photography by Gregory Halpern

Chanced upon the awesome (new) work of Gregory Halpern.

Hat tip: Shane Lavalette

eating frozen yogurt at the steps

I always like talking to my friend, P. Conversations with her usually cover stuff that I don't usually get to talk to others about. Like tonight, at the back steps of of some Makati building, after getting some frozen yogurt, we talked about how, coming from our particular generation, we tend to think that we can do anything. But now that we're a bit older, we shed our dreams one by one, and stick to one that we hopefully can be good at. We're still undecided if that's a tragedy or natural function of being excellent (at one thing).

Anyway, we decided that Things We Can Never Do would make good material for, say, a specialized blog. It's just a list of things we wanted to do but can't now. With reasons and qualifications, of course.

The first thing that came to mind was that I could never be an astronaut. The reason being that I'm not a Russian billionaire who can afford to be a space tourist, and I don't have the educational background to make it to being a crew member. (What is a payload specialist?) However, this should be qualified by saying that, in a couple of decades, space tourism might be possible, and I can find myself among the stars.

But there are many things that I still hope to do. I still want to make a film, show more photography, write fiction, and build well-designed houses. I'm not trying to be a dilettante or a dabbler. Don't you need to be well-off to be one? But these things aren't outside the realm of possibility. I just need to start on something and, as P would say, enjoy the process.

PS. K suggested a blog on irrational fears. That's kind of fun too.

Found it!

The James Worthy play that I described down below is for real! It's the number one James Worthy play in this video compilation, even. It's not a made up memory! Phew.

I remember watching the epic LA-Boston matchups of the 80's. I forget which series exactly, but I remember James Worthy diving for a loose ball, crashing into the sidelines, and finding a way to toss the ball to either Kareem or Magic for lay up to win the game. It might be a made-up memory, for all it's worth, but it's what I use to justify my rooting for the Lakers (against Boston) among friends.

Somewhere along the way, after injuring myself in summer basketball camp, I decided I was non-athletic and stopped being a sports fan. There was, after all, comics, music and such.

Then I got older, and started following the NBA more seriously again. It helped that friends put up a fantasy league that got me interested again. This was around 2004, the year Detroit gunned for and got a championship. Not by carrying a superstar on their roster, but by exemplifying a team game of grounding opponents to a pulp and efficient play making. The Pistons made a believer out of me.

I like the Filipino expression, "bilog ang bola." An existential outlook has never been so succinctly and subtly expressed. Five years later, after a record number of consecutive playoff appearances, the Pistons are a shadow of their former selves.

They've traded away integral members of their 2004 championship team. Ben Wallace, though the heart and will of the famous Detriot defense, was really fading, and sending him away was a good move. But Chauncey Billups, the guy who carried the all important swagger and winning attitude, was moved this season. The Pistons still made the playoffs this year, but are down 0-3, and hopeless against the freak-of-nature that is LeBron James. James deserves his present and future greatness, but it's so sad to see it manifest and shine in the laying to waste of my Pistons.

One man dismantling my whole team.

[edit]. I'm still worked up about this. The irony is killing me. Also it's karma. Karma for trading Chauncey for the life-sucking, former-superstar that is Allen Iverson. And Darko? Who scouted that? Bosh would have been purrfect. Now they have Kwame. Good luck.

Today was supposed to be an easy day: NBA game, gym, 4pm meeting with my agent (insurance, not talent), dinner with high school buddies after.

At 12:45, as the Utah Jazz and LA Lakers started the 4th Quarter in Game 3 of their playoff series, I got a text from an ad agency to come to a bid meeting at 2pm. I showered quickly, threw some clothes on, and checked the TV. The game was tied at 86 with around 3 seconds to go. Someone was going to have the make the game-winning shot. I left.

The day isn't over, but hopefully, to keep it easy, that was the hardest decision I'll have to make. I better win that bid too.

PS. Deron Williams drilled a fadeaway jumper with 2.2 seconds left to give Utah a win.

PPS. I'm on Twitter. Hehe.

Turbo Goth shoot

I shot the band, Turbo Goth, for Preview today. It comes out in the July issue, I think, so no posting of photos just yet.

I've always wanted to do more portraits, and to shoot a band was something I've missed doing. When I was still in school, I interned for a music magazine, and it was cool knowing that I could do much more in terms of technique, now that a I know a bit more.

This shoot went extremely well. Sarah and Paolo were game and knew what do in front of a camera. I had a list of images in mind and I felt that I executed them pretty well. I think it was great that no one from the magazine could come and I was left do my own thing. But, as it is with me and my broken social skills, the day wasn't without some of my usual verbal blunderings.

Me: So Paolo, is your band your full time thing now?
Paolo: Yes. But I'm also a freelance skater.
Me: Oh, like on the long board?
Paolo: Huh? Freelance caterer! I went to chef school.

