Shoot Them Hazardous Big Birds Perching On Billboards

Buwayahman, thank you for pointing a stream of unsuspecting bloghoppers my way, also for sharing my amused incredulity over Bench’s Bleak Is Back campaign, but most importantly for sharing this link, which, after reading it makes me feel good about living in a country where a hard working (pun semi intended) Public Works Secretary selflessly multitask as an MTRCB vigilante, a quack bishop, an urban traffic specialist, a cognitive behavior authority, an ethical guardian and alert defender of humanity’s crusade against hormonal urges. No words can convey my deep admiration to Secretary Ebdane that in order to compensate on this inadequacy I seek inspiration at Bangbus.com.

I am sure Public Works Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane is a fine, God-fearing, conscientious public official who took it upon himself to protect us from our irresponsible ways such as possibly enjoying a crotch shot of Marc Nelson in barely-there briefs too much. Though I will say that Dingdong Dantes as a celestial figure with brushed on tan and airbrushed crotch is a hilarious proposition I must say that to some people it represents a wish Santa will be too cranky to grant come Christmas. In the economics-fueled mind of Ben Chan, this makes a lot of sense. The more people see Dingdong’s dong the more the Bench cash register dings.

“Seriously,” David Sedaris once remarked in one of his public talks when he visited Manila. “There is an actual person named Dingdong?”

Which triggers a semi-philosophical question: What kind of mother would allow her daughter to go to the prom with a guy named Ding Dong without getting alarmed or cracking up?

Would you date a guy named Ding Dong?

But I am digressing.

Much as I might admire the dedicated valiance of Public Works Secretary Hermogenes Ebdane, I will go on record to say that I am conflicted: if there should be a moral standard prohibiting everything obscene then how come our fine secretary is not making much of a ruckus over being publicly plied with Boy Abunda’s nostrils? Is Abunda's flaming nostrils considered Obscene Lite compared to, say, Rafael Rosell's equally flaming bulge? Which is more sinful? Kris Aquino selling products she doesn't patronize or Katrina Halili's cleavage in yet another Bench outdoor tease?

Shouldn’t a mere mention of Boy Abunda and billboard under the same breath a violation of human rights?

But before you, moralists out there take your machetes out allow me to meditate on that Inquirer piece.

Ebdane has ordered billboard owners to remove the “sexy” ads, saying they distract and slow down motorists, including him.

“They themselves know that some of these billboards are sexually suggestive. They (outdoor advertisers) should voluntarily remove these billboards,” he said.

Sexually suggestive? When our very beloved and outspoken president once said her sex life “IS healthy” during on-air interview no one took issue even if that banter of a statement ripped across our collective consciousness and possibly would be a basis of the rise in classified enrollment in a private academy training emotionally scarred assassins. The entire legislative body going all worked up because some beauty surgeon videotaped his exploits broadcasted during evening news where school kids are given assignments to watch for the next day’s news report in class. What is that then, sexually subtle?

He claimed that sexy advertisements contribute to the worsening of the traffic situation in Metro Manila, already one of the worst in Asia.

Yes, let’s blame the billboards and leave MMDA and corrupt traffic enforcers blameless.

Ebdane noted that these billboards make motorists lose their focus on the road.

We can remedy this. Only Jesus Saves! billboard will be allowed and people would rather stare on asphalt ahead.

DPWH Director for Planning Service Melvin Navarro said that for drivers, a split-second look at the billboards could lead to an accident.

Indeed. While we're at it let’s have Mr. Navarro’s cranium scanned for permanent damage.

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Bleak Is Back

Surely, you have noticed it. How can you not when traffic conditions in this city would have it that you’d sooner finish Proust’s Remembrance Of Things Past than gain a yard forward in EDSA on a Monday evening? And let's not even linger on the tortures of Friday evenings, which is the ideal time of the week to realize your tardy nervous breakdown. That, or your instant induction to Homicidals Anonymous.

