Kapihan sa Kanto

Do you really think we can wipe the memory of this away with "I'm sorry"?

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Happy Canada Day to all of us who are Canadians!

At dahil hindi naman tayo Canadian -- ano ngayon?

Buti nalang kasabay ng kasiyahan ng mga Canadians ay bibigyan nila tayo ng film fest ng mga pelikula nila. Ayan. May silbi na ang Canada Day.

Here's a snippet from the embassy's press release:

Film enthusiasts will be in for a treat as the Embassy of Canada together with the University of the Philippines' Film Institute puts together the Canadian Documentary Festival featuring four outstanding full-length documentaries written and produced by Canadian directors. The festival will open with the premiere screening of the 'Shake Hands with the Devil,' a heart-wrenching first-hand account of the genocide in Rwanda. This will be screened on Wednesday, July 6, 4pm at the Cine Adarna Videotheque at the UP Film Institute. Admission is free on a first-come, first-seated basis. Other documentaries to be screened are 'Turbulent Waters,' a story of a Filipino shipping crew's adventures in Vancouver; 'Under One Sky: Arab Women from East to West talk about the Hijab (veil),' and 'Referendum,' a historical documentary on the Quebec separatist plebiscite held in the 90's. Please call 9263640 for more information.

I had a choice between Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Nasaan Ka Man; 20 minutes into H2G2, I was already seriously thinking that Ethel and I still had time to catch Nasaan Ka Man. Kaya lang, naisip ko sayang naman ang P80 na binayad namin (yes, sa SM North kami nanood, so at least hindi masyadong masakit sa bulsa).

I didn't enjoy H2G2 because I wasn't enough of a sci-fi fan (lalo na si Ethel). We were both yawning through the film. Obviously, we didn't get it the way sci-fi fans got it. I wanted to see Nasaan Ka Man after H2G2, if only to say to myself that this wasn't a total waste of the weekend, but my brain was tired. So kumain nalang kami sa Goldilocks. And then on the way to the parking lot, we dropped by this wedding stuff store that had a 14-inch TV tuned in to The Buzz: Tito Boy was interviewing TinTin on her annullment with Diet, she had tears in her eyes as she spoke to the camera, Diet hold on, let's work towards our goals, and if you ever need help, humingi ka ng tulong sa Kanya.

Tito Boy: If you could speak to God right now, what would your prayer be? Talk to us. Let us know what you would say to God.

TinTin: (buntong hininga) Sana matapos na...

Ethel and I discussed their marriage-gone-wrong as we walked to the car. On the way out, I almost couldn't find the parking ticket. And then we agreed again that we both thought H2G2 sucked.

Naku, nagpaalam-paalam pa 'ko, babalik din pala.

Kaya heto, umuwi na ulit. Di ako na-feel at home sa nilipatan ko. Dito pa rin pala ang home :)

Lilipat na nga ako. Unti-unti muna -- medyo kabado pa dahil baka magkamali sa pagsimula ng diaspora. Pero malamang totohanan na. Siguro kasi hindi na 'ko pwedeng manirahan sa kapihan, kasi isang buwan na ko hindi nagkakape (post-operation healthy choice, I guess -- but mostly because I've learned that I can live without it, and in fact be better off without it).

Kaya dun ka nalang bumisita:

http://mishap.i.ph

I am slowly, carefully packing my things from Blogspot in anticipation of my big move to somewhere else.

Like anyone to whom changing homes is a new thing, I'm clutching my bags, looking at my surroundings, and trying to figure out what else I forgot, if I forgot anything, or if I'll miss this, and if I won't.

So in the days to come, you might not find me here, but as I said, somewhere else.

See you then.

Meron pa pala akong Swatch, 'yung skin. 'Yung manipis. Bigay ng nanay ko. 'Yun ang ginamit ko kahapon sa shooting.

Kaya lang walang seconds timer.

My "baptism of fire" (as we call it at the office) was today: I directed for the first time! It was MoneyTalk episodes 10 and 11, at the BMW Autohaus in Libis.

Those cars, grabe!

And directing, my gulay!

Bumigay na ang McDo na relo ko (dalawa din yon: isang red, isang puti). Kelangan ko ng bagong relo kasi pag may shooting wala akong magamit para ma-timing ang length ng segments. Kanina, humiram pa ko dun sa crew namin.

Gusto ko 'yung may parang stopwatch.

Thanks to a forward in one of my egroups.

The Skin Horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swagger, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away…

"What is Real?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out-handle?"

"Real isn’t how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but Really loves you, then you become Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. "When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked, "or bit by bit?"

"It doesn’t happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You have to become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But these things don’t matter at all, because once you are Real you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand. "

The Velveteen Rabbit
Margery Williams

Manonood ako ng Batman Begins ngayon! Sa sinehan!

Huli kong pinanood sa sinehan: Kingdom of Heaven.

Huli kong pinanood sa VCD: Mean Girls, kahapon lang.

