FLY ART
By: Iris P. Concepcion
Art, that arrogant branch of human thematic explorations, was butchered by an axe one day, and found itself legless. That was also the moment it had decided to acquire a gender in the form of a gonad bearing being. Art, that boasting piece of Towering Craft, decided to become a he.
And he, that legless form of gallivanting creativity, shook the drawing pencil with might and conviction and had uttered:
"From your tip shall arise the most hawkish eyes, the mocking irises, the conscience-piercing pupils, the sly retinas, the snowy orbs."
The drawing pencil, suicidal at this point for the production of horrendous cartographic sketches, chopped ears, misunderstood shadows, cross-eyed faces, straight and limp hair, faced him, that legless creative tyrant with a thinning eraser on its tail's tip, growled like a pained chimpanzee :
"Damn you art! Damn you and your pretensions for one lined eyebrows, your noses with only two dots as its breathing holes, your four-fingered ladies in tights, your uneven tilting heads, your pouty mouths, your canvasses with drawings that always start in the middle, your shadow strokes looking like substandard road cement.
Damn you for liking death so much, you and your incompetent fingers wincing my tip with your incongruent noses, your faces with bland emotions, your lips with nary a character to grip me with the words : "MAKE ME ALIVE! MAKE ME ALIVE!"
Sunday, November 11, 2012
ADVICE OF A FATHER TO A DAUGHTER, A YOUNG WOMAN IN BRAIDS
By: Iris P. Concepcion
And thus it shone, lined in bright skies, a signal that a father is about to give his daughter away to a man of noble stock, in celebration of multiplying humanity and spreading the good genetics to fill the living rooms of cheers swathed in velvet canopies.
The clue is spelled out in the clouds, wooly cottoned in white fur. It illumined a word: UNION.
Ginter Grass, the European, haunting writer who had dramatized and horrified food in his mocking novel, Hunger, would have traded his big toe to craft the sentences supporting the word apparition that flies like an airplane on air.
To the ordinary father though, it holds a different meaning. Itched in unshaven stubble, soaked in grey hues all over his body, it brought forth a panic unlike the wound shots that he had bitten and brandied in the past: how to pacify a daughter's desire to experience a bonded, marital hell.
His own had been ordinarily blissful with routines of a dining table and desk shuffling like outworn crads. It had ranked a little higher than a soap opera boredom. He had been dissuading his daughter to forego the wedding gown and instead, sprain her feet in marathon tracks, drink apple cider juice for a week, carry ten sacks of rice, gulp down a barrel of barley, to test her stamina. But, all these, for naught.
His daughter wants to burden her ring finger with a gold plated ornament festooned with a giant stone at the center weighing like a volcano, perhaps dipped and coated in second class alloy that could, in twenty years, give her red scabbies.
He had been meaning to write her in ballpoint pen, ditching the computer keys that he had never fallen in love with. He had originally thought of them as a squared driveway that gives him the frantic thought of turning into a bald man. He sees it, even as he ponders on its usage, as a vulcanized platform to Braille his soles, mistaking them for blind bats.
How to paragraph the words in their exact meaning, how to slice the sentences with the handy appearances of commas, how to galvanize the semi colons in between words, how to wind the letter contents to bring home the message of urgency that a wedding is only meant to be solemnized by and among squirrels, how would a man, of ordinary pedigree, be made to put all these in stringed words and offer it as wisdom to her only daughter?
My own foray into romantic liaisons was not entirely a feast of triumohs. Women are loudmouths with words zooming out from their mouths like jetplanes, forming foamy chatter from their razor mouth teeth. I have squired plenty of them in various anatomical diagrams with their foul and shrill voices animatedly engaged in gossip, instigating frictions and poking into their neighbors' woes and affairs. Their jealousies show peasant-like envy; I have often dreamt of putting my smelly, unwashed socks on their mouths to turn off thei inane diatribes forever. It is unnerving to wake up in the morning, especially when they shout like untuned orchestras, bewailing about smudges, money, baby poos and stains. Why couldn't they live in tents then? Or as a better alternative, use their aluminum roofs, misused as house walls, as their future coffins?
I have, nonetheless, met a few possessing elan and fortitude, docile and meek like tongue-less herd of sheep. They have provided a homing nest better than the wagging, nagging and tweaking beaks of the rest. Your mother belongs to this latter group. I was treated like an unsatisfied pig by this lot, finding myself rewarded with food in cupboards, cabinets and refrigerators as if my digestive organ is their whole revolving universe. You find yourself opening your eyes not to an irritating wail or misplaced anger but to a bowl of hot chicken macaroni soup with carrots. I was even nudged out of my deep slumber once to find a tenderized goat's head marinated in ginger and lemon grass beside my bed. My first ever voodoo meal.
This might sound awfully Neanderthal to you my child but rarely can you find a mate who can fully grasp your own individuality, a mammal who could intuit the unruffling of your moods.
The temerity of the married flock could never give you a widespread insight the travails of being marooned forever with a partner, bondaged as you are in a series of foul smells and spooky sound, irritatingly routinary like a ticking clock.
I shall, nevertheless, impart my miniscule wisdom on how to combat this boredom and repetitions made more important by your visions of tykes cuter than the animated characters, your own children looking like Ava Gardner in sequined gowns, shrieking like fairies, elongating their pink tongues like hissing snakes. Think about their oval eyes first before you dread the actuial mincing of that goat's head.
Allow me to deliver the marital tips to you, my daughter, freshly experimented from my busy cranium. These are tests meant to examine your future spouse's loyalty not only to his archaic and hymnal devotion to the two prominent orbs frotning your body.
Could he gaze beyond the wonder of your twinkling eyes and dig deeper into the cuticles that had camped on your feet like flattened ginger?
This brings me to the fore of boasting my old wit. Call it a wit's tip, from an old owl.
Is he willing to clip your blackened nails without causing you a scandalous wince? Could he extract their ingrones without cursing to the gods in heaven the futility of, ostensibly, foot servitude?
If he ever develops a curious goiter that has caused his neck to swell, would you scram away from that terrible sight or would you lovingly wipe it with an Oriental ointment to reduce its size? IF he vomits copiuos red corpuscles in your urinary pan like a Quentin Tarantino character, would you scream out of your llungs or would you scream out of your lungs or would you carefully wipe his mouth and pray for a catastrophic wrath and famine to the vicious people who had caused it?
If he suddenly finds himself without a leg in a gradual series of amputation owing to some undiagnosed sickness, would you hide in your closet, run for your life and seek refuge behind the curtains or would you rather consume all your money to order artificial legs in prosphetic mastery from atelemarketing program?
If he serves you food that looks like womited worms and shove it in your mouth as an appetizing gourmet fare, would you show dissatisfaction or would you be very polite to excuse yourself from the table ans sneak a bar of Reese's chocolate and peanut butter hidden under your bedroom pillow?
If he suddenly, insiduously and maliciously, annoint you as the founder of the Satanic Cult in your rough neighborhood, brandish your forehead with incense and holy water after muttering spiritual incantations without halts, would you throw her the King James version of the Bible and shout at the top of your visceral voice that you had, in fact, edited its English translation and holler piously, with cherubic sonatas piping in the background, that his false postulation is inanely unfounded?
If he hastily leaves you for an Interracial Planetary Alignment of Constellation and HEavenly Bodies in Nevada, U.S.A. while you are wallowing in a decrepit cornerstore selling sugarcane vinegar in a far flung village in Croatia, will you feign an incurable dementia to forestall his departure or will you allow him to fly so that he could pursue his alien dream?
My child, the horror and tribulation that I have mentioned thus far is not even an inch to the 12 ft. ruler of doom awaiting you in that, pardon my genteel puke, state of bliss.
Succumb to the intelligence of handling this conjured pairing in purgatory, persist like an Amazon jungle survivor like your mother who had faced bullets, insults, blood, gore and ill will all by herself to build the future, even those of her tormentors. She is an impervious and cunning matchmaker too who had singlehandedly improved the mental faculties of infants, removed their illnesses, fattened their bank accounts and gifted them prestige and respect in a society previously hostile to them.
The preparations laid before you, waging in a way into a marital combat that could drain you, is no match to the promise of living in glorious castles specially lit for your presence once you have hurdled the hell of this marital damnation.
Bravery, my daughter, has nothing to do with i9nnocent courage. Bravery is measured by how far you can endure the degrees of responsibilities, clasping your existence like a hawk, staring at your face like opal, blank void, swirling in your periphery like an unformed guilt.
Why am I terrifying you with prophetic assaults on the home front? Why am I not twiddling you with sash and bolts, the shrieks and guffaws, the birthday candles lit to illumine your freshly scrubbed cheeks and Listerened mouth? Why am I not weaving you a quilt of mountainous mayonnaise surrounding your pasta like snow dug by ski men in neon spandex? Why am I not magnifying your retinas with the nervy sheen of your beloved's toned biceps? Why am I not orating to you the versed rhapsodies in iambic meters that might have, surprisingly, emboldened your pillow to talk, mouthing the piled letters, penned no less by the Mennen-breezed aftershave who is your husband, liquified and trapped in a swirling bottle of fragrance?
The answer to these questions is akin to the four-fingered dwarf with a fat nose: no one has fully assimilated the logic reasoning of domestic unions in textbook understanding. It can acquire a nose with only a single hole on it, an elbow with hooks, toes with peanut butter fillings in between them.
I do not mean to startle you with these frightening predictions but astrology could save you from this grim foreboding.
Your husband can add a little finger to your uneven hands, remove the hooks from your arms, sculpt your toes to look like Taj Majal.
Think of that 40 inch waistline shrinking into a dimunitive 24 inch wrappable anatomy. The plaque of your teeth expelled, leaving your chomping pearls earnestly flossed in horrible whiteness.
Seize that field where you could pluck your dreams like growing grains bathed by spring rain. Marriage is all about the nourishment that considers your body a wondrous habitation, a harvest of abundance that could sustain any of your expectant desires. Have I not laid down the tribulations only to open another window that could grope your soul with mental prosperities? Is it not a puzzle then, that your husband could widely stretch that window for you to marvel at the other side of this domed coin?
Part then, that sullen gaffe of confusion that is now inhabiting your mind. Envy, gossip and fricrions shall hover to dissuade you from enjoying that zone of satisfaction that welcomes you in that bonded bliss. Set forth your sword of defense against the incompetent harangue of doomsayers who might have lavishly poured you with unfounded criticisms. Announce proudly the security of your chastity belt that had not been unlocked at your very young age where others might have immediately and freely given, producing unwanted pregnancies and fodders for dizzying scandals.
All the swallows on streams, their beaks privy to the secrets of the ground worms, shall be with you in that aisle of abundance and prosperity of noble stock and genteel breeding, of a luife free from the chaos of the muggy and murky underworld.
Even the reindeers, with their twiggy horns furnishing shadows to the dark and sullen moon when flown by the Sleighs Of December, shall provide a chorus in that age of equatorial marriage, to be witnessed not only by the piquant but moody giraffes, but the uniquely pouty mouthed, and here comes the punishing insult, very crossed water hippopotamuses who are prouder than ever by their vulgar unfriendliness to camera lenses.
Let us then advance our ruminations on this wedded communion with nappies and budgeting by envisioning the allure and scenery of your wedding ceremony. Shall the entire zoo and all the offspring of the outback wildlife be present? Call in the marching zebras with their gifts of cups and teaspoons, the white Bengal tigers with their ironing boards, the white sharks with their electric pots, the gayest porcupines with their immaculate dinnerware porcelain, the roaring lions with their air conditioners and the little, furry rabbits with their soft towels and linens!
By: Iris P. Concepcion
And thus it shone, lined in bright skies, a signal that a father is about to give his daughter away to a man of noble stock, in celebration of multiplying humanity and spreading the good genetics to fill the living rooms of cheers swathed in velvet canopies.
The clue is spelled out in the clouds, wooly cottoned in white fur. It illumined a word: UNION.
Ginter Grass, the European, haunting writer who had dramatized and horrified food in his mocking novel, Hunger, would have traded his big toe to craft the sentences supporting the word apparition that flies like an airplane on air.
To the ordinary father though, it holds a different meaning. Itched in unshaven stubble, soaked in grey hues all over his body, it brought forth a panic unlike the wound shots that he had bitten and brandied in the past: how to pacify a daughter's desire to experience a bonded, marital hell.
His own had been ordinarily blissful with routines of a dining table and desk shuffling like outworn crads. It had ranked a little higher than a soap opera boredom. He had been dissuading his daughter to forego the wedding gown and instead, sprain her feet in marathon tracks, drink apple cider juice for a week, carry ten sacks of rice, gulp down a barrel of barley, to test her stamina. But, all these, for naught.
His daughter wants to burden her ring finger with a gold plated ornament festooned with a giant stone at the center weighing like a volcano, perhaps dipped and coated in second class alloy that could, in twenty years, give her red scabbies.
He had been meaning to write her in ballpoint pen, ditching the computer keys that he had never fallen in love with. He had originally thought of them as a squared driveway that gives him the frantic thought of turning into a bald man. He sees it, even as he ponders on its usage, as a vulcanized platform to Braille his soles, mistaking them for blind bats.
How to paragraph the words in their exact meaning, how to slice the sentences with the handy appearances of commas, how to galvanize the semi colons in between words, how to wind the letter contents to bring home the message of urgency that a wedding is only meant to be solemnized by and among squirrels, how would a man, of ordinary pedigree, be made to put all these in stringed words and offer it as wisdom to her only daughter?
My own foray into romantic liaisons was not entirely a feast of triumohs. Women are loudmouths with words zooming out from their mouths like jetplanes, forming foamy chatter from their razor mouth teeth. I have squired plenty of them in various anatomical diagrams with their foul and shrill voices animatedly engaged in gossip, instigating frictions and poking into their neighbors' woes and affairs. Their jealousies show peasant-like envy; I have often dreamt of putting my smelly, unwashed socks on their mouths to turn off thei inane diatribes forever. It is unnerving to wake up in the morning, especially when they shout like untuned orchestras, bewailing about smudges, money, baby poos and stains. Why couldn't they live in tents then? Or as a better alternative, use their aluminum roofs, misused as house walls, as their future coffins?
I have, nonetheless, met a few possessing elan and fortitude, docile and meek like tongue-less herd of sheep. They have provided a homing nest better than the wagging, nagging and tweaking beaks of the rest. Your mother belongs to this latter group. I was treated like an unsatisfied pig by this lot, finding myself rewarded with food in cupboards, cabinets and refrigerators as if my digestive organ is their whole revolving universe. You find yourself opening your eyes not to an irritating wail or misplaced anger but to a bowl of hot chicken macaroni soup with carrots. I was even nudged out of my deep slumber once to find a tenderized goat's head marinated in ginger and lemon grass beside my bed. My first ever voodoo meal.
This might sound awfully Neanderthal to you my child but rarely can you find a mate who can fully grasp your own individuality, a mammal who could intuit the unruffling of your moods.
The temerity of the married flock could never give you a widespread insight the travails of being marooned forever with a partner, bondaged as you are in a series of foul smells and spooky sound, irritatingly routinary like a ticking clock.
I shall, nevertheless, impart my miniscule wisdom on how to combat this boredom and repetitions made more important by your visions of tykes cuter than the animated characters, your own children looking like Ava Gardner in sequined gowns, shrieking like fairies, elongating their pink tongues like hissing snakes. Think about their oval eyes first before you dread the actuial mincing of that goat's head.
Allow me to deliver the marital tips to you, my daughter, freshly experimented from my busy cranium. These are tests meant to examine your future spouse's loyalty not only to his archaic and hymnal devotion to the two prominent orbs frotning your body.
Could he gaze beyond the wonder of your twinkling eyes and dig deeper into the cuticles that had camped on your feet like flattened ginger?
This brings me to the fore of boasting my old wit. Call it a wit's tip, from an old owl.
Is he willing to clip your blackened nails without causing you a scandalous wince? Could he extract their ingrones without cursing to the gods in heaven the futility of, ostensibly, foot servitude?
If he ever develops a curious goiter that has caused his neck to swell, would you scram away from that terrible sight or would you lovingly wipe it with an Oriental ointment to reduce its size? IF he vomits copiuos red corpuscles in your urinary pan like a Quentin Tarantino character, would you scream out of your llungs or would you scream out of your lungs or would you carefully wipe his mouth and pray for a catastrophic wrath and famine to the vicious people who had caused it?
If he suddenly finds himself without a leg in a gradual series of amputation owing to some undiagnosed sickness, would you hide in your closet, run for your life and seek refuge behind the curtains or would you rather consume all your money to order artificial legs in prosphetic mastery from atelemarketing program?
If he serves you food that looks like womited worms and shove it in your mouth as an appetizing gourmet fare, would you show dissatisfaction or would you be very polite to excuse yourself from the table ans sneak a bar of Reese's chocolate and peanut butter hidden under your bedroom pillow?
If he suddenly, insiduously and maliciously, annoint you as the founder of the Satanic Cult in your rough neighborhood, brandish your forehead with incense and holy water after muttering spiritual incantations without halts, would you throw her the King James version of the Bible and shout at the top of your visceral voice that you had, in fact, edited its English translation and holler piously, with cherubic sonatas piping in the background, that his false postulation is inanely unfounded?
If he hastily leaves you for an Interracial Planetary Alignment of Constellation and HEavenly Bodies in Nevada, U.S.A. while you are wallowing in a decrepit cornerstore selling sugarcane vinegar in a far flung village in Croatia, will you feign an incurable dementia to forestall his departure or will you allow him to fly so that he could pursue his alien dream?
My child, the horror and tribulation that I have mentioned thus far is not even an inch to the 12 ft. ruler of doom awaiting you in that, pardon my genteel puke, state of bliss.
Succumb to the intelligence of handling this conjured pairing in purgatory, persist like an Amazon jungle survivor like your mother who had faced bullets, insults, blood, gore and ill will all by herself to build the future, even those of her tormentors. She is an impervious and cunning matchmaker too who had singlehandedly improved the mental faculties of infants, removed their illnesses, fattened their bank accounts and gifted them prestige and respect in a society previously hostile to them.
The preparations laid before you, waging in a way into a marital combat that could drain you, is no match to the promise of living in glorious castles specially lit for your presence once you have hurdled the hell of this marital damnation.
Bravery, my daughter, has nothing to do with i9nnocent courage. Bravery is measured by how far you can endure the degrees of responsibilities, clasping your existence like a hawk, staring at your face like opal, blank void, swirling in your periphery like an unformed guilt.