Anyway, I’m drifting far from the main mutton of this entry.

Surely you have noticed Bench’s Black To School billboard along EDSA, somewhere in the neighborhood of Estrella and Buendia. It features hip hop star JayR, beckoning you towards carnal thoughts, with a sly smile and not a stitch more than a black leather jacket and white underwear.

I craned my neck hundreds of feet upwards, making a fine impression of Linda Blair the first time I spot it while speeding off to an appointment in Makati. It was a sight to behold and I am not talking in terms of hormonal considerations.

It was a sight to behold because whoever thought of that idea must be licking hallucinogenic perspirations off exotic frogs’ backs. It was beyond cheeseball. It’s a scream!

Back to school terms in Manila coincides with the rainy season, which coincides with the western nations celebrating summer, which if you meditate upon the disparity, is the equivalent of a climate time warp that proves God has a sense of humor. Or, as steadfast Environmentalists would sternly point out, it’s another infallible proof that Ben Chan must have a naughty fetish to have finally come to terms with publicly.

Leather in a tropical country is beyond bravery. Bench is beyond brave, obviously. Bench must be the only global brand I know who refuse to acknowledge the fact that humans have sweat glands.

Since this is a “Black to School” campaign I am naturally giving it more thought than necessary.

“Black to School” is an attempt at wordplay but in this campaign it has the same wit as George Bush buying a dildo. Why didn’t they just made is easy by declaring “Bleak Is Back” and save everyone the trouble?

(Another possibility: "Blank is Back" in reference to the concept.)

And I am interested to know: Which school would have a black leather jacket, an exposed abdomen and plain underwear as standard academic uniform because I’m anticipating long lines in front of its admissions office!

The concept, art direction and execution points into one speculative route: This kind of uniform can only exist in an elite Prep School where the Director of Student Services took inspiration from a scholarly thesis on Tom Of Finland with complementary extensive research in the archives of Bel Ami Online.

This is a very enticing proposition until I realized another aspect of the Black To School Billboard: the crotch was airbrushed that makes me wonder if instead of a penis JayR found the crotch area as ideal storage for one miniature pillow. Or could it be that this is due to the materials innovation made possible by collaboration with Tempur –Pedic to meet the standards of MTRCB, PANA and approvals of the clergy?

Bench used to convey advertising pieces that make you aspire or dream. This is no longer the case with the label lately, I am not giddy to report. "Black To School" makes this more apparent with its simple mission: cardiac arrest from laughter.

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Outrated

Mark, editor and publisher at Outrate messaged me, seeking permission to re-post my insane review of Cris Pablo's Moreno. I hope this won't encourage people to poke their eyes with red-hot forks after they rent the DVD and watch it.

I told him that as a matter of habit i mock movies with glee but do try to encourage people to support the worthy ones. He replied thusly:

"Poking fun at lousy movies and encouraging people to see the good ones is what Outrate exists for!"

Check out Outrate! It's a relief to know someone shares this breed of neurosis!

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Dog Daze

"Over a dog!" Jack Nicholson sobs in As Good As It Gets. "Over an ugly dog!"

I find myself becoming sympathetic to his obsessive-compulsive, mean-spirited character because as bibliophilic luck would have it a very thin book would send my insecurity into an all-time high. I was reading Sharon Creech’s Love That Dog and I was stunned.

This seemingly effortless book has visceral effect on me despite its breezy nature. Its comic innocence coats the unadorned profundity and general marvel that only a child-at-heart can truly grasp. Not exactly superior to the almost reverential regard I place on Antoine de Saint-Exupery’s Le Petit Prince and Jose Saramago’s Tale of The Unknown Island but Love That Dog sweeps me into the great, sweet pleasure of having discovered it. It’s nothing short of a gem.

