Just feeling it...

(Written in May 2005, accidentally published in June 2022. I stand by what I wrote 17 years ago. To the one with whom I spoke about unrequited whatevers, this is what I meant then. But yes, it's all a bunch of "nothing"...)

This must be the night of plagiarization and unoriginal thought. Nonetheless, I enjoin you to humor me as I share with you a little something that I just came across in the blog of a friend's friend (come again?).

"For all sad words of tongue and pen, the saddest are those 'It might have been.'" - John Greenleaf Whittier

The guy sure knows his stuff. Now, to "borrow" from the idiot box, here's a lengthier tidbit. Got this from the the Internet movie database, by the way.

Joey: So what is the best ending in all of literature? Don't say Ulysses. Everyone says Ulysses.

Professor David Wilder: That's easy. Sentimental Education by Flaubert.

Joey: And what happens?

Professor David Wilder: Nothing, really. Just two old friends sitting around remembering the best thing that never happened to them.

Joey: How do you remember something that never happened?

Professor David Wilder: Fondly. You see, Flaubert believed that anticipation was the purest form of pleasure... and the most reliable. And that while the things that actually happen to you would invariably disappoint, the things that never happened to you would never dim. Never fade. They would always be engraved in your heart with a sort of sweet sadness.

Whoever said Dawson's Creek was crappy, sentimental garbage or any permutation of such is absolutely wretched.

Now that I've made my point, I should be getting back to work.

Have a great weekend, y'all!

Wannabe Wanna Be Wes

Taking a break from auto-replays of We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things:

Endorsement time, folks. I scored a find, yezzuh! Although I must say, I'm still in the process of going ga-ga over it. Thank goodness for clearance sales courtesy of Music One in Glorietta (sorry, last day today). Got a Putumayo CD that I've been eyeing for the longest time (it's all right) and Bloc Party's Silent Alarm (it rocks).


Wes Cunningham, who predates Jason Mraz in the acoustic pop-rock era, is a gem. Plus, unlike Mr. A-Z, he's totally indie. Meaning, he's no sellout (not that I'm saying Mraz is... love you, JM!). And--dig this--this Texan singer-songwriter was actually born in ole Philly. You know, as in, the Philippines!

>>Click here for a sampler<<

I especially lurv Good Good Feeling. For some reason, listening to the record makes me wanna go back to my aborted songwriting origins. Yes, folks, I have origins. There you have it. Another one of them not-so-secret secret life moments of mine. This was in the 90s, and I used to go nuts with the guitar at home. When you're a budding nerd (meaning you don't always find yourself in front of a book, although sometimes this can't be helped) and your parents are so strict that summer break means house arrest without pay, you develop non-traditional means of channeling that youthful spirit thing. And thus began my lingering summer fling with songwriting.

Hemingway, what am I going on and on about songwriting for? And in the same breath as the mention of such snazzy creative minds as Cunningham and Mraz, too. Just goes to show how much of a delusional music nerd I am. And the crazy thing, this stroke of insight totally comes just now, 10 years after my first ill-fated attempt to pen a runaway train of a hit.

Well, those were the days.

***

Happy Hari Raya to my Muslim peeps!

The Unraveling

I dunno how stringent the restriction on listening to music during the fasting season is, but I can't work like this. I'm dehydrated, I haven't had a cappuccino or soy latte in weeks, and I'm up to my eyeballs in this thing that I'm doing (recon work for a big-arse oil-and-gas client). Now I ain't complaining. Life is goodah. But looking at the data, I get the overwhelming urge to holler, "Crud! I gotta get an MBA already!"

But I can't cuss. Big no-no. Hence, I need to bring in the usual suspects to keep me afloat today.

A sample of my Nike+ playlist:

1) Prodigy - Firestarter (the first to play everytime!)
2) OK Go - Here It Goes Again
3) Justice - D.A.N.C.E. (MSTRKRFT Remix)
4) Chemical Brothers - Block Rockin' Beats
5) Britney and Madonna - Me Against The Music (Justice Remix)
6) Paul Oakenfold - Ready, Set, Go!
7) My Chemical Romance - Welcome To The Black Parade
8) Kaskade - Be Still
9) Smashing Pumpkins - Doomsday Clock
10) The Killers - Bling

So it goes. Music is my downfall.

