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term="Greenland"/><category term="Guangzhou"/><category term="Helsinki"/><category term="Herzegovina-Neretva"/><category term="Huangpu"/><category term="Hue"/><category term="Hungary"/><category term="Incheon"/><category term="Indian"/><category term="Irazu"/><category term="Isherwood C."/><category term="Ishiguro K."/><category term="Jackson S."/><category term="Jakarta Selatan"/><category term="Jakarta Utara"/><category term="James H."/><category term="Jingan"/><category term="Joaquin N."/><category term="Joyce J."/><category term="Kaafu"/><category term="Kalibo"/><category term="Khan-uul"/><category term="Kien Giang"/><category term="Las Piñas"/><category term="Lippman L."/><category term="Luang Prabang"/><category term="Luxembourg"/><category term="Madrid"/><category term="Maldives"/><category term="Malta"/><category term="Mandalay"/><category term="Martel Y."/><category term="Maryland"/><category term="Mediacorp Vizpro"/><category term="Monaco"/><category term="Mostar"/><category term="Nam"/><category term="Nasugbu"/><category term="Neihu"/><category term="Nice"/><category term="North Macedonia"/><category term="Norway"/><category term="Nuremberg"/><category term="Nyaung-U"/><category term="Oslo"/><category term="Otago"/><category term="Paoay"/><category term="Penang"/><category term="Petaling Jaya"/><category term="Phahonyothin"/><category term="Phnom Penh"/><category term="Phu Quoc"/><category term="Phuket"/><category term="Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur"/><category term="Puerto Princesa"/><category term="Queenstown"/><category term="Recife"/><category term="Royal Caribbean"/><category term="Saipan"/><category term="Salamanca"/><category term="Samarkand"/><category term="Samarqand"/><category term="San Antonio"/><category term="San Jose"/><category term="Savannah"/><category term="Scenario"/><category term="Shakespeare W."/><category term="Sharjah"/><category term="Shilin"/><category term="Sindhupalchok"/><category term="Skopje"/><category term="Sliema"/><category term="Songpa-gu"/><category term="Sukhbaatar"/><category term="Swarup V."/><category term="Swift J."/><category term="Syjuco M."/><category term="Tacloban"/><category term="Tagbilaran"/><category term="Takeo"/><category term="Talisay"/><category term="Theater Mogul"/><category term="Thua Thien-Hue"/><category term="Umm al-Quwain"/><category term="Uusimaa"/><category term="Valletta"/><category term="Vang Vieng"/><category term="Venice"/><category term="Vienna"/><category term="Werfen"/><category term="Woolf V."/><category term="Xinyi"/><category term="Xochimilco"/><category term="Xuanwu"/><category term="Xuhui"/><category term="Yeongdoungpo-gu"/><category term="Yoder R."/><category term="Yongsan-gu"/><category term="Zagreb"/><category term="Zambales"/><category term="Zhongsheng"/><title type='text'>ihcahieh: Depressed | Demented | Deranged</title><subtitle type='html'>How do you vanquish the enemy when the enemy is yourself?</subtitle><link rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#feed' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/posts/default'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/'/><link rel='hub' href='http://pubsubhubbub.appspot.com/'/><link rel='next' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default?start-index=26&max-results=25'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><generator version='7.00' uri='http://www.blogger.com'>Blogger</generator><openSearch:totalResults>2586</openSearch:totalResults><openSearch:startIndex>1</openSearch:startIndex><openSearch:itemsPerPage>25</openSearch:itemsPerPage><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-1078205447980748941</id><published>2024-07-24T22:02:00.006+08:00</published><updated>2024-07-25T11:50:31.191+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Film"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Hollywood"/><title type='text'>Deadpool & Wolverine</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deadpool_%26_Wolverine" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHhDxI8LN9IKCfQnN_rdk5uq6GnAzKpj1bWp0YjKw_CfJyJlOvkdfk0I3QILS9OUeLb6HsM9iy6PfyOPaNe9Md3u9talGf_OA-coWxcXswkrz4UD-DjtsXkrrcY9jKKoawpXsWtLjM1-Ac7hVgURMgwHcR5gjSvOKICSwOizyhZJKxStEgqeSVyp_pVp_1/s1600/Deadpool_&amp;_Wolverine_poster.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Successful in his attempt to resurrect the people he loves through Cable’s time travel device, Wade Wilson (Ryan Reynolds) claims that he is now happy with his life even though he is shy to admit that he sometimes feels empty as though his existence had no meaning. His perspective drastically changes when he is abducted by TVA agents at the behest of Paradox (Matthew Macfadyen), a rogue agent supervising Earth-10006 and aiming to expedite its destruction through the use of an illegal Time Ripper that can euthanize entire timelines. Upon knowing that his timeline is dying soon because of the death of its anchor being, who happens to be Logan, Deadpool steals Paradox’s tempad to find a suitable Wolverine (Hugh Jackman) as a replacement, bringing him to one who is considered a loser in his own world. When things go awry back at the TVA, the duo gets pruned and sent to the Void where they come face to face with a tyrannical telekinetic maniac named Cassandra Nova (Emma Corrin).</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">I counted around 10 more cameos on top of the four already revealed in the trailer. Add another half a dozen or so for characters who only appear in photos and footage as well as those who couldn’t be verified whether they are still being played by their original actors. Around half of them should not really be referred to as cameo appearances for the mere reason that they all have a vital contribution to plot development. In short, this isn’t mere fan service. In this regard, Reynolds deserves some kudos for managing to convince at least one representative from each and every Marvel property previously held by Fox to reprise their roles.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">In terms of storyline, Deadpool &amp; Wolverine is basically just Wade Wilson’s own big screen rendition of Loki’s first season. This can pose some comprehension problems for those who are fans of the first two Deadpool movies but not the MCU as well as those who only watch the MCU’s feature films but not the Disney+ series. While there is a short introduction to the TVA and its purpose when the main antagonist, Paradox, is introduced, it feels too short and rushed for the pedestrian moviegoer to bother with the concept at all. Thing is, that’s the only thing connecting this movie to the greater MCU and nothing more.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">For every promising trust-me-bro article churned out by the online rumor mill hailing Deadpool &amp; Wolverine as some sort of bridge between the Marvel universes of Fox and Disney, there really isn’t anything in the finished product that is indicative of such a leap. In fact, when you think about it, there are no hints at all for such a connection to be made. The only scene with relevance to Earth-616 here is one of the first few set pieces where Wade Wilson is being interviewed in the Sacred Timeline to be an Avenger, the identity of the cameo we will not spoil for you. Presumably he got there using Cable’s time travel device. That’s about it.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Plot holes also abound. One of the extended cameos openly refers to Cassandra Nova as an omega-level mutant, and yet she doesn’t survive what Deadpool and Wolverine manage to do so together, with the only explanation being a one-liner saying that when a Deadpool and a Wolverine hold hands together while listening to Madonna, they are unstoppable. Perhaps it’s because of their regenerative capabilities? Yet again, another character touted to be so powerful gets the one-off villain treatment in the MCU. She isn’t the first and, considering Disney’s track record, she won’t be the last. It has simply become a recurring trend by now.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">As a Deadpool movie, Deadpool &amp; Wolverine works because the signature gore, comedy, and jaw-dropping fight choreography still deliver. That bloody opening fight sequence to the tune of Nsync's Bye Bye Bye will be replayed ad nauseam when this appears on Disney+, I swear. As a sendoff for Fox’s ex-Marvel properties, this film doesn’t quite reach the nostalgic and emotional heights accomplished by Spider-Man: No Way Home, despite the generous cameos to match. As a bridge to the MCU, this doesn’t really establish anything, to be honest. In the end, this is just an MCU-flavored Deadpool sequel operating within the multiversal norms set by Loki on Disney+. It’s fun, though, I’ll give it that. But Marvel Jesus? I beg to differ. But that’s Disney’s problem, not ours.</span></div></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/1078205447980748941/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/07/deadpool-wolverine.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/1078205447980748941'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/1078205447980748941'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/07/deadpool-wolverine.html' title='Deadpool & Wolverine'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHhDxI8LN9IKCfQnN_rdk5uq6GnAzKpj1bWp0YjKw_CfJyJlOvkdfk0I3QILS9OUeLb6HsM9iy6PfyOPaNe9Md3u9talGf_OA-coWxcXswkrz4UD-DjtsXkrrcY9jKKoawpXsWtLjM1-Ac7hVgURMgwHcR5gjSvOKICSwOizyhZJKxStEgqeSVyp_pVp_1/s72-c/Deadpool_&_Wolverine_poster.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-3158098563208326498</id><published>2024-07-14T22:20:00.007+08:00</published><updated>2024-07-23T21:30:32.545+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Atwood M."/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Canadian"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Literature"/><title type='text'>The Blind Assassin</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blind_Assassin" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho_0IchDuD0W48yqcSsYyqyYFjL5D4bU7lAXTVdBc2cvbA_mAYW6pDYZmF0KPmJ0DDmKPorixfBaqTjx5I6YwAjpgFrCHlmB8VXOlA18901S010t7XZHNxvR6ZWEw1FJNIbaE3A6kzhw8uVXGbXWOtkHfpHTq7tYrXr6chWIvSrOzZ87KYOXWgiTTPochx/s1600/Screenshot+2021-09-11+at+16.08.09.png" width="200" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">The posthumous publication of a scathing novel entitled The Blind Assassin shakes up the reputation of several residents of Fort Ticonderoga, the country hometown of author Laura Chase who drives a car off a bridge to her death. Even years later, the controversial content of her book still haunts the real-life figures it allegedly alludes to. One of them is her sister Iris Chase Griffen, wife of nouveau riche Richard E. Griffen, particularly concerned considering his political ambitions. Decades later as she nears her death, Iris begins to write her very own autobiography hoping that it would clarify things and reach her estranged granddaughter Sabrina, who has been used as a pawn together with her deceased daughter Aimee by her sister-in-law Winifred Griffen Prior, who blames her for the death of her brother and his political aspirations. As the old woman awaits her life’s end on her deathbed, she reveals some long-concealed family secrets.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">WILD! This is quite a long novel with over 500 pages but easily readable because each chapter is further subdivided into short subchapters alternating between the autobiography being written by Iris and the novel within the novel entitled The Blind Assassin published under the name of her dead sister Laura. The Blind Assassin is about two unnamed lovers who discuss the science fiction novel they are writing during coitus breaks in various shady locations. A novel in a novel in a novel. You soon get wind of the real-life parallelisms and it is that intrigue and ambiguity that keep you flipping through the pages until the truth is revealed.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">The plot unfolds in a non-linear fashion, which is effective for concealing some important info for a more dramatic reveal later on. Aside from the autobiography and the novel within the novel, you also get to read one-page clippings of fictional newspaper articles, mostly of the society page type, giving you some “news” about the characters at various stages of their lives. It somehow gives you the illusion as though they were real-life socialites who were always the talk of the town. That veneer of voyeurism and gossip adds a certain charm, a semblance of made-up fictional truth in the book’s universe.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Iris’ autobiography which serves as your anchor could have been more elaborate, but perhaps Atwood decided that it would’ve been too dragging had she fleshed out each and every character included in the family tree. Tracing the family’s story and lineage from her grandparents all the way down to her granddaughter, Iris manages to situate most of them having some memorable events in Canada’s history as the backdrop. In effect, this novel can be classified as historical fiction given how most of the events unfolding in the background&nbsp;</span><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">indeed&nbsp;</span><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">occurred in real life.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">The novel within the novel, The Blind Assassin, works as an effective plot device because of its ambiguity. Its meaning heavily depends on who is reading it, which means there are so many possible interpretations out there. For us as readers, it mainly serves as an intriguing hook to keep our attention as it keeps you guessing. While you have an idea in mind as to who the characters might be referring to, these speculations continuously evolve as more tidbits of new information are revealed. If you analyze the novel based on the points of view of the characters themselves, it is quick as a chameleon to adapt to new meanings.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">As for the novel within the novel within the novel, the sci-fi one being written with the planet Sakiel-Norn as its setting, it comes across more like a veiled critique of society through otherworldly science fiction. You have aliens in societies that function distinctly from ours yet echo the same societal norms and restrictions. This is perhaps the reason why I had a hard time deciphering its meaning, because I kept my interpretation exclusively to the protagonists. As to why Atwood decided to lift the title of the novel itself from there, I have no idea. It doesn’t really capture the novel’s premise and gives weird ideas as to what the storyline might be.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: white;">Overall, The Blind Assassin, and by this we mean the entire novel instead of the novel within the novel, is an enjoyable read thanks to the build-up of intrigue and the way Atwood wrote her characters. At the beginning, you really don’t have a clear judgment as to who is telling the truth, but the ambiguity justifies all that. The non-linear plot development allows for the evolution of your feelings toward the characters, often leading to understanding when it comes to their bad decisions in life. As such, the twist in the end packs a punch but deemed tolerable because the author has prepared you well enough for it. The gamble pays off.</span></span></div></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/3158098563208326498/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/07/the-blind-assassin.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/3158098563208326498'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/3158098563208326498'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/07/the-blind-assassin.html' title='The Blind Assassin'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEho_0IchDuD0W48yqcSsYyqyYFjL5D4bU7lAXTVdBc2cvbA_mAYW6pDYZmF0KPmJ0DDmKPorixfBaqTjx5I6YwAjpgFrCHlmB8VXOlA18901S010t7XZHNxvR6ZWEw1FJNIbaE3A6kzhw8uVXGbXWOtkHfpHTq7tYrXr6chWIvSrOzZ87KYOXWgiTTPochx/s72-c/Screenshot+2021-09-11+at+16.08.09.png" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-2800004567449636637</id><published>2024-07-13T22:14:00.002+08:00</published><updated>2024-07-22T23:41:44.548+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Joaquin N."/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Literature"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Philippine"/><title type='text'>The Woman Who Had Two Navels</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Woman_Who_Had_Two_Navels#:~:text=The%20Woman%20Who%20Had%20Two%20Navels%20is%20a%201961%20novel,the%20first%20Harry%20Stonehill%20Award." style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge0-oHaAslMZWVnYT_cJ6qJAbrtyUjZoe65dFw8IWYwCnb03xJJKCs2B6xVTs6vIKRWcjUicV56B6cSg8I0zPNRPJjzE7XPrsWtHfxC8GyRsUopX2Cg-vGV8kHpY0q48ixi5O9BVY3wR7iOCAlWkrbZcS3JfmU7b-8SJ1ozYGdGEkL3RTI-ncU4fN8eRtT/s1600/Screenshot_1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Brothers Pepe and Tony Monson grow up in Hong Kong despite being full-blooded Filipinos, the reason for which is their father’s exile brought about by his days of being a rebel in the Philippines during the second World War. Tony opts for a life of religious seclusion as a priest in a convent atop a hill while Pepe ends up being a veterinarian for horses. One day, Filipina socialite Connie Escobar knocks at their door and tells Pepe a cock-and-bull story of having been wed that day in Manila and flying off to Hong Kong to run away from her groom. She also has two navels, so she claims. Later that day, the bewildered doctor also gets a visit from Connie’s mother, Concha Vidal, yet another socialite who rebuts her daughter’s narration and says that she has been married for quite some time now and that her husband is also in Hong Kong looking for her.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Not going to lie, Nick Joaquin did write elegant prose, even though I thought I saw two grammar slips in there in the form of the wrong third person possessive, which seems to be common for Filipinos writing in English due to Tagalog pronouns not being gender-specific. Despite the trippy and free-flowing storyline, reading this novel just felt like a mandatory endeavor, which is strange because to some extent it technically is, as far as required readings in high school or university are concerned. The thing is, I wasn’t really forced by anyone to tackle Nick Joaquin. I read him of my own volition, yet it felt inexplicably compulsory.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">The reading experience was buoyed by the weird premise and the symbolisms it harbored. Reading several analyses later on, there are talks of legacy and heritage. I never fully understood what the two navels were for, metaphorically at least, even though I was entertaining the thought of it being a mark of struggle, perhaps internal, as if being dragged by two opposing forces. Life and death? Reputation and desire? Spanish and American colonialism, although this one feels a bit of a stretch? I don’t really know. The easiest explanation is simple paranoia or psychotic break, a justification for Connie Escobar’s weirdness.