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[There are SPOILERS in this. And this is the warning.] Symbolisms Originally from Nick Joaquin's A Portrait of the Artist as Filipino. What is the TLDR version? okay TLDW: It is essentially about two sisters and a painting. Their dad made them a painting either to test them or to leave him alone. Zooming out a bit,  it is about a dysfunctional contemporary Filipino  family around the 1940's. The painting is described as an old man carrying a young man in his back, while the background is a city in flames. One character tells of it as being Troy. 

I have now forgotten why these were the resolutions I had noted earlier this year. It's funny because I kinda forgot about them anyway, but looking at it again, I realized I had completely veered off from what I originally intended to do.

It'll be Christmas soon and the year will wrap shortly.  There's something symbolic about natural endings. Symbolic may be the wrong term. Necessary. There's something necessary about natural endings. If the sun didn't set, people may not rest until exhaustion. If the year didn't end, who knows what people would keep on doing. Come to think of it. What would people keep on doing if the year didn't move and it just went on eternally?

In the pantheon of celebrity chefs nowadays, Anthony Bourdain has to be one of the most free-wheeling guys out there. He's probably living the life with the dream job of a travel-hungry college kid. He sports a travel TV show, an online series about excellent craftsmanship, and has written multiple books over the years. (I'm distilling his work too simply and too generally. I'm sure he's done way, way more than the last three sentences.)

To be completely honest, having seen the word persuasion in the book's sleeves I had thought this was going to be like an ancient Influence by Robert Cialdini . But boy, was I wrong. This was what I always imagined a long class in philosophy might be; a long afternoon class where Philosophy and Language had a love child. The TL:DR version is Aristotle writes that there are 3 kinds of Rhetoric; a couple ways to approach them, and how to structure and focus your messages.

One of the more well-known Stoics today is Seneca. He lived before Marcus Aurelius by roughly around One Hundred to Two Hundred years. Similar to Marcus Aurelius' work, the Meditations, Seneca also wrote various letters, the difference being to whom the letters are addressed.

This was hilarious. Like the style of "The Office" but with flatmates who happens to be vampires.  It maintains the usual elements with Vampires. No reflection, blood suckers etc. It also keeps that "Friends"-like arc with flatmates or room mates where the usual conflicts and hilarity ensues.  They could make a franchise out of this or a trilogy similar to Edgar Wright's Cornetto trilogy.

This was a silent horror film made around 1922 in Germany. This movie helped Bram Stoker's original Dracula gain more popularity. Mostly because the estate didn't want to give its rights, ensuing a legal complication.

It appears Hollywood made a killing of a Frankenstein franchise around the 1930's, the same way superheroes movies are created successively these days. This would be the first Frankenstein film I've seen in the list of sequels written in its Wikipedia  page. I've seen various incarnations from Hotel Transylvania to popular cartoons growing up, and a couple months back, the main source written by Mary Shelley.

I am angry. Why in the world did this happen. I  thought this was going to be a sad story. And it is but it has made me angry that a person rose to power with the ideals of killing people. I  saw Schindler's List when I was a teen, roughly the same age when Anne wrote the diary. I remember it being a big deal at the time. But I didn't get to have any emotional weight to it. It appeared as something that only grown ups talk about.

"You have to go through that pain at some point because if you live constantly confined with your unwillingness to go through pain, you do not develop into who you are supposed to be." This was from a podcast episode of the Art of Charm with Russell Brand. 

Antifragile, is like if the stoics had a 21st century background in risk, volatility and randomness.

Oktubre na pala. Lumipas na ang huling siyam na buwan. Dahil bihira ko magsulat sa tinubuang salita, Ang hirap!  Kakaiba rin na kelangan ko pang gumamit ng Google Translate, para sa sariling wika. I'd thought that I'd be in a way worse situation back when I was imagining what the near future will seem like around March/April. I guess it lends some credence to what some people say that to an extent, our fears get way too overblown on our own. We have a tendency to underestimate our own. Pero dahil ganun na nga, masaya naman. Steady. Steady lang. Okay na steady. Kaunti nalang pasko na! Woohoo! Bakasyon.

