The thing about being sick the whole week and with the fever and colds pouring down on the weekend is that you get to watch a lot of movies. We've got DSL at home. With my wife doing the laundry this weekend, and with her homey comfort food for me (tom-yang soup, did I spell that right? and my fave, lemon-butter sauced shrimps), I got to relax. Never mind the quality of the movies I saw. I downloaded and watched Shinobi (a teen love story with ninjas), Disturbia (a popcorn movie with that impossibly thin-slim girl), The Simpsons Movie (just a quality handcam version, no DVD-rips yet, lots of laughs, nostalgia, and datedness--I felt so 1990), Mr. Brooks (I just love psycho-killer films, Kevin Costner was amazing, just be sure to mentally block out the subplot with Demi Moore in it, because she adds nothing to the story), and I got to watch again The Prestige (the see-again-and-again mind job, nuff said). I'm downloading Oceans 13 and the Perfect Stranger as I write this. Mindless movie watching is fun. A perfect antithesis to a week-long writing job.
I am waiting for the last installment of the Bourne trilogy, with Matt Damon in it. Hmmm. The latest Harry Potter film wasn't worth seeing a movie house at all. Radcliffe is not easy in his own skin. Hermione is getting prettier and prettier in every film. I never liked the HP books that much anyway. As Jessica Zafra pointed out in her blog, just what is at stake here? How bad could it be if he who could not be named even though some people routinely get away with it and this routine is getting old I mean come on people wins?
Crap. It's Monday tomorrow.
snow every fifteen minutes
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fiction in english
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There is a cat meowing from outside my bedroom window, its snout pressed on the opaque glass, one front paw on the ledge, the other thumping the glass, like its was knocking on a neighbor's screendoor. Lemme in, lemme in. I can make out a blurred pink nose on white but dirty fur--maybe canines--when that small mouth opens to tease my cats to come out. Come out, come out and have my first born, it howls in a pitch so high and so familiar to me. Rawwwrrrnnggg.
I own three female cats. I also own waterguns of varying effective ranges and milliliter capacities, a slighshot, a pellet gun, two pairs of throwing knives I bought but could never have the heart to use. The most evil thing I did to the rooftop tomcats of my neighborhood was to leave them a full plate of Aling Lisa's pancit bihon, cooked on her birthday and half a bilao sent to my door. She's my landlady. The tomcats are hers. The tomcats never touched the plate I left on the tongue of galvanized iron right outside my bedroom window. I picked it off the roof the evening before I went to sleep, to throw it down a large garbage bag in my kitchen. When my groomed, cultured, domesticated cats saw the plate and sniffed the scent of that pancit, they properly looked away, without a single meow.
But now I'm swinging my legs, sitting on a table I had just cleared of readings. What to do with this howling in heat cat. There are days when Snow, the tomcat tapping my window, prowled the rooftops looking as clean as cotton. I always thought Aling Lisa routinely caught the small tiger and used an industrial strength vacuum cleaner on it. And there are days when Snow looked like he slept in a ten-wheeler trucks muffler. I want to kill that cat. But Aling Lisa would kill me. I am annoyed. I am running out of options.
I'm still working on this...
that's one mean dream
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catatonia
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I am probably a junkie of some kind. Addicted to something. Some kind of high. Achievement. A witty conversation. A finished, polished essay or short fiction. The chance to sneer at someone while demonstrating my acumen. Shit like that. Had a dream and in that dream my job was dulling my wits, diluting my charm. But the job in that dream paid the bills, so technically I was killing myself to foot the bills. Slow death for a chance to enjoy a shortened life. There's a moral to this somewhere. I just have to find it and wrap around my boss' neck, tie the other end to his desk, and push him out the window. Whoa! That's a high right there. Good times. Good times. I want my next fix to be at least this good. That is one mean dream.
transformers
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Reviews
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Three reasons for seeing this film. To hear Optimus Prime's concerned-general's voice. To see how many people are killed in the urban war of the robots. To find out how the Autobots triumph in the end (it's always like that anyway). Haaay. What did you expect anyway?