It’s the unfussy but totally charismatic story of Jack, the little boy whose awakening towards the strange magnetism of writing poetry is gently nudge with positive encouragement by Miss Stretchberry, his teacher. The book (as previously noted) is digestible in one coffee break, written in an interesting way that would probably happen if you compound Anne Frank and E.E. Cummings into a less mischievous version of Calvin ( of Calvin & Hobbes). It has that hypnotic feel-good quality that warms over the jadedness of even hardcore cynics (present blogger included).

Take for instance the first entry:

September 13

I don’t want to
because boys
don’t write poetry.

Girls do.


Or his take on The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams:

September 17

I don’t understand
the poem about
the red wheelbarrow
and the white chickens
and why so much
depends upon
them.

If that is a poem
about the red wheelbarrow
and the white chickens
then any words
can be a poem.

You’ve just got to
make
short
lines.

His almost-naïve wit is disarming. Take for instance his reaction to Stopping By Woods on a Snowy Evening by Robert Frost:

October 17

What was up with
the snowy woods poem
you read today?

Why doesn’t the person just
keep going if he’s got
so many miles to go
before he sleeps?

And why do I have to tell more
about the blue car
splattered with mud
speeding down the road?

I don’t want to
write about that blue car
that had miles to go
before it slept,
so many miles to go
in such a hurry.

I was chuckling like a maniac when I read his understanding of The Pasture by Robert Frost:

January 10

I really really really
did NOT get
the pasture poem
you read today.

I mean:
somebody’s going out
to the pasture
to clean the spring
and to get
the tottery calf
while he’s out there
and he isn’t going
to be gone long
and he wants YOU
(who is YOU)
to come too.

I mean REALLY.

And you said that
Mr. Robert Frost
who wrote
about the pasture
as the one
who wrote about
those snowy woods
and the miles to go
before he sleeps—
well!

I think Mr Robert Frost
has a little
too
much
time
on his
hands.

Kirkus Reviews called this compact treasure “A really special triumph” and I nod like a deranged woodpecker in absolute assent. This miniature tome defused my skepticism and I am wide eyed in amazement.

My ultimate, special triumph, is owning this book, courtesy of Booksale.

At forty five bucks it's practically a precious gift, if I ever see one!

= = =

A sampling of my recent Booksale loot:

01. The intelligent, compelling, lucid Kiss & Tell from the beautiful mind of Alain de Botton. Seventy five bucks.

02. The eloquent, tender and beguiling Floating In My Mother’s Palm by one of my favorite contemporary fiction authors, Ursula Hegi. Forty five bucks

03. The amply comical slash savage tragicomedy in Things We Do For Love by playwright/director/actor Alan Aykbourn. Twenty bucks.

Instead of paying my electricity bills I hoarded books which will make me the least favorite human being by Meralco inspectors, who will undoubtedly disconnect my power next week with mad glee.

I’ll be living in darkness but my mind will be glowing every time I put each volume down.

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Gallerina Doubts God And Other Tales Of Artistic Missteps

Deducting a title from dusty pillars of books fencing my bedside was something I was hell-bent of accomplishing these past few days. If you have been occasionally drifting here in my blog you'll, by now, be aware that I belong to that anomalous subspecies of human beings with narcotic impetus to hoard books, stack them like soon-to-be-forgotten bricks in one corner of the room to soak dust until boredom hits and the urge to read them become the only alternative to serial killing.

Recent hoarding spree includes copies of A.A. Gill’s The Angry Island, Zadie Smith’s White Teeth, Roddy Doyle’s Oh Play That Thing and the title I devoured in one sitting, Danielle Ganek’s Lulu Meets God And Doubts Him.

Lulu is a glossy, stylish, smart, brisk, (often hilariously) wry send up to Manhattan’s nutty Art Scene, populated by snooty “gallerinas” (bratty, gorgeous gallery assistants), dubious but high-powered art dealers, ravenous collectors and egotistical artists who fuel the psychosis of Art Lust.

