gadƒly

mi nombre en inquirer online?!!!!! damnshite. i shouldve used high-falluting words for the blurb.

thanks pam (fernandez) for the heads up!

http://showbizandstyle.inquirer.net/you/vidvibe/view/20081219-178898/Reel-eXperience

Reel eXperience

By Pam Pastor
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Last updated 17:32:00 12/19/2008

 

ONCE wasn’t enough.

Members of Lomomanila are back and ready to invade Mogwai once again with Cinemalomo—a festival featuring short films shot with quirky and fun film cameras.

Like last year, the people behind the films used their toy cameras to spin tales of life, love, loss and loneliness. And tonight, everyone is invited to watch them.

Here are just some of the films that are to be screened at Mogwai in Cubao X tonight, starting at 8 p.m. There’s no doubt about it, this a cinematic experience you’ve never had before.

IN EXTREMIS

Filmmaker: CJ Ledesma
Stars: So Yo
The plot: “Between nightmare and reality, death and life, darkness and light, there is a girl displaced and dissociated. This is a biographical snippet of our times.”
Inspiration: “The video in the movie The Ring.”
Why you should watch it: “Forget emosh*t. Goth is the real deal!”
You’ll like it if you like: Girl, Interrupted—as directed by Tim Burton

MANTSA

Filmmaker: Mikko Clauor
Stars: Mine Bautista, Mikko Clauor, Krist Menina, Thino Ragunton, Juday Dominguez and Vic Tiro
The Plot: “A typical boy/girl relationship. In the beginning all is well, until a secret comes to tear them apart.”
Inspiration: Arlene Bongon’s short story “Alab”
Why you should watch it: “It’s not just my film they should watch but all the entries of Cinemalomo 2008,” says Mikko Clauor
You’ll like it if you like: Lilim, Camera Obscura, Framed and In Extremis

FRAMED

Filmmakers: Gab Chee Kee and Ruby de Vera
Star: Paco Sta. Maria
The plot: “Paco just wants to spend a quiet afternoon in a place away from everybody, where he can read his comic books, drink his mocha latte,and listen to Rihanna in peace. But what if the quiet he wants is more than he asked for? With the resourcefulness and ingenuity of a Boy Scout and a little help from his friends, watch Paco try to cross the line.”
Inspiration: “Two brains farted and this is the result.”
Why you should watch it: “Great acting (as great as it can get on still frames), and someone famous is making a cameo.”
You’ll like it if you like: Superbad, The Incredibles

LILIM

Filmmaker: James Oliver
The plot: “A lonely aging bachelor has thoughts of suicide. While weighing his options, he learns of the existence of a succubus. He is consumed by thoughts of going to bed with this demon, but he would soon learn that, like his life, things don’t exactly work out the way they’re planned.”
Inspiration: Maximo D. Ramos’ Creatures of Lower Mythology
Why you should watch it: “At some point in our lives we have been asked by someone the question of how we would prefer to leave this world—whether it be in our sleep or in a sky diving accident. People will enjoy the movie’s development, all without a word being uttered, and the medium in which the story is told,” says James
You’ll like it if you like: 80’s Twilight Zone episodes

22:32

Filmmaker: Thea Napa
Stars: Ken Eriru, Glace Napa
The plot: “A socially inept young man wakes up in his dream. Vague images unfold incoherently, with great rapidity.

Why you should watch it: “Hopefully people can relate to Ken’s character; see things in a different perspective through their dreams.”
You’ll like it if you like: Vanilla Sky

THIS AWKWARD SPACE

Filmmakers: Gabby Cantero and Patricia Magno
Stars: Mollie Del Rosario, Marco Tanjutco, Anna Alzona and Kix Suarez
The plot: “These are awkward spaces of you and me and me and you. Yes, these are facts. Rainbows and butterflies sold separately.”
Inspiration: Ingrid Michaelson and the true stories of friends over coffee and cigarettes.
Why you should watch it: “Because this is nothing but complicated truths and the like.”
You’ll like it if you like: “Joshua Radin, Ingrid Michaelson and the like. Some Miranda July & a little Banana Yoshimoto on the side.”

taken: November 4/ 6:59am

We were greeted by a drizzle when Pam, DJ and I came out of the office. The sky was light gray. The cool, moist air clung to my skin. It felt like Christmas already. Not of the Merrycategory though, it was more of the Nostalgic kind. Well, Christmas hardly has ever been merry to me; ever since I was a kid, Christmas always felt like sweet sadness. Perhaps it was because of the drop in temperature, the Jose Mari Chan songs and the cheesy-sad tv shows that hard-wired this feeling in my brain–for a lot of us, I guess. That’s also probably why suicides occur mostly in the cold months.

