The Soundtrack-Supported Loboc River Cruise

thanks to "Winston", our crooner-in-residence, may soundtrack ang loboc river lunch-slash-cruise-slash-show namin. well-timed at pinagisipan ang repertoire nya: the love boat ang departure song (makes you want to make kaway-kaway to the people at the dock, parang mga immigrants na nag-landing sa new york) at bye bye love ang arrival song (bye-bye kasi bye-bye to Winston).

taking a break bago bumyahe

i'm reminded of the mouth of pagsanjan river, that part way way before the rapids.

"ispageting pataas, pataas nang pataas" (this "show" near the end of the river left me half-entertained and half-bothered. kids are always cute when they dance and sing. the "cute", however, turns to "troubling" when you see that there are adults behind them prodding them on. worse, in this case, thrusting their palms out to get the 20- and 50-peso bills the amused tourists hand out from their river rafts. but without factories in bohol--pinagbawal daw ng government--where else should people go to earn a living but to the river?)

"moon river" (imagined the kid crooning while in truth he/she--can't make his/her gender out for the life of me--was just watching with his/her mouth open)

The Man-Made Forest

kaya naman pala ng pinoy e! this is part of several hundrends of hectares of forest planted by the boholanios themselves as shelter for wildlife and to preserve the "balance" of the ecosystem. why can't people do this in more places in the country?

trees are numbered and regularly counted to make sure they always add up to the several hundred thousand that's the requirement for this place

blair witch proportions... imagine running out of gas in this in the middle of night

The Wide-Eyed Tarsier

indeed a rare find: a creature with bigger eyes than mine... and dona's (peace, dona!).

my tourist-y boo-boo: accidentally hit on the flash while shooting pics. i fear i may have blinded all of them in that small pocket garden by the highway.

13-year-old (kung hindi kami ginugudtaym ni manong tagabantay) "Yoda"

tarsier contemplating reason of existence... will turn suicidal if damned tarsier on top does not get off him

tarsier heart cricket

the tarsiers also come in miniature...



















head-only...














gay...



















...and gay with partner.

Boo Hoo

This is George. He is so cute I bet your heart is melting right now looking at him. More so when you find out this guy saved the lives of five children in New Zealand. He was given a medal for his act of doggie courage. A medal previously given only to humans. Not until George come along, though. Shortly after that, George's picture (the one you see above) is posted on the Internet and his story related for all the world to see and be amazed at.

Too bad however that George will never see how appreciated he is. You see, George is dead. The children he died trying to save were being attacked by pit bulls. George charged against the pit bulls in defense of the children and in doing so, the poor dog ended up being mauled himself. He was so badly injured they had to put him down. Sooo soooo soooooooo sad....Tears... :-(

If you badly need to be touched by humanism and self-sacrifice now, read more about George here. I've had it up to here with all the self-servicing election campaign crap I've been reading, watching, and hearing everywhere. All the lies about "serving the people" and "fighting corruption and poverty" when really what they all want is self-glorification, power, and money. Selflessness used to be a very human trait. Now it appears sadly beyond human reach. Sometimes it takes an animal to show us how to be human.

Creepy Reads for Gloomy Days 1

The gloom is back. Parang it's a bit earlier, ano? I banked pa naman my entire summer schedule to reports that the summer will be hotter and longer this year. I still have a Bohol trip coming for crying out loud! Wag sanang umulan, plis. Sabi nila, hanggang June pa ang summer. Hello. Inuulan na ang mga Santacruzan. Schmeniwey, while I'm not "only happy when it rains" (-Garbage), I always make "the best of what's around" (-DMB). As noir is the general aura of the paligid, I turn to books and music that lean towards the dark side. I have 5 or 6 to recommend. This is the first one.

1) Grotesque. Natsuo Kirino.

A tale of two prostitutes murdered in Japan. While this book is not scary, it is downright creepy. The murder itself is the least creepy element in the entire book. It's not even the whole series of events leading to the murder. Rather, it's the darkness in the hearts of all the people in this book that raised the hairs of me.