It’s a challenge to put it down. You’re immediately siphoned into the riotous circus of characters nonchalantly trading greed, ambition, power, fame and fortune, making you wonder whether there is a special cell in hell allocated to people who would declare, say, a bucket of brittle cow dung high concept magnum opus. There were no cow dung in the book of course, and I write this in hyperbolic sense, but personally having once worked in a gallery of a museum (and having been exposed to the kind of personalities lucidly described in the book) it is not far from being the neighborhood of really happening.

Tucked in the middle of the debauched tale are ponderings that will ring true regardless whether one is working in the creative industry or not. The sardonic protagonist, an atypical gallerina who cultivates a hidden path to being a bonafide painter herself, mulls over while attempting a self portrait:

There’s something in my eyes when I look at them in the mirror, what is that? Not doubt. More like insecurity. I want to convey an expression of what’s it like to be twenty-eight, knowing you’re a grown up but wondering what you’re supposed to be when you grow up. I want to capture what it looks like when you start to realize you have to let go of your dreams.

She robbed many of us of our very own familiar sentiments.

~ ~ ~

While we are dipping in the subject of art books allow me to take this sudden/short-lived vacation from being a complete zit and urge you to check out Preview Magazine’s stunning book of collaboration titled Preview Art.

I am not the target audience of the fashion/style rag nor am I an ardent follower of their monthly lunacy but I am very much impressed by what they have accomplished with this project.

Preview Art explores the intersection of avant-garde fashion and contemporary art in one spectacular compendium. The Philippines’ progressive crop of multitalented artists convenes alongside inventive local fashion designers, documented through cutting edge styling, art direction and photography.

This Fashion+Art concept is not exclusively original to Preview as we have throughout the years looked at groundbreaking efforts at Visionaire, Spoon, Self Service, Tank, Wad even Paper and i-D magazines. Even locally-published bi-annual Imagine magazine pushes the boundaries in this variety of exploration.

Nevertheless this is a creditable, worthwhile endeavor for Preview Magazine as it coincides with the publication of their one hundred fiftieth editions. Instead of producing self-congratulatory circle jerks for their accomplishments (through reprinting their best past works) they refused to regurgitate their archives and did the most inspired thing: publishing a striking volume that surveys the visionary practitioners in the artistic disciplines, highlighting the most innovative, conceptual approaches. The cutting edge soft-bound effort divulges a sort of foretaste to where Philippine Creative Psyche is heading when encouraged. That is a very smart thing to do.

Noticeable nonetheless is Preview Art’s “The Usual Suspects” decisions. The (majority, if not all of) designers, stylists, photographer/s and artists featured are already big names or semi-established brand names in the scene. Don't get me wrong; I admire many of those names and their works. If I may register a slight regret, this project could have been a very impactful, landmark platform to catapult obscure but prodigiously gifted, or serve as a pool for brilliant undiscovered or emerging creative individuals into prominence, or at least in the appreciative radar of the mainstream. This could have been a good route if Preview wishes to assert its claim as THE progressive seer—THE Forward Thinker among local style rags.

Regardless of this minor lapse nothing can alter the fact that Preview Art accomplished a striking momentum in curating works into a tome of distinctive voices. Through its high styled-high art convergence we get a refreshing glimpse: That Pinoy creativity is not only thriving, it is throbbing with dynamism and excitement.

Well done Preview Magazine! For your birthday I wish you’d be a maverick and abolish “Black Is Back” in your coverlines!

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Bobby Eusebio! You Naughty, Naughty Boy!

Getting a community tax certificate at the Pasig City Hall, though not entirely an experience comparable to a brief detention in fifth level of Hell (or Auschwitz), is something strikingly similar to masochism that you emerge from it more sympathetic to Holy Week flagellants. Having no patience compounds the lovely experience, especially when you are handed a waiting number 585 and the counter is still serving number 23. There is no scientific/statistical evidence yet but you suspect the act of getting cedula is a prime recruitment tool for rebel and separatist groups. After fifteen minutes of shifting your weight in those welded airport chairs you begin nursing violent thoughts. Amplifying your growing homicidal tendencies will be the ceiling-mounted televisions bookending opposite ends of the hall, showing the painful, unwatchable noontime duel of equally-brainless dreck popularly known as Eat Bulaga and Wowowee. Twenty minutes of these lunchtime genius and you'll catch yourself plotting to wipe out Camp Crame, The Congress, The Senate and the entire local chapter of Lady Gaga Fans Club.

