Sorry, but Hulk sucks. Stop now if you don’t want to bump into any spoilers.

I was very, very, VERY disappointed with the film. Two things to consider with any narrative art: style and story. Here, story’s not so bad. Not particularly good, either. But man, the style just sucked. Horribly. The transitions were SO annoying. I actually know someone who thinks that it’s the strength of the film, and I just look at him and want to clock him on the head. If you’re going to try to get us to invest in a serious story, then TREAT YOUR STORY SERIOUSLY. Don’t fuck around with editing techniques that constantly pull your audience out of the story and remind them every ten seconds that you’re watching a movie. And not just any movie, but a COMIC BOOK MOVIE. Ang Lee, what the fuck happened to you? I know you know how to tell a story. But this, I don’t know what this is... even if we forget the horrible transitions, the structure really needed a good going-over. They fight, run, time for some introspection, oops, time to fight again, now run, and then another spot of down time, and then another fight... didn’t we go through this with Matrix Reloaded? What was with that scene in the end where father and son meet bathed in bright white light and Daddy’s raving like a lunatic? Nick Nolte’s character was so one-dimensional, you can’t sympathize when he confesses to killing his wife. And when Ang inserts that shot of him kissing baby Bruce at the end it’s just a case of too little, too late, who the fuck gives a damn? The accident scene where Bruce gets the gamma radiation was so Undramatic. I mean, he gets solarized, for God’s sakes. If you’ve ever played with your camera or photoshop, solarization isn’t exactly an impressive effect. Then the constant cuts to molecular-level agitation. Hulk hiding in a closet like some boogeyman. The lake climax was a disaster for me. Daddy talks to Bruce underwater? Then he expands to some balloon above the lake that’s projecting 2D memories on its sides in a 1.83:1 aspect ratio? Man, it’s just thisclose above Daredevil. Oh, and who can forget the explosion that froze Josh Lucas into an outlined 2-dimensional figure? For a second I thought I was watching Austin Powers or something.

Ahh... most of my anger really comes from being disappointed. I mean, $120 million budget, Ang Lee directing, story by James Schamus... what happened? Is Danny Elfman the go-to guy for superhero film scores now? And did they really have to use the comic book font for the title credits?

Surprisingly, the best superhero film of the summer (so far, though I doubt LXG will unseat this) is fucking Charlie’s Angels: Full Throttle. It’s fun, enjoyable, with all the gratuituous cheesecake shots, decent jabs at comedy, clever use of pop music, and more effective action scenes than Reloaded (and that’s saying something). Of course, don’t bother looking for a story, just be glad Crispin Glover’s back. And they’ve got superpowers.

ADDED: Sorry, I forgot all about X2, still the best superhero film of the summer. It's just my brain was numbed to submission by the general disappointment of Reloaded and Hulk that it immediately attached itself to Charlie's Angels as manna from heaven.

Well, the results are in: health went first, with sanity a close second. I have a bad cold, the throat went nuts recently, swollen to the point that I had difficulty swallowing. Worst of all, I almost threw up on the set of Marilou Diaz-Abaya's Moral Ngayon last Monday. I had a bad headache and just general nausea from lack of sleep and oxygen, and being under hot lights (we were extras). Also had a near-brush with fever that I was thankfully able to shake off. Yesterday I met with Lyndon, and spent the whole afternoon jamming on the storyline to Big Thing. It was a lot of fun. I'm less scared of it now. We surprised ourselves with the scenes that we came up with, and at the very least I think that they're hilarious and fun. Chris laughed when I told him about them when he visited, so that's a good sign. Also wrote a second storyline that's more what I want to do with Big Thing, but it's a gamble. I don't know if Viva will like it. Either way, both storylines are with them now, as well as a character sheet, and they said they'd give us feedback as soon as tomorrow. Fingers crossed.

I can't believe the last film I saw was Sanib. Still have yet to see Hulk.

I'm a little sick. My throat feels terrible and I have a cold, which is not good. I need rest but it's probably not forthcoming for a while. Progress on Keka proceeds apace, and production on First Time has begun. Have taken on another project that will probably break my back. It's a Big Thing, supposedly, but on a Very Tight Schedule. As in the storyline is due on Wednesday, and a full script in roughly two weeks. So we'll see what goes first: my health or my sanity. My readings document is already in the 250+ page range. It'll probably get worse before it gets any better. I actually don't have time to see Hulk. Today was Fete de la Musique (and Chris's birthday); I wish I was in better health to properly appreciate it. Finally got to see Cambio live, and hear more than one song, and they're great. The best of luck to 'em. Also got to see the Itchyworms! after a long time. Still great. Have to do research on Big Thing, which is almost impossible because of the Very Tight Schedule. Should be fun, but is equally scary. I'm rambling, aren't I? This is what happens when you don't sleep much, I guess. I haven't been this busy since junior year, probably. Only got to see 6 films at the French Film Festival this year. Usually I almost get to see everything. But what can I say? I can't think of a better reason to be so busy: I'm working, in however small the capacity, on movies. Only thing that could beat that right now is traveling to Northampton to meet Alan Moore.

It's amusing that for the past two weeks there have been no new pirated DVDs, not because our PNP or VRB or whoever it is whose job it is have been effective at raiding, rounding up, and putting a stop to them, but because Malaysia's been cracking down on its pirates, and that's where we apparently get all our swag from.

--

I've been on a little Alan Moore trip lately. Which doesn't happen too often, because being a big fan (he IS my favorite writer, after all) I tend to get his works as soon as they come out, unless I'm particularly cash-strapped, or opt to wait for the inevitable collection. It just so happens, though, that this summer a number of his works are coming out: some new, but most are older works being re-published, or collected for the first time. For example, since Stardust I've slowly been working through Alan Moore: Portrait of an Extraordinary Gentleman, which is actually a tribute book. A large number of people in the comics industry contributed articles, anecdotes, reminiscences, artwork, short stories, etc. about the man and his works, all told adding up to 352 pages. All proceeds go to Alzheimer's charities, and the book is a gift to Moore on the occasion of his turning 50 (this November). The book also boasts a new interview, a rare short story he wrote for Dame Darcy to illustrate in her own book Meatcake, and a lengthy correspondence with Cerebus creator Dave Sim that originally appeared in the back pages of 4 issues of Cerebus, and largely concerned itself with From Hell, Moore's grandest opus thus far. A little frustrating is the fact that I own some of these rarities: the Cerebus issues and Meatcake short story I special-ordered from a friend of mine. Ah, well, I should be glad that more people get to read it now. The pieces that have touched me most in the book are the ones that don't discuss Moore's works, or his status as a magus, but just how he is as a human being.

Because the man seems to be a saint. I'm sure he's got his negative qualities, as do we all, but for a writer of his stature and popularity, it's surprising how down-to-earth he is, how amiable and kind and friendly and… well, just nice. Joel Meadows, a journalist, talks about how Moore was nice enough to pick him up at the train station, and fed him at his favorite Italian restaurant (where he apparently takes all press), and even escorted him back to the train station when it was time to leave. One cartoonist discusses how he met Moore, his idol, at a convention, and was floored when Moore recognized his name. It seems that Moore knew his name from the few fanzines that the cartoonist had work published in. Which you don't expect the most famous comic writer of this age to keep abreast of. Not only that, a few weeks later an editor called up the cartoonist for some work, and when he asked who recommended him, the editor informed him that it was Moore. So Moore actually gave him his start in professional comics, even though he hardly knew the man. My favorite story is probably John Higgins's, though. Higgins is probably best known for being the colorist of Watchmen and Batman: The Killing Joke. Higgins relates how, even though he knew he was "just" the colorist and wouldn't be recognized on the same level as Moore and Watchmen illustrator Dave Gibbons, they nonetheless treated him as an equal during meetings to discuss the book: they valued his input, listened to his suggestions, etc. A complete absence of ego and pretension. But he relates this personal story as well: what he will never forget, he says, is the image of Moore, at the height of his fame, attending a mid-80s San Diego Comic Convention, the biggest of its kind in North America. He was wearing a white pin-striped suit, was an imposing figure (being well over 6 feet tall), and was the star attraction of the Con, but was most concerned and preoccupied with keeping a 6-year-old girl from being bored. He was trying to regale her with stories and other things she might find in comic books. What made it personal for Higgins was that the 6-year-old was his daughter.