That’s how I’ve been feeling these past few days. I felt like a child in Christmas. Except that this child is out, wanting to cross the cold, bleak hiway; a weak, little creature stuck in the street corner, paralyzed by the humongous world that lay before her. I felt all too sure that one day soon, I’ll either get myself killed or lose my wits. But I couldn’t care less. Too tired to think. I just wanted to stare into the gray skies until that inevitable moment happens.

And so while having breakfast, amid delightful chitchat, I snuck and took a picture of the scene before me: The cool, calm drizzle. DJ and Pam casually eating. The light bluish-gray palette. It was the perfect metaphor. And I’ve dissociated from this picture, from myself. Like I was merely observing things as they took place. I was there, but not there. I was just this vapid presence, this Bell Jar. That’s how my birthday felt. Calm. Nostalgic. Quiet.

Then as we were about to leave, Pam hands me a birthday gift. Upon opening the book, the first page shakes me up. It was enough to zap my spirit/consciousness (whatever metaphysical thing it is that lies in this bag of flesh) back to its containment. Just as I was about to billow away like a stray balloon, coincidence takes me back by the hand. Thank you for bringing me back Pam.

And I thank the rest of you who remembered this day. This blessed day when even I had almost forgotten who I was, am, and the person who I could be. I swore another friend earlier I’d stop whining, so cut me this one last slack ok. This is as cheesy as it gets.

The afternoon sun still finds a way to filter through closed venetian blinds. It’s a lonely sight. Outside the world is supposedly robust, yet the sun rays are weakened by darkness. Life, happiness, hope are sucked in by this blackhole of a room. A room that breathes Dread. Death. Meaninglessness.

And you wake up in this room, this darkness. At 6pm when the sun surrenders its few remaining energy to the night. Are you afraid of the dark? The universe is dark. If it weren’t for the stars, there would be no glint of light, there is only nothing. If it weren’t for the neon, the headlights, the stoplights, there would only be loneliness in the streets, and aimless walking.

You barely see time in the dark. Perhaps that is why vampires are immortal. A few hours could feel like lifetimes to the creature who feels everything else in the world is progressing, changing. To the creature who feels stuck in a forgotten point in time. To the creature who is alone, who will always feel alone.

I only have a couple of hours til my birthday. I’ve almost completely existed for a quarter of a century. Yet, instead of a celebration of life, Dread has been haunting me these past few days, weeks. Every night is a memento mori. Sometimes I just want to get it all over with. But I am afraid of the dark. I’m afraid of never being able to see the light again.

“There is always this unfathomable sadness because you are perennially alone. Solitude. You die but your art will live. I believe in that. For every work you do you die and then your art lives.” - Lav Diaz

At this very minute, in a parallel dimension, I should be experiencing Wonder. Instead, here I am typing on this machine, run by pirated softwares, wringing my brain for coherence, for the perfect words to encapsulate my feelings towards the hour that was.

But I only have this heavy weight on my chest. I can’t think. I’m too tired to analyze, much more make a fuckin art out of this. Grammar. Style. Wit. They don’t come naturally for posers like me. Hence they’re ammunitions for those mofo intellectual-elitists. My English’s messed up. My Filipino’s goddamn shallow. The fact that perhaps 80% of the rest of educated Filipinos are linguistically in that sordid state doesn’t console me. It makes me more fuckin furious towards our history, towards colonialism, towards our Republic’s government– past, current and future.

