Yes, Believe It or Not, I Actually Read Books

Eternal Wanderer loves to read. He loves to read newspapers. He loves to read comics. He loves to read books. He loves to read so much that he can't even poop without bringing a reading material.

Oooops. TMI.

Here's some of the books Eternal Wanderer has recently tried out:

A friend of his in college was gushing about Ayn Rand. She told Eternal Wanderer to check out Rand's novels. Being the dumb blond that he is, he innocently asked if it had anything to do with beautiful parks and fountains. She gave him what-an-airhead stare and walked out on him.

Years later, Eternal Wanderer is still a dumb blond. But now, he thanks to the book reader Stanza, he's been downloading e-books like crazy. One of the books he downloaded was Fountainhead. He picked up to courage to read it, and found himself thoroughly enjoying the novel. It practically read like good soap-opera stuff, albeit of the wordy kind. But in the last 1/3 of the book, he was got a migraine. The courtroom monologue of Howard Roark, the main character, was a little bit too much for Eternal Wanderer. It was major word puke. Eternal Wanderer wondered, "Why didn't Howard Roark simply say 'Fuck y'all. I'm an individual, so stuff it!'"

Of course, that line of reasoning would've put Howard Roark in jail for the rest of his life.

Eternal Wanderer is tickled pink at his own dumb blondness.

Eternal Wanderer is a sword slut. He goes into ecstatic throes whenever swords are concerned. He considers himself an expert handling swords of all lengths, widths, thicknesses, and sizes. He opines the bigger swords are, the better to play with. Nothing would please Eternal Wanderer more than if somebody dangles a sword before him.

With an enticing title "Dark Sword," how could Eternal Wanderer refuse to read such a book?

It was an enjoyable romp in the hay. Joram's sword very much delighted Eternal Wanderer. He even spent nights of torrid fantasy with the thoughts of caressing Joram's long and turgid sword. But it was the idea of the Technomancers (people who derived their magic through death) that gave him pause. He thought, "If I kill all roaches in the house, can it make my lashes magically curl up permanently? Do I have to do it myself, or can I just call in pest control? No, wait, if I call in pest control, it's their lashes that might be magically curled up permanently! We wouldn't want that, would we?"

Eternal Wanderer is amazed with the dumb blond ideas he can think of.

Eternal Wanderer digs magic realism. He has devoured a lot of those South American novelists which features interactive ghosts, seductive cooking, love potions, and their ilk. He thinks that the idea of magic treated as an everyday occurrence is such a fascinating idea.

Since he really adored the lush narrative of Gabriel Garcia-Marquez's Love in Time of Cholera, he decided to give 100 Years of Solitude a go. It was going on fine maybe until about the fourth generation. By that time, he almost completely lost it. The characters' names were all the same, and it was confusing the heck out of him. Eternal Wanderer even had to whip out a paper and write down who was who just so that he could keep track with all the characters.

It was then he realized that Garcia-Marquez was trying to emphasize the cyclical nature of of life. The flaws and sins of the (fore)fathers continue to haunt the children, generation after generation. Because of this, the past, present, and future are bound with one another in an inevitable spiraling towards an uncertain fate.

Whoa.

Eternal Wanderer just had a verbal and philosophical fart!

My, my, my. There may still be hope for the dumb blond Eternal Wanderer, after all.

Heehee

Mga Piling Piling Pelikula 1

I just realized I relatively chalked up a lot of movie-going this year. I guess the convenience of downloading stuff has taken its toll on my at least once-a-week routine of watching movies in a real cinema house. But like I said, lately, I've found myself watching movies the old fashioned way with Totoy Mola, Cubao Boy, and Ting Ting Cojuangco in various permutations. Good thing, since it serves as a reminder to me that nothing really beats watching movies where they were meant to be seen: on the big silver screen.

Here are some of the movies I've watched this past few months:


The Watchmen - For a comic geek like me, this has gotta be a dream come true. After about 20 years, the ground-breaking series was finally brought to the big screen. But like any other adaptation, there were some parts that were taken out, condensed, and revised. And yes, there stretches that dragged a tad bit for comfort. But the basic Machiavellian premise of the comic book still came across clear as water in the movie: is it justified to sacrifice a couple million of people for the greater good of the billions?

Eternal Wanderer's rating: 3.5/5. Very much watchable even if you're not familiar with the comic.


Pssst...Tenament 2 - The third installment of Chito Roño's horror trilogy (and perhaps the weakest of the three). Coincidentally, the 2nd installment, Sukob, was probably the last Filipino film I watched in a movie house (yes, shame on me). It was interesting for Roño to dig-up the mythos surrounding the folkloric beliefs about encantos, but for all the modernization surrounding the film, it lacked one of the basic requirements of an engaging film: a good and focused narrative. I felt there was too much meandering in the plot, and at the end, I couldn't decide if it was a crappy horror film or a fantaserye gone rotten. Too bad, since Fung Shui and Sukob were films I really, really enjoyed.

EW's rating: 2.5/5. If you're looking for something to do to kill time, be my guest.


Star Trek - The best lot of the films I've watched so far! In this case, the updating of the Star Trek franchise worked very much to its favor. The result was a fresher and edgier twist to familiar characters. I loved the way they incorporated the time-travel factor to open the gate to a fresh reboot. This plot twist allowed the most seasoned Trekkie to experience the origins with a brand-new perspective, and at the same time, presented to newbie a very approachable initiation into the franchise itself. It had none of the clunky special effects you'd associate with the older films and the the original TV series. Instead, one is rewarded with eye-popping space battle scenes coupled with a fast-paced and tightly knit narrative. Definitely a winner!