Movie Madness

Early 2000s. Long gone are the days when my buddies and I would head over to the movies at SM North Edsa for a brief respite from life. Back then I would hem and haw and whine about the ticket price, which would set us back Php65-80 per movie. I wasn't always this unnecessarily disagreeable, though. For me it was simply recoil reflex. Compared to the cost of admission to a movie theater back in Zamboanga City, which I think ran in the neighborhood of 50 bucks at the time, it was easy to see how considerably extravagant going to the movies here in Manila could be.

July 25, 2008. I start to feel the teensiet bit nauseated upon checking out the showing attractions at sureseats.com. Lej wanted something 8-ish, so that's that. Upon further internal hemming and hawing, I mentally throw my hands up in the air in defeat. I realize I feel a little oppressed. All I can say is, The Dark Knight had better be worth it then.

Epic Final: I Love You More Today Than Yesterday

6 July 2008, Wimbledon. I should have seen this. I really should have. I don't know why I didn't. But I do know now why people say regret comes only in the end.

As such, I can only relive the high drama through prose.

Sublime Spaniard stretches the imagination

Dispatches: A Post-Wimbledon Dialogue

The Death of Wanting

This is sportswriting-cum-commentating at its most poetic. Nothing ensnares and enraptures as much as a beautifully spun yarn about a battle of mythic proportions (which actually took place just this weekend and is now entrenched in the annals of sports history).

Nothing.. Except maybe seeing the action play out in real life. Or, okay, on low-fi cable TV, as the case would have been.

Well, anyway. All hail Rafa, all hail The Fed! Long live the quintessential kings of tennis!


Photo courtesy of tennis.com

Kooky Money Talk

Pretty exciting start of the week. Got a little something-something in the works, which got me thinking about priorities all of a sudden. But the future seems so... "blooming," so to speak. The leg up Teppers gave today was just what I needed. You the best, Teppie!

Flashbacking to the present, work's got me walking around the dizzying confines of the office like I was auditioning for a part in the sequel to 28 Days Later. On the brighter side of things, we had an informal lunchtime learning session with some folks from Philam Life (an AIG company) today. They showed us some pretty neat slides that I would have requested a copy for, if only the main speaker wasn't an actual client of mine. Basically, the major takeaway there was, I had better get my @ss off the computer chair and cook me up a plan to get my hands on a couple thousand big ones. Seriously.

And nuh-uh, I ain't talking about them pesoseses here. I'm talking about the real ka-ching, baby. The greenback. Mucho dinero from the land that produced the top two richest men in the world, on top of other filthy rich dude-nerds. The capital U-S-D. But then you interrupt, "What you talking about? The Euro--it's king right now, or is gonna be anyway. Compared to the once-mighty Joe Americano, it's the one to beat. It's gonna be everywhere, P. Diddy and posse even wrote a song about it. Too bad about the whole subprime debacle, which got the ball rolling on the downgrading of the dollar. Now they have to contend with the current energy crisis, just coz they rely so much on oil and everything. And by the way, shouldn't this rant-post be penned instead by an American, not some greenback-hungry Filipino blogger who probably doesn't even know what the value of the Euro is....?"

(Okay, here's where I go schizo on y'all.)

I then respond, "Actually, it's 1.58 to the dollar, and 70.98 to the peso.. I mental-telepathed just now with Benny Bernanke, you know, the Fed guy."
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Daymmm, don't you just hate it when you realize that you got even poorer. Last time I checked, the Php was around 67 to the Euro...

So anyway. Before my MPD whisks me away to la-la land once again, allow me to get back to what I meant to say before I lost it--the point of my need to get my hands on two thousand buckaroos. The point of my semi-tirade refracted off from an imagined split personality (that's a double split already--haha, pleonasm!). The point being--well, relative poverty, really. At which point you ask, "What does the current phenomenon of energy disenfranchisement in the US have to do with your poverty?"

Elementary, dear imaginary reader who I will, for the purpose of this exercise in virtual inanity, christen in my mind Watson... Everything. The answer is everything.

