Saturday

The past two weeks have gone by in a blur, a series of runs and jumps punctuated by little silences that barely made up for the breathless hours. But it's not as bad as I make it sound, some of those runs and jumps were fun, including the photo shoot in UPFI, the visit to Malacanang Palace Museum, watching Brillante Mendoza's "Lola," the making of the exhibit in the AS lobby (which very few of you saw, I'm sure), and the Sinag GA for December. I'd rather not talk about the not-so-fun parts. I've been resigned to eating while walking or commuting as well, with Lily Allen, Lenka, Avenue Q, and my beloved Kyo for company-- I apologize, Kyo, I have temporarily put "Je veux vivre chaque seconde" on hold. At least for another week. I realize I've been running for far too long for my own good, but it's almost the holidays; plenty of time to sleep then.

Last night, Kitty and I went to Funeraria Nacional, where Ma'am Valmores' wake is. Even after seeing her in that pale box with the sad flowers, the gravity of the fact has not sunk in, and I still can't imagine her gone. It's one of those moments when I'd rather not believe. Condolences to her family.

It's party week next week, which will put another dent on my already battered wallet. I have half a mind to retreat into a distant cave and only come out after the fireworks have burned themselves out of existence, but social duties call. If you haven't noticed by now this post is nothing but an empty rant, something to justify unnecessarily going online. Other people would be on Facebook, but alas, I have no account. Yes, I am a social networking exile, and I couldn't care less. Frankly, it makes me feel more secure. The less people know about me the less I have to worry about them. I'd delete this account too if it wasn't for the archives of posts.

Segue: There's a Brenda Villanueva Fajardo exhibit in the Vargas Museum until January 10. Go on a Wednesday if you don't want to pay 20 pesos for entrance. Take note of the Ginintuang Serye, the "Marias," and her etchings. And her version of the Tarot Cards too. And while you're there, traipse up to the third floor to the Persistent Visions exhibit-- there's a Juan Luna original there, and a 24-minute video exhibit of British colonizing missions in India, Africa and Malaya. This is my favorite exhibit so far.

Advanced Happy Holidays everyone. :)

Cette Semaine

De quio s’agit-il? Aujourd’hui est un dimanche , la dernière dimanche de novembre, vingt-sept jours devant le jour de Noël. J’écoute à Kyo et Noir Desir, mes nouveaux orchestres preferés. Je suis desolée pour les erreurs grammaticales, je ne pratique plus cette langue. (Je pense que je dis meilleur que j’écris.) Alors. J’écoute les chansons Français tous les temps de nos jours. Écoutez “Le Chemin” et “Chaque Seconde” de Kyo. Ils sont très bien. Aussi, “Un jour en France” de Noir Desir… Mais je comprends le refrain seulement. C’est trop vite pour moi. Ici les paroles de Chaque Seconde:

J'ai cherché l'erreur
Au coeur des systèmes,
Ce qui brille est un leurre
Ce qui brille peut fondre au soleil
J'ai cherché l'erreur
Qui trouble mon sommeil,
J'ai cherché pendant des heures
Pour voir que tout est à refaire,
Enfin tout est clair, je relève la tête...
Je veux vivre chaque seconde
Comme si demain était la fin du monde,
Etre libre pour de bon,
A trop vouloir se lever on tombe...

J’aime Kyo! Et aussi “Quelqu’un m’a dit” de Carla Bruni. Oui, j’ai déjà regardé “Les Cinq Cent Jours de l’Été,” merci Pola! Dieu, c’est déjà midi et je ne prends pas mon petit déjeuner! “ Alors, qu’est-ce qui se passe avec vous? Hier, nous (mes camarades d’ensemble et moi ) sommes allé à Le Cercle de la Ville de Quezon pour CWTS. Donc nous avons appris que un de les enfants vient de mourir: un homicide. C’est très triste parce que “Saddam” a été seize ans seulement mais il a un enfant. Les volontaires pensent que un “Jacob” est le meurtrier. Je prie que son âme est en paix.

Un message personnel (pour un trou de cul): Merci pour les leçons, maintenant je sais quio tu es. Tu ne mérites pas mon attention.

Je vais étudier pour mes examens maintenant. Plus tard!

I Promise

When I get out of this house-- and I will-- I will never again put myself in something that even resembles it at the slightest. I cannot wait to live alone for the rest of my life. It's the only thought that's keeping me sane.

Oh, Sembreak

Morning of day four, semestral break.

The first two days were spent outside, pretty much, including a visit to my old high school. After, oh, around eight months of not seeing the place, it was a pleasant surprise. There's a new principal, and a lot of new teachers I didn't recognize. But the teachers I did recognize: whoa. It was like seeing long lost friends. The familiarity was overwhelming. The sections are different now, and so are the names of some of the rooms, but the ambiance is still there.

When I got there it hit me how different things are now from what they were before. I haven't worn a uniform in two years, and the days of random games during break have long been over. I'm a very different person now, too. I have learned to edit myself, to restrain myself from, in a nutshell, blowing up in everybody's face like I so often did back then. Am I growing up? Now, now. Let's not get ahead of ourselves.

Segue: They are going to teach French in Mandaluyong Science. Tres bien! Finally catching up to MakSci. My former trainor in journalism is going to handle the classes, and I'm going to help her review for the teacher's exam. Yey, yey! Mico, if you're reading this, Ma'am F needs French help so, allons-y!

Anyway. Yesterday, I read Michael Crichton's "Airframe." Again, Crichton is entertainment, not literary appreciation. (God/dess bless his soul wherever he is.) Airframe was pretty good, I liked the treatment of the characters and the imagery of the plane accidents. I think I even dreamt about it. Plus, I learned A LOT about planes. That's the thing with Crichton: read him and you'll definitely pick up some stuff, without realizing you're close to information overload. My favorite Crichton is still Jurassic Park. If you just watched the movie then you wouldn't understand why. Jurassic Park is genius, questioning genetics and explaining paradigm shifts without getting people bored. And the dinosaurs! (Other Crichton must-reads: Sphere and Andromeda Strain.)

Another book I read recently was Stephen King's "Cell." This is the first King novel I actually finished, as all the other ones I tried reading were rambling pieces that felt aimless around the middle (Hello, The Dark Half). Cell is good, entertainment-wise. It's about a "pulse," a kind of signal that the human brain receives when a cell phone is answered. It wipes out the brain except for the most primal instincts (in this case the "state of nature" as defined by philosophers like Hobbes and Rousseau is employed). The result is total chaos, because a lot of people receive the pulse. I mean, who doesn't have a cell phone? It's like watching a more sophisticated Dawn of the Dead for five hours. I LOVED the characters, especially the graphic artist and the teenager Alice Maxwell. The plot relied on a whole lot of luck, though, and it never told the readers why the entire thing happened in the first place. Nevertheless it was a fun read and even induces a little paranoia.

I'm reading Rovin's "Conversations with the Devil" today. So far it's been good, a lot of psychology in the story. Maybe I'll get to read a little more of Vonnegut's "Welcome to the Monkey House." I want to reread "Slaughterhouse Five" but I have a book backlog I need to catch up on, including Hemingway's "Farewell to Arms" and "The Red Badge of Courage." I'm in for a lot of war stories. Oh well. Here goes. I'm going to spend this break wisely before I have to face three PolSci majors and Econ 100.1. :)

Alternate Perspective: Roxas' Speechwriter

http://abo-sa-dila.blogspot.com/2009/09/on-failure-and-sacrifice-and-sad-task.html on failure, and sacrifice, and the sad task of a speechwriter

Wednesday, September 02, 2009 By Mikael Co

I am Mar Roxas' speechwriter, and let me be the first to say that I failed my country. I failed my country by not working hard enough; by not being a better speechwriter; by failing to show the people how good a person my boss was. Is. My friends laughed at me for being too much of a believer. And I failed my country by believing that it would believe along with me. I am Mar Roxas' speechwriter. All throughout my year and half in the organization, I denied that title; I played it down. Not really wrote the speeches, not per se, I said. I wrote down what I was told to write down, I said. Others thought of it, and all I had to do was type it down. I drafted the speeches, but never really wrote them. I shied away from that name: Speechwriter. In the same manner that I shy away from being called a poet. The least I could do now is to show the same courage that my boss did. I am Mar Roxas' speechwriter. I am a poet. As speechwriter, one of my tasks is tell you how good a person my boss is. As poet, my only task is to say to you the truest thing I can. My boss is one of the smartest people I have ever known. My boss has one of the purest hearts I have ever been in touch with. All my boss ever wanted was to serve the people in the best way he can. I failed my country by not saying these things well enough. Yesterday evening my boss declared his support for the candidacy of Senator Noynoy Aquino for President in 2010. He said: It is within my power to preside over a potentially divisive process or to make the party a bridge for the forces of change. He said: I choose to lead unity, not division. He said: Country above self. And I typed it down. This country I failed is the same country that my boss puts above himself. My country was smart enough to see what was wrong with the campaign. But it was also too cynical to not see through it. The same people who dismissed the ads as mere gimmicks were the same people who lauded how brilliant this opponent's ad campaign was, or how good a rhetorician this other opponent was. I used to ask, if you're so smart as to see through everything as posturing, as political play, then doesn't the question boil down to who you think can best move this country forward? I failed my country by not asking that well enough, or often enough. When I was nine years old, my parents voted for Jovito Salonga. He became known as the best president my country never had. When I was fifteen, they voted, along with my siblings, for Raul Roco. When I was twenty-one, they voted again for Roco, and I voted with them. Roco, too, became known as the best president my country never had. Now I am twenty-six, and I tell you now, in the truest way I can: Mar Roxas is the best president this country never had. I have failed my country, and all I hope for now is that the people realize what it has lost, and what it has gained. The country asked for sacrifice, and he gave them sacrifice. The country asked for unity. He has given them the door to unity; all that is left is for them to step through. The country asked for someone to believe in; in Noynoy they have found someone to believe in. And Mar has offered himself as someone to believe with. In tears, I ask this country that I have failed: Is there anything more you would like to ask of my boss? He has given everything, and he will continue to give. And I will type everything down for him. Because I am Mar Roxas' speechwriter. And he is my boss. He is my president. The best president this country never had.

New Moon (Meyer) Book Review

Reposted from last year.

“A good novel tells us the truth about its hero; a bad novel tells us the truth about its author.” –G,K. Chesterton

DISCLAIMER: Twitards, this review may hurt your feelings. You have been warned, so don’t you dare flame me.

SUMMARY AND CRITICISM

New moon, the second installment of the Garb-- Twilight Series, began where the first book left off, with Mary Sue Meyer and Edward Cullen in the throes of chaste passion. What's that? Who’s Bella Swan? Nah, believe me, that was Mary Sue. And they were mostly still just staring googly-eyed at each other.

On Mary Sue's 18th birthday, the sparkling vampire family threw her a sparkling party—literally. Due to Meyerrific creativity, the conflict begins when Mary Sue gets a paper cut (yes, it bled), thus causing Jasper Hale to attempt to suck her dry. Edward prevents this from happening via really fast footwork and snarling.

Moments afterward, Edward and the other sparkling vampires left Spoons-- I mean Forks-- to avoid any further mishaps. The exhausted "I must leave to protect you" excuse.

Yes, Edward broke up with dear Mary Sue, and she ended up unconscious with disbelief on the forest floor, after wandering aimlessly chanting "Edward, Edward, Edward..."

Not exactly, but close.
It's true, when your boyfriend breaks up with you, you must lose your sanity.

Then Stepheni-- I mean Bell-- I mean, Mary Sue launched into what has got to be The Longest post-breakup drama in the history of mankind. She became a self-declared zombie; withdrawn, not able to think about anything else but Edward's hair, Edward's voice, Edward's eyes, Edward's hands, Edward's skin, Edward's... you get the idea. She also had nightmares and screamed herself awake for the next, oh, 6 months, because of the "gaping hole" in her heart. I kid you not.