Another Suburban Romance also came out last week, and it's an adaptation of some of his songs into comics stories. For completists only, really. The wordplay alone is worth it for those hardcore fans, though, among whom I certainly number.

Writing For Comics came out the same time, and it collects a 4-part essay he'd written in the mid-80s, with a new essay appraising the work after a 15-year span. I read it tonight and the new essay is particularly inspiring. It really gave me a lot to think about, and really asks the important questions anyone in any creative field should think about. He writes about the dangers of stagnation and complacency in your work, actually rails against the establishment of a recognizable style because they become traps. Fascinating.

And just last night I got my hands on the 5th collection of his Swamp Thing run, Earth to Earth, which had moments where I had to put the book down and silently enjoy what I'd just read because I wanted to stand up and cheer. It reminded me of when I first read V For Vendetta. I wait with bated breath for the 6th, and last, collection, but it's due at the end of July yet.

So I'm going through the motions of falling in love with my favorite writer all over again, which I think should happen every now and then. It's healthy. It makes you happy to be alive, if only to read such great works.

Still to come this summer are a new, American edition of his one and only novel, Voice of the Fire; a re-imagining of one of his seminal indie 80s works, The Mirror of Love; the second collection of his Supreme run; a collection of his various DC stories; another book celebrating his career, boasting a new interview and some other rare short works; and the coup de gras: a handsome new edition of the original League of Extraordinary Gentlemen mini-series, just in time for the sure-to-disappoint summer blockbuster.

Oh, and Stardust was wonderful. Not as epic as I expected it to be, but that's not a complaint, just an observation. Brought a tear to my eye at the end. Probably my favorite of his prose works post-Sandman so far. Or have I mentioned this before? I'm starting to forget things...

Last Sunday, on the ride home from my uncle's birthday, I conceived a plot. A story idea formed in my head, and it was good enough to me that it made me happy. This should happen now and then, if one fancies oneself a storyteller, but for the life of me I couldn't remember the last time. It has no ending, and it's difficult to come up with one that isn't either a) cliché or b) predictable, so it's a challenge. But one I welcome wholeheartedly. The challenge should be part of the fun. You have to one-up yourself, come up with an idea that will surprise you and delight you.

And just tonight, I got another story idea, though it's actually less of an idea, more of an ending, to be honest. So it kind of complements my Sunday idea. I got a book on Film Noir because I wanted to research on the subject; one of my dream films is a noir, but with a few tricks up its sleeve. I've had notes on this project since freshman college, but flipping through the book I came up with a better, more fitting ending than the one I already had. But I still like that original ending, it's just less potent in the previous context. So I've to come up with a new one for it since I like it so much. So it actually splits my project into two noirs now. Cool, no?

Anyway, what I'm getting at is the sheer elation and joy that comes with stumbling upon an idea. After getting the idea in the car, the whole rest of the ride home I had a stupid grin on my face, and I texted Neva immediately, I was so excited. You feel like laughing out loud, like a child. Your senses become hyper-acute for a few minutes. You're not aware of the stupid grin on your face. Your eyes will twinkle with possibilities and your head will spin with choices and directions. It is the best high, better than anything I can imagine any psychedelic drug's effects to be. The creation of something from nothing.

It can cheer me up for days. Most of the time I'm gloomy.

It reminds me of something Steven Soderbergh said. It was an interview after he'd won his Oscars for Traffic. He was on a hot streak, what with Out of Sight, The Limey, Erin Brockovich, and Traffic. His next project was Ocean's Eleven, to be followed immediately by Full Frontal and Solaris. Talking about the awards and accolades he'd received for his work, Soderbergh said "I'd give it all up for a dash of inspiration." And when you have those ideas, you'll completely understand that sentence. And if you've already had those moments of ideas, and you still don't understand what he said, then you probably never will.

Mind you, I'm not saying these two ideas I've had recently are great to anybody other than me. They made me happy, giddy like a schoolboy; that's enough. I really hope I live to be forty. Hopefully by then I'll have gotten these three ideas out of my system.

I really need to organize these story ideas, though. I've lost dozens of them to the ether out of sheer laziness. I didn't jot them down. Never trust your memory to do what it should, because when it doesn't, you won't even know about it. I hope one day that these Lost Ideas return to me, though, more mature, better, stronger from their time in Ideaspace.

Hm. This turned out to be longer than I thought. What I was getting at was that I haven't felt very creative in a long, long time. And I'm quite happy that the Sunday idea is not the kind of thing I usually come up with. So there.

--

Here's the newest sampling of weird things people were looking for when they stumbled onto this blog:

dalandan fruits picture
scared lolita pics
j.lo coveralls
masturbating on aunt
pictures of humans and mermaids kissing
jose rizal fun facts
alan rickman singing
topless mermaids
topless billy corgan pics
celebrities AND headache sufferers
lia martinez quark
v for vendetta ramon

and this batch's winner is

pictures of halle berry being shot with lasers

“It’s my belief that history is a wheel.
‘Inconstancy is my very essence,’ says the wheel.
‘Rise up on my spokes if you like,
but don’t complain when you’re cast back down into the depths.
Good times pass away, but then so do the bad.
Mutability is our tragedy, but it’s also our hope.
The worst of times, like the best,
are always passing away.”

-- Boethius, The Consolation of Philosophy; from 24 Hour Party People, written by Frank Cottrell Boyce, directed by Michael Winterbottom

Wise words from a street philosopher.

--

I finished yesterday what I hope to be the final draft of my third of First Time, actually missing Keka Shoot Day 3 in the process. Shooting is slated to begin on the 16th, though casting hasn’t been locked yet. So things are moving on that front. More when I know more.

--

Another thing I realized about Reloaded: I really, REALLY miss the gunfights. The last great arc had guns blazing, and Reloaded was mostly martial arts, and slow martial arts at that. And I never thought I’d say this, but the fight sequences are too long. They don’t end on a proper note, because usually the climax had already been reached a few minutes ago.

But enough about that.

--

There’s obviously lots of things to catch up on, but I wanted to say that I’ve been enjoying DJ Shadow’s work recently. I’ve been a fan since UNKLE, of which he’s one half (the other being James Lavelle). There was a considerable gap between Endtroducing… and The Private Press, his latest album, and the first single sported a video directed by Wong Kar Wai. About a week ago I was driving home and listening to a great song, I don’t remember the name but it’s the ninth track on Pre-Emptive Strike. When I got home, the song wasn’t done yet, so I just sat in the car with the lights off and waited for the song to finish. It was that good. And when was the last time you ever did that?

