08.29.09
How Do I Count The Days?
a day less
until I see you?
or
a day more
since I last saw you?
.
08.26.09
A Coffee-Flavoured Visit
I had the most delightful surprise last week!
My Twinnie, vacationing from her masteral studies in Taiwan, came to Dipolog.
As serendipital evidence of our twin-ness,
Tonet brought these from a recent trip to Japan;
.
and I prepared this for her the minute she informed me of her visit:
You see, even our chocolates are musical - coffee flavoured, too!
Naturally, I grilled Esspresso Bach-becue in her honour;
…
with Misha, we frolicked in the caffeinated gloaming;
.
and uploaded the first take of our impromptu recording for our bestfriends
(who missed the fun… boo-hoo) in Brunei, Franz and Reji.
.
I love her, i love her, i love her! =)
.
08.23.09
Joyce: Dubliners
Suffused with that Irish melancholic air, Dubliners is a progression of fifteen short stories, and is probably the most fathomable work by James Joyce. Yet, as I have learnt from readings in the past, short stories and petite volumes should never be belittled, for their weight in artistry and human observation usually vies with the thickest of novels as exhibited here. While Dubliners is not devoid of several poetic or musical surprises, it cannot be a book I can admit to enjoying due to the sustained dismal mood, but one which I know will have an impact on my sensibilities as a writer if ever I decide to be one.
¤ ¤ ¤
The Dead, the fifteenth story, is a haunting and lasting finale that seems to make the other fourteen stories unforgettable through contagion. In this tale which is longer than the preceding ones, Gabriel Conroy discovers his wife’s past romance as a consequence of a tenor’s song. However, an earlier line from Gabriel’s little speech at the dinner hosted by his aunts stuck to me:
“But we are living in a sceptical and, if I may use the phrase, a thought-tormented age: and sometimes I fear that this new generation, educated or hypereducated as it is, will lack those qualities of humanity of hospitality, of kindly humor which belonged to an older day.”
Even though Gabriel intended his words to graze the height of Irish Nationalism in the early 1900’s, I think this particular passage is still pertinent to some of today’s institutions and individuals. I am especially amused with the word hypereducated and how it is not rendered as something too positive. I would like to digress from the review and indulge on this topic but my time online is limited.
I remain laptop-lessly yours,
The Page-Turner
.
08.15.09
Proust: Sodom and Gomorrah
“… might consciousness have the unreality of a dream?”
There was much apprehension on my part pertaining the pursuit of this volume. The title is rather self-evident. Sodom and Gomorrah probes into the realms of homosexuality – a subject which is nowadays prevalent but one which, frankly speaking, still leaves me uneasy. But such is Proust’s courage as an author. He does not leave a stone regarding human characteristic unturned.
I was tiptoeing throughout the entire book for fear that I might stumble upon obscenities that would make me shun Proust forever. Nevertheless, I reached the last page relieved and pleased that despite his honesty and boldness, his language was nowhere near vulgar as opposed to Truman Capote’s shocking jargon – for me at least – in Answered Prayers, which never got me further than the fourth page. (If one suspects that the comparison is unlawful, please be reminded that Capote maintained the idea that Answered Prayers would be a contemporary equivalent to In Search of Lost Time.)
Sodom and Gomorrah commences with our narrator accidentally witnessing a sexual encounter between the Baron de Charlus and another man. Proust is a homosexual, but since In Search of Lost Time is not entirely autobiographical but a conglomeration of real memories and what-could-have-beens in Proust’s life, our narrator remains masculine and is observer to the people whom he describes as “inverts”. As an observer, he neither attempts to defend homosexuality nor expresses what he deems to be right or wrong but presents truths without the usual prejudices.
However, “Sodom” is but only a part of the book. The volume touches different aspects of sexuality as Marcel’s romance with Albertine (whom he suspects to have affairs with her own sex) both inspires him and tears him apart. I believe this is the most heart-piercing volume so far.
“It was natural, and yet it was not without importance; they reminded me that it was my fate to pursue phantoms, creatures whose reality existed to a great extent in my imagination; for there are people – and this had been my case since youth – for whom all the things that have a fixed value, assessable by others, fortune, success, high positions, do not count; what they must have is phantoms.”
“I do not have an observant mind,” Marcel declares in page 473 despite his penetrating and extraordinary observations about life or about otherwise invisible details. But there might be truth in the statement, for I am verily convinced that since Proust is not satisfied in painting images but goes to the extent of making the reader touch and be touched, and be aware of life’s every fibre, it must have been the eyes of his heart that were wide open.
.
08.04.09
The Picture of Durian Cream
“The studio was filled with the rich odour of roses, and when the light summer wind stirred amidst the trees of the garden there came through the open door the heavy scent of the lilac, or the more delicate perfume of the pink-flowering thorn – ” Thus began The Picture of Dorian Gray, but pardon me and this different odour of which I am about to waft your way – the durian odour. Ah, durian! Love it or hate it. I choose to love it.
My imagination is fermenting a conference attended by Diane Ackerman, Colette, Baudelaire, and Proust among other scent experts of their sort all for the sake of the durian. What would they have written of this fruity paradox? Would the women liken it to a man, fierce and savage externally but tender and luscious inwardly? Or would the men in turn compare it to a woman whose essences both repel and bewitch at the same time? Nevertheless, scientific fact aside that it has proven to contain extremely aphrodisiac qualities, I have a strong feeling that if such a symposium were possible, they would all agree on the durian being a most sensual fruit. The same assemblage would have intoxicated us with their Picture of Durian Cream - wilder than Wilde!
Once again the durian is in season and although Davao City is rightfully the Philippines’ durian republic, my Dipolog is fairly blessed with several orchards of the exotic fruit and I have taken advantage of that fact by whipping up an easy but nonetheless satisfying stab at durian ice cream. I did not even have to bother myself with the ice cream maker this time. Two boxes of all-purpose cream was all I needed, a can of condensed milk, one cup of succulent durian flesh, half a cup of cheese, and Mama’s Kitchen Aid. Once frozen, you can even dump it in your espresso and voilà! Durian coffe!
Want some? Hurry to Café Romano while supplies last – and I’m telling you, it won’t last long. ;-)
.
