From KABLAGged to KABOOMed!

For a while there, I and the mundane yet necessary things to do in life had a falling out of sorts. The indifference between us would have been just fine with me as I would have rather just wanted to spend my time on an extended vacay anyway. I would have done so if not for the fact that the last ATM I visited had started to bleep insufficient funds. This thoroughly snipped my mercurial wings and sent me crashing to the ground at that very instant. What a bummer! Now I'm wishing I had the unlimited resources to lend me the power to choose what I want to do rather than be encumbered by an endless checklist of what I must do. To LIFE who has put me in this circumstance albeit a fluke (or is it all ME as the master of my own destiny?), touché to YOU (or to ME)!

On to a more colorful note, that last Baguio trip was truly epic. We left early morning of Friday (29th May). It was raining halfway through the trip. By the time we were in the outskirts of the city limits, a thick blanket of fog was rolling in on us. But everybody was in high spirits. We were laughing at even the most asinine of retorts, for crying out loud. Well, the tears came a bit later after a clandestine midnight escape in the falling rain and images of a dark, foggy winding road. Whodunnit? I'd rather not recycle the details of this story. As a very good friend said, this episode is better left DELETED. But for all it's worth, and speaking among close friends who are privy to the facts, that was EPIC indeed! Let's do it again! Hahahaha... I'm such a drama whore. Kekekeke... Why not? That definitely spiced up our everyday lives and somehow tightened our bond of friendship a notch or so. D'accord – Ach so? Notwithstanding, I so LOVE everyone of you guys!

The KABOOM part happened when we returned to Manila and at the very eve of my birthday, mind you. As this is an open secret to my clique of university and extended friends, all I can say is, para sa akin, it was a bonggang bonggang masigabong salubong of my birthday courtesy of my ever-caring and loving sistaz. Thank you one and all! Happy birthday to me...(and dare I say...) KABOOM! There it goes and yun lang po.

To be godded over and still dawdling

30-Oct-2008, 4:52 PM

I finally found room for a breather and what better way to dawdle in it than to take on a point of passion, which is also my point of refuge. Writing is the eye of the storm around me. It calms and soothes me while ironically it also tides over the recharging of creative impulses.

It has been three months since I last wrote in this blog. Much of the reason for my absence of entries is rooted on earning an income. I, like I guess most of us, am godded over by the demand-economics of living. Work for me is a non-issue. I never considered graphic design as work because whatever requirements a client may have, I am happy and willing to oblige. After all, it is one of my points of passion but only coming in at a very close second to writing. So, I am more inclined to think of graphic design as my income-generating skill and the entailing process as more of creative play than work.

Having said that, this is a snapshot of my schedule for the past week and from hereon in: Syngenta – packaging & brochures; Croma Medic/ Bausch & Lomb/ Santen/ Thea/ Kimia Pharma – various collaterals & creatives; Cathay Pacific – Marco Polo Club Qtr. 4 country update & 2009 table planner; Eventking – Dinos Alive! Manila banners, streamers & photo op standee; Eventking & Smart Communications – Smart Buddy Pacquiao - De La Hoya creatives & collaterals; and a variety of small projects in between.

Lately, I have been fascinated by oriental iconography. This is due in part to one of my favorite Korean dramas, The Great King Sejong, on KBS World (check their website for local schedule listings). I’m so caught in the Korean Hallyu. So, inspired by the traditional art of the Joseon dynasty, I rendered illustrations of stylized clouds and waves that I applied as textural background on the design studies I made for Cathay Pacific’s 2009 table planner.


Stylized oriental clouds graphic illustration by Kyn H. Firmalino © 2008.


Stylized oriental waves graphic illustration by Kyn H. Firmalino © 2008.

Which reminds me, Ms. Anna and Ms. Lynette, I’m working on the artworks & layout and I’ll be sending them to you for review shortly.

And now, it’s nearly time for me to return to the drawing board. In the meantime, I leave you Foals and Pizzicato Five (P5). They are on continuous shuffle in my computer’s player at the moment and they keep me good company. Olympic Airways is from the Foals’ debut album, Antidotes. This freshman album of the Brit lads from Oxford was released just this March.