More recently, though, I’ve been listening to Weezer’s Blue album, their first. It’s one of the most perfect albums ever made, in my opinion, one of those rare times that every single track is great, like Pearl Jam’s Ten or Elliott Smith’s X/O and Either/Or, or REM’s Automatic For The People, or Smashing Pumpkins’ Siamese Dream (yes, I like Silverfuck). I hadn’t heard it in several years, and Neva’d never heard it, so I borrowed it from Chris and when I played it in the car, I was glad to see that I still had most of the lyrics memorized. Even though I hadn’t heard most of these songs in a while, they had such an effect on me when they first came out that they’d basically emblazoned themselves into the neurons of my memory, and it was like an old friend coming by for a visit: you haven’t seen them in some time but everything’s familiar: how they move and speak, gestures and looks, scents and figures of speech. I hope it didn’t bother Neva too much that I was singing almost every track. But on the way home, alone, it was worse. I was actually singing my heart out on “Say It Ain’t So,” at full blast, to the point that I was a little exhausted when I got home. And “Only In Dreams” can still bring a tear to my eye.

I really wish I knew how to play some instrument.

--

For you Neil Gaiman fans, you can click here to read the short short stories he wrote for Tori Amos’s Strange Little Girls Tourbook.

--

Please read this. It’s a special piece by one of my favorite columnists, Steven Grant. It’s not new, but I was thinking about it recently and decided to link it. He asked readers to send several postcards with no text and weird landscapes, and made a story that linked everything. And it works pretty well, I think. The order of postcards in the story is the order in which they arrived. He’s one of those people who still tries to create something new in comics, challenging further the convenient definitions we have for it. Amazing.

And here is the website poem generator. Put in a URL, it’ll make a “poem” out of its contents. Thus, for your amusement and delectation:

MINDFUEL

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arms
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blog and tolerance for the Country that what we demanded after so
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Checking Neil Gaiman’s blog, I found some cool links: Oh, Mikey!, a show in Japan about Americans living in Japan, except the family’s… well, mannequins. And surely Mich will get a kick out of this: the Hello Kitty vibrator. More weird stuff at Jlist.

--

Had a great time the other night with Neva, Quark, Chris, and Mich. Mich gave us this weird Chinese boardgame called “Flight” and we had to play to get the rules down. At first we were just playing lifelessly, but then the concept of killing other players surfaced, and suddenly things got really interesting and lively. Quark and I stopped our discussion of Michael Winterbottom’s 24 Hour Party People to join in decimating either Chris or Mich. Neva and I were, of course, a team, and we surprised ourselves by winning, when at the beginning we were the slowest to get ahead. But then people started killing each other and we squeaked by with the least number of casualties. Interestingly, the pieces are airplanes and the goal is to get them all to one airport (there are 4 pieces per player). But they can be “killed” when another plane lands in the same spot, and in this post-9/11 world, I guess that has to strike you as just a little bit wrong. We also had to bend one rule because if we didn’t it would take forever to finish.

Anyway, I had such a great time because when’s the last time you played a board game with friends? I was flashing back to the Great Brownout Year, when I would be at Mike Jalbuena’s house and we’d play all sorts of board games with his sisters. They have a great board game collection, but we never played with the obvious games. No Cluedo, no Monopoly. Sometimes we’d play Sorry and Life, but mostly it was Elixir, this great game where you’re competing wizards racing to accomplish spells and obliterate one another. Sometimes it was Taboo, or Charades. Once in a while it would be Trivial Pursuit. There were others, too, but I just don’t remember their names anymore. I wonder where my Operation went?

--

Also had (for the most part) a great time at Alexis’s house last week. That’s my ideal Friday night gimmick, these days: hanging out with friends at a house or other non-public place. Friday night traffic and parking drives me up the wall, so more often than not Neva and I just get together and watch a movie at home. It was nice seeing Ozzy again, who shared his sordid swinging stories. And Ernan, still a gaggle of arms and legs. And others, who shared their stories, knocked back their beers, told some dirty jokes. We watched some shorts, listened to some music, made fun of people who weren’t there.

--

Keka Shoot Day 1 was a blast. A good day with a lot done, I thought. With a much better vibe and general demeanor than I had seen on the set of Gamitan. Which is a good thing. I hope it continues on until the release date. But I’ll write the rest about the day somewhere else. I don’t want to jinx anything but I’m really excited for it.

--

Everyone watch 24 Hour Party People. It’s great. The best film about music since Almost Famous. Saw The Anniversary Party also, which was good. Better than I had expected, though it does have a couple of flaws. Phoebe Cates is still a good actress, and still so damn pretty. It’s a shame she’s not acting as much as before. There’s also a scene with Kevin Kline and his actual daughter that I just loved to bits, and is the most joyous cinematic scene I’ve seen in a long time, possibly since Amelie. It’s got that “joy of cinema” feel that Truffaut infused his films with.

And our new batch of referrals came from searches for:

goya loved cayetana
lesbian undertone images
pictures of a guy getting gored by a bull in a bullfight
pictures of nude runners
pictures of graphic fatalities
girl tap dance pics
removing hickie marks
takeshi’s castle pics
monologue of the merovingian
daddy daughter stories
dollhouse strip club chicago
japanese schoolboy

Recently got to read this essay by another of my favorite writers, Ed Brubaker, where he recounts the tale of how he met his idol, Charles Schulz. It's a sweet little thing, with some interesting facts about Schulz. Like his daughter was an Olympic skater, and he built an ice rink for her when she was a girl, and he used to have breakfast there every day and anyone could just go up and meet him. Whatta guy. Oh, and he drives a Jag with the license plate Woodstock 1.

--

You'd think that, the way music video channels rely on VJs, they'd at least give them some kind of public send-off. But no, they just quietly and suddenly disappear, and they leave no trace of themselves behind, and no one ever mentions them again: it's as if they never existed. Remember when MTV was brand new in Asia? They had the best VJs then: Nonie, Sophiya, Danny McGill, etc. Where'd they all go? I know Nonie's now married to one of the richest men in Asia, Sophiya's an actress/musician in her home country, and Danny McGill married Kamal, who now hosts some extreme sports show on AXN. Nadya Hutagalung is also married to one of the richest men in Asia, after a failed stint as an MTV US VJ (which is where Sara Meier's disappeared to; good luck to her, she'll need it). Who gives a damn where Mike and sister Kerri Kasem went (probably back to dad Casey in the US)? David Wu probably went back to his acting career. Sarah, you never mattered anyway. G? Gone. And nothing anyone says is going to change my opinion that Jamie Aditya was always a talentless boob who couldn't deliver a joke to save his family's life. Rahul Khanna went back to being an actor (and is doing well, it looks like; his Bollywood Hollywood actually reached our shores). Sonia Couling, who was the last great MTVCrush (following Nonie and Nadya), has gone back to hosting variety and game shows, if I remember correctly. Shannen Torres; blink and you missed her. Belinda may be on her way out too, since I never seem to see her anymore. And I think Asha's been let go by Channel V because I never see her anymore: it's always either Paula (who I like) or Amanda Griffin, who I never used to see except if I happened to be up really early in the morning.

So why are they so unceremoniously dumped? Obviously, there are all sorts of possible factors: personal, maybe the person's lost his/her buzz, maybe the person never had any, maybe the person was giving management a hard time with an attitude problem or prima donna-style primping, maybe the person had skeletons rattling in their closet that started making too public a ruckus, etc. The real reason is probably very simple: the channel doesn't want you to think about and maybe realize that your liking the channel has anything to do with the VJs. So they're seen as expendable, replaceable at the drop of a hat or a whim.

I'm curious now about whether or not Donita will continue on with MTV past her marriage. And good luck to the VJ Hunt winners: unfortunately, most VJs really go on to nothing more lucrative, career-wise. Even in the US (uh, Kennedy? Pauly Shore? Anybody?).

