dashing to read

when i see other people's blogs listing reads from their ends just this year alone, i get a tinge of envy. gone are the days when i can finish a book in an hour or two. i used to time my reading hour as a teener, not because of severe boredom but out of being annoyingly unequivocal. now grazing the meadows of my cluttered dotage, i take months and months to finish a novel. this rory gilmore line from the second season of gg may simply be the proverbial waif's levitation in dreamland, "i've read only 300 books and i'm already 16?!", the stars hollow ingenue utters loudly while staring at a harvard library housing thirteen million volumes of printed and bound work. but as lorelai retorted, "honey, no one expects you to read every one of them."

in my rugged terrain, there is no urge to grasp all the bookish goodness in order to make a decent tete a tete. there's no reading race in the team room during breaks. or in the self-contained enclaves in an impromptu visit. or in the social swirl somewhere within the three-bedroomed hub in an abohorrently expensive area. jay gatsby might as well be that screaming old guard in nine while atticus finch is as obscure a figure as the leading thespian who portrayed him in the film version.

but to savor the beauty of the priceless tomes is a fervent passion. there's this longing to purchase a pile of literary classics that i know deep down would merely gather dust in the shelf. so i pass. however i'm trying to cut the crap in my free hours in order to relish some reading time. with due respect to a michico kakutani essay, i'll be a dasher for a change rather than the ultimate dawdler. fingers crossed.

a nod to my youth

the film was piece of nostalgia, a throwback to the chagrin of my teens. i first saw dead poets society when i was 15, in a cinema near our high school. it was the kind of film that ignites our dreams and hopes for gorgeous and dashing gentlemen of the weary harlequin paperbacks of our youth. set in a preppy secondary boarding school for boys, the story was about a teacher named john keating (robin williams) and his students. it co-starred ethan hawke, robert sean leonard and other young actors in which whom a fan has to seek long and hard to find out what happened to them since 1989.

the most pivotal character in the flick was neil perry played by robert sean leonard. ethan hawke was todd anderson, neil's highly-pensive roommate. in the years to follow, i would gasp, ethan hawke was in dead poets society? which one was he? the preppy with the backbone, was charlie dalton portrayed by gale hansen, whom according to the imdb's, now works as a creative consultant in the entrtainment industry. all the others, from josh charles who essayed knox overstreet, the sweet fella who fell for the blond dream to the young actors with the smaller roles, may not have become as well-known as ethan hawke or as active as norman lloyd, the guy who portrayed the school's headmaster, but would always be remembered for this piece of poetic cinema.

these days, i see robert sean leonard in house. in the intervening years, he was claudio opposite kate beckinsale's hero in much ado about nothing, daniel day lewis' son in the age of innocence and he toiled a tony-award winning broadway performance in tom stoppard's the invention of love in which we wouldn't have known existed unless new york is a nearby location and waiting and plodding through several acts in a play ignites a brewing passion.

robin williams received an academy award nomination as best lead actor in this peter weir drama. but i will always remember this flick for the cute guys. i know it's superficial but true.

yawpers

the scene along the main hub of manchester picadilly during the uefa cup final between the glasgow rangers and zenit st petersburg wasn't as uncongenial as the horrible pictures seen on the news.

although i was merely a spectator of the grizzled rangers fans from my hotel window and not the actual game itself, i did pass through the city center's fan zone on the way to the lodge and battle out for space in the cafe for my room service meal. the inebriated helter-skelter atmosphere may not be up to par with my old-maidish preferential scene but it brought forth a new dimension of excessive sports fanaticism. it's quite scary but kinda fun. something i can only relate to the male members of family --- basically my whole family.

some friends, the lot who frown on the subject of football or any sports for that matter, the ethereal multi-taskers that proliferate my daily grind, might be buried amongst work, their travels, their preoccupations, their kids, the structural intrigues within the clique and beyond. i totally admire my friends and kindred spirits who blog, even those who write passionately about the deep tenets of sociology and politics to the friday madness in the disciplined nooks of the lion city. but it's the multiple friendly web nooks that get me buzzing. they are the portals that make it possible for any ordinary joe to create a personal web page and sort of venue that provide glimpses of one's affability quotient through their favorite reading pamphlets and tv shows, taking the place of the slumbook of my way, way younger years.

excellent as tracking devices, the likes of friendster and yahoo groups have made pondering the question of attending reunion activities an easier task to tackle. to reply or not to reply, that is the question. if only e-mails and texts existing norms during shakespeare and the elizabethan era.

youthful persuasion

i was slated to do some workout this morning, an exercise video was recorded for me by my chef cum cuddly bear. but rather than sweat out the unwanted and undulating adipose tissues in my mid-section, i tried to read my e-mails instead, a terribly passive undertaking. i traced no significant communication bits in my inbox but i still kept on surfing and chanced upon some interesting and profound pieces by some exemplary adolescence. it's enlightening to see these kids reach such profundity in their teens and twenties. i wasn't able to reach that level of maturity when i was younger. it was truly an edifying and uplifting read. you go out looking for silver and you find gold. now i've got to prep for my workout and joust for space amongst the hampsteadites.

deducing others

i've been hopping around movie review sites the last week and a half. the surge in blogging technology has made it possible for anybody to write and comment about any movie. in ancient times, we wait long and hard for broadsheets and tabloids, to get a critic's opinion on a certain project. how one qualifies to be a critic is still blurry for me to comprehend. he might be just like an ordinary folk, a movie fan, plucked from the tedious regulars but at least compensated slightly to share his likes and dislikes to a captive audience.