Okay, maybe not every-little-thing kind of everything. But being the biggest gas guzzler in town with a consumption rate of 25% of the world's total oil, while just "merely" producing about 10% of the whole lot, is almost exactly the point. I'm sorry to hear about the state of economic unrest that's going on over there, but the rest of the world is suffering, too. As a citizen of the rest of the world, I'm suffering, too. From inertia, from opportunity wastage. (And yeah, sometimes from hunger and oppression and all those other things, too.) Now is the time to grab the bull by the horns, people. Hurry, while it's still in siesta mode. Now's the best time to get in on the action. By that I mean buy stuff. By stuff I mean stocks, mutual funds, bonds, you know, stuff. Not shoes, not handbags, not iPhones, not whatever. With the US market being down in the dumps, so to speak (no offense to my dear American readers), it's the best time to buy up since prices are so low.

Skeptical? Look, what do I know. I'm just a fan of the process, I'm not even amateur-level. We all only have to take our cue from Warren Buffett, who now heads the ranks of the ultra-exclusive Forbes ultimate hitlist. (Former Number 1 Bill G. is retired now and just a couple or so billions poorer than WB.) The Oracle of Omaha is on a jurassic roll, gobbling up companies left and right. You now see it makes perfect sense. The Tao of Warren Buffett is in overdrive.

To be specific, what I really have dollar signs in my eyes for (inspired by thoughts of endless dalliances in snow-capped settings, a la Tim Ferriss in his book, The 4-Hour Workweek) is the dollar bond fund (PDBF) that's one of the investment products being offered by Philam. For a minimum initial investment of two grand, you get to engage in high-stakes (as high as you wanna go) gambling, sans the Judeo-Christian guilt. To quote the investment objective:

To provide investors with a hedging mechanism against the peso exchange rate value with returns (ka-ching, baby!) and inflows derived out of diversified investments in dollar-dominated fixed-income instruments.

Okay, so I forget the thing is actually a bond, which means there's less risk involved than if you play to win in the equity ball game. Well anyhow, we gotta start bouncing off with baby steps. We can't just expect to go play with the big boys in the courts without training and practice.

Now I have yet to seriously digest the figures that are swimming en masse before my eyes, but I will get to that at a time when I'm more lucid. Notwithstanding the value proposition of the company versus what we can expect from others in the market, I think what's important here is that we recognize that for those of us who dare, the future is actually staring at us in the face, poking at the side of our nose even. I've had this thought germinating in my head for some time now and it's reassuring to me to hear a professional validate the plausibility of an idea that almost a year ago was alien to me.

Of course, at the risk of looking like an @ss for not walking the talk, I have to share that all this money talk doesn't mean I can readily take the plunge as I'm advocating we all should. I would if I could. And quite obviously, "should" is spelled differently from "could." See the difference? It's a whole world of it that you see. But of course, I can only speak for myself. If you have two grand (loosely translated to about Php90K), then you're in business.

My memory's pretty fuzzy right now, but I was actually supposed to blog about Mom, how she's coming over and cooling her heels in Manila for a couple of days and stuff. I was even searching the PC for a nifty picture of her to post in here. Alas, the greenback monster reared its ugly head and I just had to blog all the way up to here to convince y'all, basically anyone who should feel so inclined, to contribute in the alleviation of poverty. Help ease the burden of mankind. Donate US$2,000 to this overly excitable blogger. C'mon now, it's all for a worthy cause..... =P

Peace, mah peoples!

Fete De La Musique 2008!

Waaaahhhh! This just in c/o Alliance Francaise. To think I narrowly missed this! It's a good thing I still manage to check my other yahoomail, the one that's heaving under the weight of some 15,000 subscription emails.


Tara troops, we're storming MOA tomorrow before dark. For some reason that escapes me to this day, I haven't had the chance to attend the Fete since 2005... Boy, that one was really something. That was probably the best concert (multiple pa!) that I've ever gone to. I need more moments like that.

Take a peek at how other countries are rocking it out this weekend. Coolness, they even have it as far as Kathmandu!

A demain!

Extravagance, Madness and Poetry in Modern Ballet

It was (or is to be) a good run while it lasted, even though I hardly made good on my promise to live and breathe the essence of eau de French Spring in Manila this year.

So before the curtain closes, Alliance Francaise and the Embassy of France leave us with one last hurrah... which I'm sure will leave us with oohs and aahs.. (Hehe, I just had to make it rhyme).

Je vous presente...