Why am I terrifying you with prophetic assaults on the home front? Why am I not twiddling you with sash and bolts, the shrieks and guffaws, the birthday candles lit to illumine your freshly scrubbed cheeks and Listerened mouth? Why am I not weaving you a quilt of mountainous mayonnaise surrounding your pasta like snow dug by ski men in neon spandex? Why am I not magnifying your retinas with the nervy sheen of your beloved's toned biceps? Why am I not orating to you the versed rhapsodies in iambic meters that might have, surprisingly, emboldened your pillow to talk, mouthing the piled letters, penned no less by the Mennen-breezed aftershave who is your husband, liquified and trapped in a swirling bottle of fragrance?
The answer to these questions is akin to the four-fingered dwarf with a fat nose: no one has fully assimilated the logic reasoning of domestic unions in textbook understanding. It can acquire a nose with only a single hole on it, an elbow with hooks, toes with peanut butter fillings in between them.
I do not mean to startle you with these frightening predictions but astrology could save you from this grim foreboding.
Your husband can add a little finger to your uneven hands, remove the hooks from your arms, sculpt your toes to look like Taj Majal.
Think of that 40 inch waistline shrinking into a dimunitive 24 inch wrappable anatomy. The plaque of your teeth expelled, leaving your chomping pearls earnestly flossed in horrible whiteness.
Seize that field where you could pluck your dreams like growing grains bathed by spring rain. Marriage is all about the nourishment that considers your body a wondrous habitation, a harvest of abundance that could sustain any of your expectant desires. Have I not laid down the tribulations only to open another window that could grope your soul with mental prosperities? Is it not a puzzle then, that your husband could widely stretch that window for you to marvel at the other side of this domed coin?
Part then, that sullen gaffe of confusion that is now inhabiting your mind. Envy, gossip and fricrions shall hover to dissuade you from enjoying that zone of satisfaction that welcomes you in that bonded bliss. Set forth your sword of defense against the incompetent harangue of doomsayers who might have lavishly poured you with unfounded criticisms. Announce proudly the security of your chastity belt that had not been unlocked at your very young age where others might have immediately and freely given, producing unwanted pregnancies and fodders for dizzying scandals.
All the swallows on streams, their beaks privy to the secrets of the ground worms, shall be with you in that aisle of abundance and prosperity of noble stock and genteel breeding, of a luife free from the chaos of the muggy and murky underworld.
Even the reindeers, with their twiggy horns furnishing shadows to the dark and sullen moon when flown by the Sleighs Of December, shall provide a chorus in that age of equatorial marriage, to be witnessed not only by the piquant but moody giraffes, but the uniquely pouty mouthed, and here comes the punishing insult, very crossed water hippopotamuses who are prouder than ever by their vulgar unfriendliness to camera lenses.
Let us then advance our ruminations on this wedded communion with nappies and budgeting by envisioning the allure and scenery of your wedding ceremony. Shall the entire zoo and all the offspring of the outback wildlife be present? Call in the marching zebras with their gifts of cups and teaspoons, the white Bengal tigers with their ironing boards, the white sharks with their electric pots, the gayest porcupines with their immaculate dinnerware porcelain, the roaring lions with their air conditioners and the little, furry rabbits with their soft towels and linens!
Saturday, July 28, 2012
PERISH MANICURES; LONG LIVE LIGHTER NAILS!
By: Iris P. Concepcion
A Mongoloid-looking man who serves the best cinnamon-almond baked pastry is slumped on his cushioned bed with monochromatic kitty pictures, looking at his half-consumed intravenous medicine, a dextrose.
He is sick at this time of the day, the 364,111,111 full lunar moon, as he barely hides behind the mast of a grey sky.
His daughter, a china doll, is playing wood blocks nearby, counting the numbers one to ten. She forms house designs in triangular and oval forms. She does not know how to use the hula hoop, preferring to circle it in motioned calisthenics using her luminiscent hands.
She has rejected my polite offering of sports education: she could use it around her waist in a mock belly dancing that could then be circled around her neck, knees and forefinger in Olympian Science. She grabs her green, pureed vegetable, contained in her milk bottle and pours it down her tiny throat.
We look at each other as her father is watching us when her mother appears from of the house's doors.
She hovers on her brood, her own mother (the perennial grandmother sitting not on a wicker chair but a dwarfian stool) miraculously farts every 10 minutes on the dot, bewailing the routinary bathing schedule in the house. Her language is incomprehensible; she has probably left her false teeth somewhere, tucked inside a coffee mug with warm water, overnight. She is the last person who could use the resident bathroom in this house, constructed with towering showers and large toilet seats. It is a wonderment how her tiny tush can fit in the bowl to catch her bodily dump, a receptacle that could swallow her whole anatomy.
The grandmother's child, the wife and mother in this story, suddenly barfs as she falls down on her knees. A liquid and white stream of mouth extracts goes straight to a pail, hastily placed there by his ill husband as a saving gesture.
The mother's own sister, a stout woman with a huge ribbon clamping his butt-long hair, looks at her without puzzlement while ironing the neatly embroidered babay clothes. Animatedly, the barfer barfs like an anorexoic woman recycling her ingested food.
I am a stranger to this house with its wails of barfs and farts, its ozonizer gadget that allegedly catches bacteria and germs, its handwashing liquid soaps placed in a kitchen sink that one could mistake for a pharmaceutical store, its frail and thin women with olive eyes walking in silent steps even in moments of precipitation.
"You wet here,: says the almond chef who is not feeling well at this time of the day.
I am marooned in his house as a meeting place to attend a conference of bible scholars with their spiritual passage exchanges and verse marathons.
I am riding with his brood, in their D-MAX pick-up car with tools and screwdrivers securely hidden in a built-in toolbox en route to the God questing herd.
He has meant the word "wait" of course, but his enunciation has lost its sing-song lilt in the middle of his stuttering English, having been born a pure Chinese-Thai.
"What time are we leaving?" I ask him as I squat on the floor without chairs, surveying the washing machine, cabinets and overflowing pillows that do not look compressed even when arranged in a small room.
The sick man looks at his oversized wrist watch with rotating knobs that resembles a compass. He diverts his eyes to a curious looking weighing scale that iimmediately converts kilos into pounds in digital form.
"We leave at three p.m.," he replies in his Bruce Lee mouth repartee. It barely opens as his dextrose is still dripping his invitro healing medicine that seems to throttle his palm. It is kept busy by his mobile phone tinkering, calling up people, coherent in Thai vocabulary, negotiating to alleviate his sickness in exchange for acclamation.
I nod my head in abeyance. I have no other option except to play with his kid drinking pureed vegetables and eating thumb-like bananas while waiting for the car to take us to heavenly eternity.
Grandmother at this point, is looking at his ailing son in pious deliberation. Her farting exrecise performed but never ceasingly. She asks for water, a polite halting breaker to her bottomed sound system.
A newcomer to the scene, a robust man with the deepest dimples hallowed in both his cheeks gives her water. He is a friend to one of the olive-eyed hou8se women. He sits on the floor like myself as he readily fires off his barage of questions. He is a genuine querist, a glib talker with a gift of gab.
He parades his capability potentials when I ask him, curiously, what his occupation is. Without any hesitation, wiping in a cultured manner a snot on his nose with afacial tissue, he speaks of his numerous credentials: lawyer, teacher, engineer, architect, electrician, plumber with a minor mechanical work capacity.
"You do not happen to be an astronaut?," I ask him in a deadpan manner.
"Ahh, no, I haven't been to the moon," laughing loudly as he files his riposte. He continues: " Have you already taken your lunch?" while folding his denim jeans on the hem, his curly hair sitting like firebrands on the loose as he bows down to perform his styling chore.
"Yes, I already took my lunch. Pig's blood with its innards. I likewise had pork rind, a pig skin deep fried in oil. And chocolate bread," I spew off my replication as I eye his yellowish noodles with chili and ginger that he takes with him in a frightening feign of a tummy break when he appears on the scene.
The barfing woman, his kid and the sick man eat in unison in a circle formation on the floor, their abundant house appliances and gadgets almost filling the roof seams looking for the basic dwelling amenities like knives and teaspoons.
The other women, frail and tiptoeing on their dainty feet, prepare for the biblical trip, securing their backpacks painted with funny cartoon caricatures. They take turns inn using the bathroom for their preparatory baths.
The kid and myself continue with our number revelry using the wood blocks. I notice that the tot has created an uneven building. He counts until eleven and repeats my intonation of the numerics in American twang. She laughs and shows her milk bottle with pureed vegetables as she fumbles with a cabinet with only one leg, still standing.
I sudenly experience a thirst and requests for a glass of water from the bedimpled newcomer, taking a cue from his cordiality and generosity accorded to the grandmother. He does not own the house but he acts like the perfect and most amiable host.
He takes his steps downstairs, getting water from a dispenser with pebbles and observing the grimace on my face, he explains it as possessing with medical healing powers.
I sip the quenching offer, thinking of the nursery books donated downstairs, the 29" flat T.V. set, the mini library with ape drawings, a funeral booklet for the dead grandfather whose grin is plastered on the booklet cover, the office for water filtration at the hallway and the refrigerator filled with various fruits.
As we all find a place to nomadic acting in this dwelling with complete but curious amenities, the almond sick man suddenly removes his dextrose, weighs himself on the weighing scale, imitates Popeyes's buceps of body building pose and exclaims with a Jack Nicholson's snickering mouth, to the chagrin of the other members of the house:
"I am well!!"
As he feels himself dandy and healthy, I relish at my own trick in that short span of time, teaching his kid the words "asleep" and "awake" with bodily movements fit for toys.
The hefty woman offers me a peared apple as we all prepare to leave at 3:00 p.m. in search of Heaven's Entrance, with screwdrivers and ax on hand and a kid who dutifully watches the ani,ated cartoon series Doremon.
All set, we leave at 6:00 p.m. instead, circling the markets bursting to the rafters with fruits, meats and vegetables.
This is not Milwaukee: Welcome to modern Shanghai that has traded Mao tse Tung with Jesus Christ as their own personal savior.
I do not even know their names. Names are akin to incapacitated accident victims in this place, in this dwelling, in this street, in this road block.
"THERE ARE NO FOWLS ON THE STAIRS;
THERE IS NO PULTRY HERE."
-----Mother D-----
By: Iris P. Concepcion
A Mongoloid-looking man who serves the best cinnamon-almond baked pastry is slumped on his cushioned bed with monochromatic kitty pictures, looking at his half-consumed intravenous medicine, a dextrose.
He is sick at this time of the day, the 364,111,111 full lunar moon, as he barely hides behind the mast of a grey sky.
His daughter, a china doll, is playing wood blocks nearby, counting the numbers one to ten. She forms house designs in triangular and oval forms. She does not know how to use the hula hoop, preferring to circle it in motioned calisthenics using her luminiscent hands.
She has rejected my polite offering of sports education: she could use it around her waist in a mock belly dancing that could then be circled around her neck, knees and forefinger in Olympian Science. She grabs her green, pureed vegetable, contained in her milk bottle and pours it down her tiny throat.
We look at each other as her father is watching us when her mother appears from of the house's doors.
She hovers on her brood, her own mother (the perennial grandmother sitting not on a wicker chair but a dwarfian stool) miraculously farts every 10 minutes on the dot, bewailing the routinary bathing schedule in the house. Her language is incomprehensible; she has probably left her false teeth somewhere, tucked inside a coffee mug with warm water, overnight. She is the last person who could use the resident bathroom in this house, constructed with towering showers and large toilet seats. It is a wonderment how her tiny tush can fit in the bowl to catch her bodily dump, a receptacle that could swallow her whole anatomy.
The grandmother's child, the wife and mother in this story, suddenly barfs as she falls down on her knees. A liquid and white stream of mouth extracts goes straight to a pail, hastily placed there by his ill husband as a saving gesture.
The mother's own sister, a stout woman with a huge ribbon clamping his butt-long hair, looks at her without puzzlement while ironing the neatly embroidered babay clothes. Animatedly, the barfer barfs like an anorexoic woman recycling her ingested food.
I am a stranger to this house with its wails of barfs and farts, its ozonizer gadget that allegedly catches bacteria and germs, its handwashing liquid soaps placed in a kitchen sink that one could mistake for a pharmaceutical store, its frail and thin women with olive eyes walking in silent steps even in moments of precipitation.
"You wet here,: says the almond chef who is not feeling well at this time of the day.
I am marooned in his house as a meeting place to attend a conference of bible scholars with their spiritual passage exchanges and verse marathons.
I am riding with his brood, in their D-MAX pick-up car with tools and screwdrivers securely hidden in a built-in toolbox en route to the God questing herd.
He has meant the word "wait" of course, but his enunciation has lost its sing-song lilt in the middle of his stuttering English, having been born a pure Chinese-Thai.
"What time are we leaving?" I ask him as I squat on the floor without chairs, surveying the washing machine, cabinets and overflowing pillows that do not look compressed even when arranged in a small room.
The sick man looks at his oversized wrist watch with rotating knobs that resembles a compass. He diverts his eyes to a curious looking weighing scale that iimmediately converts kilos into pounds in digital form.
"We leave at three p.m.," he replies in his Bruce Lee mouth repartee. It barely opens as his dextrose is still dripping his invitro healing medicine that seems to throttle his palm. It is kept busy by his mobile phone tinkering, calling up people, coherent in Thai vocabulary, negotiating to alleviate his sickness in exchange for acclamation.
I nod my head in abeyance. I have no other option except to play with his kid drinking pureed vegetables and eating thumb-like bananas while waiting for the car to take us to heavenly eternity.
Grandmother at this point, is looking at his ailing son in pious deliberation. Her farting exrecise performed but never ceasingly. She asks for water, a polite halting breaker to her bottomed sound system.
A newcomer to the scene, a robust man with the deepest dimples hallowed in both his cheeks gives her water. He is a friend to one of the olive-eyed hou8se women. He sits on the floor like myself as he readily fires off his barage of questions. He is a genuine querist, a glib talker with a gift of gab.
He parades his capability potentials when I ask him, curiously, what his occupation is. Without any hesitation, wiping in a cultured manner a snot on his nose with afacial tissue, he speaks of his numerous credentials: lawyer, teacher, engineer, architect, electrician, plumber with a minor mechanical work capacity.
"You do not happen to be an astronaut?," I ask him in a deadpan manner.
"Ahh, no, I haven't been to the moon," laughing loudly as he files his riposte. He continues: " Have you already taken your lunch?" while folding his denim jeans on the hem, his curly hair sitting like firebrands on the loose as he bows down to perform his styling chore.
"Yes, I already took my lunch. Pig's blood with its innards. I likewise had pork rind, a pig skin deep fried in oil. And chocolate bread," I spew off my replication as I eye his yellowish noodles with chili and ginger that he takes with him in a frightening feign of a tummy break when he appears on the scene.
The barfing woman, his kid and the sick man eat in unison in a circle formation on the floor, their abundant house appliances and gadgets almost filling the roof seams looking for the basic dwelling amenities like knives and teaspoons.
The other women, frail and tiptoeing on their dainty feet, prepare for the biblical trip, securing their backpacks painted with funny cartoon caricatures. They take turns inn using the bathroom for their preparatory baths.
The kid and myself continue with our number revelry using the wood blocks. I notice that the tot has created an uneven building. He counts until eleven and repeats my intonation of the numerics in American twang. She laughs and shows her milk bottle with pureed vegetables as she fumbles with a cabinet with only one leg, still standing.
I sudenly experience a thirst and requests for a glass of water from the bedimpled newcomer, taking a cue from his cordiality and generosity accorded to the grandmother. He does not own the house but he acts like the perfect and most amiable host.
He takes his steps downstairs, getting water from a dispenser with pebbles and observing the grimace on my face, he explains it as possessing with medical healing powers.
I sip the quenching offer, thinking of the nursery books donated downstairs, the 29" flat T.V. set, the mini library with ape drawings, a funeral booklet for the dead grandfather whose grin is plastered on the booklet cover, the office for water filtration at the hallway and the refrigerator filled with various fruits.
As we all find a place to nomadic acting in this dwelling with complete but curious amenities, the almond sick man suddenly removes his dextrose, weighs himself on the weighing scale, imitates Popeyes's buceps of body building pose and exclaims with a Jack Nicholson's snickering mouth, to the chagrin of the other members of the house:
"I am well!!"
As he feels himself dandy and healthy, I relish at my own trick in that short span of time, teaching his kid the words "asleep" and "awake" with bodily movements fit for toys.
The hefty woman offers me a peared apple as we all prepare to leave at 3:00 p.m. in search of Heaven's Entrance, with screwdrivers and ax on hand and a kid who dutifully watches the ani,ated cartoon series Doremon.
All set, we leave at 6:00 p.m. instead, circling the markets bursting to the rafters with fruits, meats and vegetables.
This is not Milwaukee: Welcome to modern Shanghai that has traded Mao tse Tung with Jesus Christ as their own personal savior.
I do not even know their names. Names are akin to incapacitated accident victims in this place, in this dwelling, in this street, in this road block.
"THERE ARE NO FOWLS ON THE STAIRS;
THERE IS NO PULTRY HERE."
-----Mother D-----
Tuesday, May 01, 2012
ON WALKING EARLY IN THE MORNING, ONLY TO FIND MYSELF AS THE NEW SCISSORED DESIGNER IN THE MOLDS OF ALEXANDER McQUEEN AND KENZO
By: Iris P. Concepcion
"On burberry blues
And lilacs and pinks
Merged a color of ostritched
Flamingo bleached in stitch."
The forthnight before the moon dropped its luminosity to the mortals below, treasure chests with locks were hauled off to the next tent city of wonder and merriment.
I stood in a garage that camouflages with Angry Birds, Earth and Oscar drawings, described by young men and women with seriously guffawing suggestions (I am Big Bird/ I have long beak/ I am thin/ I have a big head) and the truck was there, immobile, with its circus whoops and domed beds. Our house used to own one of this kind. The treasure chests reminded me of of my own childhood fear of opening them least a monster would come out, crush my limbs and feed me to Satan. It was placed in a small room with a big, furry teddy ิbear gifted by a grandfather from Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A. I simply stared at them like I did the truck and its treasure chest.
My new housemate, Devon Sawa alias Delvin (I suspect he is laughing his way out of his shin right now) opened his own version of the loot chest consisting of old plastic bags filled with used clothes. He asked me to select the items that I could use (he selected the hand me down clothing ware for everyday wear). I selected four items that I had refashioned with cutting scissors, no needles and sewings required. The materials is Miss Sixty inspired with a Romanian print of a fat woman with cherubic hair looking down on the ground. Sheer in nylon, the original creator must have been struck by a brilliant idea of converting the nylon stockings of his wife into a vampy top. The outcome is splendid, charismatic, outlandish and deliriously avant-garde sphinx. The original shapeless drab and garment turned into a sexy mammal with birds flying on top of shoulders that I merely tied from the cut sleeves. I scissored the sides to give it a firmer contour and I had tied the loose ends too.