And may I just say that I love the fact that complete unknowns won the recent MTV VJ Hunt. Mostly because it's a slap in the face to the "famous" people who thought they had it in the bag. You know who I'm talking about. Now it further confirms the sad, pathetic state of their careers. And the girl, Patti, is a Comm student at Ateneo. Which Sara Meier was before her "rise" to fame. She was in my block, apparently, but I never met her. She left before freshman year was over.

--

FLY, SUMO, FLY!

You can't not love this picture.

And more Red Meat is good for the body:

And sometimes, people can be just magically great. Got this tonight in my email:

hello, and thank you -- what a nice note. really glad you enjoyed the book.
cheers, and best wishes,
susan orlean

Which made my month. Along with finishing the script (now in its final drafting stages). It was also a cute coincidence, since I mentioned her in the post I'd written below.

--

Last thoughts on The Matrix Reloaded:

I think I may have the answer. I think that the real reason most people are disappointed with Reloaded, whether most of these people realize it or not, is because unlike the first Matrix, which was unashamedly escapist fun and concerned itself with just posing and looking Fucking Cool, Reloaded pretends to be About Something. It tries to be important; have meaning. You feel it from the very beginning: why does everything smack of Star Wars after that opening fight scene? The shots of ships docking, the crew disembarking, Zion's architecture, its citizens' garb, hell, Zion's even got a COUNCIL! And in pretending to be About Something, it tried too hard, and choked on its own ambition. Reloaded is the Wachowskis taking everything waaay too seriously, and being unable to convey that feeling to the audience in any clear, logical, and concise way.

And that's that.

Doesn't change the fact that everyone's going to be lining up for Revolutions, though.

--

Yesterday was my mother's birthday, and she took the day off work, and we did pretty much everything she wanted to do, which was have lunch at Sonya's Garden in Tagaytay, and go to mass at the Church of San Agustin in Intramuros.

Neva and I gave her a cigarette case that comes with a lighter. Despite my disapproval of her vice, it doesn't look like she's going to quit anytime soon. At least she smokes much less than she used to. My dad used to smoke, but quit cold turkey one day and hasn't smoked a stick since, though he has the occasional cigar with his brothers. My mom quit cold turkey thrice-whenever she found out that she was pregnant-and then promptly resumed the day each of us kids was born.

Anyway, it took an hour to get to Tagaytay, surprisingly, and we got to Sonya's Garden, which is literally a compound devoted practically entirely to plants. There's a dirt road, and a quaint wooden fence, and a parking lot. As you go in, you notice lots of signs:

Arugula For Sale,
Sonya's Body and Massage Parlor,
Conservatory,
Country Store,
Private Garden Not Open To Public, (which is, I assume, why it's called the Private Garden)
and three that made me smile:
Do Not Provoke or Tease the Dogs;
Well-Behaved Kids Are Welcome: No Running, Shouting, and Kicking of Pebbles;
and Strictly No Picking of Flowers, Picking Up Pebbles, and Banging of Chimes.

Which means that it used to happen a lot, I guess. Legions of misbehaving children terrorizing the dogs while picking flowers, kicking pebbles, running screaming at the top of their lungs, and banging chimes.

The story goes that the restaurant is really more of a hobby: Sonya probably makes most of her money from selling plants. But people liked the food and kept eating there, and kept recommending it to their friends, and more and more people kept coming. There used to be three separate cottages where people could eat, each with its own bathroom (which has a stone tub and a balcony). Now there's a larger covered area where the guests eat (though the cottages are still there in case they're needed, or for more private functions), and it's split in two: the other half is a garden. Occasionally, mist is sprayed on the plants and if the wind's strong enough it floats to the patrons. The ambience is wonderful: very natural, relaxed, peaceful. Soft music plays from hidden speakers. I should know, ''cause I looked for 'em (they're in the kitchen). The menu never changes: the three times my mom's eaten here she had the exact same thing. If you don't like it, you can leave. You begin with a salad, and you can choose what you want in it. Then the main course is pasta, with two sauces: Sun-Dried Tomato or White Chicken, and again, you make it yourself: there were bowls of scampi, capers, mushrooms, cheese, nuts, anchovies, etc. Drinks were dalandan juice with mint leaves. Dessert was turon and sweet potatoes. It's PhP500 a head, plus a 10% service charge. If you show up without a reservation they won't accept you. And reservations are only by cellphone. They rarely serve dinner, but sometimes they're open up to 8 PM.

After the meal we walked around the garden, admiring the plants and flowers. Having recently read Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief I tried really hard to appreciate the flora more than I normally would, but could only identify a group of plants: bromeliads. No specific species. I saw the dogs the signs mentioned, and some chickens running about. We also visited the other three cottages. I should've gone to the Conservatory, because Neva later told me that it was a butterfly conservatory. She'd read about Sonya's Garden in a magazine. Around the garden there are some shaded benches, and a cushioned seat or two, and about two full mattresses, where only the owner could sleep. It was so tempting, because the air's so clean and refreshing, and we were full from the meal, and the temperature was just about right (since it was colder than in Manila).

Our last stop was the Country Store, where they sold various sizes of ornate dreamcatchers; and an "oriental lazy boy," basically a wooden reclining chair from Vietnam; and assorted dried fruits, herbs, spices, lotions, shampoos, soaps, tchotchkes, gewgaws, etc. We got a bottle of their herbal salad dressing.

It rained after that, which ruined our plans of taking a swim, so we drove back to Manila. The mass at Intramuros was uneventful, except I had developed a horrible headache on the drive down and had a difficult time standing up and keeping my concentration. It didn't help that the priest was one of those guys who talked s o s l o w l y . The headache lasted all the way till I got home, had dinner, and took the miraculous Motrin-S.

It sucks having sinusitis.

Which, incidentally, I inherited from my mother.

A bit of a spoiler warning. If you haven’t seen Reloaded, don’t go further. Though I don’t think I gave any major plot points away, better safe than sorry.

Now, on to the message proper:

--

You know what I don’t get?

Why were people expecting some kind of blisteringly good story from The Matrix Reloaded? Like that was what made the first great. What made the first great was the action, pure and simple. The effects, the bullet-time, etc. should be mentioned too, but they’ve become memorable, and the standard-bearer of films to come, and have been spoofed numerous times because of the way they were used to present what was the main attraction: the action. When people talk about The Matrix’s contribution to cinema and pop culture history, is anyone with a modicum of taste going to say, “Yeah, the acting in that film was really amazing”? Or “Such crackling dialogue, like a sci-fi David Mamet!”? Fuck no! It’s the action!

I’ve been getting these reactions from people, that they feel cheated or something by the story. I mean, we’re talking about a summer film here. Even if it is the most anticipated film since Episode 1, when was story The Matrix’s strong point?

The score was horrible. It was actually worse than Don Davis’s work in the first.

The dialogue is terrible, but it’s far, far better than in the first film. Neva and I watched it before Reloaded and it was amazing how some of them were able to keep a straight face during some scenes. There’s one part, for example, and I love this: Neo wakes up, right, and Morpheus IS IN HIS FUCKING BED! IN THE SHADOWS! AND BEHIND HIM! AS IN BETWEEN THE WALL AND NEO! WHAT’S UP WITH THAT?! Anyway, he uses the word “prophesized.” PROPHESIZED!!! And let’s not forget every single line that escaped the now-gone Tank’s mouth. Everything from “Mm! These are exciting times!” to whatever he said in that long sentence he mouthed off before finally shooting Cypher.