Olympic Airways - Foals

On the other hand, P5 has been in the Shibuya sugar-pop scene since the early 1990s. The track here, called Baby Love Child, was released in 1994. Both are part of my soundtracks to life. Take a listen and you’ll understand why.


Baby Love Child - Pizzicato Five

P.S.: Thanks to the great writer from Stratford-upon-Avon for coining “godded” hence entering it in our literary lexicon. Regarding “Writing on Furlough Redux (once more),” I was planning to place a scan of Turkish Afterthoughts in here but I have lost my copy. I have yet to go to the journals & serials archive section of the National Library along T. M. Kalaw to get me another copy. Yes, I know, imagine the thought of trudging to a dingy mezzanine on the 3rd or 4th floor and searching hardbound yet threadbare serials on rickety shelves while barely-concerned, barely-there librarians chatter away. I love it! For all its state of disrepair, you’ve got to hand it to our National Library. It’s got character. This sentiment is selfish, and I digress a bit, but I hope that place doesn’t change. So, I’ll write the entry for the “Redux 2” as soon as I have the copy in hand. Happy returns to all and live well. Now, scoot back to your drawing boards!

On rainy days, it's best to have Erlend Øye at hand

There's a lot to say about weather and moods. It's been raining for the past few days and I can't shake off moments of wistfulness. I thought, I might as well go with the flow and put Erlend Øye on my player.

I've always loved Øye's works. His lyrical tone reminds me of another favorite, Tracey Thorn of Everything But The Girl (EBTG, with Ben Watt). The simplicity in composition and delivery pierces the soul then lifts it to heights of insights about your life.

The track in this post is from his 2006 side-project with The Whitest Boy Alive. I'm presupposing that his main band is Kings of Convenience with Eirik Bøe.

Listen to the Golden Cage. It's one of my favorite tracks in their Dreams album.



Then listen to this remix by DJ Fred Falke. It's as brilliant as the original. Falke took the opening chords and turned them into a hook that he looped into parts of this wonderful electronica-synth remix while seamlessly keeping the clear lyrical tone of Øye's vocals in the original.



On rainy days, I'd rather just curl up in bed and listen to Erlend Øye singing.

Work + Persephone's Bees = OTJ* Electropop Discofunk Fun

My work:





My soundtrack:



_______________
*on the job (OTJ)

P.S.: Writing on furlough redux once more, to follow soon.

Dancing to Øye and Bøe

Alone in my room at night with earphones on, I dance.

Life is tough but it is sweet. Obstacles may hinder my pace and push me offtrack at times but in moments like these, I turn to my soundtracks to life and dance.

Kings of Convenience, thanks for getting me back in groove.

Writing on furlough redux

So, recommencing on my last point in my previous post, these are some of my heroes in creative writing. With my other icons in other genres of fiction that run the gamut from Saul Bellow, Chaim Potok, Ernest Hemingway, Isabel Allende to Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Anatole France, Thomas Hardy, Jane Austen and so much more, their works are my points of inspiration.

As a matter of self promotion, I too have been published for fiction and poetry – four times so far, twice for short story and the same number for poetry. Reading my very first foray onto printed text now is quite embarrassing. It was a poem entitled “Children of the Streets” and I think I was lucky it was published by the Philippines Free Press, a national weekly news magazine. I was paid something like Php400 for it, which was a considerable amount at that time. That was 1990. My thoughts on the poem now is that it is sophomoric, to say the least.

My second published piece was a short story entitled “Small Talk,” which also appeared in the Philippines Free Press, in its June 24, 1995 issue. This was when I discovered that I enjoyed writing narratives and weaving imagery and mixing metaphors. Here are some excerpts from “Small Talk”:

Shafts of light had drawn shadows of leaves on the asphalt road of that single strip of parking lot fringed by trees on opposite sides. A wind blew just then and brought a leaf storm of sorts as leaf after leaf fell and hurtled on the coarse surface of the road like being swept by an invisible broom…

…So, it was nearly evening when we left that room but we did not notice the time or that we had already come out of the building. Neither did we notice how many people there were, as there were many, waiting for a jeepney ride under the shed in front of the Faculty Center. We all but forgot the traffic at Philcoa or the roads outside the university. We only noticed the play of twilight in hues of glowing yellows, orange and light reds streaming through the canopies of a hundred little round leaves of the big acacia trees that lined the asphalt road of the avenue we faced while we lightly tossed around pleasant small talk between snatches of silence.

