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, looking for you. I've circled the vicinity of your sadness; I'll pick up, I'm picking 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 say, “I’m sorry Kyn. What can I do? I’m not gay.”

Now, I was surprised upon hearing this. 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” and from somewhere in my head I heard Alanis singing, “Isn’t it ironic, don’t you think?"

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 said in a pensive way, “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 how else I would 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.

Finding Trochenbrod

I found Trochenbrod through film.

Trochenbrod was a Jewish shtetl (village) in western Ukraine. When the Nazis occupied Ukraine in World War II, they made Trochenbrod a ghetto and brought in Jews from surrounding towns and villages. The genocide happened in August and September of 1942.

For the fictional Trachimbrod, we fast forward to 2002. Jonathan Safran Foer launches his debut novel, “Everything Is Illuminated.” The blurb from Harper Collins reads, “With only a yellowing photograph in hand, a young man -- also named Jonathan Safran Foer -- sets out to find the woman who may or may not have saved his grandfather from the Nazis. Accompanied by an old man haunted by memories of the war; an amorous dog named Sammy Davis, Junior, Junior; and the unforgettable Alex, a young Ukrainian translator who speaks in a sublimely butchered English, Jonathan is led on a quixotic journey over a devastated landscape and into an unexpected past.”


The novel was acclaimed by most critics and became a bestseller. I have yet to read the book but I have seen the 2005 film rendition. The story, as told in the film, is beautiful. It is unassuming, sublime, brilliant. If it is any indication of what the text is, then I would most likely agree with the critical literary lot.


I consider artistic works as gems when I am stirred to feel anything or even everything in the gamut of feelings, whether it be empathy with the author or with the characters in joy, sadness, anger and/ or any other emotion. In following the cinematic plot, I felt a lightness of being which is like the headiness you feel when in love or in orgasm or even in something as base as a nicotine fix. I laughed, I smiled, I was excited both in wonder and in fear, and I cried in searching for Trachimbrod.


The film had me vicariously reliving the stories of and with the characters. I believe these stories are parallel to lives in the shtetl of the real Trochenbrod. It is through this that everything is illuminated to me. As what Milan Kundera wrote and from where Foer, as I understand, took his novel’s title, “In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine."

Of Flip Flops, Carpentry, and other Graphic Design Challenges

One of my favorite challenges was producing these flip flop designs.







And I have dabbled in carpentry too. Here are perspective drafts of installations for a LEGO® Racers event.












(Click on the images for a detailed view.)

Graphic Design Hits… and misses? (ver. 2)

Here’s another installment of graphic design studies. The first one is a floral designed paper placemat I did for Barbara’s Catering early this year. This one’s a hit but after 3 misses. I love the monochromatic bougainvillea illustration I did for them. By the way, I’m using Adobe Illustrator in rendering vector designs, as in this floral rendition. I use Adobe Photoshop for bicubic images.


Just today, I finished a job order for LEGO® which was an instant hit, that is, 1 approved study out of 1 although technically I’m still awaiting the go signal of another principal out of the 2 clients in this project. This one’s a poster and it’s for a promotional event coming very soon.


Now, LEGO® I truly love. This Danish toy maker is in my inspiration board for being the most innovative in producing toys for creative play. In my opinion, the classic bricks are a legacy and will always be my favorite.

Graphic Design Hits… and misses (ver. 1)

Like in any endeavor, rejection is an integral part in my line of work. For every design study approved by a client, about two or three others are rejected. And it does not end there. For the chosen design, a long process of revisions and amendments is to be expected. So an instant hit for me is like being sun-kissed on a clear day framed by a vivid cerulean sky with the crisp, cool morning breeze on my face.

Suffice it to say that instant hits for me are few and too far in between. This however has greatly helped me to hone skills in my chosen craft. In my thinking, if I only turned out hits, then I would have nothing else to learn and I would have deluded myself to stagnation. So as it stands and as the course of life goes, from design conceptualization to rendition, the work is long and the details are varied and many and I love it. I believe that extensive progression is a fact of the creative process. After all, our universe was created by countless forces and a confluence of innumerable factors in the span of billions of years to what it is now, and it is still a work in progress.

