Missing a Cold December

There was once a chance I didn’t take and I am the better for it. The choice was between Europe and a possible life with my then-boyfriend. Romantic films would often lead the heroine taking the latter choice, but I didn’t. I thought I was in love but when I look back, I know it was the dark side of me that was speaking. Not my heart, nor even my loins, just the side that was broken, hoping that a partner could fix anything and everything. But I found a better partner and his name was “Europe.” Europe took me in. He’s an old man. Full of wisdom but he won’t tell you his secrets or the lessons that you need to grow. He let’s you discover it for yourself. I made a lot of mistakes but those missteps made me an adult. They made me a woman. A woman who learned that she didn’t need another to complete her. That a lone walk along the canals of Paris, through the markets of Spain – with the scent of sunkissed strawberries in the air – or even on the gray, graffiti-adorned bridges of Berlin on a winter’s night was more than enough.

I miss Europe. I left out of sheer panic. A fearfulness crept in. Maybe I got jaded. I got older. Wiser? Not always. I don’t regret leaving. Well, maybe just when I look up at Christmas lights and feel the heat of the tropical eve. I miss December evening strolls. The chill wind reminding me to keep my eyes open and my soul alert. And alert I was: the comings and goings of fellow travelers,the change in seasons and longer hours of darkness (growing up in Southeast Asia, I was only familiar with two weather patterns – sunny and rainy – autumn and winter was new for me). The melody of my old world haunts – bicycle bells, chugging trains, boot-laden footsteps – would rise up and with each step, would lift me off the ground.

Europe. Oh, darling Europe…You simply swept me off my feet.

 

A Quick Note on Filipino Resilience, TRAPO (Traditional Politics) and Society

Yes, Filipino resilience is
something to be proud about. But what’s sad is that we are
continously put into a position where we HAVE to be “resilient”.
When are we going to say “TAMA NA!!! That’s ENOUGH!”??
Let’s stop… turning the other cheek. Let’s stop being satisfied with
the “lesser evil”. Let’s raise our standards. I think we
are just as guilty as these crooked politicians and this messed up
system. We are just as responsible because we continue to rationalize
and excuse bad behaviour. We allow these people and this flailing
floundering system to hinder us from achieving our full potential as
a country. Maybe one day instead of just being proud of our
‘resilience,’ we can say that we are proud to be a people who finally
put their foot down and demanded for a better life and future as a
nation.

Enough with the martyr complex. Let’s not forget, we were once warriors before we were slaves.

 

Good Stuff to Remember: Some image finds on the net…

 

More photo fun…

The sunset after a day spent surfing (and wiping out!)

Berlin TV tower…and blue skies

 

Photo Fun…

Some images I took from here, there and everywhere

In Tacheles, a Berlin “Beach Bar”…

Berlin “biker” alley

The ultimate way to get around the Philippines

Fresh fish in a Philippine outdoor market…

 

Stephen King’s Advice for Writers

10 minutes with Stephen King

Stephen King teaches people how to write in 10 minutes.

Ready, set, go!

Everything You Need to Know About Writing Successfully

1. Be talented

This, of course, is the killer. What is talent? I can hear someone shouting, and here we are, ready to get into a discussion right up there with “what is the meaning of life?” for weighty pronouncements and total uselessness. For the purposes of the beginning writer, talent may as well be defined as eventual success – publication and money. If you wrote something for which someone sent you a check, if you cashed the check and it didn’t bounce, and if you then paid the light bill with the money, I consider you talented.

Now some of you are really hollering. Some of you are calling me one crass money-fixated creep. And some of you are calling me bad names. Are you calling Harold Robbins talented? someone in one of the Great English Departments of America is screeching. V.C. Andrews? Theodore Dreiser? Or what about you, you dyslexic moron?

