Reading "Coders"

Two hours of reading Coders, this account of the culture and ethos of the engineers of logarithms, suss out the nerdy types I rarely meet (but am very much aware of). My reaction is part envy and part amusement: I'm envious that my artistic temperament (you are free to judge if I'm really an artist) isn't more of the pedantic coder's, thus, being a generalist, I have not had many euphoric 'aha' moments similar to a coder's high when she busts a bug, technology works again, and the user is happy.

To be a coder is to plod through a myriad of frustrations when hacking through smelly code until it is cracked and the glitch is fixed. To be an artist is to care passionately about life, even for only a portion of it. The 'poet' as artist must care by engaging every day's puzzle like a coder, mulling over it and trying out solutions however tendentious, until insight leads to a fresh direction. But while  a coder's fix guarantees that a system previously not doing what it should do will now do what it is told to do, a poet's fix is hardly ever a tinker.

The author's metaphors in describing the coder -- as writer, as editor, as poet -- bring me to ground zero of creation itself. You sit down, you labor, you never let up until you've got it right. For the coder to come to the end of the puzzle is to truly find euphoric rest, but for the poet, this only means the end of poetry itself.

N A R I T O -- byTAFTIQUE

How To End an Essay, and then Probably Publish

What I have been doing all along, beginnings.

          I’ve always hoped to become part of the ‘writer milieu’ whatever that means, in this country, mostly because I’m living here and have not been anywhere else. But the thing with writing is that it requires a place to sit down and ruminate. However, all the ruminations I have been doing have always been on the road, as I commute, or as I wait for a cab, or as I line up at MRT then LRT and back. And when I sit, down, mostly to eat – at any fastfood  -- the rumination stops because of blaring music and the mind-numbing cacophony of chatter  in those places. And this is not a choice, but a circumstance, the layout of my life. Cooking just adds up to a stressful time management – so, Jolibee, Chowking, Mcdonald – and any of their kind – since they’re immediately there – are my catharsis – like, I’m now hungry so I eat – in the most routine, most pedestrian sense of hungry.

When I wake up, it’s not the sleeping in but the hurrying up because I’d like to maximize the time – you know – my class begins, and I’ve requested this, at 11 AM, but I leave the house at 7 AM, so I can read, relax, ruminate, roam – imagining – another life. I’m old, so this is my indulgence.

But that In a sense, I am at a perennial search for a space where I can truly just stop, sit, and write. Maybe, I’m always writing, that is, on the go, where my ruminations begin to assume solutions, or in my dreams, answers, to simple struggles of living, such as when I am at one point sitting beside a child with skin cancer on her way to PGH.  I am in the cart for seniors, pwds, and mothers with little children – and I am none of the above – and sometimes, all these vulnerables become more real in their vulnerabilities which are just a breath away. And what can do? I think about reaching out, but all I do is stare or avert my stare. And at one time a lump in my throat rose and I suppressed my tears – the child was so small and yet bore so much suffering. I got something from my bag and gave it to the mother who smiled at me and said “Thank you po pagpalain po kayo ng Diyos.”

Or when I am standing on commute and then some really abrasive creature crushes me and in such pressing brusko-muscular pressure I shriek as a trapped mouse. And then the invectives, with all the Ps, and ‘putchas’, and  ‘if you don’t like to be crushed, go take a taxi…. etc.’  exhale all those bad, infectious breaths, and you can’t even cover your mouth because your arms are no more. And nothing of those Freudian mumbo-jumbo can tell me why this is, why this man, why this …this… soul is acting the villain. Our commutes are the same,anyway,  all harried creatures, we all are. So why burden the burdened even more? But all I do is grit my teeth and bear it, as so many more oppressed  others do, until,  an ellipsis of  this country’s ills are pointed by seniors as reasons for our common suffering.

Or when at home, I try to think of where to go on a Saturday afternoon to escape the toddler-versus-mother wars that begin at the time of my sister’s feeding her son at breakfast and doesn’t let up until the child is exhausted at play. Outside, I seek the cafes, and once inside, I request the servers to keep the sounds low. Most of the essays I have written for my occasional blogs, and this one, were finalized and edited at the Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf (Well, coffee is expensive but train to Lasalle library and back will cost me half so this is the compromise) or on one of those white tables of the fastfood restaurant in Landmark in Trinoma (this one, the price of the coffee in Mr Donut is cheap , plus, it’s just ten steps away from my ‘white-table’). Therefore, I am like a refugee without a chance of crossing over any boarder. At the end of the day, I will have to go back home and sleep – and only sleep – and then the day ends.