I hereby propose that tying is the new needle work.
Thus far, my premonitions on the different visual explorations had widened here in Thailand: deeper writing styles, more natural attractions for my novel settings, wider latitude to engage in shape art that includes all sorts of clothes re-engineering.
I only have 20 baht in my bag but feels like a billionaire. Guffaws. I even take pictures like I could dislodge the top photographer of the country from his seat.
By: Iris P. Concepcion
"On burberry blues
And lilacs and pinks
Merged a color of ostritched
Flamingo bleached in stitch."
The forthnight before the moon dropped its luminosity to the mortals below, treasure chests with locks were hauled off to the next tent city of wonder and merriment.
I stood in a garage that camouflages with Angry Birds, Earth and Oscar drawings, described by young men and women with seriously guffawing suggestions (I am Big Bird/ I have long beak/ I am thin/ I have a big head) and the truck was there, immobile, with its circus whoops and domed beds. Our house used to own one of this kind. The treasure chests reminded me of of my own childhood fear of opening them least a monster would come out, crush my limbs and feed me to Satan. It was placed in a small room with a big, furry teddy ิbear gifted by a grandfather from Las Vegas, Nevada, U.S.A. I simply stared at them like I did the truck and its treasure chest.
My new housemate, Devon Sawa alias Delvin (I suspect he is laughing his way out of his shin right now) opened his own version of the loot chest consisting of old plastic bags filled with used clothes. He asked me to select the items that I could use (he selected the hand me down clothing ware for everyday wear). I selected four items that I had refashioned with cutting scissors, no needles and sewings required. The materials is Miss Sixty inspired with a Romanian print of a fat woman with cherubic hair looking down on the ground. Sheer in nylon, the original creator must have been struck by a brilliant idea of converting the nylon stockings of his wife into a vampy top. The outcome is splendid, charismatic, outlandish and deliriously avant-garde sphinx. The original shapeless drab and garment turned into a sexy mammal with birds flying on top of shoulders that I merely tied from the cut sleeves. I scissored the sides to give it a firmer contour and I had tied the loose ends too.
I hereby propose that tying is the new needle work.
Thus far, my premonitions on the different visual explorations had widened here in Thailand: deeper writing styles, more natural attractions for my novel settings, wider latitude to engage in shape art that includes all sorts of clothes re-engineering.
I only have 20 baht in my bag but feels like a billionaire. Guffaws. I even take pictures like I could dislodge the top photographer of the country from his seat.
Wednesday, April 25, 2012
WHAT HAPPENS IF MY PARENTS ARE PERFORMING PUNK ARTISTS INSTEAD OF BEING STAID TEACHERS?
By: Iris P. Concepcion
In the household of four where I grew up, the instruments were never off key. Stereos sound off blasting tunes of properly melodied symphony and pop songs readily fastened for ears that liven my musical experiences in catchier progressions.
I would stare at the album covers like I would the humungous goat's eyes, clearly in constant wonderment when I could land my pixel self in an album, vinyl cover with outlandish costumes and shiny legs creamed in cocoa powder for special effects.
In my forays to musical listening, I had sometimes wished that my parents with their words of protocol, plantilla, memorandum, voucher and education may be replaced by an avant garde word like "rock lobster". I had also wished that my brother, him with his tales of W gold mines, become the musician in Queen singing the Galileo song (Bohemian Rhapsody).
This is where I had derived my idea of stupendous wish calculation. What happens if my parents are really the creators of "Rock Lobster" and my brother, really the pianist in Bohemian Rhapsody? Shall I scream out of my wits upon realizing the fact that they had singlehandedly created a movement where shrimps could truly dance and where bass guitars can be improved to a more classical string trombone (refer to Rock Lobster's opening riffs). The idea is to foster a group of discarded and often maligned in the society to make their message clear: Young. Poor. Angry. But Productive.
The era was, perhaps, started as a protest to the loud music without meaning; a march against music with repetitive lyrics without any semblance of rhyme; a disgust over melodies that are best used as tranquilizers for putting one to sleep. Punk became an antidote to the senseless awning of lazy creativity. Consider the titles as a slap against that period's decadence. My Sharona, Whip It Good. The punk movement was created by people, in fact, envisioned by a couple who were early on exposed to perfect rhymes and musical incantations but had suddenly found themselves faced with substandard audio equipment (either the guitars crash or the bass is out of tune). To add salt to the wound, they made their sound senseless and repetitive as the mediums they were raucusing about. They had wonderful costumes though, especially the dyed hair that had suddenly stood vertically erect instead of being pulled down.
Thanks to a bizarre neighborhood, I had rekindled all my memories of notes that had made me more musically mature.
By: Iris P. Concepcion
In the household of four where I grew up, the instruments were never off key. Stereos sound off blasting tunes of properly melodied symphony and pop songs readily fastened for ears that liven my musical experiences in catchier progressions.
I would stare at the album covers like I would the humungous goat's eyes, clearly in constant wonderment when I could land my pixel self in an album, vinyl cover with outlandish costumes and shiny legs creamed in cocoa powder for special effects.
In my forays to musical listening, I had sometimes wished that my parents with their words of protocol, plantilla, memorandum, voucher and education may be replaced by an avant garde word like "rock lobster". I had also wished that my brother, him with his tales of W gold mines, become the musician in Queen singing the Galileo song (Bohemian Rhapsody).
This is where I had derived my idea of stupendous wish calculation. What happens if my parents are really the creators of "Rock Lobster" and my brother, really the pianist in Bohemian Rhapsody? Shall I scream out of my wits upon realizing the fact that they had singlehandedly created a movement where shrimps could truly dance and where bass guitars can be improved to a more classical string trombone (refer to Rock Lobster's opening riffs). The idea is to foster a group of discarded and often maligned in the society to make their message clear: Young. Poor. Angry. But Productive.
The era was, perhaps, started as a protest to the loud music without meaning; a march against music with repetitive lyrics without any semblance of rhyme; a disgust over melodies that are best used as tranquilizers for putting one to sleep. Punk became an antidote to the senseless awning of lazy creativity. Consider the titles as a slap against that period's decadence. My Sharona, Whip It Good. The punk movement was created by people, in fact, envisioned by a couple who were early on exposed to perfect rhymes and musical incantations but had suddenly found themselves faced with substandard audio equipment (either the guitars crash or the bass is out of tune). To add salt to the wound, they made their sound senseless and repetitive as the mediums they were raucusing about. They had wonderful costumes though, especially the dyed hair that had suddenly stood vertically erect instead of being pulled down.
Thanks to a bizarre neighborhood, I had rekindled all my memories of notes that had made me more musically mature.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
ON GENETICS
By: Iris P. Concepcion
I have, for the past three months, been playing the compact discs of two of the most high-pitched voices in the musical world arena, Olivia Newton-John (given to me by a shopkeeper who likewise moonlights as waterboy) and Diana Ross.
They both sound differently each time I blare them on speakers, finding a flute or violin in cameo, improv musicale. Even the lyrics to their songs had been twiddled for more rhymed verses with one line guffawing the singsong declaration: "I am Tier's sister." Olivia and Diana, masters of melodic shifts, are suddenly accompanied by symphony and orchestra intruments. They have ceased to be Olivia and Diana; they have become The Music.
I am particularly shocked to find a reawakening to the ultimate mushy ditty of all time, Endless Love (a duet of Diana with Luther Van Ross) that had, surprisingly, gained a new musical sphere that I now like, much to my wicked chagrin. I remember this song as a soundtrack to the iconic Brooke Shields film, the town premiere of which was then sponsored by my very strict high school alma mater. This already strikes me as funny: I was academically punished for skipping a symposium on education to watch the Dina Bonnevie, Snooky and Maricel Soriano starrer, Katorse, which was adjudged by a mother superior as kinky and saw the double entendre of morals when the same strict school allowed virginal novices to view an almost topless Brooke Shields on reel.
I return to the subject of music. As already essayed here superfluously, I grew up in a surrounding with music permeating entrance to my ears in every nook and cranny of our house. My auntie and uncle who lived beside our house with my cousins, would have their own variety of cha-cha, rhumba and modern music, to complement our Billy Vaughn classics and Ray Conniff orchestra albums. We were encouraged to sing to our hearts' content with various instruments: guitars, ukuleles, maracas, banduria and electric organ. I could not remember, ever, being reprimanded for turning up the volume of our Interlude to its maximum level. Perhaps, it gave my family a natural embrace for melody. We have always sung; we are still singing until now. All my aunts and uncles, even on the second, third and fourth degrees, can carry a tune, lugging any musical instrument that they could find. Even our godparents can sing, hitting decibels never been heretofore known. The priest who had baptized me can sing exceptionally. And so did the doctor who had brought me out unto this world.
I now understand the world of Nick Hornby, with his Top 5 all-time favorite hits. I am, however, in a position to contradict the writer over his fascination for Rod Stewart (I would pick Sweden's biggest import, ABBA, anytime). I agree with his Nelly Furtado choice but I would declare, Bette Midler is far in the constellation of belters who can wreck a melodic balcony seat. I had often wondered why Usher cleanly swept all the awards in the Grammy's before; I finally found the reson now. He starts his songs in middle notes instead of the usual C, G, C chord variations.
I also hold the postulation now: the best singers are never recorded commercially. They creep in songs like feathered mascots and fix the notes here and there, inserting a symphony on a line. Surprisingly, they do sound better after the note tune-ups.
Finally, I also concede: sports athletes are the best crooners in the universe. It must be the sharp spikes on their shoes that lent them their masterful ears for improv accompaniment.
A note to my favorite Philippine film and music critic Erwin Romulo of Ateneo de Manila University and Philippine Star: No wonder you were very cocky with your musical choices. You and your clique absolutely know where to place your chords, right to the core gut.
By: Iris P. Concepcion
I have, for the past three months, been playing the compact discs of two of the most high-pitched voices in the musical world arena, Olivia Newton-John (given to me by a shopkeeper who likewise moonlights as waterboy) and Diana Ross.
They both sound differently each time I blare them on speakers, finding a flute or violin in cameo, improv musicale. Even the lyrics to their songs had been twiddled for more rhymed verses with one line guffawing the singsong declaration: "I am Tier's sister." Olivia and Diana, masters of melodic shifts, are suddenly accompanied by symphony and orchestra intruments. They have ceased to be Olivia and Diana; they have become The Music.
I am particularly shocked to find a reawakening to the ultimate mushy ditty of all time, Endless Love (a duet of Diana with Luther Van Ross) that had, surprisingly, gained a new musical sphere that I now like, much to my wicked chagrin. I remember this song as a soundtrack to the iconic Brooke Shields film, the town premiere of which was then sponsored by my very strict high school alma mater. This already strikes me as funny: I was academically punished for skipping a symposium on education to watch the Dina Bonnevie, Snooky and Maricel Soriano starrer, Katorse, which was adjudged by a mother superior as kinky and saw the double entendre of morals when the same strict school allowed virginal novices to view an almost topless Brooke Shields on reel.
I return to the subject of music. As already essayed here superfluously, I grew up in a surrounding with music permeating entrance to my ears in every nook and cranny of our house. My auntie and uncle who lived beside our house with my cousins, would have their own variety of cha-cha, rhumba and modern music, to complement our Billy Vaughn classics and Ray Conniff orchestra albums. We were encouraged to sing to our hearts' content with various instruments: guitars, ukuleles, maracas, banduria and electric organ. I could not remember, ever, being reprimanded for turning up the volume of our Interlude to its maximum level. Perhaps, it gave my family a natural embrace for melody. We have always sung; we are still singing until now. All my aunts and uncles, even on the second, third and fourth degrees, can carry a tune, lugging any musical instrument that they could find. Even our godparents can sing, hitting decibels never been heretofore known. The priest who had baptized me can sing exceptionally. And so did the doctor who had brought me out unto this world.
I now understand the world of Nick Hornby, with his Top 5 all-time favorite hits. I am, however, in a position to contradict the writer over his fascination for Rod Stewart (I would pick Sweden's biggest import, ABBA, anytime). I agree with his Nelly Furtado choice but I would declare, Bette Midler is far in the constellation of belters who can wreck a melodic balcony seat. I had often wondered why Usher cleanly swept all the awards in the Grammy's before; I finally found the reson now. He starts his songs in middle notes instead of the usual C, G, C chord variations.
I also hold the postulation now: the best singers are never recorded commercially. They creep in songs like feathered mascots and fix the notes here and there, inserting a symphony on a line. Surprisingly, they do sound better after the note tune-ups.
Finally, I also concede: sports athletes are the best crooners in the universe. It must be the sharp spikes on their shoes that lent them their masterful ears for improv accompaniment.
A note to my favorite Philippine film and music critic Erwin Romulo of Ateneo de Manila University and Philippine Star: No wonder you were very cocky with your musical choices. You and your clique absolutely know where to place your chords, right to the core gut.
Saturday, April 07, 2012
ON BUTTONS, LACES AND CRYSTALS
By: Iris P. Concepcion
I embarked on another one day sojourn at Kelantan, Malaysia and had come across a little nook named Cintra, a small palace of potpourri with stairs blooming with makeshift flowers and dainty drawers of buttons and laces.
My eyes were, again, opened to the opportunity of unlocking the hidden secrets of modified hems and sewings, of stitches and embroideries, of gowns and well-dressed men in castles. The table covers were intricately handwoven with designs that matched the railings of zigzagged stairs in Grimm's and Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales. Kelantan, by this time, is suffused with materials for accessories and embellishments for production designs, the very things that I have seen and utilized productively in a small village at Yala, Thailand. This enclave of learning educates young people the rudiments of being productive. I had interacted with them one day, fashioning randomly a short tale of a kid hugging a goodlooking buffalo with a wide grin on his face. It sounds like a poem when recited.
Connecting the two places (Kelantan and Yala) that I now call my sheltered inn for existence has given curves to my stories with fascinating settings. Before, I could only create verbally adept talkers with impressive dialogues in conducting their conversations. Now, these characters can sit in cushioned sofas that look like bags, drinking water from handpainted porcelain glasses, invited by gracious and hospitable hosts that remind them of Sleepy, Smiley and Dopey, the lovable dwarfs in Snow White.
The magic carpet, at this hour of the day, has yielded gentlemen of genteel stock with refined, instead of coarse language.The cakes of Angry Birds have emotional and evocative eyes, using circled chocolates as their orbs. The almonds of pastries now bear the fruits of kiwi, strawberries and peaches. Young men with adventurous spirits are jet-skiing but are surrounded by the lush greens of the wilds, gliding in between lines of water trees.
The Chinese are very engaged in their chatters while regally eating their french fries; the Muslim women's fish balls have grown thrice their sizes; the bread had been leavened and became bigger.
The television set was showing a spade of dramatic and zombie stories, of people rising from the dead, of shirts declaiming: "The Brain" and "Certified Freaky". Tim Burton would find a cluster of amusement in these productions, with gorgeous kids crying over heavy-soled shoes, pacified only by colorful football shod in blue and white (witrh spikes).
The women were buying gifts for their husbands and kids; calf skin had suddenly turned into a shoe ornament; the watches are set on their proper time frame by turning their clock tuners.
This brings me to the wonders of interactions and how creativity works, especially on children. The small village I had mentioned earlier has teenagers who can converse in English. Their rooms are equipped with camera projectors. They were given free lunch (European boarding school impetus) and were taught the art of confidence in a wholistic manner.
My hosts for one day are mild-mannered with well-bred customs and traditions. I was made to write my impressions about my stay in a photo album-like story book. I scribbled my own simple poetry, using the theme of fruits that had been served on the table: sweet watermelons, tasty Mandarin oranges and crunchy apples. Their chicken dish is close to Philippine adobo, spiced with green chilis. Table conversations revolved around the literacy competence of children, comparing their levels of comprehension. The children, without being instructed, know ho to pose before the cameras properly, for them to look elegant in photographs.
It is charming in a way where the education of "School of Rock" is transferred in reality to remote villages where students can draw helicopters with sound effects (provided by their Acer projector screens).
It is here where I saw the buttons, laces and crystals of kelantan designed and embossed on tissue holders, placed on the dining table of my village hosts. The tissue holders, in short, were fully clothed, like the noble men of the olden times.
These experiences encapsulate the adage that I had always written in my blog site: Creativity shoots off from everywhere, including swanned ponds.
By: Iris P. Concepcion
I embarked on another one day sojourn at Kelantan, Malaysia and had come across a little nook named Cintra, a small palace of potpourri with stairs blooming with makeshift flowers and dainty drawers of buttons and laces.
My eyes were, again, opened to the opportunity of unlocking the hidden secrets of modified hems and sewings, of stitches and embroideries, of gowns and well-dressed men in castles. The table covers were intricately handwoven with designs that matched the railings of zigzagged stairs in Grimm's and Hans Christian Andersen's Fairy Tales. Kelantan, by this time, is suffused with materials for accessories and embellishments for production designs, the very things that I have seen and utilized productively in a small village at Yala, Thailand. This enclave of learning educates young people the rudiments of being productive. I had interacted with them one day, fashioning randomly a short tale of a kid hugging a goodlooking buffalo with a wide grin on his face. It sounds like a poem when recited.
Connecting the two places (Kelantan and Yala) that I now call my sheltered inn for existence has given curves to my stories with fascinating settings. Before, I could only create verbally adept talkers with impressive dialogues in conducting their conversations. Now, these characters can sit in cushioned sofas that look like bags, drinking water from handpainted porcelain glasses, invited by gracious and hospitable hosts that remind them of Sleepy, Smiley and Dopey, the lovable dwarfs in Snow White.
The magic carpet, at this hour of the day, has yielded gentlemen of genteel stock with refined, instead of coarse language.The cakes of Angry Birds have emotional and evocative eyes, using circled chocolates as their orbs. The almonds of pastries now bear the fruits of kiwi, strawberries and peaches. Young men with adventurous spirits are jet-skiing but are surrounded by the lush greens of the wilds, gliding in between lines of water trees.
The Chinese are very engaged in their chatters while regally eating their french fries; the Muslim women's fish balls have grown thrice their sizes; the bread had been leavened and became bigger.
The television set was showing a spade of dramatic and zombie stories, of people rising from the dead, of shirts declaiming: "The Brain" and "Certified Freaky". Tim Burton would find a cluster of amusement in these productions, with gorgeous kids crying over heavy-soled shoes, pacified only by colorful football shod in blue and white (witrh spikes).