It is like if the mouse in Tom & Jerry, met up with the human versions of Jerry, and had a ball with Slapstick and Visual comedy. The Christmas-sy feel and music to it reminds me of Home Alone.  It must have spawned the later art that came after it.   Stuart Little and that Rat from Ratatouille would be happy seeing this movie. I haven't since this film since I was in grade school. I remember watching it via VHS over and over as a kid. It triggered a small trip to memory lane: sitting at the living room with the family eating some kind of corn chips or cheese crackers.  I remember being so fascinated and engrossed over this. Reading some of the "adult's" reviews about it now, it doesn't seem like they have the same sentiments. Sure in the grand archive of cinema, this movie probably makes a minuscule mark compared to some of the giants at the time, but  my experience as that kid some 20 odd years ago remain the same.    Nice to revisit t...

Haven't written something personal in a long while. I recently went to a close friend's wedding. Now I've been to weddings before but there's something different when you're much closer in age to the couple. Weddings I've attended before, they were fun. But the thoughts then went nearer to "This must be something what grown ups do." A change in time. Fast Forward a couple years. We're now the adults. The grown ups. Is this what grown ups do?  Life happens.  We make decisions. We made decisions. We still do. What are you trying to say? I am just glad. To have been able to participate in a milestone for other people.  This is a quiet time. I made a post here somewhere before. Something I thought of as a quiet kind of happiness.  This is one of them.

It's easy to box in as a fairly simple story. In the beginning, it seemed like a princess meets a commoner type of story; at the middle, it appeared as a coming of age film; at the end, it's really more an exploration, an adventure movie.  One does not always see a female lead in what Tom Sawyer or Huckleberry Finn could have been riding in.  I guess we're in that time now. It's a good movie to watch with a daughter; or a niece.  Sacha would be a great model for young girls.  

There's always something you learn from other people.  Pat Riley I know of being a steady figure of the Miami Heat.   This time he talked about keeping Ego in check, and contributing to the team. The Disease of Me Chronic feelings of under appreciation (Focus on oneself) Paranoia over being cheated out of one’s rightful share Leadership vacuum resulting from formation of cliques and rivalries. Feelings of frustration even when the team performs successfully Personal effort mustered solely to outshine one’s teammate Resentment of the competence of another  “The most difficult thing for players to do when they become part of a team is to sacrifice. It is much easier, and much more natural, to be selfish.” – Pat Riley

Honey, I Shrunk The Kids The Szalinski's are introduced. Rick Moranis is the nerd dad who's trying build his shrinking machine. The neighbor's are a jock type of a family. They just want to go fishing. The children of the families barely interact. Until, one of the neighbor's kids breaks the Szalinski's glass window. The story evolves on how the kids get shrunk by the machine and the journey from the lawn to the front of the house, to the cheerios bowl. And along the way, they meet a giant ant. Not giant, the kids just happened to be smaller than the actual ant. I remember seeing this a couple times as a kid. Now that I've had some distance to it and with young adult eyes, it does seem different. Mostly because I remember being so impressed by it. Now, It doesnt seem great compared to other movies. It's not bad. I appreciate still the value in it. What it is, is probably that the novelty has worn off. Or it could be that the movie is really for kids. Or ...

"Give yourself permission to write badly" This was part of You Made it Weird Podcast episode with Michael Ian Black

This was a great movie. I wonder how much better this must be in the book. It's not often that you get to see an engulfing movie experience. This was time well spent. The structure is built very well. I forgot what filmmakers or storytellers call it, that gradual release of information that heightens the next scene. The movie does that exquisitely. You are on your toes 'till the last. Having never read any of Tom Clancy's work, the association I have of him is more on spy novels. So I figured that this was something close to a James Bond or a Jason Bourne driven protagonist. Now having seen the movie, it seems much more closer to Clive Cussler's Dirk Pitt series. The parallel may just be that it is set mostly at sea. Nevertheless, this is an excellent movie. My curiosity has been piqued. I may have just opened a Tom Clancy rabbit hole.

I did not understand this movie;  or that I don't want to.  Maybe it's not meant to be understood . For a  person into the kind of genre the movie tackles, this would probably be a classic. But I'm n ot really familiar with the genre, and this was ultra-violent .  The story structure is impressively woven with a fairly simple backbone. High school kids are set loose on a island. Everyone fight off each other until only one's left. The last student is declared to be the champion. I've never seen Hunger Games, but from trailers and whatever promotion was out back then, they seem similar. Except this one has way too much blood and gore. 