The book's main narrator is related to both prostitutes: the first one is her sister, the second one her classmate. The sister is immensely beautiful, almost too beautiful, such that her beauty is hard to understand, hard to swallow... hard to accept that such a thing exists. The kind of beauty that does not beckon, but arrests those who behold it. She knows of her beauty and she wields its power to weaken those less resolute than her. She becomes a prostitute not because she needs to be--no sob-story related to poverty and absence of opportunity here--but because she wants to. The narrator already calls her sister a monster and she does not even know half of it.

The classmate is not beautiful, not beckoning, and not arresting. But she desperately wants to be. And she tries hard, regardless of the impossibility of it all. The narrator observes the classmate with a condescending eye and resolves to feed her own contempt with the failed attempts of the harried classmate. She prods her to reach impossible heights, and the dimwit obeys, first believing the lies told to her and then later on telling the same lies to herself. She carries on with her life blind to the reality of what she is and what she is not, in the process weakening herself and starving herself of freedom that the recognition of truth provides until in the end she becomes emaciated both body and soul. She mindlessly grins like a fool--seeing herself any which way but the way the rest of the world sees her. Like an idiot, she smiles when there is nothing to smile about.

The narrator is at the center of everything and yet she is nowhere to be found. She believes herself a passive observer of the pathetic lives around her. She believes herself to be on higher ground--better than the others, secure, composed, whole. Little does she know her existence contributes as much to the montrosities that are the lives of her sister and classmate as their lives contribute to hers. Little does she know, she has become as grotesque as the two others. And quite possibly, depending on how you look at it, the most grotesque of them all.

Those who long for closure at the end of books need not bother with this one. There is no light at then end of the tunnel here. Redemption on earth is portrayed as a lost cause. Not a shred of love in this book--whether romantic, sisterly, brotherly, fatherly, grandfatherly, friendly. There is nothing but isolation, hate, and need, rendering the mix of the first two potions a deadly combination.

One might say: What's the big deal about another book about dysfunctional people? After quentin tarantino and borat, what is hate but another buzzword? Here is what is: reading about the potential for evil and nodding in agreement. O hindi ba scary? The thoughts and feelings of the people here are some of the darkest, sickest, loveless-est I have ever read. And reading through them, I saw why they think and feel such--worse, I understood how come. Envy, jealousy, hate, disgust--these are basic feelings latent in everyone. Latent, but real and alive in all. Reading the book, one realizes that depravity -- the wickedness that is the human condition -- has an absolute existence. Creepier still, one need only take one look at someone else lost in depravity in order to find it alive and well in one's self.

Next: Perfume by Patrick Suskind. Bottling pure evil.

Better Be Out

Michael Buble has a new album! "Call Me Irresponsible" is out at amazon.com. He talks about one of the songs, "It Had Better Be Tonight" here at amazon with characteristic Buble-goofiness--watch all of his interviews on his concert DVD's and you'll know what I mean.

Well this album had better be out at M1 NOW. They made we wait so long for Marie Antoinette the OST. And I can't believe wala pa rin ang Extraordinary ni Fiona Apple and Lost in Translation the OST. One peeve of being in a third world country is we always get left behind with the good new stuff that's out. But I guess that's because Fiona Apple and Lost In Translation aren't exactly "third-world hits", if you know what I mean. Sumikat naman si Buble sa Pinoy middle class when he came here so there's a big chance the left-behind rule will not apply on Michael Buble albums.

Inggit Na Naman: Ilocos Sojourn...

...nila Nats with the PGH Ortho Department. Inggit ako kasi: 1) hindi pa ako nakakarating dito, at 2) mas maganda ang camera ni Nats sa kin. Thanks to Nats for sharing these pictures! Balang araw...

the weathered look suits you

mahanging gabi

laoag airport