A Week In Taiwan, Part 1: Shuangshi

I was planning to post my Taiwan travel accounts the day I depart from that country, but I miss doing all these typing. Plus, my blog badly needs to show lifesigns.

I will begin at day 3, before I talk about my first to my last day here. And why am I doing that? No reason, except it feels so literary hence pretentious! Nah, I kid. The real reason is, I just think day 3’s events best introduces what happened.

July 29, 2008

Shuangshi Train Station. Yes, the picture gives a different spelling, but I still prefer “Shuangshi”.

My grandfather lives in a province, so I went there just to see him. Right now, he’s at the throes of a cancer, and, after not having seen each other for more than 2 years, I paid him a visit with the intent of lifting his spirits up in my little way. I’m sure you don’t want to hear all these dramas, so I’ll just go on to tell you what his province is like. It’s called Shuangshi, which is the Chinese for “Two Rivers”. True to its namesake, there are two rivers here and somewhere in this town they come to a confluence. Rumor has it that the exact place where the two meets is haunted, but I never bothered to find out. All I know is that they’re very calming to look at, and you can do some fishing and swimming on them. But rivers aren’t all there is to Shuangshi. There are mountains too. Shuangshi is altogether an ideal place to reconnect with mother nature, especially if you’re tired of Taipei’s frantic ways of living. It’s also a good place to bike.

A view from outside home. Yep, my grandfather lives by the riverbank.

Those two pictures show my favorite playground in Shuangshi.

Sadly, I couldn’t go to too many place here. Typhoons were going on in this part of Taiwan, and though it wasn’t raining, the winds were unrelenting. They were so strong, they can sweep you away and knock you off your feet better than love at first sight would!

This is a stray dog that followed me around. 

I would love to have taken that train.

Instead I got this.

Inside.

At nighttime, I went to Sanchung Society Center to watch a Utah choir. They were A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. How amazing? Like, behind me there were these fatass jerks who claimed they have mad dancing and singing skills (bum-looking fat guys dancing is not a sight I’d care to take to my grave). By the time the performance was over, though (with encores, by the way), these jerks were screaming like a chicken on steroids.

Everyone in the house (SLANG?! IN DA HAUZ) were very inspired the entire night. I can imagine that the next day they go to work, they’re going to make their coworkers jealous by telling them what a great show they saw the day before. So where does any of these leave me? Well, seeing that I traveled with this Utah choir (nearly) the entire week, I’m overwhelmed. I’m overwhelmed by their talents, and it helps that they’re among the most amiable group I’ve ever been with. Their presence made my Taiwan vacation times very much enjoyed.

Tomorrow

In less than 24 hours, I’ll be at the airport again, going through the complicated processes of boarding a flight. Again, I will be alone in this trip. Again, I will withstand the screechy engine noises of the airplane. Again, I’ll be eating airplane food. Again, I’ll scan the flight attendants to see if I, err, can see familiar faces. Again, I’ll either fall asleep or watch crappy blockbuster movies they play onboard. Again, I’ll try to tune in to Mandarin Pop Station only to find all the songs bland. Again, I’ll try to write something down while in the flight cabin, but only to scrawl incoherently. Again, I’ll be flying north until I reach Taipei, Taiwan.

I’m going to Taiwan and I’ll be staying there for a week. I’ve planned this as a vacation, but I also want to see my aunts and uncles, my cousins, and, most importantly, my sister. My sister and I have been living in different countries for more than 5 years, and though we often exchange emails, we rarely get to see each other since then. Right now, I’m definitely going to cherish her rare days of being at Taiwan, as it’s rare for her to be in Asia these days.

I’m stoked! I like Taiwan. I expect to bring home a lot of souvenirs again, plus a lot of fats. Everytime I go to Taiwan I splurge on mangas, anime merchandises, books, gadgets, toys and music CD’s - they are cheaper and in greater supply in Taiwan than in Philippines. I am also thrilled about eating their street foods that even those high class restaurants from Philippine’s Chinatown can hardly compete with. Yes, my usual activities when I’m in Taiwan are to eat eat spend spend.

But eat eat spend spend isn’t all I’ll do next week. I’ll be following my sister as she goes about doing her job, which is managing a traveling entourage of musicians. We’ll be sightseeing at Taiwan’s many tourist spots, and I might befriend these musicians (if I’m not feeling grumpy) and hear them play classical music. It’ll be fun. I can hardly wait.