La Bossa Fataka
by Cie Hervieu-Montalvo
June 22, 2008 (Sunday) at 8:00 pm
Main Theater, Nicanor Abelardo Hall
Cultural Center of the Philippines, Pasay City


Last chance, folks. As of an hour ago, only a few balcony seats are still available. Get your tickets before they get sold out!

*Bises*
La Varbaridad

French Spring in Manila 2008

Ooh la la! It's French Spring once again!

(Yep, this post is so long overdue.)

The two words (French and Spring) that can make me break out into song with matching spring-chicken dance moves:

Vive le temp
Vive le temp
Vive le temp de primavera!

(the above rephrased lyrics are originally sung to the tune of "Jingle Bells"--seriously!)

All right, so that may not be the most French thing to do. What can I say, I'm just the teensiest bit obsessed. I'm thinking instead of catching the show below so I might learn a few tricks to help me along this long-drawn-out process of acculturization to the French Aesthetic. (That is, if learning through osmosis actually works.)


Seriously, I think this is the shiznit. I really wanna go. I wanna see all the films they're showing at Shangri-La Plaza next month. I don't wanna catch them on bootleg DVD. I wanna see how the French get jiggy with it. I understand now that I shouldn't have missed out on last year's Pockemon Crew hiphop extravaganza. How I could have been totally ignorant prior to this time of the photography and culinary art exhibits that have been taking place all over the metro throughout the past couple of months is beyond me.

Indeed it is a terrible shame. Much as I hate being paradoxical all within the span of the same post, it saddens me to no end. How I used to take so many things, such as time and love, for granted. How I could have ever let a potentially beautiful moment slip through my now-rheumatic fingers. How I could never be, instead of letting be. So I'd like to make up for all the transgressions against who else but myself, for the sake of art, for the sake of self-liberation. For the sake of life... For the sake of love. (Naka naman!)
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(Oops, I just remembered--I might just be on hiatus on June 7th. Meaning, no Afro-French dance showdown for me. Maybe I'll go see this instead...)

Flipping for FlapJacks

It’s probably a mistake to be writing this review and alternately staring at the pictures below right around dinnertime. It probably doesn’t help either that right this moment I’m stuck at home, trying to resist the urge to haul my carbohydrated behind away from the computer, slip into decent Makati-lite threads, and grab a cab to get me to Greenbelt for another taste of FlapJack’s delicate pancakes. Yep, it doesn’t help me at all that I’m writing this right now.


After weeks of steering clear of the lure of exciting dining places, I finally gave in. With the passing of the long-overdue CamSur trip, I could let my hair down again and indulge all my gastronomic hankering for what’s left of the summer. Last week Soms and I thought of checking out the newest star on the glimmering Greenbelt dining promenade. Since the theme of the resto was good breakfast meals all day long (as in the tradition of old-fashioned pancake houses in the States but with a fancy schmancy twist), I had earlier thought of making it an early morning rendezvous. But then I realized that it would just cramp my style, me being a nightcrawler and all.

So then we went after working hours, well past dinnertime actually, and tried our hardest not to bite off more than we could chew. I decided on the Double Blueberry pancakes since they had such a pretty picture printed on the menu. Meanwhile, Soms was torn between the Beef Salpicao and some other dish that had a side serving of pancakes. Good thing he saw the light and realized that too many pancakes at 10pm was indeed too many pancakes.

The service was quite impeccable for the low-key kind of place that it was; the dining couch was cushy enough to make small talk over the rumbling of our tummies more manageable (dinnertime was long overdue, after all); and the best thing--we didn’t have to wait too long for our food. It came and went, but not without major effort from our part to try to not to inhale the whole table all in one big huff. The Double Blueberry, we were informed, was the house’s best-selling pancake. It was named so because apart from the generous dollop of blueberry sauce sloshed on top, you could see a smattering of blueberry chunks inside when you slice through the heap. Good thing we had the pancakes while they were still warm. I wouldn't say it was anything like in the cartooney M&M ads, but for sure it was a melt-in-your-mouth experience. The folks over at the other pancake house parked along G4 had better watch out; this newcomer’s got instant converts in the house!


