Father and Daughter by Michael Dudok de Wit

It always amazes me to discover what’s up on YouTube. Last week, when I had to do an article on the fashion anime series Paradise Kiss, I was able to watch the whole season on YouTube. Same with Nickelodeon animated series My Life as a Teenage Robot.

What I’ve always had trouble accessing, since there’s absolutely no way to purchase it in the Philippines, and since it didn’t use to be popular enough to get it put up online, was animated shorts by independent animated filmmakers. They used to fill up the Animated Short Film category in the Oscars, until the major studios started coming up with shorts that could be entered into the category.

One of my favorite short films, which I saw during a Dutch Animation Film Festival in 2001, was Father and Daughter by Michael Dudok de Wit. Created in sepia tones with a pencil and charcoal look, the fairly minimal character design against the backdrop of Dutch countryside sets the stage for a quiet yet very moving and powerful story of family, memory, longing, and the things that stay with us for our whole lives.

Apart from the Academy Award and BAFTA, the short has won honors in the Independent Film Awards, Ottawa International Animation Festival, Cinanima Animation Festival, and Holland Animation Film Festival, among others.
Thanks to YouTube, you can watch the whole 8-minute short for yourself. After that, call up a loved one (may I suggest your dad) and tell him you love him.

Steve Pavlina and ChangeThis: Personal Development without the Schtick

(Note: I found this cartoonist Randy Glasbergen online that I totally love. Firgured I’d save myself a post since his cartoons on the subject of stress kinda work with this article, so here we go…)

I will admit first that I decided on this post because I’m going through a diffcult time personally, facing the possible end of a very important and deep relationship, and it has actually pushed a lot of other things to the surface. I ended up reconsidering my work, my job, my career choices, examining my personal development and my emotions, and even rethinking life goals, making spiritual considerations, and trying to figure out what I really want.

Not that I got a lot of it solved. It takes a lot more courage to face yourself and try to answer these questions than I have at the moment. What I have been doing, however, is reading as much as I can find so that I work out which tools for self-evaluation and strengthening I can be comfortable with to help my situation.

Now, I’m not the type to read self-help books or attend feel-good motivational seminars. And if anything, I’d be the first in line to see the Self-help/Inspiration section of the bookstore burned down. But I guess when push comes to shove, and hard-asses like me find themselves dealing with internal conflicts and perhaps needing advice that won’t make them vomit, it is important to know there’s sane wisdom out there that doesn’t require belief in a higher power, roundabout reasonings for faith or psychiatric drugs. At the end of the day, it is about going with what works for you (and what your oh-so-impeccable logic is least likely to reject before the positive effects can kick in).

Because my problems rooted in a relationship, but I wasn’t willing to read the how-to-deal-with-loss variety of advice available on every other woman’s publication, I found myself gravitating towards a blog: Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development for Smart People.

As far as renown goes, Steve Pavlina isn’t a name up there with, say Tony Robbins or Jack Canfield or Max Lucado. I discovered his site some time ago by pure accident (some may say providence) while curiously searching for information about, um, extra sensory perception. Although I later wasn’t too receptive about the articles that dealt directly with psychic development and more esoteric matters, I found (ironically) some of the most sensible, grounded, and non-esoterically applicable advice on issues like identifying mistakes made by the self-employed, learning to accept yourself while still pushing yourself to grow, and improving life by giving up television or coffee.

What I’ve always read up on were the articles about business growth and thinking, entrepreneurship, and work and career. A lot of his advice is based on an individual’s consciousness and mindset being the fuel for change, improvement and a real positive impact on your life. Originally, I wanted to reject this idea because it reeks of subjectivity and immeasurability (which Pavlina himself admits), but after my interview with the Philippine All Stars (winners of the 2006 World Hip Hop Championships), positivity or, for them, faith seemed to work enough for them (to say the least) to merit at least a try. (And if it works, well, don’t knock it. No matter how much of an agnostic or deconstructionist you fancy yourself to be. We all exist in paradigms, like it or not. Some mornings when the coffee’s not hot and the weather’s not conducive to philosophizing, it’s just more effective to pick one and go with it.)