Now if only this week would end sooner, not only so I can fast forward to a livelier time, but also because this week has been a wreck. I swear, I’ve not had a week as bad as this for a while now. I came to work late twice. I was drenched by an unexpected thunderstorm twice. My meeting with someone was postponed twice. And this Friday didn’t arrive cheerfully; if anything, I feel like dangling.

So this is what’s happening: when I think of today I frown, and when I think of tomorrow I grin. It’s funny how two days so immediately close are so polarized. Then again, there’s always the hope of a better tomorrow.

A Dark Victory

It’s funny, but I’ve been receiving too many instant messages about The Dark Knight. I don’t know why it’s happening, but it’s like my friends are seeing me as Batman’s fiancé and they’re telling me if they like him. See, he just made another movie, and many told me it is a heck of a good one. This guy even asked me to review it. And then a girl told me “Mamma Mia can kick Batman’s gay ass anytime”. Huh! If Mamma Mia were to do that, it had to be preceded by an elaborate musical that juxtaposes ABBA with ass-kicking. Good. Luck.

So, the review… nope, that’s not coming along well at all. I’m sure you’ve had this feeling of being so impressed by a movie that you could never write coherently about it. Well, that’s just what I had gone through after seeing The Dark Knight twice. I even told another friend (I do seem to talk about my friends a great deal today, noh?) to watch The Dark Knight thrice, and then to buy its bootlegged DVD, and then its original DVD, and then its original DVD with extended cuts. Yeah, as it is, I’m already having a frustrating time quelling this overenthusiastic voice that I’m using now.

Screw reviews! You want those? Go to Rottentomatoes and go read the reviews validating your own opinions of The Dark Knight. I’m assuming you’ve seen it. What, you haven’t?! Then what are you doing here? Go see it! Go see it if that’s the last thing you do for this year, and then go right ahead and bug me with what you think of it!

I wasn’t a fan of Batman Begins. Sure, for a Batman movie it was more mature and more elaborate than all others before it, but to me it wasn’t as complete a tale as the greatest Batman comics. I couldn’t ignore Ra’s Al Ghul’s lack of character development, or Jim Gordon’s lack of role, or Katie Holmes lack of acting skills. And though I was uncontrollably excited about seeing The Dark Knight, I had doubts. I was expecting it to be passably entertaining (like Iron Man) but not memorable like Pan’s Labyrinth, which is the most recent movie I couldn’t stop raving about (and that one’s from two years ago).

But The Dark Knight? I love it so much I’m batty about it (harhar). I’m not even going to write a gushy paragraph about the brilliance of its actors, or say “this movie is so gritty and atmospheric and has such a fitting ambience and OMG the batpod! This is not just a comic book movie, but also a crime movie!” Everyone is saying these, and these are all true. And, though they can make The Dark Knight a winner, they do not make The Dark Knight a winner to me. No, what makes The Dark Knight a winner to me is with how complete it feels despite having so many plots and subplots, and how fitting the depiction of its characters are. Moreover, it wants you to think. It doesn’t romanticize, and it has a lot more going on than kung-fu and high-tech doohickey; just like in Batman comics.

For a start, you can talk about Batman, Joker, Commissioner Gordon, Alfred Pennyworth and Harvey Dent. You can talk about their personality and their psychology. You can discuss on why they believe in what they believe in, and then from their traits, ponder on what truly makes someone a hero. Is Batman a hero, or just a psycho? Will there be a Joker without a Batman? Who are the Harvey Dents of our society?

It’s like one of my friends says: you can write an academic paper from The Dark Knight’s various plots, characters, and themes. And THAT is how you make a superhero movie (or is it “movie based on comic books”, or “movie adaptation of a graphic novel”?). I’m not even going to let namby-pamby statements like “Incredible Hulk is great because it’s a fun, enjoyable, breezy-wheezy, safe, unaggressive and boom-pow-wanky ride” justify the existence of a superhero movie anymore, when we now have The Dark Knight as proof that superhero movies can have a brain and a heart.