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Personally, it was the psychotic angle that really drew me in. There is one part towards the end of the novel where the settings just collapse on each other as if you were in an acid trip or a surreal dream, the kind that wakes you up in the middle of the night gasping for air. This effect is easily achieved in cinema via VFX, but hard to pull off in writing. You really need to be a gifted storyteller to whisk your reader away in a dream sequence this vivid. This might be a turn off for some because at some point it gets confusing and hard to follow. It is one hell of a ride, though, if you just let the author take you anywhere his imagination would permit.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Another thing I enjoyed was the setting, at least those set pieces bringing us back to the family history during the change of colonizing regimes: from Spanish to American; and then from American to Japanese. It is always interesting to hear tales from this specific period of Philippine history because you get a feel of the prevalent attitudes during those times of uncertainty. How did the elite fare? How was it for those lower down the societal hierarchy? How did they all survive and adjust to the new normal? In this regard, Joaquin really did a great job with his descriptions, particularly in capturing the zeitgeist through his characters.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">While there are chapters that hark back to a bygone era, the primary storyline unfolds in Hong Kong, which to some extent the descriptions of which I find a bit lacking. Or perhaps it was just a Hong Kong that I barely know, one of past prestige that is becoming more of a memory lately. It’s not as if Connie and friends would suddenly go to Ocean Park or Disneyland. Even then, it feels as though the choice of setting was purely dictated by plot convenience, considering how most exiles from that era were indeed exiled in HK. It’s just that, it failed to become its own character, easily replaceable by any other city and nobody would even notice.</span></div></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/2800004567449636637/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/07/the-woman-who-had-two-navels.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/2800004567449636637'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/2800004567449636637'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/07/the-woman-who-had-two-navels.html' title='The Woman Who Had Two Navels'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEge0-oHaAslMZWVnYT_cJ6qJAbrtyUjZoe65dFw8IWYwCnb03xJJKCs2B6xVTs6vIKRWcjUicV56B6cSg8I0zPNRPJjzE7XPrsWtHfxC8GyRsUopX2Cg-vGV8kHpY0q48ixi5O9BVY3wR7iOCAlWkrbZcS3JfmU7b-8SJ1ozYGdGEkL3RTI-ncU4fN8eRtT/s72-c/Screenshot_1.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-628112429726791658</id><published>2024-07-07T10:17:00.005+08:00</published><updated>2024-07-07T22:18:16.046+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="American"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Lippman L."/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Literature"/><title type='text'>Lady in the Lake</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lady_in_the_Lake_(novel)" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzzc4NNZRtMARExv7zUjDr1DWkNqSossGbZKt8XNsy1E7Q5EBObZNCTvv-g-AHwvzgYRa7EVT7zzpA9W7I_N0fnrJo6o8EvqU32aauKleul3pKJ-oG5gJHp3Q0Wtwb32Toglx3gXr2wRqoJA5hDMW4OMYEVJ_9Lk5xM1B4wHczhFfKdYaqw-lWOiDvaREE/s1600/91WYkEQYLgL._SL1500_.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Baltimore, 1966. Housewife extraordinaire Maddie Schwartz has been married to her husband Milton for almost two decades now, believing she is perfectly happy with her life raising their teenage son Seth. When Milton takes home an ex-fling of hers from high school to dinner at their house, it sparks an epiphany within her as to how unhappy her life has been. She moves out of the house and they file for divorce. She then finds a small room in a shady neighborhood and fakes a house robbery to get insurance money, which she uses to move to yet another shady neighborhood. She meets policeman Ferdie in the process and he becomes her habitual lover. But what Maddie really desires is a career in journalism. Armed with wit and a dream, she shoehorns herself into a low-paying job at the local paper. Not taken seriously by everyone, she gets a big break when she finds not one but two murdered bodies, one of them getting the moniker Lady in the Lake.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">The novel begins with a chapter all in italics narrated by Cleo Sherwood talking to you, the reader, and addressing you as Maddie Schwartz. Cute. The second person POV is rarely used in literature. Nonetheless all of this gets weird rather quickly because Cleo is the Lady in the Lake being alluded to in the title. If she is dead, shouldn’t she be enjoying the afterlife instead of sitting down with you to serve some hot tea about this Maddie Schwartz journalist wannabe? The chapters then alternate between Maddie Schwartz’s own story, narrated in third person, and firsthand anecdotes from people who meet her along the way.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">That is one of the good things about this novel, the diversity of perspectives. Almost every person Maddie interacts with in her own chapters gets his or her own, usually right after their introduction, and provides you with a first person narration of their impression about the protagonist. In short, it is not just Cleo’s ghost who gets to pick her apart. Almost every character in this novel does! Vis-a-vis Maddie’s own chapters that she doesn’t narrate on her own, it feels as though we never get to truly hear her own voice here, which is strange but somehow works. This also leads to wild guesses early on that maybe she is just an alter ego of Cleo.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">That is also the reason why your mind goes into speculation mode as you flip through the pages. The parallelisms between the lives of those two women are just too coincidental to brush off. Is this some sort of weird character projection thingy through an unreliable narrator? Is there going to be some switcheroo in the end, like, Maddie is really the Lady in the Lake and Cleo is the journalist? That is just one of several scenarios that kept playing inside my head while reading. While the ending veers toward a different path, the twist still caught me by surprise, even though I had an inkling that the storyline would go that way anyway.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">As for socially relevant themes, the setting is in 60’s Baltimore. My only idea of that era is via the musical Hairspray, so I believe that was briefed enough as far as racial dynamics are concerned before reading this novel. Perhaps more appreciation can be had if you have been to the city even once. Just knowing the places they frequently refer to in this novel helps the city have a life of its own as if it were its own character. There are also a lot of references to Jewish customs and traditions given the religion of Maddie and her family.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">The book is exciting alright, even though I was waiting for an even bigger twist. There are some loose ends here and there and it seems as though our heroine is always lucky with her exploits, taking advantage of the full plot armor the author serves her on a silver platter. In any case, the novel will have its own TV adaptation in the coming weeks care of AppleTV with Natalie Portman as Maddie Schwartz. The trailer is bonkers and it looks like Natalie is back in her Black Swan era. Now I am wondering how the POV galore prevalent in the novel will translate to the screen. To be honest, that is really one of this book’s many charms.</span></div></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/628112429726791658/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/07/lady-in-lake.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/628112429726791658'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/628112429726791658'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/07/lady-in-lake.html' title='Lady in the Lake'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzzc4NNZRtMARExv7zUjDr1DWkNqSossGbZKt8XNsy1E7Q5EBObZNCTvv-g-AHwvzgYRa7EVT7zzpA9W7I_N0fnrJo6o8EvqU32aauKleul3pKJ-oG5gJHp3Q0Wtwb32Toglx3gXr2wRqoJA5hDMW4OMYEVJ_9Lk5xM1B4wHczhFfKdYaqw-lWOiDvaREE/s72-c/91WYkEQYLgL._SL1500_.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-3868293392281019521</id><published>2024-07-01T20:26:00.022+08:00</published><updated>2024-07-01T21:12:20.694+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="American"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Fitzgerald F.S."/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Literature"/><title type='text'>The Great Gatsby</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Gatsby" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzFp1MUAOClgEcat9lyjPlQrl2hDqiV1-t6Yv8XzL4rF06Zv3X7cXfO3QJ_mQvDqGLHUtQ98y7ec3Ilqk0DxdpCvQcmb3g_YmZyZx_V-HI9TWJqiyfFVC3DdAZ1C9TJlF29X5plyid8NDPhPxxfeBbptecQVEi1RQvfF8d2rcXesHE7EvdgTWAsqU2u7JV/s1600/x400.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">World War veteran Nick Carraway segues into the sale of bonds to make a living and ends up settling at New York’s West Egg neighborhood, where he finds himself residing in a house right next to a mysterious millionaire’s estate. The owner, a certain Jay Gatsby, throws lavish parties all year round and Nick bears witness to the plethora of cars and guests who come for such occasions. One of such guests is Jordan Baker, an amateur golfer who flirts back and forth with Nick. Their first meeting happens at Gatsby’s residence, after he is finally invited by his neighbor, apparently as a ploy to use him as a bridge to his second cousin Daisy, a socialite flapper married to white supremacist Tom Buchanan who has a mistress of his own. Party after party, secrets begin to surface as well as hidden relationships that will definitely cause chaos and scandal should they be revealed.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">I don’t recall having ever read this novel in high school English class. Even after the 2013 film that birthed one of Leonardo DiCaprio’s two popular raise-a-toast memes, I just knew that there was a novel and a movie, but I never really bothered to read or watch. Besides, why should I care about gazillionaires from 100 years ago? Aren’t we inundated enough with the shenanigans of gazillionaires of today from a much closer temporal distance? I never found an answer to this question, but I did enjoy The Great Gatsby. It’s a short 140-page read and the promise of revelation of Gatsby’s shady backstory was enough to keep me interested.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">I never once bought that “old sport” pet phrase of his, which he repeats ad nauseam that it turns into a cringefest after the third or fourth repetition. There is something fake about this Gatsby guy, and the author is generous enough with his insinuations to lead you to such an assumption. It is effective, I should say, because it gives you a revelation down the line that you can look forward to. The whole bootlegging business makes a lot of sense, considering the prohibition in place back in those days. However, I was really expecting something darker and more mafia-ish. I was also yearning for more murder and deceit as a counterbalance for all the glitz and the glamor.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">The murder, we do get, as we race toward the ending. The deceit, well, there is plenty of that to go around, sprinkled all over the plot. If anything, this novel just feels too short and abrupt. I would’ve wanted more backstory and scandal for an even more enjoyable reading experience. As for the Roaring '20s, it was indeed a different time, huh? Nevertheless, the blatant display of decadence is not really exclusive to that era. What makes it thought-provoking is the knowledge, in hindsight, that the Great Depression was just lurking around the corner. Perhaps they were all just taking advantage of the good days knowing difficult times were ahead?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Whatever themes this novel is trying to tackle, what stared me in the face and left an impression was that of class dynamics. Gatsby is filthy rich alright, but he is considered as nouveau riche. He doesn’t have the pedigree, the name, the status. He is just moneyed, but no matter how many parties he hosts, he will never belong in that exclusive circle. Of course, for most of us who will remain middle class for the rest of our lives, this is all moot. Even then, it’s interesting to see how even among the elite, there are still cliques and hierarchies. What a complicated society we all live in, no?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">In any case, I might have to watch the 2013 film now. A musical is also currently onstage on Broadway, so perhaps the real reason I decided to read this novel is to set expectations for that theatrical reimagining. I’ve seen the trailer and it looks legit. It is rather unfortunate that Fitzgerald died thinking this novel of his was a flop which, in the beginning, it was. I wonder how he would react if he were alive now and see the many renditions of his original work in various mediums. Suffice it to say, The Great Gatsby has had the luck of ending up as a great American literary classic, a peek at a bygone era that we can relive through its author’s vivid narration.</span></div></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/3868293392281019521/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/07/the-great-gatsby.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/3868293392281019521'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/3868293392281019521'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/07/the-great-gatsby.html' title='The Great Gatsby'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzFp1MUAOClgEcat9lyjPlQrl2hDqiV1-t6Yv8XzL4rF06Zv3X7cXfO3QJ_mQvDqGLHUtQ98y7ec3Ilqk0DxdpCvQcmb3g_YmZyZx_V-HI9TWJqiyfFVC3DdAZ1C9TJlF29X5plyid8NDPhPxxfeBbptecQVEi1RQvfF8d2rcXesHE7EvdgTWAsqU2u7JV/s72-c/x400.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-6278858692856499835</id><published>2024-06-29T21:07:00.018+08:00</published><updated>2024-07-02T22:58:26.384+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Tanghalang Pilipino"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Theater"/><title type='text'>VIRGIN LABFEST 19: Set B - Bingit</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://culturalcenter.gov.ph/press-release/vlf-19-pintog-plows-on-to-bear-fruits-of-human-stories-and-experiences/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg6UOU1wRX3okbgcfbm57N8UQ052ETaHxsJRZYQJKrOGeofGUVW2fWpZ1mhYvNYE9TLAHg99nB-Uwfc84q8cqjJx5z-JHLkwvfyM0WE34WRz8vaMJl2hDQJlazM3xyJ95weJs_NQNkeGAn4Y96W8l_22npxv2iCbXWJzvHbDqxNW72FNHW1jMEJIvcuojZ/s1600/VLF-19-PINTOG_A3-Poster-scaled.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">SENTENARYO - Lolo Dencio (Ekis Gimenez) has reached a milestone in life as he celebrates his 100th birthday. His mistress-turned-wife Tonette (Gold Soon) welcomes his eldest grandson Joel (Chunchi Cabasaan) and eldest daughter Carmen (Madeleine Nicolas) for a mini celebration. All of them have a hidden agenda, though, being fully aware of a new law providing a 100,000-peso cash incentive to new centenarians. As they quarrel over who should be getting a bigger share of the money, they almost fail to notice that the old man has seemingly passed away in his sleep, putting the cash they are wildly anticipating in jeopardy.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Slapstick is the best term to describe SENTENARYO, from the sound effects to the physical comedy involved, all that was missing was a laugh track. The interesting thing is how it actually came across as funny watching it live. Perhaps it has something to do with the communal reaction in the theater, although those actors deserve a big kudos for pulling this off which, I believe, was a big gamble considering how this style of comedy has been more or less passé for quite some time now. I enjoyed it, and based on the audience reaction I’m sure they did, too. Let’s see if it makes it to the Revisited set next year.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">THE DIVINE FAMILY - Amidst the nationwide Enhanced Community Quarantine of 2020, three siblings are forced to cohabitate at their deceased grandmother’s home. Proudly gay Renzo (Alden Co) has been a resident of the house for quite a while. Youngest brother Caloy (AJ Castro) is reluctant to come back but is left without a choice, setting up his remote office in the living room. Only sister Emily (Via Antonio) claims to be fresh out of the convent and won’t stop spewing out bible quotes. To their surprise, their estranged mother Tess (Meliza Reyes) shows up unannounced with a very pregnant belly and due to give birth any day now.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvHdqXXWjUePNI_T9_P1ZRGANvo6uuq52JLvLCN7Bh8-VFQCUWBMpOre85KwRz0uHAR739IXV80VNPoQfl4u6IpDZA7nPtEGzarKJe_w7Zwbu2ZnVf_p6HUpKZPFkxFdQqVEqi0LydO78DqHvWYTeclmvmKs2AHT0kHH25c2Jhikcbl-Xv1281bO2-ttbE/w158-h200/1.png" /><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhE4zc4Unl-P76P1WPIYmQGtfKrrHhX7LEn4ysrpJEjy6gk_QlSrzUNPaKfxR0I9Mifb-ARup7bPhVHmME6X3hYvROwCQIjG0L__qzQZvUnKMBOYJ7-0NW5N-_X4gzhz74AKTAvY43zzhWOWvk5IlWowbNTbuQvg6zTJDyrf3kaVgCH6DzsOZ2IXpnUy7fH/w160-h200/3.png" /><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjZBD0eTiix3iv9PlooyMbuOaCl6iOObHje3BQXZdeIxRtXUR22Ra9rPOR9sJSFESAYhhzClFIdDrVa9dNZAJIttC9Eid_kJDd6KnNYjUyylrFWbwAIWPqKzg37RQruSJQYX01Wehba37VJIgSmO3E1QgD1dC3WDEUezQ6PKfXKyt8ip79OhmAj3rodF4io/w160-h200/2.png" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">If Sentenaryo relied heavily on physical comedy, THE DIVINE FAMILY was the perfect counterbalance as it offers a style of comedy that is more absurdist and deadpan. In this play, you will laugh at and with the characters as you admire their witty dialogues. In a span of less than an hour, you feel like you already know them so well thanks to good writing. The sudden plot twists end up being just the icing on top of the cake. I wouldn’t be surprised if either this or Sentenaryo ended up as the obligatory comedy in next year’s Revisited list, even though they will surely face stiff competition from Set D’s Sa Babaeng Lahat.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">IDENTITÉ - Conservative widow Luz (Kitsi Pagaspas) travels to Manila to pay her daughter Regina (Ash Nicanor) a visit. The young lady has been living on her own at the capital after finishing school. She has always been lauded as a brainy student and is well-regarded in their province. And so is her mother’s shock when she discovers a dildo under her daughter’s sheets, with a lot more of them emerging as they wrestle over a box that she is so unwilling to show her. As emotions begin to abate, mother and daughter sit down for a heart-to-heart talk about sexuality as well as the generation gap that is pulling them apart.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: white;">Dildos onstage. A box full of them. Where else will we see such an unabashed theater spectacle? While IDENTITÉ has chosen the rather controversial hook of sexuality, in this case female masturbation, the narrative simply boils down to inter-generational dialogue. My generation finds this or that this or that; your generation should, too. And then you go your separate ways and unfriend each other on Facebook. This play flaunts that ending at us but decides that mother and daughter should instead try to comprehend where each one is coming from. And that’s the beauty of this play. Dialogue. Understanding. Suggesting a compromise most of us are unwilling to make.