I didn’t go to Lav Diaz’s workshop. I chickened out. I was there, on time, perhaps a bad time. The first time I was ever on-time for a meeting, it fucks me up. Mr. Diaz was there and 2 other staff members on the registration table, looking bored (and maybe a bit worried that none had come yet-well, for godssake the mall just opened, I was one of the first 10 to come in) waiting for people to arrive. From a few meters away, I was stealthily observing and I knew I was the only atendee. I lingered for 30 minutes, waited for other people to arrive. But everytime I took a peak, I only see his long imposing gray hair, and his well-grounded stance. I felt like a stupid, awkward kid. I had no place there. The feeling of smallness even heightened when I saw a few caucasian-looking backpackers register at the table. Yep, they were probably international filmmakers hopping from one festival to another. And there I was, this pathetic troll, hoping for even just crumbs of Greatness, but doesn’t even have the guts to come 2 meters closer towards its Deities.

30 minutes before going to Galleria I had asked for a sign. I saw a cab from afar and told myself that if it were vacant, it only means that I am destined to go to the workshop. Fat chance for that to happen in Ayala at 10:30 in the morning. But it was, the cab was vacant, and the trip only took us 25minutes, and I arrived 5minutes before the mall opened.

But perhaps, that was what I was supposed to see and to experience. To feel weak and powerless and small. Wasted. So that I may hate myself so much that it will finally propel me to act, to lift and throw this mold-infested weight off of my life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

i am seeing things move

trees gently swaying to the breeze

on faded black and white photographs

Daylight and Darkness are undistinguished

there is just a dismal Gray

eternal and cold as damp tombstones

after the rain

 

and this world is spinning

ever so slowly

ever so gently

like a cradle in the wind

i close my eyes

almost nauseous

but tired as a rock

i couldn’t even muster

a prayer

for a long and deep slumber

 

somber

my chest is a hollow chamber

where whispers echo back as

little-girl-sobs

throbbing and

beating

 

it’s a wonder

something still persists in this

void

something flickers weakly

in the dark

 Tomorrow is Eheads day. And I don’t know if 5 years from now I would be banging my head on the wall for not having made the right decision.

I decided not to go. After much anticipation, and after having been given all the opportunity (ie. being asked out on a date by someone who ALREADY have tickets) to attend the reunion gig, I decided I have more important things to do that night.

“Like effin WHAT could be more important than this once-in-a-lifetime event!!?” - I could almost hear a die-hard, Eheads fan scream into my eardrums.

“Err.. sleep?” - Now I can feel groping hands, the back of my head.. the wall. My nose is broken.

Yes. I am dissing the concert because I need to rest. I got work tonight, a colleague’s birthday party to go to after work, and my godchild’s 1st birthday celebration after lunch. Knowing my body clock all too well, I know that even if I go home before lunch and force myself to sleep for a few hours so I could wake up at 2pm, I wouldn’t be able to. My body, like my mind unfortunately, can not easily be told what to do. I would just toss and turn in bed, and before I know it, it would be 3pm and I’d get out of bed feeling like a homicidal-suicidal maniac again for being late for a commitment despite not having had enough sleep– and for choosing this type of godforsaken work and lifestyle. So yea, Id rather do a straight, 24-hour sleepless, hectic day. Yet the straw that would really break the call-center-agent’s-back, is knowing that I would have to force myself awake for the next, give or take, 12 hours if I were to still go to the Eheads gig. I’ve inhaled too much nicotine already, deprived myself of proper sleep for the past 2 years (and going) and haven’t been eating (the right) vegetables for the longest time. If I go to this event, I’m afraid I would be adding 5 more years to my ever shortening life-span. Is this Eheads “reunion concert” worth 5 years of my life? Hmm.. Maybe if it were Tori Amos.. or Muse in an intimate setting gig..

But don’t get me wrong. I’m a huge fan of the Eheads. Though not a die-hard fan, I want Spoliarium to be played on my funeral (Fcuk, that song speaks to me so much I get goosebumps everytime I hear it). Make me listen to that and follow it up with Ang Huling El Bimbo, Para sa Masa, Magasin, Torpedo, Huwag Mo Nang Itanong, and Minsan and I’ll be off to Nostalgialand and Slashville come sleeping-time. I could go on and on about how I admire Ely’s songwriting genius– how in his lyrics, he could elevate absurd daily events to something that touches the core, and compose unforgettable melodies that complement and fit the lyrics like a warm, comfy glove. Quintessential, yep that’s what it is. And with all this emoshit going on you can also add Unpretentious to that.