I've never really gone down a Bruce Lee movie rabbit hole. Growing up Jackie Chan was more noticeable to my adolescent eyes; and more recently Donnie Yen's Ip Man film series. I knew that Bruce Lee was a prominent figure in the spread of martial arts in film and in the world. Still  I had little to no expectations about "The Way of the Dragon". It has a fairly simple story, Bruce Lee's character is sent out by an "Uncle" to protect a business being bullied by local gangs in Italy. Things climax when Bruce Lee's character battle with Chuck Norris at the historic Colosseum in Rome. Seems as though this is where all those memes come from. Considering the technology in the 70's, it must have been a blast seeing Bruce Lee do the things he does in the movie. Had he been alive today, there probably would have been rapid cuts, an epic fight scene, maybe even a Jeet Kune Do film trilogy, or a Martial Arts cinematic universe. The significance may esc...

I have been resistant to this book after all the talk surrounding it. I like to think the values and beliefs I grew up with ran counter to the extremes of what this book portrays. Because really there's something grimy about the Pickup Culture, even the term spouts out negative connotations.  I am probably the exact age whose target market this book was built for. And with the rise of the information age, it is very easy for word to go around. Neil Strauss' name would get mentioned in blogs and random forums every once in a while. Plus during that period he was promoting his more recent book: "The Truth" through podcasts, I decided to get a copy of "The Game" from a local bookstore. It was an interesting read. The same way one says when you're not quite sure what to say but the polite way is you say "that's interesting". Strauss is a terrific writer. I t is easy to empathize with him in the story.  The frame must have been that we all fe...

The book is about introversion; for introverts in a world inclined for extroverts. It is about our misconceptions, about a better way to understand ourselves and/or the other quiet people at home or at work.

This was heavy. There's a philosophical weight to it.  A line in the movie goes: "War doesn't ennoble men, it eats away at the soul."   One soldier in shock; chills, almost like in a freezing state. A couple others lose it.  A few scenes after we see the same states; only this time in the opposing soldiers.  War does eat away at the soul.  Why engage in the first place? Hence the philosophical part. People can and have debated it for years and years. One story line flashbacks at different times to one soldier's memories with his wife. A lovely couple. Beautiful woman. After battle, the soldier receives a letter from her. She writes she's fallen in love with a different man. The soldier's heart breaks. Deeper than any bullet he could have been hit. The film portrays the dark sides of war, and of human capacities. Even a tiny part of the experience of being in that actual battle, it is a heavy view of the sacrifices people make and the damage that gets...

I came to this film thru a Christoper Nolan mention in one YouTube clip, that it is one of his favorite films. I was expecting this to be some kind of documentary about the environment after early searches. However it doesn't quite fit the documentaries of National Geographic or Discovery. It's also not a straightforward movie. There isn't any dialogue. Or any direct linear story. It leans more into being an art film or an experimental movie.  The landscapes are beautiful. Coupled with an epic film score, one can see and hear the influence this has had on Nolan. It reminds me of Interstellar. The sound also brings me back memories of when Muse released their album, Black Holes and Revelations. There is something incredibly recognizable in the patterns of the silent repetitions, crawling arpeggios, and massive soundscapes.  Though the film seems simple, it is hard to distill. Reading reviews after watching it, there doesn't seem to be one general consensus. Aside fro...

Shaun of the Dead The First, and the Zombie Rom Com in the trilogy.  I'm pretty sure there are a lot of nods to horror/zombie films in the genre. Though I could only spot Night of the Living Dead, due to my limited exposure to the genre.  At its heart is an actual romantic comedy. What gives it character is that the romantic part is believable. Shaun has to navigate this while surviving an increasingly noticeable zombie apocalypse, and similar story arcs about family and friendship.  Hot Fuzz The 2nd one and the Action Comedy in the bunch. This one's probably the best of the three. Again, a lot of homage to action/cop movies; even to old tales of detection. The twist is the bad guys are the old people. It's definitely different seeing a shoot-around at what seems like a quiet park against old people. The premise seemed absurd. Sergeant Angel is sent to the country because he is too good of a cop in the metro. Then when he arrives there ...

