lunch with dad

Pa: Your little sister is into the Eraserheads.
Me: What?
Pa: I mean Sponge Bob!

Pa: What's that cartoon family like the Flintstones? They're all yellow.
Me: You mean The Simpsons?

I'm a grown man now, so every time we lunch out, I get the check. For dessert.

Denis Dailleux

Denis Dailleux photos can be seen as exotic. But exotic used to mean a good thing, as it still does to me. It takes you to a different place, sparks your imagination, and all that. That's good for us.

Anyway, more importantly, I like how these photos are both raw and classical, fresh and nostalgic, quiet and yet very alive. Very, very interesting.

H/T: Feature Shoot.

I want to kiss this girl, sorry.

Lately, I've had nothing to say, other than post stuff about movies, music and photography. No new epiphanies or realizations. No poignant experiences or life defining acts. It's because Twitter has taken over my life.

Or maybe it's because things have been all right. Meaning, I've been very happy to live my life the past couple of weeks, and I really can't be bothered to write about it. But I will try.

I know it sounds pathetic to say this, but maybe Star Trek started it off by just being awesome.

Then work got going, checks started coming in, and, professionally, I'm satisfied. At least approaching the first half of this year. I'm also happy to be finally on a very promising book, after many false starts. All those books I mentioned here, I swear to you, I haven't been able to finish more than half of them. But this one now, Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon, is dense and fascinating. I like the challenge of reading it, and I like it when staying on it pays off.

I've been catching some good music live too. I saw Sleepwalk Circus and Encounters With A Yeti just this past week alone.

Also the NBA Playoffs have been the most fun and exciting in recent years. I like it more than last year, even with Boston and Lakers were in the Finals. This year, and at this point it's the conference finals leading up to the Finals, it's full of exciting match ups and awesome games. Even as everyone assumed that it would be a Cleveland-LA showdown at the end, peaking teams like Orlando and Denver (Chauncey!) are giving them a serious run for their money. I just saw a well-made documentary about the opposite yet same demigods that are Kobe and LeBron, and their stories are truly inspiring. Or at least Nike tells me so.

But it really is a good series, and when people ask me who I'm rooting for, I say, without an ounce of bullshit, that I just enjoy watching these guys compete. Basketball, with the glory of winning and the obliteration by defeat, is a purifying experience. The drama is true. If I had to live my life, earning a (lucrative) living, just being one of those talking heads on ESPN, who cover game after game, I'd be very content. It doesn't get any better than that.

Also, I will be taking a three-week vacation in a couple of weeks. I don't deserve it. In fact the whole expense of it, compounded by the fact that I'd be missing out on work for such a long time, was making me sick. Then Star Trek came along and made me love life a little.

I'll be visiting New York again, after, wow, five years. And I think I will take immense pleasure revisiting old bookshops and favorite museums. I will check if my favorite deli is still on the corner of Park Ave and 17thE, get a sandwich and flavored water, and eat it at Union Square like I used to. I will go back to Central Park and finally find "IMAGINE" on the ground. This time around, I will be hanging with great friends, and it should be funner. Then I'm off to San Francisco to attend an uncle's wedding.

I just saw Bottle Shock, and while it's an okay movie, it made me want to go to Napa Valley again. But this time, I want to go off the wine tasting route and just head off to the real vineyards and take more pictures. Then back home to Manila for my brother's birthday.

The next six weeks of my life have been planned. And while that somewhat terrifies me, at the rate I'm going, I'll probably be all right.

Finally got my laptop back from the shop. It was there for over a week. I ended up squatting on people's computers to get some work done. Anyway, back to my regular programming.

In the meantime: Happy birthday Sir Arthur Conan Doyle!

Greg Miller

I rarely use well-crafted to describe photographs that I like, because well-crafted doesn't necessarily make a great photograph. But I very much like Greg Miller's well-crafted, rich, and romantic photographs.

Robert Benson interviews Greg Miller HERE.

Sherlock Holmes

This is probably going to be way different from the stories I began to love after reading A Study In Scarlet, but I will still watch this Sherlock Holmes.

By the way, Robert Downey Jr both as Ironman and Sherlock Holmes? Damn him.

David Byrne Live EP

Hey look! I can embed David Byrne's awesome EP!

Away We Go

I don't know how I missed Away We Go. Looking forward to it already. 2009 feels like a great movie year.

American Suburb X

Speaking of treasure troves, American Suburb X, also by Doug Rickard (of earlier mentioned American Family X), is a curious collection of essays, interviews and photos. It's mostly photography, but not always. As evidenced by this reprint of an interview with my favorite painter, Edward Hopper. Not surprising, I have hunch Hopper is the great-granddaddy of all color photographers.