The women were buying gifts for their husbands and kids; calf skin had suddenly turned into a shoe ornament; the watches are set on their proper time frame by turning their clock tuners.
This brings me to the wonders of interactions and how creativity works, especially on children. The small village I had mentioned earlier has teenagers who can converse in English. Their rooms are equipped with camera projectors. They were given free lunch (European boarding school impetus) and were taught the art of confidence in a wholistic manner.
My hosts for one day are mild-mannered with well-bred customs and traditions. I was made to write my impressions about my stay in a photo album-like story book. I scribbled my own simple poetry, using the theme of fruits that had been served on the table: sweet watermelons, tasty Mandarin oranges and crunchy apples. Their chicken dish is close to Philippine adobo, spiced with green chilis. Table conversations revolved around the literacy competence of children, comparing their levels of comprehension. The children, without being instructed, know ho to pose before the cameras properly, for them to look elegant in photographs.
It is charming in a way where the education of "School of Rock" is transferred in reality to remote villages where students can draw helicopters with sound effects (provided by their Acer projector screens).
It is here where I saw the buttons, laces and crystals of kelantan designed and embossed on tissue holders, placed on the dining table of my village hosts. The tissue holders, in short, were fully clothed, like the noble men of the olden times.
These experiences encapsulate the adage that I had always written in my blog site: Creativity shoots off from everywhere, including swanned ponds.
Saturday, March 10, 2012
KELANTAN REVIVED (WITH PARACHUTE)
By: Iris P. Concepcion
"Credit The Omnipotent And Higher Being To The Heavenly Supremacy Of Sound, Shapes And Lights.:--Iris P. Concepcion
Kelantan, Kota Bharu, Malaysia offered me another highlight to the wonders of hues and woodwork designs the last time I had visited it.
This is my fifth visit to the town, silted on a bus chair with my ticket dispensed from an ATM-machine like machine. My friend, Sitti, provided me a map of Kelantan this time around, a treasure find to the art of visuals. She had placed them on her receiving desk at Perdona Inn, my usual area of residence when combing this Malaysian enclave. I was immediately delighted over the presence of museum sites as provided in the locator's guide map where the artifacts of the town's history are introduced to the visual hawker.
Brpchures of Kelantan always feature the open-gated, three-coulumned doors (Merdeka Square) with a sculpture of an open book nestled on top of the middle column. I find it proper with its page leaves neatly molded as if flipped. Once you enter this wide, open fortress, you are greeted with the Museum Istiadat di Raja, a splendid structure with oblong and circled shapes illuminated on wood windows that are covered with corn-dusted curtains. They play an impressive backdrop to the window carvings.
Next to it is the Istana Balai Besar, a handicraft area with a curious cross and triangle-columned designs overlooking the central area. Its gate resembles the Merdeka Square book gate. It is nonetheless structured with dark brown, wood panels in between columns like a wired fairy tale, eureka entrance. It has more dimension and looks more enthralling from afar.
To its right is another immense, triangle building that houses various government and e-commerce place of transactions. The huge stairs leading to the main area are shiny and glassly vaulted. Inside it is a bank/tax office with humongous wood panels. This transaction hub on the ground floor shall remind a visitor of the spacious hotel front desks in big cities. Its interiors are airport-like with a giant clock hung on the second floor area like a cuckoo's nest waiting to get egged.
During the time of my visit, Merdeka Square displayed various motioning floats decorated with themes of Nature. This could be the town's version of the Rose Bowl Parade in New York, with a play of lights and shapely contours.
Floats come in different designs, from hotel structures and pagoda roofed, mini installations. Chinese temples and open water areas are likewise present here. The well-lit place stands as an entertainment foil to family night prowlers. Instead of the beach-themed restaurants, families can partake of nature parks, wildlife, flowers and cascading gardens inside this open, visual auditorium.
Down south is the calm and serene Kelantan River running still with a vast forestry across it, uniquely silent and sleeping. The river shelters differently-designed boats marooned in water houses. This could be the forerunner to bay areas with their anchorages of well-built yachts and jet skis. Here, the appeal is rustic as the jet skis are transformed into wooden sailing splendors with regalian chairs never failing to catch the eye of the visitors. The teriific usage of river stream, a liquid howl to River Kwai, is perfectly circumnavigated. Next to the river stream is an open verndah of tables and chairs for nightly diners with a small road separating it from Ridel Hotel, a Maine-like residence with restaurants below selling cakes, coffee and other freshly squeezed fruit beverages. I have squired a neat leather bag here, stitched and pruned in Hollywood design of production work.
This side of Kelantan is a miraculously, united area of eyeful delights. All its main buildings start from the visage of a circle. It is unnamed in the map but it refuses to forget the past with its war chests, old fashioned automobiles and tanks preserved in their original forms. No traffic light is needed here. Vehicles circle around and enter/exit in whatever form of direction without any structural hindrance. I found myself walking inside the round pedestrian lane as if I am Mt. Olympus. Spanish meld with the Chinese and American designs, basked in European sunlight.
Three Europeans were walking here like myself, enthused by the beautiful Moorish, Hindi and Muslim edifices built freely beside Mediterranean hotels. If urban planning had visited Manila in this manner, Philkippine tourism's tax receipts could perhaps generate a billion hits per month. I can imgaine the Jones Bridge and Pasig River plied with gondolas and swans instead of the garbage piles polluting the waterways.
My lunch here consisted of the Muslim fare, saramudin, a rolled, fried fish dipped in sweetened sour sauce which reminded me of mother. My servings are big; crucnchy too, with their curious tips perfectly snug to my taste buds. This could be the food devised by sun gods, immensely tanned and golden, with their Pharaoh eyes and immaculate head gears that cascade down to their hips. Their eyes are lined in black like Lawrence of Arabia. I had seated myself beside these men on my train ride where they, too, ate a sesame-seeded dough filled with minced filling. I had asked one of the Pharaoh ladies where she had come from. She gazingly looked at me in a haunting manner with the word: "Peru." The book Bridges of St. Luis Rey immediately flashed to my mind with its bridge stories of people traversing the river bank, their minds occupied with sacks of tales in purposeful wanderings.
It is likewise here that I had sampled my thirst quencher whioch hydrated me for the whole day: a guava juice. I bought it from a vendor who likewise peddles corn juice, hotdogs and shrimps. If one fancies a more elaborate and quixotic taste explorations, Ridel and Riverfront hotels offer a mixture of the Orient, Western and Mediterranean cuisine with a more eclectic selection of fruit beverages. I saw from the menu that it also offers goat dishes and a wide array of tasteful desserts.
Pelangi Mall is, moreover, located here with its intricately designed small shops selling curious finds on the ground floor: unique athletic wear to leather bags. I saw a young man strumming his blue guitar sheened like Elton John's, with his back in intermediate fusion with the jetted river. He played it like a Mexican troubador would, unmindful of the richness of his adequately shaped surroundings with a glimmering sun provising the melodic heat. At night, the hotels bear stripe shadows using only one material in one stroke: white paint. The light below provided the illusion and it was quite fanciful staring at the elegant but simple trick of the visual from my chair.
I personally think that this place is a virginal paradise to the artistic voyeurs, with mosques, temples and western designs blending in one united front. To bellow profanities here is almost a sacrilege. This is not a nocturnal area for the rowdy. At night, it invites mediation and self-preservation with yawdles of orchestra serenading one's senses, if one has learned the art of musical progression within one's harmonious self. At Ridel hotel, even the waiters are impeccably attired and obscurely polite with ready suggestions for the food enthusiasts to calm their hungry tummies.
I likewise saw Chinese men sitting in elegant manner, sipping their teas and taking pictures of the differently-designed residence that had suddenly acquired loft and daintiness.
I returned to Merdeka Square at night and was greeted with lights in various shades. This could educate a watcher to proper cinematography lighting if one aims to become a film director or simply, to teach an engineer how to fasten his light inisde a room with an optimum aesthetic radiance.
This, in a town, is much more than a traveller's insight to the uses of Nature and how it properly communes with people. Even its tourism folks had gifted me with a box of postcards in recycled carton papers. One could write his/her own impression on Kelantan in its Guest Book under the eloquently columned: "Remarks". I had placed my comment with people from France and Belgium, imagining myself as a giant. I inscribed them in big, bold letters since the book is a 10 footer with an 8 width dimension (funnily transcribed).
I had then purchased my daily provisions at Pantai Timur. For 20 ringgit (200 baht), once could buy Chicken McNuggets (RM5.95) two packages of sausage frankfurters (RM1.99 each) and spiralled fries from Belgium (RM3.95). PT never fails to astound me with its ridiculously lowered prices.
Kelantan is also home to the massive Tesco grocery store with its impeccably designed surroundings but it is quite far from the town proper.
I headed back to Thailand, breezing through immigration and had waited for my train back to Yala. I had, in this recent experience, capped a wonderful sight of a man descending from a parachute, bolting out from the sky, landing on the train station just like how my Reader's Digest stories had scribbled the ascent/descent of these paragliders. There was no helicopter hovering nearby thus, I had wondered, where the parachutist may have come from. He seems like a character straight from my short novella, "Slow" who had jumped off to leave an urbanized zone.
Perhaps, he too, had visited Kelantan but had chosen a more wicked and more adventurous transportation than myself back home.
By: Iris P. Concepcion
"Credit The Omnipotent And Higher Being To The Heavenly Supremacy Of Sound, Shapes And Lights.:--Iris P. Concepcion
Kelantan, Kota Bharu, Malaysia offered me another highlight to the wonders of hues and woodwork designs the last time I had visited it.
This is my fifth visit to the town, silted on a bus chair with my ticket dispensed from an ATM-machine like machine. My friend, Sitti, provided me a map of Kelantan this time around, a treasure find to the art of visuals. She had placed them on her receiving desk at Perdona Inn, my usual area of residence when combing this Malaysian enclave. I was immediately delighted over the presence of museum sites as provided in the locator's guide map where the artifacts of the town's history are introduced to the visual hawker.
Brpchures of Kelantan always feature the open-gated, three-coulumned doors (Merdeka Square) with a sculpture of an open book nestled on top of the middle column. I find it proper with its page leaves neatly molded as if flipped. Once you enter this wide, open fortress, you are greeted with the Museum Istiadat di Raja, a splendid structure with oblong and circled shapes illuminated on wood windows that are covered with corn-dusted curtains. They play an impressive backdrop to the window carvings.
Next to it is the Istana Balai Besar, a handicraft area with a curious cross and triangle-columned designs overlooking the central area. Its gate resembles the Merdeka Square book gate. It is nonetheless structured with dark brown, wood panels in between columns like a wired fairy tale, eureka entrance. It has more dimension and looks more enthralling from afar.
To its right is another immense, triangle building that houses various government and e-commerce place of transactions. The huge stairs leading to the main area are shiny and glassly vaulted. Inside it is a bank/tax office with humongous wood panels. This transaction hub on the ground floor shall remind a visitor of the spacious hotel front desks in big cities. Its interiors are airport-like with a giant clock hung on the second floor area like a cuckoo's nest waiting to get egged.
During the time of my visit, Merdeka Square displayed various motioning floats decorated with themes of Nature. This could be the town's version of the Rose Bowl Parade in New York, with a play of lights and shapely contours.
Floats come in different designs, from hotel structures and pagoda roofed, mini installations. Chinese temples and open water areas are likewise present here. The well-lit place stands as an entertainment foil to family night prowlers. Instead of the beach-themed restaurants, families can partake of nature parks, wildlife, flowers and cascading gardens inside this open, visual auditorium.
Down south is the calm and serene Kelantan River running still with a vast forestry across it, uniquely silent and sleeping. The river shelters differently-designed boats marooned in water houses. This could be the forerunner to bay areas with their anchorages of well-built yachts and jet skis. Here, the appeal is rustic as the jet skis are transformed into wooden sailing splendors with regalian chairs never failing to catch the eye of the visitors. The teriific usage of river stream, a liquid howl to River Kwai, is perfectly circumnavigated. Next to the river stream is an open verndah of tables and chairs for nightly diners with a small road separating it from Ridel Hotel, a Maine-like residence with restaurants below selling cakes, coffee and other freshly squeezed fruit beverages. I have squired a neat leather bag here, stitched and pruned in Hollywood design of production work.
This side of Kelantan is a miraculously, united area of eyeful delights. All its main buildings start from the visage of a circle. It is unnamed in the map but it refuses to forget the past with its war chests, old fashioned automobiles and tanks preserved in their original forms. No traffic light is needed here. Vehicles circle around and enter/exit in whatever form of direction without any structural hindrance. I found myself walking inside the round pedestrian lane as if I am Mt. Olympus. Spanish meld with the Chinese and American designs, basked in European sunlight.
Three Europeans were walking here like myself, enthused by the beautiful Moorish, Hindi and Muslim edifices built freely beside Mediterranean hotels. If urban planning had visited Manila in this manner, Philkippine tourism's tax receipts could perhaps generate a billion hits per month. I can imgaine the Jones Bridge and Pasig River plied with gondolas and swans instead of the garbage piles polluting the waterways.
My lunch here consisted of the Muslim fare, saramudin, a rolled, fried fish dipped in sweetened sour sauce which reminded me of mother. My servings are big; crucnchy too, with their curious tips perfectly snug to my taste buds. This could be the food devised by sun gods, immensely tanned and golden, with their Pharaoh eyes and immaculate head gears that cascade down to their hips. Their eyes are lined in black like Lawrence of Arabia. I had seated myself beside these men on my train ride where they, too, ate a sesame-seeded dough filled with minced filling. I had asked one of the Pharaoh ladies where she had come from. She gazingly looked at me in a haunting manner with the word: "Peru." The book Bridges of St. Luis Rey immediately flashed to my mind with its bridge stories of people traversing the river bank, their minds occupied with sacks of tales in purposeful wanderings.
It is likewise here that I had sampled my thirst quencher whioch hydrated me for the whole day: a guava juice. I bought it from a vendor who likewise peddles corn juice, hotdogs and shrimps. If one fancies a more elaborate and quixotic taste explorations, Ridel and Riverfront hotels offer a mixture of the Orient, Western and Mediterranean cuisine with a more eclectic selection of fruit beverages. I saw from the menu that it also offers goat dishes and a wide array of tasteful desserts.
Pelangi Mall is, moreover, located here with its intricately designed small shops selling curious finds on the ground floor: unique athletic wear to leather bags. I saw a young man strumming his blue guitar sheened like Elton John's, with his back in intermediate fusion with the jetted river. He played it like a Mexican troubador would, unmindful of the richness of his adequately shaped surroundings with a glimmering sun provising the melodic heat. At night, the hotels bear stripe shadows using only one material in one stroke: white paint. The light below provided the illusion and it was quite fanciful staring at the elegant but simple trick of the visual from my chair.
I personally think that this place is a virginal paradise to the artistic voyeurs, with mosques, temples and western designs blending in one united front. To bellow profanities here is almost a sacrilege. This is not a nocturnal area for the rowdy. At night, it invites mediation and self-preservation with yawdles of orchestra serenading one's senses, if one has learned the art of musical progression within one's harmonious self. At Ridel hotel, even the waiters are impeccably attired and obscurely polite with ready suggestions for the food enthusiasts to calm their hungry tummies.
I likewise saw Chinese men sitting in elegant manner, sipping their teas and taking pictures of the differently-designed residence that had suddenly acquired loft and daintiness.
I returned to Merdeka Square at night and was greeted with lights in various shades. This could educate a watcher to proper cinematography lighting if one aims to become a film director or simply, to teach an engineer how to fasten his light inisde a room with an optimum aesthetic radiance.
This, in a town, is much more than a traveller's insight to the uses of Nature and how it properly communes with people. Even its tourism folks had gifted me with a box of postcards in recycled carton papers. One could write his/her own impression on Kelantan in its Guest Book under the eloquently columned: "Remarks". I had placed my comment with people from France and Belgium, imagining myself as a giant. I inscribed them in big, bold letters since the book is a 10 footer with an 8 width dimension (funnily transcribed).
I had then purchased my daily provisions at Pantai Timur. For 20 ringgit (200 baht), once could buy Chicken McNuggets (RM5.95) two packages of sausage frankfurters (RM1.99 each) and spiralled fries from Belgium (RM3.95). PT never fails to astound me with its ridiculously lowered prices.
Kelantan is also home to the massive Tesco grocery store with its impeccably designed surroundings but it is quite far from the town proper.
I headed back to Thailand, breezing through immigration and had waited for my train back to Yala. I had, in this recent experience, capped a wonderful sight of a man descending from a parachute, bolting out from the sky, landing on the train station just like how my Reader's Digest stories had scribbled the ascent/descent of these paragliders. There was no helicopter hovering nearby thus, I had wondered, where the parachutist may have come from. He seems like a character straight from my short novella, "Slow" who had jumped off to leave an urbanized zone.
Perhaps, he too, had visited Kelantan but had chosen a more wicked and more adventurous transportation than myself back home.
Thursday, March 01, 2012
YALA WAT, REDUX
By: Iris P. Concepcion
Yesterday was an ominous discovery of senses once more. I had earlier listened to imptov classical music in my sleeping wear after a deep slumber filled with good thoughts, gobbling my linguine bathed in deep tomato paste with vegetable meat. The music was refined by the musical gurus of the olden age. Bass drums, flutes, lyres and harps had made friends with the often used instrument of choice for orchestras: violins.
I had often wondered where the musical score, Hey Mickey, had come from. No one might have noticed that the three chords opening the musical piece may have been taken off from Sebastian Bach.
This is Nature Symphony, a musical compilation collected by the ears of people from the Reader's Digest with pictures of elks, deers, emus and other wildlife creatures accompanying the fabulous strings. With this mystical sound environment greeting my bright morning, I went out to rediscover this city/municipality that I had called home for the past 8 months.
I had ventured past Yala's Provincial Hall. I had noticed that the temple in front of it had grown a spectre of spring flowers in blinding whites and magentas, coupled with immaculate pinks. They do not have any leaves hanging on them. I could have sworn these are tulips and daffodils circling out from snow in the Alps. Their beauties could terrify one's visual senses, if one is used to prawns cooked in hot oil peddled in wheeled stores.
Trodding on, I had walked past Yala's Red Cross building, a blood bank for patients that had likewise embraced the memories of my childhood. I remember fondly its free nylon bag where my mother had placed all of her documents neatly in brown envelopes. The building has perfectly trimmed bermuda grass. I had likewise seen blue-collared men in construction gears who are building dams beside the trees with a Camel truck waiting like a motioning donkey in front of the toilers. The triangled edifices of the structure yarns always bear lawns of bermuda grass, a spectacle that I never reject since it always reminds me of my serene childhood with my father's giant frog leaping on me via the camera lens.