If you stop to think of it, the structure of Reloaded is actually simple: fight – monologue –fight – monologue – fight – monologue. And each monologue is a badly written, intentionally ambiguous/amorphous/confusing (take your pick) one. The Merovingian takes the cake for me personally because I FUCKING HATE his accent. The Architect was like the host from Masterpiece Theater: dry and boring, no menace (which would’ve been nice), and full of ten-dollar words you’d need a dictionary to decipher everything. He also used up all the clever Latin transitional phrases: vis a vis, apropos, ergo, etc.

If there is a valid reason for people to be disappointed with Reloaded, besides Keanu getting a butt shot while Carrie-Anne Moss doesn’t, it is because the fight scenes, so tantalizing in the trailers, could not possibly have met what we had in mind, what we wanted, what we demanded after four years of waiting. The CGI, in particular, was so obvious, it was distracting. The effects technicians still haven’t perfected human movement.

On the whole, though, I enjoyed myself. I loved the action scenes, even if the CGI sucked. That’s all I was really there for anyway. Story, dialogue, acting: call it window dressing. I was never expecting much in those departments anyway. The first is still better.

What scares me is that supposedly these guys want to do an adaptation of my beloved V For Vendetta for their next project.

--

Anyone seen the teaser trailer of Underworld? It’s an unabashed Matrix rip-off with what looks like the plot of Blade, except it’s werewolves (I think) instead of vampires. But still, it’s Kate Beckinsale in tight leather. I’m so there.

--

This week's crop of referrals came from searches for:

wasabi boys
aubrey miles megamall
transmetropolitan wallpaper
iraqi sexy pics
rachel roberts fuck
ateneo girls nude
copeland road prison
vanda porn video pics
concert yani metropolis
astral projection exercise
pictures of shower scenes in films

--

People suck. The past week I’ve heard about crazy-ass parents; ungrateful bastard children, and on one of my mailing lists, someone’s girlfriend’s been kidnapped and the poor guy’s at the end of his rope. I don’t even want to try to imagine what that’s like.

Neva and I saw My Wife is a Gangster last night, and it was a riot. I thoroughly enjoyed myself on all levels. See it if you can, you’ll be laughing your arms off, as Ernan would say.

This pretty much sums up my feelings regarding Bush and Blair being nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize.

And Red Meat’s been a hit with me recently. Here’s the latest one.

And one of my former teachers has a blog. How… weird.

--

There is a classic sketch from the much-missed Late Night with Conan O’Brien wherein Triumph the Insult Comic Dog harrasses a group of nerds camped out at a theater anticipating Episode 2 (if you haven’t seen it, download it from the net. Life is not complete until you have seen this. Get the one at the Bon Jovi concert too, while you’re at it.). In it, he encountered a geek unlike any other: Blackwolf the Dragonmaster, a man who fancies himself a wizard and speaks with a ridiculous accent, who went to the group of nerds seemingly only to harrass them as well (but Triumph beat him to it and made him the butt of many, many sweet jokes). I have actually come across his website, and it is glorious. Exactly how I imagined it to be. Besides cracking up, I was pleased to note that there is a forthcoming album from Triumph the Insult Comic Dog called Songs in the Key of Poop. I look forward to it. Speaking of Triumph, check out his official website sometime. It’s been updated a little, with links to his fansites (where you can get some video clips of his sketches and appearances) and these zingers:

On the MTV Awards fiasco (Eminem picked a fight with Moby and Triumph):
“By now everyone knows what happened on the video awards. I bear no anger toward Eminem, who, as I've said in the past, I have great admiration for, particularly his smooth white hair, which resembles a beagle's nutsack. I'm also glad to see him prove he can act. He played a white rap artist...quite a stretch. Maybe I can do a movie about a guy who licks his balls.”

On Kermit the Frog:
“I really admire you, as a star but also as an amphibian. You can hold your breath for a very long time... which helps when you have to go down on Miss Piggy."

On Ellen DeGeneres, new center square on Hollywood Squares (replacing Whoopi Goldberg):
"Hey Ellen DeGeneres, the new center square. What a huge comedown. I kid, she's not here permanently, she's rotating with Burt Reynolds and Alec Baldwin. Interesting... I thought you only rotated with chicks."

Blogger’s still fucking up. Everytime I check this site it gives me an old post. And for a long time now, using the www.mindfuel.blogspot.com gets me the April 16 post. And of course, since I’m not a paying user, I apparently can’t complain to them; just read a bunch of FAQs and hope for the best.

--

You know your bookshelf’s too full when it starts hurting you. I was getting a bunch of graphic novels to lend somebody, but the sliding glass doors are really stuck now because the whole structure’s sagging under the weight. So my hands slipped, and now I have a cut on my left index finger from the glass. And I went to play bowling right after, so of course the wound wouldn’t stop bleeding. Whoop dee doo.

And man, if ever there was a reminder that I’m terribly out of shape, the bowling was it. First few frames and my arm was already starting to ache. At the end of the day the inside of my left thumb was sore, and my right ass cheek was hurting. When I woke up Tuesday morning, it was worse. I really need to exercise. But at least I got a 145 in my second game. :) Not bad for someone who hasn’t played in months.

--

Saw Confessions of a Dangerous Mind for the 4th time; first in a theater. It’s still great. Was disappointed to see Pioneer Films, the distributor, cut three scenes that were sex-related so that they could get the rating lowered to an R13. They were very bad cuts that interrupted the flow of the film. Theater wasn’t full when I watched, but at least none of them walked out.

I enjoyed X2 a great deal. It’s certainly better than the first. They really benefited from the bigger budget, and I didn’t even notice the 133 minute running time. It was also great to see Wolverine in his murderous berserker rage. If you're an X-fan, though, you start seeing some gaping plot holes as you go along, but still, it was great. X3’s targeted at 2006 pa, so that’s going to be quite a wait to see the Dark Phoenix…

Also saw Bringing Down The House, which is completely and utterly predictable. These kinds of movies, I realize more and more, are just not made for me, and my appreciation and tolerance for them continues to decline. I didn’t laugh out loud once during the film, and I consider myself a Steve Martin fan, so that’s saying something. I chuckled a few times, but I can’t even give it the consolation-prize-comment of “It had its moments.”

--

Also finally got around to adding a lot of new links: Jason & Tina, Clar, Paul S., Elbert & Gio, and Nicole Campos. I don’t personally know Nicole, but I love her blog and on the links she goes.

People recently stumbled onto this blog while looking for:

“she broke her ankle” chinese girl (just unique enough to have me wondering)
little red headed girl pictures (I really hope this has something to do with my recent peanuts post, otherwise… brr..)
narciso website pictures
voltron comics drawings
pictures of couples fighting fairly (this has me curious)
goldie poblador (twice!)
and, lo and behold,
mindfuel

Sometimes what I do now is actually go on a search engine and look for these things myself, and try to figure out why this blog pops up as a result, and what other websites came up as results.

--

It’s been a while since I’ve last blogged, and there are a couple of things I’ve yet to talk about. But right now, I just want to say that I finally got through this thing that took me MUCH longer than I thought it would, and am glad that the weight is off my shoulders. It’s the longest thing I’ve written since my thesis. Since Wednesday night I’ve only been sleeping 4-5 hours a day. Which doesn’t sound so bad if you’re used to it, but I’m no longer used to it. Since graduating my body’s become used to sleeping however long I want. There were periods in the past few days where I experienced hot flashes, dizziness, and just the exhaustion of staying up late and forcing yourself not to sleep until you accomplish certain things. I’d punish myself by not sleeping, and then a few hours later it’s like you can feel every muscle creaking. I ate chocolate, drank lots of mango juice and iced tea, a couple of pills of vitamin C, and pistachios.

