maximine and minerva’s owl

 L got me the book and I like it so much I’ve been reading it over and over again. Incidentally, one of my most favorite phrases is “don’t bullshit me.” Not that I get to say it very often because, luckily, there are not too many bullshitters around me. I don’t bullshit so I don’t become a bullshitee.These inanities are a product of a discussion I had with a friend of mine regarding the book. Who said which doesn’t matter. I just want to hear myself. Please disregard me.

>> The psychological dimension of this “phenomenon” I
     would say, includes the refusal or inability to be true
     to one’s self. For many reasons, human beings shy away from the truth.
     Hence, the voice of wisdom to “know thy self” or
    “look into one’s self.”

 >> I guess if one makes it a habit to bullshit people one
      becomes adept at it and becomes convinced that one can
      go on doing it (i.e. as practice makes perfect). Then
      one gets caught in the mire.

>> Governments, politicians, spinmasters and PR people
     are good at this;  “doublespeak” can perhaps be a
     variant if not synonym for it.  But these may not be

    what Frankfurt is referring to; rather,
    he may be concerned of what in this era is captured in
    the common expression “truth is relative” or “it
    depends.”

>> Truth and lie are two clear extremes, absolutes, so to speak;

      and bullshitters know that. What they do, for whatever reason or intention, 

      is cover either one by….bullshitting.

>> People trained in philosophy tend to use these
     expressions and thus end up legitimizing this
     behavior. One must, of course, be careful here
     because traditionally seeking the truth has been a
     core value in philosophy. I would like to believe
     that it still is.  But the point here is that one
     still is commited to seek the truth though it is
     prudent to be wary of being dogmatic about beliefs.

>> Someone once derisively said the problem with
      philosophers is that they do not take on a definite
      position on issues. 

>> Here the quote you cited from
     Bertrand Russell applies: “The whole problem with the world is that

    fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves,

   and wiser people so full of doubts,” to which someone has retorted,

   *”He should have added ‘I think’ in the beginning or the end of that statement.”*

*Wordsmith/Awad Mail

Lifted from Tamso3019

everything is just bs.

………………………………………………..

and why are you still swimming

in the pool of mediocrity?

don’t you notice? can’t you? 

you celebrate it silently

please stop bullshitting me.

**********************************

Happy Birthday Stelluv !!!!

hindi naman daw siya “starving artist” ng itanong ko kung bakit may kumot dun sa kotse niya na sinundan ko pa ng ”sa kotse mo ka ba natutulog?” pang cover daw niya iyon sa kanyang synthesizer para di madaling makita at di manakaw. niyaya nya akong maglaro ng 8-ball sa billiard parlor dun sa city square at sumama naman ako. ipinagmalaki kong magaling akong maglaro at baka matalo ko siya; natalo ko nga siya; pero alam kong nagpatalo lang siya; umalis kami pagkatapos ng isang round dahil masyadong mausok ng sigarilyo dun sa lugar at di na namin makayanan pareho.

nag drive na lang kami papuntang zuma beach. habang naglalakad kami ay ikinukwento nya na kapangalan ko daw yung lugar na kinalakihan niya sa upstate new york. at kung paano siya nakakuha ng scholarship sa berklee college of music sa boston para mag-aral ng komposisyon (oo, inday sa balitaw, isang kompositor na naman ang aking manliligaw :)). at kung paano niya na meet ang girlfriend niya nung magtrabaho siya sa isang recording studio sa florida. at kung bakit gusto niyang mag-pirmi na lang sa california, kahit ayaw ng kasintahan niya, dahil mas maraming oportunidad sa hollywood sa pag gawa ng musika para sa mga sine at stage plays. at kung hindi daw ba ako natatakot na mag-isang tumitigil sa bahay na iyon. nandun kasi siya para tapusin ang orchestration na in-assign sa kanya nung may ari ng bahay. at kailangang matapos niya ito sa loob ng 3 araw para umabot sa deadline at irerelease na daw ang sine pagkatapos ng dalawang buwan.