Nightdreamer Under Interrogation

Right, let’s shove my previous entry down until it reaches oblivion. I just don’t want to constantly put an experience as embarrassing as that as my blog’s headline. It’s nothing to be proud of.

I was going to update this blog with something more worthy of read, but I’ve been lazy, and time has been going by too fast. Last few days I’ve been doing nothing else but curl up on my own bed and read both 100 Years of Solitude and 1984. Been reading rather slowly these days too as too many thoughts have been bothering me - I’m going to Taiwan next week and I can’t help being excited.

Ramblingvirus tagged me again. I think I have mentioned it before, but he’s one of my favorite bloggers, in the sense that I’d read his posts no matter how mundane. Lord knows I don’t do memes, but I always take exception if it’s ramblingvirus tagging me.

1. What’s your latest addiction?

- Nothing much, really. I’m slowly losing my addiction to Plurk.

2. What are you listening to?

- Oddly enough, I’ve not listened to any songs today. That’s considering how much of an audiophile I am under normal circumstances.

3. How late did you stay up last night and why?

- For some screwed up reason, I slept 10 PM and I’ve been doing that since the week started, like I was intentionally making the days end sooner. Maybe there are far too much to look forward to, but I have to stop being this excited. I’ll be old before I know it.

4. Who were you with last friday night?

- I was at a friend’s house, eating and then discussing things. There were about 20 people around and not one of them has a blog, so I don’t think anyone reading this will want to know who they are.

5. Do you think you will be in a relationship 3 months from now?

- How long does it take for an irresistible force to move an immovable object like me?

6. When is the next time you’ll see your close friends?

- Oh, I’ll definitely be seeing one I haven’t seen for more than two years in a few days from now.

7. What were you doing this morning at 7am?

- Preparing to go to work.

8. What radio station do you listen to the most?

- I don’t listen to radio anymore, just like Ramblingvirus. I just choose my own music.

9. What was the reason you last cried?

-  I don’t even remember when I last cried.

10. Have you ever talked to someone when they were high?

- Isn’t talking to me already like talking to someone on a perpetual high?

11. What’s the fifth text in your inbox say?

- It says, “Have you told your dad about the news of Bridget’s death?” and my answer is no, and I feel incredibly guilty about it.   

12. Where was the last coffee shop you went to?

- Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf, but that was two Saturdays ago. And I, uh, paid, for myself and 3 other women. Goodbye, savings.

13. What’s your outfit right now?

- A polo shirt and a khaki pants.

16. What were you doing at 11pm last night?

-  Asleep and having this weird dream about escaping from cannibals.

17. Who was the last person you talked to last night before bed?

- My brother. I said “Dammit, turn off the lights!”

18. Will you be driving in a year?

- NO BECAUSE FUEL IS SO EXPENSIVE NOWADAYS AND IT’LL BE EVEN MORE EXPENSIVE THEN! Well, ok, I’ll drive only when I need to and not because I just want to cruise.

19. Is there anything that you are craving right now?

- I can’t wait to be done with these questions, actually.

20. When did your last hug take place?

- I don’t know, really. 

22. Have you ever started a sentence with “No offense, but…”?

- I should think that I FINISH sentences with that when damages have been done!

23. Do you drink tea?

- I do.

24. Have you ever been arrested?

- No.

25. Have you rode in someone else’s car today?

- Public transportation car. And then it got pulled over by traffic enforcers for no particular reason, and hence, I came to office late!

26. Have you made a mistake this past week?

- Yes, I did. I called Powerplant mall “powerpoint mall”. And then there’s the previous blog post. Please don’t read it. 

27. Who was the last person you texted?

- My brother. I told him, “I just heard the Tagalog version of Smack Dat. Yuck!” We both hate Akon, see?

28. Are you happy with your life right now?

- My dad said, “WHY SO SERIOUS?”

29. In the past 72 hours have you been under the influence?

-  Huh, me? Oh yes, I got drunk! Ask… uh… hmm… ask Peter Juan! Or Helga! Or Ade!

30. What’s the connection between you and the last person you texted?

- He’s my brother. Duh!

The Red Knight

What is a beso-beso? It’s a Filipino word, and it’s one of our ways to greet (and I don’t know if people from other countries do that). It’s like kissing, but instead of lips-to-lips it is cheek-to-cheek, and as such is more casual than romantic. So when people ask you to give them a beso-beso, they’re less likely to mean that they want to sleep with you than when they ask you to kiss them.

