Good morning, Cubao!
The day fairies sew crystal beads on the curtains of clouds.
Photo by JR Dalisay / April 21, 2017
Monday, October 31, 2022
One Message For One Of 1,500 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with five syllables in your name: Always plan ahead. That way you'll ever be pressured to meet a deadline with your pants down.
Sunday, October 30, 2022
One Message For One Of 1,500 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with four syllables in your name: Overcome the bashfulness that prevented you from going and getting in the past. Now that you are ready, the teacher will come.
Dinner at home alone. The neighborhood is a ghost neighborhood; many stalls are closed and even D. shut down her store, presumably for her family to go to the cemetery.
Angelique, Aubrey, and Jazz went shopping this afternoon and are having dinner out.
Surprisingly, M.'s cafe has customers. Possibly neighbors who don't feel like doing their own cooking tonight.
Night chores.
Brought some food over to M.'s cafe staff.
My favorite time has come again: an evening shower, and then snuggling in bed with a Netflix movie.
Saturday, October 29, 2022
Your Messenger message:
"Hi Sir Tony, good afternoon! I hope you and your family are alright during this typhoon season
"I was hoping you could kindly shed some light on an experience I had when I was 6 years old
"We used to have games during Math class where we’d be divided into teams and each team member would be asked to solve a problem on the blackboard
"My team mate was writing the wrong answer, so from my seat, I just had the idea of pushing my answers to her through my thoughts
"What I found interesting was that the timing of my thoughts and her actions were nearly simultaneous. Of course, six-year old me did not yet know about telepathy
"But what I am very curious about was that while I was pushing my thoughts to her, even down to the act of erasing her initial solution on the blackboard, I felt this ball of energy in my right hand
"What was that ball of energy, Sir Tony? Unfortunately, I never got to feel that energy since
"I remember that my right hand was positioned as if it were trying to hold a big, imaginary ball
My reply:
Hello ____!
The ball of energy was your psychic power bank. The right hand is usually the giving hand, while the left hand is usually the receiving hand. You were giving energy to your team mate.
You no longer feel energy transfer because it has already become second nature to you.
Your Messenger message:
"still a goodmorning sir tony.. I hope you and your family are doing fine amidst the typhoon...
"I would just like to try if you can help me with my curiosity. "I had no electricity last night so I checked the living room with my flashlight and when I scanned across the tv screen there seems to be a doodle of a spiral on it. (will try to send the video, but messenger will dumb down the quality).. "I live alone and I know for sure I didn't and won't doodle a spiral on it."I hope you can shed some light and wisdom on this. I only have google to depend on and will meditate to listen to my guides too
"btw, I live in an old house po. 1950s po yata ito sir
"our ancestral house"
My reply:
Hello ____!
Based on the video you sent, I believe that the images on the TV screen were formed merely by air and moisture.
The surfaces of flat-screens are naturally difficult to wipe clean. Even after you've done a thorough cleaning, smudges reappear due to changes in temperature.
You have nothing to fear even if you wanted to have something to fear.
One Message For One Of 1,400 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with five syllables in your name: It is time to showcase your talent. The first thing you have to do, however, is dissociate yourself from friends and acquaintances whose talents you admire, so that your own will shine through.
Friday, October 28, 2022
Your Messenger message:
"Goodevening po sir. Kailangan ko lang po ng tulong nyo. Sana po matulungan nyo po ako sir as im really heartbroken due to the sudden passing of my mom due to aneurysm.
"I really hope that you could notice me sir.. gusto ko lng po malaman how is my mom? Kng nasa mgnda po ba cyang klagayan just like nun npanaginipan ko po saknya that shes infront of what seems to be like a palace or kaharian
"...My mom's name is ________________________, 69/F,
"Last July 18 po sir, around 11am time, we were in the car bigla lang po cyang ngcomplain na parang sumasakit daw po batok nya. She asked us kng pwede daw po cyang uminom ng paracetamol. Husband told her na kng batok yan, BP yan at need nya magrest. When we got home, nkalakad pa c mama. As soon as she reached the bed, bigla nlng cyamg humiga. she was having excruciating Nape pain. Noon ko lang po cya nakita na ngreklamo ng ganun at umiiyak habang hawak po batok nya.. pagkabp ko 160/90 po. Ngcatapres po kmi sknya, bumaba nman po after few min, after 30minutes i was cinvincing her na sumama padin samin but she told me na 'dito nlng ako, maiwan nlng ako dito' kung kaya mo ba, ma? 'Oo kaya ko' then i already bid her goodbye, and told her i love you Ma.. then huling silip nmin ng husband ko sknya, she was getting pale.. i was reluctant to leave my mom in that state, i was questioning myself kng tama ba gagawin ko, na aalis ako at iiwan ko mama ko but napressure npo ako coz ngmamadali npo un husband ko at sister in law ko na umalis kaya i was left with no choice but to leave at that moment. Pero binilin ko po mom ko sa helper na tingnan tingnan cya coz masama po pakiramdam nya. after 1.5 hours po, tumawag npo yun helper and she was frantically screaming for help na coz my mom was on the floor, Unconscious na but still with pulse. Nagsuka yun mom ko pala, mukang she walked pa para kunin un arinola, para doon magsuka. Inisip nya pa na di cya magkalat.
