№ 383. I E> 2018, Here Lies 2019

№ 382. Waking Up to Binary Dreams 2018

The digital world’s emphasis on speed inhibits reflection; its incentive empowers the radical over the thoughtful; its values are shaped by subgroup consensus, not by introspection. For all its achievements, it runs the risk of turning on itself as its impositions overwhelm its conveniences.


 

№ 381. Forecast for Our Dust Mote

This excerpt from Sagan's book Pale Blue Dot was inspired by an image taken, at Sagan's suggestion, by Voyager 1 on February 14, 1990. As the spacecraft left our planetary neighborhood for the fringes of the solar system, engineers turned it around for one last look at its home planet. Voyager 1 was about 6.4 billion kilometers (4 billion miles) away, and approximately 32 degrees above the ecliptic plane, when it captured this portrait of our world. Caught in the center of scattered light rays (a result of taking the picture so close to the Sun), Earth appears as a tiny point of light, a crescent only 0.12 pixel in size.

"Look again at that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam."
--- Carl Sagan

№ 380. Pluck the Day While It is Ripe

A Bigger Splash by David Hockney  

Ask not ('tis forbidden knowledge),
what our destined term of years,
Mine and yours; nor scan the tables of your Babylonish seers.
Better far to bear the future, my Leuconoe, like the past,
Whether Jove has many winters yet to give, or this our last;
This, that makes the Tyrrhene billows spend their strength against the shore. 
Strain your wine and prove your wisdom;
life is short; should hope be more?
In the moment of our talking, envious time has ebb'd away.
Seize the present; trust tomorrow e'en as little as you may.

№ 379. Deep Swedish Strokes: ABBA

№ 378. Adverse Words

Reflections
Antonia Pozzi

№ 377. The Secret Life of Old Songs

This song about rediscovering our old selves and lovers made me smile. I paid no attention to it before until I watched "The Secret Life of Walter Mitty" again, this time on Netflix. I actually liked how the movie tied up a lot of almost unrelated elements. Iceland, Greenland and Afghanistan were beautifully shot in wide panoramic format which just underscored the theme of a closeted traveler finally unmoored from the desk job and let loose to the chaos of the elements.

I didn't appreciate the movie the first time I watched it. I probably missed out on the many cultural references and the really stunning landscapes. But seeing it again in high definition and on a very big 70-inch or so screen made such a difference.

Escape (The Piña Colada Song)

№ 376. Theology after Carmina Burana

In this great fiat of the little girl Mary, the strength and foundation of our life of contemplation is grounded, for it means absolute trust in God, trust which will not set us free from suffering but will seift us free from anxiety, hesitation, and above all from the fear of suffering. Trust which makes us willing to be what God wants us to be, however great or however little that may prove. Trust which accepts God as illimitable Love.” ---- The Reed of God by Caryll Houselander

'The Reed of God' depicts the intimately human side of Mary, Mother of God, as an empty reed waiting for God's music to be played through her.

Bento Box:

A friend who belongs to a Catholic religious order posted the passage above.

I thought, it is such a beautiful love letter to God composed by a devotee.

№ 375. The Justice of Returning the Loot

Spoils of War

№ 374. Retiro X

Chungking Express Art

She lip-reads her swift murders,
In urban-drenched neon monologues,
Fractured day dream sequences.

She sketches boarding passes on a tissue paper
Later thrown away, unread,
Melting in the midnight monsoon.

She sleepwalks in vindaloo alleys,
Concealed and armed by wigs and stilettos,
Tipsy with chaos, solitary and morbid deadlines.

Like the poisoned city she breathes,
She is livid, resigned and, cruel.

№ 373. Love You for 10,000 Years

In his essay “Time Pieces: Wong Kar-Wai and the Persistence of Memory,” critic Chuck Stevens summarizes Wong Kar-Wai’s approach to film-making perfectly: “Passionate about ideas, possessed by the errant flashes of whimsy and misfortune that haunt modern loves, [Wong Kar-Wai] transforms emotional free-fall into infectious rhymes and deliberate coincidences, willfully missed signals and capricious possibilities for romance.”

№ 372. Saturday Fun Machine: Your Name

By the time these two (and you) have figured out what’s happening, and why, Mr. Shinkai has set another change in motion, and “Your Name” has shifted from a comedy of confusion into a deeply moving meditation on nation, history, catastrophe and memory.

 

№ 371. Natural History Museum Through Square Lenses

№ 370. Would or Wouldn't You

№ 369. A Dictator is an Artist

Guilt is petite bourgeois crap. An artist creates his own moral universe. Ergo, fuck guilt! Fuck guilt and all its moral trappings. Be your own kind of dictator. Build your own ethical constructs. Be free from the fetters woven by those who came before you. Consolidate your own moral realm. You gotta do what you gotta do.