So if anyone here didn’t know what beso-beso is then I hope you keep what I just mentioned in mind. Remember this, verbatim: cheek-to-cheek, nothing oral.

I sure wish that the Nightdreamer from two hours ago could hear anything I say here. See, a while ago I was just about to part ways with this woman I watched The Dark Knight with (great movie, btw) when she moved her right cheek towards me and asked for a beso-beso. And after I gave her what I thought was a beso-beso she laughed, “Hah, Nightdreamer, beso-beso! You kissed my cheek!”

I vaguely understood what she meant but I could already start feeling an embarrassment like that of a person who dived to a moshpit, only to fall to the ground. Nervously, I asked, “Huh? Did I do it wrong?”

She replied, “Well, sheesh, cheek-to-cheek, man!”

Wow. Like, my legs just got uncontrollaby wobbly there. And as if it wasn’t bad enough that I knew nil about beso-beso, my reaction was even stupider! After throwing what seemed like perpetual apologies, I added, “maybe next time you oughta teach me how to do a beso-beso.” Then I asked myself just what the hell I meant by saying that, because I sounded more flirtatious than genuinely needing to be corrected!

I’m actually worried because I might’ve offended her. I asked her out because I hadn’t spoken with her for a long time and I just wanted to get in touch with her (and other classmates from high school or college) again. I wanted to have a deeper understanding of her because I like her personality a lot; but then I also wanted to make it clear that I wasn’t trying to flirt with her because she kind of thinks that I was. You probably wouldn’t believe me either, grinning while hooting, “Wow Nightdreamer, you got smooth moves, you smooth operator!” Well, shut up! I am honest when I say that I am not flirting with her. So why did I have to screw up the first day since 2 years that we met? All I did was made myself more easily misunderstood, and that’s just great, because I may have ruined the chance of making her agree to see movies with me again! Worst of all, I can’t even explain things to her, because I will only sound more stupid!

Good grief, I don’t know what to do! I kissed a woman who wanted a cheek-to-cheek! Please gimme a paper bag so I can hide my shamefaced face in it.

Open Palm, Drops Face

I made a fool of myself today. I said, “pupunta ako sa powerpoint mall.” (translation: I’m going to powerpoint mall)

Soul Food part 2

You wake up greeted by a dandy daytime. The weather feels windy enough to ease up the stresses of the peripatetic. You predict that this must be one of those days when everything is beautiful and is convenient. But, by how, you soon find your expectations massively unfulfilled. Rain starts pouring torrentially. Traffic congestion hinders you from coming to school or to work on time. Your umbrella breaks because the wind becomes unmanageably strong. Your superiors bark on you for your tardiness. Your socks become soggy, your clothes soaked, and your bag and everything inside it drenched. Everything starts taking a turn for the worse. The day has been cruel to you and it’s beyond salvaging. Raise your hands if you’ve had one of those days. Actually, I think everyone has had them. 

Sometimes, your life just sucks. You just get those days when you’re the receiving end of Lady Misfortune’s unrelenting hissy fits. It doesn’t matter if you earn millions per day with your real-estate enterprise, or if you rule Singapore, or if you are the most read and most quoted and most ass-kissed blogger in the ‘sphere, or if you are Mister T or Samuel Jackson: Things are not, and will not, always, be peachy on your end. So imagine yourself having just gotten a disastrous 9-5, and you’re in dire need of making yourself forget those problems and feel better for the rest of the day. What do you do?

As catharses, some blogs. Others go to gym. And then there are those who post rubbish on Twitter/Plurk. I know of someone who vents his problem by pestering me with phone calls that go nowhere. I know of another who marathons CSI Miami and mocks Horatio. My brother watches replays of old Tom and Jerry episodes. As for me, I do these:

Play Fighting Games

If I have my ways, I’ll make beating people up a way to solve problems. That will make everything so much easier. Is Bush pissing you off? Sock him, problems solved! Your favorite basketball team has been robbed by biased referees? Shove your boots up their arses! Oil price is hiking? No worries, just kick Caltex’s face!

