That woman: my fascination with Eva Duarte

I found myself caught in the tortuous life of the living and the deceased Eva Peron. That woman, her image actually, unknown to me for the longest time and was recently introduced to me by my friend, visits me in my dreams. Her blond hair in that very familiar do, death-white skin, and sweet husky voice when she said “No llores por mi Argentina” captivated me like I am one of her descamisados.

http://mrtours.wordpress.com

I love her. This a declaration I shall never be ashamed of.

http://www2.cddc.vt.edu

She can be pop and high society at the same time. Watching her delivering her speech in Spanish in front of Argentine nation made this Romance language the most rhythmic and poetic tongue ever invented.

http://wikipedia.org

Evita embraces Perón during the 1951 joint ticket rally, unable to accept popular calls that she run for Vice-President.

She’s the sexiest woman since Eve. But being consistent with the endless contradictions in her life, Evita is sex and the ultimate shrinker all at the same time.

Regardless, I am loving her.

Late evening/early morning foodtrip

I find the term funny and too pop-ish for my taste, but because of a seeming lack of a (more interesting) term to describe it, and since the rest of the Filipino society, the masa, that is, calls it this way anyway, let’s call it a foodtrip. Going on a foodtrip at some unholy hours can be very invigorating after a very long day.

When everything is quiet and the streets of Makati are nearly desolate, roughly between 11pm to 1am, we usually go out to eat at a nearby diner for our favorite ribsi (braised pork ribs and fried rice) or variants of silogs like tapsilog (braised beef cutlets, sunny side-up egg, and fried rice), longsilog (local sausage called longganisa, egg, and fried rice), and the list goes on. If one is on the healthier side, he can order a bowl of goto (rice porridge with entrails) and fried tokwa (tofu) that floats in a sweet soy sauce solution.

These late night dinners that are starting to become a nightly ritual are the only times I can have the luxury to enjoy, in a more spiritual way, the view of a more subdued, easy Makati, minus the crowd, crazy traffic jam, and unlivable humid tropical climate in daytime.

At midnight, the fact that I see not much, relative to the normal daytime routine scenes, makes the slightest, simplest experience  too much that my senses give my brain a plethora of inconsistent message. I almost always have a hard time synthesizing the things before me especially during late night dinners because I see less which forces me to see more.

I see people walking to some indeterminate destination, probably to work in the nearby buildings on Ayala Avenue; prostitutes waiting for customers in the narrow red light strip along De la Rosa Street; and some teenage kids congregating outside Cityland.

Probably that’s why I love going out at night. Aside from the gastronomic delight and interesting scenes that allow me to philosophize, this is also a great time to spend with the person I love. Ordinary, simple, even mundane things are the real stuff of our memory.

After all, during our last days here on earth, I read, what we remember are not the spectacle and the spectacular. Only ordinary moments that are too deeply ingrained in us.

Like a simple late night dinner in a Goodah diner several blocks away with somebody so dear.

http://goodah.com.ph

7 reasons I am not voting for Manny Villar

From now, it’s less than three weeks before the elections in the Philippines. According to the nation-wide survey conducted by the Social Weather Station released in mid-February of this year, Villar trails Aquino by 7 percentage points. But I will not delve on this; this post will be for the 5 per cent who, until this time, remains undecided. Five per cent of the roughly 45 million voters is 2.25 million voters, and these people who are yet to decide whom to vote for in May may decide the outcome of the election, granting the present administration will not do any dirty tactics that will result in failure of elections.

Villar will not get my vote.

1. His candidacy is reeking with anomalies.

http://facebombed.wordpress.com

2. His ads on TV are just obscenely many. I almost stopped watching Philippine TV shows because wherever I go, ABS-CBN2 or GMA7, I see nothing during commercial breaks but faces of those kids singing a song that sounded like worshipping Villar.

3. His vice-presidential running-mate, Loren Legarda, is the most irritating TV personality to date since Mystica.

Her thirst for power seeps through her nose, ears, pores, and eyes every time she is interviewed on TV. Moreover, I hate how she phrases her sentences and how it shouts indecision.

4. Villar lied about his brother’s death because his family did not have the money to give the boy proper medical attention. He lied about his family’s real financial status; they’re not the dirt poor he’s been telling us they were, middle-class by all respect, Winnie Monsod said.

http://ejbtuppil.wordpress.com

5. His steely composure reminds me of Donald Trump. That man is scary, so is Villar.

6. He has not responded to any the accusations of corruption hurled at him. His dry response by saying these are merely politically motivated is as dry and boring as his personality. But seriously, if he brushes all these accusations as if they are products of imagination now that he is still a candidate, imagine how he’ll react to cases of corruption when he’s already sitting in the highest seat of the land.