I liked it. Or at least the comedy and the action didn't leave room enough to yawn and wonder where all this is going. Cars, trucks, planes, tanks will ee-ah-ah-uh-uh into giant robots and pummel each other with fists, buildings, and energy blasts. You knew all that when you saw the movie posters and the trailers. I really went in the theater without my whining brain, because I wanted to be a kid again and just lose myself in CG action.
Thankfully, the explosions and bent-metal noise and the epic-size city-wide destruction, and the simple plot didn't water down the prospect of seeing, well, Transformers talk and do stuff.
The geek-turned-hero gets the girl angle is cute. I love the part where the parents are proud to see a gorgeous girl in their son's bedroom. There's even a slap stick moment when the bigger-than-a-house Prime hides from the parents.
So Megatron is after the Cube so he can build more Decepticons, and Prime is after it to destroy it, but in the end Prime says they can't rebuild their home because the Cube is gone, or at least only a memento-sized chunk is left; leading me to ask why he wanted it destroyed in the first place?
Yep. That's my whining brain kicking in. Complaints now follow. Like how the Autobots said that Autobots stood for something like automated something or other robots. I had waited till the end of the film to hear a Decepticon or two explain what deception stood for (deceptive emoticons?). Never mind.
And then there's that part when Prime says, "Autobots, roll out." But then they are in biped mode so instead of rolling out, they hop to it. Bad CG acting? or bad script? Never mind.
(Oh yeah. They said "More than meets the eye" three times. I was waiting for that.)
As you will have noticed, Bumblebee is not a cute yellow Beetle but a slick yellow Camaro. It's not the same, but it's now awful, too. Let it go. His first scene in the film had him beside an old Beetle, maybe making us hope that Volkswagen had agreed at the last minute to license their car for the film. Not.
Now for the obituaries. They killed Jazz; they killed the Porsche. In exchange, they killed the tank, the helicopter gunship, the CD player, the police car, and threw Megatron back into the cold abyss. The scorpion thing burrowed and escaped. The fighter plane lived, too. And yes the Nokia thing also died.
And because the Autobots have nowhere to go, they are now Earth's mightiest boarders. Let's wait for the sequel.
I liked it. Or at least the comedy and the action didn't leave room enough to yawn and wonder where all this is going. Cars, trucks, planes, tanks will ee-ah-ah-uh-uh into giant robots and pummel each other with fists, buildings, and energy blasts. You knew all that when you saw the movie posters and the trailers. I really went in the theater without my whining brain, because I wanted to be a kid again and just lose myself in CG action.
Thankfully, the explosions and bent-metal noise and the epic-size city-wide destruction, and the simple plot didn't water down the prospect of seeing, well, Transformers talk and do stuff.
The geek-turned-hero gets the girl angle is cute. I love the part where the parents are proud to see a gorgeous girl in their son's bedroom. There's even a slap stick moment when the bigger-than-a-house Prime hides from the parents.
So Megatron is after the Cube so he can build more Decepticons, and Prime is after it to destroy it, but in the end Prime says they can't rebuild their home because the Cube is gone, or at least only a memento-sized chunk is left; leading me to ask why he wanted it destroyed in the first place?
Yep. That's my whining brain kicking in. Complaints now follow. Like how the Autobots said that Autobots stood for something like automated something or other robots. I had waited till the end of the film to hear a Decepticon or two explain what deception stood for (deceptive emoticons?). Never mind.
And then there's that part when Prime says, "Autobots, roll out." But then they are in biped mode so instead of rolling out, they hop to it. Bad CG acting? or bad script? Never mind.
(Oh yeah. They said "More than meets the eye" three times. I was waiting for that.)
As you will have noticed, Bumblebee is not a cute yellow Beetle but a slick yellow Camaro. It's not the same, but it's now awful, too. Let it go. His first scene in the film had him beside an old Beetle, maybe making us hope that Volkswagen had agreed at the last minute to license their car for the film. Not.
Now for the obituaries. They killed Jazz; they killed the Porsche. In exchange, they killed the tank, the helicopter gunship, the CD player, the police car, and threw Megatron back into the cold abyss. The scorpion thing burrowed and escaped. The fighter plane lived, too. And yes the Nokia thing also died.