Moving on, I have been doing graphic design and lay out jobs for Cathay Pacific – Philippines since 2000. I regularly do their Marco Polo Club country update, a newsletter leaf included in the quarterly magazine. I have my share of hits and misses with them but overall, what I appreciate most is the process.

A hit. They loved the road signs. (Click on the image for a larger view.)

My most recent instant hit came from a logo design I did for SMART Communications and IMG (International Management Group) Philippines. This one is for the 2007-2008 SMART - PBA (Philippine Basketball Association) Philippine Cup.

An instant hit. The design notes help convey the process of conceptualization to the client. This highlights the fact that all elements in a graphic design are consciously and conscientiously created and placed, and not just done by accident. A word on writing design notes: concise. (Click on the image for a larger view.)

Googling and then "Yahooing" Myself

Talk of an ego that needs to be sated, I spent this afternoon googling myself.

I found my name at the usual places, referenced at this blog site and at youtube where I uploaded videos of some of my graphic design works. A new blog entry caught my attention (oh yes, I google myself that often). One of my videos from youtube had been embedded in its site.

Tedigi1 is a blog of modular graphic design lessons in Spanish. This got me über excited. Their topic this week is commercial packaging and they featured the video of my packaging designs for La Luisa, Inc.

Here’s the video:




For someone who totally loves and takes pride in his work, and has a huge ego to boot, this calls for a booming, “YAHOO!” What d’ya think? Oh, what the heck! Thanks to Google and Blogger but here I go again, “YAHOO!”

P.S. While I’m at it, you might want to visit

my youtube channel

By the way, I just found out that tedigi1 is the blog of Prof. Rita Hercilia Araujo de Meléndez for her class in Digital Technology and Graphic Design at the Universidad Tecnológica de El Salvador (UTEC) in San Salvador. Thank you, Prof. Araujo, for noticing my work.

In Need of Batting an Eyelid

Whew! This is turning out to be a hectic and toxic week for me. And it's just Wednesday!

I've been busy since the start of the week juggling three projects, all with tight deadlines. As far as graphic design is concerned, I'm unperturbed by clients' requirements. The more gritty the details, the more nitty the end-product I want. Come to think of it, wouldn't that be the perfect "perfectionist's creed"?

Wait a minute! Me, a perfectionist? A definite, unequivocal no to that. As the word implies, perfection is humanly unattainable. And unless I somehow become the Judeo-Christian God,* I won’t be a nut trying to achieve what is impossible.

However, I do aspire for the best. To me, this is the most positive motivation of human endeavors. At work, it indicates taking pride in your craft. In life, it signifies self-value.

So, what’s the deal with the bad rep of perfectionists? Because, it’s all pretension and/ or self-delusion, or just plain, old obsessive-compulsive disorder. This is why I will never be a perfectionist. And even if I were, knowing fully well what it means, I wouldn’t self-confess.

I often hear people justify their assessment of a work with, “Well, I’m just a perfectionist.” Hey, hoe, what d’ya know?! Crazy nut! Get some balls and review works with your brain. The humanity! What a waste of analytical juices! Don’t you just get ticked off by people like that?

So now, I have batted an eyelid! I guess it’s just the infernal weather. The temperature has tipped 35° C in Metro Manila the past 2 days. It may also be because of the heavy workload. Now, I’m rationalizing. The fact is I’m human. I feel. I react. Sometimes, I’m calm and unaffected. Sometimes, I get irked. And just now, I needed to bat an eyelid.

-------------
*I’ve singled out Judeo-Christian because of all the religious belief systems, its concept of God is perfection. Others have deities that are far from perfect but rather are capable of both good and evil with emphasis on attaining a harmonious balance.

Important Trivial Pursuits

Now, that’s an oxymoron.

I’ve got this new hobby of checking out references in pop culture. How can I not? The wiki age has made it so convenient. And I am astonished by the number of contributors. There are a lot of people who expend time and effort to compile them.

So, the question begs to be asked, “How important are trivial pursuits?” I say, in the case of culture, there are no trivial pursuits. There is trivia (read: details), and the devil is in it.

Picking up on a statement I wrote in my last post regarding the development of culture in the evolution of modern man, human activities that are not primarily rooted on survival instincts are distinctly what make us human. Without writing this blog, I will still live. However, writing gives me a sense of satisfaction. And knowing that I am being read doubles the pleasure. We, as a species, have a sense of ourselves and, collectively, we reflect this through our cultures.