</span></span></div></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/6278858692856499835/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/virgin-labfest-19-set-b-bingit.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/6278858692856499835'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/6278858692856499835'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/virgin-labfest-19-set-b-bingit.html' title='VIRGIN LABFEST 19: Set B - Bingit'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg6UOU1wRX3okbgcfbm57N8UQ052ETaHxsJRZYQJKrOGeofGUVW2fWpZ1mhYvNYE9TLAHg99nB-Uwfc84q8cqjJx5z-JHLkwvfyM0WE34WRz8vaMJl2hDQJlazM3xyJ95weJs_NQNkeGAn4Y96W8l_22npxv2iCbXWJzvHbDqxNW72FNHW1jMEJIvcuojZ/s72-c/VLF-19-PINTOG_A3-Poster-scaled.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-7735157264914939861</id><published>2024-06-28T21:06:00.018+08:00</published><updated>2024-07-02T23:25:11.609+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Tanghalang Pilipino"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Theater"/><title type='text'>VIRGIN LABFEST 19: Set A - Dilema</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://culturalcenter.gov.ph/press-release/vlf-19-pintog-plows-on-to-bear-fruits-of-human-stories-and-experiences/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg6UOU1wRX3okbgcfbm57N8UQ052ETaHxsJRZYQJKrOGeofGUVW2fWpZ1mhYvNYE9TLAHg99nB-Uwfc84q8cqjJx5z-JHLkwvfyM0WE34WRz8vaMJl2hDQJlazM3xyJ95weJs_NQNkeGAn4Y96W8l_22npxv2iCbXWJzvHbDqxNW72FNHW1jMEJIvcuojZ/s1600/VLF-19-PINTOG_A3-Poster-scaled.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">VENGEANCE OF THE GODS - Ifan (Jel Tarun) is a lawyer on a mission to convince a superstitious old man to testify against the owner of the company he is working for that is guilty for polluting the town’s sources of water. Despite his child being one of the victims and almost succumbing to death, Manong Odie (Jonathan Tadioan) won’t hear any of it because aside from the belief that what happened to his kid was a case of paranormal possession, he also doesn’t want to bite the hands that feed him. What follows is a long discussion of what really happened, seen from both the perspective of science and religion.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">The philosophical entry. One of these always ends up at the Virgin Labfest and this is where your ears have to work overtime because the essence of the narrative is all in the dialogue. While overtly religious and superstitious people annoy the heck out of me, somehow I am getting closer to a conclusion that despite the advances in knowledge made available to society as it progresses, there will always be those who will choose to rely on faith as a way of coping with life. Perhaps nothing is wrong with that, until it overlaps with a non-believer’s beliefs that are grounded on law and science. This play had me thinking profoundly. Amen.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">NINGAS - A Fireman (Ross Pesigan) in a late night shift is visited by a distraught Middle-Aged Lady (Ge Malacaman) who claims to be in need of emergency assistance. After putting his gear on, he is disappointed by the revelation that her emergency is not what he expected it to be. She claims to be his daughter. Correction, POTENTIAL daughter. All he has to do to make her come to life and make her real is to give her a name, before it is too late. He reminisces and recalls that one time when a man who claimed to be his potential son also paid him a visit once, and denied him of the name he was begging him for.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1xQhTrs5KFzFUdzpz-uDSw_z6GEkMw-r2imILBJfsTHqdX9p-pdALBMDcyPayB2lFvdWVnSbfBiPeoYBHezm9d8yYynmVTkcYlwoYmMslhsJQb_33Xa2zia6LBBvKbO86LFslH-iyj7CthjcZeBhOZHXjrEsxWsslD58o2DNxTzlMWPRg1MLdYcEg1Wb3/w159-h200/1.png" /><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi1673_Set75sTOqGokqAa8uTxV1LdQb5R9gavaW8zONZZxMo25VWQW-alxG1b4ayxhMm65tSdwF-m73IljmyahbT_th3tVqAQV4kbIk4kV14yf-S-MEXobvWvx5XJ-B_GifNVhDddfOnHQzgN7KviabUGj608wGffKWbyL5FJvNoVUfIXQNP3fqcD5vRHa/w161-h200/3.png" /><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMgDDNqxE0nUYb4XFcxYZOJGOoEEZju31liZIpwF3gaSogxsjfirpT1LAd2aOHymEebhYT6izsS3z5cSwi6N_xwTUGyuiIdF2GNYgnfH4t2WWkKsUBpOy0cRopJFn_cd0W6tEbZ2QsOpKGeWERMtrdEOkXqHJ45R43ll8DKmTPVwg-n5MD1AopFPIEwwgW/w158-h200/2.png" /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">And then we have the weird and the whimsical. I don’t believe anyone in that theater was fully sold on the gimmick of a guy in his late 20’s being visited by a 50-something-year-old woman claiming to be his potential daughter if only he would give her a name that would bring her to life. Despite the absurdity of the premise, the nice thing about NINGAS is how the emotions, whatever it was that the playwright was intending to evoke from the audience, were defo elicited. There were even some people wiping their eyes as we reached the curtain call. There is just something so touching and poignant about this play that I simply cannot place.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">LOVE ON THE BRAIN - After Ryan (Shaun Ocrisma) and Jake (Esteban Fulay Jr.) break up, the former finds a relationship too good to be true with Mike (Rap Robes), a drop dead gorgeous Tiktokerist whom he determines to be “The One”. And so when Jake calls and informs him that they are both HIV-positive, Ryan’s fairytale life comes crashing down as Mike does not take the bad news well and decides to walk out on him. He turns to Jake for support and the two end up discussing the ups and down of dating and sex life when you are HIV-positive, regardless whether you are undetectable or not.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">HIV awareness campaign. Despite the downward trend of HIV infections worldwide, it remains an epidemic in the Philippines with an uptick of new cases averaging at 55 new diagnoses A DAY. The problem is not logistic or physiological in nature. After all, the country is well-equipped to curb the spread of this virus. The issue is psychological, the stigma and attitude toward it that no amount of vaccines and post-exposure prophylaxis can fix. While not as detailed as PETA’s Under My Skin which doubled as an HIV awareness seminar, LOVE ON THE BRAIN focuses more on the personal side of sex, relationships, and its complications for carriers of the virus.</span></div></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/7735157264914939861/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/virgin-labfest-19-set-dilema.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/7735157264914939861'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/7735157264914939861'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/virgin-labfest-19-set-dilema.html' title='VIRGIN LABFEST 19: Set A - Dilema'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg6UOU1wRX3okbgcfbm57N8UQ052ETaHxsJRZYQJKrOGeofGUVW2fWpZ1mhYvNYE9TLAHg99nB-Uwfc84q8cqjJx5z-JHLkwvfyM0WE34WRz8vaMJl2hDQJlazM3xyJ95weJs_NQNkeGAn4Y96W8l_22npxv2iCbXWJzvHbDqxNW72FNHW1jMEJIvcuojZ/s72-c/VLF-19-PINTOG_A3-Poster-scaled.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-3567015146483581088</id><published>2024-06-27T21:27:00.013+08:00</published><updated>2024-06-27T21:56:34.131+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Irish"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Joyce J."/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Literature"/><title type='text'>Dubliners</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dubliners" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="315" data-original-width="204" height="315" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcWRs3j4Z84aRY_KisQ3ZAPta8569BdSFxK5LaFGRUsZI-sGVxrcneeQYvsvn94C4fPlb8uOWqaTWeBAILgfPwnxD-3nGoEUJSmhLXxso0_sL6CSMdhyR6HbZ-7Dll16tjhfXO7Sh7c6uRS7HEUwbn3WGSaXUljaA3_s1MuwJKG5GqWf2vNbRZI4qHKX8g/s1600/91eo9Gi0Y2L._SL1500_.jpg" width="204" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">A recently deceased priest’s indiscretion is discussed by people at his wake. Two boys skipping classes meet a middle-aged man who teaches them a thing or two about life. A staunch supporter of the Irish Revival gets her daughter involved as an accompanist at a badly-planned concert. An alcoholic falls down the stairs at a bar in drunken stupor; his family suggests a religious retreat. A failed writer gets a visit from his friend who has succeeded in the field in London. A young woman contemplates on what life would be if she ran away with a sailor. These are some of the many stories found in James Joyce’s Dubliners, which has been hailed as a milestone in Irish literary history at a time when the country was in the midst of a fierce quest for a distinct identity stoked by nationalism.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Dubliners is a collection of fifteen short stories that its author collated and eventually published as a novel after being rejected by fifteen publishers. Now I feel conflicted because I did not like this novel at all. I don’t even know if we should call it that. The only unifying theme of the fifteen stories is their setting in Ireland in the early 1900’s. No shit, Sherlock. As if the title can’t be any clearer about that? Regarded this way, I guess the appeal of this book is its slice of life style of narration. The stories somehow serve as a time capsule of daily life in Dublin at the turn of the 20th century which is said to be a crucial time in the country’s history.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">I can’t even remember the characters that much, perhaps because there are too many of them. What remains in my head are disjointed storylines and some hazy recollection of the characters. Please don’t ask me their names, because I won’t be able to give you any. In a way, such style of a novella compilation is similar to that of Goodbye to Berlin, with both storylines unfolding at an important part of a capital city’s history. You can detect some of the important political events unfolding in the background.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">The length of each short story varies a great deal, with the last one entitled The Dead being the longest. That chapter also seems to be the only one that remained in my head in a clear way, along with the first one entitled The Sisters which dealt with the dead priest. Perhaps what I was looking for but didn’t find was at least some loose connections among the characters or an all-encompassing story arc that involves all of them, except that there doesn’t seem to be any aside from the time and place where their stories unfold. Sometimes it is hard to care about characters when there is no bigger picture or event uniting them.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: white;">One thing I find fascinating but rather distracting is the author’s use of dashes instead of quotation marks for dialogues. It just feels wrong to see the direct quotes blending not quite smoothly with their respective tags. In any case you just get used to it quickly. Despite the flurry of disjointed narratives, maybe there is still something here for everyone since the storylines are diverse anyway. There are subplots about failed dreams, married life, the-one-that-got-away romance, political leanings, and many more.</span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><span style="color: black;"><br /></span></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">There are some characters who end up reappearing in some other chapters but, as mentioned, they really don’t have anything connecting them aside from the temporal and physical space that they happen to occupy. Was there no important socio-political event or upheaval that time that could have served as an anchor for all of the characters to feel some sort of connection with each other? A revolution? A war? I am becoming repetitive now. Basically that is my problem with this novel. To put it bluntly, it bored me to death..</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/3567015146483581088/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/dubliners.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/3567015146483581088'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/3567015146483581088'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/dubliners.html' title='Dubliners'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgcWRs3j4Z84aRY_KisQ3ZAPta8569BdSFxK5LaFGRUsZI-sGVxrcneeQYvsvn94C4fPlb8uOWqaTWeBAILgfPwnxD-3nGoEUJSmhLXxso0_sL6CSMdhyR6HbZ-7Dll16tjhfXO7Sh7c6uRS7HEUwbn3WGSaXUljaA3_s1MuwJKG5GqWf2vNbRZI4qHKX8g/s72-c/91eo9Gi0Y2L._SL1500_.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-3519475736855395428</id><published>2024-06-26T22:50:00.011+08:00</published><updated>2024-07-07T10:31:42.840+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Film"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Hollywood"/><title type='text'>A Quiet Place: Day One</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Quiet_Place:_Day_One" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbQw9fnFg4mf_WcCiCuNryKZxeFK5jfVQqjS8mSFM3Mjb2Q3Ui70KPJH3LGbw5H8bb94FCyqaxG0JNJqUZFTvVTA0M-LxHIF5yfAjSxkX2v-4C_gUUCY5hJPlHzUJLKON7GBmVCM3_cYkXurlY3gBjEMoZWD1OcCVSCUl5JgpLTkkxJsvZ_2wQJBouQi7u/s1600/A_Quiet_Place_Day_One_(2024)_poster.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Samira (Lupita Nyong’o), a poet, is dying of cancer. She chooses to deal with the challenges of her condition through wit and sarcasm, keeping a notebook handy to record her thoughts. Reuben (Alex Wolff), a care worker at the hospice, takes the patients on a trip to the city to watch a marionette show, which Samira reluctantly agrees to in exchange for a promise of pizza. The promise is no longer fulfilled as they all find themselves amidst an alien invasion, with dead bodies piling up everywhere. The extraterrestrials are very sensitive to sound, and so silence is key to survival. They shelter along with other survivors at the theater. When helicopters announce that people are being evacuated to the islands, everybody heads to the port but many are fatally ambushed along the way. Samira runs into a distressed Eric (Joseph Quinn), a British law student suffering from severe anxiety attacks. Will they survive?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">A Quiet Place: Day One is a First Contact narrative. If we are to believe what Hollywood says about blood-thirsty aliens that spell extinction for us, then all we can ever do is run. We don’t ask the alien questions, because we’re most likely not getting an answer. In this regard, this film makes logical sense. The problem is, this is already the third film in this franchise. My thicc ass has been running since the first film came out in 2018, brah. We can’t just run forever. We need answers. Why are the aliens here? Are they on vacation? Will they be voting for Biden or Trump in November? We don’t know because they don't tell us. Perhaps, they never will.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">And maybe that’s just the double-edged sword that John Krasinski ended up with as far as this franchise is concerned. There is no stopping him from churning out a new film or television series every year. Despite the human massacre happening in this universe, there are a lot of survivors whose stories can be told. And that’s the issue. The perspective is always that of the survivors. Unless one of the aliens gets chummy with Emily Blunt in movie number three and serves her a scalding pot of hot tea as to why dem aliens are here, we would never know. Because that’s simply the limit of this franchise’s storytelling device.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">And that leads us to the next question because there are rumors that a third film will eventually get made. Can they bring anything new to the table? Because despite the jump scares and the exhilarating twists and turns of every film, people will eventually get tired of the gimmick and start asking questions. Perhaps they can introduce a scientist character with a dead alien cadaver in his lab somewhere so they can bring the storyline farther? Unfortunately, this isn’t something that this prequel accomplishes. It is a prequel after all, arguably just an alternate extended version of the upstate New York flashback scene in movie number two.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">As for performances, Nyong’o and Quinn deliver the goods. Heck, even Frodo the Cat should get separate billing for being so good. Considering the circumstances, dialogue is not that reliable a storytelling device in this film, which means the actors involved must rely on non-verbal acting, mostly through the eyes, which both actors are really good at. Other than that, all they have to do is run and look terrified all the time, which probably looks easy but perhaps not quite, given how those aliens were probably just sticks with dots on them. Strong performance, check!</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">It looks like all necessary points have already been made. Anyway, Djimon Hounsou is also here, and it is more than just a cameo. We last saw him, or since this is a prequel we will next see him, as the leader of the island of survivors where one of the kids in Parts 1 and 2 end up. His character dies there, so seeing him here is a bit anticlimactic because we already know what will happen to him anyway. I’m also guessing that there must be Easter eggs presented here, like some characters and items in the first two films. Let’s leave that to the internet pundits for now.</span></div></div><div><br /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><iframe allowfullscreen="" class="BLOG_video_class" height="266" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/YPY7J-flzE8" width="320" youtube-src-id="YPY7J-flzE8"></iframe></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/3519475736855395428/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/a-quiet-place-day-one.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/3519475736855395428'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/3519475736855395428'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/a-quiet-place-day-one.html' title='A Quiet Place: Day One'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhbQw9fnFg4mf_WcCiCuNryKZxeFK5jfVQqjS8mSFM3Mjb2Q3Ui70KPJH3LGbw5H8bb94FCyqaxG0JNJqUZFTvVTA0M-LxHIF5yfAjSxkX2v-4C_gUUCY5hJPlHzUJLKON7GBmVCM3_cYkXurlY3gBjEMoZWD1OcCVSCUl5JgpLTkkxJsvZ_2wQJBouQi7u/s72-c/A_Quiet_Place_Day_One_(2024)_poster.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-2008018389407835043</id><published>2024-06-23T20:51:00.000+08:00</published><updated>2024-06-26T20:00:47.065+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="American"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Flynn G."