Photos from today! I have a large-ish backlog of earlier ones, but I was really excited to post these. :) Gabby just had a housewarming for her new studio, Daylight. I had a nice time with people I haven’t seen in a while. The space is really nice, too. Well-lit with huge windows, a wall-sized mirror, and a brick wall. <3 They’re already open for bookings, so just drop them a line if you’re interested.

Daylight Dave.

Walked around with Patty (with/of whom I have no pictures! :( We must fix this), Rob & Patrice for a little bit to look around Cubao X. Not that I used to go there a lot, but it’s really different from what I remember it.

Patrice & Rob.

We found Elton John! He is for sale for Php 50.

a) Gabby, me, Walt & Ryc.
b) Becca & me.
c) Bia, me & Raymond.

I think we can all safely assume that I end each strip with the same face.

My dad and I drove by Ateneo today and people were flying a bunch of kites. Photos under the cut.

(Been taking photos with my Instagram, Hipstamatic, and Pocketbooth apps the past few days. They are darling and I love them a lot, but I kind of really miss taking photos with an actual camera. Something to take up again in the new year?)

Continue reading Daylight & Kites….

I absolutely love looking at studios and workspaces. I don’t know if it’s because I am just plain nosy, or if this inclination towards seeing the spaces where a person makes things happen has a deeper, more meaningful motivation behind it. I just really, love looking at people’s spaces. I feel like it says a lot about who they are and how they work. Here are some of my favorite workspace-related blogs, in case you were curious:

• Workspaces, Tumblr
• Anik-Anik Love (Filipino creatives)
• Workspaces, Share Some Candy

The point of this post: My brother and I tagged along with my parents, who were having a meeting with Manuel Ocampo. You must understand that I am pretty much in awe of this man. Aside from being an art world BAMF with his name in lights all over the world, he was also partly responsible for the art inside Beck’s Odelay. Degrees of separation down to three! (Two? How do you count them?) Despite that, he is also quite nice and sincere. I wrote about him and his curatorial debut, a group exhibit comprised of Filipino artists held in Berlin, in UNO Magazine, for their October issue. (Solenn Heussaff was on the cover, my heart!)

(I do that with my shirt whenever I feel awkward/displaced. Good of my dad to capture it on film?)

Anyway, what was supposed to be a meeting turned out to be a studio visit to two other artists’ spaces—Gerry Tan’s and David Grigg’s—and a gallery, all of which were conveniently located not three minutes away from each other. Here are a few photos, the rest will be under the cut.

Seeing these workspaces reminded me of the reason behind the name of this little home for me, my sacred space. Taking the name from Jonathan Safran Foer’s “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close,” my favorite book, where he talks about “Nothing Places.” To quote:

“[W]e started marking off areas in the apartment as “Nothing Places,” in which one could be assured of complete privacy, we agreed that we never would look at the marked-off zones, that they would be nonexistent territories in the apartment in which one could temporarily cease to exist…”

The idea of my own little area, to be who I am and make what I like, regardless of other factors, is so appealing to me. I think that’s maybe why I always talk about wanting to move out. It’s not that I’m tired of the people I live with (because, at the very end of it, I do love my family very much), or that my circumstances are at all inconvenient. I just really think that I maybe need a space—mine—to be me, without having to explain or apologize or hold back. I think I just really need to mark off my own Nothing Spaces, beyond the screen.

Perhaps in 2011? For now, I’ll make do with what I have, try to be the most of myself that I can be.

Loads more photos under the cut. They’re pretty interesting. :)

Continue reading Studio Visits & Nothing Places….

Roughly around two weeks ago, on October 9, I went to see the Spanish galleon that docked on the port area in Manila. The first attempt was thwarted because my parents and I were discouraged by the long line that had already formed outside the registration area at around 9 A.M. This made me more resolute in getting there earlier the next day, which I did with Rico, who was gracious enough to drive me. We were meeting up with Anne there, and it sounded like a good plan, but the universe saw our plan and decided to hit us with a line that was almost twice as long as the line from the previous day. We got there three hours earlier, which is pretty ridiculous in itself, but I digress.

We’re on a boat!

Spanish galleon, actually.