Sarah brought this tall, stiff hat as part of her outfit.

Me: Great, did you make this from a lampshade?
Sarah: ...
Me: Er, hehe.

I really thought she was one of those girls who made their own clothes (a good thing)! She's a tatoo artist for chrissake (non-sequitur)! Anyway, every thing was all but forgotten by the end of the shoot. I think. They said the liked the photos. Paolo made me take a swig of gin from his bottle of C2. That means it's all good right?

I need to just get out there and take pictures.

Encounters With A Yeti

I made an impromptu stop at Cubao X last night. It was hot and humid, and I couldn't stay for Shoulder State. But there was an unusually large number of pretty girls. Also, the band that opened was pretty awesome. May post rock band pala tayo.

Check out Encounters With A Yeti.

I've been busy lately.

Finishing off Season 4 of The Wire. I love this show. Every time they kill off one of the main guys, I get torn up inside. After seeing Generation Kill, I see a common theme among these David Simmons/Ed Burns-produced shows: It doesn't matter if you're a player on the street, the police, or an infantry man. You'll always be a good guy. It's the bosses who are mostly fucked up.

Anyway, I like this show about a city I've never been to.

I've also been busy finishing my second reading of Chabon's Kavalier and Clay. It's even brillianter this second time around. But I always get a little bit impatient reading the last hundred pages and I rush it. I guess that means that, around a year from now, I'll re-read it again.

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Anyway, hat tip to to the blog, Slightly Lucid, for directing me to photographer, Estan Cabigas. His series, Non Places, with it's color and negative space, is pretty good.

WTJ presents Alec Soth's studio

I guess it's photography week on this blog. I've always been interested in the spaces that creative people inhabit. The What The Jackanory blog has this awesome series of videos of photographer's studios. And this time Andrew Hetherington walks through one of my favorite photogs', Alec Soth's.

inside the photographers_studio from andrew hetherington on Vimeo.

bye darkroom

Even when I was starting out in photography, I always dreaded darkroom work. I always had trouble rolling up my negatives into the spool. Mixing chemicals and turning canisters required chemicals at right temperatures, and repetitive actions at regular intervals. It required patience, precision, and dexterity, so you know, darkroom work didn't exactly play to my strengths.

But I still do feel nostalgic about these cramped, damp, funny-smelling and disappearing rooms. And so does Richard Nicholson, as evidenced by his series of London's remaining darkrooms.

HT, as usual: swiss miss

PLAY by Neal Oshima

When I was putting together my first exhibit, Rina, one of the owners of Lumiere, wanted me to meet one of the other owners. She told me to come by again next week to meet Neal Oshima. Inwardly, I braced myself.

Neal, who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Miyagi - though, I'll never say that to his face - was one of those big name photographers. At least to me, then as a kid who had just put together a body of work for the first time. I knew of his technical expertise and commercial success, but what made him both impressive and intimidating was that he always transcended all that with personal work that expressed his clear vision and solid conviction. He was a master photographer and he was going to check me out.

I showed up the next week with some early prints, and waited for Neal to finish an earlier meeting. My hands felt clammy, and I wanted to drink the whole pitcher of water set before me and pee at the same. Finally Neal came around and... turned out to be great. He referred me to his printer and his framer, and was even there to help me out with mounting my work on the days before the exhibit. He came to my opening, and to the next one. All of that went along way to making me feel that my work was worthy. I met another photographer some time ago who liked shooting in mixed lighting too. He says Neal mentioned my work. The man remembers and I'll never forget.

Anyway, it brings me immense pleasure to tell everyone about Neal Oshima's long-awaited solo show at the Silverlens Gallery, entitled: PLAY.

THE PLAY THING
By Marian Pastor Roces

Neal Oshima figures the dynamics of play in his exhibition of photograms at Silverlens Gallery, April 15 - May 16, 2009. Play in this set of works is, however, an ironic topic, because the photogram process has a severe, straightforward, almost anti-play temper. Still, play “resides” in the photographer’s object, a range of toys and children’s playthings, from edible gummy bears and gummy worms to plastic modular building sets to mini guns. Play may also be located in visual double entendres emerging from the process itself. With the objects in actual contact with the surface of the paper—for this exhibition, arranged in very orderly, symmetrical grids—the toys are about as close to their images as physically possible. Simultaneously, these things are about as distant, visually, from toys as one might wish to imagine. The gummy worms, organized in overlaid x’s or curves, look as though a strange, translucent set of chromosomes. Or codes (which, in any case, comprise genetic material). Or a kind of unfamiliar writing. Serious stuff, which will remind semioticians, Buddhists, hackers and virus-makers, and, of course, game creators, that post-industrial humans think of the universe, their social relationships, and indeed their own bodies in terms of codes. But Oshima will not really humor these thoughtful viewers. His twist: these are, of course, only gummy worms and Lego bits. There is nothing more in the images that the direct imprint of these children’s playthings on exquisite paper the photographer himself chemically sensitized to light. A further twist: the images are not even mediated by light traveling any distance, nor computer manipulation.