/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Literature"/><title type='text'>Gone Girl</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gone_Girl_(novel)" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyv_mAclwj2NnWMIuoeWk7V8b4tJAUiHOm8NIZOM2RGg5f9x2E_kcTV0azg5iOWye1s1W_6Uy2rrfyji0TzToO4Ob6zTOmIKMhZ6pLDNcIkwJaOH3Pnz7MetLoYmogX1teg8u-XEbHYDbacmzCMP9Pqca6kAnZhixsSmgK_YwaXk1ycS8RBVbetTg-JGJi/s1600/Gone_Girl_(Flynn_novel).jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Nick and Amy Dunne are both laid off from their jobs in New York City and are forced to move back to his hometown in Missouri where they trade their fast-paced life in the Big Apple for a slower flow of existence in the Midwest. Nick’s mom is sick with cancer and his dad is always causing trouble at the care home. To make matters worse, Amy’s parents are forced by circumstance to borrow from the trust fund they have given their daughter, which happens to be the couple’s last money. Coming back home one day from the bar he is managing with his twin sister Margo, Nick finds his front door wide open and his living room in disarray. Amy is missing, and the angle the police are exploring is that of kidnapping. However, as more evidence and testimonies come to fore, Nick slowly figures as the main suspect in what could be his wife’s murder.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Yet another one of those narratives that I experienced onscreen first instead of on print. How can you enjoy a novel if you already know the big twist? Surprise, I still did! I guess that’s just testament to good writing. The novel unfolds in three acts, with act two revealing the big twist earlier than expected. The chapters are arranged in a sequence alternating between Nick’s day-to-day narration after his wife’s disappearance and Amy’s diary entries talking about their love story. I suppose a worthy experiment would be to read just Nick’s chapters first and then all of Amy’s afterwards or vice-versa, although I believe chronological is still the best way to go.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Since both husband and wife have a say in what is going on and their narrations begin diverging halfway through, one of them is obviously lying and qualifies as an unreliable narrator. In the end, both of them end up being so, but that ambiguity is maximized to its full potential by the author. It is a he-said/she-said scenario, which is perhaps the best way to present an anti-love story. What you witness is the deconstruction of a relationship that has too many fvcked up aspects that make this wannabe murder mystery all the more enjoyable to read. It also proves that being a psychopath knows no gender.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">It’s also nice to see the characters more fleshed out. Many of them are introduced as these spotless balls of goodness and perfection, but almost all of them are revealed to have some dirty secret, which is how it is supposed to be. Nobody is perfect after all. This is helpful in throwing more red herrings your way because there are more people to suspect as you are embroiled in the ongoing police investigation. Did Nick really murder his wife? If it wasn’t he then who? Was she really murdered anyway? Where’s the body? Who has a legit motive? If you enjoy such storylines, then there is no reason for you not to enjoy this one.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">As for critique of society, Gone Girl makes it a point to highlight the role that media plays in police cases that are good for consumption as far as TV ratings are concerned. Nowadays, of course that includes social media. Is there a more powerful court than that of public opinion? While used to a somehow exaggerated sense, this novel makes a good point in showing us how appearances are superficial, but sometimes it is all that matters if what you are mainly concerned about is people’s judgment of you. It’s a phenomenon as old as time but only getting more noticeable now because of social media.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">The only thing I did not enjoy quite as much is Act 3 because the author makes it so easy for the culprit to get away with everything. It is too convenient, even though the novel would have probably been a dragging disappointment if any extensions were made just to prolong that part of the story. In the end we just have to suspend our disbelief a little bit more despite the many holes in the alibi. We easily forgive the author because she took us for a wild 555-page rollercoaster ride after all. If you are looking for a novel to slap the label “unputdownable” on, then Gone Girl is a worthy candidate for your reading pleasure.</span></div></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/2008018389407835043/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/gone-girl.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/2008018389407835043'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/2008018389407835043'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/gone-girl.html' title='Gone Girl'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjyv_mAclwj2NnWMIuoeWk7V8b4tJAUiHOm8NIZOM2RGg5f9x2E_kcTV0azg5iOWye1s1W_6Uy2rrfyji0TzToO4Ob6zTOmIKMhZ6pLDNcIkwJaOH3Pnz7MetLoYmogX1teg8u-XEbHYDbacmzCMP9Pqca6kAnZhixsSmgK_YwaXk1ycS8RBVbetTg-JGJi/s72-c/Gone_Girl_(Flynn_novel).jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-4771969582452655770</id><published>2024-06-22T09:06:00.021+08:00</published><updated>2024-06-30T22:22:15.342+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Tanghalang Pilipino"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Theater"/><title type='text'>VIRGIN LABFEST 19: Set E - Sagad</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://culturalcenter.gov.ph/press-release/vlf-19-pintog-plows-on-to-bear-fruits-of-human-stories-and-experiences/" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg6UOU1wRX3okbgcfbm57N8UQ052ETaHxsJRZYQJKrOGeofGUVW2fWpZ1mhYvNYE9TLAHg99nB-Uwfc84q8cqjJx5z-JHLkwvfyM0WE34WRz8vaMJl2hDQJlazM3xyJ95weJs_NQNkeGAn4Y96W8l_22npxv2iCbXWJzvHbDqxNW72FNHW1jMEJIvcuojZ/s1600/VLF-19-PINTOG_A3-Poster-scaled.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">DOMINADOR GONZALES: NATIONAL ARTIST - There are rumors that this year’s National Artist Award will be given to Dominador Gonzales (Joel Saracho), who could be the first openly homosexual recipient should all the gossip turn into reality. He is visited by his former student and mentee Oliver (Bong Cabrera), a flamboyantly gay writer who has left his craft to stagnate, trading it off with a BPO job that guarantees fixed monthly income. Hearing about his mentor’s impending award, he intends to use their relationship so he could go back to the limelight. Unfortunately, “Dmon” has other plans.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">New to the Virgin Labfest? Always choose Set E. This is a set of three plays that were the best and most popular from the previous year, meaning these are basically reruns. One can easily see how DOMINADOR GONZALES: NATIONAL ARTIST fits the mold. Expect a lot of laughs via self-deprecation and snappy comebacks when you have a gay storyline. This play guarantees that and also manages to tackle ever relevant topics in the LGBTQ community, particularly in the Philippines. A theme discussed that I really appreciate is divorcing the artist and the art which seems like a big issue lately, what with Cancel Culture and the like being ever so rampant nowadays.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">ROOM 209 - Anghelo Perez (Jao Catarus) follows the footsteps of his father and older brother Captain Anthony (Gino Ramirez) as he navigates his freshman year at the Philippine Military Academy. Unbeknownst to him, he won’t make it out alive as the upperclassmen make sure to make his life a living hell, picking on him for having the family connections. As his body slowly succumbs to the physical abuse it has been trying to endure since day one, Anghelo will soon become a cautionary tale warning aspiring cadets about the risks of wanting to belong to such an organization.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDZmc-sML9cgRNXQc-stdYCDx-b1vvJryIeilVZen0RXfgviZjGfnNUR9sgpwHkAxBwXA-jx4R5wNUF5E5nrexi74pOLk77pjsmJ_F9cL0PlWOQ-cHpQBRr5L-b26CipTZw3RjD9Af8wwB7oj_45Kr-BvdpG1r_CmmNetJh4j8VcVQVzzlZvEP-toIhyy9/w161-h200/3.png" /><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMB0O_FpxctK5wX4m8s3NdK-lBOJskTQuqOWgYR_DB_uPHGEmagcJugmEBZNE7llEmuksdTYanSWA0f-DIJZhS_I9hkt6whwGQCMQ61dbjtHu5_i6XWyrbZOQDNCWlwbM1p1sPmCfKojWrSbPtmoHL7FhWCbgkyVMcX6kDcU08GfRDxZNh68MHBSoozsas/w159-h200/2.png" /><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVHJeIKCS-oUy37qhiwd2mUpTT9FmcvhCcSA12NZPGYbqhzXa0F79xlpsUKVlsVCC0krB457KDLWizNR_XPpXpPgMmU4KmmsOMq0xpjIVicOpjRcSWzq2S5uRGDIdXH9aVq8UbucVhP1kC-TCAGbx9Cm2PSrultuBIC6X5l5sRLHwjAnX4tW5YeBoNmyaw/w159-h200/1.png" /></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both;"><br /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">I am not a big fan of storylines involving police or military academies because they only seem to glorify the use of violence in exchange for assured loyalty. I had to ask myself what the point of ROOM 209 was until it suddenly dawned on me that it is an expose on the hazing-related deaths at the PMA. Apparently, more than 50 cadets have died of questionable causes&nbsp;since its inception, most of them covered up by the higher-ups. After all, “loyalty” is one of their buzzwords, right? Overall, this is a really uncomfortable play to watch but then again, such is the inconvenience of the truth. This story needs to be told.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">ANG AWIT NG DALAGANG MARMOL - A group of theater actors rehearse their new play based on a controversial kundiman entitled Jocelynang Baliwag. The Director (Adrienne Vergara) envisions a play with strong symbolisms of the Motherland, and everything seems to be going according to plan when one week before their scheduled debut, a Dramaturg (Kath Castillo) crashes the party and points out each and every historical inconsistency she could find. In the end, will artistic license trump historical accuracy? How important is it for art to stay loyal to its subject’s truth despite the work itself being a piece of fiction?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">This starts off strong with a lot of impressive vocal chops you only ever hear in the staging of a kundiman, which is not everyone’s cup of tea. As such, relieving is the entrance of the Director revealing that you are watching a play within a play, exposing you to all the intricacies involved in coming up with such a show. There are many times when the material just goes meta, which can be confusing to the audience. The good thing is that it snaps you out of it just as quickly through wit and humorous ad libs. It’s already funny on its own, though I imagine it would be even more hilarious if you belong to the theater industry and can relate to their dilemmas.</span></div></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/4771969582452655770/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/virgin-labfest-19-set-e-sagad.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/4771969582452655770'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/4771969582452655770'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/virgin-labfest-19-set-e-sagad.html' title='VIRGIN LABFEST 19: Set E - Sagad'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg6UOU1wRX3okbgcfbm57N8UQ052ETaHxsJRZYQJKrOGeofGUVW2fWpZ1mhYvNYE9TLAHg99nB-Uwfc84q8cqjJx5z-JHLkwvfyM0WE34WRz8vaMJl2hDQJlazM3xyJ95weJs_NQNkeGAn4Y96W8l_22npxv2iCbXWJzvHbDqxNW72FNHW1jMEJIvcuojZ/s72-c/VLF-19-PINTOG_A3-Poster-scaled.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-8194959031947577415</id><published>2024-06-21T20:59:00.006+08:00</published><updated>2024-06-23T20:37:13.818+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Tanghalang Pilipino"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Theater"/><title type='text'>VIRGIN LABFEST 19: Set D - Di-Tiyak</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://culturalcenter.gov.ph/press-release/vlf-19-pintog-plows-on-to-bear-fruits-of-human-stories-and-experiences/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg6UOU1wRX3okbgcfbm57N8UQ052ETaHxsJRZYQJKrOGeofGUVW2fWpZ1mhYvNYE9TLAHg99nB-Uwfc84q8cqjJx5z-JHLkwvfyM0WE34WRz8vaMJl2hDQJlazM3xyJ95weJs_NQNkeGAn4Y96W8l_22npxv2iCbXWJzvHbDqxNW72FNHW1jMEJIvcuojZ/s1600/VLF-19-PINTOG_A3-Poster-scaled.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">SI HESUS NA’A SA US - Separated husband and wife head to the airport in his taxi to wait for the arrival of her boyfriend that will take her to America. Pregnant, Luna (Sheryll Ceasico) is excited to fly to Illinois not just to be with her boyfriend but also to look for her mother Corazon (Kiki Baento) who abandoned them when she was young. Navigating the traffic along EDSA, Marlon (Roi Calilong) pesters his wife with stories of their past. Some are happy memories while others are tragedies better left forgotten. Will they make it to the airport?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">This one didn’t quite connect with me and if I were to rate it separately, I would’ve just given it a mere three stars. Most entries in the labfest are dialogue-heavy. The difference almost always lies in the diverse themes tackled and the backdrop that serves as a distraction. In terms of themes, what this play talks about are normal soap opera storylines that you could watch on TV at home for free. As for the distraction, they do have a skeleton of a taxi on the stage but that’s about it. Some quips were funny and the actors were great but I ended up bored. Maybe there just isn’t much to unpack as far as the plot is concerned.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">ANG MUNTING LIWANAG SA MADILIM NA SULOK NG ISANG SERBESERYA SA MAYNILA - Psychology teachers Gary (Joshymae) and Joseph (Dyas Adarlo) pay a visit to the beer house that the former frequents, where he spends time and money to talk to a hooker named Bea (Jorrybell). Gary believes that she loves him and sees him as a savior that will get her out of there. When their student Jake Lazaro (Bon Lentejas) who loves skipping classes shows up and stops for a chat, he lets slip to Gary that he was just with Bea and that she told her the exact same things he always hears when they are together.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiZBvqHXo3iMijwIDO-vUYsGAzKLc8eqwPhCZtgob1fRZMxs8C9nmOBDf8MWJPBqlBL1ncuG9Noxn0f7uthKDF6gMkFknuAz8xKPEGQvldtcPEp000ywoIjlPXmfxwWYc2JM9R3dr6hAcvFaAn-OFYQzQyhW2drjwpHC8aUjpfhoGRVi50F47PAxKJl0ABz/w159-h200/1.png" /><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhH6Z9DgNCcOpjkaSd-umuhz5VIvJMiQBzTRkKOxvEwwtQw0vQkALUUQSfFl6zF-_8KCPL2THWvPM_wo2Iz0Vy0rCXxvQelozaaQ2s6dMjvMNC54FFAZPXCZCmJ98UCOGy8CVfdPL9kJYV4dpAf4WxLiAN8cC3kCEiC-Lm4qYeMQ_qC-s1Eonutul9nI5b-/w157-h200/3.png" /><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzx7y1WVuOg8_y5xD2YKNR6Uu9WOvYkM_2fiFiIHuqQcn1Hcw6cOJxyJXT2XlowPBUJFyATudjsLi44o2z-bI_wiWluFAh5lV3GhEBg40yHIm42faQYC71ahAGPcrHp30rQOc2B2og_Ph7gascZTxcbOwoFZzda1aCnq6AznFThPXZrVAnVSiod2XNvPbW/w159-h200/2.png" /></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Don’t we just love philosophical musings at a whorehouse? I loved this play to bits. Some of the dialogues are crass but the actors’ delivery has perfect comedic timing, and yet the chatter delves deep into relevant social issues and themes that they end up talking about everything from Feminism to Misogyny to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs to Psychoanalysis. The discussions are hilarious AF but so profound at the same time that I didn’t want them to end. It could’ve ended with the two men’s stage exit, but the discussion</span><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">&nbsp;</span><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">that followed</span><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">&nbsp;between the two women was a good counterbalance to the debate. Funny and thought provoking!</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">SA BABAENG LAHAT - The National Bible Week is fast approaching and preparations are in full swing at an all-girls Catholic school. Marie (Jam Binay) mistakes bodily fluids for pregnancy and prays to God begging him to spare her from being the vessel for the next immaculate conception because she is not worthy. Tomboy Gab (Yani Lopez) plays the guitar and practices with frank and straightforward Regina (Cheska dela Cruz) for their entry to the contest, both of them repressing the mutual infatuation that they feel inside for each other. The three teenagers clash as their religious ideologies and personal dramas prove to be incompatible.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">This was a totally unexpected roll-on-the-floor-laughing piece. The Catholic school experience is already a goldmine of humor in itself if done right. Luckily, SA BABAENG LAHAT has a wealth of witty retorts to keep you entertained all while being an interested observer in the coming-of-age journey of these three young women who couldn’t be any more different from one another. That hilarious part where Marie emerges onstage in full Virgin Mary regalia with a halo of Mongol pencils will live rent-free</span><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">&nbsp;</span><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">in my head</span><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">&nbsp;for a while if ever I need a good laugh. If you went to Catholic school, this might end up even funnier to you as it brings back memories.</span></div></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/8194959031947577415/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/virgin-labfest-19-set-d-di-tiyak.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/8194959031947577415'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/8194959031947577415'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/virgin-labfest-19-set-d-di-tiyak.html' title='VIRGIN LABFEST 19: Set D - Di-Tiyak'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg6UOU1wRX3okbgcfbm57N8UQ052ETaHxsJRZYQJKrOGeofGUVW2fWpZ1mhYvNYE9TLAHg99nB-Uwfc84q8cqjJx5z-JHLkwvfyM0WE34WRz8vaMJl2hDQJlazM3xyJ95weJs_NQNkeGAn4Y96W8l_22npxv2iCbXWJzvHbDqxNW72FNHW1jMEJIvcuojZ/s72-c/VLF-19-PINTOG_A3-Poster-scaled.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-1570132169145701312</id><published>2024-06-15T20:48:00.000+08:00</published><updated>2024-06-20T20:56:40.904+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Repertory Philippines"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Theater"/><title type='text'>I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change (Repertory Philippines)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_Love_You,_You%27re_Perfect,_Now_Change" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxpgKyt9M2j_3sjweBVQsDsu2rVcJBn03PZ5X_dg0Vxwkzuh9hCdpyXTDgXWqoTrhpuWmlsMKZng29OjyJmmtu5dbv0H1trt2db7FbHMRNcJlkLk3bpGvoDrNnIRcPDTf_mE0W5tgh2f3_x5la1d6NCITQctAh46sB4YhX_zd7X0iY-JdJfuBjvFzlRPWH/s1600/REP_ILY_OMNIBUS_04.26.png" width="200" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Do not expect a storyline because there isn’t any. I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change is a collection of vignettes poking fun at modern day relationships, leaving no stone unturned in lampooning everything from dating to sex to parenthood all the way to its culminating chapter hilariously named “Funerals Are For Dating” where two newly-widowed senile individuals take another chance at romance despite not remembering whose wake it is they are currently at. This musical is like watching a comedy show skit and since the brand of humor is right up my alley, I actually enjoyed the damn thing all throughout, perhaps thanks to all the sarcasm. Everything from the dialogues to the song lyrics are packed with some crass humor and common observations about relationships that you would not dare say out loud. Perhaps this is also one of the reasons why this musical ends up being funnier than it’s supposed to be.