At the mere mention of the name "Edward," she went all diva like this:

"I shook my head, recoiling. The sound of his name unleashed the thing that was clawing inside of me—a pain that knocked me breathless, astonished me with its force."

and this:

"His name sent another wave of torture through me."

Boring, the "I am depressed, hear me whine" lament. She seriously did not say anything else.

By the hundredth page of this "I miiisssss Edwaaard sooo muchhh, boo hoo hoo," Mary Sue discovered that when she placed herself in danger, she could hear Edwardo's voice telling her to, well, get herself out of danger. So she gets herself into more danger. Brilliant ploy, yes.

So she turned to the most dangerous, most death-defying thing she could think of: motorcycles. I know right. So she took two motorcycles from the scrap heap and brought them to Jacob Black in La Push. Jacob was previously known as “only non-cardboard character in Twilight,” but is now known as “excuse to have a topless Indian in the movie.”

Mary Sue: College, schmollege, I thought to myself. It wasn't like I'd saved up enough to go anywhere special—and besides, I had no desire to leave Forks anyway. What difference would it make if I skimmed a little bit off the top?

This was the part where she was getting the motorcycles fixed so she could slam herself into a tree with it, and needed money for parts. And the "no desire to leave Forks" thing? She could not bear to leave Forks for it had all her memories of Edward. Nothing, repeat, NOTHING is worth living for except Edward. Without Edward, the sun does not shine and the rivers do not flow... Life is not life without Edward, oh you dazzling, wonderfully sparkling vampire you (excuse me while I laugh my head off at this idiocy).

Mary Sue (On motorcycles): Many of the words they used were unfamiliar to me, and I figured I'd have to have a Y chromosome to really understand the excitement.

I don't even want to ponder upon the implications of that statement.

So anyway, when she started hanging out with Jacob, she stopped thinking about Edward. And what did she think of? Jacob!!! Meyerrific logic.

Mary Sue: I enjoyed myself. I was beginning to think it was mostly Jacob. It wasn't just that he was always so happy to see me, or that he didn't watch me out of the corner of his eye, waiting for me to do something that would mark me as crazy or depressed. It was nothing that related to me at all. It was Jacob himself. Jacob was simply a perpetually happy person, and he carried that happiness with him like an aura, sharing it with whoever was near him. Like an earthbound sun, whenever someone was within his gravitational pull, Jacob warmed them. It was natural, a part of who he was. No wonder I was so eager to see him.

Oh, look, an earthbound sun and its gravitational pull. Just... wow.

Mary Sue (on Leah Clearwater): She was beautiful in an exotic way—perfect copper skin, glistening black hair, eyelashes like feather dusters...

Eh?

Mary Sue: I was beginning to get annoyed with myself.

Good for you, you're catching on. I was annoyed with you a book and a half ago.

Alors. Must fast-forward, I'm getting bored. So Mary Sue, now somewhat out of depression, went to La Push and got on the reaaally dangerous motorcycle and made this comment:

"I tried to tell myself that the fear [of riding the motorcycle] was pointless. I'd already lived through the worst thing possible [breakup]. In comparison with that, why should anything frighten me now? [Yes, why?] I should be able to look death in the face and laugh."

She’s just so deep.

Then when she got on the reaaally dangerous motorcycle, she heard Edward's voice telling her to stop. But she wanted to hear the sparkly vampire's voice again so she didn't.

She went reaaally fast, heard the sparkly vampire in her head saying "stop, stupid!" (fine, not exactly) and, surprise surprise, hit a tree. Her head split open.

Gas wafted out instead of brain matter.

The End.

Okay, not the end. I just wish it was.

Jacob took her to the hospital. On the way, she said:

"I just hadn't realized before. Did you know, you're sort of beautiful?"

Er, yeah. And Edwardo...? Never mind. Ew.

She got stitched up and went home. Then...

Mary Sue: I panicked, worried that Charlie [dad] was about to lay down some kind of edict that would prohibit La Push, and consequently my motorcycle. And I wasn't giving it up—I'd had the most amazing hallucination today. My velvet-voiced delusion had yelled at me for almost five minutes before I'd hit the brake too abruptly and launched myself into the tree. I'd take whatever pain that would cause me tonight without complaint.

Even now I'm still not sure if this series isn't just a joke.
A bad joke.
Or satire. But Meyer's not that deep, so no.
This would be much, much more tolerable if this were satire.

Mary Sue (ranting, again): There had to be a place where he seemed more real than among all the familiar landmarks that were crowded with other human memories I could think of one place where that might hold true. One place that would always belong to him and no one else. A magic place, full of light. The beautiful meadow I'd seen only once in my life, lit by sunshine and the sparkle of his skin.

Gag.

Eventually, Jacob professed his love for Mary Sue, right before (or was it after?) he found out he was a werewolf. Yeah, yeah, Mary Sue's life is, like, so exciting. He left Mary Sue to figure out that he was a werewolf, which unsurprisingly took forever given her lack of a proper brain. But of course, her heart was still with Edwardo.

Jacob distanced himself, and Bella-Stephenie-Mary Sue went:

"Jacob was better, but not well enough to call me. He was out with friends. I was sitting home, missing him more every hour. I was lonely, worried, bored… perforated—and now also desolate as I realized that the week apart had not had the same effect on him."

Desolate? Perforated?
Sigh.
That paragraph takes the Nobel for Literature, no question.
The Feminist Book of the Year Award too.
And makes me want to hit Meyer over the head with her own thesaurus.

Mary Sue then revisited the meadow. The one that was lit with... The sparkle... Of Edward’s... Skin...

Gag.

There, she found Laurent, the other vampire who was with James (main antagonist, book 1) and Victoria (main antagonist's girlfriend). He also wants to kill her, I wonder why. Long story short, Jacob and the other werewolves saved Mary Sue and killed Laurent.

Wait, I just can't not mention this: "Charlie's eyes grew round with horror. He strode quickly to me and grabbed the tops of my arms."

Hmmm. Anatomy, Mary Sue style.

So, it turned out that the other vampire, Victoria, was hunting Mary Sue down. The werewolves, who wanted to protect Mary Sue, hunted Victoria. They didn't find her. They also welcomed Mary Sue into the "pack."

This is the part where Meyer totally plagiarized her other cra-- book, Twilight. She replaced every "vampire" with "werewolf"; every "Edward" with "Jacob"; every "James" with "Victoria"; every "Carlisle" with "Sam"; every "Esme" with "Emily," and so on.

It was such Meyerrific creativity. It takes astounding skill to plagiarize yourself.

Moments later, Mary Sue decided, in a fit of "I want to hear Edward's voice," to ditch motorcycling and go cliff-diving. So she went to La Push, la pushed herself off the cliff, and plunged straight into the riptide. She would've (should've) drowned, but Jacob rescued her.

Meanwhile, in Sparklyland, Alice saw that Mary Sue jumped off. She didn't see that Jacob rescued her though. So Alice went back to Spoons to check on Charlie, Stephenie's dad. I meant Bella's dad. Oh wait, that's Mary Sue's dad. Never mind they're one and the same.

Edward, the sparkliest of them all, called Sue's house, looking for Charlie. Jacob, who answered the phone, said that he was "at the funeral," and Sparkly assumed that he meant it was Mary Sue's funeral. How I wish.

Anyway, Edward goes, "Oh no, I cannot live without Bella/ Stephenie Meyer/ Mary Sue!!! I must kill myself!!!" Idiocy goes both ways, people.

So he flew off to Italy to find the Jonas Brothers-- I mean, the Volturi-- the only vampires who can kill other vampires. (As opposed to the only boy band who can kill other boy bands...)

I know, OMG! That is like, sooo sinister.

By the way, the Volturi realm is called VOLTERRA. Bet you didn't see that coming.

Alice quickly realized that Mary Sue Meyer, unfortunately, wasn't actually dead and decided to fly to Italy with Mary Sue to stop Edward from making fish food out of himself. Why fish would want to eat him, I have no idea.

Apparently, the Volturi kill vampires who want to expose their secret. So Edwardo decided on walking out into the sunlight and "glowing, shimmering like his skin was made of a million diamond facets" so that people would know he's supernatural. Again, gag.

Mary Sue got to Italy just in time, and threw herself at Edward. Wait, she's been doing that forever, what's new. The Volturi foot soldiers, relieved that Edward did not get to, you know, sparkle, invited Edward back to The Lair and told him to bring Mary Sue along.

Joe, Kevin and Nick then made their grand entrance. Wait, no. That's Aro, Caius and Marcus. Really. With Miley Cyrus and the cast of Hannah Montana! Uh, I mean, Jane and the other vampires of Volterra.

Anyway. They said that Mary Sue Meyer, who has knowledge of vampires, must be killed or must be turned into a vampire herself. Mary Sue, who wanted to change species for the love of her life all along, was pleased. Mr. Sparkly wasn't, because he didn't want her to be eternally damned. Alice, who was with them kind of promised to turn Mary Sue into a vampire if they let all of them get back safely home.

They did get home. Awww. Yeah, right. Back in Spoons, the Cullens decided to vote on whether Mary Sue should really be turned sparkly. Edward and Rosalie said no. Carlisle was the one who would do it after graduation.

Edward: "If you don't mind, I'd much rather you didn't hide your face. I've lived without it for as long as I can stand. Now… tell me something."
Mary Sue: "What?"
Edward: "If you could have anything in the world, anything at all, what would it be?"
Mary Sue: "You."
Edward: "Something you don't already have."

Excuse me, again, while I laugh my head off. Good lord this book is just hilarious. And then, Edward asks Mary Sue to marry him. She was saying no, but just when I thought she had a brain... No, no. The reason she was saying no was that her mother wouldn't like it... Or so she says. But we know better. If she already said yes, there would only be room for one more book. A boxed set of four sells for more than a boxed set of three. Smart Meyer, smart.

When Edward got back into the scene it was just cheese. And cheese. And cheese. I couldn't stop laughing. But I won't paste those lines here, you need to see it for yourself. Coupled with the bad writing, well, I can't ask for more.

"Epilogue Treaty."

Everything is back to normal in Spoons, with Edward in all of Mary Sue's classes and them spending every waking and sleeping moment together, literally. College is still Plan B, congratulations. In her words, "The fairy tale was back on. Prince returned, bad spell broken."

Wait, wait. It's not over yet. I need to put this here, for all my fellow feminists.

"Thank you," Edward said, and his voice throbbed with the depth of his sincerity. "I will never be able to tell you how grateful I am. I will owe you for the rest of my… existence."
Jacob stared at him blankly, his shudders stilled by surprise. He exchanged a quick glance with me, but my face was just as mystified.
"For keeping Bella alive," Edward clarified, his voice rough and fervent. "When I… didn't."

Fabulous statement, I know. Edward and Jacob: Mary Sue Life-support Machines. Because she can't survive without a guy telling her to "inhale, exhale... inhale, exhale." What? You thought she could? How could you?!

So, how did it end? For all those fortunate creatures who didn't read this, here:

Edward squeezed me gently. "I'm here."
I drew in a deep breath.
That was true.
Edward was here, with his arms around me.
I could face anything as long as that was true.
I squared my shoulders and walked forward to meet my fate, with my destiny solidly at my side.

Awww... NOT.

RANDOM BITS:

---"He sighed a heavy sigh."
(And later)
---"I sighed a heavy sigh."
(Alright then. Let’s all sigh a heavy sigh.)

---"Emily," he said, and so much love saturated his voice that I felt embarrassed...
(Romantic AND scientific.)

--- "...promptly at nine by a grimly gleeful Charlie..."
(How's that for masterful writing skill?)

---"...I have lost the truest of true loves, as if that wasn't enough to kill anyone..."
(Just priceless.)