If I told you what I was working on you’d feel what I just described sounds ridiculous. And I wouldn’t blame you. It sounds ridiculous to me. And, I’m sure, to the handful of you who DO know what I’m talking about. Suffice to say that the other night I was listing down various sexual positions and fantasies, and it occurred to me that what I was doing I could actually call work.

I don’t know why it took longer than I thought. I ran into some unexpected roadblocks, I guess. And took a hell of a time working some of them out. Sometimes I’d be stuck for an hour or two on the tiniest, dumbest thing, that I presume only I would ever care about, sometimes for something that I KNOW will be changed anyway. But I have to do it, because without it being behind me I can’t move forward. I wish I could explain this better, but right now I’m just glad I’ll finally be able to sleep for a day or two. Then on to the fine tuning.

--

Got some cool comics the other Saturday at CCHQ, thanks to Free Comic Book Day. I think they’re the only store in the country that seriously participated in the event. Props to them, they’re the best comics store in the history of the country. Shop there sometime.

--

Even though Richard Kadrey’s Nanotales have become monthly instead of weekly, he’s no less brilliant. The newest one is here, and it’s one of the best yet. I promise, read just a few sentences, and then you won’t be able to stop. One of the more light-hearted, yet no less thought-provoking, pieces.

--

Oh, and, uh, Happy Mother’s Day, you lot. Chiko, if you’re reading, happy birthday! :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, NEVA!

--

So I’m going through Susan Orlean’s website, because I’m a) curious to see what she has to say about Adaptation, and b) curious to read more of her stuff. And I find out that Blue Crush is actually inspired by another of her articles for The New Yorker. She has a bunch of her articles online there, if anyone’s interested.

May 3 is Free Comic Book Day! So if you live in the US, or know anyone who lives there, email them immediately and tell them to get their ass into a comic store on that day, and tell 'em to bring their kids, if they have any. They will be treated to FREE COMICS! Wooh! Try to be early, though, there's sure to be a line.

--

Carlo moved his blog, and didn't tell me about it! What, is this becoming a trend now? Don't tell Ramon anything!

RAMON'S READING CORNER (CONTINUED)

More excerpts from Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief:

"Laroche ran his finger along one of the curly ears and said, 'Imagine you're this plant. Why do you have petals that do this? It has some purpose, everything has some purpose. I believe in botany by imagination. I try to put myself in the plant's point of view and try to figure them out. The only ones with features that have no real purpose are the hybrids, because someone put them together and came up with an unnatural thing. That's the cool thing with hybridizing. You are God. You do the plant sex. It's a man-made hobby.'

'Are there any hybrids that occur naturally?'

'Hardly any,' he said.

'Why?'

He snorted. 'Well, you wouldn't, even in a fit of boredom, decide to have sex with a gorilla, right?'"

--

"The band started playing 'Down in the Boondocks.' The crowd clapped along through the entire song. Toward the end of the final verse, a little boy-- Chief Billie's youngest son-- ran out into the middle of the arena followed by a small, fat alligator whose jaws were held shut with duct tape. The boy was slight, bare-chested, and barefoot. In a moment he cornered the alligator and then straddled it. The crowd cheered and Chief Billie smiled, brushing his lips against the microphone. The boy arched his back. The alligator arched his back. With one hand the boy grabbed the alligator's snout and raised it in the air. With his other hand he reached up and flashed a victory sign."

--

"I wanted to go to the community dinner, but it was Indians-only, and no one I appealed to for permission would budge. Vinson explained that it would bother the older people to have a white person at the dinner-- that no matter how many years they'd been mixing in the non-Indian world, they still felt separate and suspicious. 'White people, it's your job to make money,' he said to me. 'Indians, we have our own job. Our job is to take care of the earth. We are different from you and we always will be.'"

--

"When the four of us were gathered by the tree, the ranger finally introduced me to the giants and said they were in the inmate work-release program of Copeland Road Prison, just down the road from the Fakahatchee-- I had passed it on my way in. Both of the men were bashful and spoke in tiny, mumbly voices. After we were introduced I noticed that both of them were carrying three-foot-long machetes. I'm not sure how I hadn't seen the machetes before that, but maybe it was because the men had been wading behind me most of the way. I hate hiking with convicts carrying machetes."

--

"We stood in the lake for a while and every now and then one or the other or both of them would raise their machetes and then smash them into the water with a frightful, squeamish look on their faces. The speed of their swings was ferocious, and the machetes smashing against the water sounded like someone getting spanked. The ranger leaned over and whispered to me that she had given the men the machetes because they were both terrified of snakes and had refused to get into the swamp without some protection. After she gave them the machetes they had agreed to get in, but even heavily armed they were as jumpy as rabbits and stood holding their hands stiff and high above the water. Every time a bubble would rise to the surface of the lake or a tree would drop a leaf or a bird would peep, the giants and I would panic. When I panicked I froze. When one of the giants panicked he would pop up nervously and then the other one would pop up nervously too, and the water displaced by their combined weight rolled in silky waves across the lake. The cold black water slapped at my belly button every time they would pop up and down. The swamp was hot and hushed except for all the splashing and the smack of the giants' machetes against the water. You could disappear in a place like this, really disappear, into one of these inky sinkholes or in the warm mulch under the thick brush. No one could find you in a place like this once you sank in. Just then I got extremely curious but decided to wait until we were out of the swamp and in a secure government vehicle before I asked the giants what they were in prison for."

--

And excerpts from two interviews:

"As a kid, I was a voracious mystery reader, and it's my mother's fault. When I was about ten, my mother gave me a book by a writer named Stuart Kaminsky called Murder on the Yellow Brick Road, which she had been told was suitable for 'younger readers.'

It wasn't. It was about porn film being shot on the disused Wizard of Oz sets in the late 1930s in Hollywood, and it had profanity, and guns, and sex, and man oh man was I ever hooked." -- Greg Rucka

--

"The Onion: Throughout your work, there's a running theme regarding the development of and subversion of sexuality. Where does that theme come from? Why does it particularly interest you?

Neil Jordan: It probably comes from being an altar boy."

RAMON'S READING CORNER

I've been reading a lot lately. More than usual, anyway. I don't know why. Right now I'm in the middle of Susan Orlean's The Orchid Thief, and yes, it's because of Adaptation, which I loved. What's amazing is that Neva bought the book at almost the exact same time, except that she's in Iloilo and I'm… well, here. And she got hers at about 40% the price I got mine-- which was already more than half off the regular price. It's a gripping, engaging book. Her writing is marvelous, because it's easily accessible and clear. I never thought I'd be so consumed by a book on flowers, but I'm sure Charlie Kaufman thought the same thing when he went through it the first time. Laroche is a genuine character, and Chris Cooper I think gave a terrific performance in the film, but so much of his character is merely implied in the film, whereas here it's in full bloom. No pun intended.

An interesting excerpt:

"When I first met him, he told me he had found the only gem-grade fossil pearl in existence, a boast so specific that I couldn't resist investigating it, and no one I talked to ever confirmed that such a thing could be true. I really wanted to confront him about it, but when he brought it up another time and I was about to challenge him, he said, 'You know why I love that pearl so much? Because as long as I have it, I still sort of have the moment when I got it. The place I got it was wild when I was there, and it's gone now, it's all developed and the woods are just gone. And I was with my wife when I found it, she's my ex-wife now, and I was with my mom, and my mom's dead now. But having that pearl is like still having that moment, my mom is alive and I'm still happily married and the place I found it is still gorgeous.' I never brought up the question of the pearl again. I'm not a sucker. It's just that questioning whether it really is the only gem-grade fossil pearl in existence felt piddling compared to what he said it meant to him-- it would have felt like telling someone deeply in love that the beloved one was ugly and short."

and mentions of our beloved country:

"In 1901 eight orchid hunters went on an expedition to the Philippines. Within a month one of them had been eaten by a tiger; another had been drenched with oil and burned alive; five had vanished into thin air; and one had managed to stay alive and walk out of the woods carrying forty-seven thousand Phalaenopsis plants."