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">This musical has always been performed with a small cast, in this case just four people. Two guys and two girls play multiple roles with a lot of personality, accent, and style changes. One can only imagine how difficult it must be to direct a show like this, not to mention how you really need legit triple threats in your cast in order to pull it off. There isn’t a lot of dancing involved, though; singing, yes. All four actors are well-equipped in this department and do not fail to deliver. Since all of them are up to the task, it all boils down to acting and stage presence for one to outshine the others, in which case Krystal Kane is the evident scene stealer.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Who is Krystal Kane and where has she been all this time? Unfortunately, I have no idea. All I know is she had the whole theater laughing out loud and admiring her effortless singing. Or maybe she just got the more interesting characters? Whatever the reason might be, rest assured that she is there to entertain, and entertain she did. Her Always a Bridesmaid solo is memorable not just for the hilarious lyrics but also thanks to her flawless southern accent.&nbsp;</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Gabby Padilla also plays different roles but the one that stands out the most is not really a musical number, bur rather her The Very First Dating Video of Rose Ritz monologue, which is about a middle aged divorcee signing up for a dating app and required to come up with an introductory video, which ends up in alcohol induced verbal diarrhea. Considering how she had to sync her actual live performance with three pre-recorded videos simultaneously being projected on stage, impeccable timing was a non-negotiable, and she managed to pull it off.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Marvin Ong seems to be a newbie, but held his own quite well against his three castmates. I must say that he truly shined in the duets, though. The very first one, A Stud and a Babe, is a duet with Padilla, which they both carry out with just the right amount of increasing intensity as they transform throughout the song. He also performs a duet with Kane, Marriage Tango, which is memorable because of the relatability of the material dealing with Sex and the Married Couple.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Gian Magdangal is already a veteran on stage, and it is nice to see him performing again. Similar to Ong, however, his most memorable performances here are those that are done as duets or in a group. There is one particular solo, though, The Baby Song, which also turns out to be memorable despite being a bit weird because of all the baby talk.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">As for group performances involving all four of them, my personal favorite would be Hey There, Single Gal/Guy where a family dinner expected to be a night of wedding proposal ends up as a break-up, causing the parents portrayed by Kane and Magdangal to berate the other two through song.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Will I enjoy I Love You, You’re Perfect, Now Change even if I am not in a relationship? Well, you might enjoy it more if you are currently with somebody because that will definitely up the relatability factor. Even then, past experiences also count. If not, you can still probably relate to the unifying theme if you are at that age where just about everybody else is getting married and having kids. These characters are just too familiar!</span></div></div></div>
</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/1570132169145701312/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/i-love-you-youre-perfect-now-change.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/1570132169145701312'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/1570132169145701312'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/i-love-you-youre-perfect-now-change.html' title='I Love You, You're Perfect, Now Change (Repertory Philippines)'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhxpgKyt9M2j_3sjweBVQsDsu2rVcJBn03PZ5X_dg0Vxwkzuh9hCdpyXTDgXWqoTrhpuWmlsMKZng29OjyJmmtu5dbv0H1trt2db7FbHMRNcJlkLk3bpGvoDrNnIRcPDTf_mE0W5tgh2f3_x5la1d6NCITQctAh46sB4YhX_zd7X0iY-JdJfuBjvFzlRPWH/s72-c/REP_ILY_OMNIBUS_04.26.png" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-8088253251464752110</id><published>2024-06-14T20:53:00.039+08:00</published><updated>2024-06-20T21:46:46.977+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Tanghalang Pilipino"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Theater"/><title type='text'>VIRGIN LABFEST 19: Set C - PuTim</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://culturalcenter.gov.ph/press-release/vlf-19-pintog-plows-on-to-bear-fruits-of-human-stories-and-experiences/" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg6UOU1wRX3okbgcfbm57N8UQ052ETaHxsJRZYQJKrOGeofGUVW2fWpZ1mhYvNYE9TLAHg99nB-Uwfc84q8cqjJx5z-JHLkwvfyM0WE34WRz8vaMJl2hDQJlazM3xyJ95weJs_NQNkeGAn4Y96W8l_22npxv2iCbXWJzvHbDqxNW72FNHW1jMEJIvcuojZ/s1600/VLF-19-PINTOG_A3-Poster-scaled.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">PAGKAPIT SA HANGIN - Nurse A (Elora Espano), Nurse B (Wenah Nagales), and a Doctor (Timothy Mabalot) are trapped by their profession in a government hospital at the height of the COVID pandemic. Aside from the fatigue and lack of manpower, the trio are hounded by a dilemma which is a shortage of oxygen tanks that they must distribute equally to the 60 patients under their care. Not expecting any outside help, the three decide to select which patients have less chances of surviving, turning off their air supply. A Watcher (Gold Villar Lim), whose father is among those deprived of air, discovers the anomaly.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Most of us had the luxury of getting bored in our homes as our biggest dilemma during the pandemic, while others were not as lucky and ended up at crowded hospitals either as health workers or patients. Many of them died. PAGKAPIT SA HANGIN relives the horror and the drama at hospital halls that we’ve only ever heard about but never got to experience. It is harrowing. While deciding who has a good chance of survival seems like normal everyday occurrence in hospitals, the moral question of such a difficult decision, multiplied many times over during a pandemic, is just so unprecedented. The toll on mental health must have been traumatic.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">LIPISTIK AT PULBURA - Abucay, Bataan (1943). Childhood friends Odeng (Pau Benitez) and Erlinda (Chase Salazar) meet up secretly from time to time where the former works, at a publishing house in Bataan where she writes propaganda articles for the Japanese. Erlinda, on the other hand, is a revolutionary who decides to join the rebellion with a revolver in hand. As tragic fates are realized, one is left to commemorate her late friend through the power of the written word. Suddenly, the line between fact and fiction is blurred to give way for narrative convenience. Will it give the fallen heroine justice?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="200" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3ZabFB9k1Csb9XHle_6xNpNYZxym1oSWpf4mui-K_xrmbEZJAUAR-C1504tI8fyQ1HZ_NUfvOlfjDcMv-Mp_D6ss9wcix-wH42sQbgxYi0UZi_87-G-hO2L-crD50m35Or89orrrCUi8xaaxnRr8ToJ2PuB2VNijsDvtzj2-Zr28bd-fMK1BdhLzESMMf/w159-h200/1.png" width="159" /><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgTOWUI0QvqRW6WgBj83v_NSD7AX3jujVGkV3a-7qxPHGbpU5WSLsWzbPckjCEp6ayXajJGJKfw3D9qiUDoPFbGPzCjmCY6pVcuXo7eGDYcQvAEPMWZdIn_-S1eqFPcDEL5zSPJYeY4S60BmFQWX1_KDK3rfBV9vl4dFCmobmcCyJukjB9KYshPwt_R7F0Z/w158-h200/3.png" /><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWtshkyyHLC1BZxMWwLMeEmVNYGT3BQ1ZeEfIh536WfQzdYZXLGc2eYw3ox_J183iuP-cgkGT1vLgidxnyCxf8KfKfi0dNCACYCPDWiURoSq1bafUDNori5Kff6I2veNneD4gSYic5foxGcROAlCnsbHqKre97oRRShmaGVl6_NLwY-3kBegDPYMo1gAqR/w159-h200/2.png" /></div><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">I really don’t know whether my interpretation is correct. Odeng decides to paint her friend Erlinda as a victim, describing her in the memoir she writes as a “pretty Filipina” raped and murdered by the Japanese. Except she wasn’t. She died in an exchange of gunfire with the enemy, like most of the men. It's as if the playwright’s argument is that the only way for a story of a woman, in historical terms, to evoke emotion or inspiration is to play the role of a victim. Rape victim. Hero’s mom. Hero’s widow. Somehow it makes sense. Name at least five other women in Philippine colonial history, aside from Gabriela Silang, who was known for taking up arms against the colonizers. I'll wait.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">THE FOXTROT - A wealthy matronly woman by the name of Anna (Liesl Batucan-del Rosario) meets up with her dance instructor Diego (JC Santos), perhaps for the very last time, to rehearse the Foxtrot, which will serve as their entry for a dance competition. As the duo try to navigate the complexities of their dance, some truths about themselves and their relationship that have been simmering since their first meeting rise to the surface, causing some inconvenient confrontations as well as a potential threat to their primary goal. Will they be professionals about it or will they let their feelings decide?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">This storyline about an older woman falling for her dance instructor has been rehashed over and over again on film and TV, which leads us to ask whether recycling it yet again will bring something new to the table. Luckily, THE FOXTROT is a legit acting piece that relies on the strength of its actors, in which case both Batucan and Santos complement one another quite well. They both go all camp with their performances, which somehow makes it hard to take her seriously once the drama side of the character kicks in. He, on the other hand, shines brightly in scenes when he is crying or simply angry while being funny when needed be.</span></div></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/8088253251464752110/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/virgin-labfest-19-set-c-putim.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/8088253251464752110'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/8088253251464752110'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/virgin-labfest-19-set-c-putim.html' title='VIRGIN LABFEST 19: Set C - PuTim'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjg6UOU1wRX3okbgcfbm57N8UQ052ETaHxsJRZYQJKrOGeofGUVW2fWpZ1mhYvNYE9TLAHg99nB-Uwfc84q8cqjJx5z-JHLkwvfyM0WE34WRz8vaMJl2hDQJlazM3xyJ95weJs_NQNkeGAn4Y96W8l_22npxv2iCbXWJzvHbDqxNW72FNHW1jMEJIvcuojZ/s72-c/VLF-19-PINTOG_A3-Poster-scaled.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-7276768485874295166</id><published>2024-06-13T19:35:00.009+08:00</published><updated>2024-06-13T20:16:07.532+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="American"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Jackson S."/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Literature"/><title type='text'>We Have Always Lived in the Castle</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Have_Always_Lived_in_the_Castle" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVcQaU7ttf1FTKsNMzuBuY93nYS987gArFk-wXT1hquR1LhLV8x_Bq38Uehu9S-nokTMjyWoos2m3zmj__w1Raib7VZdwhiCetteVyZESj4n9fEXpArbReTqxTJJJYCaw-hIz5e1KkCGWc-9VY1KpU8gBH-m-rOSRNrB4rK8zLxszuvbkryT3B9KMsMXWu/s1600/Screenshot_1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">A sprawling estate between the town and the highway, Blackwell Manor once had more than three occupants. The trio living there now are the survivors of a multiple murder during a night when their dinner was laced with arsenic. The primary suspect, found to be not guilty, was Constance Blackwood. Now 28 years old, she has become agoraphobic and never steps foot outside the house. All the grocery shopping is carried out by her 18-year-old sister Mary Katherine Blackwood, known to everyone as Merricat. Superstitious and deludedly so, she’s often picked on by the unsympathetic townspeople who have come up with their own urban legends about their wealthy and reclusive neighbors. Completing the trio is sickly Uncle Julian who had a taste of arsenic but managed to survive, albeit now confined to a wheelchair and forever trying to write a memoir of that fateful night. One day, a certain Charles Blackwood claiming to be a cousin knocks at their door, with his own ideas about what to do with the house and family fortune.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">I was expecting something sinister and even supernatural, given all the mention of witchcraft and stuff. What we get instead is murder, except that it is now all in the past and just serves as a backstory for the current reputation and consequential treatment of the protagonists by the townsfolk. What makes the novel somehow exciting is the prospect of another death. We get a confession/confirmation through dialogue towards the end but it just leaves us hanging with questions that we know will no longer be answered. And then we realize that this isn’t really a murder mystery but rather a curious case study on agoraphobia.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">I am still intrigued. Why poison those who were poisoned? What was the criteria as far as who were to be included was concerned? Why was Constance found not guilty? The cover-up angle becomes convincing as you flip the pages which, once again, leads you to all the Why questions that are never answered. Perhaps Jackson opted not to elaborate on that so the reader can focus more on the agoraphobia angle, the isolation in many different forms that the trio end up subjecting themselves to in a physical, emotional, social, and financial way from the rest of their neighbors.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">The name Shirley Jackson rarely rings any bells, which is strange because this author is responsible for at least two literary works that have commanded attention during their time in the spotlight, namely: that short story called The Lottery; and the gothic novel The Haunting of Hill House, which has been adapted in film and television many times over through the decades after its publication. We Have Always Lived in the Castle has also been adapted into a movie, but does not seem to enjoy the same popularity as the writer’s other works. As a novel, it is just the right amount of creepy, but open ended and a bit lackluster.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Or maybe the reader is just expecting something more out of it. Merricat as an anchor to the story is interesting. She is an obviously unreliable narrator but the feebleness of her mind, probably indicative of her stunted upbringing due to the family tragedy, is just a different, quite trippy in an emo sense, point of view. Since it is she who is narrating, we can argue that we never really get to see the other characters for who they truly are, because we just have to trust Merricat’s judgment. In a way, she is Constance’s foil, the yin to her yang, as if they were two halves of the same conflicted person.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Even more interesting is the novel serving as a reflection of Jackson’s own miserable existence as a bored housewife back in the day as well as the alienation she felt from the town she lived in. In a way, this is her literary diss track to her own neighbors back in the day. Viewed from a psychological perspective, such a scenario is not something alien to us. Remember the pandemic? Except that those two years were not really under our control. In the case of people suffering from agoraphobia, it’s a self-imposed isolation from everybody else, and observing the way the society around them responds to that is a spectacle in its own right.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">My only complaint about the novel is how the character of Charles is handled. His arrival is teeming with many potential subplots, the most obvious one being his opportunistic preying on the family fortune. Still, there is that unresolved implied romance angle between him and Constance. It just feels like there could’ve been more to the story than we know, but Jackson decides not to go there. Cousin Charles’ ending feels anticlimactic at best, after kicking up a storm in the household.</span></div></div></div>
</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/7276768485874295166/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/we-have-always-lived-in-castle.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/7276768485874295166'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/7276768485874295166'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/we-have-always-lived-in-castle.html' title='We Have Always Lived in the Castle'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVcQaU7ttf1FTKsNMzuBuY93nYS987gArFk-wXT1hquR1LhLV8x_Bq38Uehu9S-nokTMjyWoos2m3zmj__w1Raib7VZdwhiCetteVyZESj4n9fEXpArbReTqxTJJJYCaw-hIz5e1KkCGWc-9VY1KpU8gBH-m-rOSRNrB4rK8zLxszuvbkryT3B9KMsMXWu/s72-c/Screenshot_1.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-8789081461227654659</id><published>2024-06-11T20:17:00.019+08:00</published><updated>2024-06-11T21:17:38.050+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="British"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Isherwood C."/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Literature"/><title type='text'>Goodbye to Berlin</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goodbye_to_Berlin" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgItd0WFDZfts6b4lZOAbzdiZrRhvQqnpPhJqN99NQ_oSk5rG8-VpQ1r9kC34b3540tpJwvVCN9CNitOaR6yHNVWPoVTLWNDOVWRXOa2HjVbgtbvMGeObSfgJivQ7QNMlCmudyFl0vwu0LSlxjv-qEbwm5ssQ0WZKf_M5vMZM1sP62MRti7nyq6E6Vkb3fd/s1600/61qvcM3WtFL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">British writer Christopher Isherwood moves to Berlin at a time of shifting ideologies aligned with the quick rise to prominence of a political figure named Adolf Hitler. Berlin during the last days of the Weimar Republic is a portrait of a society in decay, holding on to the pleasures of a bygone era giving way to what will be a tumultuous phase of the country’s history. Dealing with penury and lack of motivation for his novellas, Christopher changes residences quite often and meets some colorful personalities along the way, among them: Sally Bowles, a flapper who possesses grand showbiz ambitions but without the talent to match; homosexual couple Otto Nowak and Peter Wilkinson, with whom he shares a flat at a Baltic Sea town; Natalie Landauer, a young Jewish woman who is among the many students that he is tutoring in English; and Fräulein Schneider, his German landlady. They navigate Berlin society as anti-Semitic sentiments are on the rise, paving the path for a grim and uncertain future.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">The novel is a combination of six novellas either focusing on a specific character, setting or period of time in the author’s life. Only his real name remains, which he lends to the main character. The rest are changed but clearly based on real life individuals that Isherwood met during his misadventures in Berlin. While all of them are memorable and have their own stories to tell, it is Sally Bowles that stands out in the crowd, probably because of the name recall thanks to the character’s many incarnations in pop culture since the book was published. Some even argue that the character is the very epitome of Germany during that time.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Since most books dealing with Nazism and the Holocaust are in the non-fiction genre, the info that we end up getting are mostly dehumanized figures, dates, and random names. Perhaps this is the reason why semi/autobiographical takes are a breath of fresh air because they can give you a firsthand assessment of the general stimmung of the time. In this regard, Goodbye to Berlin is anchored by the author in a semi-autobiographical character of the same name, providing a reliable and direct narration that somehow captures the zeitgeist which, I must say, is rather scary given the parallels we can see everywhere nowadays. Or maybe this is really just our nature as a species?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">His characters are memorable alright, but what piques your curiosity the most are his descriptions of the riots and violence as Hitler was installing himself in power. Again, it is rather scary because such scenarios can be seen in many parts of the world nowadays. Were the Germans of the 1930’s aware of what they were doing and supporting as everything was unfolding? Or is it just the tragedy of human society that we are unable to recognize something terrible happening in real time, taking a few decades before realization via historic citation is collectively met in hindsight?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Political upheavals aside, Isherwood also has a knack for elegant prose without resorting to verbose exposition. His verse is both easy and beautiful to read, and also gives you the sense as though you were just one of his friends taking part in a group reading of his diary. His novella collection provides a glimpse of how society back in the day dealt with issues such as homosexuality and xenophobia, too. What was tolerated? What was scorned? In the end you might just come up with the conclusion that progress has been slow, even though we can argue that we have come a long way so far. Yet there’s still so much left to be done.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">I have not seen the Hollywood film adaptation with Liza Minelli yet, but I have plans of watching the current Broadway staging. As such, I have nothing to compare the novel to. I guess we’ll see what artistic liberties the creators of the cinematic and theatrical renditions have taken. I just hope that they managed to preserve the core of the storyline somehow. As for this novel, it seems to form part of a greater literary universe sharing some characters here and there, all authored by Isherwood. If you are interested in this particular era of Berlin and Germany, then I suppose they will end up being enjoyable readings as well.</span></div></div></div>
