Exploits of a City Dweller

And considering it only comes out once a year…

For all you Zafra followers out there, Manila Envelope is currently being sold at Fully Booked for P500.00. For financial paraplegics who just heaved a collective ”Egad!!” at that price tag…I know how you feel. But think: a purchase will support the kind of magazine that we ought to have on our shelves instead of destructive literature that promote lookism and bludgeon self-esteem.

A good enough cause that in my mind is worth every centavo. This reminds me of a line from a song written by Baz Luhrmann in the late 90s. It’s called Sunscreen and these are his words of wisdom:

Do NOT read beauty magazines, they will only make you feel ugly.

Strangely enough, my deeply held anti-beauty magazine conviction was not enough to keep the contagion from my doorstep. A few months ago, I mysteriously received a free copy of Metro Magazine with Bea Alonzo wearing who-knows-what sprawled all over the cover. At first glance, it could’ve easily been written off as a postal error except for one minute detail. Front and center, the darn thing bore a libelous white sticker with my complete name and address printed in bold.

The horror!

As if that didn’t mortify me enough, they keep coming…every month. So far I have received three of these pesky, unsolicited publications which I quickly disposed of by offering them to anyone willing to take them off my hands. And mind you, the looks I got from people. There is still an ongoing debate as to whether I have finally crossed over to the dark side and turned “kikay” (and if you know me at all, that would be disturbing in so many levels, I can’t even begin to say).

If only there was a way to find out where they come from so I can unsubscribe from this elaborate prank. Or maybe I can convince these people to send me a free copy of the Manila Envelope and send the bikini-stuffer periodicals to a more willing recipient.

I recently finished The Perks of Being a Wallflower by Stephen Chbosky. The story is told by a shy, unconventional highschool freshman named Charlie in the form of letters he sends to an anonymous recipient. It is a small, unpretentious volume that uses the narrator’s naivety to highlight its topics: adolescence, drugs, sexual abuse, life, love, without sounding off platitudes.  Written in the tradition of The Catcher in the Rye. If you love Salinger, you will love this book.

In the course of his narration, Charlie includes a poem he gave as a Christmas present to his friend Patrick. I took the liberty of adding it to my “Stuff Other People Wrote” page. I hope you will take the time to read it. It’s the kind you’d want to read out loud to make everyone shut up.

It’s good to be back!

It took a lot of heaving to put an end to that month-long bout of literary constipation. I also intentionally stayed away from my time-hogging computer to put a dent in my reading backlog. So my apologies to the blog’s readership. I know you’re a small bunch (my estimate circling around an innocuous single digit figure) but I really appreciate you guys sticking around. If I somehow snap out of the financial slump I’m in and I know where you live, I will send each of you a bundle of sharpened pencils as a token of gratitude. What to use them for is entirely up to you (but if you can find a way to threaten Kris Aquino with them, I will send you a freakin’ Boeing 747).

If you read my stuff, you must have wandered into my blog from the comments I made in Jessica Zafra’s site. If you understand her humor then you must have some level of weirdness floating around in your head. Quick! Run outside and thank the high heavens you’re not normal!

I think normalcy equates to mediocrity and we are stocked full of it as it is. I mean look at our attempts to secure any semblance of recognition in the Olympics. That in itself is a symptom that something’s terribly askew.

Has anybody noticed that we as a culture don’t encourage ingenuity as much as we should? Sure we come up with creative ways to get around certain day-to-day dilemmas. And we do have excellent underground talent. But an alarmingly large chunk of the societal bell curve finds fulfillment in copying others (preferrably the ones that come from overseas) which I think is completely cockeyed.

Case in point: In 1996, Alanis Morrisette came to Manila as part of her concert tour. In the weeks leading up to the said event, local noontime show A.S.A.P. held an ”Alanis look-alike/sing-alike” contest and the winner would be announced by Alanis herself. At the finals, they had about a dozen wannabees lined up on the stage and nobody seem to be cringing.

Strange concept. In North America, they do that too by the way…Every Halloween. Or maybe as a spoof of something. Or at the gay pride parade. But only we can do it with a straight face.

And do movies really need to have recycled song titles to sell at the box office? And how come a considerable percentage of local TV shows are really just travesties of imported originals?

As I’ve probably already said before, I’m proud to be weird. As should you be. It’s hard to defend sometimes but it’s easier to breathe when you’re far from the herd.

Recently acquired a nifty piece of software called Adobe Photoshop that I had my eye on for years. This is the first of my collage experiments that resulted from my tinkering around with it until my patience ran aground.

I would appreciate some feedback. Not too harsh I hope as I’ve only had it installed for 36 hours.