Does this mean President Duterte is an artist?! That makes Trump a Picasso.

№ 368. Saturday Fun Machine

I started downloading gems again since last Saturday. For a time, Pirate Bay was down and, also, life got a little busy and under the weather.

I wonder how the Game of Thrones would turn out if it were translated into a Wes Anderson stop motion film! For now, Isle of Dogs is enough. More than enough, really. 

№ 367. Synesthesia

Today, Grimaud considers some of her early playing too slow and too attentive to detail at the expense of “the big arc,” but at the time she felt febrile with ideas that she had to share. Though she believes that Romantic composers like Brahms and Chopin hold special wisdom, she is not wedded to that style. “If you talk to me, you can call a lot of things Romantic,” she says. “You can call Bach’s Sixth Partita as Romantic as any Wagner opera. Romanticism is, for me, much more than a period in culture.”

№ 366. I Told You So

If I Could Tell You
WH Auden


Time will say nothing but I told you so
Time only knows the price we have to pay;
If I could tell you I would let you know.

If we should weep when clowns put on their show,
If we should stumble when musicians play,
Time will say nothing but I told you so.

№ 365. Travels and Travails

To sit outside a Paris cafe at breakfast is to observe the city as it wipes the sleep from its eyes: the soft clink of a cup and saucer, the turning of newspaper pages, the passer-by with a cigarette who asks for a light — and me, at my little round table, nibbling a speculoos, sipping my café crème.

№ 364. Falling Asleep at 2 AM

I Listen; I Dream
(Counting Sheep at 2 am)

I listen to the Mamas and Papas
While I count, dreaming
Of blue benches tucked in sunken gardens.

№ 363. My Name is Loki

Saturday nights walking the dogs, then cooking and looking forward to a quiet Sunday are what I live for on weekends.

№ 362. Poetry Seeking Understanding

Villanelle

By George Higgins

(Steven Spielberg visited an inner city school in response to a class of black students who had laughed inappropriately at a showing his movie about the holocaust Schindler's List.)

When Steven Spielberg spoke at Oakland High 

A custodian swept up the shattered glass, 

replaced the broken clocks to satisfy 

the Governor, who was preoccupied 

with becoming President, with covering his ass. 

When Steven Spielberg spoke at Oakland High 

the District found diminishing supplies 

of disinfectant and toilet paper stashed 

away, so they replaced the clocks instead to satisfy 

the cameras and the press that they had rectified 

the deficiencies among the underclass. 

When Steven Spielberg spoke at Oakland High 

the students didn't seem dissatisfied 

about the cover up, just happy to be out of class. 

The custodian replaced the broken clocks to satisfy 

this need we have to falsify 

the truth in subservience to cash. 

When Steven Spielberg came to Oakland High 

the custodian replaced the broken clocks.

 

№ 361. Freedom

№ 360. Ecclesiastes 3

This Sunday, I read once more, a reminder letter. A cousin just died. Last year, it was another cousin. Before that, my aunts. It's been a succession of passing.

Ecclesiastes 3 King James Version (KJV)

1  To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven:

2 A time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to pluck up that which is planted;

3 A time to kill, and a time to heal; a time to break down, and a time to build up;

4 A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance;

5 A time to cast away stones, and a time to gather stones together; a time to embrace, and a time to refrain from embracing;

6 A time to get, and a time to lose; a time to keep, and a time to cast away;

7 A time to rend, and a time to sew; a time to keep silence, and a time to speak;

8 A time to love, and a time to hate; a time of war, and a time of peace.

9 What profit hath he that worketh in that wherein he laboureth?

10 I have seen the travail, which God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it.

11 He hath made every thing beautiful in his time: also he hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to the end.

12 I know that there is no good in them, but for a man to rejoice, and to do good in his life.

13 And also that every man should eat and drink, and enjoy the good of all his labour, it is the gift of God.

14 I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.

15 That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past.

16 And moreover I saw under the sun the place of judgment, that wickedness was there; and the place of righteousness, that iniquity was there.

17 I said in mine heart, God shall judge the righteous and the wicked: for there is a time there for every purpose and for every work.

18 I said in mine heart concerning the estate of the sons of men, that God might manifest them, and that they might see that they themselves are beasts.

19 For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them: as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that a man hath no preeminence above a beast: for all is vanity.

20 All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all turn to dust again.

21 Who knoweth the spirit of man that goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast that goeth downward to the earth?

22 Wherefore I perceive that there is nothing better, than that a man should rejoice in his own works; for that is his portion: for who shall bring him to see what shall be after him?

№ 359. South Korea Through Square Lenses 2

№ 358. South Korea Through Square Lenses 1

D-Day:

Demilitarized Zone, Dongdaemon Design Park, Duty-Free Shopping, Digital Economy, Zero-Gravity Drop from the wooden roller coaster, Deeelicious Street Food.

