Caye Katigbak
(1971-2008)
You were the best of us, and the most loved.
Goodbye and thanks for being part of our lives. You taught me that in everyone, there is good. And in everything, there is something to be happy about. Don’t worry, we’ll take care of Corinne.
See you on the other side my friend.
My head’s been up my butt the past two weeks with all this HD mastering sh*t (all that in another entry) because I didn’t even know that there’s a MOVIE coming about one of my favorite books of all time: Blindness by Jose Saramago!!
Blindness
Directed by Meirelles no less, and with Julianne Moore and Mark Ruffalo. Blindness is the story of an epidemic of the “white sickness”, which causes people to suddenly turn blind. The government quarantines all of them in a sort of concentration camp. The Doctor’s Wife (they have no names in the book), played by Julianne, pretends to be blind to stay with her husband. What follows, at least in the book, is a gripping social fable. Saramago, a Nobel laureate, writes with run-on sentences, no quotations, in fact it feels like he’s in your head just telling you a story and he holds you by the neck and you can’t tear away. Man, I hope they got the movie right!!!
Gotta reread it before it screens. Can’t wait!
Wake #7 for me this year: my aunt died. Tita Matet is the wife of my Dad’s brother. She died of colon cancer Saturday morning, two years after she was diagnosed and was told she had six months to live. She left behind a husband and three daughters: Aileen, Cristel and Raizel; and a grandson Chilo.
At the wake Tito Eric walked around stunned, a little on autopilot. During the hours leading up to Tita Matet’s death, Aileen the eldest was told that the hearing was the last to go. So she sang to her. For three hours. At the wake, she tells me, I hope my voice was good enough.
Over the weekend, treated myself to a trio of good, good things.
Laura Linney and Philip Seymour Hoffman in The Savages
There was a crazy sale at Astrovision, and I was able to buy EIGHT DVDs for just 2,000 bucks (Don’t start with any of that pirated shit… for any serious collector, they don’t count). I saw a copy of Tamara Jenkins’ “The Savages” for only P125. Phillip and Laura in one movie? Of course I’ve got to see it. They play siblings who can’t seem to connect with others. Their father is diagnosed with dementia and the two put him in a nursing home. In between, Laura tries to get funding for a play she’s writing, has a relationship with her married next-door neighbor; Phillip loses his Polish girlfriend while writing a book on comparative literature. And of course, there’s catching up with Dad. It was very American-indie; sincere, offbeat, simple, excellently performed. Highly recommended.
Miranda July
Finally finished Miranda July’s book, No One Belongs Here More Than You. I’ve never read anything like it. Drop-dead funny, well-observed. Sometimes brilliant. Definitely odd. My favorite: “It Was Romance”.
Cloud Gate does Moonwater
Finally, Sunday was a performance of the world-famous Taiwanese dance troupe called Cloud Gate, performing Moonwater. It’s the first time I’d seen a full performance of modern dance. Mario accidentally found out that they were performing last weekend in Manila. I had no idea they were so famous. Rightly so: the 70 minute dance was spellbinding. I was hypnotized by their movement. At some point it didn’t even feel like they were choreographed, or even dancing… it was like watching water drip, ripple, dissipate.
The stage flooded with water near the end of the performance, and there was a sense of panic. We thought that it was raining so hard out that CCP was starting to flood (which isn’t a surprise at all if it happens!) … all we could think was, “fuck nakakahiya…” Anyway it was part of the performance and it was mystifying. The exit was especially gorgeous. Absolutely beautiful.