Anyway, getting back to my original concerns–this time around I was looking for help with my relationship problems. While every women’s site prescribed that my immediate concerns should have been healing the wounds and all that jazz, what I really wanted was to open myself to new things and possibilities, and to be more aware and, in Pavlina’s words, conscious. What I found were interesting reads about living consciously, motivating myself, and even finding my purpose in life (or attempting to). Yes, they sound a little too motivational-speaker-ish, but, seriously, there’s a less-BS approach to the way the subjects are handled.

Another site that I’ve always read up on is ChangeThis. An idea that orginated with Seth Godin but was set in motion by a group of young people who got the likes of Malcolm Gladwell and Guy Kawasaki to contribute Manifestos, their genre of choice, to the site.

Okay, okay, this site has nothing to do with my relationship issues, but has everything to do with personal development. Straightforward, concise, and insightful, the topics and advice you read here are eye openers (or at least cause for why-didn’t-I-think-of-that moments) for people interested in everything from trendier topics like marketing and branding to semi-philosophical subjects like truth and choice (in marketing and branding… hehehe).

Read up a bit on both sites, since the information they offer is basically free of charge and if not life-changing, well, in the least very interesting to ponder on.

(If anyone’s wondering, I’m still dealing with my relationship issues and slacking off on that for now. But I’m consciously putting my work issues at the top of my list, since it is a major concern and has been for some time now. So if I get a break at work anytime soon, well, it’ll show that I didn’t end up slacking off on that, too. Hehe.)

Check out Randy Glasbergen’s site, where you can see all his funny cartoons. I think he’s got an interesting niche with his diet, fitness and medical cartoons.

A Leg Up: Fabulous Colored Leggings

It’s always been difficult to get hold of any kind of legging in the Philippines. Even now, when it is once again the in thing, there aren’t so many colored leggings available. (Or, as my personal problem always goes, the colored ones are too small to fit me, even if they’re stretchable.)

In the i section, we’ve done a number of legging shoots, the most recent one being the “Get a Legging Up” cover, which featured both store-bought leggings and DIY colored pantyhose. (I’m experimenting with dyes at the moment, since it isn’t as simple as I’d thought it would be.)

One favorite merchant site (and corresponding blog) I’ve been drooling over is WeLoveColors.Com. Having been featured in several magazines and used in fashion shows, they have a great selection of colored leggings and pantyhose. They’re fairly inexpensive (if you come from that side of the world), but ordering’s a bitch when you’re all the way from the Philippines (not to mention the shipping costs).

Check them out here for yourself.

What to get him…?

Growing up in an upper middle class home, I remember one of my biggest childhood concerns was buying my dad gifts whenever Christmas or his birthday rolled around. It was tougher than I’d expected, and even now my opinion on that hasn’t changed.

It isn’t that he didn’t appreciate the ties and shirts he kept getting from me (bought with his money and my mom’s help), but it felt a little routine at some point. (Although my mom was a really great shopper who got the most distinctive and gorgeous silk ties, as well as apparel from the hottest menswear brands around.) My dad—love him so much—appreciated anything we gave him, and was always amiable about receiving gifts (until we got more expensive items and he started realizing how much his gifts were costing him).

Now shopping for men is back to being a concern because of B. Well, not so much a concern as a consideration, since B. is really easy about gift-giving, and I can usually get him sports books. Thing is, with B. being more exploratory now, delving into a new books, music, movies, television shows, fashion, gadgets, and whatever else he wants to explore, naturally, gifts follow suit. Men of his age (which is generation smack between my dad and my friends) need to be careful about being trendy but not trying hard to be young. There is a natural fit and balance that they have, which is more conducive to picking certain kinds of gifts than others.