Nonsense. Worse than nonsense, off the subject. We’re not talking about good or bad here. I’m interested in telling you how to get your stuff published, not in critical judgments of who’s good or bad. As a rule the critical judgments come after the check’s been spent, anyway. I have my own opinions, but most times I keep them to myself. People who are published steadily and are paid for what they are writing may be either saints or trollops, but they are clearly reaching a great many someones who want what they have. Ergo, they are communicating. Ergo, they are talented. The biggest part of writing successfully is being talented, and in the context of marketing, the only bad writer is one who doesn’t get paid. If you’re not talented, you won’t succeed. And if you’re not succeeding, you should know when to quit.

When is that? I don’t know. It’s different for each writer. Not after six rejection slips, certainly, nor after sixty. But after six hundred? Maybe. After six thousand? My friend, after six thousand pinks, it’s time you tried painting or computer programming.

Further, almost every aspiring writer knows when he is getting warmer – you start getting little jotted notes on your rejection slips, or personal letters … maybe a commiserating phone call. It’s lonely out there in the cold, but there are encouraging voices … unless there is nothing in your words which warrants encouragement. I think you owe it to yourself to skip as much of the self-illusion as possible. If your eyes are open, you’ll know which way to go … or when to turn back.

2. Be neat

Type. Double-space. Use a nice heavy white paper, never that erasable onion-skin stuff. If you’ve marked up your manuscript a lot, do another draft.

3. Be self-critical

If you haven’t marked up your manuscript a lot, you did a lazy job. Only God gets things right the first time. Don’t be a slob.

4. Remove every extraneous word

You want to get up on a soapbox and preach? Fine. Get one and try your local park. You want to write for money? Get to the point. And if you remove all the excess garbage and discover you can’t find the point, tear up what you wrote and start all over again … or try something new.

5. Never look at a reference book while doing a first draft

You want to write a story? Fine. Put away your dictionary, your encyclopedias, your World Almanac, and your thesaurus. Better yet, throw your thesaurus into the wastebasket. The only things creepier than a thesaurus are those little paperbacks college students too lazy to read the assigned novels buy around exam time. Any word you have to hunt for in a thesaurus is the wrong word. There are no exceptions to this rule. You think you might have misspelled a word? O.K., so here is your choice: either look it up in the dictionary, thereby making sure you have it right – and breaking your train of thought and the writer’s trance in the bargain – or just spell it phonetically and correct it later. Why not? Did you think it was going to go somewhere? And if you need to know the largest city in Brazil and you find you don’t have it in your head, why not write in Miami, or Cleveland? You can check it … but later. When you sit down to write, write. Don’t do anything else except go to the bathroom, and only do that if it absolutely cannot be put off.

6. Know the markets

Only a dimwit would send a story about giant vampire bats surrounding a high school to McCall’s. Only a dimwit would send a tender story about a mother and daughter making up their differences on Christmas Eve to Playboy … but people do it all the time. I’m not exaggerating; I have seen such stories in the slush piles of the actual magazines. If you write a good story, why send it out in an ignorant fashion? Would you send your kid out in a snowstorm dressed in Bermuda shorts and a tank top? If you like science fiction, read the magazines. If you want to write confession stories, read the magazines. And so on. It isn’t just a matter of knowing what’s right for the present story; you can begin to catch on, after awhile, to overall rhythms, editorial likes and dislikes, a magazine’s entire slant. Sometimes your reading can influence the next story, and create a sale.

7. Write to entertain

Does this mean you can’t write “serious fiction”? It does not. Somewhere along the line pernicious critics have invested the American reading and writing public with the idea that entertaining fiction and serious ideas do not overlap. This would have surprised Charles Dickens, not to mention Jane Austen, John Steinbeck, William Faulkner, Bernard Malamud, and hundreds of others. But your serious ideas must always serve your story, not the other way around. I repeat: if you want to preach, get a soapbox.

8. Ask yourself frequently, “Am I having fun?”

The answer needn’t always be yes. But if it’s always no, it’s time for a new project or a new career.