The compositions perturb because they re-initiate adults into the nether dimensions of play. Weapons that maim and kill, creepy-crawlies that are a challenge to ingest, models of dangerous equipment, transgender role-play, and so forth, all exist within a liminal zone very close to the most transgressive human actions. The notion of “play” renders the dangerous, safe; the unknown, familiar; the evil, domesticated. Play also wraps the imagination around the menacing and the uncanny, the outcome of which, for the child at play, is by no means exclusively beneficial. Barbie, the extreme example, is not only an image of the disciplinary impositions of a horrific sexual social order; the quasi-doll is perhaps more importantly, a signal towards actual illnesses (anorexia being the mildest). It is in this light—light, so to speak, in Oshima’s deadpan photography—that there is delight in this exhibition. Oshima brings up the complexity of play in an apocalyptic world, but does not play up to the romance of apocalyptic visions. A peerless technical virtuoso, he plays with a lightness of touch, and a calm intelligence.

Play by Neal Oshima opens at 6pm on April 15, Wednesday and runs until May 16, 2009.

Silverlens Gallery is at 2/F YMC Bldg. II, 2320 Pasong Tamo Ext., Makati, 816-0044, 0905-2650873, manage@silverlensphoto.com. Gallery hours are Monday to Friday 10am–7pm and Saturdays 1–6pm. www.silverlensphoto.com.

You know how some people think that the Internet is making us dumb because we're getting all our information in the form of blurbs? The way I see it is if you think you're going to get all you need from a blurb, then you were already stupid to begin with. If you really want to, you'll read the whole article. TLDR my ass.

Anyway, for interesting (long) articles, I've only recently been turned on to the fun that is Wired magazine. I've seen the magazine on newsstands, but I've only subscribed to the online version ever since I was pointed to an article about a ragtag group of salvagers who employ ingenious, high-tech methods to bring hapless, damaged ships safely to port. They make millions for themselves by risking their adventure-filled lives, and Spielberg has probably optioned their story.

Click to read High Tech Cowboys of the Deep Seas: The Race to Save the Cougar Ace.

Also recently they ran a great story about a German board game that has revolutionized the pastime: Monopoly Killer: Perfect German Board Game Redefines Genre. Apparently these Germans are big on board games. I take exception to the anti-Monopoly slant, but it still makes for a great read.

There's a newer article out that I'm just about to read: Beating Somali Pirates At Their Own Game.

And finally, while technically not an article, but still fun: 10 Best Geeky Last Words.

James Earl Jones doing the alphabet on Sesame Street is somewhat freaky.

HT: swissmiss

I like watching How I Met Your Mother, not only because of the funny gags, smart narrative, the interesting pop culture referencing. I also like it because they're bunch of friends in their twenty-thirties. Like me and my friends. They deal with stuff those weird, transition years throw at you: fulfilling work, significant others or the lack of both. Like me and my friends.

Anyway, in the last episode, Murtaugh, Ted has a list of things to be done now that he's thirty: the "I'm too old for this sh... stuff" list. One item that had me especially chuckling was, "I'm too old to put off going to the doctor." Because I'm like that now. I didn't use to be that way. I didn't even medicate beyond Vitamin C. But I can't afford that now.

Which is why when I got sick some weeks back, all I wanted were those awfully powerful antibiotics. And ever since I got a bad stiff neck some months ago, I've been meaning to see a chiropractor (which got pushed back because of that weeks-long infection). I finally got to see the chiropractor twice since and every visit is like a near-death experience. Every time my spine or my neck was being re-adjusted, I kept thinking how easy it would be for the doctor (?) to slip and break something. Thus ending my, so far, fun life. I've survived, obviously, and I've been recommended to take some maintenance treatment. But I don't think I'm going back unless I've got another injury or something.

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Someone who knew I was a fan of Dumas and The Count of Monte Cristo recommended that I check out Stephen Fry's The Stars' Tennis Balls, a sort of modern retelling of the tale. I found the book at Fully Booked Rockwell last night, and I can't wait to get going.

EDIT: I also woke up today, to a nice, rainy Saturday morning. Had a great tapsilog breakfast, and a potential Easter Finals matchup on TV, Cleveland versus Orlando. Except that the Cavs tanked and got soundly beaten by the Magic. By around 30 points. A day after they lost to the NBA's worst-performing team, the Wizards. WTF indeed. Anyway, another potential playoff mathup, in the West this time, is showing now. I'm hoping this LA-Houston game turns out to be more interesting.