mabait siya at hindi mapanghangad o mambobola o mapang ikot-ikot o mapang-isa. nalalaman ko naman agad sa taong kausap ko kung gusto ko pa siyang kausapin ng matagal at pag-aksayahan ng panahon basta tingnan ko siya sa mata at pag-aralan ng masinsinan ang galaw at gawi ng kanyang muka, at ang pagpili niya sa kanyang mga salitang ginagamit habang kausap ko siya. naging natural na yata sa akin ang ganoong pag-aaral at pagkakalkula sa aking kausap. pwera na lang sa telepono, kasi may pader talaga ang telepono, malinaw ang katotohanang ito. 

pagkatapos ng aming paglalakad sa tabing dagat sa ilalim ng tanglaw ng maputlang bilog na moon, bumalik na kami sa bahay. tinanong niya ako kung ok lang daw ba sa akin ang vegetarian pizza at magpapa-deliver daw siya (he’s vegetarian). sabi ko huwag na at nagluto ako ng vegetarian baked ziti (stictly vegetarian din kasi ako nung mga panahon na iyon at mahina talaga ang sikmura ko sa kahit anong karne, kaya muka talaga akong batang patpatin kahit na may beinte anyos na ako). kumain kami at tuloy pa rin ang pag-uusap tungkol sa buhay-buhay. naka on ang tv sa nickelodeon at palabas ang ‘the patty duke show’ na naging paborito kong panoorin dahil paborito kong lugar noon ang new york. sinundan ng ’the dick van dyke show’. sinundan ng ‘my three sons’. sinundan ng ‘mr. ed’. ang sarap panoorin ng mga 50s at 60s tv shows. 

hanggang lumalim ang gabi.

she’s 21 he’s almost 32

she’s a catholic he’s an unorthodox jew

they meet in the right place but at the wrong time though,

for he has someone he’s commited to.

they go for a walk one day until the moon showered diamonds 

 onto the calm ocean blue

just around the neighborhood of birdview in malibu

the place is right and the stars are bright 

the night is sweet and the kisses deep

the persian rug is very cooperative

but, “NO!” say the tiny bugs that creep

and remind her of her moral values

and that’s how the night ends.

***************************

tag ni anna chiquita banana -

instructions: name 10 of life’s simple pleasures that you like the most, then pick 10 people to do the same. try to be original and creative, and not to use things someone else has already used.

:sunday driving while listening to old songs, oreo cookies, L scratching my back and massaging my feet, thinking of the past, dancing, hiking and/or long nature walks, meditation, fresh vegetables, hearing children laugh, staring at the ceiling planning my next scheme, fantasizing, watering my plants. sumobra na sa sampu.

i’m tagging my friends who live in the following places (real and imaginary): toronto, marikina, sfdm, weggis, barnsley, quincy, dordrecht, jardinbougainvillea, coimbra, utopia. ok lang kung di ninyo feel like.     

To earn some extra dough for gas and movies and frequent visits to Contempo or Donna Karan outlets or Barnes and Noble, and for the occassional out-of-towning to see places other than west LA , I tried to find a part-time work. One thing is sure, I can never ever be a waitress due to my clumsiness in handling bowls, saucers and food trays. I tried waitressing at this semi-swanky lunch joint along Westwood Blvd. near UC, where I was to work twice a week for 3 hours each. Lunch time was crazy because the place was located right smack in the middle of a business area and frequented by yuppies and professors. I got fired after a week: I would keep spilling sauces and soups and sodas on my lily-white blouse uniform that I always managed to look like a total disgrace to waitressing business. Adding to that, the extended woeful gaze from the patrons which often made me feel as if I was a walking testimony of violation of child labor and exploitation law  (because even if I was already in my early 20s then, I would still get mistaken for a junior high-ish waif, we all look like that in the eyes of these big people, don’t we?). It had come to the point that the manager couldn’t stand my presence and told me to pack up. So that was the end of my career in restaurant and food service industry.

Then I applied for a position at See’s Candies at the West Side Pavillion on Pico Blvd. I worked as a ‘chocolate cupper and boxer’ 4 hours each on saturdays and sundays - my job description was to put chocolates in tiny paper pastry cups and then box them and make sure they’re not dented or damaged. I enjoyed every bit of it on my first day because I’ve always liked chocolates and they said it’s ok to munch on those suckers while working; eat all you can and nobody will say anything as long as you don’t fill your pockets with them. But  that was the caveat, because no matter how much you like chocolate or how high the extent of your addiction to it, if you’re seeing and smelling and touching and inhaling it for 4 hours straight, you will become nauseous. I quit after 3 days.