I cry sometimes, because of this, because I am always on the move. I’m fifty six and commuting by train – should I stop? I should find another job which will afford me a daily grab taxi. But on the other hand, I’m on the move, alone. I would rather be on the move alone, than static in a place, alone. Maybe, with the ordinariness of my ordinary life, moving is the character which has made it extraordinary.

Which means that I should probably take note of the simple places I’ve been. Which means they probably matter anyhow. Which means I can ruminate about meaning in those spaces. And so I made a pact of peace with this itinerant lifestyle.  I still crave for a personal, private, space to write, but it has become less an obsession. I’ve already bought two small houses for this reason, but still, I don’t have this space. So now, I simply tell myself, just write or you will regret it.

In joining this collection of Taftique, I seem to have found another beginning toward  this writing track, and this probably, is the best way, at this point, somehow, to move on. 

BEGIN AGAIN

Why is this blog called confidante

Confidante (fem confidante) according to Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary means “a person that one trusts enough to speak to about one’s private affairs or secrets.” In a way, this blog is a revealing of my soul. Yet even with the revelations in poetry, in meditations, in diary entries and in notes gathered here and there so many secrets remain not within reach of any person, even the most “intimate” confidante. My professor in poetry once said that we couldn’t be attached to ourselves in our poems since our words must echo other people’s experiences too. This is why we ought to grasp the most concrete image of our life’s instances in the hope that others may feel in those images a kind of reverberation. A most peculiar thing happens in the search for an image – I often lose the immediate experience and realize that another secret reveals itself and the image formulates its own theme. In the end, I may take up that new theme to echo something already said and in a different way. But there you go; a new secret is revealed, and only to me. So now, I become my own confidante.

Editing is another confidante-thing. An author trusts you with the product of his creative juices and allows you to see through backward and forward, read between the lines, comment, or merely draw a red-line through his thoughts. Once entrusted with a manuscript, I become a confidante.

7 lessons from books made into movie adaptations

7 lessons from books made into movie adaptations

CINEMALAYA

While I really wanted to see all the films during the Cinemalaya festival, I was able to buy the only remaining available tickets for "Dagsin", "Kusina," "Hiblang Abo", "Shorts A", "Shorts B", two Asian Films, plus Lav Diaz's "Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis." Quite expensive if you ask me, but this was the only time I could really watch a lot of Cinemalaya films so I endured the pocket drain. However, I wasn't so satisfied, that is, as a simple movie goer.

Dagsin is supposed to be heavy and yet, I felt something was lacking in the gravitas. If not for the ever brilliant Tommy Abuel Dagsin would have suffered more. Judy Ann was exemplary in Kusina, but Kusina itself failed to give me that moviegoer high. I didn't like the Kusina template of stage and film fusion. There is too much going on that deserved great cinematography. I guess, I simply was looking for the Film-ic quality. Kusina's textuality bored me. The kitchen/cooking/food motif occupied too much space in the narrative that its symbolic quality just got lost in the monotony and the repetitions. (I was told that Mercury is Mine handled the same motif more cleverly, so I regret that I didn't see it). And of course, because of the fusion thing, the mis-en-scene is obviously so staged and although I can understand the studio effect, I have long favored exterior and interior spaces interspersing and giving a much needed exposition of characterizations of interior and exterior selves. But maybe that's the point of the film, that there is agonizing interiority that the character in Kusina is unable to exteriorize, and thus, her space doesn't expand and she dies without ever going beyond the boundaries of her safely defined space.

The other characters in Kusina could have been better cast. All of them are stereotypes, with strained albeit contrived dialogue, formula types of formula friends, with their wardrobe amplifying them as formulaic constructs.

In the past, I didn't see Rene Villanueva's Hiblang Abo as play, so I treated the film as play, and did not go look for anything other than the nuance of the text as would be delivered in a play. This is a mistake of course, because film is a visual medium and the nuances that are supposed to be read in the subtexts of a play, the supposed mystery of each personal struggle, ceased as nuanced puzzles and became apparent in the visual montage. I also wondered about the film's casting of one and the same actor for the younger versions of the three old men in the story. I offer myself the answer that there is no symbolic meaning in that casting after all, it was just Indie budgeting constraints which led to that decision. But I hope I'm wrong and just plain stupid in not seeing the reason/meaning behind this choice.