"Hangang na-ICU npo c mama. Findings sa ctscan is aneurysmal bleed po. 4days pa po cya sa icu na coma state..
"(Pasencya npo sir ha at napahaba)
"This picture po was taken nun last june lang po."
My reply:
Hello ________!
Your mother is in a good place where she continues to watch over your family and you. Place her framed photo on your family altar. You may offer flowers, lit candles in bottles, and fresh drinking water on special occasions.
The grief you are experiencing is perfectly natural. Losing a mother--more than a father, if I may say so--is especially devastating. Go through your period of mourning, then pick up and allow everyday life to go on. You can always talk to your mother, aloud and when you are alone, as though she were still alive.
I need you to be aware and understand that your emotions are being complicated by other factors:
--a feeling of guilt, because you could have done more for your mother before she passed away
--denial of her death at a relatively young age
--denial of her death at a relatively young age
--dreams of the future unfulfilled
--things that you wish you could have shared with her and told her
--having to take on certain responsibilities, now that she is gone
--fear of your own mortality
--having to take on certain responsibilities, now that she is gone
--fear of your own mortality
--changes in family dynamics
Do whatever you have to do, even if you have to do them on autopilot.
Rest and be assured that your mother is a shining spirit and is free from suffering.
Watched all four episodes of the U.S.A.'s 2021 Night Stalker: The Hunt for a Serial Killer. a documentary on serial killer and rapist Richard Ramirez, also known as the Night Stalker. The documentary features narratives by Detective Gil Carrillo and Detective Frank Salerno of the Homicide Bureau, LA County Sheriff, and includes interviews with officers, a criminalist, and a crime scene technician; a news producer, a reporter, a journalist, and broadcasters; survivors; and witnesses.
All, if not most, of Ramirez's crimes are presented in chronological sequence from the murder of Dale Okazaki on March 17, 1985 all the way to the murder of Peter Pan and the rape of his wife on August 18, 1985. He committed six to eight murders and 25-30 attacks, though it is suggested that there were more.
The documentary is well-written and well-directed. It is not treated like a horror story, it does not showcase excessive gore, it avoids hysterical scenes, and it does not dwindle into melodrama. It is also completely un-Freudian and presents facts as objectively and as dispassionately as possible.
The last episode includes a glimpse into the past life of the perpetrator, his conviction on 43 counts of murder and assault on September 20, 1989, his sentencing to the gas chamber on November 7, 1989, and his death due to cancer on June 7, 2013.
Your Messenger message:
"Hi Sir! I am writing in hopes that you can interpret a dream I had about my deceased brother. On the night of my daughter's birthday, I dreamt of setting the table for her celebration and noticed my brother sitting there. He was smiling at me and I instantly woke up. A few days later, his friend messaged me and said she dreamt of my brother preparing for the birthday of my husband and that our whole family was wearing white.
"Was this a coincidence po or was he trying to tell me something? I am sorry to bother you po and thank you for your time.
"btw, I remember you po because my brother was in ACT and around twenty years ago I was invited to a couple of spirit questor events. Thank you so much again"
My reply:
Hello _____!
Your brother wants you and his friend to know that he is happy where he is now, but he wishes to be remembered.
Thursday, October 27, 2022
One Message For One Of 1,400 Friends, One Every Night Of the Year
You with five syllables in your name: Determine what else you need to do to improve your employment status, and work hard to achieve it.
Watched all 12 episodes of South Korea's 2022 Through the Darkness, based on the 2018 non-fiction book written by Korea's criminal profiler Kwon Il-yong and journalist Ko Na-mu. Inspector Song Ha-young, the main protagonist in this movie, successfully figures out complex murders and eventually becomes the first criminal behavior analyst of the detective force. The movie spans the years 1998 - 2007, is interfaced with actual world affairs and current events, and revolves around the cases of four serial killers: the initial killer Red Cap, Gu-young Chun (a.k.a. the Child Rapist), Nam Ki-Tae (a.k.a. the Triangle Killer), and Woo Ho-sung (a.k.a. the Camping Knife Killer). It involves in-depth analyses of criminal psychology and is exquisitely performed--indeed, the best performers are the actors who played the roles of the three serial killers and two other killers consulted in incarceration. It secondarily gives us a peek at the bureaucracy of the South Korean police force.