My next target? Barnes and Noble, which was located on the 3rd floor right below See’s. My job description was stacking books in the Psychology/Humanities/Sociology etc. aisle. I enjoyed it a lot and I thought, hey, I wouldn’t mind doing this for a long time. There are a lot of mean customers and people who go to bookstores and you can get a lot of complaints and verbal abuse from them if they don’t get what they want and I knew it right from the beginning. But I also realized that if I got to be assigned to man that particular aisle, it would not be so bad because somehow I knew that people who have interest in Psychology and Humanities and such are “ok” people. I was happy and contented even if the wage was sort of below the minimum until the asst. manager started harassing me. I quit after 3 months.   

And then I found a job as a dog walker. That one I thoroughly enjoyed.

There was this showbiz couple who owned a house in Malibu. They didn’t have kids and  only had 3 tiny dogs in their big abode - a few minutes walk to the beach. The man was a music scorer for movies in Hollywood  and the wife was a budding actress, she stayed just a bud and never got to bloom, sad to say they were often out of the country spotting for movie location and themes and always needed  a house/dog sitter. The man’s uncle, a professor of mine, asked me if I wanted the job, I said YES! But he also warned me that it entailed spending nights alone in a huge house although the neighborhood was very safe with most of the houses equipped with high-powered alarms. I said no problemo, I can handle it. For 1 whole month I was living in a huge house with 3 dogs; free food, free jacuzzi, a tennis court all to myself :) ,gasoline allowance and endless walks on the beach whenever I felt like it. I also enjoyed the everyday drive from school to Malibu. The view of the Pacific Coast Highway and the sea during sunset was spectacular. Some of the neighbors asked me if I could walk their dogs too, usually in the morning before my drive to the city. They paid me well since most of them were filthy rich. I even got to exchange ‘Good Mornings’ with Bob Dylan one time when I saw him sweeping dried leaves off his lawn. I also worked with children in the same neighborhood, later on.

God, I loved those times.

In retrospect,  parang my life then was more interesting than my life now (don’t you feel this way sometimes?).

Everything is routinary now, secure and predictable. You have something you call work and you go there, do your lot and come home. You take care of your home and keep it decently liveable, you do your recreational activities on the days that you are able to do them. You do some volunteer work and feel a sense of belonging and the assurance that ”you” does count. Other than these, there’s nothing more and everything else is just everything else.  

*oh, for pete’s sake stop whining and get on with life!*

here try this, it’s good:

avocado-maguro on baguette

you need mashed avocado, mashed fresh tuna, mayonnaise, wasabi, lemon juice, salt and pepper, soy sauce, garlic powder, minced chives. mix everything and spread generously on slightly toasted slices of baguette. If you don’t have/like fresh maguro, canned tuna will do but the taste and texture will differ, of course. you can also add baby shrimps cooked in butter and lemon juice. please don’t ask for measurement (i don’t measure) and just rely on your taste buds and good judgement.

Perhaps it’s the erratic weather that has been making me very introspective lately, actually, more like simultaneous conflicting thoughts; or, maybe I’m just plain going mad for still latent reasons. This introspective mode am talking about had compelled me to dig out a considerable chunk of my past  packed in a huge carton box. Love letters, trinkets,  IQ test results of kids and adults whom I had given tests to, a part of my angel collection, magazine and paper clippings, very very old UP Literary Apprentice journals given to me by my profs. and friends, very very old Reader’s Digests - ca. 40s, 50s etc., and all other rubbish that I have accumulated throughout the years. And of course, my diaries, 9 in total, very thick notebooks and cathay pacific memo books that I had to augment with sheets of papers so I could write in them continuously. Entries from 1982 to 1996 (though I didn’t write everyday except when there was something significant and meaningful). And then I had stopped writing for a couple of years and resumed again in 1999 after the death of my sister but mostly I write my dreams now and not the everyday account of my present existence. A friend suggested that I should burn them to be safe in case I die so that nobody would know my secrets. I’m planning to, and soon!