But I don't want to be that unfair. (Really?) Here's a part I liked:

"It's not a trick. It's Carlisle. Take me back!"
A shudder rippled through his wide shoulders, but his eyes were flat and emotionless. "No."
"Jake, it's okay—"
"No. Take yourself back, Bella." His voice was a slap—I flinched as the sound of it struck me. His jaw clenched and unclenched."Look, Bella," he said in the same hard voice. "I can't go back. Treaty or no treaty, that's my enemy in there."
"It's not like that—"
"I have to tell Sam right away. This changes things. We can't be caught on their territory."
"Jake, it's not a war!"
He didn't listen. He put the truck in neutral and jumped out the door, leaving it running.
"Bye, Bella," he called back over his shoulder. "I really hope you don't die."

(Bye, Bella. I really hope you do.)

VERDICT:

Hahaha. Yeah, like you don't know yet. Just when I thought Twilight couldn't get any worse. But I was amused... In a perforated, saturated, desolate sort of way. Of course, I only read part two. You never know. But, really, can it get any worse than "truest of true loves"?!

PS:

Me: Twilight sucks. F*** Edward.
Fangirl: Yes!

Oh.

Water Days

Today is delivery day. I cruise along effortlessly along streets of the exact color and quality which King Henry VIII, to name at random, would have ordered the execution of his road builders for. I have about two tons of bottled water in the back compartment, and they thud against each other in the annoying manner of two women talking too loud in the theater. The noise irritates me, I almost run over a yellow-striped cat darting from behind a ratty box. I miss it by a heartbeat. To forget the noise I turn on the stereo, the radio station blares angry metal music. The exact song, in fact, which probably made van Gogh cut off his own ears. It was the furious sort of song that would have made World War Two Prisoners confess to fictional crimes lest be forced to listen further. But I don’t turn it off. Suddenly I feel like the boy in Clockwork Orange listening to his Beethoven while smashing people’s faces. Maybe a little like a French Revolutionary excited at the prospect of putting aristocratic heads on La Guillotine. Now I know all these stories because I used to drive around with someone who swallowed an encyclopedia or two. The singer screeches himself past oblivion even before the second verse, I tilt one wheel and send a trash bin flying into a corner store. I spot an orange something in the distance and gun the engine, it looks up and I see it is another cat before it makes that definitive squelch under the tires. I hit a few mailboxes, send envelopes fluttering like birds escaping from iron cages. More screeching, more noise than I can ever imagine shrieks out from the truck’s radio. A child is crossing the street, but is on the curb before I can do anything, but I catch his trolley and drag it fifty feet before it breaks and clatters back onto the hot pavement. I skid and slip and smoke my way through the streets. I don’t slow down when I see the humps, I go at it with full speed, and I literally fly off and come crashing down with a deafening thud. I figure some of the water bottles finally broke. Finally the song fades; I carve heavy black skid marks when I brake to stop in front of a water station. My driver, a heavyset man in his forties, frantically pushes open my door. He’s been trying to open it for the last four minutes, but I made the point to lock it. Can’t have him flying off at a hundred miles an hour, can I? He jumps down, knees weak and buckling, almost smashes into the store manager. “What the hell is wrong with you?” he asks, shaking him by the shoulders. Burned rubber stings the air. My driver is pale and sweaty and chokes off his own voice. “Something... Is... Wrong with that goddamned truck!” he drops onto the floor and tries desperately to breathe. He claws at his throat because the smoke is burning it. The store manager coughs, then stares at me and my overheating engine, he doesn’t know what to make of it. I laugh my little truck laugh they mistake for loose gears, shut my engine off and drift to sleep. Tomorrow is another delivery day.

Monty Python's Life of Brian

Background: Monty Python was a highly influential team of British and American television comedians who later branched out into films and other forms of entertainment. The group is best known for the television series Monty Python’s Flying Circus (1969-1974) and the motion picture Monty Python and the Holy Grail (1975). [Microsoft Encarta 2007]

Monty Python’s Life of Brian (1979) is a biblical satire that is unlikely to tickle the funny bone of the devoutly Catholic. It did cause controversy in religious circles, but it’s one of their most critically acclaimed. I watched this film during freshman year (in an Archaeology class with a German professor, what it has to do with the subject I have no idea) and I watched it again last weekend, and I just want to say without the shadow of a doubt that

THIS IS ONE OF THE FUNNIEST MOVIES EVER.
EVEEER!

Brian is the satirical Jesus, who happens to be born in the stable next to the Messiah’s. He is then thrust into a whirlwind world of Roman-haters, not-so-mute men and Messiah groupies, to name a few. Because of unlikely circumstances that mirror some of the events in Jesus’ life, a cult is built in his name. And you won’t believe how it ends. But I won’t spoil the fun here, you’ll have to watch it for yourself.

I just love Monty Python’s unapologetic humor. Their movies are intelligence and good old fun combined. And they’re not afraid to question the conventions and traditions.

And their scripts are terrific.

Brian: You don’t have to follow me! You are all individuals!
The Crowd: Yes, we are all individuals!
Brian: You have to be different!
The Crowd: Yes, we are all different!
Small lonely voice: I'm not!

Wise Man #1: Ahem!
Brian's mother: Oh!
[falls over in chair]
Brian's mother: Who are you?
Wise Man #2: We are three wise men.
Brian's mother: What?
Wise Man #1: We are three wise men.
Brian's mother: Well, what are you doing creeping around a cow shed at two o'clock in the morning? That doesn't sound very wise to me.

Reg: All right, but apart from the sanitation, medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh water system and public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?
Attendee: Brought peace?
Reg: Oh, peace - shut up!
Reg: There is not one of us who would not gladly suffer death to rid this country of the Romans once and for all.
Dissenter: Uh, well, one.
Reg: Oh, yeah, yeah, there's one. But otherwise, we're solid.

Ex-Leper: Okay, sir, my final offer: half a shekel for an old ex-leper?
Brian: Did you say "ex-leper"?
Ex-Leper: That's right, sir, 16 years behind a veil and proud of it, sir.
Brian: Well, what happened?
Ex-Leper: Oh, cured, sir.
Brian: Cured?
Ex-Leper: Yes sir, bloody miracle, sir. Bless you!
Brian: Who cured you?
Ex-Leper: Jesus did, sir. I was hopping along, minding my own business, all of a sudden, up he comes, cures me! One minute I'm a leper with a trade, next minute my livelihood's gone. Not so much as a by-your-leave! "You're cured, mate." Bloody do-gooder.
Brian: I'm not the Messiah! Will you please listen? I am not the Messiah, do you understand? Honestly!
Girl: Only the true Messiah denies His divinity.
Brian: What? Well, what sort of chance does that give me? All right! I am the Messiah!
Followers: He is! He is the Messiah!
Brian: Now, fuck off!
[silence]
Arthur: How shall we fuck off, O Lord?

Matthias: Look, I don't think it should be a sin, just for saying "Jehovah".
[Everyone gasps]
Jewish Official: You're only making it worse for yourself!
Matthias: Making it worse? How can it be worse? Jehovah! Jehovah! Jehovah!
Jewish Official: I'm warning you! If you say "Jehovah" one more time (gets hit with rock) RIGHT! Who did that? Come on, who did it?
Stoners: She did! She did! (suddenly speaking as men) He! He did! He!
Jewish Official: Was it you?
Stoner: Yes.
Jewish Official: Right...
Stoner: Well you did say "Jehovah. "
[Crowd throws rocks at the stoner]
Jewish Official: STOP IT! STOP IT! STOP IT RIGHT NOW! STOP IT! All right, no one is to stone... anyone... until I blow this whistle. Even... and I want to make this absolutely clear... even if they do say, "Jehovah."
[Crowd stones the Jewish Official to death]

The movie was sort of a synthesis of everything I criticized about The Stories—oh hey, I’m agnostic, in case you were wondering.

It’s not for everyone, as it pokes fun at many religious concepts and at religion itself, but it’s something that makes you think. And that’s always a good thing. It’s satire at its best, even Ambrose Bierce would have been proud.

Ten Basic Myths and Truths

Myth: Her name is Roseann.
Truth: Her name is Marie Julianna Eleonore Rosalinde Florence-Guadiela Bashevis.

Myth: She speaks three languages.
Truth: She speaks six languages, namely: Filipino, English, French, Nadsat*, Newspeak**, and Turtle.

Myth: She is 18 years old.
Truth: In 1512 she beat Juan Ponce de Leon to the Fountain of Youth, and is in fact over 497 years old today.

Myth: She is a feminist.
Truth: She is the reincarnation of the Amazon Queen Penthesilea.

Myth: She is a Political Science major in the University of the Philippines.
Truth: She obtained a double major in Archaeology and Forensic Pathology from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1991.

Myth: She is a Filipino Citizen.
Truth: She is half-Olorian*** and half-Ursa Minor Betan****.

Myth: She is a vegetarian.
Truth: While attending a Toltec ritual in Tula, she got into a heated argument with the soil fertility god Quetzalcoatl and has vowed ever since to solely devour plants for revenge.

Myth: She hates children.
Truth: She has a rare medical condition which makes her allergic to children within a twenty-foot radius, and long term exposure causes severe anaphylactic shock. This has led to 22 of her 31 near-death experiences as of 2009.

Myth: She is strong, independent, mercurial and neurotic.
Truth: She is nice, kind, sweet, forgiving, innocent, fragile and harmless.

Myth: She likes writing about herself in the third person.
Truth: Her alternate identity wrote this while she was talking with her turtles.

__________
*Nadsat: language invented by Anthony Burgess in the novel Clockwork Orange; most of the words are of Russian origin.
**Newspeak: language invented by George Orwell in the novel 1984.
***Oloria: Dimension between Narnia and Mordor, west of Oz. Accessible by tsunamis.
****Ursa Minor Beta: Headquarters of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. “It is a West zone planet which by an inexplicable and somewhat suspicious freak of topography consists almost entirely of subtropical coastline.” (Chapter 5, The Restaurant at the End of the Universe, Douglas Adams)

This is how it sounds like in my head.

My French homework is about Geography, and we have to make these questions about geographical locations of countries. One question per person, so I have to pick a country. Of course I could be random but it’s nicer to have some sort of significance. So I go thinking about which country is significant, and for some reason Nepal enters my head. I’ve never been to Nepal, but I wrote about it once upon time because of an essay contest about Ramon Magsaysay Awardees. I didn’t win that contest, but I won another when I used the same material, a regional journalism contest, which then sent me to nationals, which made February of 2008 one of the most interesting months ever, but that’s a story for another time. Anyhoot. Nepal. There’s this doctor from Nepal who ended up with the award in 2007 because he cured people with eye diseases for free. I wrote about him because he had such an interesting life story, and also because I distinctly remember having no other freaking idea at the time. For the life of me I can’t remember his name now, which is sad, because I do owe the guy somehow. So this gets me thinking, besides its bordered by India and the Chinese Tibetan region, and its capital is Kathmandu, and that doctor guy, what do I know about Nepal? Zilch. So I look it up and I come across something more interesting than their flag. In 2001, their crown prince Dipendra shot to death the king and the queen. Then he decided to commit suicide and failed, and went into a coma. He died eventually, which made his uncle, of the ridiculously difficult name, king. So I think, there’s a really great story in this tragedy, and then it hits me. Somebody already wrote this! And the title is: Lion King. No, really. They thought Simba killed Mufasa, but it was actually uncle Scar who framed Simba, then Scar became king. So, what if Gyanendra Bir Bikram Shah (that’s the uncle) actually orchestrated this ala Lion King? So this also gets me thinking like, wow, for a kid’s story it actually had heavy material. And also is this one of those life imitates art things, and is there a psychological phenomenon here? Maybe uncle difficult name overdosed on Lion King? Maybe Disney has long term traumatic effects? You know they say Bambi is the most traumatic movie EVER? Maybe it made people convert into poachers, I don’t know. (Tangent: In Political Science there’s this term, “Disneyfication,” which is like McDonaldization, and they’re both what you think they are.) So anyway I figure I have to write a story about this, about the Nepalese Royal Massacre, not Bambi or whatever, just because it’s a brilliant scenario already. But I’ll do that after I actually finish that French homework.