</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/8789081461227654659/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/goodbye-to-berlin.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/8789081461227654659'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/8789081461227654659'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/goodbye-to-berlin.html' title='Goodbye to Berlin'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgItd0WFDZfts6b4lZOAbzdiZrRhvQqnpPhJqN99NQ_oSk5rG8-VpQ1r9kC34b3540tpJwvVCN9CNitOaR6yHNVWPoVTLWNDOVWRXOa2HjVbgtbvMGeObSfgJivQ7QNMlCmudyFl0vwu0LSlxjv-qEbwm5ssQ0WZKf_M5vMZM1sP62MRti7nyq6E6Vkb3fd/s72-c/61qvcM3WtFL._AC_UF1000,1000_QL80_.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-5284328387231247031</id><published>2024-06-07T23:08:00.000+08:00</published><updated>2024-06-07T23:08:09.854+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Anonymous"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="British"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Literature"/><title type='text'>Sir Gawain and the Green Knight</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Gawain_and_the_Green_Knight" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="310" data-original-width="200" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje-8kyQr33GRNWhNpZ4dBYUtTJH-M8fDzlQ0yPmioahQY1aPOuP3frBejo43TLk2lVAGDbSRCjjsCytQ9ThzmwlGcKWvo740yCc-ZrYrBLrnv1j6RI0aMnnQHubKTzXN5UdnO4SDa4OIizuIsRGjMwK8Xf_GaeEw3ECecQOsYYg8lyqi2qLGIdu1eCOtfT/s1600/9780140424539-jacket-large.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Once again the New Year has come and King Arthur gathers his knights for merrymaking in Camelot. As they savor the festivities, a gigantic humanoid crashes the party on his horse, both rider and equine of a natural green color from head to toe. He wields a battle axe despite not wearing any armor and announces his arrival to everyone with the purpose of having some Christmas fun. What he has in store for them is a little holiday challenge, should someone come forward and prove to be strong enough for him. It involves hitting him with his own axe anywhere on his body, on the condition that whoever does so would agree to receive a retaliatory blow exactly a year and a day later. King Arthur prepares to take on the challenge, but his young nephew Sir Gawain asks to do it in his stead. He quickly beheads the Green Knight, after which the latter stands up, picks up his head, and bids him goodbye before reminding him of their meeting the following year.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Remember those books about Ethics and Morality with scenarios like, “If you push the button a child will die. If not, twenty people will.” That’s immediately what came to mind as I was reading Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. Some weirdo giant crashes your party and asks you to deal him a blow with his axe as long as he can do the same to you later on. We always hesitate in times like this between morality and survival. Should I be unfair and kill this guy so I won’t have to worry about retaliation? Or should I be fair, yadda yadda yadda? You opt to go for the kill and then, surprise! The weirdo lives and now you fear for your life.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Centuries have passed since this was written by some random poet during the Middle English phase of the language. The world was different back then. You had talk of knights and chivalry and various societal norms that are now considered alien to us in modernity. And yet, what the story brings to the table are the same internal struggles we still deal with as human beings. Opportunities and fairness, to name a relevant few. Times and circumstances might have evolved over time but the core of our humanity remains intact, and we can even argue that they have remained the same all throughout the centuries.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">This means that interpretations will vary. Wildly, even. This is also why this poem still hasn’t lost its appeal to many scholars of Middle English, pretty much the same way Beowulf hasn’t done so either for students of Old English. Each translation is unique and adds more to the ongoing discourse. As for Bernard O’Donoghue’s translation, he opts for a convenient translation that conveys the main storyline with clarity, placing other technicalities in the backseat. If you are interested in some aspects of the original poem, which is said to have been written with a wealth of alliterative verse, then studying Middle English is probably the best way to go.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">It is also interesting to note that Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is just one of numerous texts related to a certain corpus often referred to as the Matter of Britain. Works derived from those popular characters such as King Arthur have proliferated through the ages. If you happen to be knowledgeable about them, then reading this piece of poetry might end up being a more rewarding experience once you get to cross reference everything. Think of it as some sort of Middle English literary universe of its own. As for me, I’m just a pedestrian reader, although I’m not closing my doors to further Middle English scholarship down the line.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">If you want a short specimen of Middle English literature, then Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is the best option with less than a hundred pages. If you want a deep dive, you can always opt for Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales, all 500+ pages of it. Either way, it should be interesting to move on to the original Middle English version of the text after reading the modern translation. Of course, not everyone will be as geeky but this is a nice way of observing the English language’s evolution through the centuries.</span></div></div></div>
</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/5284328387231247031/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/sir-gawain-and-green-knight.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/5284328387231247031'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/5284328387231247031'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/sir-gawain-and-green-knight.html' title='Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEje-8kyQr33GRNWhNpZ4dBYUtTJH-M8fDzlQ0yPmioahQY1aPOuP3frBejo43TLk2lVAGDbSRCjjsCytQ9ThzmwlGcKWvo740yCc-ZrYrBLrnv1j6RI0aMnnQHubKTzXN5UdnO4SDa4OIizuIsRGjMwK8Xf_GaeEw3ECecQOsYYg8lyqi2qLGIdu1eCOtfT/s72-c/9780140424539-jacket-large.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-669923168988401977</id><published>2024-06-01T21:51:00.009+08:00</published><updated>2024-06-03T21:15:02.820+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="American"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Literature"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Yoder R."/><title type='text'>Nightbitch</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nightbitch" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWpD3Bkl1ud3KFSxDCLssrNBZsA_pjQhlO1VoQr2PHrN7uE1ywojdrDl1kJnRIXFmGT2fUvbt7eC-2cjrsqtZnf3a0yMv4UME8gjp11mbmAw2ylbcvKlOG64zw3znk_7Ibf_dGLDxWLx02rgNtbiCpCC9b-ZNcSzaR2rPPE_x3vkrwFPNCLrjNmrJ7sohU/s1600/Nightbitch_(Rachel_Yoder).png" width="200" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">MM is a stay-at-home mom whose daily routine is heavily focused on raising her son. Her husband is always away on business trips and seldom helps around when he finds himself at home with them. The mother has regrets about her domestic life given how she had a successful career as an artist before she got married and gave birth to her son. As pent up frustrations begin to surface, she notices strange changes happening to her body. Aside from the surplus of hair growing in unlikely places, her front teeth also start to resemble those of a canine. Is she literally transforming into a dog or are all these a hallucination of her tired brain? The plot thickens when she meets a trio of mothers in the community who, she swears, have visited her one night as a trio of dogs. Curious, she seeks answers in a book about magical women written by a certain Wanda White, to whom she decides to write emails to quell her curiosity.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">As a species, we learn by experience, not by theory. No matter how many times you tell me about the joys and pains of motherhood and giving birth, the best us guys could do is sympathize. Empathy is simply too tall an order, because we’ll never physiologically experience this firsthand. Maybe this is the reason why Nightbitch comes across like a 238-page rant to me, a litany in prose form with an energy similar to that of the I-carried-you-in-my-womb-for-9-months card our moms tend to pull when they lose an argument. As such, I have reason to believe that women, particularly mothers, will enjoy this novel more than us guys will ever do.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Nevertheless, there is still that turning-into-a-dog subplot that keeps you entertained. Part I of the book wraps up with a scene that feels as though it was written with a film rendition in mind. The excitement in that living room scene to conclude the first half is just so palpable. Unfortunately, the second half somehow fails to sustain all that hype. Perhaps the reason for this is the lack of clarity and closure as far as this magical subplot is concerned. Was she really turning into a dog or was she just imagining all of that? How was her husband okay with all of it? Did he think she was just having a mental breakdown and he was just being supportive?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">It doesn’t help that the ending is weird AF. The whole turning into a dog thing is turned into performance art, except that she does not seem to be a dog during those performances but only dressed up as one. The entire Wanda White subplot is dismissed as a dead end with the reasoning that the University of Sacramento is defunct and the author just can’t be tracked down. Is she even a real person? MM says no. While the snippets of her novel provide a worthwhile distraction from the main storyline, in the end it seems as though it does not contribute much to anything. If you totally scrapped that subplot, the main plot would still stand.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Weirdness and inconsistencies of plot aside, what I imagine the author captures is the intensity of motherhood, its ups and downs. Again, us guys will never really know, so to all mothers out there who want to read this, let us know if her descriptions are accurate. My sole take away from it is how motherhood could be so intense in all the positive and negative ways that it might feel as though you were turning into a bitch. Feral. Literally. It’s not that far-fetched a symbolism given how such experience is common in females of the animal kingdom, but mostly without the complications us humans attribute to it due to our intellect.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">All the arguments for and against motherhood, feminism as well as traditional gender roles are touched by the author. There is no stone left unturned, and I can only commiserate with her dilemma as to what role a woman should really play nowadays. If we were to look at it strictly from an evolutionary perspective, women are indeed in charge of making sure our species don’t die out, preventing extinction by giving birth. However, now that the current world population is at an all-time 8,000,000,000 high, I believe we can give women a break and let them decide what role they want without solely basing it on anatomy, physiology, and evolution.</span></div></div></div>
</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/669923168988401977/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/nightbitch.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/669923168988401977'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/669923168988401977'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/06/nightbitch.html' title='Nightbitch'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWpD3Bkl1ud3KFSxDCLssrNBZsA_pjQhlO1VoQr2PHrN7uE1ywojdrDl1kJnRIXFmGT2fUvbt7eC-2cjrsqtZnf3a0yMv4UME8gjp11mbmAw2ylbcvKlOG64zw3znk_7Ibf_dGLDxWLx02rgNtbiCpCC9b-ZNcSzaR2rPPE_x3vkrwFPNCLrjNmrJ7sohU/s72-c/Nightbitch_(Rachel_Yoder).png" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-4605577199321325132</id><published>2024-05-31T22:09:00.001+08:00</published><updated>2024-05-31T22:09:28.986+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Batacan F.H."/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Literature"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Philippine"/><title type='text'>Smaller and Smaller Circles</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smaller_and_Smaller_Circles" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzVttNhfEY_rZKIzxv9MQNFzwGN9ftGwAmJf86oOqPN4CHfECK3Uw9xwrnb2t1smAVrIV3JPsxZfl8Y0bHEqVP_HDabOxTssI-KDuZzzvvMRX2sZ9xOA8OXYCIcl8TcM6woJb10_GWHOZsDOEPIEz6TRmaosT2nkAFXgqmP6eYLIVmbgfxmJEZXUOvn2H2/s1600/Screenshot_1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">A Jesuit priest with postgraduate credentials in Forensics – a field which continues to be a niche specialization in the Philippines – Gus Saenz is the go-to person of the National Bureau of Investigation every time his expertise is required by the department. The latest cadaver ending up on his operating table once belonged to a young boy whose face has been scraped off his skull; his heart and genitals both removed. Assisted by his protégé and fellow priest Jerome Lucero, he delves deeper into the mystery and previous murders characterized by the same modus operandi, leading them to a potential serial killer preying on the poor and malnourished young boys of Payatas, a dumpsite that serves as residence and source of meager income for poverty-stricken folks. Facing resistance from a non-cooperative NBI personnel, the two priests rely on an unlikely ally, Saenz’s former student in France, broadcast journalist Joanna Bonifacio. As the NBI presents a suspect who was only tortured to provide a confession, the trio must race against time before the real killer claims another victim.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">The killer is only seen in action once you reach page 160 as another victim is caught by surprise. By page 225, the murderer is deliberately identified. While Smaller and Smaller Circles is a crime novel, you don’t get to see much action that would liken it to a slasher flick screenplay. Instead, most of the plot revolves around the investigation by the two priests as they put two and two together, slowly but surely leading you to the culprit. The author throws in a couple of red herrings early on which gives you an interesting read full of speculations. As mentioned however, the killer is randomly introduced out of the blue when you reach page 225.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">But it was still a fun read despite the author simply playing around with our rusty Sherlock Holmes sleuthing. Batacan’s prose is quite easy to read. Instead of coming up with verbose exposition, she opts for simple narration and lots of playful banter between the two priests. This makes them all the more endearing that you actually start rooting for them and what you get in the end is some sort of buddy priest thriller along with dashes of church and state politics here and there, people jockeying for position, and a rather gloomy view of the country’s societal realities that are just too hard to look straight in the eye.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">My favorite page would be 240 which would have been a simple narration moving the plot forward by having the two priests visit the victims’ families and break the tragic news to them, except that Batacan decides to switch the perspectives by introducing you to the victims’ mothers and having them tell you about their relationships with their son while they go about with their chores. Every narration ends with the two priests arriving but the author no longer elaborates and ends the scene there. It’s powerful and poignant because she opts to humanize those victims by giving them a face, a story, a final glimpse on a shred of their humanity.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">That is the sad part in narratives like this, fiction or nonfiction. The victims always become mere statistics, numbers on a white board or news report as if they ceased to be human beings with stories to tell once they ended up dead at the hands of their murderers. This is also one aspect that makes Smaller and Smaller Circles unique. Even the way the killer is revealed, own subplot running parallel to that of the other characters and us knowing the identity even before the two priests do, is unique. While the murderer is the main antagonist, the character is also humanized and given a backstory instead of being a mere obligatory villain.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">The epilogue hints at further adventures for Gus Saenz, but of the boring church politics kind. Aside from the serial killer, a member or two of the Church are mentioned along with allegations of abuse, no thanks to the sphere of influence that they occupy in the institutional hierarchy. I’ve heard that the author has followed through with a snippet of sorts published in another book which serves as a collection of short stories. In any case, I don’t believe this would be of any interest to many, unless you are a big fan of the Gus Saenz character.</span></div></div></div>