The criminal acts portrayed are violent,, but images of nudity and death are blurred, and, later, enacted out-of-frame. The characters were further unhampered by unnecessary excursions into family life and romance. There were, however, loose ends, such as the body of the woman that was thrown into the lake and was afterward neither mentioned nor retrieved.
An most substantial movie. It illustrates that, in movies, psychology is not melodrama, and that melodrama can never substitute for psychology.
Quite interesting that the Korean word "kaniang' means "it's just that", and I wonder how it is related to the Ilonggo word "kanang".
Wednesday, October 26, 2022
Komisyon sa Wikang Filipino (KWF) delivers copies of my novel Cubao Ilalim: Unang Aklat to our doorstep.
The book is available at KWF, but keep in mind that they are not a commercial book publisher/distributor. They are a national/government commission mandated to publish a wide range of Filipino literature. They are not concerned about sales.
I've been spending a lot more time now with family, especially meals, since I retired in 2015, and I wish it'd always been like that.
I now resent:
--having gone on work-related trips
--having gone to work-related dinners and receptions
--having worked overtime
--having attended play rehearsals and performances, and there were very many
--having attended taping sessions for TV dramas
--having gone on Spirit Quests, training sessions, and paranormal activities
--having gone to work-related dinners and receptions
--having worked overtime
--having attended play rehearsals and performances, and there were very many
--having attended taping sessions for TV dramas
--having gone on Spirit Quests, training sessions, and paranormal activities
--having gone to parties
Friends do not understand why I now never leave home, but, at 71, I consider my years to be numbered, and I don't wish to spend that remaining time in any other way.
One Message For One Of 1,400 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with seven syllables in your name: The answer is not on other people's Facebook Walls. The answer is within you.
Tuesday, October 25, 2022
One Message For One Of 1,300 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with four syllables in your name: Do not hasten to establish deep relationships with mere acquaintances. You will be in for a lot of grief.
Monday, October 24, 2022
One Message For One Of 1,300 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with four syllables in your name: Be resourceful. Do more than just inquire with friends.
Sunday, October 23, 2022
Former classmates from high school and college are trickling into my Friends List, and I wonder what will come of this electronic reunion. None of us, of course, are the boys and young men that we used to be.
After watching The Untamed last year I've always wondered how it would be to grow old with one friend--abandon everything, including our intellectual pursuits and our art--and live in a faraway place in Nature until we die. That's what the two men did in the movie, but then again they had no families, they were both single, and they were both unattached.
Sometimes real friendship survives only in fantasy.
One Message For One Of 1.300 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with three syllables in your name: Begin from the present and move forward to the future. Do not begin from the past.
Saturday, October 22, 2022
One Message For One Of 1,300 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with five syllables in your name: Your friendship is not forgotten. It is cherished, though in secret.
Friday, October 21, 2022
Your Messenger message:
"Good afternoon sir tony, I wanna ask if you don't mind sir, I dreamt today perhaps at 4am that I am having sex with my ex husband....but you know I didn't even think about him na ... Please enlighten me concerning this if you have time to reply sir ...many thanks
"My reply:
Hello _______!
This is a mere dream fragment rather than a dream narrative. Any of the following interpretations are possible:
--Your current partner does not give you enough sexual attention.
--You are subconsciously still in love with your ex-husband.
--You secretly desire to regress to happier times.
For further questions, please consult an elder counselor of your own gender.
On board the MS President. This was Ateneo de Manila's Summer Floating University to Hong Kong, Japan, and Taiwan (May 27 - June 13, 1971), sponsored by YSTAPHIL. We held classes and attended lectures on the ship everyday, and the three countries we visited included guided museum and theater tours. The entire course was the equivalent of three units in our transcripts. Among the faculty members were Rolando Tinio and Bien Lumbera of the English Department; Josie Patron, Zeny Domingo, and Becky Pestano of the Communications Department; and Victor Gosiengfiao of the History Department. I was in my junior year in college. I recall that, whenever we were at sea, I had frequent migraine attacks.
The only classmates I remember are Lito Bauza, Jimmy Lao, Teddy Yabut, Shirley Tibidu, Cecile Arvisu, Mila Floro, Jaime Lim, Al Santos, Patty Lorenzana, and Alma and Tricia whose surnames I forget.
After this pilot venture all of the faculty members decided not to do the floating university ever again. They said that it attracted the wrong kind of students, many of whom signed up only to go shopping. One student even traveled with her mother, and they kept to themselves most of the time. As a matter of fact I was the only student who submitted the required term paper after the trip, on the Japanese Kabuki Theater. Alas, I no longer have a copy of that.
I also suspect that YSTAPHIL didn't make good money out of this venture.
