offer's a steal.

Check out this cute, short strip by Joey Comeau and Kyle Cummings. Cummings is unknown to me, but I love his art. Comeau I've been a fan of since I came across A Softer World. I love his LJ, and he has a short story here and here.

And here, for all of you, but especially for Mikey, is William Shatner and Ben Folds covering Pulp's "Common People."
FAST FICTION

The first time I caught you cheating on me I ignored it.

I shouldn't say caught, really. I mean, you left your Inbox open. How could I not look? You should know better than that. Especially since you were cheating. But there it was, with that god-awful subject line: "dreaming of you."

I shouldn't have, but I closed the window. I chose to think that there was probably a perfectly good explanation why someone other than me would send you an email with that particular subject line.

But Thursday was just cruel. I mean, give me some credit. Come up with a better excuse than "My mom asked me to run some errands." Because I had just then dropped off a cake at her place and she didn't mention shit. So when I drove over and parked across the street and called you saying I was on my way, and watched whoever it was running the hell out of the place, I took pictures and followed him home. That's when you stopped hearing from me. And you'll never hear from me again.

Him neither.

But don't worry.

I'll make sure you know he's dead because of your fucking cunt.

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I wrote the above for a Fast Fiction Friday that Warren Ellis invited unpublished writers to submit to. Only rule was that it be under 200 words (mine's 199). I missed the deadline, but thought I'd put it up here.

It is very angsty, I know. So it sort of reminds me of how I wrote in high school. From my perspective, then, it must be juvenile? Still, it is inspired by this post from Michael Barrish's Oblivio, which broke my heart. I don't really read Oblivio, to be honest. Neva forced me to read the post (not that I regret it). She's been reading him since forever, and his blog was one of the ones that made her want to start her own, and then the landslide started, about two years back.

It's amazing to me that he's able to be as forthcoming and open and honest as he is. It's a very private, personal series of events, but he laid it out there. It speaks to the rapport he has with his readers, I guess. A more cynical person might say that he craves the attention, but again, his story broke my heart, and made me very, very angry. So when I saw the invite, on the same day, I wrote the above.




Remember when we still thought cheating was rare?