Ages later you're nothing but a quivering heap of mutated protoplasm. You regroup your scattered sanity and get the hell out.

On the way home you spot the City slogan emblazoned boldly on the tacky pedestrian overpass. It yells:

SIGE PA...PASIG! SIGE PA!*

You suddenly feel dirty.





* More, Pasig! More! (This is the decent/Rated GP translation)

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Summer Flyer Designed During An Eclipse

Ignore the ugly design. Join the pretty fun it promises.( I am NOT responsible for this acid trip design. A Blog friend requested I post this and threatens to self-destruct if I don't. So, there).

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Dialogue Straight Out Of A Gosengfiao Script

Seated next to me in a cybercafé is an ultra-aggressive salesman from a Pyramid/Networking company involved in indeterminate products slash foreign exchange. He was explaining how the schemes work to a posse of loud women who seemed to be new recruits, or as I fondly call them, suckers.

I tried to zone out their networking twaddle but it was hard to ignore one of the women’s three-hued garish eye shadow/s, in shades that would make the pantone swatch book/the rainbow bright characters/the teletubbies/Elton John/Bob Mackie/Liberace’s closet look neutral.

“Ikaw, SIR!” he suddenly turned to me (which made me jump a little) with the mad enthusiasm not seen outside Oprah/Wheel Of Fortune/Televised Evanglism. “Baka gusto ninyo sumideline!” (How about you, sir?! Would you be interested to make a quick buck?”)

Even a frozen Rice-A-Roni would have a better judgment not to ever attempt declining a networking salesman’s behest. They thrive on rejection. As a sales mantra would have it: “Selling begins when the client says no!”

Or the way I would decode it: “If they decline, the fools, bring out the Holy Book and begin quoting from the Book of Revelations until they are wracked with guilt and terror that their brains melt into a gooey muck and start oozing out of their nostrils!”

Idiot that I am, in my scatterbrained state, politely but foolishly uttered a tepid “No, thank you.”

Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!

Sensing a golden chance to dazzle his lady friends of his convincing genius, and, the potential of an economic reward of converting me into a slavering cash cow/downline he latched on my disinterest/rejection like fungal infection that refuses to go away.

“Ayaw mo yumaman?!” (Don’t you want to be rich?!) he exclaimed in a mix of shock, awe and disbelief.

Look, I may be a bonafide zit online but in real life I try to be polite and respectful of people trying to have a crack at a living. So I half-smiled and shook my head.

Naturally this incensed the resolve of the salesman, who by now is fully enraptured in an evangelical mission to convert my disbelieving refusal and embrace the untold wealth awaiting me in the grand altar of pyramid scams, errr schemes.

“Bakit?!” (Why?!)

Now I was struggling to phrase a difficult decision to refuse an equally-pesky client request and the salesman's hell-bent in not giving me a slice of quiet or a semblance of personal space.

“I am very busy, I have no time.” I said without tearing away my focus on my typing.

“Ayaw mo kumita ng MORE THAN TWENTY THOUSAND a month?!” (Are you refusing potential 20K earning in a month?” His eyes flashed like the Mephistopheles in Faustus.

Wickedness crept into my warped mind.

I stopped typing, faced him, stared, smiled with the menacing glee of Jack Nicholson in The Shining, and hissed:

“I earn more than that per hour!”

A lie, obviously. But peace was restored between us.

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So It’s No Longer A Dirty Word?