It’s an odd read. A mere 70 pages. The way I understand is, there is this man around Victorian-era London. Dr. Jekyll, who invents a potion, which gives him vitality. Even though it makes him look repulsive, in the character of Mr. Hyde. He tries to hide it from his friends. Then when Mr. Hyde’s character start murdering people, Dr. Jekyll’s side is distraught. He also realizes Mr. Hyde has become the default. He no longer has to take the medicine for Mr. Hyde to appear. He becomes it involuntarily. And he has to pay for Mr. Hyde’s crimes as well.

I was expecting that this was going to be a different kind of read.  I was wrong.  This was something else entirely. It was terrifying and suspenseful. The horror the reader is taken to be engulfed in makes the heart race. No wonder it has created and influenced many other forms of art to this day; from other literature, to movies, games (Castlevania?) and so on. The way it unfolds is by a series of daily journals by the characters, some newspaper clippings, and memos again assumed written by the characters. The first part tells of Jonathan Harker's stay/ordeal at Transylvania. Then at what first seemed like a series of fillers, but was actually a set-up for the next set of scenes; The introduction of Mina Harker and Lucy Westenra and her suitors, then her eventual demise. At one point, Professor Van Helsing is called upon to help Lucy. Then more and more of the character's coincide with each other, as they soon find out that the Count is in the city. They hun...

Next year it will be 200 years since the story of Frankenstein was first published. Not sure how was the horror fiction landscape back then, but it must have been a scare-inducing read. I can’t shake the thought on how fast the monster was able to learn. How come he wasn’t like a baby if he had just came to being. And then that would have taken years and years to develop language, emotions and a conscience. Anyway, it serves its purpose as a thriller. I’m not quite sure how to feel pity for the monster. Because he went around murdering people out of revenge. The book is basically written in the form of a narration by Victor Frankenstein to a group of explorers. He tells of his childhood, growing up, his family. Then goes to a different place to study Natural Philosophy. There he meets other scientists. He creates a “monster” born from different parts. It is not mentioned how the creature came to have life. Distraught at what he had done, he becomes ill then recovers. The creature ...

It flew by. The last part was bland. It’s hardly inspiring. Or maybe that’s the point. There were some funny bits. These four people inexplicably meet on top of a building on New Year’s Eve with the idea of jumping off it in mind. All for different reasons. They don’t jump. They go down. They mess with newspapers for a bit. They go on holiday. They try to fix each other’s issues. They talk to people that are important to them. Really it ended up on just waiting it out and realizing that their lives aren’t so bad. Doesn’t beat High Fidelity though.

Confucius lived around 551-479 BC. Far back in time. Sometime around or after that period, his disciples compiled his teachings in what would become The Analects. He probably didn’t write any on his own. Had he been alive today these would have been his words posted and re-posted as quotes/memes by his people. A wise teacher to say the least. I was looking for that quote about the difference between teaching a man how to fish feeds him for a lifetime, instead of giving him a fish that feeds him only for a day. Never saw that quote. He had however many others that serve better in terms of living morally, respecting family, following the rites and virtues, humaneness, serving in government, being a gentleman and so on. Here are some: 1.16: Do not worry that other people do not know you. but be concerned that you do not know them. 2.20: Ji Kangzi asked, "How can I get the common people to be respectful, to do their best, and to encourage each other to strive forward?" The ...

There was a farmer who grew excellent quality corn. Every year he won the award for the best grown corn. One year a newspaper reporter interviewed him and learned that the farmer shared his seed corn with his neighbors. “How can you afford to share your best seed corn with your neighbors when they are entering corn in competition with yours each year?” the reporter asked. “Why sir,” said the farmer, “Didn’t you know? The wind picks up pollen from the ripening corn and swirls it from field to field. If my neighbors grow inferior corn, cross-pollination will steadily degrade the quality of my corn. If I am to grow good corn, I must help my neighbors grow good corn.” So is with our lives… Those who want to live meaningfully and well must help enrich the lives of others, for the value of a life is measured by the lives it touches. And those who choose to be happy must help others find happiness, for the welfare of each is bound up with the welfare of all. -- The author seems to be...

