For time doth grow its leathered wings
To fly through warm and balmy winds
That only long vacations bring
To thy worn shell of human will
Alas, respite thy doth lack still:
Time speeds only to be eclipsed
Till naught remains of all thy flings
Except regret's godawful stings
Or, as Parokya ni Edgar sang, without the frilly iambs and quadrameters:
Tatlong araw lang pala
Ako naging maligaya
Di ko man lang napuna
Tatlong araw ko'y tapos na
Monday, August 30, 2010
Sunday, August 22, 2010
As a Daft Punk album cover can so easily remind us that we are Human After All
Regalado (2005, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009) wrote a large number of short treatises, many of which he disguised as free-verse poetry, on what appeared to be a seasonal form of depression, a gnawing emptiness which would only emerge either near the end of a collegiate semester or during the week-to-month long break that followed it, the temporary halt in academic affairs possibly hearkening back to the days when Jewish craftsmen who, in honor of the Sabbath, would put down their tools and snore in the timbre of a Latino siesta, creating a cacophony that would make even the most clueless postmodernist proud of his clueless-ness. The time-defined nature of his depression appears in the fact that most of the entries in the browned and blackened pages of his websites coincide with the latter parts of a conventional University of the Philippines semester, as well as with the break that follows one.
It perplexes the mind, however, to note that the author of these treatises, who possibly wrote them for the posterity of the phenomenon leaving him as he left the life of a college student, was discovered to still be beset by the very same wave of gloom that always seemed to have arrived right on schedule every time. Not only this, but the depression seemed to evolve along with him, adapting to the three-semester schedule used by the school he taught in instead of the conventional two-semester schedule his insomniac eyes used to read, write and study to.
Amidst these discoveries, it is to no small wonder that the author of these treatises has always sought sabbatical, sought Sabbath, in all manner of ways, from harboring all sorts of inanities and insanities to comfort foods and to writing even more treatises on his condition. His latest treatise is one that is all about his previous ones, as well as about a phenomenal depression which beset him as of the time of this writing.
REFERENCES:
Regalado, Franco Antonio. Turris Eburnea: Ivory Tower. Retrieved from http://francoocnarf.blogspot.com. Blogger: 2005.
Regalado, Franco Antonio. (no title). Retrieved from http://ocknarf.multiply.com. Multiply: 2007.
It perplexes the mind, however, to note that the author of these treatises, who possibly wrote them for the posterity of the phenomenon leaving him as he left the life of a college student, was discovered to still be beset by the very same wave of gloom that always seemed to have arrived right on schedule every time. Not only this, but the depression seemed to evolve along with him, adapting to the three-semester schedule used by the school he taught in instead of the conventional two-semester schedule his insomniac eyes used to read, write and study to.
Amidst these discoveries, it is to no small wonder that the author of these treatises has always sought sabbatical, sought Sabbath, in all manner of ways, from harboring all sorts of inanities and insanities to comfort foods and to writing even more treatises on his condition. His latest treatise is one that is all about his previous ones, as well as about a phenomenal depression which beset him as of the time of this writing.
REFERENCES:
Regalado, Franco Antonio. Turris Eburnea: Ivory Tower. Retrieved from http://francoocnarf.blogspot.com. Blogger: 2005.
Regalado, Franco Antonio. (no title). Retrieved from http://ocknarf.multiply.com. Multiply: 2007.
Postmodernpostmortem
(for AJ)
Death, such an amalgam of ironies: departure and gathering, silence and noise. The latter: every solemn moment is punctuated by the chugging of the diesel motor and the clanking of the tractor as it hauls trailer after trailer of dirt into the grave site. The dirt itself is a hodgepodge, a mass of brown dirt, gray rock, black and white pieces of what appear to be the same marble and porcelin used to adorn other gravestones, mausoleums and columbariums. Thus, it is not only his father who is buried with each pathetic tear and each apathetic shovelful; he is covered and sealed into his resting place alongside bits and pieces of other people's lives and deaths, a mass grave that is gravely un-massive.
Enduring all this unceremonious ceremony in the infernal heat, Alvin says to himself, only half jokingly: "I want to be cremated when I die."
Death, such an amalgam of ironies: departure and gathering, silence and noise. The latter: every solemn moment is punctuated by the chugging of the diesel motor and the clanking of the tractor as it hauls trailer after trailer of dirt into the grave site. The dirt itself is a hodgepodge, a mass of brown dirt, gray rock, black and white pieces of what appear to be the same marble and porcelin used to adorn other gravestones, mausoleums and columbariums. Thus, it is not only his father who is buried with each pathetic tear and each apathetic shovelful; he is covered and sealed into his resting place alongside bits and pieces of other people's lives and deaths, a mass grave that is gravely un-massive.
Enduring all this unceremonious ceremony in the infernal heat, Alvin says to himself, only half jokingly: "I want to be cremated when I die."
Saturday, August 14, 2010
Clear-Headed Zombie
Can't sleep, pumped up from last night's and this night's Coke. And as I have said time and again, the boon and bane of these zombified nights is that it gets a person to thinking. And when things get me to thinking, I get to writing.
