When We Got a Kick Out Of This New Dimension

Newfangled things make such fools of us, sometimes.

It’s the year 2010 and as always, technology is growing quicker than we can adapt to it. Even lonelier, it becomes obsolete faster than we can even cherish it. I’m still actively using my 512MB iPod shuffle, but I was also compelled to get a 20GB iPod Photo. Later on, D. and I got a fourth gen 16GB iPod Nano Video. Less than a year from now, we’re going to laugh at this laptop’s processing or the browsing speed of Intel’s Core 2 Duo. For some reason, it tenderly invites me to just use an Underwood Typewriter, or just push an ageless fountain pen.

Newfangled things make such fools of us, sometimes. It has an effect of making us feel unprepared for the future. I often think about just sticking to what’s familiar and workable.

In 2009, I heard somewhere that the top 6 movies made were in 3D, or had portions in 3D. D. and I like films a lot and we watch around three DVDs a week, with 2 or 3 seasons of a good TV series on DVD per month. But we’ve never seen a 3D film before. We felt like the last couple on earth to have not seen a 3D film in the year 2010.

I must have run a couple hundred km’s worth of 5 or 10ks around the Imax Theater but I’ve never really wanted to be inside.

One Saturday evening in January 2010 (which for someone born in the 1980’s would sound futuristic enough), I and my four-month pregnant wife headed out to see a film in full 3D. When we were kids, movie tickets cost a glorious 20 bucks. The tickets in Imax are worth 400 each, which got for when I got for us in the morning. She was in a maternity dress and a gray sweater, and I had a new black jacket on that fit nicely. I felt I was looking like how I imagined myself in the future, with a beautiful woman who carried our child in her womb.

We put the 3D glasses on and watched our first full 3D film, James Cameron’s Avatar. Fantastically enough, this one was an anti-technology film set in the future, about these tall, blue, nature-loving beings with tails and pointed ears that thrived in the forests of another planet. Unlike earth, their planet wasn’t polluted by so-called technology, greed and delusions of progress. They lived this organic and sustainable lifestyle until a corporation from earth came to drain out their minerals and resources, blasting out their sacred trees with missiles. All for profit. With the powers of nature led by a big, red bird, piloted by a half-human with a gun, the humans are defeated.

We were wowed. 3D, indeed, added a new dimension to films. With the high-frequency surround sounds being just a given, every shot literally had depth and a unique vibrancy that’s almost tangible. When you look back, everybody stares in awe through oversized 3D glasses. This movie was three hours long and the entire time felt like one of the technology-edgy rides in Enchanted Kingdom.

It must have been something. It must have been the blaring surround sounds, the mystifying wideness of the Imax screen, the magic of this story, our fascination, the shape of mouths turning circularly into a wow, or the hope of having goodness in this universe. Something in there made D. feel for the first time, our baby’s kick.

With the 11pm cold January evening wind sliced by a jacket, sweater, and our bodies held together tightly, we walked back to the parking lot. Our faces still marked by those 3D spectacles, she was telling me how that kick felt.

This is our future, I thought. And we’re ready for it.

The Chips Connoisseur

I remember my first memory of purchased joy, the one that actually involved me transacting money. Before my father leaves for the office, the four or five-year-old me would stand by the door and ask him for exactly one peso. Fresh out of the pockets of his slacks, the prized coin would be in a kid’s hands braving the perils of crossing their street to buy a bag of Oishi prawn crackers.

I would empty its clear plastic down to its last grain of monosodium glutamate.

I’ve been eating chips ever since. Almost predictably, with the chips and the unhealthy food (along with stress, and therefore: alcohol, cigarettes), I got a portion of my inheritance early in my 20s - the high blood pressure that runs in the family. The pharmaceutical companies steal from me every day through my maintenance medication. In my late twenties I managed my diet better and took into running as a metaphor for life. I stopped being an all-too-lonely lump of fat, and maintained a body mass index that’s right on the spot.

I gave up on eating a lot of the sumptuous delights of the cholesterol factory. I substituted most of my carbohydrates like rice with wheat bread, even if most people in Asia eat about 2 cups of rice a day. I even learned to read nutrition information in food labels. But even if a small bag of chips contain 20% of the saturated fat daily allowance, I could never give it up entirely. So nowadays, if I close my eyes to my self-imposed diet consciousness and eat chips – it has to be fucking good. In search of the good ones (but not never the most expensive), I’ve proclaimed myself the Chips Connoisseur.

Since D. and I got married, our groceries include a huge bag of Cheeto’s Jalapeno, Gourmet’s Nori flavoured chips, Kimchi Chips, Seat Salt Chips, Kettle’s Cheddar Cheese, Kettle’s Smoky Barbeque. We feast on them while watching DVDs. And there’s my daily needs: the chips to match my healthy sandwiches. For those, I go for the classics: Rin Bee, V-Cut and Nova.

Recently, one of the most delicious (for the unbelievably cheap price tag of 25 pesos) yet most elusive brand of all is the locally made Marty’s Old Fashioned Vegetarian Chicharon. It claims to be “guilt-free” and on the healthy side but it didn’t need to be and quite naturally, never will be. What a hilarious claim. But like most things delicious, everyone who’s had it wants it again. It’s always out-of-stock and its unavailability in major grocery stores gives it a flair of rarity. Parallel to wines, it’s the rare vintage.