№ 357. Waking Up to Binary Dream 9

If this article achieves anything, I hope it teaches you digital mindfulness. This is the act of being careful on the internet and taking precautionary measures to save yourself pain and potential ruin in the future, all because you didn’t install an antivirus or put a little bit of tape over your camera.

№ 356. Daniil Trifonov

Even if 26-year-old Russian virtuoso Daniil Trifonov is too humble to extol his own virtues, a myriad of musicians and critics have done so for him. “What he does with his hands is technically incredible,” said the legendary pianist Martha Argerich in 2011. “It’s also his touch -- he has tenderness and also the demonic element. I never heard anything like that.”

№ 355.Waking Up to Binary Dreams 8

As Western nations become wealthier, organized religion plays a smaller role in our lives. But the void between questions and answers remains, creating an opportunity. As more and more people become alienated from traditional religion, we look to Google as our immediate, all-knowing oracle of answers from trivial to profound. Google is our modern-day god. Google appeals to the brain, offering knowledge to everyone, regardless of background or education level. If you have a smartphone or an Internet connection, your prayers will always be answered: “Will my kid be all right?” “Symptoms and treatment of croup. . .” “Who might attack us?” “Nations with active nuclear-weapons programs . . .”

№ 354. Trumping the World

№ 353. Meaning versus Happiness

"Some researchers have taken to doing that by looking at what they call “eudaimonic happiness,” or the happiness that comes from meaningful pursuits, and “hedonic happiness”—the happiness that comes from pleasure or goal fulfillment."

№ 352. Words v. Images

In the beginning was the Word (John 1:1). The eagle-eyed Evangelist knew that logos wielded power over reality.

Centuries later, another John,  a Gutenburg, ushered the modern era of human history with his movable type printing press in 1439. His machine democratized learning and helped catalyze Renaissance, Reformation, scientific revolution and sparked many, many wars. The death of old ideas, ancient regimes and powers gave way to new players and new world orders. The Vatican and the British Monarchy are the very rare relics that have survived the chaos of the last four or so centuries.

Another era has begun.

This era is fast shaping our thinking, our way of life and our politics. Today, in a world wrapped in Instagram images, GIFs and viral memes, the written word is losing much of its temporal relevance and political space.

Time Magazine is dead. Long live the emoticons. And the midnight tweets and fake news. Falsehoods, half-, quarter- truths or semblances thereof are slowly creeping as acceptable norms. 

№ 351. Social Media = Drug

Social Media

“It’s a social-validation feedback loop … exactly the kind of thing that a hacker like myself would come up with, because you’re exploiting a vulnerability in human psychology. The inventors, creators – me, Mark [Zuckerberg], Kevin Systrom on Instagram, all of these people – understood this consciously. And we did it anyway.”

№ 350. Death of Binary Archetypes

Binary Archetypes

№ 349. Siargao Through Square Lenses 2

№ 348. Siargao Through Square Lenses 1

Two-hour long flight from Manila and one-hour van ride from the airport later: Cloud Nine! Instagram and heavenly bodies!

A cancelled room booking? No problemo. Here's to sand on the heels, breezy, beach side happy hours at 4 PM on a Friday!

Cold showers and creaking bathroom doors? Throw in that crusty, flaky croissant. And that steaming espresso, too!

Heavy rains en route to the mangrove forest reserve? Crabs buffet for five, quick. And an extended three-hour paddle board-swim in the emerald lagoon.

No dessert? No serving spoon? No wifi? Nothing that a quickie surf lesson before departure and lechon Cebu during the lay-over won't fix.

More lemons please!

№ 347. Chasing Summers in the Depths of Winter

From one of the Daily Globe clippings:




At the former St. Thomas More chapel of Ateneo de Manila on Padre Faura, the celebrant was a Jesuit priest who had just finished his doctorate at Harvard University.

Christmas is when we celebrate the unexpected; it is the festival of surprise, Horacio de la Costa said in a seven-minute homily that has been quoted time and again.

№ 346. January: A New Hope

(A perennial favorite homily among Fr. James Donelan, S.J.'s faithful--a good read & inspiring thoughts on New Year)

IF you were to enter a home in ancient Rome, you would find in the doorway a dog with two heads. A statue, of course. It is Janus, the Roman god of the doorway. One head looked to the past, the other to the future. Since the first month of the year has this two-fold function, it acts as a bridge between past and future, the Romans called it January. It is a demanding month, a frightening month, perhaps more frightening than a birthday. It requires more than remembering to put the right year on our letters and our checks. It is a threshold, a passage, and every threshold makes us pause. Every passage leaves us different from the way we were.