dreamscape

Cut my viewing of that Fringe episode with toads and butterflies because I thought it was the right thing to do before I slept. But soon after I turned off my lights, I heard a scrapping sound in my room. I sat in the dark, trying figuring out if it was just my imagination or some piece or paper flapping in the dark. It wasn't. So I said, fuck it, turned on my bedside lamp, and found the greenest grasshopper flying around my ceiling. Shit. Now wide awake.

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I hate it when I recommend music or movies and the person I recommended it to asks if it's happy music or a light movie. I never really know what to say to that. I don't think my mind works that way. I usually just want to know if it's good or bad, and even then I'll want to hear/see it myself and have make my own opinion. And if it's good stuff, that's always uplifting and encouraging.

But as I get older, I feel more vulnerable, and easily affected. A bit of self-preservation begins to kick in. It comes in the form of thoughts that say, "I don't want to fill my mind with stuff that can affect me. Life's too short to be affected." Sometimes it really is tempting to bliss out, to find music, movies, and books that are just easier to digest, minus the complexities of layered themes and meaning. But that's how you become a contented cow, wagyu ready for the slaughter.

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Contented Cow was the name of my brother's best bud's high school to college band. It's got an interesting origin story.

Teodulo Protomartir

It's unfortunate that I do not know more of Teodulo Protomartir, whose photos of 1946 Manila put the art in artifact, but I'm glad I caught his show at Silverlens. Amazing photos. This just wasn't a guy with a camera experimenting with a relatively new medium. This was a guy with a unique and timeless vision. His composition and knack for visually articulating a moment will put those scarf-wearing, from-hip-shooting kids to shame.

Silverlens press on Protomartir here. The show opened yesterday and will be on for a month. Go see it.

My photography is about found stuff. I like walking around, in different places, taking pictures of things that evoke a feeling. I also like movies that give meaning to our every day existence. Nothing like finding beauty in a floating plastic bag, but everyday things people obsess about - love, work or family. I enjoy sports and war movies or books because they're about real people who lived interesting lives. A lot of things I enjoy revel in the glory of the here and now.

But there's also a part of me that enjoys the mind fuck. It's usually visual, and has the ability to blow my mind away. Like that giant robot by Rob Sato in the past entry. Click on the image. See a bigger image of that rusting monolith. Look at that world and say the title in your head. In the future's past there was a world-ending war waged with giant robots. But all that's left are these remnants, slowly being swallowed by a greening earth.

It reminded me of childhood favorites, Macross and Nausica, and how those cartoons exposed me to fantastic worlds. Worlds that were ending, and creatures, spaceships and giant robots abound.

I like to remember the feeling of how all these things were freakin' wonderful, and I hope I never forget.

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I also like funny TV shows, or talky shows about politics or crime. But now that shows are on break, I've returned to sci-fi/weird shows. I've restarted Fringe, and marathoning Lost. Let's bring fantastic back.

"Peace At Last In A Future Past"

by Rob Sato

via Ramon

Ode to PNP 132

I inherited the car I drove in college from my mother. By then it was probably eight or nine years old. It then got handed down to my brother, five years my junior. If Gino and I were to write our biographies, the years of driving that '89 Corolla would make up the character building chapters.

I remember that the car used to overheat often. Until one of my uncle's mechanics discovered that the previous mechanic installed the fan the wrong way. It was blowing air away from the radiator. The car also had a knack of locking people out. Somehow the lock had gotten loose, and even if you just closed the door lightly, the lock would come down. It taught me to never leave my keys inside.

One time, while driving in the rain, Gino had to stop the car, get out, and wipe the windshield. In his rush to get out, the door half closed. The lock dropped. And Gino was locked out. Since the door was only half closed, Gino figured he could push it to close completely and the lock would pop back up. Illogical, yes, but standing in the pouring rain, on a busy street, his cellphone inside the car, he was out of options. He muttered a quick prayer and gave the door a hard shove to close. The lock popped up and Gino was never so happy.