From one “eggs-traordinary” dish to another (yeah, I know it's a terrible pun), we were equally enraptured by the house’s take on the Spanish-sounding local dish Salpicao. Nestled on the side with rice and scrambled eggs, I thought it looked like something that might have been served to the food-loving friars during the Spanish era, simply because it looked so good. Although when the guys at FlapJacks brought out this handsome-looking plate, it wasn’t the looks that got our motor running. Rather it was the heady aroma of eau d’huile de boeuf (yes, I just came up with that), that telling thing that results in one’s mental salivating mechanism to go on overdrive. Just now I realize we had too much animal protein that night, and I thought the eggs were a bit average for my liking, but the bovine was divine. The tastiness of the beef offset the characteristic blandness of the eggs, leading the overall flavor to converge at the point of contact with the meat. In the end, all’s well that converges well.

Soms was so impressed with the meal that he declared the place to be the new Heaven ‘n Eggs (in fact, for a certain favor, he actually said that I owe him FlapJacks flapjacks!). I would, on the other hand, say it’s a tough one to call. Maybe after we sample the Triple Chocolate Chip Pancake (yummm!) plus something else to keep us on our toes, then I’ll be able to say that it indeed is the premier pancake place to be. Right now.

FlapJacks
Ground Level, Greenbelt 2
Ayala Center, Makati City

Open Up Your Mind and The Sky is Yours

Doncha just love the summertime?



I've actually downloaded the acoustic version of the song eons ago, which I so love. But with this new, Hawaiian-ish rendition, I find that I just can't stop clicking on insta-reply. Plus, the vid's pretty neat, too. Might just be in the running for my all-time summery fave. Then again, that's just probably coz I don't get to watch a lot of late-night MTV these days.

I'm Yours is the first single from Jason Mraz's new album, We Sing, We Dance, We Steal Things, available wherever, whenever. After May 13, 2008, that is.

Salad Days: Going Green, Staying Mean

Finally. For the longest time, the idea of blogging about food has been fermenting at the back of my mind. Chronic wishy-washiness comes to the fore when I try weighing the pros and cons of the deal. My favorite excuse is that I would be undermining my own penny-pinching efforts, as I would be somewhat "forced" to eat out more often at places slightly better than your friendly, neighborhood Kenny Rogers (ain't much of a McDonald's junkie). Now not to diss the great Kenny R, coz he sure knows tasty comfort food-in-a-flash. (Even though his roast chicken gives off that GMO vibe, like you're biting into cloned meat or what-have-you, which is not actually all that comforting...) But some days when feel like you've had one roast chicken too many, you know you gotta have variety. And some days, you just gotta have quality variety.

By quality, I mean healthy. As in salads and greens. Olive oil-based entrees and roast white meat. Soy lattes and sugar-free desserts. Friends know how I can live on tuna au naturel for a whole straight week and not feel like I'm starting to grow fish scales. I get a kick out of eating things that I know won't lead me to a premature bypass. Even though I like digging into rich, hearty treats (lordy, I miss Cyma!), I get a little lightheaded from images of clogged arteries swirling in my head, the special effects punctuated with every bite. (Okay, well, maybe not EVERY bite.. usually just the first one.) Plus, I know I don't look like it, but I admit vanity plays a teeny role in my preferences. Gotta love this society that's being held up by pillars of double standards.

But really, I like what I like mostly because I like my body to function the way it's supposed to when it counts. I like sports. I like being able to move with as little baggage as possible. I like being able to go trekking for hours on end without stopping every 10 seconds or so for a breather, or slipping on jagged rocks and breaking a rib or two in the process. I like not looking like a wuss during training, especially at times when I feel like I'm being one.

So that's my story. Now what about this health food series thing? Well, the dealbreaker is, I have to motivate myself to eat healthy more consistently. Enough with the excuses, enough with the sissiness. Sure, grabbing healthy eats means dishing out more bread. But if you want something, you do what you gotta do to make it happen. If you gotta spend, you might as well spend wisely and with flair. Quality is the shiznit, whereas extravagance is for the uninspired.

And most of all, spend in finger-lickin' good taste. Coz really, if it's so good, who cares about anything?

Dessert Comes First on Mellow 94.7 FM

Ladies and gents, I am so tuning in on Wednesday night, April 2nd. The landline war is on.

Extra: The Contender Asia

I noticed that over the past few weeks, the spike in daily traffic to this site has been coming mostly from search engines. I'm guessing this is most likely due to the posts on The Contender Asia, the one and only show I religiously follow these days. It's wrapping up next month with the grand finale happening on April 12th in Singapore.