Smoke

Unlit, orange and white, pencil-thin and three inches long, you watch as it is twirled on fingers with nails dirty and yellow. Your eyes travel to the arm, its prickly skin and little scars, focus on a red welt just above the elbow. Then you turn the other way when you see the drying gash on the thin, bare shoulder.

You are sitting in a jeep caught in the afternoon traffic. The man beside you reeks of the day’s work. Two women in front gasp, giggle and whisper. They pout their painted lips. An old man in the far corner sleeps even as music blares from the dashboard. A squat man in his thirties has on huge black headphones; the office woman beside him worries her cuticles. Coins rattle almost imperceptibly, the engine is idling, the heat threatens to suffocate. You look back at the seven-year old boy holding the cigarette.

He is in faded blue with the sleeves ripped off, his shorts brown and two inches too short. You see the spindly legs, the knobby knees, the feet caked with dirt. He sits nonchalantly on the curb. You see there are others around him, older but no better off. He twirls and twirls the cigarette until someone throws him a light. The match flares and smolders, the tip is lit. He takes a long slow drag.

You imagine his lungs shriveling into black pulps, his breath turning acrid, his teeth—are all of them even permanent?—becoming frighteningly yellow. You recall that cigarettes have 4,000 chemicals and 43 of them cause cancer. You try to remember the statistics of people who die from it. A film clip of dying lung cells plays in the corner of your mind. You wonder who gave him his first cigarette. Father? Mother? Brother? Sister? Stranger? You imagine him trying to quit, hands shaking, lids fluttering, until he cannot resist the pungent temptation. How young will he be then?

The word carbon monoxide flashes in red neon, then twirls itself into death, death, death. You imagine his eyes, veined and hopelessly worn in a future you are not sure he has, his lips cracked, fingers tar-yellow, hair brittle, as he coughs up blood.

You imagine the poison pulsing through his veins, hypnotizing his fledgling heart into submission.

He exhales, the traffic stirs. Your jeep drives away from the boy whose childhood is being stolen by a pencil-thin stick three inches short. And you do nothing but stare at the smoke.

A Short Story and (Bad) Love Poetry

Some people have read this before. But I just thought of posting it. Written circa junior year in HS, it happened to fit a CW requirement. :)

The night was cold as the wind rattled through the rafters and shingles of the houses near London’s East End. During days of trade or days of worship, the town turned into a restless marketplace with people of all professions and predilections. Nights, however, were almost deafeningly silent. The year was 1888, and it was the seventh day of August. The moon was full and bright, its beams illuminating the deserted cobble-stone streets. A lone wild bird circled stealthily overhead. The last of the panhandlers have retreated into the recesses of the side streets. It seemed an ordinary night, like any other night in England… but, as the clock struck twelve, a bloodcurdling scream resounded in the cold air. Then, as abruptly as it started, the scream faded back into the silence.

They found her body the next day, sprawled on the stairs of an inn called the Whitechapel. Her throat was slashed; her blood pooled around her like a macabre shroud. Her face was unrecognizable with the post-mortem swelling of the soft tissue. The bones of her nose were broken in perhaps three places; the side of her head was obtrusively caved in. But the sadism did not stop there—her belly was cut open with the precision of a surgeon’s scalpel. Her innards were exposed, yet her kidney was nowhere to be found. Stab wounds ran the length of her body, and, where there was no blood, there were bruises and horrible welts. It was without doubt the work of a bestial, merciless killer.
She was identified as Martha Turner, a scarlet woman. The police started an investigation right away… but it was all in vain. They could not find the cold-hearted murderer, and there were no witnesses. Day after day, the police combed the streets hoping to catch a glimpse of the man who bestowed such a grisly death to the unfortunate victim.

Or, at least they thought there were no witnesses. Someone saw everything… Actually, I saw everything. I watched as her throat was ripped open, I saw her struggling and begging for mercy. I was the one who gazed upon her futile attempts to escape the clutches of death. How, you ask? Because I was holding the knife that snatched her pathetic life away. I dragged her into her death… I did society a favor! I savored the moment that the light was extinguished from her helpless green eyes. I felt exhilaration as her ravaged soul escaped into the gloomy, gelid air, as only an angel of death could. Women like her do not deserve to live… They are the breeders of pestilence! They pollute civilization with displays of immorality... They are the unchaste, the unclean... they show no respect for themselves... and for what? Is it not to no avail? Surely, you must agree with my quest to purify the earth of worthless, libertine scum? Oh, je suis desolée, I almost forgot to say... my name is Jack the Ripper, and on that fateful night of August, I committed my first murder.

(Poetry Attempt 2. She should really stop making us write love poems. I suck, bigtime.)

In the chapel of my sacred art
The stage is black, one spotlight bare
The singer stands in the smoky beam
No other leaps to join her there.
The trombone leads the prelude’s note
The piano peals, Do-Re-Mi-Do
Her voice follows but falls short
The rhythm is lost on the soprano.
The chorus chants, their notes move
She looks up and tears at fugue
She sings the aria, strains her voice
She is a baffled ingénue.
Fast forward past the interlude
Tenor appears, out of tune
He hits a sharp, she sings furioso
The critic writes “Sang too soon.”
Second interlude, he offers a rose
Neglects to remove the sharp thorn
Her finger bleeds, the petals fly
The score pities not the forlorn.
Climax unfolds, neither understands
Sense fades from the libretto
The violin cries, the clarinet gasps
Two voices reach their false-etto.
The climax passes, tragedy done
The onlookers gaze on, upset
They try to make the most of when
Two solos do not make a duet.
The cello weeps, the snare drum sobs
The coda does Do-Re-Do-Mi-Do
The singers exit, voices asunder
As their hearts let the opera go.

Metisse!

Metisse!

Metisse est à propos de une femme, Lola, et sa grossesse. Lola ne sait pas le père de l’enfant, parce que elle a deux petit-amis—Jamal et Fèlix. Jamal est Muslim et noir, Fèlix est Juif et Blanc. Je pense Lola est Chrétien. Aussi, Jamal est le fils des diplomates pendant que Fèlix est... pauvre. Alors. C’est très, très amusant. Drôle et touchant. Je recommande celui-ci. Il a passé TV5Monde hier soir.

Realiser par: Mathieu Kassovitz (1993)
Avec Julie Mauduech (Lola), Hubert Kounde (Jamal), Mathieu Kassovitz (Felix).

CW 10 Poetry Assignment

Believe it or not, this is a love poem. And it's supposed to look like this-- the homework is all about the use of jargon to make a poem that "kind of makes sense."

In the impartiality of my opinions
I find the paradigm shift you
Away from my tyranny
Settling for Oligarchy
Waiting for Democracy
Forgetting that Monarchy
Is not as bad as it looks.
Are you aiming for a polity
Dismissing the Utopia
Of Marxism or Anarchy
Looking for equilibrium
In this unreasonable rapport?
Why was I Bourgeoisie
While you were Proletariat
And where was ideological Third Way
When I was Atomism
And you were Socialism?
But now you're Classic Liberal
And I'm hopelessly lost
In a sea of categories
And rationalization
And vindication
Of the incomprehensible.

Pensées Aléatoire

Vraiment? C’est 9 h 5 et je devenis folle. D’abord, ma main droit a brulé à la vapeur parce que l’eau a été très chaud. Ensuite, la même main a été électrifié par la prise de courant (ouverte, je n’ai pas vu!!!).

Enfin. La derniere semaine, jeudi je pense, j’ai vu le film Marie-Jo et Ses Deux Amours, a comme vedettes Ariane Ascaride, Jean-Pierre Darroussin, Gérard Meylan, Julie-Marie Parmentier, et Yann Tregouët. Le film a réalisé par Robert Guédiguian et sorti en 2002. J’ai regardé le film avec mon ami Mico qui a tout son temps, apparemment, l’étudiant de première année. Je plaisante!

Enfin encore, le film a été interessant. De quio ça parle? La vie de la famille de Marie-Jo et Daniel et la liaison de Marie-Jo avec Marco, un pilote. Le cadre a été Marseilles. Mon lieu préféré a été le piquenique sur la plage! Très gênant. Et quand Julie est arrivée en la maison de Marco pendant que sa mére a été la-bas. Il a été fin bizarre mais pas autant pour moi après l’article de la réaction.

Je l’ai ecrit en Anglais, bien sûr. L’article de la réaction en Français et pour Français 13.

Il y a un film Français, Martyrs (après la traduction). C’est trop bizarre! Mais j’aime la plupart de Marie-Jo et Ses Deux Amours. Il demande, pourquio fait-elle trompé quand elle est heureuse avec son mariage? Et pourquio sont-ils mourir? Encore, il a été fin bizarre.

Le résumé du site Web officiel:

<

Ces deux amours sont impossibles à vivre. Il faut bien pourtant continuer.

La lame sur son poignet n'est pas une solution. Les saisons se succèdent, Daniel construit des maisons, Marco conduit des bateaux...

Et comme le soleil naît et meurt chaque jour, Marie-Jo a deux amours...

Sur le chemin des contrebandiers, un jour de pique-nique, Marie-Jo applique la lame d'un couteau sur son poignet.

Elle aime profondément Daniel, son mari, et aime aussi fort Marco, son amant.>>

Oh, voyez. Ce n’est pas très difficile maintenant, ecrire en Français. Bien que de temps à autre je veux abandonner... La grammaire est pas pour le coeur faible. Si j’etais couramment en Français écrire va aller vite. Je “saigne” toujours! Je plaisante.

Mes amis je ne fait pas écrire comme pour mon amusement. Je révisé pour l’examen long à mardi.

Publicité: Lisez le livre “Gem Squash Tokoloshe” par Rachel Zadok. Il est engageant étonnamment, et mémorable aussi. J’ai rêvé de Faith, le personnage principal. Elle a été une vie perturbant. Zadok écrit bien.

Requiescat

Here she lies, she's safe at last
She will sleep the millennia away
She's mortal like us we know
Someday we'll all have to go
But right now we don't know what to say
She's gone from here
Yet here she lies
Now she's excluded from all earthly pain
She's closed her eyes
Behind the glass
No sun, no smoke, no rain
Tears and fears and hugs and sighs
She's stoic in her white box
Does she hear us we wonder
Does she see us we ponder
What does this all mean
Here she lies she's safe at last
She's forever eighteen.

Maria Teresa Foronda, June 11, 1991- June 16, 2009

Storybook Patois

So I'm reading A Clockwork Orange by Anthony Burgess, and I'm viddying a lot of odd words. Truth be told, it's taking malenky tolchocks at my brain, this nadsat jargon. First of all, it was already mighty bezoomny of Burgess to write this, since it's all horrorshow dratsing with shaikas and screaming devotchkas and ptitsas. Some of my droogs reckon it's a nice book, but I wouldn't use that slovo. Well-written. Imaginative. Engaging. Nice? No. By Bog, Burgess makes Vonnegut viddy relatively tame. So much krovvy and flying zoobies in this book! And what is scary about Alex, that’s the bezoomny malchick’s eemya, is that he’s not the least bit poogly of ultraviolence. He actually lives for horrorshow, no remorse whatsoever, and I know that’s what Burgess wants to show, but it pooglies me somehow. Knives in the moloko and dratsing-oobivating every night? More sensitive souls would be bolnoy by the thirtieth page. It vreds my brain, really, like a bolshy britva of verbosity.

Speaking of jargon, all this nadsatting reminds me of another invented language: Newspeak. ( From George Orwell's 1984. ) Now there's a double-plus-ungood language because it limits the words people are allowed to think and say. They phased out Oldspeak, and you had to be always goodthinking, otherwise the thinkpol would get you. It’s not easy to grasp the ramifications unless you read the novel itself. So many of my favorite words they turned into crimethink, really. It's double-unsane. I don't even know why those proles didn't take to the streets and quash Ingsoc. Not goodwise for the mind, although it didn't really matter, comrades, since if you were caught by the thinkpol you would become an unperson anyway. I unbellyfeel Ingsoc and Big Brother, of course, and like Oldthink better. But I have to stop now, since I am also afraid of being sent to joycamp, just in case Big Brother is reading.