However, after having found out exactly WHY they were doing this gig, I got a bit turned off by this whole “reunion concert” enterprise. It wasn’t because the fans asked for it, it wasn’t because someone was dying, it wasn’t because they’re doing it for good ‘ol times sake, they’re doing it for Marlboro. For advertisement. While Philip Morris was ready to give this “momentous event” to us “free of charge”, the band was going to get Huge Bucks for it (10 million from what I read). And to add insult to injury, I read these 2 angst-ridden “letters to the fans” of Raimund that clearly shows there’s still lingering animosity amongst them (or should I say between them?), and that it looks like this would all be just a chore.

So yea, they were basically going to do it just for the money. If there was one person who seems surfer-cool about the whole situation according to the grapevine, it’s Marcus (you go dude!).. and perhaps also Buddy, who seems to have always been the level-headed one.

Sure, there’s been a turn of events when Philip Morris had to back out the last minute (1 week before the gig? Because they were reprimanded by the government for this illegal activity) and the band decided to push through with it anyway “since the fans were already expecting it”. Oh yeah, big favor. And so here’s their lovin’: P1,500++ ticket,  hasty and disorganized logistics, and four exceptionally-good musicians performing half-heartedly onstage. Perhaps they just didn’t want to make it look as though the whole intention was for the buck, but it’s a bit too late for that now, I guess it would have been better had they cancelled the concert altogether.

I love them. I adore them. I want to see them perform again. But something is just wrong with this whole scenario. If I were to go back to answer my question earlier if the Eheads reunion concert would be worth 5 years of my life–well, it probably is. Only if it were to happen not tomorrow night but some other auspicious time in the future when all of them would have their whole heart and soul into this thing– just how reunion concerts are supposed to be: a band coming full-circle, a carefree reliving of the early years when it was all about music and inspiration.

And is that going to happen tomorrow? I doubt it. For some reason, when I imagine Ely and Raimund’s would-be performance, I am getting the image of an angry and disillusioned prostitute, gyrating with all the skills that would make the lecherous audience salivate in five minutes, but just wanting to get over it as quickly as possible. I don’t want to have to pay for fake love, I want the real deal. I don’t care if I have to wait for 10 years more, I just want to experience something that can truly be called “historic”.

         Look who’s talking! Cynic Joy has just heckled my monologue.

Fine. This angry-prostitute-thing hits me back in the face now that I realize I’ve been slaving for years for a job I don’t get any self-actualization from. But my case is different, though it looks like I’m doing it just for the money (well maybe 70% of it yes), a lot of it has got to do I guess with learned helplessness and this godammned comfort-zone thing. But that’s not the topic here.

This is my point: Here I am, disillusioned, insipid, depressed. The only fuel that keeps me going are Nostalgia, Hope, and Fantasy. The Eheads play a part in the Nostalgia component. Their songs make me ache, they provoke me; in this zombie-state of monotony, listening to their songs remind me I’m alive. Deep inside I guess, what I’m really afraid of is that if I go to their gig tomorrow I’d see something unpleasant and my Quintessential memory of the Eheads and the good old 90’s would be tainted. After all the youthful ideals, this is what we have become: typical adults.

But what if something awe-inspiring happens tomorrow? What if music is a healing balm for old wounds and tomorrow turns out to be the greatest gig they ever played? I guess I’ll never know. I’ve already made my decision. Though it’s not too late to change my mind.

        Oh yes it IS too late to change your mind now Cornball Joy. You got work tonight, and thanks to this crybabyblog, you’ve only got 5 hours of sleep left. So just shut up and go to bed.

I just realized it’s been over two years since I’ve last posted an entry here. And I’ve realized I’m still the self-messed-up, aimless person that I was. So really, there is nothing to write about.

So why am I here? At 11:30 at night writing nonesense? Beats me. Probably because I read Pam’s blog and got re-bitten by the literary vampire. Probably because there’s just too much time to kill after having just woken up 1 hour ago (night shift is a bitch). Or probably I just wanted to gauge how deteriorated my grammar and my English had become after all these years of mouthing empty spiels and scripts (ok, it took me 3 edits to finalize that last sentence, and two for this parenthetical comment).

I used to write good shit you know. Well in my own narcissistic opinion that is–dunno if my readers (was part of the college paper for those of you who didn’t know) shared the same opinion, or if those who gave me praise only didnt want to hurt my wafer-thin self-esteem. But as I age, the more writing becomes such an exhaustive, stressful task for me.