I found the shorts entertaining, but predictable too in the Filipino-indie-shorts tradition (The good ones had a twist of course, like in an O' Henry story). However, I saw great promise in Direk Quesada's film Pektus. For me, Pektus was excellent for a low budget Indie. The pace, the editing, the mis-en-scene and the acting are all well deliberated. But mostly, I like the idea of found chances as opposed to missed opportunities. For me, that was a very ethical point that isn't submerged but also isn't preached. I had an aha! moment in this film, like an epiphany of sorts.

The Asian film from Kazakstan, The Stranger is superb. The cinematography is awesome and the visual footage succeeded immensely in projecting the isolation, the strangeness, the utter difference of one man from the rest of the population. Then as usual, the film from Afghanistan is terribly depressing, but the acting is superb. This film will ever remind me that there is much more that needs to be done for women. A film can only expose. How long will this situation of female subjugation last in other parts of the world such as Afghanistan? What can people do? How can a film make people responsible? The face of that woman in Afghanistan, who is with skill, but whose skill doesn't count; who's only value is in the dowry she gets from marriage; who's recourse against such arranged marriage is begging on the streets for survival -- that face needs a response.

Hele sa Hiwagang Hapis (Lullaby in Sorrowful Mystery) turned out to be easier to watch (eight hours)  than Norte Sa Dulo ng Kasaysayan (four hours). The film has a linear narrative that focused on the days of Gregoria De Jesus's search for the body of Andres Bonifacio. The almost mythical telling involving three creatures of the forest, all Tikbalangs, problematizes the still unsolved mystery of Bonifacio's un-recovered body. Considering Gregoria De Jesus's youth at the time of that event in Philippine history, and the circumstances around her capture and her husband's arrest by the Filipino soldiers, the film succeeds in projecting an ancient, almost forgotten, quite anachronistic, and not even a footnote of a question in our national memory. The issue resonates however given that we still have "the disappeared" in our midst, and most of them are rumored heroes as well.

Lav Diaz shoots the entire film in black and white, but the story is not black and white at all. References to the Japanese film classics in the visual narration style is Diaz homage to filmmaking at its core, an exposition of soul and conscience using scarcely edited and prolonged real time photography. (The only downside in watching this film is when somebody, lulled by the scarcely edited footage and getting impatient, started to munch that crispy chips or popcorn and this moviegoer was distracted from certain deep ruminations.)

El Filibusterismo's Isagani and Basilio interpellate Diaz's interior monologue about history. In the end, Basilio, the hero of the novel, lives with all his unanswered questions and lost idealism, while Bonifacio, the hero of the revolution dies in the hands of the men he supposedly led. And the Gregoria De Jesus's of our nation's story? They will simply have to live through the mysteries, endure the superstitions, cast off the demons and tikbalangs of their desperate expectations and lull themselves to dreamless sleep.

Jennylyn's RomComs

So to relieve my stress, I went to the movies and saw them all - English Only, Walang Forever, and Just the Three of Us. Jennylyn rules the romcom genre at the moment! In the first movie, she is so lovely that I contemplated dressing myself up in a certain translator's stylish country flare for an un-intimidating dating. But not necessarily to meet a Derek (although that won't be a minus), but to get and finalize high paying translation/editing/writing job contracts!

In the second film, Jen was impossibly successful as a romance novelist, getting all her "hugot" premises from real love-life. The romantic course of her life precludes a self-destructive streak but, thank you very much, the self-destruction is worth it because the cause of the ultimately desired self-devastation is Jericho Rosales! I was thinking that precisely the reason for my lack of romantic story arches was my passion for placid wholeness. No wonder, I can't really write anything happy or tragic in a passionate sense. My life has been sooooo nice.

And finally, in Just the Three of Us, Jen's problematic and losyang demeanor, her already devastated self seeking escape, sexes the unromantic, prim and proper John Lloyd Cruz - and bam! They beget a child! Catastrophe in the beginning, but everybody is happy in the end. There's no way this cliched love story will end tragically. But well, Jen's character is one for feminists to grind their teeth into.

I have my own Hollywood RomCom favorites; On top of them all , Nottinghill. The best scene there is the last scene with "When You Say Nothing At All" playing in its loveliness in the background while a pregnant Julia Roberts reclines on Hugh Grant's lap (she's a superstar), as the latter reads a book (he's a book-lover), and both are quiet and comfortable in each other's company.

In Jennylyn's movies however, I can't recall a single scene that leaves an impact. All three movies showcase Jen's comedic flare, but she is the same Jennylyn Mercado, the GMA actress, in all three movies: the same delivery of the dialogues, the same quirky movements, the same laugh when happy, the same cry when sad, the same facial mannerisms. Even her hair style is the same in all three movies, since in all, she looks like she has forgotten to comb her hair, but she looks pretty nonetheless.