When B. and I went over some gift sites and trend sites for men, I got a much better feel of what works for the urban male. Our men’s issue of the i section is most often right on the mark when it comes to items of interest to men of all ages—except in clothing, which tend to be targeted to younger and more fashionably adventurous males (well, we are the youth section of the paper). Basically, the average (and even slightly above average) man is still conservative but enjoys a certain amount of play, and usually less in their attire as their gadgets and “toys.” Men still enjoy classic, classy items (like leather products, writing instruments, and any kind of casual-sport item), but they’ll tend to be pleasantly surprised by a twist to classics.

Anyway, here’s a rundown of sites we discovered that are great for buying gifts or at least provide good references for styles and brands that work for men.

Uncrate

The description on the site reads: “Uncrate is a web magazine for guys who love stuff. Our team finds the best gadgets, clothes, cars and more so you can blow your rent money easier. Updated daily.” B. had a fun time going through this site, although half the stuff were way beyond my budget.

The site is divided into Gear (which includes portable media, gaming, TV and video, outdoor, sports, digital cameras and camcorders, and even musical instruments, among others), Cars (which covers pretty much all kinds of cool land transportation), Style (which includes apparel, accessories, bags, shoes, and watches, to name a few), Discs (meaning DVDs, CDs, video games, and, strangely enough, books) and Crib (which is home items).

It actually surprised me how enthusiastically B. went through the Crib section. Like the other sections, the items under Crib were functional yet entertaining. There was an interesting (and hilarious) item called the Villain Chair, an oversized chair which goes for $6,800, that we totally loved. It really looks the part, and it seems fairly comfortable (well, for that price, it should be).

B. also took a liking to the Confederate B91 Wraith Motorcycle, which incorporates a handcrafted quality, exotic, retro looks with modern technology and materials, and comes at a hefty price tag of $55,000. It’s a 410-pound bike with a 100-cubic-inch V-twin engine that has over 120 hp.

The other vehicle B. fancied was the Bugatti Veyron. But, as Uncrate puts it, “if you ever see us driving a Bugatti Veyron ($1.2 million) we either stole it or just won the lottery.” The car really packs a wallop at 1001 horsepower, and goes from 0 to 60 mph in less than three seconds, and has a crazy top speed of 253 mph.

On a more practical level, B. found he liked the more rugged Guess Brushed Buffalo Cuff Watch and, of course, the first season DVD set of My Name is Earl.

AskMen.Com

AskMen.Com is a general men’s lifestyle magazine, but manages to be concise and straightforward—it understands that men have less patience for surfing and navigating, and navigates and answers questions directly the way men would find convenient. It also manages to be in a language that men can understand and appreciate—which goes a long way in selling newer, trendier ideas.

It doesn’t dwell too much on fashion in its Fashion and Lifestyle section, but it offers trend advice that is practical and acceptable to the general male population—meaning, it isn’t a shock to their system. Case in point, their highlights in the current Men.Style.Com Fashion and Lifestyle are: “How To: Become A Recording Artist,” “Things Guys Can’t Live Without,” “Travel: Tips To Get Through Security,” “L.A. Style Blog: West Coast Shades,” and “FL: How To Find Good Help.”

I personally find myself stopping to check on the site more and more often (yes, even if I’m not a guy). Although I still skip over the sports section altogether.

Men.Style.Com

Men.Style.Com, which has online versions of Details and GQ, is the counterpart of top fashion and trend site Style.Com, the online home of Vogue and W. Like any good men’s magazine, it does not just cover fashion but lifestyle—specifically gadgets, home entertainment and sporting goods.

This site has a huge database of catwalk looks, and a growing database of trends (obviously not as big as Style.Com, but pretty big anyway). Of course, catwalk style is not always the most palatable thing for men, but a lot of the highlighted looks on this site are fairly conservative ensembles with twists that men may be willing to try.

On of my favorite reads on this site is the Street Style section, which is written by none other than the Sartorialist, whose street style blog I have really enjoyed for some time. His street choices are usually smart looks which are very wearable for men—nothing too outrageous. While I personally like street styles off of Harajuku or Helsinki better, I know men (like B.) will appreciate the stylishness and elegance of the Sartorialist’s selections.