"Carl Roebelin was another one of the great Victorian orchid hunters. He was German, mentally hard and physically fearless. At Sander's request he once went hunting on a small island in the Philippines. Just after he arrived an earthquake turned the island inside out and Roebelin was almost killed. As soon as he made it to safety he wired Sander [his employer] to tell him that he was returning to England because the island had been devastated. At the end of the wire he mentioned that he'd seen some astounding cinnamon-scented lilac vandas in the jungle right before the earthquake. If Roebelin had really wanted to leave the Philippines and come home, this was exactly the wrong thing to say. Sander wired back immediately and demanded that Roebelin return to the island and find those lilac vandas or find another employer to pay his passage home. Roebelin refused and Sander's threats became more strenuous. Roebelin finally gave in. The plant he retrieved from the wreckage was a new species that was later given the name Vanda sanderiana. It was put on display in the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew when it bloomed and was such a spectacle that it drew a crowd of thousands. Many vandas grown commercially now can be traced back to Roebelin's salvaged plant."

And here's one of the excerpts I made Neva read from that Alan Moore short story I mentioned, "A Hypothetical Lizard":

"'It's like an accident I saw… a farmer, crushed beneath his cart. He was alive, but his ribs were broken and sticking through his side. I didn't know what they were at first, because it was all such a mess. There were a lot of people gathered 'round, but nobody could move the cart without hurting him even more than he was hurt already.

It was summer, and there were a lot of flies. I remember him screaming and shouting for somebody to beat the flies away, and an old woman went out and did that for him, but until then nobody had moved, not until he screamed at them. It was horrible. I walked by as fast as I could because he was suffering and there was nothing anybody could do, except for the old woman who was beating the flies away with her apron.

But I went back.

I stopped just a little way down the road, and I went back. I couldn't help it. It was just that it was so real and so painful, that man, lying there under that terrible weight and screaming for his wife, his children, it was so real that it just cut through everything else in the world, all the things that my luck and my money have built up around me, and I knew that it meant something, and I went back there and I watched him drown on his own blood while the old woman told him not to worry, that his wife and children would be there soon.

And that's why I came back to the House Without Clocks.'

There was a long hyphen of silence.

'And I still love you.'"

I was going to include next an excerpt from Cameron Crowe's Vanilla Sky, which of course isn't a book but is a film I am rediscovering my love for. But unfortunately it gives away some plot points so I decided against it, and will instead recommend it to all of you who haven't seen it yet. And if you have, see it again. It's that kind of film, like Fight Club, that rewards repeat viewings because there are so many details that you begin to pick up on once you know what's really going on. I found a website this afternoon that lists lots of secrets I didn't know about, but has also missed two that I've found, so I might email them. Check it out only if you've seen the film.

--

John Malkovich, in an interview about his upcoming film Art Sschool Confidential: "[Graphic novels are] not a form I know anything about-- I only found out a few weeks ago that there are even stores that sell comics. I missed this."

I post this with no malice or negative feelings towards Malkovich; he's one of my favorite actors. He's being honest here, and I'm just posting it as an example. But it's also ironic because, despite his ignorance, his production company Mr. Mudd made one of the best comic book to movie adaptations ever: Ghost World. And Art School Confidential, which is the next film by the same creative team (director Terry Zwigoff and writer Daniel Clowes; it's also based on a [short] comics story of Clowes's), is also being produced by him, along with Drew Barrymore's Flower Films. There's an unlikely pairing.

According to the University of Virginia's Oracle of Bacon, I am 4 degrees away from Kevin Bacon. The deciding "linking" movie seems to be Death Raiders, which I've never heard of. Still, woo-hoo! :)

And thanks to Eddie Garcia, I'm four degrees away from Natalie Portman, too. Yeah! Man, I must've played with this site for about an hour. :)

--

Potlatch sucked. Most anthologies really are a gamble. Most of the time, though, there's a fairly acceptable ratio of good and bad. But this one was mostly bad. Oh well. Good thing it was cheap. Speed Racer is amusing to me because none of the drivers (when was this done, the 60s? I'm not too sure) wear seatbelts. Also, Speed seems so quick to just punch or slap people- even women! And is that really his name? Speed Racer? First name Speed, last name Racer? Shouldn't his brother be X Racer, then, instead of Racer X? Or is it like a Japanese thing where the last name goes first and oh no I've gone cross-eyed.

Speaking of Japan, Jeline's leaving for the US and Japan to visit relatives. A safe trip to you! Wanna know why her name's a link? Because she got a blog, and didn't bother to tell us about it. Hmph. Well, let me direct you there now. She's in the links box now, along with Beth, Kathy, and Bodge. There are some more I need to add, but I don't know the addresses of others. I didn't even know Bodge had a blog; her boyfriend neglected to mention it, tsk tsk tsk. I had to find out through Kathy's blog.

And speaking of Bodge, Justin! Stephen Hawking has a new book out! It's called The Universe in a Nutshell and is already in hardcover illustrated format for us morons! P1650 at Powerbooks. If you decide to get it tell me, I'll lend you my Powercard (10% discount) and you lend me the book when you're done. :)

Also got to read, thanks to Harvey, a short story of Alan Moore's called A Hypothetical Lizard. Not really short, since it was about 40 pages. But it's another reminder why Moore's my favorite writer. It was written about a year or two after Watchmen, and it's beautiful. His language is superb. I kept reading passages out loud to Neva on Holy Thursday. It was interesting to see him work fully in a fantasy setting, though it was actually a love story, but then became a revenge plot at the end. But it was amazing.

--

FOOD

There should be more A&Ws. They've got this burger with three patties that comes in a value meal with the same price as a Big Mac meal. And their breakfast menu is available all day! The one on Makati Ave.'s 24 hours, too. And dammit, it was bad enough when McDo lost their milkshakes (Jollibee's is made of some powdery shit that I can't stand on a regular basis), now they're no longer serving strawberry sundaes. But do they announce this? No, they trot out the fucking Rice Burger. I had to find out the worst way possible: while craving for it.

--

Holy Week is usually the most boring week of the year. Remember the years before cable? Man, that was torture. Nothing on TV but religious stuff. Good thing I liked to read.

Maybe two, three years ago, I was in Samar with my family, and I finished From Hell, Moore's 500-page graphic novel. Finished the anecdotes, too.

Another year, I took a walk in Makati during Good Friday, and it was spooky yet amazing: there wasn't a soul around. No cars, no people, nothing. Ghost city. Urban landscape, tall buildings, working traffic lights, not a soul to be found except me. Perfect time to get mugged, I realize now. That used to be my favorite Holy Week story.

Because of that experience, I wanted this year to take advantage of the vacancy of Makati by shooting some stuff: stock footage of empty streets, particularly popular, recognizable landmarks, places, intersections where you expect to find the teeming masses of people and vehicles.

I told Quark about it, and he thought it might make a good music video for Ciudad, and suddenly boom-impromptu music video. We shot on Good Friday, but unfortunately fate wasn't smiling on us. First, there were more cars and people than we expected. Second, the sky was overcast at times. Third, we found out only upon watching the footage that there was some dirt in one of the camera's lenses (or filters). And sometimes the auto focus wasn't switched on.