Huli kong pinanood sa DVD: Aviator, noong nakaratay pa ko sa kama pagkatapos ng operasyon.

Ayan, tinag kasi ako ni Niña sa survey, and so here, I comply:

Total volume of music files in my computer:
Nag-crash 'yung drive ko na may music files kasi masyadong napuno. O di ba?

Last CD I bought:
Nyoy Volante and Mannos, OPM Classics (pirated, siyempre)

Song playing right now:
Si Erika, nagpapatugtog ng "Saving Grace"

Five songs I listen to a lot, or that mean a lot to me:

1. What a Wonderful World (Louis Armstrong)
2. So Nice (Astrud Gilberto)
3. Take Five (Dave Brubeck)
4. Better Than I (Joy Williams)
5. Pinoy Pop Medley: Sana'y Maghintay ang Walang Hanggan, Kahit Na Mahawi Man ang Ulap, Ikaw Lang ang Mamahalin, Ikaw Lamang, Bituing Walang Ningning (Lea Salonga, from her "Songs from the Screen" live album, with the Manila Philharmonic Orchestra)

And I therefore pass this survey on to... Honey, Ate Nice, Buddy, and Cathie! Ayos.

1. Ako mismo nag-hangin sa gulong ng kotse. With the help of Manong Guard, siyempre, pero ako pa rin. Maganda 'yung pahanginan nila sa Shell Balintawak, high-tech, may beep-beep-beep pag ok na.

2. Sinilong ko ang sampay 30 segundo bago tumawag ang nanay ko para ipaalala na isilong ang sampay, at isang minito bago bumuhos ang ulan.

Ay, hindi pala. OK na 'tong life na 'to.

Thank You, Lord :-)

I'd rather be in another life.

Do some blog sites allow you to not publish your posts publicly?

Kumbaga, ipo-post mo pero di makikita ng iba, ikaw lang makakakita? Kumbaga, kung gugustuhin mo, kalahati ng blog mo o nakatago sa iba?

Eh di ba, ayos yun?

Para may mukha kang ihaharap sa iba, may mukha kang itatago din. O di good. Schizo labas mo n'yan.

Anyway, ang punto ko lang naman eh sa Blogspot kasi wala n'yan.

Eto pa: inaaral ko na ang bass guitar. Salamat kay Nikki, na halos lahat ng instrumento ay willing ituro sa halos lahat ng tao.

Halos magi-isang buwan nang di nakakadapo ang daliri ko sa tiklado ng piano.

May Extra Challenge pala kahit Sabado? Wow

Before excuse me is this seat taken,
before the color of your eyes, before can I get you a drink,
before I'm Rico I'm Dita, before the fleeting touch
of a hand on a shoulder, it passed through us both
like a door opening a crack in your sleep.

The Same Sea
Amos Oz

Natapos ko na 'yung The God of Small Things. Ganda.

Let's not just talk about love; let's practice real love. This is the only way we'll know we're living truly, living in God's reality. It's also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves.

1 John 3:18-20 (MSG)

Life consists in the constant meeting of souls, which must share their contents with each other. The blessed give to the others, because strength instinctively pours from him and up around him... The charcteristic of blessing is to multiply.

The Theological Dictionary of the New Testament

Sa wakas, may lisensya na ulit ako. Since February, I've been driving around without one. Sssh! Secret lang 'yon, 'wag nyo sabihin sa MMDA.

The Tastes That Bind
Cecile C.A. Balgos
PCIJ Issue No.1 Jan-March 2005

The label of a popular brand of pancit canton, for instance, says that each 65-gram serving (or the whole packet) has about 1,760 mg of sodium or 73 percent of the recommended dietary allowance (RDA) of 2,000 mg a day. Unlike the mami variety, which is often shared by many members in a lower-class household, a packet of instant canton is consumed usually by just one person. Ravenous teeners and office workers have been known to consume two packets each in one sitting, sometimes at breakfast, which means they start their day already packed with almost twice the amount of sodium their bodies should have for the next 24 hours. But like most Pinoys who get restless if their jaws aren’t working (talking as well as eating), they will still be plowing through snacks, lunch, more snacks, and then dinner. More salt will be present in those foods, which could be accompanied by condiments such as patis or soy sauce. A tablespoon of patis or fish sauce has 1,394 mg of sodium while an equivalent amount of soy sauce has 1,423 mg. By the time they go to bed, our canton-eaters will have a lot in common with Lot’s wife after she turned around and had a last look at Sodom and Gomorrah. No wonder hypertension is among the top five causes of morbidity among Filipinos.