"Warren Buffet has always said the measure is whether the people close to you are happy..." -Bill Gates at a Reddit AMA

So long honey babe Where I'm bound, I can't tell Goodbye is too good a word, babe So I just say fare thee well I ain't sayin' you treated me unkind You could have done better but I don't mind You just kinda wasted my precious time But don't think twice, it's all right Don't Think Twice, It's All Right by Bob Dylan

Person A rose to success because he/she was really good. The best. The basic premise of success seems straightforward. It is not. It may seem like a person had an innate ability that’s why he/she stood out. It isn’t. Circumstances, when and where, culture, what the parents did for a living mattered to the story of Person A’s success. Gladwell splits this book into Opportunity and Legacy. I guess he split this in the message that success came from circumstances and from the environment one came from. It is more non-fiction than a self-help book. It doesn’t tell you directly how to be successful. It tells you how some of the prominent people now became successful. It appears more anecdotal than scientific. It is the perspective of a writer/storyteller first. It will almost be a decade upon release of this book. Much has been made in the science of hard work since then. Works like Angela Duckworth, K. Anders Ericsson, Carol Dweck etc. Some of which would have related to what Glad...

This seems heavy for a children's book, but it's a good story. It tells of  friendship, sacrifice and service. M aybe we should all strive to be like Charlotte. W hen the opportunity presents itself to take care of the Charlotte's in our lives, we should really take care them. The symbol that the web represent just might be that it is the product of the efforts of a person to make someone else's life better.

2 years after 2015. Back to the future’s timeline of 2015 has passed. It’s still pretty far from what it looked like in the movie.  There’s something about a very well written story that stands the test time. I could only now imagine how big these movies were back in the day they were released. It would have stimulated minds and created interest in science. Heck even literature might have had a push, especially Jules Verne. Suddenly I connected something, I remember being very young. The movie, The Martian was out. The doctor was the same in the Back to the future movies. Interesting. Your future is whatever you make it. So make it a good one. You can do anything if you put your mind into it. And I found this is where these lines came from. It’s amazing how messages permeate over time. And learning where they come from is like a solved puzzle.

It’s an uncomfortable look at what really happens. One that is often unexplored. From all the “look at the bright sides”, and all the “look at the silver linings” material produced nowadays, we often forget the duality of things. It’s not even philosophical. The reality is bad things happen. But you can listen and put yourself in a position to act appropriately when it does. The capacities of a human being can both be remarkable and terrifying. We are capable of making pancakes and nuclear bombs. In the book, Gavin de Becker discusses fear, intuition, prediction and survival signals among other things; violence by people, in the workplace, in relationships, in high stakes contexts etc. He also goes on to distinguish two emotions that seems to overlap; Fear and Worry. At one podcast, De Becker goes to say something along the lines of “it is a rare message to hear that in times of danger, what you need is already in you”. This he attributes to our Intuition. Intuition being the corn...

They were right.  If I thought, Adam Grant's book last year Originals was remarkable, his first book Give and Take, is even more impressive. The premise opens. On the bottom of performance charts for different industries, Givers are worse off. Surprisingly at the top, it's the Givers also. A chunk in the middle are the Takers and Matchers . In this book, Adam Grant looks in to what he calls reciprocity styles. On the two sides of the continuum, Givers and Takers. Takers get advantage in the short run, or in zero-sum contexts. Being a Giver takes time to see fruits of labor. But it is the most successful way. Takers show tells of being a Faker or acting like a Giver out of pure self-interest. Givers give more than they receive. Givers share credit Givers create a psychologically-safe environment when leading Givers see potential in others and acts upon that potential, whereas Matchers wait for signs that one has potential, before providing help Givers are less...

It is hard to understand and absorb. Let alone mentally process it, for an amateur like myself, with very little idea of the topic.  What I got is our current models of predicting and making sense of randomness needs an upgrade: We underestimate Black Swans. A Black Swan is an event with three properties. It is unpredictable, of very high consequence and can be rationalized afterwards. In the book, Taleb writes of two worlds: Mediocristan and Extremistan. One land of Averages and one of Extremes. Black Swans are produced in Extremistan. He goes on to argue the over-reliance on the Gaussian Bell Curve, which functions well on Mediocristan. However reality is much closer to Extremistan and more Mandelbrotian. Again, very hard to process, especially on the nitty gritty details of the topics. Some of the much easier to absorb texts. Taleb advises. "Be a fool in the right places. Avoid unnecessary dependence on large scale harmful predictions. Avoid the big subject...

"There is no cosmic rule that says that great suffering equals great reward, but we talk about love as if this is true." -Mandy Len Catron