Well, that’s according to me, the Chips Connoisseur.

One sunny January day after his shift on his alternate job in a call center, he goes out. The Chips Connoisseur was out to pay the Meralco (electric) bill in a BDO (bank) near Paco (wet market). Near the bank was a news stand. With the pleasure that comes in discovering a knowledge that’s previously uncertain, the Chips Connoisseur thought he saw the familiar blue wrapper of Marty’s Old Fashioned Vegetarian Chicharon. He looked for the vendor. The vendor was on old lady sitting in a green plastic chair. The old lady was asleep, her sagging chin resting on a wrinkly wrist. She’s too old to be still working, he thought. He didn’t want to wake her up but he can’t resist the chips. He wakes her up politely and asks, pointing to the chips, asks, “Magkano po dito?”

“Twenty.” The old lady says, half-yawning.

The Chips Connoisseur knew that price didn’t sound right. It was wrong to steal this rare find, especially from old ladies powerless old ladies who do not understand that those chips were vintage.

He paid the right price – what it was really worth (25 pesos), and all the coins he had left. “Keep the change.” So they say.

Chips Connoisseur, big time.

Never-Accomplished Writing

It was first time I caught a whiff of her. She smelled like a new book. You pick up a new book from the fancy store shelf, the crisp and the newly minted yellow leaves summoning you. Untouched and tempting. You press the edge of the bound pages against your nostrils. Your thumb slowly flares the pages against your nose, as though to squeeze the smell out.

It smelled like a spirit that my spirit longed to be acquainted.

Leftover Magic Dust in my Coffee

We return to be smothered by the exhaustion of normal life.

In one of the afternoons during this holiday break, I uncovered a secret. Maybe I’m exaggerating again, as it’s just a simple recipe. Now I’m going to sound like a cretin. I poured a strong blend of drip coffee over finely powdered chocolate milk along with a packet of a natural zero-calorie sweetener and the result was Cafe Mocha.

The simplicity made it magical. I want to say, it’s not like chasing my own tail as I know for certain that it’s magic. But maybe it was just the holidays – which are over now. Tomorrow, life reverts to normal. Once again, we’ve got less time to see family and friends. We’re done with being drunk fizzy with elation. We return to be smothered by the exhaustion of normal life.

This afternoon and this evening were the final exceptions. After a short morning run, house chores, a warm bath, and a delightful lunch prepared by D., we saw another wonderful-enough Woody Allen.

...Whatever love you can get and give, whatever happiness you can filch or provide, every temporary measure of grace, whatever works.


Following the film, I made coffee and put the magic dust to spend the afternoon reading these delicious, bite-size stories from Italo Calvino in Numbers in the Dark, along with a back issue of Harper’s. The reads were fantastic and I feel enriched. Imagine this quote from Calvino, for example:

...I still live in a castle of meanings, not things.

In a Celebration of H.’s, in one of those hardcore drunken conversations when you spoke of what agitated your life, I told my good friend M., “I realized I don’t want to get rich.” Maybe that’s what I meant, I didn’t want to amass things. I yearned for meaning. I know now, I wouldn't be rich, but be like living like a king in a castle.

When evening came today, we heard mass and had a filling dinner at a tea house near the church. Ceremoniously, they stirred chilli in the soy sauce. Life felt like a Murakami novel. We retreat home for her to rest, and me to write.

We wish more of the magic dust. And all we have to do is think of next Christmas, when we’re going to be a family of our own. J, D, and the little one.

Within Thy Wounds Hide Me

Towards a Re-evaluation of Values?

In this Sunday’s sermon, the priest said we should have an ear for trajectory of the scriptures and another ear for the trajectory of history. He said that it’s similar to the accomplishment of the Second Vatican Council, when it rode with the spirit of the times. Geist. Fresh out of Copenhagen, and disappointed with the poor outcome of Copenhagen, he insightfully highlighted the necessity of environmental consciousness and the reduction of carbon emissions. For your children and your children’s children, he said.

In his trajectory of history going hand in hand with the trajectory of the scriptures, he cited Mahatma Ghandi as a paragon – as Ghandi embodied and enacted the values of Christianity in aptness to a historical period. In front of the tabernacle, the priest was this close to saying (in a rather charming Irish accent) that Buddha is more Christian than Christians.

The previous Sunday, while singing the Lamb of God, a child was acting out the lyrics. It was so sincere, and so truthfully cherished, as only a child could pray. The most unblemished form of prayer comes from children.

In morning masses at 9am, it’s usually a children’s choir who sings in Malate. It poses a more magical efficacy when children in chorus beautifully voices out “hide me in thy wounds...” or “your children have grown weary in living in confusion.”

Religion is the opium of the masses, so Marx says. But they’ didn’t have rehab back then. I've sort of gone through a religious rehab. Now that I am free, but not necessarily enlightened, I want my opium.

Religion is also the childlike condition of humanity, Feuerbach goes. I still believe in Feuerbach. Since I am going to be a father soon, I’ve merrily reawakened the child in me. I’ve also concluded that Catholicism is essential to the value formation of our child, a necessary step towards a Nietzschean re-evaluation of values.

But know that all your life, you will have to seek out the Truth, my child. Have faith in what is good, hope fervently, uphold what is right, and as your mother says: pray, pray, pray from your heart.