So to help answer what questions may come from inquiring minds, or just to offer a venue for public discourse and engagement, I hereby present the link to the best TCA fansite there is right now. Ta-dah!

Members of Contender Asia Fans gather on the virtual plane to discuss and analyze (and further trivialize, in some cases) the pressing issues and matters of the day. (About all things TCA, of course.) One can also pick up added insight on Muay Thai, the sport of focus in the show. The overall tone of the discourse is experiential, and sometimes it can even get a little emotional, particularly when colorful or dissenting views arise. Plus, a couple or so fighters from TCA do check in every now and then to spice up discussions with their first-hand accounts of the weekly fights and goings-on in the house. If you have kids and are concerned about psychological repercussions, let me assure you, it's a wholesome family affair. For devotees of the show, it's a nifty virtual hangout, especially after downing another heady episode of the ultimate nail-biter that is TCA.


Okay. So yeah, maybe I should have done this a long time ago, way before the quarterfinals were aired. Anyway, if you dig, good for you. If not, sorry, I can't provide an alternative forum coz that's the only one that I visit. If anyone out there has any suggestions, I'm like a duck sitting out in the open. I invite you to hit me with your best shot. *wrinkle nose plus nerdy giggle*

Peace!

Pinay In Action Run '08

I know, this is so last week.

Whatev, I'm still posting it. It is still March, after all, and all this is in celebration of International Women's Month.

Below are pics taken from the 2008 Pinay In Action Expo that was held in NBC Tent in Bonifacio Global City last Sunday. As an annual event that is spearheaded by Senator Pia Cayetano, this included a multi-distance all-women run and indoor exhibit showcasing bits and pieces that highlighted the sporty senator's advocacy for women empowerment in the country. (Plus, let me not forget, sassy environmentalism too!)

oh, happy day...

just a little shout out to our sponsors

assembly line

running in global city

inside the expo

it's like that, all right

Sorry, gotta run (figuratively now, that is). Details to follow in yet another week.

Happy Women's Month, y'all!

I'm Like A Lawyer...

The lyrics below implicitly capture that which I had to let go last year..

I'm Like A Lawyer With The Way I'm Always Trying To Get You Off (Me & You)

Last year's wishes
Are this year's apologies
Every last time I come home
I take my last chance
To burn a bridge or two
I only keep myself this sick in the head
'Cause I know how the words get you {off}

We're the new face of failure
Prettier and younger but not any better off
Bulletproof loneliness
At best, at best

Me and you
Setting in a honeymoon
If I woke up next to you
If I woke up next to you
Me and you
Setting in a honeymoon
If I woke up next to you
If I woke up next to you

Collect the bad habits
That you couldn't bear to keep
Out of the woods but I love
A tree I used to lay beneath
Kissed teeth stained red
From a sour bottle baby girl
With eyes the size of baby worlds

We're the new face of failure
Prettier and younger but not any better off
Bulletproof loneliness
At best, at best

Me and you
Setting in a honeymoon
If I woke up next to you
If I woke up next to you
Me and you
Setting in a honeymoon
If I woke up next to you
If I woke up next to you
Me and you
Setting in a honeymoon
If I woke up next to you
If I woke up next to you
Me and you
Setting in a honeymoon
If I woke up next to you
If I woke up next to you

The best way
To make it through
With hearts and wrists intact
Is to realize
Two out of three ain't bad
Ain't bad

Me and you
Setting in a honeymoon
If I woke up next to you
If I woke up next to you
Me and you
(Honeymoon)
Setting in a honeymoon
Me and you
Setting in a honeymoon
If I wake up next to you
If I woke up next to you
Me and you
Setting in a honeymoon
If I wake up next to you
(Honeymoon)

***

So now I'm a Fall Out Boy fan. And it's this song that did it for me. (Great vid, too.)

Sometimes their player's pretty useless, but you can DL away here.

Marion Cotillard Wins Best Acceptance Speech and Best Backstage Interview in the Oscars.. oh, and Best Actress too..

Marion Cotillard is damn beautiful. Mind you, she may not be the type of beauty that knocks eyes out of their sockets. Her sultry good looks may not inspire a madness that could drive one to slit their wrist in puppy love despair. Rather, the extent of her appeal, albeit not quite ethereal, is beyond worldliness. She doesn't look like Christmas morning, she looks like French spring. She's magnifique. She's divine.