but it's too difficult to be completely objective. a review would always be riddled with all the impartialities embedded in the core. i've dropped upon one director's blog and he's a bit hurt by a few corrosive words against his film written by a former colleague he thought was his friend. what the auteur wrote in response actually hit the target, "if you know so much, why don't you make your own movie?" yeah, why not. let us see the hidden talent earmarked and lifted from quotes from film bibles, authored not by spielberg nor corsese and definitely not by paul thomas anderson, but some rather obscured academes and theorists.

peque gallaga ( i believe it's a sin not to include oro plata mata in the ten best pinoy films) once stated in flip magazine that people who make good reviewers are people like marilou diaz abaya, joey reyes and don escudero who really know their movies. he continues "but they are directors already. so, like, reviewing would be a step down the Food Chain. i'm not being facetious. the tragedy of a lot of film criticism in the philippines is that it is being done by mass com teachers and others who desire to be directors. much of their work is characterized by how they would have handled a cinematic problem. this is real tragedy because no real interchange is going on and directors are not learning parties who really love movies as an end in itself.""

and i totally adore joey reyes as a passionate observer of existential ditties. i wish he finds the time to blog again, with reflections his revering public would surely drool and enjoy. i always look forward to his facebook quizzes. i don't do well but they're quite hard anyway. at the moment i'll just re-read every now and then, midlife outtakes and mistakes, his compilations of essays published a few years ago.

i'm basically a fan. of a dancer. an actress. a comic. a writer. but not necessarily a director. if i don't like the main stars, i'm out. i don't even dare watch. just like anybody with a severe affliction of shameless fanaticism. you cannot rejoice in a gooner win when you're a tottenham supporter. it's my rule that if you have nothing nice to say, just keep your opinions to yourself. i once made a negative review of a favorite star's film once. but it only happened once and it still makes me ruminate whether it was right to comment. however if the director's is your friend and your critique no matter how constructive hurts a lot of people even the lead star who doesn't open her laptop often and i presume, take legitimate criticisms objectively, but replied out of being hurt herself and to defend her director-friend (which is very normal if you're a human being) was branded ungracious by one multiplier. i totally get her drift. the production venture was a laborious process, much more so if you were stranded in an island.

if you will only ruffle feathers with a friend, it's not worth spraying negative remarks just to practice grammar skills. the old adage is right, nobody's perfect. reviews are always personal, it's never only about work (walang personalan, trabaho lang are mere lines in a daboy movie). we all know that work is competitive by nature.

dodging the sun

this is england at its finest. it's totally taboo to use an umbrella under the intense heat of western sun but i might be tempted in this weather. the clothing of choice is the tube or the tank top for the ladies while the men are virtually shirtless. during bank holiday monday, one lady lounging in the park was wearing a bikini. it wasn't hot enough for a bikini but my prudish senses were once again impossibly enraged. back home, the beauty counters are filled with whitening creams and lotions as the masses and social climbers adore the mestiza look. while here in the land of four seasons, it's littered with tanning lotions as a tanned skin means wealth and privilege. if one's rich you can afford to go on pampered holidays. i get dark easily in bacolod by just stepping outside our porch. oh, i forgot we don't have a porch. so it's just our door.

these are days to cherish. the shorter nights propel the dance movements long been dormant inside my enfeebled spirits to come alive. in other words, i just need a bit of exercise. i'm getting really chunky. the world is not very kind if you're not as reed-thin as celebrity blogger super b. our metabolism simply slow down in our thirties. i don't mind being this old. i knew how it was not to gratify my cravings years ago, i dropped my weight significantly. it's not fair that an activity like reading isn't a calorie-reducing fare. guess, i'll just succumb to window shopping.

video deviation

it has been ages since i've watched a film in the cinemas. was it because i was burned from the third star wars prequel which cost a fortune when we dropped by at odeon's leicester square? could be. i would love to have gone and see there will be blood but i was submerged in my routines. nothing's catching my fancy at this moment. but thank goodness for the dvd. i still get to indulge in a few flicks that i had ticked in my catalog. the procurement process is just taking a bit longer, stretching to a year for some features. i wait for the prices to drop, which isn't model attitude. but before i can savor and experience its essence, time flies in sweeping motion and there it is, the dvd, discounted.

Knocked Up was one tearful experience. i was bawling during the end credits that i forgot it was a comedy ( i always cry when it comes to baby talk). this is the first time i've seen katherine heigl act again since my father, the hero with gerard depardieu (i don't subscribe to grey's anatomy feed or even roswell before that). seth rogen, the chubby geek who penned superbad with evan goldberg, fits the lovable loser role perfectly. there is always the danger that actors tackle every assignment in similar fashion i. e. the drew barrymore i saw in never been kissed share the nuances with the lovely heroine in the wedding singer. that goes with all the ben stiller comedies as well. but the seth rogen who played the lead ben in knocked up was far removed from the bumbling cop in superbad. knocked up is a poignant peek at the slacker lifestyle. it is quite believable in its undertones, men by nature are always pulled towards the swimsuit models orbit or the virginal beauties unfettered by the sophistication of the urbane and esoteric. while women on the inside despite the beautiful facade tends to get insecure hence the nagging, the bitching and the moaning.

other than the dreams of blokes to covet perennial trophy wives, is my ardent wish for a romcom with a central lisa simpson or a meg griffin character, walking away not necessarily with the hugh grant conundrum. he could be a slovenly charmer straight out of reality, not reality tv. i wonder how that dynamic would work on screen?