Like any social construct, culture does not exist in a vacuum. What came before is associated with what is being thought and done now. Culture evolves and referencing is one process in defining its form over time. So, before this blog becomes a pedagogical discourse, let me share with you how I became interested in references to and within pop culture.

My nephews, Oweng (17 yrs. old) and Yves (12), and my niece, Justyne (16), have been fans of The Simpsons for most of their formative years. I usually watch it with them. Once, when I told them that the show was three years older than Oweng, they were amazed.

The animated show is so much a part of their lives that all three do pretty good impressions of the characters. They are able to seamlessly use them in social interactions together with their impressions of Spongebob, Patrick Star, Squidward, and a host of other movie, cartoon and anime characters.

This to me is in itself a form of referencing and, aside from being amused, I find it a very clever way of communicating. To be able to appropriately incorporate impressions in a regular conversation takes wit and a very good grasp of the dynamics in gab. A good example of someone who has somehow perfected this competence is Robin Williams, although I do find him annoying at times when he overdoes it.

Anyway, back to The Simpsons, there was this episode where Homer got loaded on medically regulated pot (“Weekend at Burnsie’s,” season 13, episode 16). In one of the scenes where he was stoned, the 2-D animation took on a 60s hippie, technicolor and psychedelic vibe while some mood music played. The tune sounded familiar. The lyrics seemed foreign except for the last line. What I heard was, “Color sky hav a na lek, Color sky ros cal methene, Alles arian crimson, Wear your love like heaven." I told Oweng that I had heard this song before. He thought it was purposely made for the scene. No, I said, it was a proper tune.

In fact, I liked the song so much that I had to search for it on the net. I knew I heard it before in a streaming video of a Monique Lhuillier runway show. I replayed the video and true enough, it was there. I still had no idea of its title, artist or lyrics. I searched for the Simpsons’ episode on wikipedia and there it was. The site listed all the cultural references in the show including the soundtracks used.

The song’s title is… surprise, surprise… “Wear Your Love Like Heaven.” It was written by Brit artist Donovan Leitch who also did “Mellow Yellow.” It was released in 1967. As for the weird lyrics, apparently Leitch was known for his whimsical songwriting. And being an artist in the 60s, who can blame him?

All the layers of references in that Simpsons’ episode now made sense to me. From the use of “Burnsie’s” in the title, to the psychedelic animation and to soundtrack choice, how clever, Matt Groening!

So, this was how I got hooked on this hobby. And here’s what I have so far on Donovan Leitch’s “Wear Your Love Like Heaven."

The unintelligible lyrics I was telling you about, they are in fact legitimate English words of oil paint colors strung by Mr. Leitch, perhaps when he himself was stoned. But of course, the last point is just pure speculation. It goes, "Color sky havana lake, Color sky rose carmethene, Alizarian crimson, Wear your love like heaven..." and that plays while Homer prances in 2-D technicolor, psychedelic trance (The Simpsons S13, Ep16, “Weekend at Burnsie’s”).




“Color in sky prussian blue, Scarlet fleece changes hue, Crimson ball sinks from view…” Sarah McLachlan sings her 1992 remake of the 1967 Donovan Leitch tune, “Wear Your Love Like Heaven” (From Sarah McLachlan’s Solace album).

“Can I believe what I see, All I have wished for will be, All our race proud and free...” Donovan Leitch's "Wear Your Love Like Heaven" plays as models glide down the runway in Monique Lhuillier's Spring 2006 Bridal Collection.

Survivor: “Out of Africa” edition

Last night, I watched a National Geographic special on how some Homo erectus group may have developed into Homo sapiens somewhere in Africa (“Ultimate Survivor: Mystery of Us.” Check regional NatGeo channel sites for program listings). The show presented compelling evidence to support the idea that modern man started to evolve and develop as a distinct species in that continent.

Now, imagine this scenario: a coastline cave-dwelling Homo erectus group in Africa learning how to gather food from the sea. With a rich source of omega-fatty-acid-laced protein that is the ultimate brain food, and without expending much energy in hunts for wild game that were also hominin predators, they now had time for other pursuits. They started organizing their cave dwellings, made tools that were way more refined than necessary, and created shell trinkets which they painted with ochre.