Sartorialist

Of course, the original Sartorialist blog is an indispensable read. While it caters to both men’s and women’s fashion now, it started with mostly men’s street fashion and still hosts a healthy selection of men style on the street.

Unlike many blogs, photos on this blog are crisp, well-composed shots. Of late, the Sartorialist (probably because he now works full time for Men.Style.Com as well) bought his own Canon 5D with a 50mm/1.4 lens. According to a blog entry on the camera, it’s what he used in Europe for the men’s shows and what he used to rent for shooting GQ or other assignments.

Gizmodo, The Gadget Guide

Run by the same people who gave you Gawker and Idolator, Gizmodo is to men what Popgadget and Gadget Candy are to women, if only because a lot of the items as well as the “features” are more of male interest (at least as far as branding and marketing are concerned).

What I like about Gizmodo is apart from featuring new items, it gives you reviews and occasional links to articles and reviews on other online publications. The writing and humor is very masculine as well, and you get little interesting departures like this article on “How to Steal an Election with a Diebold Machine.”

Right now I’m eyeing the CEDIA 2006: Crosley Digital Jukebox. It’s an iTunes-integrated full-sized Digital Jukebox with a touchscreen, and is run on a Mac Mini. It goes for $5,000 and is out in a few months.

Luxury Sites: Luxist and Luxury Reviewer

These sites always feature the most expensive items, which are actually the toys that boys really like. But unless you’re Mark Cuban, it’s fair to say you won’t be purchasing anything on these sites anytime soon. (Mark Cuban actually holds a world record for biggest online purchase—a friggin’ jet!)

Still, these sites are fun to browse, and for the aspirational market (which is most of us), it’s eye candy we can at least afford to drool over. It’s fabulously mind-blowing to read about the world’s most expensive ice wine, or the huge new 213-ft yacht from Benetti, or the world’s most expensive homes.

Good laughs: Conan O’Brien’s, um, inspiring speeches and some musings on comedy

Stuyvesant HS commencement speech PART I.

While I was googling the text for Conan O’Brien’s commencement speech to the Harvard graduating class of 2000, I found this new speech he recently gave to the Stuyvesant High School graduating class of 2006. While the amateur video’s a little shakey and the audio’s understandably not broadcast quality, it’s a fairly decent recording. And besides, any chance to watch Conan in action is great entertainment… So bear with it and plug in good speakers.

I’ve always been a fan of comedy–specifically stand-up, but then I have an appetite for good comedy writing in general, so I’m hooked on everything from satire websites to these newer trends of sitcoms. And hence, my own short-lived career as a stand-up comedian (mind you, not the slapstick variety popular in the Philippines). That ended really abruptly with my realization that, one, I wasn’t funny, and two, that I lived in the Philippines.

Anyway, YouTube wasn’t in existence in 2000, so all I can find of Conan’s 2000 commencement speech at Harvard was the printed text, which makes for a hilarious read. There are a lot of sites that carry it on the next, such as this one at February 7. Here’s an excerpt from the text:

“The point is that, although you see me as a celebrity, a member of the cultural elite, a kind of demigod, I was actually a student here once much like you. I came here in the fall of 1981 and lived in Holworthy. I was, without exaggeration, the ugliest picture in the Freshman Face book. When Harvard asked me for a picture the previous summer, I thought it was just for their records, so I literally jogged in the August heat to a passport photo office and sat for a morgue photo. To make matters worse, when the Face Book came out they put my picture next to Catherine Oxenberg, a stunning blonde actress who was accepted to the class of ‘85 but decided to defer admission so she could join the cast of “Dynasty.” My photo would have looked bad on any page, but next to Catherine Oxenberg, I looked like a mackerel that had been in a car accident. You see, in those days I was six feet four inches tall and I weighed 150 pounds. Recently, I had some structural engineers run those numbers into a computer model and, according to the computer, I collapsed in 1987, killing hundreds in Taiwan.”