If I knew we were going to be waiting close to four hours in line just to see the boat, I probably wouldn’t've gone to see. I don’t think it’s the fault of the organizers—a lot of people were just interested, and they didn’t expect such a great response to it. It was a nice experience, though. Dealing with so many people in such a different environment than what I am used to was quite an experience. Also, I got to spend the day with awesome people (i.e. Abi, who was part of the team that brought everything together) and was introduced to the best thing in the world since an actual burrito:

Army Navy’s breakfast burrito!

I think that what astonished me the most is the idea that they actually sail this ship around to get to where they need to be. It’s got actual ropes and sails and an anchor, a wheel. A kitchen, some cabins… they even have a flat screen T.V. set! It made me want to take up sailing and see the world for myself.

After eating the excellent breakfast burrito, Rico and I kind of drove around, trying to find a different route at home. The scenic route turned way too scenic, and we ended up being on the road for a pretty long time. I honestly didn’t really mind, though, because it’s always nice getting to know people, and perhaps because I had not been the one driving.

I think it placed me in such a great state for thinking. During this time, I’d been having difficulties dealing with some things… and the time away from distractions other than quiet conversation really gave me the space to confront what had been bothering me, albeit only internally.

Rico dropped me off at home, after a long and tiring drive, and I began to realize that in the middle of getting lost, I learned how to think of other things. And that realization really made me feel instantly better, despite the long periods of waiting and the numerous uncertainties that were scattered across the day.

(I took some photos with a film camera, but I haven’t gotten around to getting the roll developed.)

Continue reading Dia del Galeon: A Spanish Galleon and A Few Lessons on Patience….

In the introduction to his novel, “Mother Night,” Kurt Vonnegut wrote We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful about what we pretend to be. I was first introduced to this by Megan McCafferty’s “Second Helpings,” and while I always thought of this as a cautionary tale, a call for us to take care to ‘pretend better,’ I realize now that I may have missed Vonnegut’s point entirely.

I went through a number of phases growing up, all of them different versions of ‘fitting in.’ When I was a freshman in high school, I assumed a completely different personality, one that immediately calls attention to myself as someone who was “different.”

I wasn’t like many of my schoolmates who cared too much about looks, and too little about learning. I didn’t mind lying on the grass, or looking silly, or being alone in public. I was different, sure, but I still wasn’t me. I was caught under the illusion that I was being who I was, not caring about what others thought of me, but the truth was that I did care. In fact, I cared so much, I created this whole other person—a supposedly better version of myself—that I could be.

That was a completely stupid way to live. Always considering the opinions of other people, not to mention failing, is taxing. Of course, I still do it all the time. Will this person like me better if I do this, if I say this, if I act in this way, if I say yes? So many unnecessary questions that coalesce in my brain, coming together to form something that, ultimately, matters very little.

Kurt Cobain said, “Wanting to be someone else is a waste of the person you are.” I think he was onto something. Embrace who you are, because you’re going to be stuck with that person until the day that you die. Don’t make yourself into somebody you will hate, because at the end of everything, the person who will care the most about how you lived and what kind of person you turned out to be is yourself.

These days, it seems like the only way to judge a person anymore is by looking at what they listen to, and the books that they like. It’s so easy to construct a ‘personality’ when you choose all the right books and all the right films and all the right artists, but these things tell you nothing about a person, at their core. The things people consume tell you the level of their comprehension, the kind of things they like to hear, what kind of stories they like knowing about. They don’t really say anything about a person’s character: how they will act in the face of danger, how selfless they are, what kind of people they have grown up to be.

“At three, I wanted to be a cook. At five, I wanted to be Napoleon. My ambition has been growing ever since, and now my ambition is to become Salvador Dali, nothing else. It is, nevertheless, very difficult, because the closer I come to Salvador Dali, the farther away from me he goes.” — Salvador Dali

Why are we so apologetic about who we are? Why are we so scared of being judged? Yes, criticism is painful sometimes, especially if it hits us in places that we are most sensitive about, especially if it’s being said by someone who means the world to us. But why hide who you are? I don’t think altering our character just to avoid hurtful words from other people is worth wearing all these masks.