It's cliché, but the star who plays the award-winning role of iconic French songstress Edith Piaf in 'La Vie En Rose' (not to mention the female lead in my fave French movie, 'Jeux D'enfants', as described by moi here) is the picture of all things je ne sais quoi. I mean, will you just look at her.


Plus, she's effortlessly funny too. How can you not love her?

[Backstage at the 80th Academy Awards Press Con] When asked how it felt to win first the César, the French equivalent of the Oscar, then the Oscar itself, she said:

"I'm totally overwhelmed with joy and sparkles and fireworks... Everything which goes like bam, bam, bam... all these things are happening right now. It's just a joy and so unexpected that it's surreal, but I love it. It's huge. I'm so proud of the movie. We had so much more than fun during the shooting and all the adventure."

Cotillard credited her presenter Forest Whitaker--last year's Leading Actor Oscar winner for 'King of Scotland'--with helping her to come back into her body. "I was totally... my brain collapsed," said Cotillard when asked what was going through her head after hearing her name called. "He helped me to find the plug back to my brain."

She said the process of being nominated for the César in France and the Oscar in America is very different. "The confusion is that I spent more than a month talking about myself, which is not what I prefer to do in life," she said, "so it's very long, longer than in France. You don't do this, you don't campaign, so that was kind of weird to answer the same questions about myself because the movie was released everywhere. I mean... the life of the movie is going on... the movie doesn't need us anymore."

(writeup in block-quote by Stacy Jenel Smith and Stephanie DuBois)

Like I said, how can you not love her?

¡Qué Jessica!

I really don't wanna sound like a fangirl but I can't help it--I LOVE YOU, Jessica! And you love Marat Safin!

Before tongues start wagging, let me set the record straight. I love Ms. Zafra, but I'm in love with Marat. Me and him, it just totally makes sense. Like peanut butter and jelly, like yin and yang, like Dolce and Gabbana. Or something to that effect, hehe. Basta, it's Marat all the way and doncha forget it!

courtesy of www.maratsafin.com


But really, who knew the queen of varbarian pursuits would have anything in common with the queen of twisted irony? (Hey, was that a pleonasm? I can't say.)

She, whose books in school I would devour, which offered tremendous hope for the perennially oddball, unpopular types that people thought were never going to get with the fab.

She, whose biting candor and acerbic wit made chronicling of the seemingly mundane into an effortless art worthy of a subject slot in the curriculum for mass communications in peyups. (Deconstructing Pop Culture 101, anyone?)

She, the dominatrix from planet Twisted who looked at me with a withering eye across the room in Powerbooks Megamall one time when I was sheepishly asking the bookstore attendant, "Miss, I can't seem to find the sale section...?"

She, whose language and voice inspired and helped shape my own.

And we like the same things? Granted, maybe only a couple of things. But mind you, that's a hefty couple of somethings.

The other Jessica, of Dogeaters fame.

Epicureans, we are.

Two things already.

Tennis players. And tennis, of course.

"I love Marat, but he’s the great squandered genius of his time."

You said it, JZ.


You can check out more of Jessica Zafra's photos here.

Show Time: Fight Science 2008

Fellow fight nerds out there, heads up!

I know it's a little late in the game, so before I delay further, here's the schedule for the second season of Fight Science, premiering on the National Geographic Channel this weekend. Not sure which episodes get shown when, but at the very least, you can anticipate the time and days they're airing.

Manila/Singapore Time:

Jan27/Sun/1700
Feb07/Thu/1900
Feb08/Fri/0600
Feb14/Thu/1000
Feb15/Fri/0000
Feb15/Fri/0400

After this, my eyes almost popped a capillary or two from the strain of going through each page in the Philippine show sked site. Be my guest in scoping out the entire season run of this headbangin', super kickass series. (Pun entirely intended.)

Check out the National Geographic Channel, one of my favorite TV hangouts ever since I chanced upon JWP's documentary on a Muay Thai prizefighter's life in the 2006 run of the ShowReal Asia series. Yeah, I know, no schedule for this here show. (All I know is that it's showing tonight on NGC at 8pm, Philippine time.) I'm still bracing myself for the long haul sitting in front of the monitor, flipping through page upon page on the lookout for the time sked of said series. Maybe next week, if I get inspired enough to go through the whole ordeal yet again, who knows.