Near this area is where I had dicovered another temple with Pagoda-like designs. Unlike the usual wat building for Buddhists inside Yala, this wat has four dimensional designs on its windows with finely sculptured embellishments, designs very intricate that had looked like juidicial signs from afar.
A perfectly tipped cone temple is under construction on its side that is golden coiled on top. Unlike the usual aluminum-based raw material, this one was woven in gold casting. It springs itself as a foil to the multi-paneled roof tops of structures beside it. In fact, this temple is curious as it is supported by huge columns in grey with palatial stairs which reminds me of the gigantic government offices in the United States like the White House. My dog, who had been an unsmiling bear inside a facsimile house earlier, is surveying this conglomeration of house of worships that had the word "supernatural" embedded on them. Inside it is a structure of a fat man, sitting, still swathed in gold. I found it odd since the usual Buddhist notion of non-materialism is exchanged for a more positive outlook of a taken-cared, icon god.
Here, we could marvel at pebbles and marbles that one could utilize for engineering works. I took a handful of discarded materials for the kids to play during the weekend. This area could have been a resort beach before that had been washed away by the universal gods as a kind of mortal chastisement to honor the higher, spiritual elements from among us. The roosters here are free to roam around with their heads perfectly razored. These are wonderful fowls; if only they could make their cuckolds louder. Birds are melodiously chirping nearby, emitting melodies to the roosters' bass drummed tonsils. If I were to have a flute with me, I could have devised a song on the spot using my herd of singing animals.
I had pangs for fast food at the precise moment I was leaving the temple. I passed by trhe bricked sidewalk roads that are elevated, a correct building style. I bought my lunch at the nearby 7-11 outlet (pizza in sausages and cheese with a blackcourrant flavoured cream-filled wafer, all for 20 baht. I still prefer my mother's delicious grapes than this overtly sour fruit). The outlet of this convenience store here is practically a miniature store in an outback United States town, with its unique flaming hotdogs and bacons that I had loved as a child which my departed mother had lovingly wrapped for me for breakfast. Even the jams of pineapples, strawberries and peanut butter are lined up neatly.
I walked away from this quiant but small place with visions of my pretzels, coated in chocolates and packaged in Reynold's foil.
I tried to look for a pined tree area surrounding a lake that I had visited before for boating with bird sanctuaries and windmills. I finally saw the direction towards it in a short cut road. Nestled in the lake are stones of fine make. I reacquinated myself with my Terrenganu chestnuts and dried leaves that the kids had used to form their lotus gardens. The pine trees had swayed more beautifully with umbrella tents offering the promenaders their usual fare of fruits and fresh juices. These trees overlook the calm, lake water that had tremendously improved now than my previous visit with its badly constructed road. It now has a pavement in sandy, grey and white pebbles. It cascades its soft ripples, leaving the huge rocks adorning it unperturbed. I have seen Muslims partaking their lunch in small tables, squatting, but they had the most delectable dishes of chicken and vegetables. They were using the proper utensils (not tin) and were sharing their food silently. I ahd thought then, how regal and cultured these people are. Even their mouth chomps are studied and refined. No loud voices nor cussing words, they had treated their meals like celebrations of life, thanking the Higher Creator for the abundance of resources in their mats, tables and utensils.
I always feel a certain calm and homelike unrestlessness when I am marooned in areas filled with pine trees. Willowy, radiant, subdued and swaying with the wind, there is a disciplined aura to the people who had visited it. I often wonder how our forefathers had dreamt of a world in greens, exploring the undiscovered places and envisioning how they would look like 100 years from now.
An ode to my generous parents merits another look. To the place they have constructed in safe security for shelter and provisions, for not leaving us alone in times of immediate need, for being the strickler for order and decorum and for honoring their promises that never fail, not a bit of delay, when we had asked then for help.
Bermuda grass, pine trees, fruit jams and juices, tasty porcelain wares, all of these, I had learned to appreciate in heightened awareness yesterday. Queer as it sounds, I am much prouder of my responsible lineage (thinking of Workmen's Compensation Act and pensions way ahead of their time) now more than ever. I would not imagine myself a terrible brute with an insecurity belittling my small steps to your legacy.
Thank you Gauttier and Delia for rearing me with enough candor and civility to tame the rowdy sourpusses. I could not possibly thank you enough, with your stitched gowns and filled rice containers that are never left empty.
By: Iris P. Concepcion
Yesterday was an ominous discovery of senses once more. I had earlier listened to imptov classical music in my sleeping wear after a deep slumber filled with good thoughts, gobbling my linguine bathed in deep tomato paste with vegetable meat. The music was refined by the musical gurus of the olden age. Bass drums, flutes, lyres and harps had made friends with the often used instrument of choice for orchestras: violins.
I had often wondered where the musical score, Hey Mickey, had come from. No one might have noticed that the three chords opening the musical piece may have been taken off from Sebastian Bach.
This is Nature Symphony, a musical compilation collected by the ears of people from the Reader's Digest with pictures of elks, deers, emus and other wildlife creatures accompanying the fabulous strings. With this mystical sound environment greeting my bright morning, I went out to rediscover this city/municipality that I had called home for the past 8 months.
I had ventured past Yala's Provincial Hall. I had noticed that the temple in front of it had grown a spectre of spring flowers in blinding whites and magentas, coupled with immaculate pinks. They do not have any leaves hanging on them. I could have sworn these are tulips and daffodils circling out from snow in the Alps. Their beauties could terrify one's visual senses, if one is used to prawns cooked in hot oil peddled in wheeled stores.
Trodding on, I had walked past Yala's Red Cross building, a blood bank for patients that had likewise embraced the memories of my childhood. I remember fondly its free nylon bag where my mother had placed all of her documents neatly in brown envelopes. The building has perfectly trimmed bermuda grass. I had likewise seen blue-collared men in construction gears who are building dams beside the trees with a Camel truck waiting like a motioning donkey in front of the toilers. The triangled edifices of the structure yarns always bear lawns of bermuda grass, a spectacle that I never reject since it always reminds me of my serene childhood with my father's giant frog leaping on me via the camera lens.
Near this area is where I had dicovered another temple with Pagoda-like designs. Unlike the usual wat building for Buddhists inside Yala, this wat has four dimensional designs on its windows with finely sculptured embellishments, designs very intricate that had looked like juidicial signs from afar.
A perfectly tipped cone temple is under construction on its side that is golden coiled on top. Unlike the usual aluminum-based raw material, this one was woven in gold casting. It springs itself as a foil to the multi-paneled roof tops of structures beside it. In fact, this temple is curious as it is supported by huge columns in grey with palatial stairs which reminds me of the gigantic government offices in the United States like the White House. My dog, who had been an unsmiling bear inside a facsimile house earlier, is surveying this conglomeration of house of worships that had the word "supernatural" embedded on them. Inside it is a structure of a fat man, sitting, still swathed in gold. I found it odd since the usual Buddhist notion of non-materialism is exchanged for a more positive outlook of a taken-cared, icon god.
Here, we could marvel at pebbles and marbles that one could utilize for engineering works. I took a handful of discarded materials for the kids to play during the weekend. This area could have been a resort beach before that had been washed away by the universal gods as a kind of mortal chastisement to honor the higher, spiritual elements from among us. The roosters here are free to roam around with their heads perfectly razored. These are wonderful fowls; if only they could make their cuckolds louder. Birds are melodiously chirping nearby, emitting melodies to the roosters' bass drummed tonsils. If I were to have a flute with me, I could have devised a song on the spot using my herd of singing animals.
I had pangs for fast food at the precise moment I was leaving the temple. I passed by trhe bricked sidewalk roads that are elevated, a correct building style. I bought my lunch at the nearby 7-11 outlet (pizza in sausages and cheese with a blackcourrant flavoured cream-filled wafer, all for 20 baht. I still prefer my mother's delicious grapes than this overtly sour fruit). The outlet of this convenience store here is practically a miniature store in an outback United States town, with its unique flaming hotdogs and bacons that I had loved as a child which my departed mother had lovingly wrapped for me for breakfast. Even the jams of pineapples, strawberries and peanut butter are lined up neatly.
I walked away from this quiant but small place with visions of my pretzels, coated in chocolates and packaged in Reynold's foil.
I tried to look for a pined tree area surrounding a lake that I had visited before for boating with bird sanctuaries and windmills. I finally saw the direction towards it in a short cut road. Nestled in the lake are stones of fine make. I reacquinated myself with my Terrenganu chestnuts and dried leaves that the kids had used to form their lotus gardens. The pine trees had swayed more beautifully with umbrella tents offering the promenaders their usual fare of fruits and fresh juices. These trees overlook the calm, lake water that had tremendously improved now than my previous visit with its badly constructed road. It now has a pavement in sandy, grey and white pebbles. It cascades its soft ripples, leaving the huge rocks adorning it unperturbed. I have seen Muslims partaking their lunch in small tables, squatting, but they had the most delectable dishes of chicken and vegetables. They were using the proper utensils (not tin) and were sharing their food silently. I ahd thought then, how regal and cultured these people are. Even their mouth chomps are studied and refined. No loud voices nor cussing words, they had treated their meals like celebrations of life, thanking the Higher Creator for the abundance of resources in their mats, tables and utensils.
I always feel a certain calm and homelike unrestlessness when I am marooned in areas filled with pine trees. Willowy, radiant, subdued and swaying with the wind, there is a disciplined aura to the people who had visited it. I often wonder how our forefathers had dreamt of a world in greens, exploring the undiscovered places and envisioning how they would look like 100 years from now.
An ode to my generous parents merits another look. To the place they have constructed in safe security for shelter and provisions, for not leaving us alone in times of immediate need, for being the strickler for order and decorum and for honoring their promises that never fail, not a bit of delay, when we had asked then for help.
Bermuda grass, pine trees, fruit jams and juices, tasty porcelain wares, all of these, I had learned to appreciate in heightened awareness yesterday. Queer as it sounds, I am much prouder of my responsible lineage (thinking of Workmen's Compensation Act and pensions way ahead of their time) now more than ever. I would not imagine myself a terrible brute with an insecurity belittling my small steps to your legacy.
Thank you Gauttier and Delia for rearing me with enough candor and civility to tame the rowdy sourpusses. I could not possibly thank you enough, with your stitched gowns and filled rice containers that are never left empty.
Thursday, February 23, 2012
DEAR CONTRACTORS, ARCHITECTS, ENGINEERS, LANDSCAPERS AND BUILDERS
By: Iris P. Concepcion
Dear Contractors, Architects, Engineers, Landscapers and Builders of the Philippine Government:
I have noticed that your street lights had dimmed over the years, making my shadows smaller and unimpressionable. I take it personally that I could no longer form my hand dog drawings using your connection. I suggest, with glimmering aspiration, that our bulbs be retained in their original wattage as the General Electric and Philips handy people had envisioned them.
I propose the following innovations too:
1. Broccoli light, following the pattern of this vegetable for salads. Let its stem light fully as its Hiroshima bombing flower on top illuminates a greenish flicker, giving the illusion of a live plant.
2. I have seen my vision, regrettably, placed ahead by an Indian starving man, on a food cereal advertisement. His pole swayed like a perfect dancer and his bulb is in flaming orange fruit, resembling a stage klieglight. I wonder if its actual execution could properly deliver the hues to form my hand drawings. It is a significant start though. One step of orange, a bigger leap to broccoli.
I also propose, in the interest of aesthetic justice, to commence your urban development projects from the point of view of a washed stone or a pebble. The roads in the future shall be made of pebble pools that could generate a possibility of producing my orchid-designed wheels (in pristine white, look Ma, no dust!).
I am bearing an acronym for an easier facility with your future plans using the RMP method (river, mountain and parks development).
Have your rivers rejuvenated; give them a colorful shot in the arm. The grass could be landscaped like steel, giving the provocative shapes of flowers and live ferns.
Let me return to the rivers: Please, and kindly expand your imagination on this, form arcs on the river streams using either of the following:
1. Wild flowers i.e., orchids and other crawling plants.
2. Choose trees, if you intend to plant them around the streams, with colorful leaves (mix of pinks and reds) where spiders (in gray) can spin their webs and catch their prey.
3. Always cover your rocks with the softest green moss for people to glide in, instead of being wounded by their pointy tips.
And the buildings. Oh, yes, the buildings. The Un ited States of America, Europe had transformed their mountains into open space museums for busts and historical markers. India and the rest of Asian countries (the next exciting place for creative thinking), untouched by internal political strifes in the modern world, have already surged in terms of aesthetic visibilities even in their small towns. They might look overtly sleepy but their furniture is beyond reproach.
I have seen a signage here in Yala, Thailand, hung in front of a house with a superb string music blaring from its stereo, with these words: Cultural Tour, instead of the usual Guided Tour. I have seen its owner's majestic sofa fit for royalty.
My proposals may seem daunting and unpalatable right now but they could enliven Ninoy Aquino's statue in Makati City.
I do not hold a diploma in Aesthetic Development for Urban Development but my suggestions here could merit a twitch on the brow and a flap on your ears.
I faithfully remain,
A student of Visionary Development, a diploma course in an unknown university somewhere in Nepal.
By: Iris P. Concepcion
Dear Contractors, Architects, Engineers, Landscapers and Builders of the Philippine Government:
I have noticed that your street lights had dimmed over the years, making my shadows smaller and unimpressionable. I take it personally that I could no longer form my hand dog drawings using your connection. I suggest, with glimmering aspiration, that our bulbs be retained in their original wattage as the General Electric and Philips handy people had envisioned them.
I propose the following innovations too:
1. Broccoli light, following the pattern of this vegetable for salads. Let its stem light fully as its Hiroshima bombing flower on top illuminates a greenish flicker, giving the illusion of a live plant.
2. I have seen my vision, regrettably, placed ahead by an Indian starving man, on a food cereal advertisement. His pole swayed like a perfect dancer and his bulb is in flaming orange fruit, resembling a stage klieglight. I wonder if its actual execution could properly deliver the hues to form my hand drawings. It is a significant start though. One step of orange, a bigger leap to broccoli.
I also propose, in the interest of aesthetic justice, to commence your urban development projects from the point of view of a washed stone or a pebble. The roads in the future shall be made of pebble pools that could generate a possibility of producing my orchid-designed wheels (in pristine white, look Ma, no dust!).
I am bearing an acronym for an easier facility with your future plans using the RMP method (river, mountain and parks development).
Have your rivers rejuvenated; give them a colorful shot in the arm. The grass could be landscaped like steel, giving the provocative shapes of flowers and live ferns.
Let me return to the rivers: Please, and kindly expand your imagination on this, form arcs on the river streams using either of the following:
1. Wild flowers i.e., orchids and other crawling plants.
2. Choose trees, if you intend to plant them around the streams, with colorful leaves (mix of pinks and reds) where spiders (in gray) can spin their webs and catch their prey.
3. Always cover your rocks with the softest green moss for people to glide in, instead of being wounded by their pointy tips.
And the buildings. Oh, yes, the buildings. The Un ited States of America, Europe had transformed their mountains into open space museums for busts and historical markers. India and the rest of Asian countries (the next exciting place for creative thinking), untouched by internal political strifes in the modern world, have already surged in terms of aesthetic visibilities even in their small towns. They might look overtly sleepy but their furniture is beyond reproach.
I have seen a signage here in Yala, Thailand, hung in front of a house with a superb string music blaring from its stereo, with these words: Cultural Tour, instead of the usual Guided Tour. I have seen its owner's majestic sofa fit for royalty.
My proposals may seem daunting and unpalatable right now but they could enliven Ninoy Aquino's statue in Makati City.
I do not hold a diploma in Aesthetic Development for Urban Development but my suggestions here could merit a twitch on the brow and a flap on your ears.
I faithfully remain,
A student of Visionary Development, a diploma course in an unknown university somewhere in Nepal.
Monday, February 20, 2012
Taken almost three years ago at McDonald's using my old phone without the aid of lens. By myself.
UNIVERSITY OF CONCEPTUALIZATION IN AERONAUTICS ENGINEERING
By: Iris P. Concepcion
"At the end of the programme, they will also be able to develop effective strategies for goal setting, time management and to execute design concepts to a professional standard. Many of the projects work with industry experts to give students practical exposures to "live" projects. They require skills and knowledge to enter into the global design network."--- Limkokwing University in Malaysia with a foreword of its brochure penned by no less than American President Barack Obama, dubbing Asia as the new innovation hub.
Prominent among the visual impetus that I had obtained as a child are sights that are big. The insignias were plated in non-staining gold that I had taken to pin on my dress without any notion on why the medals were scattered in the dresser (with mirror) beside my father's morning after shave, Mennen Breeze.
The folding wood windows are big, the glass panel above the door is big, the glass porcelain water pitcher is big. They were all designed intricately. This is the reason why I wrote about my plate with a Rembrandt-like painting nestled in the middle with gray, ruffling folds around it. I had thought then it was normal for kids to spoon their rice from plates that looked like paintings.
My favorite fixture is, of course, the Radiowealth stereo and the big, wooden stairs that I had used as my bench for drawing my comic strips. I am astounded now that the nails used were not visible. My father used to line up his students for his chorus projects on the stairs that could easily pass up for a stage.
Our bed is likewise cottony with a very soft cushion. I use it as my gymnastics tarpaulin, jumping on it as its springs provide me the gravity to be on air. I have noticed from the recently-designed beds that they are hard no matter how soft-looking their cushions are. The trick, I think, is putting springs on the cushion to give the sleeping gadget a certain bounce. The bed's stands are like Roman columns, reminiscent of the Capitol Hills building. I still use it as my bed when I am in the Philippines even as its springs had already peeked out from the cottony cover. The cushion has remained priceless though. Reaching beyond 50 years, it is still useful as new.
The mirror also makes one staring at it very slim, without spooking his visage with an enlarged nose. My mother had likewise purchased a bathing robe for my father from the North, with his name initialed on it. I used to cover myself with this water cape, pretending to be a religious monk. It also passed off as my makeshift house as I hang it on rows and rows of chairs.
I am writing these memories to give credibility to the fact that one can obtain a Diploma in Sound and Musical Engineering on the dot without grabbing your notebooks and pads. I had learned my architecture absentmindedly when I was four and was lost in abeyance of mortal appreciation when I was growing up.
It is only now that I am rekindling the magic that was, to live on the present, that is.