And so we left the university sometime between the warm fading lights of dusk and the swift procession of nightfall, a bit happy with each other and a bit contented with ourselves and, assessing it now from memory, a bit wiser.

The third one was a poem whose authorship I am proud to stake claim. I think poetry suits my writing as well because of my love for the alchemy of imagery and metaphors but with a more limited and precise lexicon.

This one I entitled “Turkish Afterthoughts.” No, I haven’t been to that part of the world. I wrote the poem after a friend traveled to Turkey for a vacation. We met for some coffee and tea when she got back. That’s when I heard her stories of her wonderful time in that land of ancient Asia Minor. Her photo album helped too. I was able to write the poem in its published form in one sitting that night after we met.

(I have to take a break here again. Money beckons, I must comply. For my worth to subsist, I must not resist. With these words I momentarily leave you but I reckon, another redux of this topic is in order and will be in the works. I bid you adieu for now until my digits pound on the keys once more. Until then, dream and live the dream. Life is short. We must optimize living it while we are afforded the chance to do so. Albeit a clichéd caveat, it still is a universal truth. Live well.)

Writing on furlough

Seven months hence, I finally brought myself to write again. Of all my life’s activities so far, I have a passion for two things. The second is graphic design. The first is writing.

I’ve realized this early on but I find myself preoccupied in earning my keep by way of my second passion. I’ve found a small but steady market for my talent in this that has kept me financially afloat. This affords me to buy my bread, and butter it as well.

On the other hand, my first love and passion has a huge market but with an equally enormous supply of talent. As in any industry, monetary returns are high for established writers regardless of the degree of talent. Lesser mortals in this universe of the written text must content themselves with the dregs.

This is more evident in my chosen genre – fiction. In recent memory, I’d consider JK Rowling as the most elite in the top tier. Although I considerably doubt any superlative adoration for her talent, I do like the tale and the characters she wove in her Harry Potter series. Albeit fiction with a hodgepodge of rehashed themes, I cannot deny that they are an engaging read. They have moments or sparks of creativity here and there. My only point is that she found a market and her niche, and built an empire. If it pleases her, she could now very well afford to hone her talent into a higher degree of skill.

If talent in creative writing is to be the basis then Gabriel Garcia Marquez, for one, would be leagues apart. His brilliance and stroke of genius has been defined by his singular commitment of magic realism to text in our day and age. This sublime marriage of the supernatural and fantastic with the mundane has not been etched in our literary consciousness since our ancestors earlier on recited and then later on read our folklores, myths, legends and epics.

Next on my list of modern fiction icons is JRR Tolkein for creating Middle Earth and commencing my ongoing amazement with fantasy. Then there is Stephen Donaldson for weaving text to craft Thomas Covenant. Orson Scott Card is at par for Alvin Maker and also for extending his reach to science fiction bringing Ender to word and hence to life. Of note in my list is Anne McCaffrey for transporting me to Pern and other planet types and, like Card, for introducing countless possibilities in and between fantasy and sci-fi writing.

(I have to take a client’s call. Kindly hold this point for a moment. I’ll resume on it in part 2 of this post.)

Pinoy Chick Soundtrack to Fall in Love with: Imago's "Sundô"

Lyrics, pure poetry. Melody, utterly haunting. The song made my soul, the core of my being soar. As an OPM (original pinoy music) chick soundtrack, this is sublime in its composition and in its rendering. This is totally brilliant.

The opening stanza goes, "Kay tagal kong sinusuyod ang buong mundo para hanapin, para hanapin ka. Nilibot ang distrito ng iyong lumbay; pupulutin, pupulutin ka. Sinusundo kita, sinusundô..." Roughly translated it goes, "For a long time, I've combed the whole world to look for, to look for you. I've circled the vicinity of your sadness; I'll pick up, I'll pick you up. I'm getting hold of you, I'm getting hold..."