7. His Botox makeover is hideous. His dyed crown is horrible. Too ascetic, too black.

http://facebombed.wordpress.com

Pictures of the author

And since blogging is a truly personal medium for individual expression, this narcissistic exercise of posting my pictures here is far from being impertinent, and I, being unabashedly honest, think this was done in good taste. This post is as personal as ‘personal’ can get.

It’s a perfectly normal enterprise, an essential endeavor that comes naturally based on public understanding of the capitalist idea of ownership that is reminiscent of pre-Cold War definition of  ownership (the blog domain, that is, as applied in the contemporary times).

Besides, readers are free to enter and leave this site at their own pleasure (and/or risk [!]).

These pictures were taken outside Miagao Church almost a month ago by the author of the blog whose link appears below the pictures.

http://rjsolis.wordpress.com

http://rjsolis.wordpress.com

I abhor my style of writing above. This means to say that I do not tolerate myself writing in such a way and that this will be the last time I am utilizing this tone.

My stray cats

Of all animals, except fish, I love cats the most. They’re the cuddliest, most intelligent, proudest, and owing to this last trait, they will never stoop to man’s level. I saw these two cats under a table in a carinderia in Bacoor, Cavite. Despite my presence, they firmly held their post and were not bothered by my presence.

I almost did something as absurd as putting them inside my bag and bringing them home. But I thought they looked better that way. For these semi-wild feline, nothing compares to running free in streets and alleyways.

I cannot bring myself to deprive these cats the dignity of living solitary and independent lives.

Is terribly missing Friendster

To those who went to college between 2002 until the third quarter of this decade, the experience would be incomplete without being a part of the then very popular Friendster. We reconnected with long forgotten high school and elementary schoolmates as well as maintained bond with people we saw in school everyday. We exchanged pictures, sent messages, received testimonials and comments, sent messages, and for some, stalked people we thought interesting. It was the coolest thing invented that time.

In 2006, Facebook was introduced. It took a while before it achieved a level of acceptability in the Philippines, until it has become a near-universal that it is now. Now everyone has a Facebook account, from a 13-year old teenybopper to, I heard it from somebody, 92 year old granny who regularly updates her status and checks what her friends have in mind or what keep them busy at the moment. It is as cool as owning an iPad or being a green activist.

In this age of shameless self-promotion, Facebook capitalized, almost schemingly and smartly,  in everyone’s tendency to constantly talk about themselves and to know what their friends and other people are doing, regardless whether the pieces of information are of importance or simply plain ranting and whining.

But what is more worth noting is the very quick oscillation of how we view ‘coolness’ of an object, a concept, or to be more specific of, a social networking site from being the pinnacle of what can be referred to as innovative and great to being something amusing and an artifact from our past.

Despite the spectacular relaunching of of Friendster to recapture its lost members, the attempt grossly failed because the overhaul was too late. Facebook has already dominated the scene leaving Friendster with nothing but those die-hard fans that may have not been aware of Facebook’s existence that’s why they remain stuck in Friendster.

In a conference on blogging I attended yesterday, less than three people raised their hands for Friendster when the speaker did a quick survey of the networking sites the audience are a member of. I even saw some very funny reactions whenever Friendster was mentioned, as if it is a contagious disease. People are running away from it like the plague.

The experience taught me that pubic opinion is very fickle and that our lot can change as drastically as we may be aware of or allow. What we can do, and this applies to companies, businesses, including us, is to constantly be on our toes ready to change, innovate, and adapt to whatever challenge that comes our way.

I’ve never opened, much less updated my Friendster account for more than half a year now, but whenever I receive notification in my email that somebody has left a comment on my Friendster page or to remind me that today is somebody’s birthday, I cannot help myself but to feel nostalgic about what has been and the good ol’ days of Friendster-ing (it does not sound good at all, probably that’s why Facebook-ing has become more popular).

I miss Friendster just as well.

Announcement: Pinoy_Blogfest 1.0

The posting of this announcement here has already been long overdue. I would like to thank the people behind Gadgets Magazine for the complimentary slot they gave to me to join Pinoy_Blogfest 1.0 that is happening several hours from now.

See you all at the venue.