1. Mag-church ulit after two Sundays na baldado. Sarap!
2. Pumasok sa office isang linggo matapos ang appendectomy. Ayus!
3. Kumain ulit ng chocolate matapos pagbawalan dahil mahirap daw tunawin ng aking nagalaw na mga bituka. Toblerone at Choc Nut. (At wala pa rin nilaban ang Toblerone sa Choc Nut)
4. Gumising ng 6am araw-araw nang isang linggo.
5. Mag-20 minute-walking sa umaga.
6. Mag-Bible reading at prayer sa umaga matapos ang walking.
7. Kumain ng prutas bilang snack (at marami pang ibang snack, siyempre!).
8. Maghugas ng pinggan at ma-enjoy ito.
9. Makakita ng ibon na pinatay ni Molly pero di naman kinain (pangalawa na daw niya 'to).
10. Malaman na New Minstrels pala ang kumanta ng "Umagang Kay Ganda" (akala ko Ray-an Fuentes at Tillie Moreno? Sino ba ang original? At 'wag kang humirit na Side A, okey?!)

Two of my most precious nuggets from "The God of Small Things":

It didn't matter that the story had begun, because kathakali discovered long ago that the secrets of the Great Stories is that they have no secrets. The Great Stories are the ones that you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don't decieve you with thrills and trick endings. They don't surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover's skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don't. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won't. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn't. And yet you want to know again.

That is their mystery and their magic.

And another one...

To the Kathakali Man these stories are his children and his childhood. He has grown up within them. They are the house he was raised in, the meadows he played in. They are his windows and his way of seeing. So when he tells a story, he handles it as he would a child of his own. He teases it. He punishes it. He sends it up like a bubble. He wrestles it to the ground and lets it go again. He laughs at it because he loves it. He can fly you across whole worlds in minutes, he can stop for hours to examine a wilting leaf. Or play with a sleeping monkey's tail. He can turn effortlessly from the carnage of war into the felicity of a woman washing her hair in a mountain stream. From the crafty ebullience of a rakshasa with a new idea into a gossipy Malayali with a scandal to spread. From the sensuousness of a woman with a baby at her breast into the seductive mischief of Krishna's smile. He can reveal the nugget of sorrow that happiness contains. The hidden fish of shame in a sea of glory.

He tells stories of the gods, but his yarn is spun from the ungodly, human heart.
The Kathakali Man is the most beautiful of men. Because his body is his soul. His only instrument. From the age of three he has been planed and polished, pared down, harnessed wholly to the task of story-telling. He has magic in him, this man within the painted mark and swirling skirts.

But these days he has become unviable. Unfeasible. Condemned goods. His children deride him. They long to be everything that he is not. He has watched them grow up to become clerks and bus conductors. Class IV non-gazetted officers. With unions of their own.

But he himself, left dangling somewhere between heaven and earth, cannot do what they do. He cannot slide down the aisles of buses, counting change and selling tickets. He cannot answer bells that summon him. He cannot stoop behind trays of tea and Marie biscuits.

In despair he turns to tourism. He enters the market. He hawks the only thing he owns. The stories that his body can tell.

He becomes a Regional Flavour.

Natikman niyo na ba ang C2 na iced tea? 'Yung naka-bote na maganda. Nung nasa ospital ako at di pwede kumain at uminom ng kahit ano maliban sa hard candy at ice chips, para lang daw di naman ako mabaliw sabi ng doktor ko, anyway, 'yun na nga, habang nasa ospital ako, pinagnanasahan ko 'yung mga binigay na C2 ng mga dumalaw. Pinramis ko kay Lord na hindi ko ite-take for granted ever evermore ang aking kalayaang kumain at uminom ng kahit anong gusto ko. So ayan, ngayon, umiinom ako ng C2, at mas masarap siya than I ever imagined.

Nakakapanibago pala lahat ng pagkain pag di ka nakakain ng isang linggo.

Neil Gaiman is coming to Manila next month courtesy of Fully Booked and Bibliarch. Hindi man ako fan, baka ikaw fan kaya magpaka-fanatic na.

The British Council is hosting a Writers Forum, Press Session and Autograph-signing with him at the Music Museum on Monday, July 11 from 1:30-3:00 p.m. Registration begins at 1:00 p.m.

Open to the public.

(In other words, bukod sa mga Writers, Press, at Autographers na tiyak na pasok sa "Writers Forum" at "Press Session" at "Autograph-signing," kasama din ang Public, or EveryoneElse or TheOthers, na tiyak namang pasok sa "Open to the Public.")

Isang sentence lang, pero with it is our permission to suddenly have an interest in this event, and without it this whole blog post would've been worthless.

Pwede na, tapos na.

May tinatapos lang.

Unless the LORD builds a house,
the work of the builders is useless.
Unless the LORD protects a city,
guarding it with sentries will do no good.

It is useless for you to work so hard
from early morning until late at night,
anxiously working for food to eat;
for God gives rest to his loved ones.

Psalm 127:1,2

If God is not central to our everyday work then what we are doing is meaningless. What is the point of making money or achieving anything unless God is in it? As believers we are obilged to take God at His Word and recognise that He and He alone is the only reality. How can we possibly exclude the Creator from our work?

Selwyn Hughes

Why, indeed.

Heto ang isang artikulong sana'y kagiliwan ninyo, mula sa PCIJ.