9. How to evaluate criticism

Show your piece to a number of people – ten, let us say. Listen carefully to what they tell you. Smile and nod a lot. Then review what was said very carefully. If your critics are all telling you the same thing about some facet of your story – a plot twist that doesn’t work, a character who rings false, stilted narrative, or half a dozen other possibles – change that facet. It doesn’t matter if you really liked that twist of that character; if a lot of people are telling you something is wrong with you piece, it is. If seven or eight of them are hitting on that same thing, I’d still suggest changing it. But if everyone – or even most everyone – is criticizing something different, you can safely disregard what all of them say.

10. Observe all rules for proper submission

Return postage, self-addressed envelope, all of that.

11. An agent? Forget it. For now

Agents get 10% of monies earned by their clients. 10% of nothing is nothing. Agents also have to pay the rent. Beginning writers do not contribute to that or any other necessity of life. Flog your stories around yourself. If you’ve done a novel, send around query letters to publishers, one by one, and follow up with sample chapters and/or the manuscript complete. And remember Stephen King’s First Rule of Writers and Agents, learned by bitter personal experience: You don’t need one until you’re making enough for someone to steal … and if you’re making that much, you’ll be able to take your pick of good agents.

12. If it’s bad, kill it

When it comes to people, mercy killing is against the law. When it comes to fiction, it is the law.

That’s everything you need to know. And if you listened, you can write everything and anything you want. Now I believe I will wish you a pleasant day and sign off.

My ten minutes are up.

 

The Eternal Sunshine of Mark Ruffalo’s Underwear

I’ve seen “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” seven times.

Mark Ruffalo in his underwear never gets old.

But aside from that, another reason that I’ve watched the film so often is because I’ve been there. But then, haven’t we all? Everyone’s taken a turn as bi-polar Clementine or stiff, uptight Joel at some point. Or at the very least, we wish, even at the risk of our sanity, to meet someone that shakes us to the core and turns our world upside down.

The film, set in present-day as well as in Joel’s memory, winds backwards and forwards, using subtle markers for time and reality.
My favourite of marker is the use of her hair color to indicate not only the period in their relationship, but also their feelings towards each other.

To put it in order: He first saw her, standing alone in front of the ocean in Montauk. She is wearing the orange sweatshirt that he will come to hate and her hair is green. Not a toxic green, but more of like a tomato that was not quite ready. “Green” like the term to say that someone or something is still new. “Green” as in “green jokes” (a term for dirty jokes in some cultures) wherein it being with her, in that empty house, as a man with a live-in girlfriend would see as somewhat “dirty” and “illicit” yet also irresistible. As the film moves farther back (or forwards in this analysis), the romance blossomed, like his pet name for her, into sweet Tangerines. However, their happiest and most frustrating moments are with Clementine as a fiery red head. She screamed at him on the street. He walked away. She confessed her deepest secrets and they made love beneath the sheets. However, the passion was an all-consuming one. And as fire always seems to do, it eats up everything in its path until all that’s left are cindered remains. Thus, the ordered narrative ends with Clementine stumbling home in a drunken stupor, her hair a now disturbing and damaged shade of orange. Faded, with her roots showing and Joel, like a father teenagers come to rebel against, waiting in the living room. Knowing the exact buttons to push, he does so and regrets it immediately.

But it’s too late. The damage is done and everything crashes around them.

However, the trick of the story isn’t that it simply goes in reverse, but that the viewer is aware that there are two simultaneous moments going on: the past and present crashing like waves on a rocky shore.
They signed up to forget each other but like in all relationships gone wrong, the harder you try to bury it, the faster it pops up to the surface. She does it first, the crazy impulsive chick that she is. This prompts him to follow suit. Heck, if she’s going to hurt him this way, he’s going to hurt her just as bad. Or at the very least, forget the pain as well. Thus, the true beginning of the movie is its end. The characters have no clue that they signed up to forget each other. And even if the audience does, after several viewings, its easy to get caught up in the ride wish them different choices. You watch Joel remember all the moments of anger and frustration, her temper, his criticisms, and initially, he feels justified in his decision. Until he begins to remember what initially attracted him. He was reminded of the spark, the adventure and the comfortable intimacy. He remembered their laughter on the streets of New York as elephants marched by.