In the meantime, happy weekend, everyone!

The Contender Asia Premiere

All right. Since I think the sudden traffic buildup in this here site must be caused in major part by the timely interest in the debut of The Contender Asia, I figure I should join the bandwagon and provide a sort of review on the first episode of the newest reality show on AXN (aired first last Wednesday and replaying this Saturday at 8am and 6pm).

So what do I think about the premiere? Let me break it down for y'all in bite-sized pieces.


The Lineup

The Contender Asia is White Boy's Land! And about half of them aren't even from Asia! Funny, I know. I checked out the profile of the 16 contenders even before the promotional vids were released and saw that the mix was pretty diverse all right, but it's something else to be seeing them move and speak on the show.

But it's all good, really. I think it makes more business sense to include such a broad scope of geographic representation (there's France, Sweden, and even Croatia!). You have to admit, it makes the case for building Muay Thai up as an uber interesting alternative spectator sport more viable. First off, the fighters could very well be part of the lineup for a United Colors of Benetton ad (for the sportswear collection, if there ever was one). And the more "colorful" the cast of characters in a production, the more engrossing the show could be, hence furthering marketability. As a Muay Thai fan, I sure want to see this happen.

Then there's the language issue. As viewers may have noticed, the powerhouse contenders--them Thais, Yodsaenklai and Naruepol--hardly speak as much English as we offspring of this sprawling, Westernized TV society would prefer. Of course, it's not that they can't speak the language (even if this is so, I don't think it should be the foremost concern of any potential fan of the show); it's just that they don't as much as the others. Which would put them in a slight disadvantage in terms of easy adoption by non-Thai-speaking boob tube cultures. Then again, one could easily point out, "That's what the subtitles are for." Touché.

(By the way, please note that the term "white boy" is not used herein as a derogatory term, or even to suggest a marked demarcation between the races. This is used to describe the irony of the situation. And by irony I don't mean sarcasm. I understand a little, even just a teensy weensy bit, about this thing called globalization and the ongoing melting pot phenomenon, and I don't wish to marginalize in any way any group anywhere, as we are all products of the history of the same world. Bow.)

The Technical

I think the production looks a bit low-budget for something that's from the camp of mega-producer Mark Burnett. By low-budget I mean the feel of the overall quality of the production. (Think getting more bang for your buck.) Although this seems to be the case as well for regional spin-off shows from the US like The Amazing Race, I think the guys behind TCA could have done better.

That being said, I would like to see the cameramen around the ring during the end-of-show fights employ more strategic subterfuge methods to make themselves look scarce. It's a little distracting, really, particularly when the fighters hit the ropes for some clinch action, you tend to go, "Oh the camera guy, he's in the way, he might get thrown off the ring!" And I think the panning of the shots all across the ring could be a little less erratic. Think something along the lines of the UFC or even The Ultimate Fighter. And maybe if they could position the referee to be standing by the side of the fighters in the shots so that you get a sense of only two people fighting in the match, that would also be great. It's not too much to ask, is it? (I know, I notice too much.)

The Sport

Overall, as much as I predict that the show's explosive fights will inspire prospective audiences outside the expected Muay Thai-practicing fanbase to tune in, I think TCA's initial adoption will be borne to a considerable extent by the strong worldwide branding of its parent production. Even though the US show is a boxing competition, its popularity will well enough carry over to TCA, helping the newbie in its bid to make a dent on the Asian entertainment sports market.

As a sport, boxing has left an indelible imprint on the collective consciousness of sports fans all over the world. I can't begin to try guessing how this imprint looks like, and even more so how this was shaped. Suffice it to say that as like-minded enthusiasts become more enamored by the spectacle of combat sports, we shall perceive a more resounding clamor for alternative, derivative forms of boxing, if only to satiate our vicarious lust for variety and the increasingly exotic. Being the "Art of the Eight Limbs", Muay Thai is all that and more. It's not just a sporting phenomenon that's taking rings all around the world by storm; it's something that we can all connect to. It is survival of the fittest to the core, and we are all fighting the same fight. And that is why I think Muay Thai and TCA are here to stay.