The Amazons, Asherah, and The Search for Atlantis

(National Geographic Channel Episode)
Riddles of the Dead: The Amazon Warriors

“Men who are warriors do not gain much attention. Women warriors, on the other hand, become the stuff of legends.” There was a feature on the National Geographic channel, Riddles of the Dead, about the Amazon warriors. They were fierce, beautiful, blonde women who refused to be conquered by men. They raised their male children as slaves and trained their women to be warriors. The myth of the Amazons continues to inspire many stories, even up to today.

It was said that the Amazons fought on the side of the Trojans during the war against Achilles and the rest of the Greeks. Achilles is said to have killed the Amazon Queen Penthesilea in a fierce battle, and another Queen, Hippolyta, possessed the girdle that was one of the labors of Hercules. An archaeologist investigating a 3000-year-old burial in Southern Russia discovered that it contained the skeleton of a (according to an anthropologist) woman in a nomadic warrior’s pose—one leg straight, the other bent. Along with this were hundreds of arrowheads, golden beads, and golden emblems of a priest/ess. They figured that the woman (later confirmed to be so by DNA testing) was a nomadic warrior priestess. Coincidentally, studies showed that Southern Russia was where the Amazons were most likely to have gone after they were displaced by external factors. It seemed that the Amazons were not only simply “myth” after all.

(The Amazons, or Androktones—Killers of Men, are now the newest subjects of my feminist research.)

Women like them, who have defied order and “traditional” gender roles, are definitely interesting. They show us that the line we draw between capabilities of men and women somehow do not really have to exist. I think gender roles are really a way of keeping the stability in society. Humans are creatures of routine, and if there was too much variety the world would be more complicated. Or would it? Do these roles really simplify things? There was a time when gender roles were a question of pragmatism and not of bias. That is not always the case today.

For starters, gender roles are unfair. They constrict and they divide. They serve to separate things that should not have boundaries. These boundaries are based on the assumption that men and women are intrinsically different, and there are some things that only men can do and vice versa. It is assumed that there are some things that only women can do. With the exception of childbirth and other biology-related aspects, this is really not true.

Gender roles then extend to Dating Scripts. There was an episode on The Tyra Banks Show related to this. The topic was a woman who could not seem to get dates because of her “bad dating habits.” Some gay men were on the show to give her the “straight” dirt. It was amusing because these gay men showed the women what to wear, what to say and what not to say on a first date, and claimed to know what men really think. Dating scripts are another way to keep the stability. What is it that people have against spontaneity anyway? Some of the frequent advice given to women for first dates are: Don’t reveal too much; be approachable; eat light; show genuine interest in your date, etcetera. Which begs the question: Why? What if you don’t want to eat light? What if you’re not genuinely interested? Why do we allow ourselves to be governed by these scripts?

I should probably mention a certain bestseller I extremely abhorred due to it being a proponent of gender roles: Meyer’s Twilight. That requires twelve more pages of criticism, so I won’t elaborate.

Random Observations: In a traditional couple scene, the woman holds on to the man, not the other way around. And when it comes to holding the umbrella, the man holds it for the couple—even if it was the woman’s umbrella to begin with. And the whole business with the man carrying the purse (emphasis on the “purse,” it often being of no weight at all) of the woman: what in the world is that supposed to mean? If the world were gender aschematic, we’d all have a lot more freedom to do whatever we want. Not to sound like an anarchist, but the unwritten gender roles can be suffocating.

"The basic options of an individual must be made on the premises of an equal vocation for man and woman founded on a common structure of their being, independent of their sexuality." (Simone de Beauvoir, La Deuxieme Sexe)

(Discovery Channel DVD Episode)
Archaeology II – The Forbidden Goddess

Was it a battle of the sexes, or was it a battle for power, gender regardless?
Maybe it was both.
In ancient Israel a few thousand years ago, there were two main divine beings: Yahweh and Asherah. Yahweh was the almighty ruler, Asherah was his consort, and was the mother goddess.
With the subsequent editing of the bible, Asherah was scratched out and Yahweh rose to the rank of “only” god. Everything else is simply labeled a false idol.
Scholars today only know of Asherah through physical evidence unearthed by archaeologists. (Statues, icons, sculptures.) There are also some surviving texts in which she is mentioned as “Yahweh’s Asherah.”
There are two reasons considered for the deletion of the goddess and the phasing out of her cult. One, the high priests and officials of Israel, male, wanted the god to reflect them, and saw no room for a woman. (Gender studies show that while men are fascinated by women and their ability to reproduce, they are also threatened by this power.) Two, the high priests and officials of Israel saw her as a threat to Yahweh’s seat as most powerful divine being, and saw no room for any other divine being, woman or otherwise.

The episode made some old questions rise from the murky confines of my subconscious, somehow connected, but not exactly about it.

Disclaimer: I am an agnostic.
Note: Agnostic is not Atheist, and while we’re on the subject, Atheist is not Satanist.

One: Why do we refer to god as “he”? Is there any conclusive evidence to suggest that “he” is male? Following the logic at the very beginning, if god made humans in his own image and likeness, then isn’t it more likely that he was both male and female? He created both genders after all. (Tangent: How many genders are there, really?)
Two: “God has a face, hands, feet from time to time, but how about below the waist? There is no mention of genitalia anywhere.” It’s almost as if they’re denying physical evidence of god’s sexuality while asserting it through pronouns.
Three: How do we know that there is only one god, and that there are not multiple divine beings? (This will probably never be answered anyway.)
Four: I know that the bible is considered the absolute truth in a lot of circles. But why? It’s literature. It does not provide a conclusive account of how things happened. How can it? Every piece of work, written or otherwise, is reflective of the time and place in which it was created and, more importantly, who created it. The specific details cannot be held true for all time and for all people. It also has gone through revision after revision, translation after translation. How many sentences come out with a different meaning after being translated? And how many things get lost in revision? It does not provide an unbiased account of history, it is an insight into the people who wrote it and how they lived and believed.

"The bible is literature, not dogma." - George Santayana

P.S.The story of Asherah shows that history is written by the winners. The losers have no place in it except to be in the wrong, or to have no place in it at all.

(Discovery Channel DVD Episode)
The Search for Atlantis

I'll keep this one short.
Humans have always been fascinated by the unknown. It is not by coincidence that the mystery of Atlantis has survived the test of time, and that people, despite all failure and disappointment, still believe that one day, Atlantis will be found.
Some researchers say that it's on Bimini Island in the Bahamas.
Some say that it will never be found, because through time, and following geological patterns, it has been pushed under the Caribbean plate.
I think that the mystical Lost Island represents more than just thrill and treasure. It seems that no matter how much we progress, we will always feel the need to look back to where it all began. If only to see how far we've come.
If Atlantis does get found someday, I sincerely hope I would still be around to see it.

Ça se dit comment en Français?

Bonjour mes amis. C’est un article en Français, pardonnez-moi. Aujourd’hui, j’ai étudié, quoi d’autre, Français. Je prépare pour la semaine prochaine et pour les semaines après. J’apprends le temps futur, le temp pas parfait, et le temps conditionnel. (... Pas parfait? Qu’est-ce que “imperfect” en Français du reste?) Plus les temps passé et présent j’ai apprendu l’année dernière. Et les adjectifs et les adverbes! Quelle un cauchemar.

Alors. L’été est fini. C’est triste, mais c’est étonnant aussi parce que je peux apprendre choses nouvelle. Alors. Mon l’emploi du temps. Chaque jour de dix heure à onze heure et demie, un cours de Français avec Monsieur Bautista. Chaque mardi et jeudi de onze heure et demie à une heure, une cours de L’écriture Créatif avec Madame Duque. Cependant, chaque mercredi et vendredi de onze heure et demie à une heure, une cours de L’histoire. Je fais une pause pour le déjeuner à une heure à deux heure. Ensuite, le cours je deteste surtout, un cours de Calcul. Le professeur est Madame Bello, mais je ne sais pas elle. Chaque lundi, j’ai CWTS en la Géographie, de deux heure à cinq heure.

C’est tout. Tout à l’heure.

Random

Public advisories have been going on and on about how to avoid AH1N1. Their top tips include not hugging, not kissing, and more generally, not touching anyone. And also channeling your inner OC every time you wash your hands.

I know the virus is airborne, and human contact is just a secondary way of transmitting it, but if human contact is the only way to get it, I’m pretty much immune.

Kind of sad when you start thinking about it.

Just kidding. I don’t need a hug, I just feel like being dramatic. And the cactus bears wonderful resemblance.

By the way, a cactus is going to hurt you if you hug it, so don’t, even if it looks like it wants you to. Appearances are most often than not deceiving. XD

What if the Earth Stands Still?

“Your planet is dying.”
“So you’ve come to save us!”
“No. I have come to save the planet.”
- Dialogue from “The Day the Earth Stood Still”

Global Warming. Climate Change. Air Pollution. Water Pollution. Land Pollution. Excessive Greenhouse Gas Effect. Thinning of the Ozone Layer. Melting glaciers. Fossil fuel shortage. A lot of these issues are now as commonplace as corruption and traffic—in this country, at least.
Thankfully, with campaigns launched for awareness about environmental issues, “going green” has also entered the mainstream. Energy conservation. Drives against Air and Water Pollution. Anti-Smoke Belching Act. All noble and well-meant efforts. But the movie The Day the Earth Stood Still poses an alternative, more radical solution:
Exterminate mankind.
In the movie, Keanu Reeves is a representative of a group of civilizations far more advanced in all aspects relative to earthlings. (Why is it that almost all sci-fi concepts make us inferior to our intergalactic peers?) They have also been keeping tags on Planet Earth and are aware that it is one of few planets capable of supporting life. Therefore, they have decided to save it. And there is only one clear way, that is, to get rid of all human beings and all man-made objects that destroy the planet. The aliens do this by unleashing thousands of locusts (much like a plague) that are capable of eating away at metal and reducing it to dust. Smaller termite-like insects eat away at the humans themselves.
They also sent out spheres to every corner of the globe to act as modern versions of Noah’s Ark, to save the Earth’s species. They took one of each, except humans, understandably.
It is a work of fiction, and yet... What if that is the only way?
“If the planet dies, you die. But if you die, the planet lives.”
We all know that this planet needs to be saved. But what is not resilient in common thought is that it needs to be saved from us. Most people think of it in terms of saving it from toxic wastes, from global warming, from fossil fuel emissions—but these are terms that only serve to distance us from the real problem at hand: US. Toxic wastes and whatnot are merely side effects. Human ingenuity and intellectual curiosity have led to the development of technology, and the thrill of discovery and the comfort and convenience it brought us has masked the ugly face of destruction. And has masked it for far too long.
But akin to the anti-venom that saves the poisoned victim, we are also the solution.
History teaches us that every civilization reaches a turning point where it is forced to substantiate or suffocate. Some survive, some don’t. There is a collective decision that has to be made, to determine whether it will fall off the precipice or further assert its existence. Maybe, in a figurative way, the earth is standing still and awaiting our decision. Will we make the right one now, or will we have to wait for an alien species to save us from ourselves?

QUERY

I was digging through my stuff last night when I dug up an old Query box. I never did use it, so I’m going to, just for the hell of it. Here are the first twenty:

1. IF YOU HAD TO DO RESEARCH ON ONE THING FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, WHAT WOULD YOU RESEARCH ON?

That’s easy! Gender and Sexuality, with slight focus on Feminism.

2. IF YOU WERE STUCK ON A DESERT ISLAND AND COULD ONLY HAVE ONE KIND OF FOOD FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

Kind, right? Seafood.

3. WHAT IMAGES COME TO YOUR MIND WHEN YOU ARE ASKED ABOUT YOUR CHILDHOOD?

The Secret Garden, by Frances Hodgson Burnett. My fifth birthday party. My dog best friend, Lulu. The 73 in music class. Bankruptcy. The Land of Oz, by L. Frank Baum. Narnia! Swimming.

