Summer Musings: The Reads (Pt. 2)

(Continuation...)
4. The More The Crease Marks, The Better

I had this friend back in UP Manila whom I decided to borrow a book from. Without getting too technical with the details, it’s this little-known book by this little-known astrophysicist named Stephen Hawking called A Brief History of Time; and this very brilliant and bookish friend of mine is also a little—a lot—neurotic. Anyway, before I could even lay a finger on the book, she relayed to me the “ground rules” in handling it. No smears on pages (meaning if you “think” you might smear pages with anything, make sure to wipe your hands clean…no, make that, wash your hands clean—replete with necessary hand sanitizers, please—before touching the pages). No dog-eared pages or using of clip bookmarks. Accidental rips I think would constitute something ominous; I don’t know what it was exactly or how the atoning for those sins work, but I found it all insanely funny and frightening at the same time. The craziness did not stop there. Stuck on the back flap of the cover was the COMPLETE list of rules reminiscent of the ones you’d find in library books, with its full-blown details and menacing tone. After two days of paranoia (to the point that I could practically feel my friend and her guidelines breathing down my neck on every damnable page), I decided to return it. I forgot all about the book until that faithful day months later I stumbled upon a second-hand copy. Where? Right on. Book Sale. It’s semi-ratty and smells like cheese, but I’m eternally grateful for the absence of certain fear-inducing qualities.

I always had this theory that books read should, in the very least, LOOK like it was read. Reading is an experience. Your experience. I like to think that the mere human imprint to the experience, accidental or intentional, could somehow only add to depth and character of the book. Crease marks, coffee and soy sauce stains, warped and forlorn book covers—they tell their own stories, indelible and unique. I love the idea that when I re-read my books thirty years from now and I come across some of those markings, everything I felt, thought, heard, saw against all other sensations—suffused and frozen in space and time—could conveniently and lovingly be culled from memory. Much like wrinkles are to man, they are badges of a life lived and a life made worthwhile. And as my books and I age (we might even be turning yellow and gray together), I find myself taking comfort in that thought more and more.

5. The Best Things In Life Are Shared

One of the best people I’ve known in my life to talk serious books with(or just about anything and everything for that matter) is my long-time friend Madi. I anticipate our linguistic furor in describing characters or events. For example, if she happened to have read “The Lost Girl” by D.H. Lawrence too, we never would settle on just describing Ciccio as “hot” or “sexy”. That’s a little too Paris Hilton for us. Instead, we would sling out words like “feral” or swill a couple of adverb-adjective tandems like “sensuously primeval” (and knowing Madi, she’s not one to ever run out of adjectives once you get her heart racing; or ever—that girl has a motor for a mouth and a brain). It gets even better now that Madi is in a course that requires her to read A LOT of literature because when I tell her about a book I’m about to read or I’ve just read, she somehow creates the backdrop or tone of the story for me (“…Flannery O’Connor is classified under grotesque…”) or humbles me by correcting my pronunciation (“It’s Flo-be”—when pronouncing French author Gustave Flaubert’s name or, yeah, something to that effect).

But one of the coolest things about being friends with her for so long is that we share common cornerstones for the things we love and value. In our formative grade school years (wow, I haven’t thought of TLC for a while, but this is nice and fitting), we found lasting inspirations in our mentors, especially in our Reading/Civics teacher, Ms. Arcilla, who at the time swore would die a spinster before anyone would ever ask to marry her (which, ironically but obviously, will never happen; she got married and moved to Japan by the time we were freshmen in Zobel). She opened our eyes to the magical world of hobbits (J.R.R.Tolkien) and talking cats (Lloyd Alexander); and to the wonders of time-travelling (Jostein Gaarder and Madeleine L’Engle). She made us love strong, willful and defiant heroines who wore breeches and rode like men (Tamora Pierce). She made us love beautiful passages and words that don’t quite roll off your tongue that easily; and made knowledge derived from books precious, and our first impressions worth a second or third polish.

The book corner set up in our classroom every year allowed her to share her books with us, and in turn, made us share our own. I remember my friend, Nica (a true-blue Atenista even back in the day), whom we turned to for our usual fix of historical novels about Cleopatra and Elizabeth I; and my other friend, Danni(she later became our batchmate in Zobel and was always the trend-setter) who introduced us to that little-wizard-who-could, Harry Potter. It’s funny how Madi and I would talk about the days long gone in a reverential way, because undoubtedly, those times we had sharing, reading then gushing for months and months truly were some of the fondest memories we had growing up. Most of us went our separate ways in high school, joined different cliques; all of us went our separate paths even further upon entering college. But I like to think that when we do push through with the reunion this week, we will inevitably touch upon Ms. Arcilla and our Tamora Pierce days and someone, probably Madi, would get all sentimental. And we’ll all just smile and roll our eyes and go…“Haay, Si Madi…”
(Can you stand anymore "To be continueds"? TO BE CONTINUED...)