But since the world is governed by namby-pamby axioms like “what doesn’t kill you will only make you stronger” as though we are born to be martyrs, making people your punching bag is not an acceptable way to release stress. Yet, it can be said that rearranging people’s faces is a stress-reliever; if only you can do it without consequences, no? That’s where fighting games come in.

Okay, seriously, I don’t condone violence, but I think fighting games are therapeutic. They test my reflexes, and they require my undivided attention. Which means, the better I play in a fighting game, the less I get to think about anything else. It’s my favorite escapism: I’ll just go ahead and Shoryuken all my problems away.

Sketch

I like to draw. I like observing the fine details of every creation. I like looking at people’s faces. Did you know that a well-proportioned face always follow certain rules? Example: your ears - their upper tip will always be level with the eyebrows, and their lower tip level with the lower end of the nose.

So yeah, sketching. I pretty much count on it to cheer me up because, in much the same way as fighting games, it forces me to focus on something. Of course it is important to be wise in choosing what I want to draw - I don’t want to draw a poop. No. I draw pretty things, like a cat or a woman. It’s always better to observe the details of these things than to recall the bad lucks that transpired in a miserable day, don’t you think?

But hey, sketching and fighting games are merely the therapies I need. What about you?

Soul Food

I know nobody is thrilled to hear me confess this aloud again, but I’m not much in my writing frame-of-mind these days. Thankfully, you don’t have to sit through another blog entry of me flossing flowery prose about how uninspired I am lately. No, it’s not that bad.

As for why I’m less active these days? That I’m doing as a price to pay for my much-needed life makeovers. I’m trying to change who I am, what I can do, and how I live my life. I’m also experiencing things that I cannot comfortably put here for public viewing. Don’t worry, though, because I’m quite happy. Just today, I’ve accomplished things that I normally couldn’t do in a week: I have sketched, I have wrote (though only for myself), I have practiced drawing, and I have started updating my word-diary again.

I have also opened up to people who I didn’t speak with for the longest time - I have actually went out of my limb and I have called my best friend from high school. We used to live in a province and he was my neighbor, but when I moved to Manila to get my college degree, we didn’t see each other much. I hadn’t spoken with him for years already, and today I decided that rather than hanging on to all these pent-up guilts for neglecting him, I called him just to talk to him. It’s good to hear from a friend again after all these years.

And that’s why I have resolved to become a better person, by being more trustworthy, understanding, sympathetic, patient, and kindhearted. My starting point is to become a better friend to my friends.So I went to my bookshelf and dusted off my old copy of Cyndi Haynes’ book of friendship: Making Life Better. I bought that book back when I was having a crisis of faith towards certain people, but to this day I still find that it constantly guides me. It’s filled with friendship-centric quotes, and tips of how to be a good friend. I like these quotes so much. In fact, I think I want to show you some of these quotes:

“It is one of the blessings of old friends that you can afford to be stupid with them.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“The friendships which last are those wherein each friend respects the other’s dignity to the point of not really wanting anything from him.” – Cyril Connolly

“The only way to have a friend is to be one” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

“Seek those who find your road agreeable, your personality and mind stimulating, your philosophy acceptable, and your experiences helpful. Let those who do not, seek their own kind.” – Jean-Henri Fabre

“The best rule of friendship is to keep your heart a little softer than your head.” – Author unknown

“There is nothing I like to see so much as the gleam of pleasure in another person’s eye when he feels that we have sympathized with him, understood him, interested ourself in his welfare. At these moments something fine and spiritual passes between two friends. These moments are the moments worth living.” – Don Marquis

“In poverty and other misfortunes of life, true friends are sure refuge.” – Aristotle

“My friends have made the story of my life. In a thousand ways they have turned my limitations into beautiful privileges, and enabled me to walk serene and happy in the shadow cast by my deprivation.” – Helen Keller

Whisper of the Heart

Sorry, got nothing to write about today. I just wanted to share this music video from one of my favorite feel-good animes of all time. It’s a Japanese rendition of a John Denver’s song (Take Me Home Country Roads) done with an entirely different lyrics, and it’s very heartfelt.

And here’s the english dub of the same video:

Beautiful, no? To understand why I was so engrossed with that movie, you can read a review here, from an anime review site that seriously needs to be updated more often.

Schmanniversary

By July 16, 2008, this nightdreamer blog will be a year old. Is that significant?