Joey talked about how, just a few years ago, he could lie down on EDSA and no car would pass for 15 minutes. Now it looked like a regular Sunday. The overcast sky meant that much of the footage came out darker than we expected (it was difficult to gauge the brightness with a small LCD screen, especially since outside, it was pretty bright to our naked eyes). And the dirt and lack of focus meant that some of the footage is actually unusable (barring taking advantage of the dirt).

So I don't know if we have enough for a music video or not. I suspect we don't. This was an experiment, and experiments can go either way: this just seemed to be more down the middle. I imagine we're going to have to shoot some more, and that means expanding the concept of the video since we obviously can't recreate those conditions without waiting another year.

Shooting it was a lot of fun, though. We only got caught once (in Makati), but there were a couple of near-misses in Ortigas and the Skyway. We saw Pearl Drive looking like an empty lot. A yellow wall that looked like it belonged in bombed-out Baghdad. The Skyway might've been the most fun, though. It was really empty, but when a car did come by, they'd be traveling at incredible speeds. One time a bus passed by so fast, the entire flyover was slightly shaking beneath our feet. Scary. We'd stop, shoot some stuff, travel a bit, stop, shoot some more, and so on until we couldn't afford to anymore for fear of getting caught.

I don't regret the experience at all. In fact, I'm thinking of ways to improve it for next year. :) Including getting permits.

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And so it's happened, as it was bound to: I can't remember if I've blogged about something I was about to write. And I'm too lazy to look through the archives and provide a permalink, if ever I did write about it. Though I'm pretty sure I haven't. Anyway, it's another step in this blogger's journey. Next up: blogging about something I've already blogged about, and then: blogging about something twice, with marked differences in details. Then senility.

I feel strange calling so many things favorites, and yet I’ll find that I don’t remember these same things completely. Or with as much detail as you’d think I would when I call something a “favorite.” I finally got around to getting my own copy of Mr. Punch, a lovely book by Neil Gaiman and Dave McKean that came out in 1994, when I was in freshman year high school. I loved the book then, very much; read it numerous times. It had quite an impact on me, and I remember experimenting with some art styles that I had seen in the book; it helped further pique my interest in photography. I remember making cut-outs of people and posing them against bright light so that they’d be silhouettes, and using my dad’s camera to photograph them thinking, at the time, that whatever I saw in the viewfinder was what would turn up when the photo was developed. So obviously I knew nothing about lighting. And the pictures came out horribly. Now you can do it with digital cameras.

But anyway, I’m getting sidetracked. I hadn’t read the book in years, but whenever anyone mentioned it I’d say, “I love that book, it’s a favorite of mine,” or some such thing. And I wasn’t lying. But re-reading it tonight, it struck me how much of the story I’d forgotten. I still remembered the gist of it, the plot; but certain details were forgotten, and I now realized the pictures in the beginning of the book were his two sets of grandparents. Other things, though, I still remembered, even if they’d lost their context; mostly images. The pictures of the boy looking at the camera. The lightning bolt cutting through a window. So I felt sort of guilty for calling it one of my favorite books for all this time. It’s sort of excusable in that I didn’t have my own copy and hadn’t read it in some time, but still.

I never lied about it, though. It was one of my favorite books, and still is. It’s amazing. Read it. Got my copy at Fully Booked, the laughable new name of the former Page One. It’s an easy target for a joke (Fully Priced).

If you’ve not read Philip K. Dick, start. He’s brilliant. It’s been difficult finding books of his in this country, with its bookstores, even the major ones, being woefully incomplete. So much so that incomplete in that previous sentence is an understatement. But recently Fully Booked got some of his novels when they beefed up their Fantasy/Sci-Fi section (I expect this is because of the success of Harry Potter and the Lord of the Rings franchises, but whatever gets more books here is fine by me.). They’re part of some science fiction label of books. Over at PowerBooks they’ve got a collection of his short stories, led by Minority Report (probably the only reason PowerBooks even got the book). It has a bunch of his short stories in it, including the ones that inspired the movies Imposter and Total Recall, besides, of course, Minority Report. They’re all great, with terrific hooks and concepts that just string you along until you finish the story. I can see his influence on Michael Crichton, The Matrix, Grant Morrison, etc. The paranoia, the science, the questions of reality, identity, perception. It’s fun to get into short stories again. I’d always wanted to read Dick, since so many of my favorite writers mention him as an influence. Now I see why. Next I want to read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?, the novel that inspired Blade Runner, and A Scanner Darkly, Charlie Kaufman’s dream project now in development by Section Eight, Steven Soderbergh and George Clooney’s production company.

Been trying to read a lot recently. When I cleaned up my bookshelf the other week I’d realized how many books were still on there I hadn’t read. But also it’s part of the annual tradition of the Holy Week Death By Boredom Avoidance Game.

Am now in the middle of an anthology called Potlatch, and Tatsuo Yoshida’s original Speed Racer manga, which is silly fun. I expect I’d have enjoyed it a great deal as a child.

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The Core is so ordinary it’s not even funny. Oh no, wait, it is! :) Phew.

On the other hand, I thoroughly enjoyed Steven Soderbergh’s Solaris, which I saw with Neva. Thought-provoking, quiet, introspective, and elegiac, it’s the kind of film you talk about for thirty minutes after the last scene. His cinematography just gets better and better, it’s effective at creeping the hell out of you and making you ask all sorts of questions.

Usually on Fridays, if there’s no special event, I just stay here at the house with Neva, and we just watch DVDs. This is because I hate going out on Friday nights. The traffic, the people, dealing with parking, etc. It’s just not worth it most times. Last Friday we actually went through 3 ½ films: Apocalypse Now, parts of The Untouchables, From Dusk Till Dawn, and Talk To Her. All very good. I used to hate From Dusk, but know enough about what they were trying to do now to appreciate it in a new light. Apocalypse Now and The Untouchables are just some of the best movies ever made. Exquisite things, rare occurrences where everything just clicked. I realize now that my favorite war films are Apocalypse Now, The Thin Red Line, and following closely behind are Full Metal Jacket, Saving Private Ryan, and Black Hawk Down.

We’ve also been watching the first season of Futurama, which has been great. TV on DVD is great. I also developed a crush on Amy Wong, the Chinese intern on the show, particularly when she curses in Chinese. It’s too cute. And apparently I’m not alone: there’s all sorts of Amy Wong sites on the web, including one that chronicles all her costume changes in the first 3 seasons. Whoa.

Absolutely delightful: The Brick Testament, scenes from the Bible acted out by Lego people. Up there you've got the scene where Lot's eldest daughter gets daddy drunk and seduces him to preserve the line. Wonderful.

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Last April 7 was Astroboy's birthday! Yay! I don't know how old he actually is, but to celebrate the occasion, Tokyo's Takashimaya department store is displaying a gem-encrusted Astroboy valued at 100 million yen (that's US$845,000).

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It had to happen someday: I heard a hip-hop song that sampled the theme from Knight Rider.

So, is the war over? I well and truly hope so. Now to deal with the shambles. Did they find the vaunted WMDs? Emerging details, some intriguing, others less surprising: half the American deaths were due to friendly fire. Blair wants the UN to run Iraq, Dubya wants the US to do it. The US's $287 billion deficit this year is actually $540 billion. I was watching some news channels earlier, showing Iraqis celebrating, destroying statues, tearing up posters, and it's a strange sight: I'm happy for those who truly feel liberated. But at the same time I know these images are going to be used for all sorts of propagandist purposes, and it's going to make those pro-war people so full of themselves.