Screwed

Watching Jeffrey Jeturian’s 2001 classic Tuhog (Larger than Life) was a jaw-dropping cinematic experience, partly due to its astoundingly campy sex on top of a tree scene, but mostly because it was an example of an almost perfect, assuredly directed, tightly written, gorgeously shot, witty, darkly satirical Filipino film (within a film within a film). A rarity indeed.

Other recently seen Pinoy classics (great movies but without tree sex though): Burlesk Queen (hips don’t lie!), Scorpio Nights (scorching!), Insiang and Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang (two Brocka masterpieces).

Daffy Duck

I wear a coat of feelings and they are loud. I’ve been having good days, think we are the right age to start our own peculiar ways?

-Animal Collective, The Purple Bottle

It may be because of the season, but lately I find myself more tolerant of cheese. Although Twilight, a tasty ball of cheese, is essentially 120 minutes of two anemic teens ogling at each other, it is watchable and, with better writing, portends a promising future for the series.

Meanwhile, there will be no more studying (or stressful thinking) for me in at least ten months. GRE is finally over, and since it really was as much an exam of vanity as it was a test of skill, pride wants me to say that I probably did well. One-standard-deviation-above-the-mean type of well (though not yet official). Woot.

In other news, what does it mean when a change-averse person (i.e., me) suddenly exhibits a recent proclivity towards change? Hmm, The Purple Bottle?

Crush high then I go and take some pills, ’cause I can’t do all of my do’s and still feel ill. You get that whooooa! You get that whooooa! You get that whooooa! You get that whooooa!

Cuckoo, Cuckoo

If elephants be reaching for our purses, meet me after the world with the shivers.

- Animal Collective, Fireworks

I was supposed to write about Woolf’s The Waves, which I recently finished (and immensely enjoyed) rereading, but I could never come up with adequate words and sentences that would do justice to the beauty of its poem-prose lyricism. Instead, I post here a random passage from a random page and let it speak for itself.

‘In a world which contains the present moment,’ said Neville, ‘why discriminate? Nothing should be named lest by so doing we change it. Let it exist, this bank, this beauty, and I, for one instant, steeped in pleasure. The sun is hot. I see the river. I see trees specked and burnt in the autumn sunlight. Boats float past, through the red, through the green. Far away a bell tolls, but not for death. There are bells that ring for life. A leaf falls, from joy. Oh, I am in love with life! Look how the willow shoots its first sprays into the air!’

Also, it seems like Animal Collective tunes will be playing in my head for quite a long while still. I’ve ignored AC songs in the past (regrettably!), dismissing them as unnecessarily strange, boringly atmospheric and barely listenable. Then Strawberry Jam came, an astonishing record of poppish hooks, repetitive shouting, quiet moody musings and freshly reinvented melodies (sometimes all in one song). The opening single, Peacebone, marked the beginning of a potentially obsessive love affair that now spans two other equally wonderful albums: Feels and Sung Tongs. Insane songs, insane videos:

Peacebone

Fireworks

Grass

Water Curses

Liver Lover Boy

“Well the universe is shaped exactly like the earth. If you go straight long enough, you’d end up where you were.”

-Modest Mouse, 3rd Planet

Went back to Sipocot, Cam Sur last weekend to visit my grandparents’ graves, something I have not done in about 15 years. Returning to my birthplace was grade school summers once again: the pungent smell of copra, gugo shampoo baths, Bioman/Shaider betamax tapes, the bittersweet taste of rice coffee, Lenten and May processions, the heat of my godparents’ roadside eatery furnace, market Sunday mornings, laughing aunts, terror aunts, getting punched in the stomach by a cousin, getting hit on the face with a basketball at a local league game, getting cheated at a scrabble game by an aunt (an adult!), my childhood fascination with Sipocot place names like Impig, Tara and Kuloy-Kuloy, and many many other mostly warm, cuddly memories.

This is me with my grandmother a year before she passed away. I remember how she would prepare for me my favorite snack: bread which I would dip in rice coffee (or whatever you call them). The scowl in my face was due to a slight fever. Everyone else in the photo was happy.

This is where I was born (on the second room of the second floor). The physician was not in the clinic, so the house was the only option. Apparently while giving birth, my mother could smell the rice coffee that my aunts were preparing downstairs, thereby explaining why I eventually became crazy over the thing.

This is the gate where I once crashed a bike. Interesting how places are bigger in memories than in reality.

In other news, after eight years, I’ve finally decided to get a real haircut, which means I may need to probably buy a comb soon. Also, I think I suck at reading comprehension and analytical writing (for the GRE). God help me.

Obama gets elected. Meanwhile, Isadora explodes.

Today, we celebrate Obama’s timely and well-deserved victory in the US elections, and commemorate Isadora’s untimely death by grenade explosion. Isadora, our favorite Pinoy TV villain and the unofficial star of the camp soap Iisa Pa Lamang, is perhaps best remembered by listing down her memorable one-liners.

“Ganito pala feeling maging hampas lupa. Kaloka!”

“Kung ang lahat ng bulok na ngipin ay kasing ganda ko, oh di wala nang bibili ng toothpaste, hahaha, I’m so witty.”

“I-dedemanda ko kayong lahat! For stupidity!”

“Ang ganda-ganda mo na ngayon Katherine. Sarap mong patayin, no?”

“Kayo ni Katherine ang labo nyo talaga. Si Katherine iniwan ako sa kumunoy tapos ikaw binaril mo ako. Di nyo ba talaga ako gusto?”

“Totoo ba yan? Umiyak ka ba talaga nung nalunod ako sa kumunoy?”

To an apparently dead Aura, whom she pushed from the top of the stairs: “Hoy wag mo kong artehan ha! Hindi naman ganoon kataas ang hagdan mo.”

“Pwede ba Katherine wala akong panahong makipagbalagtasan sayo, tapos na linggo nga wika noh, di ka ba naabisuhan?”

To her maid: “Aba! Ang kapal ng mukha mo, wala kang utang na loob ha? So paano? Pera-pera na lang? Hindi mo ba naisip na kinuha kita galing sa bundok, binihisan at nakatikim ng corned beef dahil sa akin.”

“Kung gaano ka katayod lumipad, ganun ka rin kabilis lalalagapak. Ouch!”

“Hayop ka! Kahit kelan di mo ako mabibili, at hindi mo ako kayang bilhin!”

Di pwedeng mawala sa akin ang (hacienda) Amadesto. Di pwedeng mapunta kay Aura. Anong gagawin nya dun? Home for the aged?

“Eh di mag-sha-shades ako.”

“Best actress!”