And because the Autobots have nowhere to go, they are now Earth's mightiest boarders. Let's wait for the sequel.
curse that book
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fiction in english
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I got hold of a spell book with some curses in them. Thirty bucks from a gnarled old lady with a humpback. Her makeshift rack on the street bend near my apartment had small boxes full of them old books. Like she was moving, and that afternoon of my day off was her rummage sale day. Curses, huh? I almost ran back home, my long hair getting dishelved by the wind. Smells like it was going to rain. Dead leaves all around falling like confetti, like one big sudden autumn. I don't remember our street having so many old trees. Never mind that. How many people do I hate. Wonder if I have to buy candles? Hope this book doesn't make me yell Latin at the turn of twelve, and in front of a mirror at that. Har har. I fumble for my keys.
Dog-eared and with some pages torn off, the pages remain thick, like it absorbed all the sweat and dead bugs of the last half century. I've seen dead books like these in my school's library, in the section the nuns told us not to visit. Of course I snuck in there whenever I could. I always thought the nuns hid porn up that attic, and not the History of the Holocaust with so many nude pictures of dead Jews. Or several copies of Salman Rushdie's' Satanic Verses, which was a good story, really. I even found some autographed copies of Bertrand Russell's Why I am not a Christian. A nun or two long ago must have been a vehement secret fan of the atomic era enlightenment period. Never mind that. I slid out of my shoes, unzipped my skirt, got out of my blouse and bra, and walked barefoot to the kitchen in my undies, holding the book with two hands. Naked offering here I come. I hope there was one. I pulled up a chair to examine my find.
It should smell ancient, like it belonged to a previous world, but it doesn't. I sniffed it, the way I sniff newly bought books from Powerbooks and National Bookstore. Smells of disuse, this book, but not age. I opened it and flipped the pages, hoping to see a bookmark or a dead rose or bugs or a sheaf of small paper, maybe a sepia picture. Nothing. What kind of paper did they use here? The pages are coarse, rough on some parts, but the handwriting is legible--longhand from a time when notes revealed the soul. The words were carefully chosen. The strokes are elegant. That's what I thought. The spine is hand-sewn. Lovingly. I'm beginning to like this book. I grabbed my cell and text'd Angela--she lives next door. "Come over here now. Get a load of this." A knock on the door. I grab a bathroom towel and cover myself up. If my landlord, that maniac Mang Ramon down the hall, could see my like this, he'd mention marriage again. For the third time.
"There had better be a single man inside, or you're dead!" Angela yelled after banging at the door, and again more banging, louder this time. Knocks aren't enough for this woman. I let her in, long loose shirt with no shorts underneath and all. I know so. That's how we dress after school hours. Like sluts within reach. Ah the freedom. Long skirts and tight blouses in a private school within earshot of nowhere. If a woman lusted in a forest but there was no man around, does it matter? Never mind that.
I showed the pages to my co-teacher/ neighbor / best friend without telling her what the book was about and she said she didn't know I could read German. I yanked the book away from her and looked at a particular page.
"That is not German," I said, pointing to one line of script.
"Really?" Angela said while tugging at my towel. "Say it out loud, that line."
"Fine. Stop yanking my towel away."
I cleared my throat: "When you have foreseen the gestures yourself, the soul-itch clings to the reader." Angela smiled that smile she throws at preschoolers who thought they had outsmarted their teacher.
"Ah-huh." She nods and thumbs her cell, then aims it on a page of the book in my hand. She shows me the digital image while feeling my forehead with her free hand.
"I'm not sick, Angela. See here those words are... German." I flick her hand from my forehead and stare at the page, and then stare at the phone's colored monitor again. "But I know what it says, I can read it here--"
"Read the thing on my cell, not the book."
"I can't."
"What is this book about anyway?"
"Curses."
"It has nothing written on the cover. How do you know?"
"I... I.. I just know. The old lady must have told me it was a book on curses."
"What old lady?"
"Down the bend, near the bakery."
"I got home after you did. I heard you lock your door. I passed by the same bend. There was no lady there."
"But... but...," I flipped the pages and I could read them, I really could. Or at least I didn't feel like I didn't know what the lines of script meant. I felt at home with this.