Then the chorus kicks in, "Asahan mo mula ngayon pag-ibig ko'y sa 'yo." "Be assured that from now on my love belongs to you."

The rest of the lyrics have the same, pardon the rotundity, lyrical quality as these lines. The imagery, the metaphors are breathtaking. The music itself is moving.

I've got the song on repeat in my computer's player for quite some time now. This has been my secret aural pleasure, until now.

Chic Brit Chick Soundtracks

These tracks are perfect for cruising or walking around the city, provided that the path you're on is not choked by car exhaust.

The first one is from KT Tunstall. "Suddenly I See" was released in 2005 and was a soundtrack in the movie "The Devil wears Prada."

The other one is from Gabrielle. "Sunshine" was released way back 1999.

The Time I Fell in Love with an Animate Biped

I most certainly did.

It was 1997. We met at the university in Diliman. He was a foreign student who was fluent in Tagalog. We were taking the same course. I was a student assistant in our department. We often met but in hindsight, our meetings were casual and friendly really. I read too much on things that were in fact random.

I fell for him. He never even thought of going there. I didn’t see that. I was sideswiped and blinded by craziness. There came a point when I was so consumed by my idea of love that I had to tell him. So I dragged along my very good friend Sheila and sought him at his dorm. Sheila knew I was crazy in love with the boy. She didn’t know I was about to tell him.

When we got there, he was gracious enough to entertain us. We talked about stuff then Sheila saw a friend of hers and excused herself. I didn’t need to muster courage. When you are overcome by craziness, bravery has no meaning. So, I told him in an offhand way. I said, “You know I have a problem. You are my problem. I’m in love with you.”

He was taken aback. Who wouldn’t be? I can still remember the daze in his eyes as he took his time to articulate, “I’m sorry Kyn. What can I do? I’m not gay.”

Now, upon hearing this, it was my turn to be stunned. The only thing I can say was, “May yosi ka?” to which he responded in the negative. So I said, “Bili muna ako ng yosi” while in my head Alanis was singing, “Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?” as a soundtrack to my disillusionment.

I later found out from Sheila that when she went back to where he was and asked where I was, to which he replied I bought some cigarettes, he then pensively said, “Makulay ang buhay niya.” Come to think of it, this comment is still an enigma to me. He might be referring to my being gay with an analogy to the internationally recognized iconic rainbow symbol of gayhood-ness. That’s the only way I can decipher that.

So, I crashed and burned. I kept my distance. I left the university the following year to work. Since then, I have never seen him again. But Sheila has in Hawaii a few years back. She said he asked how I was. When I heard this I thought, except for I was fine, I pretty much didn’t know what else to respond. At that time, I already did not think much of it anyway.

The conventional wisdom is time heals. It does not. Time only passes. That’s what it does. What happens is, as time moves along, we learn to accept after the fact. In my case, this came about, give-and-take, 3 years on.

If he ever happens to stumble on this blog and read this entry, this is what I want to say to him: To you know who you are, I’m so sorry for my craziness. I blame it on hotwired neurotransmitters. Damn adrenaline, dopamine and serotonin! My deepest apologies for all the discomfort, inconvenience and anxiety I have caused.

As for my telling of this incident in my life, and in the public domain at that, all I can say is that the time for me is right to recount this experience in this medium. My intuition says it feels right and when it does, I learn a little bit more about courage.

P.S.: And to those who lent me their courage at the time when I was down and out and drowning in misery, my friends Sheila, Rachel, Tess, Tita Fe, Tina and Joe and to all my other university and extended friends, Gerry, Butch, Doris, Gisella, Julius, Oye, Paeng, Marky, thank you. All of you are true. I’ve been remiss as a friend in more ways than one. For one, I haven’t had you feel my presence for some time now but be assured that I still remain true to you. For me, you are still the family that I have bonded with by choice. Let this be a testament to my continuing covenant to our friendship despite distance in all its forms. Thank you so much for the bond you extended to me. It is treasured and will be until my very dissolution.