I've had this since last month, so I've been remiss in saying that I enjoyed Zach Lucero's album, Fall Crash Infect.

My friends at Sputnik have been tag teaming me into getting Apol Sta Maria's "Alamat Ng Panget..." Making it to Cubao X last Friday with some actual cash in my wallet, I finally got my copy. (Only 200 bucks and less than 10 copies left!) This crudely drawn collection of crass visual and verbal gags belie the intelligent commentary this comic makes on life and art itself. Ramon De Veyra writes a better review here.

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I miss writing entries here compared to the inane little things I post more often at Twitter. It's a bit of mind job how the Internet can actually be used to minimize information by spreading a whole lot of it. The possibilities of the Net is uselessly endless.

I also miss baring my heart online and in public. Haha. I remember when posts in my old blog were just rawer, intense and personal. I miss it, but I don't think I'll ever do that again. A major part is that I really am old...er now. Thirty really isn't the new twenty, no matter how much we package and market it to be. You know why I know that? Because I gave up my old camera backpack and bought the same version but with wheels. (Also, the old camera bag is for sale. Check it out here. End plug.)

Back to the baring of one's heart. I don't think I really miss public and online emotional seppuku. I just miss the fact that I, once upon a time, could.

Christian Patterson: Out There

Christian Patterson is one of my favorite photographers who shoots in color. He's good and he should be. He's only worked with William Eggleston. After Sound Effects, I'm glad to know he's wrapped up a new series called, Out There, which is visually inspired by Terrance Malick's film Badlands. Which is, in turn, based on the story of Charles Starweather, a multiple murderer.

About this series, Patterson says,

"I have long been fascinated with and inspired by phantom events—events that have little or no physical presence in a place or an image but have a very strong relationship with the place that is photographed."

Found out via Shane Lavalette.
Interview of Patterson on Out There at Making Room.

Ondoyphotos.com

Some friends of mine were quick, smart and sensitive enough to feel that there was a need for a visual compendium of the effects of Typhoon Ondoy. Within the week after Ondoy hit the metro, Ondoyphotos.com was up and running. Good job guys.

community

Things seem to be settling down.

Last month was shitty, as I've said. I guess emotions started going haywire in August, when Cory died and the country went into collective mourning. Then in early September, Alexis, one of the good guys, and his girlfriend Nika were killed, and I saw my close friends grieve. After that, the nice family of three who ran the cafe across the bar I sometimes hang out at were also murdered in their own apartment. And in the past week, I've had friends scampering to higher ground, losing everything to the the floods of Ondoy. Right now, Metro Manila just might be able to duck this new storm, the tragically named Pepeng. (Next time, let's stick to the international list of typhoon names.)

My almost-meltdown due to work-related stress seems trivial in comparison to it all and I'm just glad that the people closest to me are dry and safe. And happy. Right after the madness that was Ondoy, it was good to see my high school buddy, Hester, marry Tonee.

At this point, while there's a lot of things to be done, back to regular programming will be a relief.

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Take a minute to enjoy photography of David Leventi, who takes pretty good portraits of a place.

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I love Community. And I mean the TV show, not how we are all connected and shit.

September was a shitty month, and that's something I'll try to recap later. I'm just glad it's over. Here's a quick quote that broke the monotony of things going on in my head. It's a bit refreshing to think about photography by itself again. And, you can't go wrong with a basketball metaphor applied to photography.

"Then, it occurred to me that these plays almost always have a component of near failure involved in them. It's the fingertip catch, the unlucky or lucky bounce, or a player making a grab on a line drive that shouldn't have been catchable. It's almost never the "perfectly executed play" or the "high percentage shot" that makes us leap up from our chairs in disbelief. I feel the same way about photography." - Bradley Peters.

More on Bradley Peters and his staged yet failure-dependent work at Conscientious.