</content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/4605577199321325132/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/05/smaller-and-smaller-circles.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/4605577199321325132'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/4605577199321325132'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/05/smaller-and-smaller-circles.html' title='Smaller and Smaller Circles'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjzVttNhfEY_rZKIzxv9MQNFzwGN9ftGwAmJf86oOqPN4CHfECK3Uw9xwrnb2t1smAVrIV3JPsxZfl8Y0bHEqVP_HDabOxTssI-KDuZzzvvMRX2sZ9xOA8OXYCIcl8TcM6woJb10_GWHOZsDOEPIEz6TRmaosT2nkAFXgqmP6eYLIVmbgfxmJEZXUOvn2H2/s72-c/Screenshot_1.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-7994435349739496358</id><published>2024-05-25T21:46:00.004+08:00</published><updated>2024-05-31T14:25:48.077+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="PETA"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Theater"/><title type='text'>One More Chance (PETA)</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://petatheater.com/onemorechance" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="300" data-original-width="200" height="300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmhgHHVIj3Ee3LGedDbygXMR0lHu4NFB7qIPXpjVZWq_9hvuH_eBdX3x0npqM0Vr09w_6hma8B43mb4L-vhTwW1PPD4crfKFjwiOB9YnoA06Mzg3Q0lKskgZIGIsY2TsbaMaARj60uWtP-dayGo_8jFkeqOJQLiDxEWXVf96pkP6cYnOPOd5z-6HQgOmnU/s1600/Screenshot_1.jpg" width="200" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Popoy (CJ Navato) and Basha (Nicole Omillo) have been a couple for the last five years. They finish each other’s sentences and are constantly planning for their wedding next year, which involves a lot of cost-cutting. Unable to keep up with her fiance’s suffocating demands, she decides to call it quits so she can enjoy some space and have some leeway to find herself. Belonging to the same circle of friends, things immediately get awkward during Thursday barkada nights. But that’s what friends are for. Pessimistic Anj (Via Antonio), happy-go-lucky JP (Jon Abella), hopeless romantic Chinno (Johnnie Moran), and couple Krizzy (Rica Laguardia) and Kenneth (Poppert Bernadas) do everything they can to be supportive of both friends. Soon, Popoy finds new love with Tricia (Kiara Takahashi) while Basha gets platonic friendship from new co-worker Mark (Jay Gonzaga). Just when the tension appears to have simmered down, romantic feelings are suddenly rekindled, shaking up the dynamics yet again.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Anyone alive and old enough to watch a movie in 2007 would be familiar with One More Chance. Up to now, we can’t quite deduce what Cathy Garcia Molina did to come up with a cult classic, the definitive Filipino break-up film, despite the storyline being somehow rehashed and the <i>barkada </i>angle rather cliché. Knowing this, coming up with another version will always be measured against the original. It is normal to enter the PETA theater with apprehensions, but One More Chance the Musical proves its worth by combining a well-known storyline with appropriate music from Ben &amp; Ben. In the end, it works out just fine.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Testament to its success is the announcement of a rerun between the end of August and the end of October as early as now, even before the current run has yet to come to an end. What I can say, though, is that this musical will be better appreciated by those who are familiar with Ben &amp; Ben’s discography. I do not belong in that category, unfortunately. I’ve heard so much about the band and some of their more popular songs, albeit against my will. The good thing is most of the songs manage to capture the essence of the scenes they are used in, which is a good thing since most of the time jukebox musical setlists tend to be a bit contrived.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">PETA’s stage has always been small and narrow. With such claustrophobic and restrictive real estate, you really have to maximize every inch to benefit your play. In the case of this musical, the movable sets are limited to: a pair of grey scaffolding with stairs used as a device to denote space as well as announce the arrival or departure of characters; and a functionally moving skeleton of a car made from the same material that the main characters can actually “drive” onstage.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Add a revolving platform in the middle and you end up with a usable set. What you will find refreshing, though, is the abundant use of wall projections in the form of moving wallpapers as well as videos meant to present offstage interactions among the characters in the form of chats and video calls. Even the floor is not exempted from this treatment, with waves projected upon it accompanied by improvised sound effects during the intro. There are also scenes where a character is having a conversation with a character on a projected video on the wall, which is laudable because that requires accuracy and good timing to make it look believable.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">There is nothing even remotely John Lloyd Cruz about Navato’s portrayal of Popoy, which works well to his advantage because it gives him space to claim the character as his own. Even then, the core of the character, that of being a control freak boyfriend as well as his subplots and iconic lines are preserved. However, the same observation may not be applicable to Omillo as Basha. We can’t be sure whether it is her inflection or enunciation and whether it is intentional, but the similarity of her voice to that of Bea Alonzo’s is so uncanny.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">On one hand it fuels nostalgia because you feel like the original actress to whom the character has been strongly associated is there in the room with you. On the other hand, it somehow feels as though Omillo is portraying Bea Alonzo playing Basha. In any case, all of these actors can sing really well, blending pop with musical theater and ending up with a certain voice quality that is just so soothing. If you don’t end up liking the storyline or can’t relate to the material for some reason, you will still get to appreciate all the singing.</span></div></div></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">My sole complaint about this musical is its three-hour runtime. Seriously? It's enjoyable alright, but it need not be this long.</span></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/7994435349739496358/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/05/one-more-chance-peta.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/7994435349739496358'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/7994435349739496358'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/05/one-more-chance-peta.html' title='One More Chance (PETA)'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjmhgHHVIj3Ee3LGedDbygXMR0lHu4NFB7qIPXpjVZWq_9hvuH_eBdX3x0npqM0Vr09w_6hma8B43mb4L-vhTwW1PPD4crfKFjwiOB9YnoA06Mzg3Q0lKskgZIGIsY2TsbaMaARj60uWtP-dayGo_8jFkeqOJQLiDxEWXVf96pkP6cYnOPOd5z-6HQgOmnU/s72-c/Screenshot_1.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-8625447370803611270</id><published>2024-05-18T23:48:00.011+08:00</published><updated>2024-05-19T00:12:19.736+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="British"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Ishiguro K."/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Literature"/><title type='text'>Never Let Me Go</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Never_Let_Me_Go_(novel)" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="307" data-original-width="202" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjphLusVE0qiENvnDZuRwfuDcWc5f698MyKOiR0TeMa_6peuh1lq2_dwmfhn47mKvFU-go_VXi1G7_5Hny23ME_qVpzDGMV9vcst6DM9z8p5gyvEz1rU9A9tt3FifikZxrUZHpColUDDoOMwDI0Wbzza6U7MYFCOseEo7hJNo7erI5wGNuKzh5Wog8lb4cj/s1600/Screenshot_1.jpg" width="202" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">♣♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">31-year-old carer Kathy H is in a reminiscent mood, telling us all about her line of work in the healthcare industry assisting donors and helping them achieve a comfortable resting period in between donations. She also recalls her bestfriends Ruth and Tommy as well as the childhood they have spent together at Hailsham, a special school for children like them. There they were encouraged to live healthily and dabble in the arts, preparing artsy masterpieces that might be selected for Madame’s Gallery. As she drives from one center to another, Kathy H reflects on the experiences of Ruth and Tommy with their respective donations while also trying to remember the time she has spent as their very own carer at different points in their lives. Soon she receives the notice for her first donation, which has been a long time coming considering how long she has already been a carer.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Well this has been a heartbreaking read, even though I can’t fully decide whether such heartbreak is warranted or misplaced. Science fiction set in a dystopian world usually goes all in and explores the ins and outs of the structure before introducing you to a protagonist who will rebel against it. Ishiguro does the exact opposite by providing a vague picture of the whole that is never explored in full detail. Then comes a heroine resigned to her fate and with a myopic viewpoint as your anchor to the narrative. Without much option for elaboration, you are then forced to focus on the human aspect of it all, which is poignant and heart-rending.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">This brand of curiosity reigns supreme all throughout the book. Kathy H introduces herself as a carer and your immediate understanding is that this will be a story about the healthcare industry which, technically, it is. It is when seemingly normal words are used with odd connotations that you begin to suspect something fishy, of a bigger storyline that is always hinted upon but never fully discussed until one of the guardians spells it out for you when you reach page 81. From then on, those pangs of suspicion start to benefit from a dash of truth, and then you brace yourself for the implications of such a premise.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">One question often asked by readers is why Kathy H and friends did not rebel against the system and just seemed to have settled for the raison d’etre laid out for them. This is when the reader looks inward and realizes that this whole donation and completion thing is simply a metaphor for life; donation signifying life purpose; completion being tantamount to death. In a sense it just feels like beautiful submission, some sort of humble acceptance, without much resistance, to the inevitable conclusion where we are all headed to anyway. It is in this way that Never Let Me Go deals with the existential crisis we grapple with each day.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">There are also questions about Ethics. Narratives about cloning are nothing new and have been explored time and again both in cinema and literature, but the focus has always been on the scientific aspect. Perhaps that is the real point of contention here. If we could indeed clone human beings to form a mechanism against various diseases, should they be treated as mere lab experiments or as human beings with souls? From a more legislative standpoint, what legal rights do they have and should they even be considered humans like us? It’s a question akin to opening a can of worms. This novel offers just one of the many possible answers.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">And then there is the issue of child rearing where we get contending views from Emily and Lucy in which the former favors a big smokescreen protecting the innocent minds of the children from the ugly truth about their existence leading to a happy childhood but is full of lies while the latter is an advocate of transparency and honesty yet without considering how this would damage the children in spite of the truthful intentions behind it. In the end, it is difficult to choose which of the two paths leads to a lesser evil. Life is often complicated like that, and this novel simply acknowledges it.</span></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/8625447370803611270/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/05/never-let-me-go.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/8625447370803611270'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/8625447370803611270'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/05/never-let-me-go.html' title='Never Let Me Go'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjphLusVE0qiENvnDZuRwfuDcWc5f698MyKOiR0TeMa_6peuh1lq2_dwmfhn47mKvFU-go_VXi1G7_5Hny23ME_qVpzDGMV9vcst6DM9z8p5gyvEz1rU9A9tt3FifikZxrUZHpColUDDoOMwDI0Wbzza6U7MYFCOseEo7hJNo7erI5wGNuKzh5Wog8lb4cj/s72-c/Screenshot_1.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-8867213972398897452</id><published>2024-05-17T21:29:00.006+08:00</published><updated>2024-05-17T21:29:35.818+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="American"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="James H."/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Literature"/><title type='text'>The Turn of the Screw</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Turn_of_the_Screw" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="333" data-original-width="200" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg063t1Oa4hPfEgif1gtb29qAMyVh5An6aWhyphenhyphenhsy2o7JQxIwdXtw4G_6dvxZ_QcM7jJrNGsX4pB3yYMr2w5r7kifTbMJ5Zm2EzZhY00LhEMuw0DEOOR97JZcX7uY3LGfBbb4qTB7sDoDRiBPRe2bsAZ35G156wsDCj5fr27wRym6eNvFQLqrCbsabAi5vFC/s320/Screenshot_1.jpg" width="192" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: white;"><br /></span></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">A governess is hired by a man to oversee his nephew and niece who currently reside at his country house in Bly, Essex. The children’s parents have passed away and he, as the uncle, is the closest living relative and, thus, their guardian. The governess receives a respectable stipend from her employer, on the condition that she will be fully in charge of the children and will, in no way, bother him about them or the house. Upon arrival she gets to meet the housekeeper, Mrs. Grose. After that, she is introduced to Flora, the young niece. Miles, the nephew, arrives a few days later after he is expelled from school for reasons unknown. Soon the governess starts seeing a man and a woman, whom she doesn’t recognize, at the premises. Upon describing them to Mrs. Grose, she finds out that the man is Peter Quint, an ex-employee, and the woman is Miss Jessel, the previous governess. There’s just one problem. They are both dead!</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">So this is the novella on which that Nicole Kidman film was based. Since there is no unlearning a plot twist you’ve already seen in a movie, this knowledge hounded me as I read the book. As such, my focus had to change, looking for clues and red herrings instead, until the ending revealed that the film was only loosely based on this. They share many subplots, but the translation from text to screen is not one-to-one. And so I can’t really decide whether I should be disappointed or not. What I can say, though, is that my curiosity, as to how a ghost story could be rendered in book form without jump scares, has been satisfied. It IS creepy.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Henry James has an eloquent style of storytelling, with much of the text heavily based on an internal monologue approach characterized by verbal diarrhea that supposedly says a lot but does not really say much. Since this is my first James reading experience, I do not have any points of comparison to conclude whether this writing style of his has been rendered here to be intentionally confusing to somehow effectively display some sort of brain fog representing an alleged mentally unstable headspace of the governess. Or does he just really write like this? If that’s the case, then I am not that excited to read his other novels!</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Don’t get me wrong, though. This novella has been an exciting read despite being short at just 110 pages. Each chapter strives to divide itself between the governess’ inner thoughts and the unravelling of the supernatural subplot. As you flip more pages, more doubt is presented by the governess’ shaky narration. Are there really ghosts in this manor or is the governess just having a serious mental breakdown? Both? We will never know, because Henry James never bothered to explain. That is a good thing. Why so? Because it’s this novella’s undeniable allure. It is open to interpretation, and there have been plenty in the last 100 years.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">The interpretation I’ve always wanted to have was that of Quint and Jessel being alive while the governess, the kids, and Mrs. Grose are all dead. You know, very The Others. Except that the storyline did not conclude that way. Even then, that ending is just so ambiguous with Miles asking, unclear whether to Quint or the governess, whether “she is here”. I never fully understood that. Is he asking Quint whether the governess was there, meaning she is the ghost? Or is he asking the governess or Quint whether Miss Jessel was there before he dropped dead? Ugh, his anti-climactic instant death is also baffling to me. What the heck?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">So yes, I am confused, but in a good way. Most online forums just can’t find a consensus whether this is a simple haunted mansion ghost story or the governess is just cuckoo. What surprised me were the discussions about child and sexual abuse, which I was able to get hints of while reading but never really pursued as a possible embedded storyline. In the end, those assumptions do make sense. By the time you finish reading this novella, you will have already been so used to the ubiquitous ambiguity that abounds in James’ prose.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-family: arial;"><span style="color: white;">The reading stops, but the analysis doesn’t. I also like how despite all that ambiguity, there is some sort of vague understanding for you, as a reader, that there is something sinister that is constantly being referred to but never directly, perhaps due to its sensitive nature. This is where the speculations about abuse surface and, once again, a plethora of interpretations arise</span>.