I think that that’s why people never really say what they mean anymore. There’s a certain degree of paranoia that has whitewashed over everything, because we are suspicious of ulterior motives, and we are always on the look-out for insincerity. The only people who aren’t afraid of other people’s cruel intentions are people who are still sincere, and I think that those people are very hard to come by these days.

This isn’t to say that we should stop trying to be better people. My point is that living our lives, for other people, for the sake of being “different,” for some sort of acceptance, at the expense of our happiness, is stupid. What I’m saying is that it’s OK to be who we really are. It’s inevitable to run into people who will heckle and judge and talk behind our backs, but who cares?

I was bullied in the fifth grade, trying to please people who made me miserable everyday, and while I thought about what they must have thought of me at the time, I couldn’t really care less right now. I don’t even speak to those people anymore, and I think about the time I have wasted, being pushed into doing things I didn’t want to, and having so much unnecessary drama that I frankly could have lived without. Dr. Seuss wrote, “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind,” and I’m taking his word for it.

J.K. Rowling’s Harvard Commencement is called “The Fringe Benefits of Failure” and she talks about stripping away of the inessential, of doing away with things that don’t matter to make space for the things that do. I hold on to a lot of things, and I still cultivate ideas that people have of me that aren’t true anymore, but I still try to live up to. And I realized that to move forward, I had to get rid of a lot of things.

“I stopped pretending to myself that I was anything other than what I was, and began to direct all my energy into finishing the only work that mattered to me. You will never truly know yourself, or the strength of your relationships, until both have been tested by adversity.” — J.K. Rowling

I had to strip away the inessential and stop pretending to be someone I was not. I think that that is what Kurt Vonnegut was ultimately trying to warn us about. We are, to other people, whatever we pretend to be. But what I’m hoping is that, little by little, I learn how to stop pretending and start actually being who I am.

excerpt from Mikael Co’s “As Courage, To Camus.” Click the photo to get to the entire poem.

It doesn’t take much to make me happy. I think the past entries have been proof of that. My idea of a picker-upper is a Harry Potter marathon and flavor-blasted Goldfish crackers. I mean, the problems obviously don’t go away, but at least these simple things make me feel a little bit better about my misfortunes.

I don’t have a lot of unfortunate events happen to me recently (thank you, Lord), but still, little things have wormed their way into my heart and cheered me up! One of my favorite things in life is getting packages in the mail. Doesn’t really matter much what they are, I just like getting them. In this case, though, I had been waiting for this package for eons, and my heart nearly jumped out of my chest when I saw the notice for two parcels stuck at the post office.

Definitely was what I thought it would be.

I finally got the first two installments of my Field Notes Subscription! <3 Armando first introduced me to Field Notes by sending me a 3-pack and I fell in instant love. Because I’m a sucker for stuff like this. And, well, I do go through notebooks fairly quickly, so even though the price is probably a little steep for other people, I knew I would be putting these babies to good use.

My loot! Opening the package honestly felt a lot like Christmas.
They added a lot of awesome things like pens, a sticker, and rubber bands.
Yes, only a dork like me would be excited by rubber bands, but. Well, leave me alone, they were pretty!

County Fair Editions! I got New York (because it’s my favorite state)
and Alaska, because of “Looking for Alaska” because I am a dork.

Square pinback button!

Pinback button!

Packet of Sunshine! It came with Marigold seeds. :)

And the grid inside was yellow. So pretty!

No, Field Notes, thank you for making quality paper products
that are both functional and aesthetically pleasing! I’m definitely a happy customer.

I can’t wait to use them!

The Start of September means a lot of things to me. It means that it is Kirk Long’s birthday, which in turn means that I am a creeper for knowing that sort of information (but it’s kind of along the lines of cannot unsee, you know?). It also means that it’s the start of term for Hogwarts students, which in turn means that I am a huge dork unable to move on from this fantastic series. Not that I would particularly like to, because I do enjoy being part of this fandom.

I was toying with the idea of posting a Harry Potter-related post for everyday of September, just to prove to you all that my obsession knows very little bounds. But I am restraining myself. Also, it’s very hard to think of things to post for thirty consecutive days. And also, I fear for my bandwidth, because it’s just really not going to hold.