Bisexuals are regarded as odd subspecies in the self-loathing gay-o-sphere. Not only erroneously misunderstood but the mere mention of the B word divides even equal rights-seeking gaylandia into two fierce camps: The first camp dismisses bisexuality as one stoplight away from full blown fruitcakehood ergo the one who claims to be occupying that gray zone is in the state of deep denial, pretentious, hypocritical.

The second camp reflexively frowns on the bi word with a mix of skepticism, trivializing/mild hostility, snide suspicion and open disdain.

The poor Bis of the world! Overtly vilified for daring to enjoy both worlds!

(Personally I don't give a toss about how snarky folks view the B word. Think whatever you want about the B word, brand me whatever convenient adjective your narrow mind can come up with, but nothing will change the fact that coitus with the feminine breed can be equally enjoyable as an occasional bromance. Just don’t sum me up with your insular way of thinking because I do not meddle with who or what you fuck either.)

Not that the B kind needs validation but the species is teetering into becoming a
trend. The Daily Beast argues the coolness of having it both ways and as a sort-of-expected consequence the smarty-snarks at Gawker reacted with automatic wisecracks and jovial lampoon.

Does this mean the B word is officially laundered? Or should we revisit that orientation-bending gray zone David Bowie glamorized as pansexuality and declare it the new black?

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Oral Pleasure Awaits A Zac Efron Clone!

Scatterbrain infection is still upon me, rendering me incompetent in the blogging department. So as not to fling this feeble blog into the permanent depths of passing black holes I’d feed it a steady supply of random things. This policy is of course the blogging equivalent of eating LuckyMe instant noodles: filling yet empty. Or staring at the shirtless Zac Efron: compelling yet intangible.

So!

For this edition of LoudCloud I’ll share recent stuff I hoarded to gather dust by my bedside.

01. Philip Roth – The Great American Novel
02. Richard Russo – Straight Man
03. Martin Amis – Success
04. Richard Dooling – Bet Your Life
05. Douglas Coupland – The Gum Thief
06. Armistead Maupin – Michael Tolliver Lives
07. Don Dellilo - Falling Man

In case words fail to arouse you here are a few tracks to subsist on:










The Evil Panda offers an incentive: he'll enthusiastically extend oral pleasure to those who can guess all the titles and artists and the albums these stuff were pilfered from.*

Start googling. Meanwhile Evil Panda is being busy paralyzing his gag reflex.





(* subject to Vatican approval, of course. Only applicable to those who look like the aforementioned shirtless Efron)

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Yet Another Dispatch From The Limbo

Crawling out of the limbo is what I have been struggling on for a while. No, wait, that's a tad melodramatic. It's beyond cheesy I caught myself rolling my own eyeballs while typing that first sentence. Someone should kick me in the face. The impact might jolt my dormant snark back into circulation.

Sad to report that I have nothing much to report here. Hold on, that's not entirely true. I have lots of things to whine about, so much it would guarantee your instant migraine. In this regard you might want to thank your lucky stars that I cannot seem to commit my bent thoughts into a proper, coherent entry. This forfeits you the calamity of enduring any of it.

So what to do in times like this?

Distracting pesky voyeurs (like that evil panda) would be a very good trick. Here are a few choice digressions.

• 01. Marlon Brando, he, of lust worthy genetic configuration and prodigious talent, has a photograph fellating a friend that resurfaced online. It was chronicled in Brando Unzipped and he didn't deny it, dismissing it as something not to be taken seriously because it was taken as a joke in a party. Regardless, that blasted photo didn't erode my respect for his talent one bit.

• 02. After Fabien Baron's sudden departure from Interview Magazine (after spinning the magazine from stagnancy with this very bold cover), graphic wunderkinds MM Paris took reigns. I have been avidly following the Baron/MM musical chair game that spanned across collaborations from Calvin Klein Jeans, Arena Homme+, Vogue Paris and now, Interview. Twinky video poster boy Zac Efron is MM's launching cover.