Song(s) of the Week: “White Winter Hymnal” by Fleet Foxes; “Lull” by Andrew Bird; “Tropical Iceland (Fiery Furnaces cover)” by Of Montreal; “Daughters of the SoHo Riots” by The National; “Elephant Gun” by Beirut; “River Card” by Atlas Sound

Summer Musings: The Reads (Pt. 1)

There are a couple tell-tale signs indicating that summer is in full swing (other than, of course our epic battle with the excruciating heat): 1. the malls look like weekend sales everyday, 2. beaches(I’m looking at you, Boracay) start to look like one big blob of human flesh and 3. you’re broke as hell (no school=no allowance). Personally, summer is in full-swing when I get to watch my favorite shows like the Office (Jankrasenske!) religiously for the next two months, eat more than my fair share of halo-halo in a week and read and re-read books uninterrupted by school work every day. Some of the many geeky things I love to do during summer involve coming up with tentative reading list for the month, doing inventories of books I read for the past year and book hunting around the metro. But instead of boring whoever will read this with my “inventory” (Oh boy, that WOULD be something), I will share instead a couple of home truths I’ve gained over the years when picking out/buying/reading books. I don’t know what compelled me to think I have some authority to impose my truths on anyone, but maybe it’s just a nasty blogger bug that’s been going around called megalomania. Without further ado, here are…

THE 7 UNIMPEACHABLE TRUTHS Courtesy of Yours Truly (Pt. 1)

1. ALWAYS Get Down and Dirty

My sister and I are always on a hot-hunt for book bargains. We’ve pretty much rummaged through them all—Book Sale, Books for Less, and every other book shop in Carriedo—for hours on end. One of the techniques we’ve picked up in our “bookscapades” over the years is the “get-down-and-slide”. As name suggests, you get down on your knees, scour the lowest shelf (which is often ignored since it escapes the initial visual connection of the buyer to the bookshelves), then slide with the help of your knobby knees to get to another spot across the shelf.

We noticed that this works particularly well in Book Sale. If you think the books they stack on the built-in shelves are cheap, wait till you get to the big horizontal shelf in the middle of the space which we adoringly call the “treasure trove”. On the lower part of those shelves boasts books so marked down, you feel almost guilty and sorry for having found them. Imagine buying a Booker Prize-winning book for P15. And here’s the kicker: there is no remarkable difference between the books they display on the shelves and the ones they “stow” away in the deep, dark recesses of those middle shelves.

On several occasions, you might need to add another maneuver to the technique called the “stick-your-ass-up” because looking for books here would require you to stick half your body into the shelf, while your other half is displayed for the entire world to see. The minute you get out for air, prize book in hand, you really did look like you went on trek—cheeks flushed, dirty and sticky as ever, but with a wide grin on your face. Finding great books in dark, forbidden places like these test our “navigating” skills surely, but we have this romantic notion that tantamount what explorers call “the thrill of the hunt”, only we’re geeks and we kind of hate the sun.

2. What Won’t Kill Me Will Only Make Me Doper

From my book shelf, I elect (not select) the three books that really gave my head (and several body organs) a whirl: 1. The Autumn of the Patriarch by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 2. Time’s Arrow by Martin Amis and 3. Crash by J.G. Ballard. And maybe a couple of William Faulkners. I don’t know maybe because one of them was so stingy with punctuation marks and turned each full chapter into one long paragraph. Or that the other ran the story backwards, so reading it was like watching a movie on rewind the whole way through, IN YOUR HEAD, only it’s not like watching a movie at all. And as if imagining the events that took place in Auschwitz ran forwards isn’t disturbing enough. Oh and did I tell you about this other guy who mentioned semen and blood at least a couple hundred times in the story? And that wasn’t even the worst part. But from these books I learned that sometimes the most challenging reads turn out to be the most rewarding—they can, in fact, even change your life. I, for one, can not look at the world the same way after reading them. They humbled and chastened me. Any book that could potentially do those things for you deserves at least a second, third, hell…a fifth chance, right?

3. Nothing Beats A Classic

For me, it all started with Dickens. But really it could all just have easily started with a string budget. And that’s what’s great about it—it’s priced cheap, the stories are topnotch and the words are impeccable. Classics are intimidating to many people because they assume you need an astute mind to follow the flow of the language or that the stories are a little too hard to relate to since it came out several hundred years ago. Like anything else, it’s all about taking the baby steps, finding your footing and getting comfortable with your own limbs (in this case a confidence in your ability to read them). Eventually, something switches on and you start to walk steadily, then run, and before you know it you’re doing a Tolstoy marathon. But in the end, everything else becomes secondary to the tale. And perhaps that’s the reason why they have withstood and will withstand the test of time, because they confront the mysteries of the human heart and mind that continue to baffle and astound us to this very day. These stories thrive because we live, we love, we lust, we suffer, and we die. They are our own stories made more magical by the fact that it’s written down by someone you’ve never met…someone long dead. Creepy, but pretty darn awesome. (To be continued...)