Why did Gino have to step out to wipe the windshield? Because the wipers' rubber were torn and I couldn't afford to replace them.  Even when I eventually replaced them, I still waited until visibility was nearing nil before flicking that wiper switch. I was conserving the rubber. That's habit that carries to today, even I've finally gotten a relatively newer car. I have to be driving to an absolute downpour before I even begin to think about wearing out the wipers.

I'm only writing about this now because I had new wipers installed today. Ahead of the coming rains, and before the rubber's completely worn out. I got reminded that problems usually sort themselves out, that we get to better days, and that the bad days are still worth a laugh.

I can't wait. They'll be in Singapore on July 27 and I'll be there. Unless Intersect brings them in. Do it!

moved in

It's been a while since I've been able to write here. Lately, time's been split between work (with some out-of-town shoots mixed in) and house stuff. By house stuff I mean all the work that's involved in moving into a completely bare apartment. I don't think I've ever spent so much in my life. Sincerely, my bank account is fucked. But it's cool. It feels very grown up, picking out my own chairs, bed mattress, lights, etc. Past weekends, I've been supervising the handyman, the plumber, and the electrician. I have tons of bulbs from when I experimented with the lighting, haha. So far, I've got most things; most lately, a microwave oven.

Speaking of appliances, I've learned, in this past month, that the idea of plugging appliances into automatic voltage regulators is obsolete. So is grounding them by attaching a thin wire to the ground or the wall. My knowledge of electrical issues is apparently stuck in the 80s and 90s, in the era of varying voltages and intermittent power outages. I now know that I no longer have to have footwear on before touching the refrigerator.

Now, if you're Asian, you know that moving out of the family home as a single guy is a bit of a thing. There's a bit of guilt that plays into the decision and no one is a above emotional blackmail. So it's good to know that my parents have been quite cool about my decision. In fact, they've been absolute darlings.

Before moving out, I was quietly thinking about oral hygiene. Leaving the family house also meant leaving behind our electric toothbrush contraption (base charger, water pick, the works). But the week of my move out, I found a gift-wrapped box on my desk. Turns out my mom got me my very own electric toothbrush system.

My dad called to ask me about my home theater system. I said I was happy to have my brother's tube TV handed down to me. He was after all upgrading to one of those LCD types. I believe  they're called flatscreens. My dad quickly volunteered to spring for a flatscreen as his house warming gift. Not only that, he said he'd send me one of his unused microwaves. People apparently gift him with these things. This morning, as I picked up the microwave from his office, I found out from his secretary that he sent her out to get me a new one but to pretend that it was something he already had on him.

My parents. What can I say.

Anyway there's still stuff to be done around the house. I still have about a dozen boxes in the "work" area as I wait for my work table and shelves to get made, or get bought. The toilet's water closet needs a bit of tweaking. Some kitchen tiles need to be replaced. Hooks need to be installed and I have to get the wifi router set up so I don't have to be doing this hunched over the low TV console where the broadband modem is on. But so far, I'm in my home away from home.

I've been busy moving out of the family house. I've been planning to do so for the past two years, but I've always been slow to pull the trigger. Anyway it's happening slowly but surely.

Checks are with the landlord. During the weekend I got the water running, got the place cleaned, screwed in some bulbs (most of which I'm changing to a white daylight cast). More than half my books are at the apartment. I am now the owner of my own refrigerator and a toaster. Tomorrow I'm taking delivery of a dining table set and a bed frame. The mattress is arriving next week. I put in an order for chairs, and bought the blinds that are getting installed tomorrow too. I still need a work table, a couch, a couple of shelves, a cabinet, lamps and light fixtures, a phone and Internet connection, and more chairs.

I just listed a litany of tasks and needs to hide the emotional upheaval that I'm, er, feeling, at the risk of channeling LJ. I've said before that I've moved homes seven times, and it never really gets easier. While packing the second batch of books, I unearthed scrawlings and "art" by 3-year old me. My pre-school teacher gave me "satisfactory" marks. I also found a binder of my very first rolls of transparency film. They were photos of rural settings, children posing, sunsets and, "patterns and texture" on plants. Horrible.