4. WHAT’S THE BEST ADVICE YOU’D GIVE YOURSELF TODAY?

Don’t worry too much.

5. WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF: YOU SUDDENLY FOUND OUT YOU WERE AN HEIR TO A ROYAL FAMILY’S FORTUNE BUT WOULD HAVE TO RELOCATE TO ANOTHER COUNTRY TO ACQUIRE IT?

Besides the obvious legal issues, I think I’d fly off in a heartbeat.

6. DESCRIBE YOUR DREAM HOME.

I envision a tastefully decorated two-story house situated on a hill overlooking a city, but frankly I don’t really care as long as I’m the only person in it. Maybe I’d keep a dog. And a few cats. But no people. My family members can visit, but they can’t live in it. I’d give them a house too, if I’m that rich, but if we’re talking dream home, then it’s definitely one where I can be alone, literally.

7. IF YOU HAD TO BE AN ANIMAL, WHICH WOULD YOU BE?

I’m torn between a lynx and a wild mare. Or if they weren’t extinct, a saber-toothed tiger or an archaeopteryx.

8. IF YOU WERE INVISIBLE FOR A DAY, WHAT WOULD YOU DO?

Sneak into offices and record incriminating conversations that would give conclusive proof to public speculations of corruption, fraud, and/or corporate dishonesty. Or maybe I’d just spook the hell out of people who annoy me.

9. IF YOU WERE CHOSEN TO BE THE FIRST PERSON TO RELOCATE TO JUPITER, AND COULD ONLY BRING ONE PERSONAL ITEM, WHAT WOULD IT BE?

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.

10. IF YOU HAD TO WRITE A BOOK ABOUT YOUR LIFE, WHAT WOULD BE ITS TITLE?

Stercus Accidit.

11. LOOKING BACK IN TIME, WHICH YEAR WOULD YOU HAVE WANTED TO LAST TWICE AS LONG?

I honestly can’t think of any year I’d want to last longer than it did.

12. IF YOU WERE TO RECEIVE AN AWARD THAT EVERYONE WOULD HEAR ABOUT, WHAT AWARD WOULD IT BE?

Nobel Prize for Literature. :))

13. IF YOU HAD TO LIVE IN ANOTHER COUNTRY (FOR ALWAYS) WHERE WOULD YOU GO?

Wow. This is tough. I do expect I’d travel a lot in the future, but I’d always come back to the Philippines. But if I were to be exiled or something, then I’d go to Italy. That way I can take trains to other EU countries!

14. WHAT IS THE FIRST THING YOU THOUGHT ABOUT THIS MORNING WHEN YOU WOKE UP?

Why is my sister’s dog sleeping beside me?

15. COMPLETE THIS SENTENCE: I AM THE ONLY PERSON I KNOW WHO...

...is perpetually freaked out by the fact that the law (and society, for that matter) practically mandates women to take the surname of their husbands. Not that I have to worry about this personally, being agnostic, but still. It really does bother me a lot. I often try to think of ways to change this system.

16. WHO WOULD YOU LIKE TO MEET AND SPEND THE WHOLE DAY WITH? CAN BE SOMEONE FROM THE PAST.

I’d love to tag along with Hecate (of the Greek myth) for a spellbinding journey through the underworld. I also wouldn’t mind hanging out with Adolf Hitler, just to see what he really was like... You know, behind the fascist dictatorship and the genocide. Okay so that isn’t such a good idea. I’d also want to hang with Charles Dickens, Kurt Vonnegut, and Simone de Beauvoir. Sorry I can’t choose just one.

17. IF YOU HAD A MILLION DOLLARS WHAT WOULD YOU SPEND IT ON?

This is going to sound boring: Stock Investments.

18. IF YOU HAD TO BE A LIFELESS OBJECT FOR A DAY, WHAT WOULD YOU BE?

Barack Obama’s personal computer.

19. RANK ACCORDING TO IMPORTANCE FOR YOU PERSONALLY: FAME, POWER, GOOD LOOKS, RICHES. (RANK FROM MOST TO LEAST IMPORTANT.)

Power, riches, fame, good looks.

20. IF EVERYONE HAD TO PICK A NAME, WHAT WOULD YOURS BE?

Aha! A very relevant question. I’d pick Roseann!!! My real name, not what my darn birth certificate says!!! Hahahaha!

Scandalous

Last last week, it was pugilist Manny Pacquiao. A few days after that, it was the Judy Ann Santos- Ryan Agoncillo Nuptials. Nowadays, you can hardly turn on the television without seeing a Katrina Halili-Hayden Kho Sex Video update.

Tangent: Am I the only one who thinks "Donya" Dionisia Pacquiao is perpetually inebriated on money? Have you ever seen a better example of "letting it get to your head"?

As may be expected, the media is having a field day with this story. You have, on one end, a clueless, pre-star status Katrina Halili, and on the other, a young closet voyeur named Dr. Hayden Kho. Or maybe I should say "ex-closet voyeur." Other players include one Chua, who may or may not be the rat in this hole-ridden affair, and Dra. Belo, who may or may not sooner or later overdose on her own chemicals. This tale is peppered with sex, money, jealousy, and ulterior motives. What's not to exploit?

The fascinating part about all of this is the endless loop of questions. My favorite is: Who's to blame?
Do we blame the alleged victim, Ms. Halili, for sleeping with Dr. Kho? Do we blame the aspiring videographer Dr. Kho for sleeping with Ms. Halili? Or do we blame the person who leaked this to the media? (Let us now refer to this person as the unsub-- unidentified subject. Yes this is NCIS/Criminal Minds speaking.)

Personally, I don't think it was Ms. Halili's fault. She didn't know she was being videotaped. She might have known she was cheating, as the Belo-Kho love affair was more public than Hello Garci. But they're not married, so scratch adultery. I don't know which case they're filing against who, but as such, this is a question of morality. And that is not clear cut at all. I know some people are pinning the blame on Ms. Halili for sleeping with Dr. Kho, and are assuming that she has slept with more than one blissfully taken male species. (Cue pictures of old socialites with old scandalized expressions on their faces.) That, and the whole "impure image" people attach to sexually liberated women.

We seldom hear the "impure image" attached to Dr. Kho's name, presumably because he's male and all males are supposed to be sexually aggressive. Sexual double standard alert. It's disgusting for one gender and laudable for the other. Curious. Nobody's saying the "videotaping" aspect was laudable, but the sex itself on his part is hardly considered as scandalous.

I think Halili is also somehow lucky for being the female, because while she is subjected to negative personal ruminations, it would be unwise for our politicians and public figures to point their fingers at her. She is the alleged weaker party, after all. Alleged, alleged. Gender never determines strength. They may brand her as scarlet, but they won't say it out loud.

Wonder why the CBCP hasn't issued a statement yet. Is this one rare moment where they don't render their opinion necessary to the ebb and flow of scrutiny?

I don't blame Dr. Kho either. Whatever voyeuristic predilections he may possess is beyond my judgment. Can't judge what I don't understand. But really, dissecting the situation, did he do any harm by the act of videotaping? They were two consenting adults after all.

Maybe we should just blame the unsub who leaked this. And if it is who I think it is, I pray that they catch the unsub before *beep* keels over on botox and collagen implants.

Reaction: Angels and Demons Movie Adaptation

Like many people, I have the handicap of not being able to judge the movie solely on its own merits, having practically memorized the book. So I have to begin by pointing out the main discrepancies between the two versions.

- Vittoria Vetra’s “research partner” Silvano was not present in the book; the priest/scientist who headed the antimatter project was Leonardo Vetra, Vittoria’s adoptive father. (That stole a lot of tension from Vetra’s character.)
- One main character in the book, Maximillian Kohler, was completely cut from the movie. He was the director of CERN, and was supposed to be present during the climactic scene where the Camerlengo branded himself.
- The fifth brand in the book was not the two-key symbol that appeared in the movie; it was a square ambigram of the four elements. (In my opinion, that made it lose the essence of symmetry.)
- Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca’s motive was also not present. In the book, Ventresca murdered the pope after finding out that he was the pope’s son. What he didn’t know was that the late pope did not do anything wrong because it was done through artificial insemination... which then explained why he did not see science as the enemy (since he was able to conceive a child without violating his vows). This was also a main point, since the pope was contacted by Vetra precisely because the pope was not against science. In the movie, it appeared that Ventresca’s motive, besides anger, was to become the pope by “acclamation by adoration.” Although it must be said that the intention to unite the Church by fear was both present.
- Some minor characters that were cut from the movie: Gunther Click, the BBC reporter, and Chinita Macri, his videographer.
- The line “My mind tells me I will never understand God... My heart tells me I am not meant to,” was spoken by Vittoria Vetra, not by Robert Langdon.
- Cardinal Baggia (water) died in the book but lived to become pope in the movie.
- Grand Elector Saverio Mortati, also not present in the movie, became pope in the book. He was also the Devil’s Advocate during the late pope’s reign, and was the only other person who knew that the pope had a son by artificial insemination.
- Vetra and Langdon became a couple in the book (then broke up shortly before The Da Vinci Code).
- There was originally no witness to the scene where the Camerlengo lit himself with butane.

...

I still stand by the conviction that Hanks does not fit the Langdon role. Zurer, however, was a good Vittoria, save for the fact that a lot of the tension and emotion she could have worked with was not included in the movie’s plot. By removing Leonardo Vetra, Vittoria was simply an incidental character. McGregor as Ventresca was a wise decision, although removing his relationship with the late pope was not. And then there’s the matter of Maximillian Kohler. I still wonder why they removed him. It’s simply not as complete without the wheelchaired-man who practically held the book together.

So, what I really want to say is... I did not like the movie adaptation at all. It could have been better. The Illuminati were not as played up as they could have been, and unmasking the hassassin stole a great deal of mystery from the murder sequences. Many of the conflicts that made the book’s plot work were altogether scratched, and the intricate elements that made it unique were overlooked.

The cinematography was okay. Not excellent, but okay enough to keep me watching towards the end. Somehow I feel that the sculptures were not given enough credit, and the setting itself was not sufficiently played up. It was Vatican, for heaven’s sake.

I am probably this annoyed only because I actually waited for this movie to come out. Maybe I should just stop watching movie adaptations of books. They almost always fail anyway.

Untitled.

I had a rather interesting day at the office. Some slight squabbles are brewing between the north-south factions; I dare not get into particulars. Rumors cannot be helped, can they? And some people just don’t grow up, no matter how old they are. There was an Indian woman who came by, and left me afflicted with accent mimicry for the rest of the day. A friend told me I write like a younger version of Jessica Zafra, which I don’t know how to take since when I read her I can’t understand half of what she’s saying, albeit the fact that she is good with words. I spent a good hour of my life folding receipts while wondering how the UPD CRS will opt to destroy my life, armed with the seemingly harmless words “Priority: Regular.”

In other news: They have started taxing books. I thought it was a joke designed to annoy those of us who happen to like long strings of words bounded between titles and blurbs. Alas, it is not. This means higher prices for imported books (read: 90 % of books in this country) and a longer wait for new releases. Thank you, Department of Finance. You’re brilliant. I blame Twilight for this. Rowling didn’t do this damage... Or is it just the recession, now also known as zeitgeist?

In other, other news: The Manny Pacquiao craze has promptly left the country like a less-destructive version of Emong, only to be replaced with another craze, this time in the form of The Two Davids.

Mom: Andito na yung dalawang David!!!
Me: *monotone* Yey...

Suddenly, swine flu threats reputed to be extremely high in populous areas all but vanished in a puff of fanaticism. A lot of people went to the malls and watched their guest appearances, which I didn’t because (a) I had to go to work, and (b) even if I didn’t, I’m not a fanatic. I have yet to discover a cause for which I will brave the long lines toward a totem of pop culture.

Little thoughts from the randomness I like to call my life:

The Great Gatsby, by F. Scott Fitzgerald. A little dragging at the beginning, gets to the action towards the end. Sometimes shocking. Fitzgerald’s artistic ability shines through in every page. Serves up money, pain, haunting images and an unlikely friendship.