Angela walked up to me and extended her hand, asking for the open book. The book suddenly closed itself shut, and I jumped back, startled, dropping it on the wooded floor. My single old maniac landlord that evening must have had the time of his life pacifying two mestiza's barely clothed. We screamed as we ran for the door. We screamed as we ran down the hall. Along the way I dropped my towel.
Dog-eared and with some pages torn off, the pages remain thick, like it absorbed all the sweat and dead bugs of the last half century. I've seen dead books like these in my school's library, in the section the nuns told us not to visit. Of course I snuck in there whenever I could. I always thought the nuns hid porn up that attic, and not the History of the Holocaust with so many nude pictures of dead Jews. Or several copies of Salman Rushdie's' Satanic Verses, which was a good story, really. I even found some autographed copies of Bertrand Russell's Why I am not a Christian. A nun or two long ago must have been a vehement secret fan of the atomic era enlightenment period. Never mind that. I slid out of my shoes, unzipped my skirt, got out of my blouse and bra, and walked barefoot to the kitchen in my undies, holding the book with two hands. Naked offering here I come. I hope there was one. I pulled up a chair to examine my find.
It should smell ancient, like it belonged to a previous world, but it doesn't. I sniffed it, the way I sniff newly bought books from Powerbooks and National Bookstore. Smells of disuse, this book, but not age. I opened it and flipped the pages, hoping to see a bookmark or a dead rose or bugs or a sheaf of small paper, maybe a sepia picture. Nothing. What kind of paper did they use here? The pages are coarse, rough on some parts, but the handwriting is legible--longhand from a time when notes revealed the soul. The words were carefully chosen. The strokes are elegant. That's what I thought. The spine is hand-sewn. Lovingly. I'm beginning to like this book. I grabbed my cell and text'd Angela--she lives next door. "Come over here now. Get a load of this." A knock on the door. I grab a bathroom towel and cover myself up. If my landlord, that maniac Mang Ramon down the hall, could see my like this, he'd mention marriage again. For the third time.
"There had better be a single man inside, or you're dead!" Angela yelled after banging at the door, and again more banging, louder this time. Knocks aren't enough for this woman. I let her in, long loose shirt with no shorts underneath and all. I know so. That's how we dress after school hours. Like sluts within reach. Ah the freedom. Long skirts and tight blouses in a private school within earshot of nowhere. If a woman lusted in a forest but there was no man around, does it matter? Never mind that.
I showed the pages to my co-teacher/ neighbor / best friend without telling her what the book was about and she said she didn't know I could read German. I yanked the book away from her and looked at a particular page.
"That is not German," I said, pointing to one line of script.
"Really?" Angela said while tugging at my towel. "Say it out loud, that line."
"Fine. Stop yanking my towel away."
I cleared my throat: "When you have foreseen the gestures yourself, the soul-itch clings to the reader." Angela smiled that smile she throws at preschoolers who thought they had outsmarted their teacher.
"Ah-huh." She nods and thumbs her cell, then aims it on a page of the book in my hand. She shows me the digital image while feeling my forehead with her free hand.
"I'm not sick, Angela. See here those words are... German." I flick her hand from my forehead and stare at the page, and then stare at the phone's colored monitor again. "But I know what it says, I can read it here--"
"Read the thing on my cell, not the book."
"I can't."
"What is this book about anyway?"
"Curses."
"It has nothing written on the cover. How do you know?"
"I... I.. I just know. The old lady must have told me it was a book on curses."
"What old lady?"
"Down the bend, near the bakery."
"I got home after you did. I heard you lock your door. I passed by the same bend. There was no lady there."
"But... but...," I flipped the pages and I could read them, I really could. Or at least I didn't feel like I didn't know what the lines of script meant. I felt at home with this.
Angela walked up to me and extended her hand, asking for the open book. The book suddenly closed itself shut, and I jumped back, startled, dropping it on the wooded floor. My single old maniac landlord that evening must have had the time of his life pacifying two mestiza's barely clothed. We screamed as we ran for the door. We screamed as we ran down the hall. Along the way I dropped my towel.
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I'm still working on this...
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