As the memories begin to disappear one by one, the viewer can’t help but wish, like Joel, that he could keep just one. It’s because we’ve all been there. Moments we wish could last forever if it were not for the fights, jealousy or demands that tarnished it. To jump back in time, watch ourselves from a distance, and build a bubble to protect that couple whose happiness we know would only be fleeting. But even with Clementine’s help, it is clear that there is no other choice but to accept the inevitable. That time will take it away.

Clementine on the other hand, is being seduced by one of the technicians who is also doing Joel’s memory erasure. He tries to repeat the lines and gifts that Joel gave from looking through his apartment, but even in her momentary glee, she looks at him with suspicion. She is only with him because he reminds her of something she knew she loved but cannot remember.

What is so intriguing about the film is that it shows how there’s really no rationality to love. The original script was set in the future, with Joel and Clem as being in their mid-sixties, yet continuously trying to forget each other, but only to return to each other again and again. In the beginning of the movie, it seems as though they are meeting for the first time and even in those first few minutes, the viewer has a clear picture of who they are and that they couldn’t be more different. But it’s clear, that it was love at first punch (in their conversation on the train, she punches him on the arm). As you watch them begin the relationship anew, a tape is mailed to them, which they listen to in the car where the Clementine from the past is talking about what she despised about Joel. Though the characters are unsure of whether it’s a joke or not, the viewer knows better.

The audience recalls the last moments of Joel’s memory: Back to that day on the beach. They met and she grabbed a piece of chicken from his plate, “like they were already lovers.” Dusk descends as Clementine plays on the beach, and moody, sullen Joel, for once, looks quite happy. The break into a house, and their most incompatible virtues are emphasized—Clementine’s brazen thrill-seeking ways, Joel’s cowardice and inhibitions. The memory is tinged with regret, as once again, things begin to fall apart. Their last moments together will soon be gone. They say their final goodbyes, as the house and memory crumbles away. She whispers in his ear, “Meet me in Montauk.”

He did.

Kate visits his apartment and hears Joel’s voice play over the tape deck. They realize that it was real. Standing in the hallway, they tell each other what couples, parents and the foolish always tell themselves: that maybe this time it could be different.
The scene ends with them playing on the snowy beach of Montauk.

Maybe it can be different.

 

A May Day Affair

A May Day Affair

A New Landscape, A New Day

Looking to escape Parisian days of intoxication and excess, I hopped on the first train out. I arrived in Berlin at dawn. As the glow of the first morning light filled the station, the past was now 500 kilometres away. Grabbing my beaten-down camera, I headed towards the streets. A crowd of flag wielding German grandfathers flew past, followed by a brawny, youth. I asked what the ruckus was all about and eager to educate me on European-style activism, he informed me that his “cape” was actually the Kurdish flag and invited to come along for the annual May Day demonstrations.

Europeans consider the first of May as the International Worker’s Day. However, in this politically-driven metropolis, this public holiday has been transformed into a parade of protests from the Left, Labour Unions, as well as many other groups.

My Kurdish friend told me that the event was both anticipated and feared. It was an opportunity for the public to air out their frustrations and call for change, but has also resulted in violence wherein cars have been set on fire and riots have broken out.

Marching alongside fellow protesters who didn’t hesitate to yell out their frustrations to the tourists watching from the safe distance of the sidewalk, he told me about the plight of the Kurds in Germany and abroad. As we handed out flyers in Kurdish and German (both languages that I didn’t understand at the time), he told me that he was born in Berlin, but his heart belonged to Kurdistan.