Go read it already if you haven’t. Oh, for the second half of the Stuy speech, it’s here on YouTube. By the way, just like most people who love Conan, I really enjoy watching Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert. And before that, of course, I got my crazier satirical fixes from The Onion.

Oh, gotta love Triumph the Insult Comic Dog, too.

Comics: Warnings for Adult Content

Since I read in an interview in a recent issue of Wizard that Alan Moore came out with a comicbook that was 16 years in the making, I’ve been hoping to get a copy. Lost Girls is something of a shocker for comic readers, or readers in general, since it isn’t shy about the fact that it’s pornography. Written by Moore and illustrated by Melinda Gebbie, it stars adult version of three beloved female storybook characters, all of whom recount their sexual exploits (while having even more sexual exploits) as they are away at a mountain resort hotel in Austria. The characters are Wendy from Peter Pan, Alice from Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, and Dorothy from The Wizard of Oz.

If you check out the Wikipedia entry on Lost Girls, it lists among the sexual exploits included in the books, “Wendy Darling, John and Michael meeting a boy named Peter Pan and the lost boys for sexual encounters one summer,” then “Dorothy Gale making love with three farm hands at the age of sixteen after a cyclone came to Kansas,” and finally “Alice Fairchild having sex, first with a man and then with several girls and women, beginning at the age of fourteen.” It’s definitely not a comicbook for kids.

There’s a lot of buzz going on about this comicbook, some good, some bad. Some of it’s the unintentional bad timing of the series, what with the whole JonBenet Ramsey hurrah going on. Most of it is mixed reactions to the content, and the fact that Moore has no hesitation about calling it what it is: pornography. For Moore, it is territory unexplored in comicbook literature, and has much potential for storytelling. What is priceless is how he finds subtext in the originals stories of each of the characters (which aren’t necessaily there) and translates them into the sexual stories.

Violet Blue has the exclusive images of the book, and Neil Gaiman has a great article on it that he wrote for Publishers Weekly. Or read Salon.com’s article on it.
I’ve been a fan of Alan Moore’s because of Watchmen more than anything else. No matter what he tackles, his take on a story is always unique and interesting, and in some cases practically a turning point in comicbook history. Right up there with Frank Miller’s Dark Knight Returns and Art Spiegelman’s Maus, it is an important book that details history and social change as much as it entertains and puts a new, refreshing spin on comics. Now you have stories like The Incredibles (which is a fantastic, groundbreaking piece in its own right) which are very mainstream stories that take off from a similar premise as that of Watchmen.

Dialogue and playing with juxtaposition is also a gift of Moore’s. Able to thread imagery and create tight running storylines, Alan Moore creates pieces that are thick with symbolism and rich, complex stories that explore society, culture and the human condition.

Images taken/swiped/snatched off Comic Book Galaxy, Fantastic Fiction, and publisher Top Shelf’s official site.

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One comicbook I’ve been hooked on lately is Y: The Last Man. Partly because I’m a Vertigo fan, and partly because it’s one of the best comics I’ve read in a long time. Of course, it’s still running so I can’t really make conclusions just yet (considering how many cop out crappy endings have happened of late). But so far, it’s been an exciting, gripping series, with some story arcs that work better than others, and a lot of good dialogue and references that will satisfy any pop culture vulture.

Y has an interesting premise to begin with, but it certainly doesn’t just sit on that. It begins when all the men on earth mysteriously, simultaneously die, and the only males left are Yorick Brown and his pet monkey Ampersand. In a world where women have to learn to survive after the mess and, in some cultures and societies, figure out how to perform the tasks that they as women had never done before–in this world, Yorick and his protectors try to stay alive, find a way to repopulate the human race, and eventually find the reason for the death of all men.

From the writing, you get the feel that the creators are well-read and knowledgeable about pop culture. There are a lot of satisfying references to music, art, literature, etc. that are slipped in to the dialogue, although there are some odd drifts here and there that you can probably afford to forgive.