Oh well. To quote the vegan zombie: GRAAAAIINSSS... (munch on a granola bar)
- Funny how reading a piece for the second or third time rarely gives you the exact same impressions as the first, especially when you're going through a piece that's so prone to multiple interpretations. Take the Salvador Lopez piece Literature and Society, for example: read the piece first during fourth year, as something I was hoping I could glean quotable thesis stuff from. First reading gave me the same impression most probably get with their first skimming: writing must be done with the improvement of our society in mind.
Discussed the essay with my fourth year students as part of their World Literature curriculum, which meant I had to read it again. Second reading gives more elemental results: when you write (and by write, I don't mean the stuff that you put in your journal, the stuff you don't really want others to read), keep in mind that people can and will read it, whether it is mushy poetry or some heated exhortation against a present evil in society. Whether it will relate to them and whether they will appreciate what is written, though, will be another matter. Might as well, then, give them something to look relate to, so that in your own little way, you've sort of contributed to somebody else's learning, and to the overall progress of the human race as well. Simply put: writing for yourself with the intention of being read will probably cave into itself, so might as well write with others (and what is society but a bunch of Others, colonialistically speaking?) in mind.
- Sometimes, I feel like I'm better as student than as a teacher, which is probably why I like treating my students as more like classmates I simply have to deliver a report to. Besides, there are few things in life that are better than a class where learning doesn't exactly feel like learning, right? (I can hear you nodding, BACA batchmates.) Hence, perhaps, my lack of drive to constantly quiz my students on what they have or have not learned from my prattle. (Sucks that there's a minimum required number of quiz points per semester, else I'd simply have asked for an arseload of papers instead.) Oh well, there's still my dreams of a degree in Law, as far as studying is concerned. Guess I'd sometimes rather be soaking up all the information than dishing it out, I guess.
Not to say that I don't like teaching, though. There is, after all, nothing quite like the flow of chi, ideas and information through an active classroom, an exchange of energy from listener to speaker and vice versa equaling those mentioned in those New Age pseudo-philosophies. Problem comes only when chi is blocked, usually by somebody failing to read the materials that are to be talked about.
- I miss writing. The creative sort of writing, that is, and not the sort you need for quizzing 3rd Grade students on things like figures of speech. Rocket Kapre's got submissions for some Filipino fiction anthology of sorts by the end of the month, and I've got a story which just needs revisions (and more pages to make it to the word count minimum) in line. Hope I can at least start getting it up to speed this week. Bulols, after all, can only say so much.
- Weird that I had a headache just a few hours ago, and my head's as clear as a field in Quezon right now. Guess my body misses the occasional zombie night as well.
Calliope! Clio! Erato! Polyhymnia! Thalia! GRAAAAARRRGGGHHH!
Oh well. To quote the vegan zombie: GRAAAAIINSSS... (munch on a granola bar)
- Funny how reading a piece for the second or third time rarely gives you the exact same impressions as the first, especially when you're going through a piece that's so prone to multiple interpretations. Take the Salvador Lopez piece Literature and Society, for example: read the piece first during fourth year, as something I was hoping I could glean quotable thesis stuff from. First reading gave me the same impression most probably get with their first skimming: writing must be done with the improvement of our society in mind.
Discussed the essay with my fourth year students as part of their World Literature curriculum, which meant I had to read it again. Second reading gives more elemental results: when you write (and by write, I don't mean the stuff that you put in your journal, the stuff you don't really want others to read), keep in mind that people can and will read it, whether it is mushy poetry or some heated exhortation against a present evil in society. Whether it will relate to them and whether they will appreciate what is written, though, will be another matter. Might as well, then, give them something to look relate to, so that in your own little way, you've sort of contributed to somebody else's learning, and to the overall progress of the human race as well. Simply put: writing for yourself with the intention of being read will probably cave into itself, so might as well write with others (and what is society but a bunch of Others, colonialistically speaking?) in mind.
- Sometimes, I feel like I'm better as student than as a teacher, which is probably why I like treating my students as more like classmates I simply have to deliver a report to. Besides, there are few things in life that are better than a class where learning doesn't exactly feel like learning, right? (I can hear you nodding, BACA batchmates.) Hence, perhaps, my lack of drive to constantly quiz my students on what they have or have not learned from my prattle. (Sucks that there's a minimum required number of quiz points per semester, else I'd simply have asked for an arseload of papers instead.) Oh well, there's still my dreams of a degree in Law, as far as studying is concerned. Guess I'd sometimes rather be soaking up all the information than dishing it out, I guess.
Not to say that I don't like teaching, though. There is, after all, nothing quite like the flow of chi, ideas and information through an active classroom, an exchange of energy from listener to speaker and vice versa equaling those mentioned in those New Age pseudo-philosophies. Problem comes only when chi is blocked, usually by somebody failing to read the materials that are to be talked about.
- I miss writing. The creative sort of writing, that is, and not the sort you need for quizzing 3rd Grade students on things like figures of speech. Rocket Kapre's got submissions for some Filipino fiction anthology of sorts by the end of the month, and I've got a story which just needs revisions (and more pages to make it to the word count minimum) in line. Hope I can at least start getting it up to speed this week. Bulols, after all, can only say so much.
- Weird that I had a headache just a few hours ago, and my head's as clear as a field in Quezon right now. Guess my body misses the occasional zombie night as well.
Calliope! Clio! Erato! Polyhymnia! Thalia! GRAAAAARRRGGGHHH!
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