Well, anyone who’s writing about the same emotions repetitively is bound to get burnt out. Besides this nerd-blog, I got my own 2 full volumes of old-school journal since I started shitting my frustrations out on paper in 2nd year college. I’m on my third journal now, but the interval between my entries is getting longer and longer. Why? Because I’m too lazy to do anything now. And because I write about the same thing over and over again. There’s nothing new to write about. A couple of months ago I browsed through my 1st journal, and I realized that nothing’s hardly changed. I’m still the same frustrated, sadness-wallowing-goth-girl that I was when I was 18. Sounds a bit immature doesn’t it? I guess the only difference now is that I no longer have the same spirit I used to have to "mold trash into art" (as I once said on a poem I wrote). I rarely write poems or stories or whatevers now, I just take endless siestas in this pigsty (Well ironically for some people I know that’s actually growing up).

And besides slacking, I just distract myself with jumping from one hobby to another, crushing on one boy to the next, letting it slip one day at a time–with nothing consummated. On my emptiest moments I get this dismal premonition that my life will end unfinished. I use routine as my crutches, without it I’ll fall apart..

Or maybe, just maybe, without it I’ll learn to walk on my own. But I’m too weak and unmotivated to want to try that out now.

But here I am again, writing about me and dear apathy. Same shit, differenty entry.

So enough about me, let’s talk about YOU.

Why are you here?

No, really have you ever given it a thought? Not only do I ask why you are here reading this, at this time, on that chair, in this very minute. But

WHY

are you

HERE?

Why do you exist and persist? What motivates you? What ticks you off? Is your life aimed at goodness so you can go to heaven? Or are you an atheistic hedonist? Or do you say fuck it, I’ll cross the damn bridge when I get there! ?

Whichever way it is, this HERE and NOW is temporary. Does it make you feel sad or does it make you feel blessed? I’ve realized a long time ago that to find peace you must make that choice.

Problem is, I still cant. Everytime I think about Impermance I feel a vertigo coming.

How about you reader? Have you made yours?

Man: Are you alright? You appear to be injured.
Vincent Van Gogh: This?
Man: Yeah.
Vincent Van Gogh: Yesterday I was trying to complete a self portrait. I just couldn’t get the ear right, so I… cut it off and threw it away.

-Akira Kurosawa, Kurosawa’s Dreams

It’s sad what happened to New Orleans. One of my favorite cities destroyed by the hurricane. Well of course nothing compares to the omnipresent despair I feel for my own country, how it’s been raped and ravaged by all these old and neo-colonialists and has’nt quite put itself back together yet–but thats a different (and far too long) story and commentary. New Orleans. The part that I’ve never been there yet and had experienced the city only vicariously through anne rice, the movies and better than ezra, makes the loss all the more harrowing for me. What with all the bohemes and witchcraft there, the jazz music, the flamboyant parades and the street artists, old Victorian houses and narrow streets lined with low-lying boughs, the scent of candles, and quite simply, the enigma of it all. I feel like I’ve lost a home, a dream. I’d sworn to myself that someday I’ll go there–even for just a day, just to experience the city–but what would be left of it now? Washed out by the flood, its spirit drowned, I feel as if a small part of mine got adrift too.

And its easy for me to feel all these feelings now. Of loss. Now, when everything seems to just be up in the air, stagnating, almost near decay. What with all the little daily tragedies I encounter that always seem to echo the unfortunate persistence of unanswered, existential questions. And my closest friends too in their own current circumstances find these times to be the most hollow yet. But somehow I manage, my solitude keeps me company through all this. That may sound weird, but come to think of it, paradox abounds us. And I do not know when or how my love affair with melancholy began, I just found myself being this sad person one day, and I knew that it was never going to leave me. I know that whatever happens along the way, whatever earthly gains and achievements Chance bestows upon me, I know that they will never be deep enough or poignant enough than this sublime Solitude I’ve found. And though at times, I also yearn to be fully understood, felt, and kept company as any normal person would, I know no person, no true kindred can –just the same as my being incapable too of reciprocating and reaching into the depth of theirs. Quid me nutrit me destruit. What nourishes me destroys me. And I hope that goes for my Orleans too.