</span></div></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/8867213972398897452/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/05/the-turn-of-screw.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/8867213972398897452'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/8867213972398897452'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/05/the-turn-of-screw.html' title='The Turn of the Screw'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg063t1Oa4hPfEgif1gtb29qAMyVh5An6aWhyphenhyphenhsy2o7JQxIwdXtw4G_6dvxZ_QcM7jJrNGsX4pB3yYMr2w5r7kifTbMJ5Zm2EzZhY00LhEMuw0DEOOR97JZcX7uY3LGfBbb4qTB7sDoDRiBPRe2bsAZ35G156wsDCj5fr27wRym6eNvFQLqrCbsabAi5vFC/s72-c/Screenshot_1.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-4934030550245150834</id><published>2024-05-11T22:53:00.006+08:00</published><updated>2024-05-12T22:52:53.559+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Indian"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Literature"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Swarup V."/><title type='text'>Q & A</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Q_%26_A_(novel)" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="310" data-original-width="204" height="310" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOFLbYefvdv6OkIJKHaYlW8z3jK_qq1-sumQxbjX02-NphUoqOIJ7C2Jb97Fp2JTn2fynQd9rDjvJh6V3TEjjmCyCkfyH40gQxhr9cWoDf3akGaEfS7mSonlguu6DfNn3m8yZEMWCq3YbHYM7SZ_YFz6kc3e01kD434wOLxuGgzVH5l8NpFHCy0k7qnMJD/s1600/Screenshot_1.jpg" width="204" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">18-year-old waiter Ram Mohammad Thomas is arrested by police at Dharavi, Asia’s biggest slum at the heart of Mumbai, after he is accused of cheating his way into winning the one billion rupee jackpot prize on a game show called W3B. According to the producers, there is no logical explanation for a mere waiter without an education to breeze through 12 difficult questions and laugh his way to the bank. Tortured to provide a confession, Ram almost gives up until a young lady by the name of Smita, posing as his lawyer, intervenes and takes him back to her flat to review the DVD of the episode. Asked to tell the truth and nothing but the truth, he links each round of Q&amp;A to separate episodes of his own life, from escaping a syndicate planning to blind him and his best friend Salim to time he spent working for has-been film star Neelima Kumari. Can he prove his innocence and get his money or will he rot in jail for a crime he did not commit?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">The film took some artistic license and omitted some subplots that perhaps did not jive well with the screenplay. Neelima Kumari, for example, is an important plot device in the book but glaringly absent in the onscreen rendition. Where the book surpasses Danny Boyle’s Oscar winner, though, is through its non-linear narration, with the game show format proving to be an effective tool not just for transition but also for compartmentalizing every colorful episode of the protagonist’s life. This creates more exciting revelations when information previously held back comes to light as the bigger picture emerges.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Much of the poverty porn criticism has been leveled against the film version, and not without reason, since it’s a film about India from the eyes of a foreigner. One might think that the novel would be immune to this, except that there are similar criticisms against Swarup, in particular with regard to his description of poverty in India considering that he comes from a privileged background and has lived much of his life abroad as a foreign service officer. Needless to say, the narrative is indeed guilty of some romanticization of poverty here and there, as if trivialized for convenience to suit a gripping underdog storyline.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">The combined final chapter and epilogue are really short at just around 20 pages, which is a significant reduction from the penultimate chapter with a whopping 70. Since the author found it necessary to bludgeon his readers with one twist right after another in quick succession, those final pages just come at you like a rushed series finale compressed in less than half an hour. He could have taken his time and let the twists marinate for a few chapters more for an even better payoff. Unfortunately, it fails somehow and cheapens the emotional investment you’ve built with the characters in the last 200 pages or so.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">At that point the narrative simply ends up feeling like a telenovela that embraces contrivance to a fault. Perhaps many readers would even argue that this is one of Swarup’s storytelling dilemmas. Consistency. The characters he introduces are either hit or miss, with the likes of Salim and Shankar standing out and begging to be remembered long after their chapters wrap up, while others such as the Australian Defence Attaché and Neelima Kumari somehow come across as caricatures or clichés. Eventually, you get a collection of characters that you love and some that are just hard to believe to be true.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Is Q &amp; A entertaining? Wildly. Sometimes too much for its own good. Poverty porn criticisms aside, there is no doubt that Swarup has what it takes to entertain his reader, grabbing your attention right away from the very first line of the prologue. What you get is your typical underdog story, set in the organized chaos of Agra, Delhi, and Mumbai. The suspension of disbelief for this one is a tall order, but something that can lead to a really fun read if you just let go. If you are looking for something philosophical and profound, this isn’t it. But if you are looking for enjoyable reading material, then this might just fit the bill.</span></div></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/4934030550245150834/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/05/q-a.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/4934030550245150834'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/4934030550245150834'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/05/q-a.html' title='Q & A'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiOFLbYefvdv6OkIJKHaYlW8z3jK_qq1-sumQxbjX02-NphUoqOIJ7C2Jb97Fp2JTn2fynQd9rDjvJh6V3TEjjmCyCkfyH40gQxhr9cWoDf3akGaEfS7mSonlguu6DfNn3m8yZEMWCq3YbHYM7SZ_YFz6kc3e01kD434wOLxuGgzVH5l8NpFHCy0k7qnMJD/s72-c/Screenshot_1.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-2085633849439938447</id><published>2024-05-03T23:48:00.006+08:00</published><updated>2024-05-03T23:48:45.967+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Irish"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Literature"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Swift J."/><title type='text'>Gulliver’s Travels</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulliver%27s_Travels" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="304" data-original-width="208" height="304" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3xIFlxnfNddnDt3Oo4gRmZsmAMTvRApAMLx6JfPxkK9LX1cvV1Dte2a7NOJMGFGah1Thaw9T8DazKbggiRAbXBsDtYX6inDfGEi0TpCnk6bnp9ENx-79Odv__kyooK__Q2OxdY8aW4fwMntrVCbhP-zxDIxwAciJ_n2Ksd_x0L_8PRfp2QKGKR_w3ZXYA/s1600/Screenshot_1.jpg" width="208" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Towards the end of the 17th century, a surgeon’s apprentice by the name of Lemuel Gulliver decides to choose a life of adventure by hopping on a ship to explore foreign lands. His first trip gets him marooned on the island country of Lilliput, whose inhabitants do not exceed six inches in height. There he gets caught in a war between his host nation and the neighboring island of Blefuscu. Once fortune returns him to England, his thirst for travel has him sailing again. This time around he is abandoned by the ship’s crew at Brobdingnag, whose inhabitants stand 72 feet tall. There he becomes some kind of a circus animal, finding refuge at the royal palace, somehow being treated as the royals’ pet. Once his luck takes him back to Britain, once again he finds himself on board another ship. A pirate attack leads him to be rescued by the flying island of Laputa which is in rivalry with the grounded kingdom of Balnibarbi. Once back in his native country, he goes on yet another journey and this time ends up at the land of the Houyhnhnms, a race of intelligent horses ruling over Yahoos, which look like primitive humans.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">The storytelling is repetitive as far as style is concerned. The guy hops on a boat and gets stuck in a weird country where customs wildly differ from what he is used to. This happens four or five times and runs the risk of boring you. Luckily, the content of his different adventures is a good mix of silly fish-out-of-water scenarios and an indirect critique of human behavior during that time, even though we can argue that most of his misanthropic arguments still hold water up to this day. It is interesting because given how this novel was penned three hundred years ago, it’s as though nothing much has changed. Mankind are, still, assholes.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">The sequence of his adventures feels just about right. The Lilliput versus Blefuscu episode gives you a good grasp of the author’s storytelling style. The follow-up at Brobdingnag is in the same vein, but with circumstances reversed. Gulliver was literally the big guy on Lilliput with much to offer only to be reduced, literally once again, and feel useless at Brobdingnag. Since this novel is a satire of travel journals, anyone who has traveled to other countries could easily relate to that weird feeling of superiority or inferiority, with your country of origin and culture as the point of comparison, depending on which shores you end up landing on.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Once Gulliver takes you to Laputa and to the land of the Houyhnhnms, the premise is no longer a fish-out-of-water storyline as the mood quickly changes to a more philosophical outlook where the inhabitants of those countries serve as some kind of mirror for the human psyche. This is, perhaps, one of the geniuses of Swift’s writing, by being able to openly criticize our species through the standpoint of fictional characters that, in the case of the brainy horses, are supposed to be inferior to our kind, but have been elevated to a pedestal of intelligence and reason in this book’s universe.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">I share the same observation by some readers regarding Swift’s treatment of women, his descriptions of whom appear to be downright misogynistic. However, I also believe that the author should be given the benefit of the doubt. After all, this book is obviously a satire of 1700’s society in England. Is this misogyny coming from the author himself or is this a sarcastic flaw he has intentionally assigned to his main character as a form of veiled criticism? We really wouldn’t know. Swift has been dead for almost three centuries now so we can’t really ask him. Rest assured that this quirk adds even more color to the main character.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">In the end, I can’t help but commiserate with Gulliver with regard to his acute misanthropy after finally settling back with his family in Britain. It is weird but highly relatable. Isn’t this almost always the case for anyone growing old and getting tired of other people’s BS? You eventually just get allergic to them and try to avoid those who you could easily avoid. Perhaps that is just how our species is supposed to be. Destructive. Antagonistic. Warfreak. Isn’t it bliss to share this phobia of fellow humans with someone who lived 300 years ago, survived, and told the tale? I guess we are just slow to evolve, now aren’t we?</span></div></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/2085633849439938447/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/05/gullivers-travels.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/2085633849439938447'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/2085633849439938447'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/05/gullivers-travels.html' title='Gulliver’s Travels'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3xIFlxnfNddnDt3Oo4gRmZsmAMTvRApAMLx6JfPxkK9LX1cvV1Dte2a7NOJMGFGah1Thaw9T8DazKbggiRAbXBsDtYX6inDfGEi0TpCnk6bnp9ENx-79Odv__kyooK__Q2OxdY8aW4fwMntrVCbhP-zxDIxwAciJ_n2Ksd_x0L_8PRfp2QKGKR_w3ZXYA/s72-c/Screenshot_1.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry><entry><id>tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8879518290175104767.post-6072586444146529427</id><published>2024-04-28T13:43:00.000+08:00</published><updated>2024-05-04T22:17:51.032+08:00</updated><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Canadian"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Literature"/><category scheme="http://www.blogger.com/atom/ns#" term="Martel Y."/><title type='text'>Life of Pi</title><content type='html'><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_of_Pi" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;" target="_blank"><img border="0" data-original-height="307" data-original-width="203" height="307" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_xXbAKuzMb0SvESVyS1YKYnN3XV7XAiEsrFSK958rOm4LfvGx5wZH4JJI1DAON-iif8pJvoUKjK5f4uf8wWAGEWgA912mhaOTG6sA4M5mjOdVKmyCCXXm3JEFsySYTyts1fIjyHdVp8YAG-t3mw0XOpA1y_yHFxUTwgvYqolqdMPVuqdUTPo5p56__bHI/s1600/Screenshot_1.jpg" width="203" /></a></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><div style="text-align: justify;">♣♣♣♣♣/♣♣♣♣♣</div></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Named after a Parisian swimming pool, Piscine Molitor Patel, known to his family and friends by the nickname “Pi”, has had a colorful childhood in Pondicherry, spending much of his time tending to the animals of his father’s zoo as well as flirting with three different religions at the same time as some sort of spiritual experimentation. His metaphysical issues are immediately replaced with existential ones as the family decides to sell the zoo and the animals so they can all start anew as immigrants in Canada. As the day comes, he, his parents, and his older brother Ravi all board the Japanese ship Tsimtsum along with some animals that are going to various zoos in North America with them. The ship sinks amidst a freak storm somewhere in the Pacific, leaving Pi on a lifeboat alone with a wounded zebra, a hungry hyena, a dazed orangutan, and a Bengal tiger named Richard Parker.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><a name='more'></a></span><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">The first third of the novel is spent getting to know Pi and his early brush with religion. It is an enjoyable read that is supposed to be a simple story of a young man’s journey to spiritual self discovery but narrated in such a fun way that makes you want to know more about him. The text is also rife with psychological musings, most of them of the metaphysical kind that juxtaposes religion and spirituality in a modern context and how the power of faith can be a motivation for miraculous feats that many wouldn’t achieve otherwise. Perhaps that’s where the novel gets its whimsical appeal, even if you are agnostic or an atheist.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">If you are just curious as to what the twist is, then you simply have to read the last twenty pages or so from 406 onwards. That presents a clear summary of the symbolisms involved where it is revealed that the animals might not have been animals at all, but rather a PG-13 version of what would otherwise have been a narrative too depressing to read, because life is cruel enough as it is. And so we cope. It is the power of this symbolism that I remember the most the first time I read this novel two decades ago. A mark of a good storyteller is indulging the imagination with creative alternate POVs to soften the blow.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">In a way, Life of Pi is just another argument that life is how you make it. The circumstances you find yourself in change depending on your perspective and how you react to it. Even the thinnest sliver of a silver lining can alter your approach to almost everything and in the end, it will always be your choice how you go forward. The novel is as feel-good as it can be which some people might frown upon and even dismiss as self-help, but with such a storyline replete with imagination, the premise turns out to be just as good as the presentation.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Another thing I admire is the abundance of zoology tidbits scattered here and there. It’s hard to tell if Martel was just improvising but the information was laid out in such an authoritative manner that begs amusement. In any case it doesn’t really matter because it seems like the main motivation for such is to frame the human being vis-a-vis the animal and try to better understand life as a game of instinct and survival. When you think about it, it makes a lot of sense. After all, aren’t we all technically just animals too, living in a more sophisticated zoo with cages that are of the societal norm type instead of the usual stainless steel?</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;"><br /></span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="color: white; font-family: arial;">Anyway, Martel already got his flowers when the novel won him the Man Booker Prize in 2002. Now there is also an Oscar-nominated film adaptation which won Ang Lee his first Academy Award for directing. It seems as though Martel hasn’t really had a follow-up hit after this, but then again how many best-sellers do you really need to have to set you up for life? He already left a good enough literary legacy with Life of Pi, and it will just continue to allure readers of all ages for decades to come.</span></div></div></content><link rel='replies' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/feeds/6072586444146529427/comments/default' title='Post Comments'/><link rel='replies' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/04/life-of-pi.html#comment-form' title='0 Comments'/><link rel='edit' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/6072586444146529427'/><link rel='self' type='application/atom+xml' href='http://www.blogger.com/feeds/8879518290175104767/posts/default/6072586444146529427'/><link rel='alternate' type='text/html' href='http://www.ihcahieh.com/2024/04/life-of-pi.html' title='Life of Pi'/><author><name>ihcahieh</name><uri>http://www.blogger.com/profile/03679524174484441585</uri><email>noreply@blogger.com</email><gd:image rel='http://schemas.google.com/g/2005#thumbnail' width='32' height='24' src='//blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3nYFbB2KFfGvXBwz4G6YUkdAA1l9U-l1XsQvMgsAtzrJZ7ue-wZdvgwwo2BmqBwbsbFS7SwEqTe9DoTHsj4icAvpbysDxqV2u5burN0D9aCj7eKYkTXaEMxFOZkc0aJU/s151/*'/></author><media:thumbnail xmlns:media="http://search.yahoo.com/mrss/" url="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi_xXbAKuzMb0SvESVyS1YKYnN3XV7XAiEsrFSK958rOm4LfvGx5wZH4JJI1DAON-iif8pJvoUKjK5f4uf8wWAGEWgA912mhaOTG6sA4M5mjOdVKmyCCXXm3JEFsySYTyts1fIjyHdVp8YAG-t3mw0XOpA1y_yHFxUTwgvYqolqdMPVuqdUTPo5p56__bHI/s72-c/Screenshot_1.jpg" height="72" width="72"/><thr:total>0</thr:total></entry></feed>

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