Slaughterhouse Five, by Kurt Vonnegut. My new favorite book. All I can say is BRILLIANT. Of all the World War 2 novels I’ve read, this is the best so far. Because it’s different. It’s filled with old ideas presented in new ways, and new ideas that make it unforgettable. Billy Pilgrim has come unstuck in time, indeed, and makes you wonder if you haven’t. MUST READ.

I am not finished with Lolita (Nabokov), and Conversations with the Devil (Jeff Rovin a.k.a Tom Clancy). Curse the human necessity for sleep.

...

The SpiderPigs have been talking incessantly about Meteor Garden, now that Boys Over Flowers is out. (Note: SpiderPigs is a collective name for the officemates, since we burst into “Spider pig, spider pig, does whatever a spider pig does” when we’re suffering from paper shock. If you don’t know that song, go watch the Simpsons Movie.)

So, what about Meteor Garden and Boys over Flowers? The consensus is that MG is the better version, although that might just be time sweetening the recollection.

Personally, I think the delivery of MG was better, not to mention the dubbing. But what do I know. I’ll leave this up to the real fans.

One SpiderPig thinks she wants to become a nun. I think that is in all plausibility, since I go into anaphylactic shock every time she talks about her church, i.e. every five minutes. She’s way too nice for her own good. She loves children, and she talks about it a lot, which is always enough to make me throw myself towards the nearest exit, where her words will not reach my aural cavities. Sorry, dear, I really can’t stand little runts, neither in 3D nor in spoken word. (Psycho-logist says I hate kids because I didn’t have playmates. I concur. Slightly.)

In Idol Land: Danny Gokey is out, Kris Allen and Adam Lambert are the final two. Is it me, or is it not as interesting as last year? I have all but lost the will to keep watching. I have nothing against gays, so that isn’t the issue. It’s just that Lambert does the same screechy thing over and over. Kris Allen, on the other hand, has a morsel of talent and a healthy helping of pretty boy charm. I want neither to win. See bitterness and negativity dropping from that sentence?

Sigh. I’m just a regular Simon Cowell with a dash of Ebenezer Scrooge and a pinch of Ambrose Bierce. I can’t help it. If it’s optimism versus pessimism, I’d rather be either proven right or pleasantly surprised, than be mistaken at the top of my lungs.

Scientia Cum Religione: Angels and Demons Book Report

With the movie coming out and all, I thought it would be, er, socially relevant to post this review. So that people who've never read the book can see what it's about... And hopefully watch the movie.
I first read the book in early 2004, and I wrote this report in 2005/06 for an English class, so forgive me if I sound like too much of a fan (which I was). Also with a few omissions to make it shorter.
Since it's only proper to read the book before watching the movie, I urge you all to read it. It's on sale in bargain bookstores at 175 php, or there's probably someone you know you can borrow from.
This contains mucho, mucho spoilers. And is rather long.
Here goes.

****************************

"From Santi's Earthly tomb with demon's hole,
'Cross Rome the mystic elements unfold.
The path of light is laid, the sacred test,
Let angels guide you on your lofty quest."

Title: Angels and DemonsAuthor: Dan Brown (Copyright 2000)

Setting: Citta de Dio or The City of God: Rome

Theme: The theme of the story is the passion for art, iconology, codes, secret societies and the gray area between good and evil.

Characters:

Robert Langdon
Professor Robert Langdon works as a teacher of Religious Iconology at the Harvard University. Langdon is the main protagonist in the story, who Dan Brown describes as "although not overly handsome in a classical sense, the forty-year old Langdon had what his female colleagues referred to as an erudite appeal-- wisps of gray hair in his thick brown hair, probing blue eyes, an arrestingly deep voice, and the strong, carefree smile of a collegiate athlete. A varsity diver in prep school in college, Langdon still had the body of a swimmer, a toned, six-foot physique that he vigilantly maintained with fifty laps a day in the university pool." At forty years old, Robert Langdon is unmarried. He does not regret this because it has enabled him to travel the world, sleep as late as he wanted and enjoy quiet nights at home with a brandy and a good book. His colleagues often joked that his house looks more like a museum than a house because it was packed with religious artifacts from around the world. He was a tough teacher and a disciplinarian although he relished recreation with an infectious fanaticism that earned him fraternal popularity with his students.

Leonardo Vetra
Leonardo Vetra is actually a supplementary character who dies a gruesome and rather morbid death at the start of the story. He is a controversial figure because though he was a particle physicist, he was a Catholic priest. He was starting to fuse science and religion through his more-than-complicated research when he was killed-- right after he finished making a full tenth of a gram of antimatter. In a way, Leonardo Vetra is where this story starts-- and the chilling ramifications of his work continue until the end of this heart-stopping novel.

Vittoria Vetra
A beautiful and mysterious Bio Entanglement physicist of CERN and the adopted daughter of Leonardo Vetra. She helped her adoptive father create the antimatter and she proves to be a great help in the troubles that came their way when they were in the biggest adventure of their lives.

Maximilian Kohler
Maximilian Kohler is the director of the world's largest scientific facility: Switzerland's CERN (Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire).His peers know him as King Kohler, mostly out of fear than admiration. This man is far from ordinary-- he has a custom-made movable command post (his wheelchair!) which was equipped with a bank of electronics such as a small computer, a multiline phone, a paging system and a small detachable camera. CERN employs over three-thousand physicists and more than half of the world's particle physicists comprising of sixty nationalities. With that many of the world's most brilliant minds in his command, what has that wheelchair-wheeling crippled genius been up to? Making scientific miracles, of course. In Kohler's own words: "Our scientists produce miracles almost daily". Kohler plays a very important role in the complicated plot of angels and demons as this almost-mad scientist tries and succeeds to help the real protagonists to save the day.

The Nameless Hassasin
The nameless hassasin is the killer in this story and though the novel provides a few insights into his (sick) thoughts, the killer remains anonymous. It was through him that the secret Illuminati master carried out the gruesome plans of killing the four cardinals most likely to become pope one-by-one using the four ancient elements of science (earth, air, fire, water) at the four altars of science. The Four Cardinals:

Cardinal Ebner of Frankfurt
Cardinal Ebner was killed in the first altar of science, The "Chigi Chapel". In its earlier days, it was called "Capella dela Terra" which literally translates into chapel of the earth. This is strangely befitting because this cardinal was buried halfway through the earth with a fistful of soil shoved up his mouth and was branded with the ambigramatic symbol of earth.
Cardinal Lamasse of Paris
Cardinal Lamasse was killed in the second altar of science, The West Ponente in the famed St. Peter's Square. He was killed by "air", which here means his lungs were punctured and his chest was seared with the ambigramatic symbol of air.
Cardinal Guidera of Barcelona
In my opinion, Cardinal Guidera died the most painful death. He died by fire in the chapel of Sta. Maria dela Vittoria, which actually means that he was suspended by cable wires over a flaming altar with the ambigram "fire" stamped across his chest.
Cardinal Aldo Baggia of Italy
He would have been pope, had he not been drowned by that reckless hassasin into the fountain at Piazza Navona. He was the last cardinal to die, and it was almost painless; he simply accepted his death in the name of God.
Cardinal Saverio Mortati
Mortati was the Grand Elector in the conclave and he was the Devil's Advocate during the late pope's reign.
Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca Ventresca was the late pope's chamberlain who played a very important part in the course of events in the story. Let's just say that he was the glue that held it all together.
The Swiss Guards
* Lieutenant Chartrand
* Captain Elias Rocher
* Commander Olivetti

Sylvie Baudeloque
Sylvie was Maximilian Kohler’s secretary at CERN. She was a very religious woman who strongly believed in God and her Catholic faith. She was one of the people who were astounded by what happened in Vatican City.

Gunther Glick
A frustrated BBC reporter with a red beard. For some reason, the hassassin contacted this story-starved struggling reporter to broadcast the cardinal’s murders, making him famous. But his fame was short lived... Since he accused CERN to be the hideout of the Illuminati and George Bush to be a financier. Of course, none of those two were very pleased...

Chinita Macri
Gunther Glick’s camerawoman who prefers to be called a videographer.

Summary:

Exposition: The exposition in the story is when Robert Langdon gets a call in the dead of the night from mysterious Maximilian Kohler, the director of the world's largest scientific facility. At first Langdon regards the caller as a hoax, a practical joke by one of his students from the university. There is absolutely no way that a thousand year old satanic cult could leave its legendary mark on a particle physicist in a tightly secured research facility, right? Wrong. Very, very wrong. That's what Langdon finds out when he flies across six time zones to get to Switzerland, the home of CERN. When the altitude-sick Langdon descends on the massive buildings comprising CERN, he didn't know that he was going to face his biggest challenge yet—survival.

Complication: From there, the mysteries get laid down as one of CERN's pioneer scientists, Leonardo Vetra, was killed and branded with an ambigramatic symbol of "Illuminati." Furthermore, his research, the world's first particles of antimatter (see definition of terms). was stolen by an unknown adversary. When the antimatter was stolen, it was removed from the power source that kept it from getting contact with matter. A backup battery was running to keep the antimatter from annihilating but there's a catch: after 24 hours, the battery will run out. After 24 hours, everything within a half-mile radius will be liquidated-- literally. Now Robert Langdon and Vittoria Vetra, the murdered scientist/priest's adopted daughter must try to find the antimatter before it annihilates. They also need to find out who stole the antimatter, since NOBODY was supposed to know about the antimatter except Vittoria and her adoptive father. Then they get a call from the Swiss Guard, it seems that the stolen antimatter is on a live video feed from the Vatican City. According to the time on the video feed, the antimatter will detonate at exactly 12 midnight. With a shrewd but not useless idea of where the antimatter was and with no time to spare, the two sped off to Vatican City for a day in Rome neither of them will ever forget. At the Vatican, while talking to the Camerlengo (chamberlain), they receive a call from the hassassin himself. They were told that the four cardinals were going to be killed one by one, starting at 8:00 at the four altars of science. Then, at 12 midnight, the antimatter will annihilate...

Climax: The climax in the story begins when Langdon and Vittoria explored the “Archiviano Vaticano” or the Vatican Secret Archives and found a hundred-year old poem in Galileo Galilei’s Diagramma. The poem was written by John Milton and seemed to be the clue to find the altars of science. At first they didn’t know what the altars were, but then the clue they had was that they were used to honor the four ancient elements of science: Earth, Air, Fire and Water. The poem was written in perfect iambic pentameter and pointed them to “Santi’s earthly tomb with demon’s hole.” Who was Santi? Who else but the great Raphael, the renaissance painter. After a grave mistake, they do find the correct location which is at the Santa Maria del Popolo chapel, specifically the Capella dela Terra (Chapel of the Earth). They arrive late and find Cardinal Ebner of Frankfurt— mouth stuffed with soil and dead. Following the poem’s last line, “Let angels guide you on your lofty quest”, they followed the angel’s hand in the sculpture Habakkuk and the Angel and were led to St. Peter’s Square, where the “West Ponente” or the West Wind was... Air if you want to get technical. Cardinal Lamasse of Paris was found there—lungs punctured and very much dead. Following the West Ponente’s breeze, they proceeded to the chapel of Sta. Maria de la Vittoria where they found Cardinal Guidera of Barcelona—no, not dead yet, just suspended by cables over a flaming altar and being burned alive. It was at this point that Vittoria was kidnapped by the hassassin and was carried off to the Illuminati lair. He didn’t realize that this was his biggest mistake so far because Langdon will stop at nothing to save her. But before saving Vittoria, he followed the sculpture of the “Ecstasy of St. Teresa” to the Fountain of Four Rivers at Piazza Navona. He fought briefly with the hassassin but lost, and had to fake drowning to escape. Cardinal Baggia drowned there... and then Langdon realized he had another task ahead, finding Vittoria at the Illuminati Lair. He eventually found the lair, which turned out to be the Castel Sant’ Angelo or the Castle of the Angel and found Vittoria. After a rendezvous with the devilish hassassin, Langdon and Vittoria managed to push the hassassin to his death—an open balcony. They may have won the battle but the war wasn’t over yet, they still had to find the antimatter.