Before we reached the gate, we parted ways and he said in his thick Kurdish-German accent, “Thank you. You are an angel. You’ve helped even if you don’t know me or any of us.” I was stunned. Not just at the kind words, but also because I was the one who grateful for a glimpse into his world.

Love literally hit me on the head

I found myself in the midst of a crowd, whose anger turned to festivity upon the sight of pretzel, sausage and beer booths beneath the shadow of the Brandenburg Tor. Snaking my way through the activists turned partygoers, the tip of a flag hit my head. As I ducked to avoid the next dangerous swoosh of heavy cloth, I heard laughter. That simple sound was the ring of a small bell; the sweet, powder-fresh scent of an infant; and that touch of lemon and ice in your drink. I whirled around to find myself face-to-face with a mass of curly brown hair, shocking blue eyes and a large smile. He pointed at his flag-wielding friend who was still oblivious to the fact that he could have caused major brain damage.

I laughed. He laughed back.

From the Brandenburg Gate, the tree-lined streets of the Unter den Linden, to the Spree River, we spent the day exploring the city. On a grassy knoll by the water, we watched as boats went by and picnickers sipped wine glasses and enjoyed the sun. Like children, we invented a “guess-the-time” game, wherein the loser had to do the other’s bidding. With giggles of glee, I watched as he bounded up the cement slope, up the tree, and yelled out in German “I am the King of the forest.” People cheered and applauded while I grinned triumphantly.

Sunset was approaching and unexpected shyness suddenly came over us. Inside a beaten-down subway train that had fake wood panelling and smelled like cat pee, we said our awkward goodbyes.

He stood silent on the platform as my train sped away.

I travelled through the rest Europe wondering if I would ever see him again. My inbox remained silent and my emails to him were returned with the line “message could not be delivered.” Disappointed but not broken, I traveled to other parts of Germany, Morocco, Spain, France, the UK, Amsterdam, then as luck would have it, I found a job in Europe which took me back to the place that challenged my cynical view of the world—Berlin.

Remember, Remember that email in November

One cold November’s eve, I had just about enough. It was my first winter but the initial joy of snow was replaced by a growing sense of angst and frustration. Tired of the never-ending cold, I was ready to pack up and head to sunny California. However, before I got the chance, there was message in my inbox. Who would’ve guessed that the sentence: “Remember the 1st of may?…in Berlin?” was enough rekindle my passion for the season?

I replied and told him that I was living in Berlin. Thus began our email courtship. Each letter grew longer as anticipation grew stronger. Though excitement was building, the fear that the second meeting would not live up to the first was growing as well.

But I was wrong. It was better.

A Winter’s Eve

We decided to meet in front of the Fernsehturm (Television Tower). With nervous steps, I rushed towards our rendezvous spot but paused when a handsome boy came down the escalator.

Our eyes met, and with a flash recognition we found ourselves standing face-to-face, laughing at nothing in particular, in the middle of station as commuters hurried around us.

Reunited, we once again explored the city on foot. The biting cold did little to slow down our happy chatter.

The city by night was unlike anything else. The full moon’s hazy glow and the red and blue lights of the christmas markets lit up the grey Berlin streets. From getting lost in the grave-like maze of the “Memorial to the Murdered Jews of Europe,” to watching the subway train flash below our feet atop secret bridges, to discovering canisters of frozen flowers in a hidden industrial garden, the evening was the perfect sequel to that unforgettable day in May.

And Spring…then Fall, and Summer, and Winter…

Countless walks later, I was organizing my inbox when I found an unopened email from him requesting to meet again. The date on the letter was May 2, the day after we had first met. I could not believe it. After all this time, I assumed that he had not written at all. I’m not sure why I had failed to see it but I also realized that the address to all the letters I had wrote him during my travels were misspelled by one letter. Despite these mishaps, the city brought us back together. After a year together, we not only traipsed through Berlin, but also to Spain, Sweden and the Philippines.