No.

Aaaanyway, I’m making this entry my anniversary entry because I am no seer. Who knows, maybe by July 16 I’d be voted as the president of Taiwan and as such I’ll be permanently banned from ever blogging because of the flack all my entries might create. Hey, that’s not impossible, you know, and at least I don’t have a green card! Actually the only reason I can’t possibly write well on that date is that it’s a day before The Dark Knight shows, and by then I imagine the only words I can think of are “BATMAN ZOMGZ W00T LOLZ!!11!”

You think I’m bored? You think I keep posting because I have way too much time in my hands? Well sod off, you jealous kids!

Like all anniversary posts, let me ramp up the drama by saying I’ve never imagined I would’ve kept this blog this long (strike one!) and that I would like to thank my readers for offering intelligent commentary (strike two!) and that I have no regrets (strike three oh dear ND slash your wrist you theatrics whore!)

And that’s it, I’ve nothing more to say. Time to go out and stare at women’s faces and tell them they’ve got boogers sticking out of their noses. 

A View from the Top

I work above the 20^th floor of a building, and since this is much higher than ground, it’s not surprising that I can see the sky (outside the window) without needing to look up. 

I haven’t seen a blue morning sky for a long time now, as when June began the sky has become covered all over with clouds. We are having a rainy season, and that’s why Ortigas, Pasig City - as can be viewed outside - looks like it is covered with steams. And by how, I love this sight! With clouds obstructing the skyline, Ortigas doesn’t appear warm; it appears detached. I get reminded of film noirs, where cities are as smoky as jazz bars and as gray as its denizen’s moral ambiguity. I can then fancy myself as the city’s vigilante, leaping from building to building, walking stealthily from one dank alley to another, extracting information from moles, driving Cadillac, saving damsels, and fighting criminals until I die. 

Alas, I am not equipped with fedoras, trenchcoats, handcuffs and handguns. I do not have a private quarter where I can write typewritten investigatory reports, and I do not like going to bars to drink cheap boozes or going to cheap motels to sleep with sympathetic prostitutes. All I can do is to make this sleuthing fantasy stay a fantasy, but then again, aren’t most fictions products of Walter Mittys? 

So I’ll just go ahead and call Ortigas, Pasig City “Steam City”, and then give myself a cool alias like “Nightwalker”. Occupation: private eye. I’ll dig up your dirt. 

Pardon my boredom with my humdrum life.

What Is Love?

Having a spectacularly boring day, I decided to be at the crazy ridiculous mode (as if I ever functioned in other modes, noh?) and flood my instant messenger contacts with this question:

What is love?

The answers can be quite revealing. See for yourselves.

(more…)

All Your Bookstore Are Belong To Bust

There are days when I can’t stand spending another minute at home, but yesterday afternoon, I really didn’t want to go out. So when my brother asked me to go to Tutuban with him, I kept yelling “GO ALONE!” at him.

But my brother isn’t one who takes “no” for answers; not, especially, from someone who’s years his junior. So he kept nudging me to come along, and I kept protesting. This went on for such a long time my father eventually knew what was going on. And then he took my brother’s side. Two versus one: How unfair.

So I begrudgingly joined my brother as he went to Tutuban. He seemed oblivious to the mud puddles that were consequences of a rain. I dirtied my footwear with splotches from origins unknown – and I’d rather not know – because my brother so wanted to buy a TV just so he can play Grant Theft Auto 4 in his own room. We only have one TV, and my brother wanted to buy another, since he got tired of trying to wring my father loose from our only TV so that my brother and I can use it for own purposes, which never interested my dad.

Anyway, we didn’t get a new TV, although my brother got all bright in the eye in finding out that a new flatscreen TV isn’t as expensive as it used to be. As we were heading home, I decided to go to National Book Store and to buy some school supplies.

Don’t go to National Bookstore Tutuban Branch.

I’m dead serious about that, especially after what I went through yesterday.