Anyway, I’ve decided, instead, to curate a list of some of my favorite things about the Harry Potter community. While it houses the strangest, most repressed people in the world, the HP community is also home to some of the most brilliant people still roaming about on this earth. And, you know, I’m really out to prove that. And so, a list! Of my favorite HP-related, unofficial projects. Get ready for some totally awesome finds.

1. 
   Wizard Rock
   First up is Wizard Rock, or in shorthand, Wrock! The pioneers for this strange genre of music is a little group called Harry and the Potters (who’ve actually had their own Daytrotter session!). It also paved the way for similarly-named groups (e.g., Draco and the Malfoys, Ginny and the Weasleys. Another name trend follows The Remus Lupins, e.g., The Whomping Willows, The Moaning Myrtles, etc). The genre is curious because it doesn’t lump the groups by sound, rather, by subject matter. Most Wrock groups are just bands that are inspired by Harry Potter, most of whom have songs that center on the series. Here is a website to cater to most of your Wrock needs, because a bullet point is way too short to delve into the whole business. Here’s a list of most known Wrock bands, though. It is quite a sizable list.

   To the untrained eye (and ear), this is probably the dorkiest thing in the world. However, if you must know, Wrock has a very big following—sometimes, these bands even go on tour! My favorite is probably The Remus Lupins, whose battlecry is: “Fight evil, read books!”

2. 
   The Harry Potter Alliance
   HP Alliance exists for the furtherance of good. It was set up to combat our world’s version of “dark and difficult times.” Targeting issues like global warming, genocide and poverty, the HP Alliance uses its connection to the millions of HP fans to campaign against these issues, partnering with organizations like Genocide Intervention Network, Amnesty International and Oxfam. Just recently, they won $250,000 from the Chase Challenge, meant to benefit causes such as literacy and GLBT rights. They’ve also helped protect the civilians of Darfur and Burma, and had a hand in Helping Haiti Heal. An excellent use of their powers, if you ask me.
3. 
   A Very Potter Musical
   Where do I even begin? This is one of the best things on YouTube right now, probably. A Very Potter Musical is a hilarious fan-made parody of the World of Harry Potter. Highlights include excellent cast performances, most notably of Ron Weasley and Draco Malfoy, and of course, the appearance of Rumbleroar, the Headmaster of Pigfarts, Hogwarts’ counterpart… in Mars. You can watch the hilarity ensue over here. Uh-huh, yeah, I made it easy for you.
4. 
   The Shoebox Project
   A Marauder-era fic, complete with photos and drawings and letters between Messrs. Moony, Wormtail, Padfoot and Prongs. It is, at the same time, tender, endearing, charming and funny. A hypothetical glimpse at the life of James Potter and his friends. One of the best things ever to grace LiveJournal, if I may. It was used to be housed over here, I don’t know what happened. However, a kind soul has uploaded the .pdfs, so you can still read up and catch up with the rest of the internet. It hasn’t been updated in a while, however. We’re all still waiting for that fateful day.
5. 
   Mugglecast
   Mugglecast might be my favorite Harry Potter podcast, ever. I remember listening to all sorts of wonderful discussions and theories on my way to and from school. It was particularly exciting, pre-Deathly Hallows, and the hosts were all speculating as to what the remaining horcruxes were, and who exactly R.A.B. was, and what would Harry’s demise be. There was even one episode where they tried to piece together the ending of the book based on the released artwork of the hardcover edition. As far as I know, it’s still up and running, especially since the last film adaptation is still about to be released, but I haven’t listened in lately. Maybe I should take this as a sign that I should start again.

Well, that’s it for now! Honorable Mentions include The Draco/Hermione Fic Exchange, which is only my favorite fanfic exchange in the world (Yes, I’m a D/Hr shipper, what of it?), The Draco Trilogy, which was written way before Harry Potter came to an end (so there’s a lot of inconsistencies now). The author, Cassandra Clare, has recently launched a professional career, with a fantasy trilogy of her own. Lastly! My Immortal, which is the best Harry Potter fanfic on the Internet right now.

By best, I meant worst. But I suppose it is good for the lulz.

OK, for the rest of September, I will be posting a lot of Harry-centric bits and pieces. Consider this a warning, to stay away or for excitement, your pick! Additionally, you can read my Harry Potter story here, on Book Report.