Sounds familiar? They might as well have gathered for tribal council and voted off the weakest link in their evolution group. The shell trinkets would have done well as an immunity symbol, don’t you think? But, I digress.

The ramifications of their other pursuits, which were far removed from mere survival activities, were enormously important. These were huge steps in the evolutionary ladder of Homo sapiens. These were the seeds of culture. If the scientists' deduction holds ground, these would indeed make them forerunners of modern man.

According to the NatGeo feature, Homo sapiens coexisted and may have competed with other hominins, like the Neanderthal Man, Java Man and the recently discovered Homo floresiensis (Hobbit Man). The skills in creativity and ingenuity that Homo sapiens developed could have handily won them the competition. But there’s a twist in the story, as any Survivor episode has. The extremely low genetic diversity among modern man today suggests that we barely made the final cut.

The cause: a natural catastrophic event most likely occurred (see “Toba Volcano: Through the Bottleneck”) that brought the hominins to the brink of extinction. Homo sapiens nearly did not make it as well. In the evolutionary record of modern man, this estimated 10,000 year period brought about by the catastrophic effects of a super-volcanic eruption saw the population dwindle to only less than 3,000. This genetic bottleneck, as evidenced by the extraordinarily low levels of genetic variation within and between races among us, supports an extremely recent origin for Homo sapiens. We must definitely have come from the less than 3,000 who survived.

This also bolsters the “Out of Africa” theory and as the “Toba Volcano: Through the Bottleneck” study phrases it, “puts yet another (the last?) nail in the multiregional coffin.” “Multiregional evolution requires the existence of large populations for long periods, with isolation being rare or absent so that global species could evolve in a single direction. Palaeoanthropological and genetic studies have already done much to discredit this model.” And with the recent discovery of the Flores Island Hobbit Man, “Not only did Homo floresiensis evolve in the absence of gene exchange with other hominins, but no one can argue that LB1 (the first Homo floresiensis skeleton found) contributed to our own species' genetic make-up.”

So, when the catastrophic effects of the Toba event subsided some 63,000 years ago, the bottleneck was released and the surviving hominin population adapted and began to recover. Homo sapiens continued to coexist and most likely competed with Homo neanderthalensis until the Neanderthal Man’s extinction some 30,000 years ago; with Homo erectus javaensis until the Java Man bowed out 25-30,000 years ago; and with Homo floresiensis until the Hobbit Man likewise exited only as recent as 12-18,000 years ago.

And what was our edge over the other hominins? Yes, it was partly due to our more developed brain. But, it was largely because we employed our acquired smarts. Our advantage was our creativity to adapt and our ingenuity to survive. Our learned cultural skills were what made us the ultimate survivor. Mark Burnett can attest to that! Survivor: “Out of Africa” edition… Outwit, Outplay, Outlast!

Blogging My Life

Oh, yes. I have reservations in starting this blog. I’m overwhelmed by the thought of chronicling my life in the public domain. I have this iffy feeling in taking on the responsibility of presenting an unadulterated view of my self. My posts may be just snippets of my life, but the thought of building my own aquarium is, to me, a bit unnerving. I do have the option to edit, but I choose not to.

My idea of blogging my life is close to how Orson Scott Card characterized Ender Wiggins as the Speaker for the Dead in the sequel to Ender’s Game. This sounds morbid but as life goes, death completes it. Until humankind finds a way to genetically engineer immortals, which won't happen in my lifetime, I am confined to the pragmatic view of my own mortality.

Card’s concept arose from his experiences with death and funerals. He writes, “suffice it to say that I grew dissatisfied with the way that we use our funerals to revise the life of the dead, to give the dead a story so different from their actual life that, in effect, we kill them all over again. No, that is too strong. Let me just say that we erase them, we edit them, we make them into a person much easier to live with than the person who actually lived.”*

I do not want to be edited. I do not want to be erased. So, as I embark on this journey to chronicle my life, I want my words to reflect a person who actually lived.

_________
*In Orson Scott Card’s Introduction to Speaker for the Dead (1991 edition)

Orson Scott Card’s official website: http://www.hatrack.com/