Anyway, I wanted this, I planned for this. And I am getting exactly what I wanted. It's time to grow up, but I'm still making time for patintero in empty parking lots, ice cream on the steps, gigging until way past my bedtime. You only live once.

T. Enami and new music

I've always felt that photography was meant more to make one curious about the world we live in, rather than explain it all away. That's not a modern or post-modern take. Even at it's conception, photography was already doing that. Which is why I have a thing for early photography

I found T. Enami via The World's Best Ever and you can learn more about him, and see more of his photos HERE.

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Thanks to my buddy, Barry, for giving me the heads up. I'm now listening to the new Shout Out Louds album, and looking forward to the new The Magnetic Fields album (which is described as folksy).

David Byrne, Fatboy Slim and Santigold. On Imelda Marcos. I can't wait.

Nadav Kander's "Yangtze, The Long River"

"It's much more about going there quite empty-minded and trying to photograph through a felt sense. And making pictures that describe how I feel when I'm in a place."

"When I photograph landscape, I'm after some sort of question, some reflection on my own mood, or some catalyst to make a reaction. It's not to find great lands and great views. It's more about finding the signs that we exist."

Nadav Kander's always been one of my favorite photographers. This slideshow-with-commentary of his series on the Yangtze River is pretty cool because aside from seeing the images that won Kander the Prix Picet 2009, you get a glimpse of Kander's mind while making these images.

feed the animals

Holy shiitake, I didn't know that Barclay from Star Trek and Murdoch from the A-Team were played by the same actor. And that actor is Dwight Schultz, who I almost confused with Dwight Schrute.  TV character crossover overload!

Excuse this bit of geek spasm. In fact, this realization is a decade or two late. It's just that I was such a big fan of Murdock that I named my first pet dog after him, albeit spelling it as Murdoch. Murdoch was a black and white spitz-mutt and was given to me by the parents of this chick of a classmate in pre-school. That's what I remember, but I was five then.

I used to be such an, dare I say it, animal lover, even if, nowadays, I couldn't care less for PETA unless I was shooting the naked women in their ads. I think part of it was because my dad loved animals too and had them all over the house. We had dogs, birds, and I'm not sure, but maybe fish too. Even now, I think my dad can't wait to retire so he can have more time to hang out with his avian friends.

Part of it was also because I was fascinated by the About Animals volume from that Childcraft set of books that any self-respecting child of the 80's must have had. I loved that book. I had a hard time getting through the Reptiles and Amphibians section though, and that full bleed page of a snake's head still makes me shudder at the memory.  But the book fed my love for animals, so much so that I wanted to be, at one point, a veterinarian.

But then things didn't quite work out for me. I had a pair of white mice that I got from the pet shop. I got them a nice cage, a water feeder, and that little running wheel they could exercise on. They died the same day I got them. I put them in a little matchbox, dug a hole in my grandma's garden and buried them. The next day, the hole was there but my mice were gone. My grandma said the cat might have dug them out. Over twenty years later, I have a feeling that my grandma, God rest her soul, might have poisoned them, dug them out, and disposed of them properly. The hell she was going to have mice in her house.

Then I got one of those nice colored birds that they used to sell outside churches. It had a nice bamboo cage that we hung on the veranda. That afternoon, the cage was torn open, and my little colored maya was gone. Grandma blamed the cats again.

I finally got a pair of small turtles. I made sure I fed them right and cleaned their round goldfish bowl religiously. One day the maid said that one of them had escaped by piling the rocks up against the side of the goldfish bowl and climbing out. What The Hell, right? After a few days, the second turtle stuck it's head under the rocks instead of inside his shell, and broke his neck. I think it committed suicide, out of the sheer loneliness of being left behind.

Also, by this time, my parents had broken up, and I had to grow up really fast as a self-preservation thing. I also found books, comics, and eventually girls. I wanted to be a businessman, a lawyer, a detective, a spy. Animals fell by the wayside. I am still freaked out by reptiles and amphibians though. They're the worst things in the world.

HNY

I just wanted to make it to the next day, and I did. Thanks everyone, I love you all!