Father and Son

Here is a picture of me and my son. Looking at it helps keep on the right path. Reminds me of what I’m working for. Defines my reason for being.

raison d' etre

Sagot Kay Vinouel

I have seen a few films in my time. Whoah! What an understatement. I have been a film buff all my life. Ever since I was in short pants watching the still photographs pasted on the wall of our town’s Boulevard Theater, films have captivated me. As an instruction specialist, I have influenced a lot of my students to watch good films. Films that make you think, that take the air out of your lungs, make you scratch your head and say”Did I just see that happen?”–these films make my day. As a response to my student who posted his top 25 movies, I am going to make public the top 5 Pinoy films ever. These are films that I saw personally so no offense meant if I omit gems such as “Badjao” or “Anak Dalita”. I haven’t had the chance to see them.
BHOJOH’s TOP 5
(Some summaries courtesy of imdb. Pls. don’t sue me…)
5. Himala (warning badly written synopsis from wikipedia. tinatamad eh.)
The setting is a small town named Cupang, a community set in an arid landscape. The lack of water is believed by the town to be due to a curse placed on them for driving away a diseased person years before.Elsa “sees” the Blessed Virgin Mary atop a barren hill.She begins to heal Cupang’s residents and she is associated by friends, Chayong and Sepa. Lots of tourists come to Cupang to visit what is now called “Elsa’s Shrine.” At the same time, greed works. Cupang’s residents started businesses for the tourist’s money. Orlie, a filmmaker, arrives to investigate Elsa. Nimia, Elsa’s childhood friend now a prostitute, returns haunted by Manila’s darkness. She builds a cabaret for the tourists. The cabaret closes because a resident complains.Elsa and Chayong were raped on the hill and Orlie filmed it without giving help.There was a cholera epidemic with Sepa’s children dying because of it.. Chayong hung herself because of the rape. Elsa blamed herself for all of the deaths.Tourists left because of the deaths and because of a Chinese businessman’s murder.Elsa became pregnant, and this was proclaimed as “The Immaculate Conception” (Elsa conceiving a child without a father, but this was due to her rape).The rain convinced the people that the miracle has returned and the curse was lifted.Elsa called all the people to an assembly on the hill and a big crowd arrived before her,Elsa then confessed that there are no miracles, no appearances of the Virgin Mary and no visions and that people are the ones who make up gods, miracles, curses and the such.Elsa was shot by a man in the middle of her confession in front of the crowd.A stampede ensues and the old and infirm who came to be healed are crushed in the mass hysteria. Blood and death are all over the hill.Elsa dies in her mothers arms and her body was taken to the hospital. The people were then led in praying the Hail Mary on their knees while going up the hill.

4. Aguila
“Flashbacks encompass the history of the Philippines as well as the life story of the elderly Daniel Aguila (Fernando Poe, Jr.) in this three-and-a-half-hour drama. The Aguila family gathers to celebrate Daniel’s 88th birthday, but the old man is nowhere to be seen — he has been missing for a decade. Suspecting that his father is in Mindanao, one of his sons (Christopher de Leon) takes off for that region in a determined search. Along the way, his memories of the nation and his father’s life tell the story of eighty tumultuous years of personal and historical development.”
3. Kisapmata
A powerful drama starring Jay Ilagan. A gripping story of murder, incest, and parricide. While watching this film, you get an eerie feeling of foreboding, as if something really, really bad is about to happen. Boasts of a tour de force performance by Vic Silayan.

2. Batch 81
Batch ‘81 examines the lives of seven neophytes as they strive to enter a Greek letter fraternity through a difficult hazing process. The entire experience is seen through the eyes of Sid Lucero, one of the neophytes.
1. Oro, Plata, Mata
Oro Plata Mata traces the changing fortunes of two aristocratic families in Negros during World War II. The Ojeda family is celebrating Maggie Ojedas (Andolong) debut. In the garden, Trining (Gil) receives her first kiss from Miguel Lorenzo (Torre), her childhood sweetheart. Don Claudio Ojeda (Ojeda) and his fellow landowners talk about war. The youngest guests mock Miguels refusal to join the army and brand him mamas boy. The celebration is cut short by news of the fall of the Corregidor. As war nears the city, the Ojedas accept the invitation extended by the Lorenzos, their old family friends, to stay with them in their provincial hacienda. Nena Ojeda (Lorena) and Inday Lorenzo (Asensio) try to deny the realities of war by preserving their pre-war lifestyle. Pining for her fiancé, Maggie goes through bouts of melancholy. Miguel and Trining turn from naughty children into impetuous adults.

