The remains of the birthday.

"What can we ever gain in forever looking back and blaming ourselves if our lives have not turned out quite as we might have wished? The hard reality is, surely, that for the likes of you and I, there is little choice other than to leave our fate, ultimately, in the hands of those great gentlemen at the hub of this world who employ our services. What is the point in worrying oneself too much about what one could or could not have done to control the course one’s life took? Surely it is enough that the likes of you and I at least try to make our small contribution count for something true and worthy. And if some of us are prepared to sacrifice much in life in order to pursue such aspirations, surely that is in itself, whatever the outcome, cause for pride and contentment." ~ Kazuo Ishiguro, The Remains of the Day

Field of dreams

A day before the birthday, I dropped by Powerbooks-Robinson’s Place hoping to finally find Joseph O’Neill’s Netherland—a long wait. With the hassles (as always) of having to be in Manila for work, it was in itself a big treat. I voraciously read through my idle time at night, at the airport and inside the plane. I haven’t written an entry about a book I’ve read for so long a time, I can’t even remember what it was, but I just have to now.

It is understandable why O’Neill’s ingenuous and unique ode to New York “echoes” the great F. Scott Fitzgerald novel The Great Gatsby: it’s a modern retelling of the American Dream; here shared and narrated exquisitely in the lives of non-Americans Dutch Hans van den Broeck and Trinidadian Chuck Ramkissoon, their convergence revolving on the non-American sport of cricket. Yet, Americans would very much find their own places here in the not-so familiar nooks of New York. It is beautifully written, as evidenced by Hans’s retrospections and introspections full of imaginative vividness, nuanced by a great sense of longing and melancholy, yet also brimming with so much life. O’Neill writes beautiful passages that mirror layers of meanings-the wearing down of geo-cultural barriers, the empty field of dreams which we all are eager to fill with our own grandiose ones, the perpetual restiveness of man, and also, ultimately, love.

"I felt above all, tired. Tiredness: if there ws a constant symptom of the disease in our lives at this time, it was tiredness....A banal state of affairs, yes-but our problems were banal, the stuff of women's magazines. All lives, I remember thinking, eventually funnel into the advice columns of women's magazines."

"But surely everyone can also testify to another, less reckonable kind of homesickness, one having to do with unsettlements that cannot be located in spaces of geography or history; and accordingly it's my belief that the communal, contractual phenomenon of New York cricket is underwritten, there where the print is finest, by the same agglomeration of unspeakable individual longings that underwrites cricket played anywhere--longings concerned with horizons and potentials sighted or hallucinated and in any event lost long ago, tantalisms that touch on the undoing of losses too private and reprehensible to be acknowledged to oneself, let alone to others. I cannot be the first to wonder if what we see, when we see men in white take to a cricket field, is men imagining an environment of justice. "

Dusk of another (b)day.

This plane should have taken you to Paris, dimwit. Or Amsterdam, or Munich, or Vienna. No, make it Bruges. Instead, as usual, this took you to hell and back. Where's the beer, loser?

::: A day before my birthday, I was still in polluted Manila but on the way to the airport going back to Davao. As usual, I can’t wait to go home, though when I learned of this official trip a week and some days ago, I contemplated on staying there for the birthday and probably watch The Killers’ concert. The Killers, gosh! Even if I was able to save up, nobody would really accompany me. Besides it’s just plain weird, and stupid to go alone. Imagine a stampede; nobody would really give a shit about my sorry ass.

Finishing the inevitable airport niceties, which I absolutely loathe, I scoured a not-so-comfy seat, picked out Netherland, and read away, occasionally pausing, and looking around. It’s funny how we hate the airport; its clinical methodology and bland faces of strangers, but then the lulls provide enough impetus to drift us into reveries and introspection (I always have this funny story to tell though). It’s probably just me, I don’t know. Some people don’t really give a shit about these sissy things. They go about the perfunctory procedure; they sit, probably buy a food or reading material, and wait for the booming voice announcing the boarding. They enter the tube and sleep, lucid dreams filling up idle time, towards their destinations.

It doesn’t matter if I travel with my colleagues or traveling alone, being at airports give me the same feeling of inexplicable wretchedness, detachment and sometimes, foreboding—which is associated with this paranoia of being up in the air. (During my first flight ever, I clung to the seat like hell, heart pounding, as the plane took off, and silently freaked out whenever the plane shook.) I know my judgment is somewhat unqualified given that I’ve only gone to five or so airports, and perhaps a more comprehensive assessment is that coming from someone whose business requires a great amount of flying (which immediate calls to mind Ryan Bingham, the protagonist of Walter Kirn’s Up in the Air, now adapted by Jason Reitman). On second thought, I don’t really absolutely loathe airports, just the feeling in being one. The architecture can be a thing to marvel, but perhaps only until I see these pieces of architectural prowess.

Going through the first baggage check, I noticed someone familiar who was ahead of me. His balding head, which turned a little bit sideway, confirmed his identity. I knew he took notice of me first while I was towing my trolley on the side. I intend to call him out after the check but I realized he was with a bunch of people, one I recognized. They got their boarding passes in one lane, and mine one lane apart. I held back and try to justify what may appear my reluctant snootiness. I saw him again lugging out in Davao already. While finding my seat at the far back, I noticed a professor of accounting whom I knew when I was working as a student assistant in college. I immediately recalled the name; I realized the last time I met him was also at the airport. Throughout the flight, his named escaped me surprisingly, only to surface again after he politely asked if he can borrow the newspaper. I’m not sure if he remembered my name, but I’m sure I looked familiar to him. I managed a quick glance, but regained my reluctance again. I didn’t see him at the claim area.