No, I didn’t get mugged or anything. Had that happened, I’d just go ahead and say don’t go to Tutuban: Tutuban is cool, and I frequently go there to buy videogames and some cheap goods. As it is, though, I can say, with the conviction of Martin Luther King Jr against racial segregation, that National Book Store Tutuban Branch is by far the worst National Bookstore I’ve ever gone to. It’s the worst bookstore in the whole wide of the universe. Bookstores that sell nothing but books eaten by silverfishes can’t be that bad. Bookstores that sell nothing but books written by Bill O Reilly and Anne Coulter can’t be that bad. Bookstores found inside craters of the moon can’t be that bad. NBS Tutuban is so bad, that even as a parody of bad bookstores, it fails horribly like Scary/Epic/Superhero/Date Movie fails as, well, being anything.

And I’m not just talking about the paucity of things. Oh, sure, none of the books from that NBS is worth buying unless you’re into local pulp romance novels with shirtless men on the covers. Yeah, that sucked. Do you know what made it worse? The disorderliness! I went to the bookstore intending to buy a sketchbook of a specific size, and then some pencils. I went to the section where they sell sketchbooks, and it was a mess. Sketchbooks the size of a mousepad got mixed up with those the size of a blackboard, and then they got mixed with lesson plans, music notebooks, organizers, and cheap “softcore” porn magazines. All within a kid’s reach! The pencils weren’t placed any better. The rack where I took the pencil had labels, but how was it that I got a 4H pen on a rack for 6B, and an F on a rack for 2H? Can’t the clerks read?

The service is the worst, if you can even call it service, because it’s more like bureaucracksy. Never did I imagine that bookstore would have queues as long as that of MRT’s ticket booths, but here I was, lining up as though I were applying for Visa. I had no choice but to wait, regretting not bringing two books the size of a Russian novel with me because by the time I finished them I still wouldn’t have reached the cashier. It wasn’t just the overcrowding that made the line so slow-moving; when I paid for the things I bought, the salesladies yapped among themselves so much, they spent five minutes wrapping the 4 things I bought, and then another five giving me my change. And for the record their conversations were incredibly boring: forget about bookstore clerks that don’t know the first thing about books; they don’t even know the first thing about making their conversations worth listening to, unless you’re into hearing fat people lecture you about how to lose weight.

As we were heading home my brother still kept yapping about how awesome Grand Theft Auto 4 was, but I couldn’t hear anything he was saying. That National Bookstore got me nauseous. So nauseous, that I couldn’t even scold my brother for dragging me along to this short-but-stressing expedition.

So I repeat, don’t go to National Bookstore Tutuban Branch!

Progress Report

When 2008 began, one of the goals I set for myself was to finish 1 book per week. That means that when this year ends, I have to be done with 52 books. So how am I doing, now that we’re at the 27th week of 2008? 

Not so bad, actually. 

My progress report: 

1. Neverwhere by Neil Gaiman
2. The Bartimaeus Trilogy vol 2: Golem’s Eye by Jonathan Stroud
3. The Bartimaeus Trilogy vol 3: Ptolemy’s Gate by Jonathan Stroud
4. Things Fall Apart by Chinua Achebe
5. Foundation by Isaac Asimov
6. Spiderwick vol 1: The Field Guide by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black
7. Spiderwick vol 2: The Seeing Stone by Tony DiTerlizzi and Holly Black
8. Odyssey by Homer
9. A Scanner Darkly by Philip K Dick
10. Ulysses by James Joyce
11. Robert’s Rules of Writing by Robert Massello (reread)
12. To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee
13. *Call Me Joe by Poul Anderson
14. *Who Goes There? by John W Campbell
15. *Nerves by Lester del Rey
16. *Universe by Robert A Heinlein
17. *The Marching Morons by Cyril M Kornbluth
18. *Vintage Season by Henry Kuttner and C L Moore
19. *…And Then There Were None by Eric Frank Russell
20. *The Ballad of Lost C’Mell by Cordwainer Smith
21. *Baby is Three by Theodore Sturgeon
22. *With Folded Hands by Jack Williamson
23. In Cold Blood by Truman Capote
24. Black Boy by Richard Wright
25. Way of the Shepherd by Kevin Leman and William Pentak
26. English Plain and Simple by Jose A Carillo
27. The Great Gatsby by F Scott Fitzgerald
28. Brave New World by Aldous Huxley

Asterisk indicates stories that are originally published as novellas (and sold in individual copies) but have been anthologized in Science Fiction Hall of Fame Volume 2. It also has The Time Machine by H G Wells, but I’ve already read it two years ago and I didn’t reread it.