• 03. Speaking of Wunderkinds, the indie dynamos, Altajeros + Bonife tandem is threatening local movielandia with another collaboration. (I reviewed one of their works here.) I haven't been in the movie theater lately but I'll line up for this one when it hits the screens. If my hunches are to be believed, this collaboration will hopefully pump much needed combustion in the comatose pinoy movies considering the steady plague of dumb and dumbest flicks yawning onscreen.

• 04. Meanwhile, meet your new daily cretin. Errr, Kitten.

A scab-ridden, crabby kitten.

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Strangely Sterile Thoughts At Jesus’ Funeral

Concentration was such a struggle. The heat was merciless at lunchtime when the readings (and insightful reflections) on the Seven Last Words commenced and having skipped breakfast and lunch entirely made the three hour ritual challenging.

As the priests reflect on the Savior’s dying words my consciousness kept on detaching itself from the church proceedings like an aimless juvenile delinquent and hopscotched freely toward less sacred (but not evil/profane either) cubicles cluttering my scattered mind.

The same thing happened when I joined the Good Friday procession which bisected a nearby posh, gated village, interrupting the steady flow of traffic in the busy intersection of the central city district where I live. I attempted to join the public recitation of the Holy Rosary but kept getting distracted by abrupt modification in pacing of the three teenagers of varying degrees of devastating cuteness in front of me. I theorized that they were siblings and cousins and like me, their attention span must be somewhere else, which I assumed to be dwelling on abstained games of DotA or World Of Warcraft. They don’t seem to be concentrating either, and they carry off the air of casualness that made the whole religious rite seem like a requisite college thesis that needs to be done without due respect to enraptured interest or depth and commitment for the exercise. Had this been a day outside the Holy Triduum, my contaminated mind would be nursing thoughts that would lewdly float towards the sets of twinky videos, but strangely, no, my usually-hyperactive imagination favorably chose an antiseptic hide.

I wasn’t thinking corrupt thoughts or anything lewd, which, now that I am typing this, seems like a major improvement.

Which gives you, Evil Panda, something to remark on.

:: :: ::

P.S. On a more virtuous note, Easter Sunday is the most important Sunday in the entire Christian calendar. Do make an effort to attend church rites in recognition of God’s mercy and kindness (or an act of gratitude) for having Jesus redeem us all, aberrant humans.

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Neglect

Hello, Blog.

Evidently we share the same quality these days: dismalness. A discouraging state of affairs that can be a tad disappointing for both of us and—If I may pander to our mutual delusion—for a couple of random voyeurs who wander in here, sift through your dormant pages, find nothing recent to remark on, blink at your shabbily updated self before clicking away with a fleeting wonder whether you will be as active as you once were. I cannot blame them if in the invariable displeasure of not finding something worth their trouble they’d abandon us both for good. It would be even sadder if that happens.

You see I am the one at fault. I cannot coerce my nerves to find any incentive and bundle up my arbitrary thought patterns into one coherent entry. Inspiration isn’t even a problem before; remember those days when not a single thread of inspiration can be traced in any of the drivels in here? Lack of inspiration didn’t stop us from unleashing ourselves into the blogosphere with abandon and insane disregard for virtues and discipline of good writing!

Yeah, I miss those irresponsible, fun days, too. I know you do miss it twice as much as I do, which makes me even sadder, knowing I have dragged you into the blog update limbo. How unfair is that? How very selfish of me!

Most of my days lately are spent craning my neck towards the horizon.

Waiting.

Waiting for what is to come. What blind faith tells me is coming.

Waiting for a dream to untangle itself from the shadows.

Waiting for a certain fondness that seems to have been doing perilous detours, hence the overdue arrival.

Waiting, swimming in sugared sadness, getting cheerless by the minute, floundering in growing despair, trying to get steady in the face of a frightening certainty that nothing so encouraging is stirring on the horizon.

I’d customarily retreat to you, to music, to movies, to books for comfort and indulgence of few moments where my mind could wander off from burdens and obligations and breathe freely. I am troubled to report that even those trusty distractions prove inadequate.