This “detachment” perhaps is more related to the “procedures”, the obligatory feel to it renders us like products being manufactured and determined fit for “sending out”. It sucks the life out of us. It sends us into this mechanical state of indifference.

Beerday.

Strangest birthday I think. Last Friday, I caught a last full show screening of The Curious Case of Benjamin Button. The story of a man who grows young as he grows old. The film, as you may know, is almost three hours long, so when the clock struck 12 and I became 25 I was still there inside the dark room with strangers. The only thing that was inside my stomach the whole time that night was popcorn and an orange juice. Though I wasn't hungry, I stopped by a semi-Chinese food chain in front of our office building and ate siomai before going home. Punctuating my midnight meal was the whir of the aircon and the chatter of the food attendants and cashier. The parking lot was empty and I can hear the faint noise of a man belting out from the nearby piano bar. A sense of eerieness befell me.

The next day I lost 1 thousand pesos. Cleaning my drawer I found it stuck between two ties. I put it inside my wallet. I went out for the thermal therapy which I have been doing for about three weeks. I bought a book and went home. When I counted my money, the 1 thousand was gone.

24

Well, hate it. But life's fleeting. The first white hair in like eons and a few inches there. Jeez, hepi berfdey to me. Meanwhile, the life train chug-chugs, signaling for the next station. Gotta get on it.

weeklong

I am starting to believe that birthdays in the Philippines tend to be longer than anywhere else. It means that there's a pre- and post-birthday celebration or what-have-yous. As for mine, though the agenda wasn't really my birthday, there was always a feast up to Saturday, which ended, by the way, in the Lobby Lounge of Marco Polo. I'm beginning to live up to the year of the Pig, really.

----

Over the week I've watched good indies, which I think were great misses in this year's Oscar race: Paradise Now, a foreign film from Palestine which is a closer examination on the minds of suicide bombers (though this has been nommed last year); Sherrybaby (if it weren't for a strong Best Actress race, I'm quite sure Maggie Gylenhaal would be in it); Factotum (a great perf from Matt Dillon -- again too much of a race in the Best Actor category); and Fateless -- an adaptation of a Nobel Prize winning book about a Hungarian boy's harrowing journey during and after the Nazi occupation in Hungary.

I watched Fateless last night and wondered how this could have been snubbed in the Foreign Language category. The cinematography is breathtaking. The direction of Lajos Koltai is seamless. Though it may be compared to the likes of Schindler's List or The Pianist, what is brilliant about it is that it never over-reaches on the horrors of the war, though there are occasional bouts of violence -- the one experienced by Jews in concentration camps. The last lines (told in voice over) were very moving -- it's an affirmation of hope and acceptance of the past that encapsulates the experience during the Holocaust. Btw, I couldn't believe my eyes when I saw Daniel Craig in the latter part of the film. Yes, James Bond does a cameo here. photo courtesy of dimitris.glezos.com

bday blurbs

5 things you may want to give me (heartfelt ha...) on my birthday (the week after pwede pa...):

1. The new Loalde light brown polo with the folded sleeves. (Would appreciate it also if may match na black slacks...hehe).

2. Ipod Nano, color apple green.

3. Nostromo by Joseph Conrad or Tropic of Capricorn by Henry Miller.

4. A TeamManila shirt, yung design is either the The Carinderia Connoisseur or yung Rizal wearing aviator shades.

5. Girbaud wallet.

----

I searched the birthday calendar to see others who have the same birthday as mine. I know for a fact, ka-birthday ko si Justin Timberlake. But was glad to know that Jessica Walter and Portia de Rossi, the two misfits from my all-time fave sitcom Arrested Development, celebrates the same birthday as me. No wonder I love that show. It gives me gas spasms just watching 5 episodes consequently.

on the eve

Last night, the eve of my birthday, I was walking along the sidewalks near our office, heading home, feeling the breeze of the cold wind (which later I found out was the tail-end of a cold front). I got a call from Ate Wowie inviting me to join the dinner with Siriporn, our guest from Thailand. Siri is the Corporate Communications manager of Oracle ASEAN. Earlier in the morning, I finally met her during the press briefing which was attended by Oracle Phils.’ country manager Francis Ong and two of the directors.

I thought it would turn out to be a bad day because I lost my friggin’ worn-out belt. I arrived late and was shocked to see the VIPs in the function room already, all primed up, tousled and looking anxious. They were quite early or should I say I was late. Thank God the media arrived late so the presscon didn’t start until 8:30am. The industry-participated forum followed in the ballroom of Marco Polo. It was a grueling morning. I had a headache by lunch.

The real blast was during the evening when we went out with Siriporn. It is interesting to meet other nationalities because you have a lot to talk about. I learned that her name means ‘good blessing’ in Thai and the Sanskrit version was incredibly short. She was friendly and felt really at home during the dinner and she was so amazed by the food that was ordered (lechon kawali, pinakbet, tinolang manok, kinilaw… indeed very Filipino), that she took pictures of it. She said she’s going to brag about it to her friends. We were driving around when Kuya Dicky asked her videoke bars were popular in Bangkok. Indeed it was, and off the four of us went to a famous KTV. So that’s why she like singing, she didn’t prove disappointing at all as she hit the right notes. We drove her to Marco Polo after our throats got parched, thanked her profusely, promised to exchange emails and bid farewell.

I went home past 12 and thought about Bangkok. How I’d love to be there. I thought of Siriporn’s promise to take us around whenever we come there. How I like it to be now. As in right now. That would be a perfect treat. Just before I went to sleep I got the first text message from a far-away friend greeting me ‘happy birthday!’ Gawd, I’m friggin old. A friend told me 23 is a magic number. Well…