It’s a promising story, and so far (downswings notwithstanding) it’s had fairly promising writing. Of course, if this turns out to be a personal vendetta rationale for the killing of all men, or it happens to all be a dream or some easily dismissable alternate dimension, I’ll be extremely disappointed. There needs to be a fresh and satisfying ending for this series, and I hope it comes to pass.

Incidentally, writer Brian K. Vaughan was said to have worked on my favorite author Michael Chabon’s superhero creation, The Escapist. Of course, as a die-hard Chabon fan and now a growing fan of Vaughan, I have seriously (and so far vainly) been trying to hunt down a copy of that.

Images plucked/stolen/ripped off of the official Vertigo website.

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This last bit’s a news item from the world of comics. Last July, it was announced that hit TV series My Name is Earl will be created into a comicbook. Now, anyone who knows me or has read early entries in this blog will know how crazy I am about Earl. It’s a smart, hilarious, and absolutely wonderful series that seems impossibly tight in its writing and recall of characters. Anyway, read my original post on Earl here.

There’s a press release at Comicbook Resources, although creator Greg Garcia said in an interview for Suicide Girls that there isn’t anything definite yet (and that he wishes there wasn’t that must press out yet while things aren’t decided). Ah, but it’s hard to keep rabid fans at bay. I personally have to wonder how the unique humor and charm of the TV series will get translated into comics. I suppose the tightness is relatively easy enough to achieve, but that magic spark and charm is an intangible factor that will either happen for the comics or won’t.

Anyway, I snatched the preview poster of Earl from Comicbook Resources. Click on it to get directed to the larger image so you can actually read the dialogue. Can’t wait for word on the series–I mean both the comics and the second season.

Wonder Boys: reality and damn good writing

I watched the movie before I read the book, and it was how I got to love all of Michael Chabon’s writing. While The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay is my favorite Chabon book (or possibly my favorite book, period), I keep going back to Wonder Boys.

In my opinion, the book is much darker the the movie, and makes fairly different points on several occasions that won’t be found in the movie. Mind, I’m not in the least trying to pit the book against the movie. I feel that each version of the story works in its own medium, and holds very different charms for its audience.

On this occasion, I’m recalling the movie, and the many charms that it held for me (and my then struggling writer-persona). My friend Carl was the first one who told me about the movie in 2002, since it was a relatively inconspicuous presence when it came out in the box office in 2000. Sad.

The story is based on Chabon’s own experience with struggling with writing. After publishing his debut novel, The Mysteries of Pittsburg, he found himself working for five years on an huge second novel, Fountain City. But 1,500 pages later, he realized the story was rambling on, so he stopped working on it. Now anyone who has seen the movie or read the book will immediately recognize the same storyline in central character Grady Tripp’s life.

A novelist with a unfinished manuscript at 2,611 pages and going, Tripp (Michael Douglas) also wrote a successful novel seven years earlier which won a PEN award. But since that time, things seem to have gone downhill, as we see him as a rather sad, disheveled figure, teaching writing at a Pittsburg college, having an affair with the chancellor of the college, and in suddenly stuck on a weekend of misadventure after his student, James Leer (Tobey Maguire), accidentally kills the chancellor’s dog and his eccentric publisher, Terry Crabtree (Robert Downey, Jr.) comes to town to try to squeeze his manuscript out of him.

The writing is magnificent for the screenplay, and scenes from the book are translated visually in the most concise yet powerful and effective way, sometimes taking on comic undertones (example: how it is revealed that Tripp’s book is 2,611 pages long). What is espcially charming is the dialogue, which has a certain offbeat rhythm to it, and surprises you with recalled words and ironic comebacks when you least expect it.

Reviews often note Douglas’ performance, especially because of how different from his roles before it. Salon.com’s Andrew O’Hehir says in his article:

“It had to happen eventually. Michael Douglas, Mr. Crisis of ’90s Masculinity himself, the movie star who seems, paradoxically enough, to be widely loathed, has made a film in which he looks like total crap. I mean, on purpose. (My significant other claims that the real human-rights violation in Paul Verhoeven’s “Basic Instinct” was not its representation of lesbianism but its all-too-flagrant display of Douglas’ bare ass.) Shambling through the wintry Pittsburgh of “Wonder Boys” as decaying novelist Grady Tripp, unshaven, unkempt and frequently clad in a fuzzy pink woman’s bathrobe, Douglas actually resembles a middle-aged human being for the first time.