Reading through those pages, it suddenly dawned on me why I have not much difficulty in accepting delayed gratification (no, I’m not trying to appear to be virtuous, sanctimonious? yes but it’s true! not the me trying to appear virtuous but the me not having difficulty in accepting delayed gratification; well…partly hehehe).

That is because I was repressed as a teenager (this logic sucks, i know), but in a very good way. Maybe ‘repressed’ is not the operative word because it implies negative so I’m going to change it to the word ‘disciplined’, not spartan but reasonable and just the right amount. Balanced, ika nga. ehehehrmm

The “home before dusk” I was talking about in my previous entry is true. Dad was strict but very loving and fair that’s why I always obeyed him. The bunso did exactly the opposite of everything she had been told but that’s her and I had never had a problem with that as long as she didn’t come home pregnant or with fried brain under narcotics. She turned out fine, yun nga lang, she has no clue whatsoever of what it is and how it is to delay gratification.

Sige na nga, enough of this gratification gratification jabberwock. But you see, it’s very important in life, because that’s how you develop inner strength, yung tipong di ka basta basta matitinag agad agad ng konting sakit and life’s vicissitudes (gulong ng palad, inday!). Ngayon kung ang mantra mo naman sa buhay eh katulad ng mga hedonista na “you only live once bakit mo pa kailangan i-delay ang gratification at mga bagay na magpapasarap sa buhay mo, dapat sige sige lang”, tama rin at may point ika nga pero paano naman yung consequences na idudulot nito later on? Yung pwedeng maging damage nung resulta nung ginawa mo? kung ikaw lang ang maaapektuhan, hey, don’t stop and seize the day (ayan nagiging maklishey na naman tuloy ako) pero kung may ibang magdurusa sa hindi magandang resulta ng ginagawa mo, tumigil ka at magpakatatag ka. Always remember, one humongous difference between a human being and an animal is “self control”. 

But that’s just me.

super off the tangent at masyado ng magulo at parang champorado na ‘tong pinagsasasabi ko dito, tama na nga.

from the demented princess goofya [shiite! that rhymes with dubya…how appropriate!]

I googled his name and it came out. He has established a name for himself in Europe, being a violinist (and/or a cellist) and a composer. I didn’t even know he had played for the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra for several years before he found a niche in his field in his current location. He was sweet and intense, artistic to the core, methinks.

I was, for the most part, a recluse during my college years, always alone and oblivious to the world around me and never joined any extra curricular stuff. I had my books and my poetry to protect me (*hiniram kina simon and garfunkle’s ‘i am a rock’*), but I had befriended some profs. and they sometimes let me make tambay in their airconditioned cubicles. I also had my very own sanctuary: the back of the then halfly-finished Vargas museum, where I would spend many an afternoon alone to study or eat cheezcurls or write my poems and juvenile thoughts and then read them aloud if I was feeling extra poetic and cathartic. And IF I had been really, really feeling crazy and hormonal and there wasn’t anyone looking or lurking, I’d do some pirouettes and arabesques to release physical tension.

One summer afternoon, on my way to the building next to the museum, where I would wait for my ’sundo’, he approached me and introduced himself and said that he’s from the college of music studying string instruments and composition. He said he’d seen and heard me reciting my poems a number of times and was wondering if I would agree if he told me that he’d like to compose melodies for some of my poems and let me allow him to turn them into songs. I said ok nonchalantly. He wanted to talk more but it was already 5 PM and time for me to go home (I had to be home before dusk or I would have turned into a hideous manananggal because that was a rule in our house then - “home before dusk” obeyed only by me kasi sipsip akong anak).

“It’s Ok because I know where to find you” he said. And I asked, “why is that?” Yun pala, dun sa second floor ng vargas ang tambayan nya. Mamatay matay ako sa kahihiyan.

We met again after the end of summer school; and talked a couple of times more while walking around the academic oval, and because I was too unconfident about my poems and too shy to give them to him, I didn’t. Our paths never crossed again for some reason.

All this recollection of him happens after reading my 1986 diary. Dated May 6th - yun pala ang nangyari sa buhay ko 20 years ago. I’ve been in a munimuni mode lately at trip kong balikan ang kahapon. Exciting!!!! heh!