He once said that our story was like “in a movie, where two people are looking for each other and one of them has to lace her/his shoes at the wrong moment; Or they’re both on the escalator, approaching each other, when one of them drops something and misses the other.” I agree, but I believe that life is much sweeter than any film could be.

Before I left for my trip to Europe, someone once told me that the secret to a life well lived was to be open. It was the best advice that anyone has ever given because in that simple act embracing all that was possible led me to an unexpected journey of life, love and adventure.

 

Satisfy My Soul…

Roaring down dirt highways on jeepney rooftops, Gero and I traveled around the Philippines and found adventure on every corner.

On the last day of the year, I was on a bus to Sagada. It was dusk and after taking four different modes of transporation as well as waiting in Sabangan for an hour, we were lucky to catch a ride. This is what I wrote in my journal that day:

“…on a bus to Sagada. Bob Marley’s ‘Satisfy my Soul’ is on the radio. It has gotten dark. There is a blanket of fog over the mountains and I can hear someone gently snoring in the back.

It’s the last day of the year and all I’ve got are a few funny stories, warm toes and Bob Marley singing in my ear…I am satisfied.”

 

On Film and Culture

Pablo Picasso once wrote “Everyone wants to understand art, why not try to understand the song of a bird?” Like Picasso, many follow the school of thought that art should be done for art’s sake. However, when it comes to film, the search for a deeper message is much stronger. The call for intelligent and purposeful expression falls to the shoulders of film because it can impact so many people in a relatively short amount of time.

Cinema as a tool for influence is not a new development. Deemed as “propaganda films,” which is defined by Garth S. Jowett and Victoria O’Donnell in “Propaganda and Pursuasion” as: “…the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist.” Cinematic works such as Nazi Propaganda Films like 1935’s “Triumph of Will” (Triumph des Willens) or America’s race-driven “A Birth of a Nation” in 1915, were used as promote ideals of the “Other” and a warped sense of nationalism.

Though viewed as artistically sound and historically important, the mission of these films no longer have a place in our modern society (except maybe as inspiration for Fox News broadcasts). However, though the tide has turned, this media, especially from the Left, is still used as vehicle to carry out an agenda. Documentaries such as Michael Moore’s “Farenheit 9/11” or Al Gore’s “An Inconvient Truth” does not hide the fact that they are selling a message: every individual should have a sense of responsibility for the events that shape the world.

Many filmakers believe that it is their duty to create works that are not only visually stunning, but also socially and culturally meaningful. However, compared to pop-culture documentaries or gonzo-style investigative reports, which have the freedom to take a definitive position, cinematic works have to navigate that fine line between purposeful entertainment and pontification. For many artists there is the additional task of creating a significant portrayal of a culture that challenges Hollywood-driven stereotypes whilst competing against mainstream movies that bring in the big bucks. India’s “Monsoon Wedding” by Mira Nair and Hong Kong’s “Chung King Express” by Wong Kar-wai have not only been able to make its way into popular consciousness, but also give a multi-dimensional depiction of oft-misunderstood cultures. However, despite “indie” (i.e. independent) becoming a status symbol for the cool and hip individuals of generation-Y, most directors have not been as lucky as Mira Nair or Wong Kar-Wai in finding the funding to produce and promote their work.

In order to survive, many have to either swallow their pride and create mainstream flicks that entertain but don’t stimulate, or spend their life savings on pieces that only their mother will pay to watch. Despite these obstacles, filmmakers soldier on. With so many barriers to financial success and worldwide acclaim, the question is: “Why bother?” Artists bother not only because it is a passion, but also a means by which to break barriers and present alternative ideas and pose questions on the meaning of origin, culture, nationalism. In addition, modern technology such as the internet and digital filmmaking techniques, have made it easier for artists to share their work without having to deal with legal red tape. In this “Golden Age” of communication, filmmakers have not only been able to present their stories to a global audience, but also have the power to ask their viewers:

“Where did we come from? What are we? Where are we going?”

Paul Gauguin