Two more family friends a doctor, Jo Russell (Valdez), guerillas and Viring (Villanueva) join them. As the enemy advance, the families move to the Lorenzos forest lodge. A group of weary guerillas arrive and Jo tends to their injuries. The guerillas leave Hermes Mercurio (Lazaro) behind. Miguel endures more comments of the same kind when he fails to take action against a Japanese soldier who came upon the girls bathing in the river. It is Mercurio who kills the Japanese. Maggie comforts Miguel, who decides to learn how to shoot from Mercurio. Meanwhile, Virings jewelry is stolen by Melchor (de la Cruz), the trusted foreman. He justifies his action as a reward for his services. He tries his to break the other servants loyalty, but they force Melchor to leave. Later, Melchor and his band of thieves return. They raid the food supplies, rape Inday and chop off Virays fingers when she does not take off her ring. Trining goes with the bandits, despite all the crimes they have committed against her family. These experiences committed Maggie and Miguel closer together. Miguel urges the survivors to resume their mahjong games to help them cope. Miguel is determined to hunts the bandits down and bring Trining back. He catches them, but his courage is replaced with bloodlust, driving him to a killing spree. An epilogue follows the violent climax. The Americans have liberated the Philippines from Japan. A party is held in the Ojeda home to announce Maggie and Miguels betrothal. The survivors attempt to reclaim their previous lifestyle, but the war has changed the world, just as it has forever marked each of them
I promise to improve this entry. Pramis….

the incredible shrinking man

Here I am again, after a long sabbatical. Too many things to do, too much writer’s block, too much to write about= matagal na walang blog entry. Let me begin this new life with a picture for you guys to comment on.
Am I shrinking or what?

Bhojoh is shrinking...as Dido grows bigger.

be back soon

Lots of things to do. no time to improve this blog. be patient my dear readers– for the Instrucion Specialist will be back very soon. I promise.

Absence

Sorry guys. Been too busy. Promise to get the creative juices flowing again after the periodical exams. Maraming kuwento, maraming rants. The instruction specialist will be back with a vengeance.

“Pretend You’re Happy When You’re Blue…”

"Star Crossed Lovers?"

What is it with Haruki Murakami and his male characters? I feel that he is writing about me. The hero of his latest novel is just like me– his temperament and loss I mean. Or am I just too affected by the hurt? I don’t know. Maybe I’m just too sympathetic with his characters that I tend to identify myself with them. The implication? I can’t write a proper review of any of his books. It would be filled with digressions on the similarity of his characters’ predicaments to mine.  Anyway, here’s a better review from complete-review.com:

“South of the Border, West of the Sun is an odd echo of Murakami’s Norwegian Wood , written five years earlier. In both the narrator is 37 (though in Norwegian Wood the focus is on the narrator’s university years, while in South of the Border the crisis is in the present). In both music serves as a significant backdrop — most notably, among the many tunes, the Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood” in the eponymous novel, and Nat King Cole’s “South of the Border” and “Star-Crossed Lovers” in the other. Women disappear from each narrator’s life, and much is left unspoken and unexplained. And there are strong autobiographical elements in both — like the narrator of this novel Murakami also ran a jazz bar, for example.
South of the Border is a novel about a midlife crisis. Hajime, the narrator is a single child, born in 1951 when there were few single children in Japan. He has a close childhood friend, Shimamoto, a girl with a partially lame leg who is also a single child. Young love does not quite blossom and they grow apart once they begin attending different junior high schools, but the connection between the two was obviously a strong one. She remains on his mind long after.
In high school Hajime has a girlfriend, Izumi; he hurts her deeply by having a wild, purely sexual affair with her cousin. He goes to college, gets a boring job, and finally gets married when he is thirty, to Yukiko. Her father offers him the chance to open his own business, and he takes it, opening first one and then a second jazz bar. It turns out that this something that he is good at, and that satisfies him.
Hajime and his wife have two daughters, and lead a fairly happy existence. But Hajime isn’t completely satisfied. For one his father-in-law has vaguely drawn him into shady businesses and then insider trading. And then there is the lingering memory of Shimamoto.
Hajime never really got her out of his mind, and he still turns (and occasionally runs after) every lame woman he encounters. Once he thought he saw her in the street and followed her, leading to a bizarre confrontation — an event that is never completely understood by him.
A magazine article about the successful jazz-bar owner leads a number of his old friends to get in touch with him again. One tells him about seeing Izumi, whose life has clearly not gone very well. And then, suddenly, Shimamoto appears in his bar.
Even then her presence is vague and unclear. She reveals little about her current situation, or what has happened to her since her youth. She fades from sight again, and reappears. Hajime is still drawn to her, and twice he goes on trips with her, putting his marriage in jeopardy. He is willing to give it all up for Shimamoto, but she has other sacrifices in mind.
Love is lost, time can not be regained. The past is done with, even if it haunts us. Eventually the midlife crisis is resolved: Hajime knows what he has to do.
When he was young the mysterious promise of what is “South of the Border” fascinated him. Eventually he learnt it meant nothing more than Mexico. “West of the Sun” is more elusive — Shimamoto gives the example of hysteria siberiana, an illness affecting Siberian farmers overwhelmed by the distance in and the plains of Siberia, heading off “like someone possessed” for a land west of the sun. Hajime conquers the urge and the illusion, staying in place.
A melancholy, subtle, simple and elusive story, South of the Border is not entirely successful. There is, perhaps, too little to it. The story moves forward rapidly, with only a few significant encounters and events. Murakami could have fleshed it out more. Nevertheless, it is a good, quick, and ultimately haunting read.”

Again I sigh.

Sabbatical

Sorry for the long pause in between posts. i have been afflicted by the same disease that haunted writers like Shakespeare, De Maupassant, Balzac and others. I had a severe case of writer’s block.

Imagine staring at a blank computer screen for hours. You’re reduced to counting pixels and counting the number of blinks that the cursor performs. I hate that line, the cursor. It accuses me, everytime it blinks, in an unending rhythm that tattoos into my mind. It seems to say “bleh, bleh, bleh, bleh”…with every blink. I had half a mind to take the chair and smash the computer screen that accuses me for my block.

But what can I do? I miss the days when I only used paper and ink. At least I could doodle the blank page out. Or space out while making countless isosceles triangles, or maybe write the name of the current crush and count the letters as in “FLAMES”. No blank screen to accuse me.

Did I mention that I have writer’s block?

the pain!the pain!

“I Once Had A Girl”

a nice little gem from Japan

I got hold of this nice little novel from Haruki Murakami. I may be a little late in applauding him, but this guy is good. His characters are well developed, and they are painted well in the canvas that is Murakami’s plot. Toru, reminds me of me, but with less suicidal friends. Or maybe i share the same longing he feels. Ah. This is getting bad, I’m associating everything with the “hurt”.

Anyway, here’s a better review courtesy of the completereview.com:

“The novel is not as wildly imagined as much of Murakami’s work that Western audiences are familiar with. It is a fairly straightforward Bildungsroman, closest in feel to Murakami’s recent South of the Border, West of the Sun .
The Beatles song from which the book takes its title echoes throughout the novel, the melancholy tune and sentiment imbuing the work. The novel begins with a brief introductory chapter in which the 37 year old narrator, Toru Watanabe, once again hears the song, a “sweet orchestral cover version” this time. It reminds him of his life almost twenty years earlier, and the rest of the book retells the events of those times.
The murky ambiguity and confusion of The Beatles song is similar to that in the novel. It is a love story, or several love stories, as baffling as love often is. The Beatles sang: “I once had a girl / or should I say / she once had me”. Toru is similarly unclear as to how he should consider his relationships.
There are two women involved. One is Naoko. In high school she was Toru’s best (and only) friend’s girlfriend, and the three of them got along very well. Then the friend, Kizuki, only 17 at the time, committed suicide; Toru and Naoko would not see one another for almost a year after the funeral.
Toru wanted to escape Kobe, where they had all grown up together, and he opted to go to a private university in Tokyo. Naoko also came to Tokyo for college, and it is there they run into one another again. They see each other on occasion, and make love once — after which Naoko leaves Tokyo. Emotionally unstable she returns to her family, and then goes to live in a sort of sanatorium.
The second woman Toru gets involved with is Midori (which means “green”), whom he meets after Naoko has left. She is in the same History of Drama class as him. Both Midori and Naoko are not entirely approachable. They like, or even love Toru, but they are wary of having him close or revealing too much about themselves. Midori’s father, who she first says is off in Uruguay, is actually very sick, and Midori and her sister spend much of their time taking care of him. Toru accepts things as they come, always helpful but trying not too intrude too much. He is drawn to Midori but feels an obligation towards Naoko.
There are few other significant people in his life. His parents are hardly a presence at all. He has a fastidious roommate, nicknamed the Storm Trooper, who simply disappears from his life. He makes one good friend, the only person he meets who has read his favourite book at the time, The Great Gatsby (replacing his previous favourite — John Updike’s The Centaur !). Nagasawa is two years older than him, a law student at Todai (Tokyo University) with a promising career ahead of him. A great success with the women, he occasionally takes Toru with him when he goes to bars or the like, looking for a one-night stand. Toru enjoys these outings, though they are also unfulfilling for him.
Nagasawa also has a steady girlfriend, the too-understanding Hatsumi, who sticks by him despite his philandering and his cold philosophy. It is also an ill-fated relationship.
After several months in her sanatorium Naoko asks Toru to come visit, which he does. It is a striking, secluded place, with an odd assortment of characters. Naoko’s roommate, the older Reiko — a music teacher with her own sad tale of a relationship that could not be sustained (she had a husband and child, but she left them) — acts as intermediary, friend, and chaperone. Needless to say, there is some guitar playing — including the haunting “Norwegian Wood”, and the time Toru spends there all has the feel of that particular song.
Nothing becomes settled for Toru, drawn closer to both Naoko and Midori. Crises come, including when Midori’s father dies. Midori also realizes that Toru is not ready to have a true relationship with her. She explains to him:

You were so nice to me when I was having my problems, but now that you’re having yours, it seems there’s not a thing I can do for you. You’re all locked up in that little world of yours, and when I try knocking on the door, you just sort of look up for a second and go right back inside.

There is, ultimately, another suicide (a somewhat too popular solution in Japan), and Toru finally figures things out in a quite satisfactory way.

The relatively simple story is told in a deceptively simple and straightforward manner. There is a lot of care and art behind what Murakami has done. The novel is affecting and clever. It is touching without getting too caught up in sentiment. Murakami even manages to use the Beatles song of the title without getting too unbearably sappy.
Tokyo, Japan in general, and the semi-turbulent times (the late 60s and early 70s) remain firmly in the background, but they are well-evoked and Murakami gives a good picture of them in using them for his setting.
The portrayal of sex in the book is relatively unusual. There is quite a lot of it, though most involves manual gratification of one sort or another. Actual consummation tends to be a unique experience, either a one-night stand or a once in a lifetime experience — perhaps a bit too much emphasis to place on the act.
The book is more obviously Japanese than most of Murakami’s work. From the surfeit of suicides (beside the significant ones a couple of peripheral figures and relatives are also suicides) to Japanese customs and expectations some of the book will strike Western readers as odd. Most of the book, however, comes across very well in this universal story of love, loss, and finding one’s place in the world.
Love, ultimately, is marvelous, even if it is unfathomable. “Isn’t it good / Norwegian wood”. Indeed.”

Here is where i sigh.

Birthday Greetings (however late they may be)

October 9 is John Lennon’s birthday. Yes, he may be a drug addled buffoon. Yes, he may not have been an ideal husband or father. Yes, he may have reached his level of incompetence when he fell in love with yoko ono. But never forget that he gave us the beatles, their songs and their genius. So happy birthday to you, Mister Lennon.

si mang john lennon

And also to you. Yes, you know who you are. The memories of you always bring me pain, yet I can’t drive them away. Must be because you share John Lennon’s birthday. Happy birthday.

Newest Acquisition din!

Thanks to my sister, Ma. Anne for getting me this magazine. Very dear.

kaganda, kahit medyo mahal