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
POETRY ON VALENTINE'S DAY
By: Iris P. Concepcion
I had clearly remembered the skittishness by which I had celebrated Valentine's Day when I was in grade school. I shall be pinned a heart insignia on my dress, flaring in red with socks up to my knees, silently oding to the gods of Olympus that I shall be spared from cupid's arrow that looked like a doctor's scalpel out to slit my throat.
Unerasable too are the tacky messages inscribed in the cards with the following gems of words:
Don't
4-get
2-pray
4-me
======
10-derly
Or the terrible mistake of ascribing words to country names similar to this:
I-I
T-trust
A-and
L-love
Y-you
At a prime age of 44 and totally rinsed off any mushiness, I had evolved an acronym, LOVE, that I had written like the Italian, genius word above.
LOVE= Logistics Onboard a Vehicle of Equality
February 14 regurgirates with verses and prose as I was dozing off, half awake, after I took my lunch.
Benetah the waves
Of sunbeam's rays
An apple twig
Birthed a pear's egg.
Another highlight thunderbolting in my mind:
Have you not lingerly
Pierced a soul's
Sculptural bent
Elevating awareness
Of connubial heritage
Hidden partly in consciousness
Soaring mentally to
A sworded world
Bequeathed to a Supreme
Calling of nature's Piety.
Half of my day was spent scribbling these lines, aside of course, from meeting a happy band of birds that had grown bigger in weight, all plump and splendid, on my afternoon walk to the public library.
By: Iris P. Concepcion
I had clearly remembered the skittishness by which I had celebrated Valentine's Day when I was in grade school. I shall be pinned a heart insignia on my dress, flaring in red with socks up to my knees, silently oding to the gods of Olympus that I shall be spared from cupid's arrow that looked like a doctor's scalpel out to slit my throat.
Unerasable too are the tacky messages inscribed in the cards with the following gems of words:
Don't
4-get
2-pray
4-me
======
10-derly
Or the terrible mistake of ascribing words to country names similar to this:
I-I
T-trust
A-and
L-love
Y-you
At a prime age of 44 and totally rinsed off any mushiness, I had evolved an acronym, LOVE, that I had written like the Italian, genius word above.
LOVE= Logistics Onboard a Vehicle of Equality
February 14 regurgirates with verses and prose as I was dozing off, half awake, after I took my lunch.
Benetah the waves
Of sunbeam's rays
An apple twig
Birthed a pear's egg.
Another highlight thunderbolting in my mind:
Have you not lingerly
Pierced a soul's
Sculptural bent
Elevating awareness
Of connubial heritage
Hidden partly in consciousness
Soaring mentally to
A sworded world
Bequeathed to a Supreme
Calling of nature's Piety.
Half of my day was spent scribbling these lines, aside of course, from meeting a happy band of birds that had grown bigger in weight, all plump and splendid, on my afternoon walk to the public library.
Wednesday, February 08, 2012
BEDROOM IN MY PARK
(Outdoing Buses, Terengganu, Malaysia, February 8, 2012)
By: Iris P. Concepcion
The night suspends itself in a spectacle of lights and an epiphany of sketches had appeared before me like a cartoon dream, embossed in barks, formed in shadows.
This is Terengganu, Malaysia, a first visit by this writer that grows in shapely surprises from morning till night.
It is three hours away from Kota Bharu using the SP Bumi transline transport service. The ride was like atop a ship in an ocean with its precise sways and bumps. It floated like air in the circuitous road with the impeccably-dressed driver in gray vest (an imam) leading the way for us, passengers, in search of anything from epistle passages to a new fruit jam. He navigated the trail breaking nary a sweat, curse nor shriek. I have always experienced my roller coaster rides in reverse implements, say, getting my fright ride in trains. I had my fill of a 180 degree ferris wheel ride on this trip.
I arrived here past lunch time in a sweltering heat but possessed with promising eyes to discover its cultural contours. I had paused then for a breath and walked.
I faced an anchorage on silent waves in an amber afternoon, beside a seaview with a deck for watchers. A giant television set in gray panel is pitched, as if, under leafy and giant pine trees.
Here I am then: lying on a carpet of bermuda grass with its cold texture freezing my back, making sense out of the political discussions on these television programs. A gray cat who talked to me in understandable meows jumped on my lap and never left. He, instead slept peacefully, showing me his closed eyes that had already resembled a tiger's.
The television set: it is only lit by stadium lights but had shown cinematic-like klieglights from down under; they glare on the dainty street lights that bow like hanging tongues to the ground in perfect egg shapes.
Visualize this:
A bedroom with a sea and a green park. I have experienced this kaleidoscopic sense of belongness with Nature as people on screen whom I could not understand, moved their bodies at every cadence of their words, sometimes, unhaltingly. Shadows of the pine trees, naturelle and free, sculpt the ground and are blanketed by bermuda grass. I just learned one thing at this instance: gray color gives you a magical invisibility at night, a visual illusion that gives objects four-sided dimensions. The television set appeared like a branch from a tree, completely borderless.
This is a perfect segue to my earlier date with a masterful vehicle. If I were a bored kid with nothing to do, I would have shed the paper off my crayons and eat their tips while watching the same set of dirty buses gnarled in traffic back in Makati City.
Here though, the introduction to the transport means is magical. The emergence of a wooden bus at Terengganu's bus station had completely astounded this writer. This vehicle, certainly, does not connote boredom.
It is made of my Interlude radiowealth stereo, its body carved like the wood of my childhood house. Coming off from a double-decker bus with airplane interiors, I never expected to be doubly astonished by this antique piece of machine. Its windows bear the square-like glass decor of my youth: sandwiched in wood. Inside it is a mini promenade area with bench chairs in brass and steel with artful paintings on the ceiling like the Roman churches would. A kindly woman who was carrying grocery bags, alighted from a double decker and uttered in a perfectly toned voice to her companions in a haunting gaze: "That is my home."
I stayed in the park the whole night with people bringing their picnic baskets and wrapped gifts, sitting in mats, partaking their food loot. One of them courteously offered me food. I had begged off, saying, I just had my Big Mack meal with french fries.
This is the moment when the gray cat entered, eyeing the surroundings like myself, sifting the chestnut-like, but dried brown fruits. I had picked these marvels, including the big leaf as my mementos. They would beat the tacky cards and keychains on a heartbeat as keepers of memory. I was tempted to take the cat back to Thailand but he has obviously a home. Here too, I ate the kamansi (chestnut) produce of my childhood, heated in a tin machine that rotates by itself. I asked for a piece from the vendor and he readily relented. It was good as advertised on his mini-van, designed like a propped store. A chestnut that tastes like a Japanese sweet, root crop.
It was also here that I had witnessed firecrackers from a nearby Chinese temple with its loud bursts of colors. I had experienced Hongkong freely and wildly, with people in wide grins. Young people, riding in motorcycles, circled around (my) present bedroom with their helmets fastened on their chins. They sat on the cemented benches, perhaps wondering why I was leisurely sitting and sleeping, with my shoes off, on the grass. I had wished them good graces and had earnestly wished they have tried my way of spending the night.
Early morning, while everyone was still in deep slumber, I had taken my steps to the port. Silently trodding the path, I just realized I was walking on a bricked road instead of a cemented one. This is the future of highways, with (cassius) clay designs. The buildings, mosques and oriental-themed, hark back to the days of Mogul-Islam period. This is Disneyland with its structures, only, they are offices. The water pipes looked like big logs. I have seen people sleeping on the bricked huts, with wood structures fit for a sleepful rest. Public hospitality is clearly evident in this place; no one shall bother you even at night.
Dreams do come true in little packages. Finally, I have seen my envisioned street lights, sculpted like how I had thought it. The ferns still lack body and I like them plenty. These sweet bulbs stood out from among the lights nearby.
I could not wait to view my airport. I have already met its engineer while swapping sentences at the local church.
(Outdoing Buses, Terengganu, Malaysia, February 8, 2012)
By: Iris P. Concepcion
The night suspends itself in a spectacle of lights and an epiphany of sketches had appeared before me like a cartoon dream, embossed in barks, formed in shadows.
This is Terengganu, Malaysia, a first visit by this writer that grows in shapely surprises from morning till night.
It is three hours away from Kota Bharu using the SP Bumi transline transport service. The ride was like atop a ship in an ocean with its precise sways and bumps. It floated like air in the circuitous road with the impeccably-dressed driver in gray vest (an imam) leading the way for us, passengers, in search of anything from epistle passages to a new fruit jam. He navigated the trail breaking nary a sweat, curse nor shriek. I have always experienced my roller coaster rides in reverse implements, say, getting my fright ride in trains. I had my fill of a 180 degree ferris wheel ride on this trip.
I arrived here past lunch time in a sweltering heat but possessed with promising eyes to discover its cultural contours. I had paused then for a breath and walked.
I faced an anchorage on silent waves in an amber afternoon, beside a seaview with a deck for watchers. A giant television set in gray panel is pitched, as if, under leafy and giant pine trees.
Here I am then: lying on a carpet of bermuda grass with its cold texture freezing my back, making sense out of the political discussions on these television programs. A gray cat who talked to me in understandable meows jumped on my lap and never left. He, instead slept peacefully, showing me his closed eyes that had already resembled a tiger's.
The television set: it is only lit by stadium lights but had shown cinematic-like klieglights from down under; they glare on the dainty street lights that bow like hanging tongues to the ground in perfect egg shapes.
Visualize this:
A bedroom with a sea and a green park. I have experienced this kaleidoscopic sense of belongness with Nature as people on screen whom I could not understand, moved their bodies at every cadence of their words, sometimes, unhaltingly. Shadows of the pine trees, naturelle and free, sculpt the ground and are blanketed by bermuda grass. I just learned one thing at this instance: gray color gives you a magical invisibility at night, a visual illusion that gives objects four-sided dimensions. The television set appeared like a branch from a tree, completely borderless.
This is a perfect segue to my earlier date with a masterful vehicle. If I were a bored kid with nothing to do, I would have shed the paper off my crayons and eat their tips while watching the same set of dirty buses gnarled in traffic back in Makati City.
Here though, the introduction to the transport means is magical. The emergence of a wooden bus at Terengganu's bus station had completely astounded this writer. This vehicle, certainly, does not connote boredom.
It is made of my Interlude radiowealth stereo, its body carved like the wood of my childhood house. Coming off from a double-decker bus with airplane interiors, I never expected to be doubly astonished by this antique piece of machine. Its windows bear the square-like glass decor of my youth: sandwiched in wood. Inside it is a mini promenade area with bench chairs in brass and steel with artful paintings on the ceiling like the Roman churches would. A kindly woman who was carrying grocery bags, alighted from a double decker and uttered in a perfectly toned voice to her companions in a haunting gaze: "That is my home."
I stayed in the park the whole night with people bringing their picnic baskets and wrapped gifts, sitting in mats, partaking their food loot. One of them courteously offered me food. I had begged off, saying, I just had my Big Mack meal with french fries.
This is the moment when the gray cat entered, eyeing the surroundings like myself, sifting the chestnut-like, but dried brown fruits. I had picked these marvels, including the big leaf as my mementos. They would beat the tacky cards and keychains on a heartbeat as keepers of memory. I was tempted to take the cat back to Thailand but he has obviously a home. Here too, I ate the kamansi (chestnut) produce of my childhood, heated in a tin machine that rotates by itself. I asked for a piece from the vendor and he readily relented. It was good as advertised on his mini-van, designed like a propped store. A chestnut that tastes like a Japanese sweet, root crop.
It was also here that I had witnessed firecrackers from a nearby Chinese temple with its loud bursts of colors. I had experienced Hongkong freely and wildly, with people in wide grins. Young people, riding in motorcycles, circled around (my) present bedroom with their helmets fastened on their chins. They sat on the cemented benches, perhaps wondering why I was leisurely sitting and sleeping, with my shoes off, on the grass. I had wished them good graces and had earnestly wished they have tried my way of spending the night.
Early morning, while everyone was still in deep slumber, I had taken my steps to the port. Silently trodding the path, I just realized I was walking on a bricked road instead of a cemented one. This is the future of highways, with (cassius) clay designs. The buildings, mosques and oriental-themed, hark back to the days of Mogul-Islam period. This is Disneyland with its structures, only, they are offices. The water pipes looked like big logs. I have seen people sleeping on the bricked huts, with wood structures fit for a sleepful rest. Public hospitality is clearly evident in this place; no one shall bother you even at night.
Dreams do come true in little packages. Finally, I have seen my envisioned street lights, sculpted like how I had thought it. The ferns still lack body and I like them plenty. These sweet bulbs stood out from among the lights nearby.
I could not wait to view my airport. I have already met its engineer while swapping sentences at the local church.
Wednesday, January 25, 2012
SURUT PULUT MANGGIS
By: Iris P. Concepcion
My title is a Bahasan Malaysian food stall that I found myself writing in my piece of paper merely because it sounds exotic.
I found myself being gifted with an insignia bearing this statement: "Limkokwing Academy of Creativity and Innovation Kelantan" with an arrow pointing above that could hit directly on the person who is wearing it. Here is how the directive symbol went:
Traces of my footsteps, imprinted on streets with drainage areas as big as living rooms. I am, again, transfixed in Kota Bharu, a place of pleasures that often render unique sound technology through your earlobes. The city is celebrating "Youth Power: Catalyst Creative Industry" with the Bahasan Malaysian "Kuasa Anak Muda, Pemangkin Industri Kreatif".
The area reeks of Middle Eastern hazy fragrance with people claiming to have come from moon eating broiled chicken legs by hand, chomping the meat like astrodome warrior, eating noisily while commenting on the dish as fried. Being the feisty corrector that I am, I politely told him that it is broiled, not fried. The warrior looks like Danny de Vito with a pair of seablue eyes. He is bald as a scorching dessert. He offered me half of his chicken but I hastily declined, preferring the fried variety at that time of the day, with flipping double burgers blinding my vision with lettuce and cheese and twister fries. I tasted it, in a pinch, and found it delectable.
The gladiator explains the importance of fresh meat: cleanliness in food, according to him, is a holy ritual. This reminded me of one of my favorite immigration officers at the Malaysian border named Afifi, an Ali Baba and His Magic Carpet character who readily offered the thesaurus meaning of his given name. It means clean. I told him I am an Eye. He spoke a little Spanish at the end of his Malaysian sentence and I had replied in English, just like that.
Kelantan, at this particular day, is brimming with good, old-fashioned marketing styles. I have seen the incubation process of the food product twister fries. I suggested to the stall owner that he could fold a paper like a cone and place the french fries inside. He sells it for 2 ringgit; a bystander with a mathematical entrepreneurship skill had obliged with : "No. 2.50 ringgit."
I said it is acceptable, considering the cost of its packaging. I tossed away the styrofoam as an alternative container, explaining that it denudes the environment.
I had talked to a lot of Muslim people in the area with their ripe tomatoes still adorned with fresh leaves on their trunks. I find it very easy to talk to these diners, explaining the importance of haggling for prices. The city's stadium is holding a singing contest by this time, before the stomachs had grumbled for lunch. It is an extremely humid day, with the rock tunes falling off key as the vendors at A & W burger stall are laughing at the spooky caricatures of singers doing damage to pop tunes. I visited the food stalls and had seen the plentiful faces of shrimps cooked in 101 ways, with Tom Yang as its main spice. I, an ignorant connoisseur of food, told the cook to use the coconut milk instead. I told them that a shrimp could be simply fried and tossed to a mayonnaise dip, or could be used as an ingredient to a salad. I have seen bread buttered with fish paste beside green mangoes. I merely demonstarted that the green mangoes go well with the fish paste instead of bread. The bun could be best eaten with a fruit jam, I suggested.
Funnily, there is an iimmediate translator who explains my gourmet skittishness to the bystanders as they all agree and took note of my verbal notes. I am likewise greeted by a huge "kawa", a cooking gadget of my youth where my favorite kakanin, kalamay hati, is cooked. A Muslim man with an imam cap was mixing various ingredients with raisins and rice. I immediately loved this gastronomical sight as it reminded me of paella and arroz valenciana, the legacy of Spain to the Philippines, which are likewise my mother's favorite cooking dish during important occasions. This man, I had concluded, is well way ahead of his cooking potentials. I had wanted to tell him the necessity of putting a food coloring to the dish but had surmised, he does not need further instruction. He had removed the burnt rice on the side of the kawa which is likewise the proper thing to do since it could deflect the original taste of the dish.
I have seen various snack food in their different offerings of prawn variations. I found them too spicy and too sweet for my tastebud. I befriended the guy selling his food ware and offered my cent's worth of advice: "Add a little bit of salt or barbecue powder." I had commented that perhaps, he could eat Pringles or Lays instead. His reply was a courageous: "No, can't do." He explained that the taste is the preferred choice of people in the whole of Asia to which I retorted: "Really, now."
Another guy pointed me to a soft ice-cream stall with a twist shape. Sundaes had arrived in Kota Bharu and children are licking the delicacy like melted candies.
Roti here is sold hardened, with an egg that is huge like a bullhorn. I have tasted this is Yala. It is served with milk and butter, a building ready to be devoured. Another bunch of food techies, I had readily deduced,as I continued with my survey of food peddled under the perfectly built white tents. They are with sturdy, steel railings.
This is where I had heard a trio of men singing in four voices in rhumba style. Unlike the previous performers experimenting with their pop tunes, they are dressed up impeccably, singing traditional Malaysian music fused with Iranian beats. I had never heard a sound enginnering as good as this one since childhood. The quality is solid witout the irksome scratches. An amplifier-sounding emcee was competing with the vocalists nearby but they were drowned by the technology of the serenading trio.
A soloist likewise sang with an exceptional accompaniment. His voice tried to match the superiority of the sound masters. Eventually, he was accorded help by pipes springing out from nowhere: in second, third, fourth voices, he had sounded then like his attire. Powerful and stirring.
There was an exhibition of designs by the young ones and I was quick to point out to the gathering students the ways to spot good materials. I had observed that most of the displays were mediocre compared with the obvious things I had found: slippers on a white-shirted guy who just passed by (impeccably designed), wood pillow that I had seen my roomamte used in Satun. It looks like a bookshelf and I had a difficult time explaining to my young students that it is, indeed, a pillow. This bunch is niftily attired with shiny shoes. One knows how to tap dance. I told him to join the talent show at the stadium since he could provoke a cultural revival there. He looks like the actor in the film, The Piano. He speaks Tagalog, likes bangus and I showed him how fishes in fish ponds must be lensed. He had asked me then where I came to know a lot of fish history. I mentioned the island of Visayas, and Aklan particularly, as a breeding ground for the best, quality sea food in the country. He could be stomped by my knowledge of sea creatures.