Denouement: Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca did it. He tricked the hassassin into thinking that the Illuminati still existed and made him kidnap and kill the cardinals. And yes, he also stole the antimatter. Plus, he killed the pope. His motives? Simple, brilliant and utterly twisted. “For centuries,” the Camerlengo said, “the church has stood by while science picked away at religion bit by bit. Debunking miracles. Training the mind to overcome the heart. Condemning religion as the opiate of the masses. They denounce God as a hallucination—a delusional crutch for those too weak to accept that life is meaningless. I could not stand by while science presumed to harness the power of God himself! Proof, you say? Yes, proof of science’s ignorance! What is wrong with the admission that something exists beyond our understanding? The day science substantiates God is the day people stop needing faith! Science, by definition, is soulless. Divorced from the heart. Intellectual miracles like antimatter arrive in this world with no ethical instructions attached. This in itself is perilous! Promising answers to questions whose beauty is that they have no answers? No. But more and more people believe in science. Religion needed a miracle. Something to awaken a sleeping world and bring them back to righteousness. I needed to restore faith... even if by using evil to do God’s will.” The Camerlengo killed the pope because of what he thought was righteous anger. The pope, his mentor, confessed to him that he had a child. Ventresca didn’t stop to listen to his holiness’ explanations and immediately concluded that he had broken his vow of chastity and fooled the world. So he poisoned the pope with a drug called Heparin.

Resolution: Cardinal Mortati decided to tell the truth. When the pope confessed that he had a child, Ventresca didn’t hear his next words. He was the son. And technically, the pope didn’t break any rules because it was made possible by artificial insemination which meant he didn’t break his vow. Carlo Ventresca was shocked beyond belief and ran down, down, down to the Niche of the Palliums. Once there, he anointed his whole body with butane (smells like heaven but burns like hell!) and literally set himself on fire using a golden lighter.

Conclusion: Just when the Camerlengo thought everything went the way he planned, the truth came out. A lot of lives were wasted in the story, but a lot more were saved. Robert Langdon fell in love with Vittoria and she with him. Cardinal Saverio Mortati was elected Pope and he asked Langdon and Vittoria to let their hearts guide them as to the matter of discretion about the events of the past 24 hours. But the new pope didn’t need to ask them to remain discreet, as they already decided to when they survived the events that gave both of them a new meaning for the words love and life.

Reactions, Comments:
Dan Brown wrote such a believable book that expertly fused fact and fiction to successfully narrate one of the most astonishing adventures of unlikely heroes. This is quite an educational book with facts revealed about the origins of the Catholic Religion and its ties to other religions everywhere around the world. The novel really comes to life with Brown’s accurate, inventive and precise descriptions of the various locations, architectural feats and other icons involved in the story. It created just the right blend of likable and despicable characters embedded in the intricate plot topped with a phenomenal ending guaranteed to shock even the most experienced reader. One of my few comments regarding the story is that the scientifically-oriented jargon may be difficult for some readers to understand. But even if that may be a down-side, this book enhanced my vocabulary by 50 percent and even inspired me to write a few stories of my own. Dan Brown did make a few mistakes though... (they are mentioned in the book “Unlocking Angels and Demons ”). One of these is the collective term used to refer to the four cardinals eligible to become pope which the book says is “Preferiti.” In real life, the correct term is “Papabili.” Point two, in a real Rome City map, the four churches (Capella dela Terra, St. Peter’s square, Sta. Maria dela Vittoria and Piazza Navona) do NOT form a cross, as the book says. And Castel Sant’ Angelo’s bridge does not pass exactly through one of the lines that make the cross. Point three, “La Purga” never occured, though every author is entitled to invent circumstances to make their plot more believable.

Social Relevance: The novel "Angels and Demons's" social relevance lies in the antediluvian topic of Science against Religion. In the story, Camerlengo Carlo Ventresca resurrects the ancient brotherhood of "Illuminati" to reinstate fear into the hearts of Catholics and bring them back to God. The man firmly believed that the Catholic Religion's strength is in its tradition, not its transience. In our world, I do not think that this is possible. The only permanent thing is change, and, as all things adapt to alterations, so must every religion. Life cannot depend on its past simply for the sake of upholding tradition for transience is inevitable and ineludible. Change in the Catholic religion must not be feared nor despised, because as change happens, faith evolves too. Sometimes, transience leads to an even deeper understanding of the benevolent and the omnipotent. Benevolent means to be marked by the purpose of doing good and omnipotent means to have virtually unlimited influence or authority. Dan Brown's novel points out that God is both omnipotent and benevolent because even though he has complete control over our lives, he lets us learn by giving us our freedom and lets us learn by our mistakes for our own good. People all over the world have been fighting over science and religion for the longest time, and this novel presents quite a different idea to the public. It suggests that science and religion are allies, not enemies. They work hand in hand to create miracles everyday. If science and all its laws is one big magic trick, there must be a great magician behind it all. That magician is God. If people accepted this idea, then the great war between religion and science will be over and both of the sides will be well accounted for. None of them will lose but neither will triumph over the other. Both of them will simply merge to form one concrete and profound definition that will be composed of both their beliefs. If the two would just compromise and try to listen, understand and accept ideas far from their own, they would open their minds to new ideas and broaden their horizons to new heights. If you ask me, these two immortal enemies would achieve more if they work together and cooperate rather than working apart while detesting each other. If you think about it, science and religion are actually focused upon a common goal which is to achieve the higher understanding of life... In religion this is called “achieving eternal life”, while in science this is “determining the singularity.” In our wildly strange world, a strong fusion of fact and faith, the intangible and the tangible, the abstract and corporeal and the theoretical and the physical may be just what we need to understand what life is ultimately all about.

Definition of Terms:

1. CERN- Conseil Europeen pour la Recherche Nucleaire is the world's largest scientific facility located in Switzerland.
2. Ambigram- an ambigram is a symbol that looks the same even if you look at it right side up or upside down. Examples of these are the Christian Cross and the Hindu's Swastika.
3. Hassasin- The word hassasin came from the potent intoxicant "hashish", which was the drug that a certain group of people used when they celebrated. These people were notoriously skilled executioners who were renowned for their brutal killings. They were known by a single word-- "hassasin"-- which literally means "followers of hashish." Hassasin is still used nowadays except it is now pronounced as "asssasin."
4. Antimatter- "Antimatter is identical to physical matter except that it is composed of particles whose electric charges are opposite to those found in normal matter. It is the most powerful energy source known to man. It releases energy with 100 percent efficiency (nuclear fission is 1.5 percent efficient). Antimatter creates no pollution or radiation, and a droplet could power New York City for a full day. There is however, one catch: Antimatter is highly unstable. It ignites when it comes in contact with absolutely anything... even air. A single gram of antimatter contains the energy of a 20-kiloton nuclear bomb-- the size of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. Until recently, antimatter has only been created in very small amounts (a few atoms at a time). But CERN has now broken ground on its new Antiproton Decelerator-- an advanced antimatter production facility that promises to create antimatter in much larger quantities."1
__________________ 1 Brown, Dan. Angels and Demons. 1230 Avenue of the Americas; N.Y.: Simon & Chuster Inc., 2000, p. IX
5. Singularity- a point or region of infinite mass density at which space and time are infinitely distorted by gravitational forces and which is held to be the final state of matter falling into a black hole.- a point at which the derivative of a given function of a complex variable does not exist but every neighborhood of which contains points for which the derivative exists.
6. Obelisk- Etymology: Middle French obelisque, from Latin obeliscus, from Greek obeliskos, from diminutive of obelos.Date: 1569- An obelisk is an upright 4-sided usually monolithic pillar that gradually tapers as it rises and terminates in a pyramid
7. Annihilation- To annihilate is to vanish or cease to exist by coming together and changing into other forms of energy (as radiation or particles).
8. Conclave- a private meeting or secret assembly; especially : a meeting of Roman Catholic cardinals secluded continuously while choosing a pope.
9. Swiss Guards- Italian Guardia Svizzera corps of Swiss-born soldiers responsible for the safety of the pope. They serve as personal escorts to the pontiff and as watchmen for Vatican City and the pontifical villa of Castel-Gandolfo.-The guards, who are independent of the Swiss armed forces, are employed by the Roman Catholic Church under the leadership of the pope, to whom they swear fealty in a ceremony at Belvedere Court. New recruits must prove that they are of Swiss origin, born in wedlock, Roman Catholic, unmarried, less than 25 years old, and healthy and free of physical deformities.
10. Necropolis- plural Necropolises, Necropoles, Necropoleis, or Necropoli (from Greek nekropolis, “city of the dead”), in archaeology, an extensive and elaborate burial place of an ancient city. In the Mediterranean world, they were customarily outside the city proper and often consisted of a number of cemeteries used at different times over a period of several centuries. The locations of these cemeteries were varied. In Egypt many, such as western Thebes, were situated across the Nile River opposite the cities, but in Greece and Rome a necropolis often lined the roads leading out of town. One of the most famous necropolises was discovered in the 1940s under the central nave of St. Peter's Basilica in Rome.

****************************

In retrospect, there are a few other things I should have pointed out. The pope had a child, which is probably enough to make the Vatican ban the filmmakers from shooting inside Citta de Dio itself. Oh, wait, they did. A speaker for the Vatican said they didn't even need to read the script: It had "Dan Brown" on it. But as director Ron Howard said in an interview... "Officially, we weren't allowed to shoot inside Vatican, but cameras can be made really small."
But I swear to (G/g)od/s [(G/g)oddess/es] this is not like the lame conspiracy theory presented in The Da Vinci Code. When I read that, it just left me with a rather unpleasant after-taste. The story could have been good, (the development was superb) had he not tried so hard to make it a "huge huge huge" issue. Which it became. But it wasn't, really. And made it a hype book. (See Mico Subosa's entry on hype books.) I guess that works for him though. And follow-up question: Would it really matter that much if Jesus had a child? I actually think that would be pretty great, since that would show that he really went through the things that normal people on earth go through. He was also "only human," right? Which meant he was a carbon-based sentient life form descended from early primates like the rest of us. I'm going to stop before start rambling about DVC.
Another point: the unification of science and religion. Hmm. I think we all know what happens when you suggest that.
All in all, it was a great read. REALLY. I'm not just saying that because I'm an agnostic who happens to like conspiracy theories. In fact, you'd appreciate it more if you were Catholic. Which you... probably are, since this is the Philippines. Excellent symbolism, a blend of fact and fiction, nerve-racking suspense, twists and turns, extremely cool ambigrams, and a mystery to end all mysteries. I've also been addicted to science fiction ever since. I will forever be thankful to this book for opening my eyes to the diversity of ideas in the world. (I was twelve when I read it.)
Don't get me wrong here, Brown is not the best writer out there. His prose borders on dreadful, and you often get the made-for-Hollywood-movie feel. He's commercial. I'm not saying "read this for literary appreciation" I'm saying "read this for entertainment." It's enjoyable, it's not a drag, and you can get a lot of useful facts along the way.
And regarding Brown's other books... Deception Point is also good. Another conspiracy theory, with Rachel Sexton and Michael Toland as lead characters. And it's not about religion, don't ring the Vatican. It's about a meteor that crashed on earth a few billion years ago, and may or may not give proof to the existence of life forms on other planets. Set in the Milne Ice Shelf. Also suspense-filled and very entertaining. Another "this-was-meant-to-be-a-movie-script-but-I-turned-it-into-a-novel" book. Digital Fortress, on the other hand, was like a watered-down and less engaging version of 24: I don't recommend it. I can't even remember what happened in that, except for a few scenes in a South American country that involved a jacket.
Out of his four novels (so far), Angels and Demons really stands out as the best one. I hear he has one about Freemasons coming out soon.
See the movie May 15, 2009.