And if you ask me, never in my life has it crossed my mind that Capt James T. Kirk can be extremely HOT in his undies!

Teehee

EW rating: 5/5. Don't miss this one!

Related link:
Mga Piling Piling Pelikula 2

La Divina, Postscript

Maria Callas
(1923–1977)



Vissi d'arte from Puccini's "Tosca"

Vissi d’arte, vissi d’amore, non feci mai male ad anima viva!
Con man furtiva quante miserie conobbi aiutai.
Sempre con fè sincera la mia preghiera ai santi tabernacoli salì.
Sempre con fè sinceradiedi fiori agl’altar.
Nell’ora del dolore perchè, perchè, Signore,
perchè me ne rimuneri così?
Diedi gioielli della Madonna al manto, e diedi il canto agli astri,
al ciel, che ne ridean più belli.
Nell’ora del dolor perchè, perchè, Signor,
ah, perchè me ne rimuneri così?

I lived for my art, I lived for love, I never did harm to a living soul!
With a secret hand I relieved as many misfortunes as I knew of.
Always with true faith, my prayer rose to the holy shrines.
Always with true faith, I gave flowers to the altar.
In the hour of grief, why, why, o Lord,
why do you reward me thus?
I gave jewels for the Madonna’s mantle, and I gave my song to the stars,
to heaven, which smiled with more beauty.
In the hour of grief, why, why, o Lord,
ah, why do you reward me thus?

La Divina

To be particularly honest, I never really caught on the idea of Maria Callas as a great soprano – at least in the beginning. Being the high-note whore I was when I was a kid (sure, some traces of it can still be found nowadays – but I’m digressing), I was utterly shocked with my first aural encounter with her. Owing to the fact that this happened at a very tender and impressionable age of ten, and that my idea of a pretty voice so far was that of Julie Andrews in The Sound of Music, what was coming out of the speakers repulsed me, to put it mildly. The voice had none of the purity and limpidness that I expected from a coloratura soprano. Instead, I was deluged with a darkish, veiled, almost bottled-up kind of sound. Sure, fine, she had high notes. That I couldn’t argue about. But it was produced in such an unorthodox kind way that made my skin scrawl. Let’s put it this way, would you rather be A) crushed under a whole ton of hollow blocks masquerading as a high note or B) suffer a hundred decibels of pure siren-wailing trying to pass itself as a high note? Either choice is equally valid, by the way; because that was the how she sounded to me come high note time. Trust me, the listening session didn’t turn out to be a pleasurable experience as I was hoping it to be. It was mind-boggling experience all right, as in the oh-my-god-why-the-heck-is-she-famous-when-she-sounds-SO-ugly? kind of mind-boggling. Deciding that she was just a hack for all I care (oh, such arrogance of youth), I quickly yanked the tape out of the deck after a few arias, and stored it in the box-that-it-never-to-be-opened-at-any-cost, otherwise known as the baul where my lola stored all precious knick-knacks and what-mays.

Fast forward to the age of the laser disc (okay, I realize that sounded really, really dated). Through the intervening years, I slowly got re-acquainted with the voice of Callas through various live and studio recordings of recitals and complete operas. Sure, she was still sometimes painful to listen, especially when she was lunging at the high notes. Definitely, the voice wasn’t anything remotely beautiful. In fact, for a lot of conservative vocal purists, her physical instrument sounded intrinsically fractured. Anyway, back to the laser disc story. My friend just arrived from the States lugging back a LD of Callas’ Covent Garden performance of Puccini’s Tosca. Since it was a lazy Sunday afternoon, and there was nothing good on t.v., I decided to accept his invitation to hang out and watch the video. As the performance unfurled before the t.v. screen, I was mesmerized. So this was what the Callas myth was all about. Her sheer presence and animal magnetism was very much apparent, throbbing with a palpable force I’ve never encountered before. Never mind the wobbly high notes or her distracting yodeling in and out of her chest voice. Every vocal histrionic was well put into the context of the drama. She ceased to be Callas the prima donna, and became every inch of Tosca, the outraged prima donna character she was portraying. A whole gamut of emotions, from jealousy to pain, from elation to desperation, from tenderness to fury leaped out from the video straight to the core of my being. The performance ceased to be an opera. Rather, it became was a searingly white-hot display of naked emotional truth compressed into about two hours of sheer drama. And yes, Virginia, to put it simply, I was riveted.

So what’s the whole point of the essay? It's a fanboy's personal recollection and tribute to a siner who has justifiably revolutionized opera from the mid-50's onwards. Even after 50-odd years, the reforms of Maria Callas in the operatic scene can still be felt, with the audiences expecting singers to have well-fleshed out characterizations as opposed to the stand-and-deliver approach to singing. She has proved to be a shinning beacon for an opera singer like me on how to approach and deal with the music at hand. Her untimely retirement from the operatic scene has left a void that others have tried to fill. Renata Scotto, Elena Souliotis, Sylvia Sass, and their ilk have taken up Callas' cudgels with various degrees of success. But it stops there, because the is only one Callas, bar none. The Queen is dead, and no one can ever replace her. Viva La Divina! Viva La Callas!

Quis custodiet ipsos custodiet?

"Who watches the watchmen?"
- Juvenal, Roman poet

Well, I most certainly did!

No spoilers here, but I did like the movie despite it's almost being 3 hrs. long. Pretty much atypical as it's a thinking movie, with a lot of backstoriesthrown in. It's a crime for a comic geekzoid like me not to have read the original source (which I will soon), but I was pretty much impressed with the main theme of the whole movie: does the end justify the means? Will you go the lengths of killing millions to arrest nuclear destruction and achieve global peace? A good coffee-time (and blog) topic, if I may say so.

In the meantime, off to bed for me.