His companions showed me some of the wares designed by the youth power group. A luminous key chain that could wilt when placed beside a motorcycle with tiger-printed seat and pink wheels parked outside the exhibitor area. I had seen tin smiths designing robots too.
And the books, the books. Like the atlases of my childhood, they are huge and massive and I had commended the young man manning it for the creativity infused inside the pages. The quality of paper is priceless, with painting canvasses as borders. I could not touch the books since "You are not a Muslim." I had already browsed though; the words coming out alive with letters dancing and prancing, moppets sneakily surprising in page 88, similar to standing fans, blurting, "WHAT A BOOK!" after a douse of paragraphs swirling with magic and mystery. I need live commentators inside my book like I would envision my films to be.
Other notable designs: stitches on pants and shirts, leather bags, improved uniform for professionals, buildings and trees lit up by lights from down under, lighted like prima donnas on a stage.
Now, there's my ultimate performer: Massive Tree That Looks Like My Father's Own Pine Tree.
I bought brochures of Kelantan back to Yala and found their covers apt. It is holding a Kite Festival soon, inside its beautifully designed soccer field, with children playing and coached by able-minded men.
By: Iris P. Concepcion
My title is a Bahasan Malaysian food stall that I found myself writing in my piece of paper merely because it sounds exotic.
I found myself being gifted with an insignia bearing this statement: "Limkokwing Academy of Creativity and Innovation Kelantan" with an arrow pointing above that could hit directly on the person who is wearing it. Here is how the directive symbol went:
Traces of my footsteps, imprinted on streets with drainage areas as big as living rooms. I am, again, transfixed in Kota Bharu, a place of pleasures that often render unique sound technology through your earlobes. The city is celebrating "Youth Power: Catalyst Creative Industry" with the Bahasan Malaysian "Kuasa Anak Muda, Pemangkin Industri Kreatif".
The area reeks of Middle Eastern hazy fragrance with people claiming to have come from moon eating broiled chicken legs by hand, chomping the meat like astrodome warrior, eating noisily while commenting on the dish as fried. Being the feisty corrector that I am, I politely told him that it is broiled, not fried. The warrior looks like Danny de Vito with a pair of seablue eyes. He is bald as a scorching dessert. He offered me half of his chicken but I hastily declined, preferring the fried variety at that time of the day, with flipping double burgers blinding my vision with lettuce and cheese and twister fries. I tasted it, in a pinch, and found it delectable.
The gladiator explains the importance of fresh meat: cleanliness in food, according to him, is a holy ritual. This reminded me of one of my favorite immigration officers at the Malaysian border named Afifi, an Ali Baba and His Magic Carpet character who readily offered the thesaurus meaning of his given name. It means clean. I told him I am an Eye. He spoke a little Spanish at the end of his Malaysian sentence and I had replied in English, just like that.
Kelantan, at this particular day, is brimming with good, old-fashioned marketing styles. I have seen the incubation process of the food product twister fries. I suggested to the stall owner that he could fold a paper like a cone and place the french fries inside. He sells it for 2 ringgit; a bystander with a mathematical entrepreneurship skill had obliged with : "No. 2.50 ringgit."
I said it is acceptable, considering the cost of its packaging. I tossed away the styrofoam as an alternative container, explaining that it denudes the environment.
I had talked to a lot of Muslim people in the area with their ripe tomatoes still adorned with fresh leaves on their trunks. I find it very easy to talk to these diners, explaining the importance of haggling for prices. The city's stadium is holding a singing contest by this time, before the stomachs had grumbled for lunch. It is an extremely humid day, with the rock tunes falling off key as the vendors at A & W burger stall are laughing at the spooky caricatures of singers doing damage to pop tunes. I visited the food stalls and had seen the plentiful faces of shrimps cooked in 101 ways, with Tom Yang as its main spice. I, an ignorant connoisseur of food, told the cook to use the coconut milk instead. I told them that a shrimp could be simply fried and tossed to a mayonnaise dip, or could be used as an ingredient to a salad. I have seen bread buttered with fish paste beside green mangoes. I merely demonstarted that the green mangoes go well with the fish paste instead of bread. The bun could be best eaten with a fruit jam, I suggested.
Funnily, there is an iimmediate translator who explains my gourmet skittishness to the bystanders as they all agree and took note of my verbal notes. I am likewise greeted by a huge "kawa", a cooking gadget of my youth where my favorite kakanin, kalamay hati, is cooked. A Muslim man with an imam cap was mixing various ingredients with raisins and rice. I immediately loved this gastronomical sight as it reminded me of paella and arroz valenciana, the legacy of Spain to the Philippines, which are likewise my mother's favorite cooking dish during important occasions. This man, I had concluded, is well way ahead of his cooking potentials. I had wanted to tell him the necessity of putting a food coloring to the dish but had surmised, he does not need further instruction. He had removed the burnt rice on the side of the kawa which is likewise the proper thing to do since it could deflect the original taste of the dish.
I have seen various snack food in their different offerings of prawn variations. I found them too spicy and too sweet for my tastebud. I befriended the guy selling his food ware and offered my cent's worth of advice: "Add a little bit of salt or barbecue powder." I had commented that perhaps, he could eat Pringles or Lays instead. His reply was a courageous: "No, can't do." He explained that the taste is the preferred choice of people in the whole of Asia to which I retorted: "Really, now."
Another guy pointed me to a soft ice-cream stall with a twist shape. Sundaes had arrived in Kota Bharu and children are licking the delicacy like melted candies.
Roti here is sold hardened, with an egg that is huge like a bullhorn. I have tasted this is Yala. It is served with milk and butter, a building ready to be devoured. Another bunch of food techies, I had readily deduced,as I continued with my survey of food peddled under the perfectly built white tents. They are with sturdy, steel railings.
This is where I had heard a trio of men singing in four voices in rhumba style. Unlike the previous performers experimenting with their pop tunes, they are dressed up impeccably, singing traditional Malaysian music fused with Iranian beats. I had never heard a sound enginnering as good as this one since childhood. The quality is solid witout the irksome scratches. An amplifier-sounding emcee was competing with the vocalists nearby but they were drowned by the technology of the serenading trio.
A soloist likewise sang with an exceptional accompaniment. His voice tried to match the superiority of the sound masters. Eventually, he was accorded help by pipes springing out from nowhere: in second, third, fourth voices, he had sounded then like his attire. Powerful and stirring.
There was an exhibition of designs by the young ones and I was quick to point out to the gathering students the ways to spot good materials. I had observed that most of the displays were mediocre compared with the obvious things I had found: slippers on a white-shirted guy who just passed by (impeccably designed), wood pillow that I had seen my roomamte used in Satun. It looks like a bookshelf and I had a difficult time explaining to my young students that it is, indeed, a pillow. This bunch is niftily attired with shiny shoes. One knows how to tap dance. I told him to join the talent show at the stadium since he could provoke a cultural revival there. He looks like the actor in the film, The Piano. He speaks Tagalog, likes bangus and I showed him how fishes in fish ponds must be lensed. He had asked me then where I came to know a lot of fish history. I mentioned the island of Visayas, and Aklan particularly, as a breeding ground for the best, quality sea food in the country. He could be stomped by my knowledge of sea creatures.
His companions showed me some of the wares designed by the youth power group. A luminous key chain that could wilt when placed beside a motorcycle with tiger-printed seat and pink wheels parked outside the exhibitor area. I had seen tin smiths designing robots too.
And the books, the books. Like the atlases of my childhood, they are huge and massive and I had commended the young man manning it for the creativity infused inside the pages. The quality of paper is priceless, with painting canvasses as borders. I could not touch the books since "You are not a Muslim." I had already browsed though; the words coming out alive with letters dancing and prancing, moppets sneakily surprising in page 88, similar to standing fans, blurting, "WHAT A BOOK!" after a douse of paragraphs swirling with magic and mystery. I need live commentators inside my book like I would envision my films to be.
Other notable designs: stitches on pants and shirts, leather bags, improved uniform for professionals, buildings and trees lit up by lights from down under, lighted like prima donnas on a stage.
Now, there's my ultimate performer: Massive Tree That Looks Like My Father's Own Pine Tree.
I bought brochures of Kelantan back to Yala and found their covers apt. It is holding a Kite Festival soon, inside its beautifully designed soccer field, with children playing and coached by able-minded men.
Wednesday, January 11, 2012
A DELECTABLE WAY TO EXPONENTIAL GROCERY SHOPPING
By: Iris P. Concepcion
On my recent trip to Kelantan, Kota Bharu, Malaysia, I have met a lot of people who, curiously, all hailed from Europe. They came from diverse places such as Belgium, Poland, Italy and France. A simple eureka in World Cup acquiantances. I have likewise befriended Filpinos, students on tour, who came from Quezon City.
A kindly, portly woman of Muslim-Malay stock, about 50 years old in age, politely asked me on the bus we were riding on, if I have friends in Malaysia. I had silently rejoiced over the inquiry as to have replied her with a resounding: "I have met a lot of people from the place and I exactly know my way around the area." She gave me a nodding grin.
I had pointed at this seatmate the allure and beauty of pine trees sprouting out of nowhere. I had delighted over the fact that the rice paddies are now in full soil mattress of green leaves with visible brown grains hanging like lamps in their stalks. I had felt the urge to tell her a story.
"Do you see the rice fields over there?" as I pointed at the vast scape outside the window, filled with excitement.
"The Filipinos helped the Thai people to cultivate quality rice. Thai students went to the country's premiere university, the University of the Philippines, to study its proper cultivation. This department was called the International Rice Reaserch Institute (IRRI)."
My companion stared at the subject of my side chat and I have seen her eyes turn moist at my tale.
I continued: " My father used to go there, along with his frequent visits to Innotech, obviously a take on technology and innovation which he took pride in regaling to me."
My companion continued to listen as we have seen abandoned stalls, brown and dry spots of leaves that had been dried, overlooking brown hills similar to the northern part of the Philippines.
"It is quite sad that the ones whom we have taught to cultivate it is now reaping the fruits of our agricultural education while the Filipinos chose to ignore the urgent need to adopt it," I thus enthused.
She had asked me then if I wish to move from one place to another. I replied that Thailand offers a lot of surprises that stimulates rather than prods. My words are not exactly along these lines but she had certainly grasped my knowing comfort in saying that the place is perfect for mind expansions as the King encourages it. Malaysia, I told her, is perhaps a place where these mind expansions are executed in action.
I highlighted the fact that I have learned to love Kota Bharu and its eclectic products that are funnier and livelier. Its city designs suit more my appetite than the monochromatic tall buildings I am used to seeing. The building designs here have dimensions. By this, I mean, the engineering precis of architecture that is 3D in appearance and is never flat.
I had hoped then that my companion had seen Kelantan's take on brochures as it wishes everyone a prosperous Chinese New Year. The fabrics and textiles are like films in yarn. It excites me to report on the various textile materials that had once adorned my youth with my mother's elaborate handstitched gowns and her fellow teachers' impeccable sewing patterns. The itemized wares: Sutera Washable Crepe 3D, Washable Silk printed, Washable French Crepe Printed, Washable Satin Crepe Printed, Opal Brasso (Free Lining), Italian Cotton Printed (Polka Dot design).
The name of the outlet is GSH at Gulati's, Kota Bharu outlet, with its mannequin and display windows reminding me of C.O.D. Department Store of the old sleigh bells ringing in Cubao, Quezon City. Its windows are not monochromatic. Instead, they have layers of wood, middled by glass and panelled, again, in wood. This outlet houses the following textile outlets: Euro Moda, Gulati's, The GSH and AALIA. The brochure is chicly titled Gucca, Italy.
The lamp shades and water filters have designs that I have not seen in any sprawling city that I have been to. The wood of my youth, of stereo make and very shiny, now shields lights that are glaring with increased wattage. This likewise made me recall my father's Petromax. These items are, clearly, made of superior craftsmanship beside the otherwise regrettable light sources with clothing shields.
I had likewise purchased a pizza delicacy but the pan is made of muffin, from my favorite bakery, M, that is priced at 10 baht (1 ringgit). It is chewy as a soft fur with an even, sugary taste that goes well with the peas and ham toppings. Its dough is similar to the American Cream Bread my mother used to buy in Kidapawan, a town next to my own, with its vast array of marketing goods.
My biggest economic experience came from a Chinese supermarket though. One could never miss it. Called Pantai Complex, a shopper is greeted at the door with huge Mandarin oranges, all in red. I ventured inside and expected to find Buddhas and mini temples. Instead, I saw cashier lines for a grocery store. My jaw literally dropped at the prices, slashed down in half with the products still in good condition. Unsalted/Salted butter from New Zealand and Australia, cheese imported from Singapore, different kinds of fruits and chicken/pork/beef cuts under Ayam brand. One whole chicken costs only 40 baht (4 ringgit). Ice-cream in 1,000 litre containers cost only 40 baht (4 ringgit) with a variety of flavors including sweet corn of my youth. They have seemed to grow the size of pumpkins. I finally saw the Lady's Choice mayonnaise used by my mother to whip up a mean chicken macaroni salad (the best in the universe), in exact replica of sexy and shapely bottles. This was her favorite brand, along with Best Foods.
No one can dispute the packaging of these dearly departed and still alive people: their food line is incomparable. The usual biscuits had grown; I saw Kraft's (another brand preferred by my mother)chocolate-topped biscuits, the forerunner to Chips Ahoy. Muslims had bought them for their lowered cost beside the plastic-packaged biscuits that had nonetheless crumbled.
My eyes popped at the chocolates, Cadburry's, Hershey's and M&M made from cacao so fresh which reminded me of the produce dropping at my auntie's backyard of the old lore. They were at their competitive prices as children cleared the shelves to have them. The other best buys are the dishwashing liquid with their petrol containers, pampers, spaghetti noodles, fruit cocktails and other gastronomic revelry that are very affordable.
I purchased only one item: a Red Dates (without stones) in impeccable packaging that is not too sweet. I do wonder how they had managed to remove the stones out from the plum without ruining the fruit. At 1 ringgit each package (10 baht), I had my just dessert in time for my other economic-enhancing activities. This is a fun store, like a Disney find, or finding Cookie Monster with (real) beef burgers growing two inches in height.
Even the Campbell's Soup is a delight to look at, if only for Andy Warhol's immortalization of its iconic can.
For the piece de resistance, I saw a lumpia wrapper that is huge like a place mat. Easily removable, my mind wandered at how malleable this product could get, from siomai to vegetable dishes. They even look promising for burritos.
Kelantan is a find for hefty consumers with fun minds in approaching their food selections. The outlet has a built-in radio that blares a Chinese rap tune that is hilarious.
I went out of the city with fried chicken whose legs are the size of turkey legs.
I could not have found a better bargain.
By: Iris P. Concepcion
On my recent trip to Kelantan, Kota Bharu, Malaysia, I have met a lot of people who, curiously, all hailed from Europe. They came from diverse places such as Belgium, Poland, Italy and France. A simple eureka in World Cup acquiantances. I have likewise befriended Filpinos, students on tour, who came from Quezon City.
A kindly, portly woman of Muslim-Malay stock, about 50 years old in age, politely asked me on the bus we were riding on, if I have friends in Malaysia. I had silently rejoiced over the inquiry as to have replied her with a resounding: "I have met a lot of people from the place and I exactly know my way around the area." She gave me a nodding grin.
I had pointed at this seatmate the allure and beauty of pine trees sprouting out of nowhere. I had delighted over the fact that the rice paddies are now in full soil mattress of green leaves with visible brown grains hanging like lamps in their stalks. I had felt the urge to tell her a story.
"Do you see the rice fields over there?" as I pointed at the vast scape outside the window, filled with excitement.
"The Filipinos helped the Thai people to cultivate quality rice. Thai students went to the country's premiere university, the University of the Philippines, to study its proper cultivation. This department was called the International Rice Reaserch Institute (IRRI)."
My companion stared at the subject of my side chat and I have seen her eyes turn moist at my tale.
I continued: " My father used to go there, along with his frequent visits to Innotech, obviously a take on technology and innovation which he took pride in regaling to me."
My companion continued to listen as we have seen abandoned stalls, brown and dry spots of leaves that had been dried, overlooking brown hills similar to the northern part of the Philippines.
"It is quite sad that the ones whom we have taught to cultivate it is now reaping the fruits of our agricultural education while the Filipinos chose to ignore the urgent need to adopt it," I thus enthused.
She had asked me then if I wish to move from one place to another. I replied that Thailand offers a lot of surprises that stimulates rather than prods. My words are not exactly along these lines but she had certainly grasped my knowing comfort in saying that the place is perfect for mind expansions as the King encourages it. Malaysia, I told her, is perhaps a place where these mind expansions are executed in action.
I highlighted the fact that I have learned to love Kota Bharu and its eclectic products that are funnier and livelier. Its city designs suit more my appetite than the monochromatic tall buildings I am used to seeing. The building designs here have dimensions. By this, I mean, the engineering precis of architecture that is 3D in appearance and is never flat.
I had hoped then that my companion had seen Kelantan's take on brochures as it wishes everyone a prosperous Chinese New Year. The fabrics and textiles are like films in yarn. It excites me to report on the various textile materials that had once adorned my youth with my mother's elaborate handstitched gowns and her fellow teachers' impeccable sewing patterns. The itemized wares: Sutera Washable Crepe 3D, Washable Silk printed, Washable French Crepe Printed, Washable Satin Crepe Printed, Opal Brasso (Free Lining), Italian Cotton Printed (Polka Dot design).
The name of the outlet is GSH at Gulati's, Kota Bharu outlet, with its mannequin and display windows reminding me of C.O.D. Department Store of the old sleigh bells ringing in Cubao, Quezon City. Its windows are not monochromatic. Instead, they have layers of wood, middled by glass and panelled, again, in wood. This outlet houses the following textile outlets: Euro Moda, Gulati's, The GSH and AALIA. The brochure is chicly titled Gucca, Italy.
The lamp shades and water filters have designs that I have not seen in any sprawling city that I have been to. The wood of my youth, of stereo make and very shiny, now shields lights that are glaring with increased wattage. This likewise made me recall my father's Petromax. These items are, clearly, made of superior craftsmanship beside the otherwise regrettable light sources with clothing shields.
I had likewise purchased a pizza delicacy but the pan is made of muffin, from my favorite bakery, M, that is priced at 10 baht (1 ringgit). It is chewy as a soft fur with an even, sugary taste that goes well with the peas and ham toppings. Its dough is similar to the American Cream Bread my mother used to buy in Kidapawan, a town next to my own, with its vast array of marketing goods.