This is such a shock because most of Douglas’ previous characters are guys whose entire raison d’être seems to be avoiding the aging process. Grady, on the other hand, is long past meltdown; he hasn’t just gone to seed, he looks like he’s got mushrooms growing in his ears. He’s still a soul in anguish — maybe Douglas can’t help bringing that to his character — but it’s a pretty genial, vague, marijuana-steeped anguish. Grady is the genuinely likable if profoundly flawed hero of this literate upscale entertainment…”

Bottomline, it is a thoroughly unelegant story about losing steam as a writer and the possibly ridiculous and destructive consequences that result, and about finding redemption and hope and all things hard-earned at the end of a very long, very tiresome and yet still continuous road.

Bob Dylan had a song in the movie’s soundtrack. I love the music video, which is thankfully up on YouTube. It puts Bob Dylan into the movie, hypothetically, and comes off as very entertaining (at least for a Bob Dylan fan) even funny.

Images taken from this desktop wallpaper site.

Cary Santiago: The Art of Creation

I wanted to post this as soon as it ran in the paper, because of the timeliness of the article, but I eventually thought better to just give it a few weeks after the publication so I won’t have my bosses on my ass for it.

This is about Cary Santiago, a fairly well-known designer in the Philippines, who is the guiding hand behind one of the hottest couture brands in the Middle East (no, not Saab). I’m unable to mention the house’s name because, as in the article, Cary was worried that it would be rendered searchable online (unlikely as far as our paper’s website is concerned, but likely in this blog), and his boss might find out that he granted us an interview.

Cary’s creations are distinct fabric-on-fabric designs that are almost sculptural their appearance. And couture in the Middle East being what it is, these outfits are made for royalty, celebrities, and basically the richest of the rich, and are created by the finest, most luxurious fabrics which most designers only dream of using.

This article details the elegance and artistry that defines Cary’s works. Also, because Cary is based in Beirut and came back to the Philippines for the same reasons (although very different circumstance) that other Filipinos returned, it was practically impossible not to situate his story within the current context of the war in Lebanon. Honestly, it was something of a struggle to write, mostly because it felt like trivializing the war (and being incredibly insensitive to the Filipinos who were all trying to get home) by setting Cary’s otherwise luxurious story against the backdrop of a generally struggling Filipino population (despite my own opinion about the whole melodrama that ensued).

Anyway, here’s my article called Rich Imaginings, which was released August 25 in the i section of the Manila Bulletin, and the sneak peek article Flights of Fancy (released a week earlier) which is specific to Cary’s designs.

“You cannot squeeze water from a rock…”

I’m starting with an aside, since this is front of mind at the moment. I’ll get to my actually rant in awhile.

“You cannot squeeze water from a rock.” I heard that line first from B. I suppose it comes from being a sports journalist for so long. You either learn to reconcile the existence of “different intelligences,” or you can’t have a career in journalism, sports or otherwise. I’ve learned that for every great interview, there are a couple of dozen mediocre and sometimes seemingly repetitive ones, and a couple of completely terrible ones. And I’ve learned not to bitch about it anymore, because it doesn’t help and it’s just a waste of energy because eventually you have to work around your issues (because you’re not willing to make a crappy article anyway).

I’ve become a believer of sorts in multiple intelligences, which has helped me become a lot less judgmental about my interviews and a lot more able to craft a better story around it (or at least I’d like to think so). I’m lucky to get a lot of eloquent, insightful and intelligent artists, writers, businessmen, designers, managers, etc. who know what they want to say. But on the other hand, I’ve had occasions where their ability for communication is the biggest barrier to my writing the articles. Which isn’t to say they aren’t insightful or intelligent, but that they express themselves differently. Multiple intelligences play a big role in that, I would suppose.