Meanwhile, the male characters are mere romantic interests, and to add dimension, they all came from problematic family backgrounds, and they eventually meet Jen's big and happy family (always). There are always those loyal friends of course for both woman and man and the usual complications of friends giving wisdom but philos never wins in an eros charged story.

But I was entertained nevertheless. Would I recommend them? Yes, but just remember that they aren't for the morally upright.

I am still waiting for Jen's definitive romcom. I hope she won't stay on in this stereo-casting.

Tagalog Book of Poems

Book Review by Jophen Baui

Tagalog book of poems review - reads poetry by Filipino poets, highlighting their celebration of the Filipino language. Here, we take a second look at the "songs" these writers sing when their muses visit them.

MGA TALA AT PANAGINIP

(c) 2012 Mesandel Virtusio Arguelles

MGA TALA AT PANAGINIP compiles anecdotes, dreams, nostalgia, fantasies, and longings that commuters may have in their minds and hearts while on a long bus or jeepney ride. Some take the train and travel with a crowd of people pushing and shoving their way in for a fast but joyless commute. Each day is the same, commuters stand shoulder to shoulder with other harried souls and hold fast onto the rails from the start of their journey to its end. Each journey follows a linear path, but each moment of travel defies a beginning and doesn't end. 

Two hours is all it takes to commute from Dasmarinas, Cavite to the  University where Professor Mesandel Arguelles teaches literature and art appreciation. But traffic is always slow during rush hours.  Sitting inside the bus he turns to his muses who inspire him to "[pay] attention to everything, even the insignificant details". He records all that he sees inside and outside the jam-packed vehicle into poetry that refuses to downplay the battle out there for every soul who is impatient to reach a destination.

 Oktobre 1

"Parang mga langgam na nag-uunahan ang mga tao pasalubong sa pagdating  ng bus na biyahe palabas ng lungsod tungo sa kalapit-lalawigan. Wari ay walang takot masagi o maaksidenteng kung paano. Lahat gusto nang makauwi habang papalakas pa lang ang ambon. Bagama't kailangan ko na ring makauwi, hindi ako sumabak sa mga siksikan, tulakan, gitgitan para lang makakuha ng espasyong tatayuan. Gusto kong isiping malaya ako sa ganitong pangangailangan, sa ganitong kalagayan araw-araw."  MVA

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Daily anecdotes that are snippets of life's energy and resilience break a commuter's monotonous ride; their longings anchor them in hope; fantasies provide them an escape, and nostalgia make their trip tolerable. 

Oktobre 8

"Dumating ang tatay ko galing Bicol. May uwi siyang mga abakang tsinelas para sa aming magkakapatid at sa nanay ko. Kulay-kape ang sa aming mga lalaki at iba't ibang kulay naman ang dahon ng sa mga babae, kadalasa'y berde, dilaw, at pula. Pambahay lang ang mga tsinelas, gayunman. Hindi ko magagamit na pamato sa tumbang-preso." MVA

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The dreary ride is crammed with nostalgia, giving rest to the poet who is happy to return to his dreams, to memories of unresolved "what-ifs". 

Oktobre 12

"May mga talang di-nasulat

"Minsan nang nasulat: isang tala ang sinundan ng tatlong haring naglakbay upang matagpuan ang kanilang pakay. Kataka-takang hindi sila nawala o naligaw.

"Hanggang ngayon, waring nananatiling iisang tala ang sinusundan sa bawat paglalakbay patungo sa anumang hinahanap at kay raming talang hindi nabubuklat." MVA

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But all these understate the value of the jotted insights, since every prose poem is a spark, a wisdom that shows us how we may number our days. 

Oktobre 15

"Hindi ko pa nakikita ang hangin, ngunit sa sandaling nakakuwadro ang aking mukha sa bukas na bintana ng humahagibis na bus, alam kong hindi kailangang makita upang maniwala: may naghihintay sa aking hantungan." MVA

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Mesandel Virtusio Arguelles is a professor of the Humanities and Literature at the De La Salle University. Aside from MGA TALA AT PANAGINIP, he also authored the following books: Mal, Alinsunurang Awit, Antares, Alingaw, Parang, Hindi man lang nakita, Ilahas, Menos Kuwarto. 

MGA TALA AT PANAGINIP is published by High Chair.

See www.highchair.com.ph

Aside from Tagalog-book-of-poems-review page, other pages at english-to-tagalog.com recommends novels in Filipino