My biggest economic experience came from a Chinese supermarket though. One could never miss it. Called Pantai Complex, a shopper is greeted at the door with huge Mandarin oranges, all in red. I ventured inside and expected to find Buddhas and mini temples. Instead, I saw cashier lines for a grocery store. My jaw literally dropped at the prices, slashed down in half with the products still in good condition. Unsalted/Salted butter from New Zealand and Australia, cheese imported from Singapore, different kinds of fruits and chicken/pork/beef cuts under Ayam brand. One whole chicken costs only 40 baht (4 ringgit). Ice-cream in 1,000 litre containers cost only 40 baht (4 ringgit) with a variety of flavors including sweet corn of my youth. They have seemed to grow the size of pumpkins. I finally saw the Lady's Choice mayonnaise used by my mother to whip up a mean chicken macaroni salad (the best in the universe), in exact replica of sexy and shapely bottles. This was her favorite brand, along with Best Foods.
No one can dispute the packaging of these dearly departed and still alive people: their food line is incomparable. The usual biscuits had grown; I saw Kraft's (another brand preferred by my mother)chocolate-topped biscuits, the forerunner to Chips Ahoy. Muslims had bought them for their lowered cost beside the plastic-packaged biscuits that had nonetheless crumbled.
My eyes popped at the chocolates, Cadburry's, Hershey's and M&M made from cacao so fresh which reminded me of the produce dropping at my auntie's backyard of the old lore. They were at their competitive prices as children cleared the shelves to have them. The other best buys are the dishwashing liquid with their petrol containers, pampers, spaghetti noodles, fruit cocktails and other gastronomic revelry that are very affordable.
I purchased only one item: a Red Dates (without stones) in impeccable packaging that is not too sweet. I do wonder how they had managed to remove the stones out from the plum without ruining the fruit. At 1 ringgit each package (10 baht), I had my just dessert in time for my other economic-enhancing activities. This is a fun store, like a Disney find, or finding Cookie Monster with (real) beef burgers growing two inches in height.
Even the Campbell's Soup is a delight to look at, if only for Andy Warhol's immortalization of its iconic can.
For the piece de resistance, I saw a lumpia wrapper that is huge like a place mat. Easily removable, my mind wandered at how malleable this product could get, from siomai to vegetable dishes. They even look promising for burritos.
Kelantan is a find for hefty consumers with fun minds in approaching their food selections. The outlet has a built-in radio that blares a Chinese rap tune that is hilarious.
I went out of the city with fried chicken whose legs are the size of turkey legs.
I could not have found a better bargain.
Monday, January 09, 2012
FINE ARTS AND CREATIVE WORKS INSIDE A KINGDOM
By: Iris P. Concepcion
I, a writer with subpar telepathy, visited Malaysia once again and was educated, instead, on Thailand's history with the caption: The Creative King.
King, here, of course refers to His Majesty Bhumibul Adulyadej, born on the 5th day of December, 1927 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A. One of his strongest credentials, personally, is his holding of several patents for several engineering innovations the products of which were included in the posters featuring his Royal Highness.
It bears writing how he is portrayed in this creative campaign, the gist of which I am copying herewith for propagation. A good seed begets a bigger seed that thus begets the biggest seed. To capitulate:
The Creative King:
Brand Leadership with Pride and Thai Wisdom, Intellectual Property in the Royal Cipher: Trademarks.
Innovations and Inventions: Intellectual Property in the Royal Cipher: Patents.
Fine Arts and Creative Works Intellectual Property in the Royal Cipher: Copyrights.
I am copying herewith, in toto, (a word created by a mind who knows nothing else but precision) the article with the prayer that I shall not be held responsible for intellectual theft.
"His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej is a Renaissance Man. His culture interests are numerous and diverse. His artistic talents fully qualify him as Akhara Sinlapin (supreme artist). His works of art range over several mediums, created with his own hands and executed over a long period to the acclaim of artists and art connoisseurs, both Thai and international. His expertise has been outstanding in music, painting, sculpture, photography, literature and languages. All the fine arts and creative works coming from the Sovereign Lord form an invaluable body of intellectual property, compassionately bestowed as part of the artistic heritage of his subjects.
His majesty the King graciously assigned Royal representations to file four copyright applications of his literary and artistic works.
1. Writing of New Theory
2. Writing of Royal Initiative for the New Theory Project
3. Writing of The Story of Mahajanaka
4. Sculpture of Mahajanaka Medal
Copyrights in the Royal Cipher occuring instantly upon completion of His Majesty's writings or composition include the following:
1. Royal Photography
2. Royal Paintings
3. Royal Sculpture that includes the Buddha image in the posture of giving blessing, the Royal privare Buddha Votive Tablets, Buddha image in the pasture of subduing Mara."
His body of works include His Royal writings and the best resume booster thus far: he has created a total of 48 melodies and 79 songs.
His Majesty The King has likewise graciously assigned Royal representatives to file registration applications of trademarks and service marks under company limited entities, including Mongkhol Chaipattara Company, Ltd. and Suvarnachad Company, Ltd. which were established under his guidance.
His economic thrust is finely worded: "Sufficiency Economy" which encourages an economic agenda guided by moderation instead of the pursuit of overconsumption in order to help people become more immune to systematic global shocks. His long-term vision includes ideas "that have frequently proven prescient." He likewise engages himself in numerous "fireside chats" that are listened to by millions and serve to inspire the people to work for the benefit of each other.
The King is also famous for making his own maps and personally undertaking surveys for development work.
On a personal note, this creative environment of creative people had done the world a chance to become visionaries instead of mere dreamers.
My personal thanks to the fishermen in the remotest village who had epiphanied a satellite of designs, the manufacturers of the sweetest smell of sugarcane produce freshly grinded, the medical practitioners who had given shots for a polio-free community, those who had created Disneyland and Oscar the Grouch, the farmers who had aspired to plant not only medium but the largest lettuce in the century.
Let us give thanks to our Tatays, Dads, Papas and their industrious wives who had all helped them in these consequential quests for, well, a world upgrade.
By: Iris P. Concepcion
I, a writer with subpar telepathy, visited Malaysia once again and was educated, instead, on Thailand's history with the caption: The Creative King.
King, here, of course refers to His Majesty Bhumibul Adulyadej, born on the 5th day of December, 1927 in Cambridge, Massachusetts, U.S.A. One of his strongest credentials, personally, is his holding of several patents for several engineering innovations the products of which were included in the posters featuring his Royal Highness.
It bears writing how he is portrayed in this creative campaign, the gist of which I am copying herewith for propagation. A good seed begets a bigger seed that thus begets the biggest seed. To capitulate:
The Creative King:
Brand Leadership with Pride and Thai Wisdom, Intellectual Property in the Royal Cipher: Trademarks.
Innovations and Inventions: Intellectual Property in the Royal Cipher: Patents.
Fine Arts and Creative Works Intellectual Property in the Royal Cipher: Copyrights.
I am copying herewith, in toto, (a word created by a mind who knows nothing else but precision) the article with the prayer that I shall not be held responsible for intellectual theft.
"His Majesty King Bhumibol Adulyadej is a Renaissance Man. His culture interests are numerous and diverse. His artistic talents fully qualify him as Akhara Sinlapin (supreme artist). His works of art range over several mediums, created with his own hands and executed over a long period to the acclaim of artists and art connoisseurs, both Thai and international. His expertise has been outstanding in music, painting, sculpture, photography, literature and languages. All the fine arts and creative works coming from the Sovereign Lord form an invaluable body of intellectual property, compassionately bestowed as part of the artistic heritage of his subjects.
His majesty the King graciously assigned Royal representations to file four copyright applications of his literary and artistic works.
1. Writing of New Theory
2. Writing of Royal Initiative for the New Theory Project
3. Writing of The Story of Mahajanaka
4. Sculpture of Mahajanaka Medal
Copyrights in the Royal Cipher occuring instantly upon completion of His Majesty's writings or composition include the following:
1. Royal Photography
2. Royal Paintings
3. Royal Sculpture that includes the Buddha image in the posture of giving blessing, the Royal privare Buddha Votive Tablets, Buddha image in the pasture of subduing Mara."
His body of works include His Royal writings and the best resume booster thus far: he has created a total of 48 melodies and 79 songs.
His Majesty The King has likewise graciously assigned Royal representatives to file registration applications of trademarks and service marks under company limited entities, including Mongkhol Chaipattara Company, Ltd. and Suvarnachad Company, Ltd. which were established under his guidance.
His economic thrust is finely worded: "Sufficiency Economy" which encourages an economic agenda guided by moderation instead of the pursuit of overconsumption in order to help people become more immune to systematic global shocks. His long-term vision includes ideas "that have frequently proven prescient." He likewise engages himself in numerous "fireside chats" that are listened to by millions and serve to inspire the people to work for the benefit of each other.
The King is also famous for making his own maps and personally undertaking surveys for development work.
On a personal note, this creative environment of creative people had done the world a chance to become visionaries instead of mere dreamers.
My personal thanks to the fishermen in the remotest village who had epiphanied a satellite of designs, the manufacturers of the sweetest smell of sugarcane produce freshly grinded, the medical practitioners who had given shots for a polio-free community, those who had created Disneyland and Oscar the Grouch, the farmers who had aspired to plant not only medium but the largest lettuce in the century.
Let us give thanks to our Tatays, Dads, Papas and their industrious wives who had all helped them in these consequential quests for, well, a world upgrade.
Tuesday, January 03, 2012
CREATING LEGENDS
By: Iris P. Concepcion
God, in his wicked moment, had fathomed a world where all his human creations try to usurp His all-knowing creativity. Already sensing the follies of his subjects out of this rather spurious endeavor, He had allowed them to fall, stumble and believe in their fleeting omnipotence as He had engaged them in their pious foolishness.
This, I think, is the reason why the forerunner mall in the Philippines is Ali Mall in honor of one of the most legendary boxing fights of all time, Thrilla In Manila, between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. This could likewise be the cause why the premiere sports arena in the Philippines is the Araneta Coliseum where The Fight was held and why He still gives enough space for people to cook fishballs in rolling, wooden stalls with the gigantic woks boiling snacks in brown lard. The Almighty's democratic and spiritual work operates not in mysterious but understandable ways. That He allows, us, humans, to think that we are greater than Him is the true mark of his Divine Leadership.
I had hit upon this idea while observing an array of products, innovated by mortals like myself in front of the Fellowship Assembly worship hall on the first day of this year, 2012, a year of ominous presences among kinship in both the Godly designs and technology at Yala, Thailand, my place of residence for the past six months.
These are the items which caught my attention:
Specially crafted knives with sharp edges that are supernaturally functional they could cut even the thickest of plastic wares. The variety for vegetable and spices is very small but effective. I have likewise seen a toothbrush holder made out of thin plastic that still requires a hook for hanging, an obvious slap to a chopping wood board with a ready hook that is sturdily attached and could never be removed. The cooking wares are finely crafted in their obvious, superior material, and could not be easily thundered by ordinary wear and tear unlike the modern, stainless ones that still go rusty.
It is my personal error of History that I had known the tinsmiths who had made these cooking disacoveries upon the direction of a big-eyed female bird. Never the unbeliever, I subscribe to the idea that the folly of my belief is pleasing to the Providence's eyes.
There are cement statues of dogs that are perfectly painted and are not one dimensional, one dimensional being placing eyes in dotted form like this: 0 on the face of the animal. Their eyes are alive with eyelids and eyelashing contours and their ears are fluffy. I could not understand why a hardened material like an asphalt/cement could produce soft curves in dogs' ears but again, God's logic is immortal. I do not think the Big Thinkers in sprawling cities could spot the innate intelligence of the tilted heads and dopey eyes looking at the wares hanging above.
Me, a stupid human being without an office desk, gazed at where these puppies are looking at and was immediately delirious upon seeing hair bands with glues still visible on their sides and could easily be broken. They are placed in a hanger-like implement filled with hair clips and plastic necklaces. I had nonetheless found an item from among these gifts a hair clip with a blue and white blooming flower looking like an authentic plant that could transform a depressed lady into a femme fatale in Blue Hawaii. This could fetch as far as P500 in any pricey outlet and I am assured a lot of billionaires in this planet would still purchase it and brand it Gotham Ornaments at a mark-up price of P1,500.00.
I had ventured far and saw combs for lice (butol-big lice; kuyamad-small lice, a very Iris childhood), locks that are thin and thick, wipers to remove stains which made my eyebrows twitch as they are produced from cardboards and could easily get wet. One of God's allowable provisions for human mistakes.
The rest of the items I need to ask from the vendor for their use like the kitty magnets that still require real magnets to magnetize. Or the screwdrivers that are huge like a playhouse. Either the burglars are entering giant houses or my retinas had just expanded. This reminds me of the pornographic appendages sold in Quiapo with their promise of increased sexual stimulation that I found rather stupid since they are made of wire fences. Again, God had allowed this aberration to be marketed to test the pain of the voyeurs in spirit.
Which brings me to the Palm Island. Shun the pun but I need to reinvigorate the blueprint of this dwelling. A prototype of this city is shaped like palm leaves and its lights are all palm-patterned. Even the beaches are shaped like palms. Ricardo Montalban's Fantasy Island, with his sidekick dwarf in tuxedo, shall never get lost here.
Hence, if you ever wonder why Muhammad Ali is called the greatest fighter of all time, Jose Rizal the greatest educator (he had made everyone believe in his rich, linear history of political life: refer to his Calamba abode with an unfettered well), Martin Luther King the greatest orator, Sesame Street the greatest educational program on television with Ernie and Bert, Cookie Monster, Mr. Count and Big Bird, and why the Three Tenors could blast their crescendos in notes higher than Matimtiman Cruz, simply turn right and wait for the green signal to light up and recognize, deeply recognize, the woven stories behind these legends that could never be stricken out from History Books.
I am here, sitting as a mortal, being given a dexterous freedom by God to maintain my own follies.
The next time you see objects in transit, dear readers, notice the eyes, just notice the eyes.
By: Iris P. Concepcion
God, in his wicked moment, had fathomed a world where all his human creations try to usurp His all-knowing creativity. Already sensing the follies of his subjects out of this rather spurious endeavor, He had allowed them to fall, stumble and believe in their fleeting omnipotence as He had engaged them in their pious foolishness.
This, I think, is the reason why the forerunner mall in the Philippines is Ali Mall in honor of one of the most legendary boxing fights of all time, Thrilla In Manila, between Muhammad Ali and Joe Frazier. This could likewise be the cause why the premiere sports arena in the Philippines is the Araneta Coliseum where The Fight was held and why He still gives enough space for people to cook fishballs in rolling, wooden stalls with the gigantic woks boiling snacks in brown lard. The Almighty's democratic and spiritual work operates not in mysterious but understandable ways. That He allows, us, humans, to think that we are greater than Him is the true mark of his Divine Leadership.
I had hit upon this idea while observing an array of products, innovated by mortals like myself in front of the Fellowship Assembly worship hall on the first day of this year, 2012, a year of ominous presences among kinship in both the Godly designs and technology at Yala, Thailand, my place of residence for the past six months.
These are the items which caught my attention:
Specially crafted knives with sharp edges that are supernaturally functional they could cut even the thickest of plastic wares. The variety for vegetable and spices is very small but effective. I have likewise seen a toothbrush holder made out of thin plastic that still requires a hook for hanging, an obvious slap to a chopping wood board with a ready hook that is sturdily attached and could never be removed. The cooking wares are finely crafted in their obvious, superior material, and could not be easily thundered by ordinary wear and tear unlike the modern, stainless ones that still go rusty.
It is my personal error of History that I had known the tinsmiths who had made these cooking disacoveries upon the direction of a big-eyed female bird. Never the unbeliever, I subscribe to the idea that the folly of my belief is pleasing to the Providence's eyes.
There are cement statues of dogs that are perfectly painted and are not one dimensional, one dimensional being placing eyes in dotted form like this: 0 on the face of the animal. Their eyes are alive with eyelids and eyelashing contours and their ears are fluffy. I could not understand why a hardened material like an asphalt/cement could produce soft curves in dogs' ears but again, God's logic is immortal. I do not think the Big Thinkers in sprawling cities could spot the innate intelligence of the tilted heads and dopey eyes looking at the wares hanging above.
Me, a stupid human being without an office desk, gazed at where these puppies are looking at and was immediately delirious upon seeing hair bands with glues still visible on their sides and could easily be broken. They are placed in a hanger-like implement filled with hair clips and plastic necklaces. I had nonetheless found an item from among these gifts a hair clip with a blue and white blooming flower looking like an authentic plant that could transform a depressed lady into a femme fatale in Blue Hawaii. This could fetch as far as P500 in any pricey outlet and I am assured a lot of billionaires in this planet would still purchase it and brand it Gotham Ornaments at a mark-up price of P1,500.00.
I had ventured far and saw combs for lice (butol-big lice; kuyamad-small lice, a very Iris childhood), locks that are thin and thick, wipers to remove stains which made my eyebrows twitch as they are produced from cardboards and could easily get wet. One of God's allowable provisions for human mistakes.
The rest of the items I need to ask from the vendor for their use like the kitty magnets that still require real magnets to magnetize. Or the screwdrivers that are huge like a playhouse. Either the burglars are entering giant houses or my retinas had just expanded. This reminds me of the pornographic appendages sold in Quiapo with their promise of increased sexual stimulation that I found rather stupid since they are made of wire fences. Again, God had allowed this aberration to be marketed to test the pain of the voyeurs in spirit.
Which brings me to the Palm Island. Shun the pun but I need to reinvigorate the blueprint of this dwelling. A prototype of this city is shaped like palm leaves and its lights are all palm-patterned. Even the beaches are shaped like palms. Ricardo Montalban's Fantasy Island, with his sidekick dwarf in tuxedo, shall never get lost here.
Hence, if you ever wonder why Muhammad Ali is called the greatest fighter of all time, Jose Rizal the greatest educator (he had made everyone believe in his rich, linear history of political life: refer to his Calamba abode with an unfettered well), Martin Luther King the greatest orator, Sesame Street the greatest educational program on television with Ernie and Bert, Cookie Monster, Mr. Count and Big Bird, and why the Three Tenors could blast their crescendos in notes higher than Matimtiman Cruz, simply turn right and wait for the green signal to light up and recognize, deeply recognize, the woven stories behind these legends that could never be stricken out from History Books.
I am here, sitting as a mortal, being given a dexterous freedom by God to maintain my own follies.
The next time you see objects in transit, dear readers, notice the eyes, just notice the eyes.
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