(Aside of an aside: I wrote about a fairly new but rather successful school in Baguio grounded on the theory of multiple intelligences. It’s a controversial method in the world of education, and most often misunderstood as lacking the roundedness of traditional education. The theory actually applies to how we learn rather than what we learn. It’s a whole different thing, read the articles on the Berkeley school or about multiple intelligences theory.)

Now then, what I’ve been rambling on in my head about for the last week is a little different, although rightly enough, it rings even truer that “You cannot squeeze water from a rock.” This isn’t about interviewees. This about writers. Specifically people who use the word journalist very loosely. And I’m not just talking about problems with content, I’m talking about problems with composition and grammar as well.

Read on here if you’re interested in my ranting, and check out for yourself what shitty piece of writing I’m ranting about.

Comics borrowed/taken/yanked off my absolute favorite cartoon site, Cartoonbank.com. (Their prints make great gifts!)

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On a lighter note, I came across this cartoon in Cartoonbank.com. Funny.

“We are interested in a cultural exchange. We will give you one of our writers, and you will give us Salman Rushdie.” (Iranian mullah speaking on television to American audience.)

Missing Calvin (and Hobbes)

While going through my daily reads online, I read a short entry in Drawn! dated a couple of days back about a website that features rare Calvin and Hobbes strips. Nostalgia hit hard. As fans know, the Calvin and Hobbes strip lasted only ten years (1985-1995), with the most unceremonious departure (in my opinion) of creator Bill Watterson from the comic scene. A lot of people mourned the loss, because it was really a little bit of happiness that so many held on to in an already unmagical world. (Read the fan letters posted on the Official Calvin and Hobbes site.) Watterson’s gift for story and words and capturing our everyday realities with such conciseness is rare, and incomparable.

On the site, Bill Watterson’s press letter regarding his departure goes, “This is not a recent or easy decision, and I leave with some sadness. My interests have shifted, however, and I believe I’ve done what I can do within the constraints of daily deadlines and small panels. I am eager to work at a more thoughtful pace, with fewer artistic compromises. I have not yet decided on future projects, but my relationship with Universal Press Syndicate will continue.”

The comic strip is that unique medium that is at once full of possibility and limitions at the same time, and its continuously growing limitations seem to be what pushed Watterson to finally leave. If you look at his generous illustrations in some Sunday Strips, for example, it reveals the impressive artististry that went into that small allotted space. As much for Watterson as for his readers, compromising any more would be an unacceptable thing.

Aside: The emergence of webcomics has changed the limitations and the face of comics and cartoons, and it would seem that older definitions of the medium, like that of Understanding Comics author Scott McCloud’s (”Juxtaposed pictorial and other images in deliberate sequence, intended to convey information and/or to produce an aesthetic response in the viewer”), would be rendered obsolete soon–as McCloud himself admits. What that implies on the issues of comic strip creators with the newspapers they are printed in is yet to be fully seen.

Aside of an aside: These days, McCloud is answering more questions about the technological exchange than anything else in comics, but read his interviews, like one is Popmatters, to get a better overview of the medium, including existing nuances in terminology, like between comics and cartoons.

Now as I was originally saying… Anyone who loved the Calvin and Hobbes strips will love Calvin and Hobbes: Magic on Paper. There’s a wonderful section of writings by Watterson and rare art, including Watterson’s attempts at comics outside of Calvin and Hobbes. If it’s still not enough, Magic on Paper’s links page leads to some of the best Calvin links around, including The Calvin and Hobbes Album, which even has foreign Calvin strips (yes, useless to me, but nonetheless fun to go through), Digital Calvin and Hobbes, which includes games and a create-a-strip section, and The Calvin and Hobbes Page at Craig’s, which has a whole bunch of information on the strips. Oh yeah, of course, there’s also the Wikipedia entry.

All images borrowed/stolen uncermoniously off the rare collection on the Calvin and Hobbes: Magic on Paper site.