Anyway, the site is so dense, it will take me many idle days to get through the whole thing. Very daunting, but I suppose it will be very worth it if it's filled with things like these:

Narrative/essay for Todd Hido's Ohio.
Reprint of a Philip-Lorca diCorcia interview for his series, Hustlers.
Reprint of an essay on William Eggleston.

The joy.

creative juices

Spike Jonze and his band of merry persons have been blogging about all the lovely things that influenced them as they were making the potentially awesome film adaptation of Where The Wild Things Are.

Of course it's got a pretty cool collection of production photos and videos. But the best things are the random things. Like this post about Paperhouse, a movie that is permanently seared in my memory because I was scared shitless watching it at my cousin's house during one of those endless summers in the late 80's. There is also a collection of photos from Mike Tyson's abandoned mansion. Very cool.

fanboy

Unlike most fans who got to watch the series, I learned my Trek via the novels. This guy in my high school, Ericson Chua, pushed Star Trek (and Tom Clancy) on me. And pretty soon, I was hooked. I was into Classic and The Next Gen, and bought and devoured every novel I could get from National Bookstore Greenhills. A lot of the books weren't great, but there are gems in there. And regardless of style or technique, a kid couldn't ask for more than space myths about friendship, life and destiny.

And then I found out everything I knew wasn't canon. The books weren't kosher. I was out of sync with the TV series and the movies. So in 1995, I got myself the Star Trek Chronology by Michael and Denise Okuda. It summarized all episodes from Classic to TNG Season 5, provided graphic timelines, included the alternates, explained stardates and all that awesome shit. It was all indexed and cross-referenced. It was a great way get on track and figure everything out.

Anyway, watching this new Star Trek got me missing my old books. They sit on my top shelf gathering dust. But I'm thankful I kept them all, and with this awesome reboot, everything seems so fresh and great again. It's a good feeling, and I know it sounds incredibly funny, but I feel a certain amount of hope and joy.

PS: I haven't heard from Ericson in awhile. I hear he went on to work for Canon Japan, either designing or writing code for the CCD that's inside my professional digital camera. That or NASA. I forget.

today

To recount: I had my favorite spaghetti and pan-fried chicken for lunch. I had a frappuccino and didn't care. I saw an awesome movie about something that meant a lot to me as a kid. Seeing it restarted in such a well-crafted, enjoyable manner made me feel a little bit more alive. It was truly Art and Heart. Then I had a nice dinner in the company of people I sincerely like.

Days like these don't come very often anymore, as I get older. I just want to remember today. It was a good day.

BTS

I was supposed to head out, listen to some bands play, but, good grief, it's a downpour out there. It makes me want to stay in (done!), catch up on sleep and some reading. Still haven't really recovered from my late flight back from Cebu last night (work that turned into a food trip), and my early appointment this morning.

You know how a lot of pros play it cool? I won't. I admit that I like behind-the-scenes shots from shoots. I want to see their set ups. I'm interested in the creative spaces people inhabit, how their studios or work desks look like. I like to have some insight, however imagined, into how other people work. I'm a geek like that. That's also why I'm a big fan of What The Jackanory's Inside the Photographer's Studio/Home series.

Anyway, Real Living, one of my solid editorial clients, started posting BTS of cover shoots on their blog. I shot the May cover (Sorry, shameless plug right there!) and the BTS photos can be found here. Final product below:

obligatory Pacquiao post

As a Filipino, I suppose I should say something about how magnificently Pacquiao floored Hatton yesterday. But instead I'll say two things:

1. Slo-mo has got to be the best thing next to the Internet. It was instrumental in helping me appreciate the beauty that is Manny's punch as it rendered the lower half of Ricky Hatton's face as a highly malleable piece of flesh. Like Play-Doh even. The slow moving image of sweat flying off Hatton's impacted head was glorious.

2. Twitter was awesome in helping me schedule my Sunday morning (local time) since there was a Boston-Chicago Game 7 finishing up right before the Pacquiao-Hatton match. Brian Viloria was constantly tweeting from the fight venue, and I was able to estimate the time I had to leave the basketball game to catch the fight at a resto.

Anyway, Fire Quinito has a better round up of the Pacquiao-Hatton fight post mortems.

When I'm filthy rich

I'd get myself these:

1. The Complete Calvin and Hobbes

2. The West Wing boxed DVD collection.

3. And this

Building the LEGO Millennium Falcon from Gizmodo on Vimeo.

American Family X

"Found photography and snapshot culture," is the tagline for American Family X. I gather it's put together by Doug Rickard and what an amazing collection it is.