Song(s) of the Week: Haiti by Arcade Fire; Gila by Beach House; The Modern Leper by Frightened Rabbit; Lullabye by Grizzly Bear; Cruisers Creek by The Fall

Pilot

A few months back, I sent my best friend, Kenzo, a message in YM and it freaked him out. Nothing incriminating. It was just a simple “Hey”, followed up by a “Watsup?” And he was like, “Wow, hey, how’d you get your laptop to work?”, followed up by “I can’t believe I’m talking to you through YM! (insert huge smiley)” . The latter was definitely greater shock to him than the former, and the impression I got from him was that my first time ever “YMng” (I’m hip, get use to it) may be categorized as a breakthrough of sorts—next to the invention of the telephone, the mapping of the human genome and Pepsi with Lime. If this is any indication, I’m not all that big on online social playgrounds like YMs or multiplies (although I do have one for school purposes) or friendsters or blogs(hemm…until now). In fact, I’m not all that big on computers or gadgets either. The hip jargon, the indecipherable acronyms dumbfound me. I guess you can also categorize me as the polar opposite of a techno-savant, which I think is called a techno-retard. Or maybe I just like to keep things simple and personal.

I had my first cellphone for 7 years. Let’s just say, I had a tumultuous yet intensely gratifying relationship with my 3310. Only recently did the parental task force intervene, seeing it as an utter “embarrassment” to have around. I had them put off the “replacement” for well over a year—perhaps out of attachment or the fact that I didn’t really need a new one since the old one works just fine. Although it was not so much an embarrassment for me as it is, according to my parents, for the people around me looking at my phone (my equally weak counterargument went something like… “Sino? Yung mga tao sa jeep? Sa UP?), I did eventually get a new phone. So, my phone now is a respectable-looking Nokia 6020. It’s outdated (since, I guess, it came out three years ago) but not nearly as prehistoric as my 3310 (which came out a million years ago). Here’s one thing that’s hard to miss when choosing a cellphone though: there are WAY too many models to choose from, only be whittled down by the budget you have in hand. I, for one, had a budget so that left me with at least 6 phones to choose from. The saleslady kept offering the latest model in the bunch which of course happened to be the most expensive. She pointed out its many features—the built-in camera and radio, mp3 player, infrared, web services, GPS, its detonating capabilities, the works. If she only knew she could have had me at ‘pixels, displayed in 65,536 colors’. I held out another phone and asked what its features were (and damn if my myopic eyes can’t detect the subtle changes in form—they all just look like what a cellphone would normally look like). With a shrug, she goes “Maskonti nga lang features niyan kumpara mo dun sa isa.” which I’ve come to understand lacks just one or two of the main features she just mentioned. Again, if she only knew she could have had me at ‘the pixels with its myriad of colors’. I decided to purchase the second cheapest cellphone of the whole lot, with my integrity intact.

In a technologically-advanced landscape where you’ve got one hand in your pocket fiddling away with an iPod and the other sending a ridiculous “chaintxt” about a woman in white appearing at the edge of your bed at 2 in the morning if you “break the chain..!”, technology’s promise of an “Upgrade!”, “free P1000 load for every purchase of...” and of something “…sleeker, bolder, faster…” is just too good to pass up. You want an internet connection 100x faster than what you have now? Hey, I’ll dream if you’ll dream with me and together, we’ll make our dreams come true. How about an iPod that can store a million songs/ a million pictures and video downloads/is a camera and can be implanted in your head? Pitch your idea to Apple Computers CEO Steve Jobs and he’ll make your dreams come true. Coz your dream is apparently my dream, and our dream is his billion-dollar dream. He’ll even throw in every other model made in the past 10 seconds (hmm, wasn’t this in a Weekend Update episode in SNL?). If there’s anything these big shots know how to do is prey on the consumers’ wants and needs; how those two things in our day and age are readily adjusted to suit an idealized lifestyle. They know that dangling anything shiny and new appeals to the visceral core of consumerist culture: “Thou shall have what my neighbor’s having, lest I get left behind”. Our weakness is our insatiable want or need for more; for everything to be conveniently delivered at our doorsteps in the quickest possible time, with no delay. Technology is so much a part of every waking life—from our social interactions to our source of entertainment; from the production and distribution of our basic necessities to ensuring our security and employment. We are a slave to technology as technology is a slave to mankind. Man is a machine. Machine is man. We welcome it with outstretched arms only its consequences are more than what we’ve bargained for.

Everything is coming and going at such lightning speeds that our ability to embrace the changes is rife with alienation as it is with the trust for the bigger, brighter, more dynamic future we envisioned for ourselves. Thinking about this reminds me of this Futurist sculpture that came out at the turn of the 20th Century by Umberto Boccioni called the “Unique Forms of Continuity in Space”. Distorted planes jut out of the human figure as it “strides” its way to the future, appearing almost like a blur. It’s supposed to capture the tenacity, vitality and dynamism of the technological age—the continuous movement to hyper-reality. I get this unsettling feeling looking at it because although you know it’s a human figure it’s depicting, there is nothing remotely close to human about it. It’s alive. It appears to be moving. But it’s almost...soulless.

I fear the age where the simple pleasure of reading books and flipping one page after the other would be replaced by electronic books (given a glib title of eBooks) that you would need to scroll down to get through. Oh wait…is that already happening?

Song(s) of the Day: When I Say Go by 1900s; 2080 by Yeasayer; Tane Mahuta by The Ruby Suns; Bodysnatchers by Radiohead