And I’ve also read these graphic novels, although I won’t count them in for anything (not until I’m desperate):

• Gotham Central vol. 1: In the Line of Duty by Ed Brubaker and Greg Rucka
• Gotham Central vol. 2: Half a Life by Greg Rucka
• Fables vol. 5: The Mean Seasons by Bill Willinghan
• Batman: The Killing Joke by Alan Moore (oh, I dunno. How many times have I reread this anyway?)
• Batman: The Man Who Laughs by Ed Brubaker

I’m planning to read Gravity’s Rainbow by Thomas Pynchon, Dune by Frank Herbert, 1984 by George Orwell (yes, I haven’t read this. I am very ashamed), One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Good Earth by Pearl S Buck, Invisible Man by Ralph Ellison, and Native Son by Richard Wright. I might even reread The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, and Beloved by Toni Morrison.

Can you suggest anything else? I’m fine with books from any genre (even nonfiction), as long as they don’t have Fabio on the cover.

This Side Isn’t Paradise

In Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, people live for Henry Ford’s assembly-lines mass production. They are classified by castes, and each caste serves different functions to society. And, so that they can manufacture with greatest efficiency, they are conditioned to be happy. This happiness is gained by gratifying human’s want for pleasure. Everyone just works, and then have sex and Soma - a drug that makes them rapturous, and makes them forget all problems.

It may sound like a good idea to live in that world, so do you want to try it? Since the system is bent on happiness for the sake of a stable society, you’re not allowed to feel anything contrary to that externally stimulated joy: no sadness, no pensiveness, and no pity; all your miseries are flushed by a gramme of Soma. When you mull on art, religion, and science, you are ostracized. You cannot be bothered with any emotional bond to anyone, since you’re only allowed to be happy, and emotional bond does not always make you happy. Parenthood are shunned, fidelity laughed at, and unconditional love despised. Once again, all your miseries are flushed by a gramme of Soma.

*

I’ve been outside of Philippines and I see that, generally, our people are happier than anywhere else’s. I’m just unsure of if our kind of happiness is still conducive to progress. See, I don’t believe that Pinoys are as incapable of independent thought as those Brave New World’s zombified people are, but what exactly have we done with our woes? Filipino novels published 50 years ago, such as those by F Sionil Jose, have presented problems that still prevail today. Have we even tried to deal with them? Have we bridged the separation of classes? Have we indicted our corrupt leaders, who have been corrupting us in the same way as they have been since we’ve become an independent country? Have our working class gained more privilege, and did we fight to ensure that this is so? Have our rags-to-riches brothers bothered to help lift those who are left behind? Have the rich among us done anything but squander in an aristocrat’s hedonistic world?

Even the bums in our streets can enumerate our errors. However, we try so hard to live while ignoring our errors. Instead of rebuilding our society, we turn to escapism. We direct our attention to whatever the media give us, be it the blitz of Pacquiao boxing matches, or the frivolity of the latest showbiz scandals (which we never seem to run out of). We waste away our lives by jumping from one hopelessly-Americanized fad to another. We call ourselves liberal by only adapting its unrestricted promiscuity, as though liberalism were merely standing for freewheeling sex and drugs. All these make us cheer. All these make us suppress our discontent with our system. All these make us happy. All these become our blissful ignorance; our Soma. We do nothing that compels us to understand our sufferings, and to take a more active role in righting our society.

*

Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World as a response to America’s hedonism during the Roaring Twenties. Roaring Twenties, by the way, has nothing to do with your age; it’s about the years from 1920-1929 when America’s economy had an unprecedented boom. During then, Americans were too confident (quoting 20’s president Herbert Hoover, “We in America today are nearer to the final triumph over poverty than ever before in the history of any land.”), thinking that nothing bad can ever happen to them. They mass consumed, just for the sake of pleasure. They didn’t know that, as a result of their recklessness, what was to come was The Great Depression.

Right now, Philippines are depressing. Our stocks are crashing, and prices of all our necessities are inflating very steeply. Sadly, we have yet to wake up from our Soma. Despite all our government’s PR talks, we’re at our most destructive age. If we don’t do anything soon, our place will be as bleak as that dystopia from Brave New World.