ON JARGONS ETC....
By: Iris P. Concepcion

That is the facade of a bookstore, a brick find in Divisoria. The enthralling white church interiors is not Rome. It is our own Quiapo Church.

Architecture as blown-up in fond lenses.

It is a good day to dip in the pool with just the face floating like a beach ball. I have always articulated this desire to people I had conversed with. No, I am not a swimmer; I do not know how to flap my legs nor zoom like butterfly in strokes. In short, I am a water-resistant mammal.

My swimming parody is exactly this: I go to a passable deep (that which does not drown me) and stay there like a starfish and remain motionless. It is like statue swimming. I do not know why it is overtly hot in this country; sometimes I feel like my bones are softened. Not with body lotion but by some heat wave.

If someone goes naked walking on the street, I wouldn't be aghast: perhaps, that is his way of coping with the perspiration's cause.

It is with this craving that I finished reading a book (quite hefty) on issues similar to what I am espousing. It is truly potent in that it started with a great intro and ended with a news clip that, definitely, captured the essence of modern-day, digital courage. I think the author is some kind of a verbal hottie in the blogsphere. The writer's name is Markus Moutsalis Zuniga.

To cap his well-written treatise on systems as a whole, the author nailed it via a report. He copied a news item about an ordinary guy who clubbed a robber's head with a coffee mug. All the while he was on it, he was not thinking of his life but this: how he would look like in the surveillance camera when it is finally uploaded in You Tube.

We are in this age where image does matter to explain cocky, but truthful lines like: "I have to give it to this guy," sort of talking back.

I do know someone with this kind of ballsy take on things (apart from myself, of course). If he were not taken from the womb of great debaters, I am pretty sure he came from my placenta. Sentences like "Change is never brought about by those who play it safe" often crops up in the pages.

I do feel alone sometimes engulfed with my words and I finally understand the mechanics of these dynamics that are written with ascerbic remarks but never without humor on them. Say this encapsulation of what I likewise underwent via marvelous sentences:

"The Frosts would've been far better off staying anonymous in the comfort of their home, far away from the public spotlight. Their decision to lend their voice to the debate exposed them to harassment, invasions of privacy and emotionally taxing attacks. They paid a price but their voices helped advance the cause of a noble government program that has the potential to help millions more children when it (a law being mulled) is eventually passed."

Or this:

"We may be a sliver of the broader netroots, but damn, we're a fun part of it."

Guys like this writer only leave when everything is settled. They find disarray and unfinished things an insult to their vision. New guys simply come in and would find breeze, realizing that the work had been done for them. The takers need only to implement them.

I kind of like the fusion of this guy's totality: a part of a whole, and a cozy whole with extremely familiar parts.