Meanwhile the shorelines between you and me seem to have been subjugated by indifferent gulfs that divide us into distant blurs. I wave anxiously at you, and in my mind you are waving back in the same fervor, but you seem to be fading farther to hear my words.

One of these days I’d stumble upon a raft, befriend the wind, and paddle back into where you are.

We would laugh crisply throughout the summers, our voices piercing their way beyond the clouds.

Till then I remain,
LC

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Crater

Ideally, you should be panicking. You should be clutching on your chest, exhaling labored breathing, struggling to oppress your pulse from inching above wholesome progression

You should be inclined to keep your strides from wobbling.

Presence of mind should dictate that you steer all your willpower into not losing sight and collide into things.

However, your faculties are not in agreement with you. Nothing is discernible among the blurs of emotions except an abundance of emptiness, a bottomless gulf that fences you.

You want to feel a thing, something, anything. Even pain would have a lawful corner in your sleeplessness. Pain is a dreaded acquaintance but a much more welcomed guest than…this.

Suddenly words have rendered themselves inadequate. Metaphors have diminished its convenience and you fumble for vocabularies to withdraw and name your sentiment properly from the gaping cellar of intangibles.

Even time refused to oblige. Hours dissolved into days, days swelled into weeks, and weeks grew into another stem in the limbs of another year yet you still cannot seem to medicate this inexpressible feeling of nothingness. It’s almost a kind of translucence. A fogged dream you walked into, a keyhole where you become an onlooker to the aimless drifting of your unoccupied self.

You rummage through half-forgotten drawers of memory for crumbs of joy or grief, or whatever thing you will find there that will illuminate your displaced feelings into wakefulness.

Yet all you grab hold of is the same glutinous mist.

So you give up the wearisome gamble into phrasing suitable dialects with which to properly consign your emotion. You catch yourself ceasing from the folly of yet another version of What Could Have I Done Differently?

You keep your feelings to yourself.

Not because people will not understand your anguish.

Not because you are robbing compassionate people the generosity of well-intentioned empathies.

But because, with what little that you know, and no matter how flawed it might be, this is a modest way that you can muster to cope with the piercing throbs and ambiguous questions that elude answers.

So you choose to dwell in the hallway of sweet, melancholic silence.

Occasionally, on the way home, you negotiate the pavements, leaving a trail of whispered wishes. You inattentively dissolve into the evening crowds, and suddenly a face stares back at you, echoing all your unspoken love and sadness, a mirror floating among a sea of strangers.

You meet its familiar gaze.

Unapologetic, unblinking.

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Hello stranger, I got no minute to spare

Months ago you vanished, nowhere to be found. One unremarkable evening, you’re back, remorseless, a truant lugging bagful of secrets. You are a trespasser now as you once were. And you will stay thusly: a beautiful riddle whose secrets have been watered down by absence.

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Paalam

Priceless chance for proper goodbyes was denied of us.

Your departure was anguished, fraught with deep longings for beloved absentees who ache in equal measures with you.

This is what wounds me the most: that fate wasn’t charitable to our shared thirst for one last embrace, for one last episode of mumbling brave reassurances that things are going to be all right. Finality has descended, as opaque and inscrutable as midnight, as conclusive as an extinguished breath that cannot be mended by grief, or revoked by tears.

But you are not entirely gone. You will be right here whenever I hear crisp, hearty laughter or whenever I walk into summers perfumed by ripe mangoes and freshly-threshed rice. Your face will burn in my mind whenever I hear strains of Besame Mucho which I will vividly recall being violated by your off-key hums.

I love you. I will incessantly love you.

I am fortunate that you had me in your lifetime and I am in profound gratitude that you have been an imperishable footprint in mine.

So for now I will mourn in silence, my labored farewell exhaled inaudibly, every saddened syllable carried by the faint evening breeze towards the infinity you will now call home.

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Ahem

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