I am no longer in touch with everyone in this photo after all these years, and that was 51 years ago. Ang alam ko lang, pinagitna ang pinakaguwapong lalaki sa Back Row. (Joke!)
Photo stolen from Boy Martin.
One Message For One Of 1,300 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with seven syllables in your name: Be selective about the adults you want to grow up and be like. Go with the level-headed and the financially secure.
Thursday, October 20, 2022
Your Messenger message:
"Hi sir Tony! Hope your doing amazing! I love your post! I missed it for some time and now they are back.
"I had this dream and i tried to google the meaning but could find one. So sending it to you. "You dont have to interpret it
but i be happy if you want to. But if not, it is totally okay.
"I have this dream of being in a passenger seat in a top down car (red) along with other people. I think i know they but couldnt pin point who they are. The driver seems to be my photographer. It was evening.
"The drive was exciting as we passed by zombies or people who were trying to catch the car. We out drove them. But there was this feeling we were getting good speed (just my feeling)
"Then when the drive was peaceful, the car suddenly drove over a cliff, there was this feeling that the driver wanted to cross the other cliff. But we end up not reaching it and we fell and found ourselves the jungle between cliffs.
"The car was fine and not smashed. And all the passengers were okay. But there was a feeling that we are in a territory we dont know.
"Thank you for the time to read it sir Tony
"
My reply:
Hello _______!
You recently made a decision that you are subconsciously unsure was a wise one. I believe it has to do with work.
Always seriously assess your work status from time to time. If you are bored, why are you bored? If you feel that you re in a rut, why do you feel so?
The work that one has had for years is always a blessing. It is natural to yearn for wide horizons, but wider horizons almost always entail insecurity.
Before midnight. As of now I have 1,283 Friends, 17 short of 1,300. Been accepting only former students, former classmates, former co-workers, Spirit Questors, literature friends, theater friends, art friends. movie and TV friends, relatives, neighbors, and once in a while an odd acquaintance.
Tonight someone revealed his real identity to me: an inmate in _____________ Prison, where I held a creative writing workshop before I retired, perhaps in 2014, eight years ago. I have a group picture of everyone in that workshop. He was a very young man then, and now he has aged. He remains incarcerated. I asked him about some others in the group picture, and he said, they'd been released.
Must converse with him some more when he has the time, because cell phones are not allowed in prison. Am saddened that he spent the best years of his youth where he is, and I wonder how many more years he will need serving time.
One Message For One Of 1,200 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with five syllables in your name: Be proud of your university, but do not be a slave to everything it stands for.
Wednesday, October 19, 2022
One Message For One Of 1,200 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with six syllables in your name: Stick to your guns. Do not let others sway you. The strongest man is he who stands alone.
A Cursed Ring?
More than a decade ago I purchased a ring from an antique dealer whose shop was a walking distance from my workplace. After wearing the ring for some time I suffered from a hemorrhagic stroke and was hospitalized two weeks. At the time I did not make any connection between the ring and my hospitalization.
A month or two later a co-worker, Agnes, admired the ring on my finger and persuaded me to sell it to her. After wearing the ring she too suffered a stroke and was hospitalized. I asked Agnes to give the ring back to me, and I have kept it in storage ever since.
Agnes did some research on the ring. It is the ring of the Order of the Eastern Star. When I Google-searched it, I came up with a lot of information (perhaps too much information), most of it quite mysterious, and so I am not posting quotes here. You can do a Google-search yourself.
Later, Agnes and I consulted other doctors. After thorough check-ups it came out that we suffered not strokes but transient ischemic attacks. We tapered off our maintenance medication, and now we are both free of them.
This ring is for sale. Send me a Messenger message if you are interested. It should be safe in the hands of a Freemason. My only connection to Freemasonry is that my grandfather, Isabelo da Silva, was a Master Mason.
Tuesday, October 18, 2022
Watched all 13 episodes of Thailand's 2019 Sleepless Society: Nyctophobia. A woman loses her young son, Arm, and develops a phobia for the night and for sleeping. Soon a strange boy comes to the house and claims that he is Arm in another boy's body.
This is a suspenseful movie, and is distinctly Thai in that the viewers cannot predict how it will all end. There are several unexpected but credible plot twists, and every episode is engrossing. Episode 8 onward is an exciting detective story. It ends wonderfully, though, and the ending is most satisfying.
There are, unfortunately, some technical glitches. To begin with, why does Karn immediately dismiss Sita's cult as fake when he was born and raised in mystic Thailand? For a rich cult leader Sita has an extremely limited wardrobe and jewelry as compared with the other characters. In Episode 4 Arm creates a deep cut in his palm with a kitchen knife and Meena bandages it, but in the scenes that ensue the bandage and the cut are no longer there. In Episode 8 Meena is wearing black yet is inappropriately wearing jewelry at Waan's funeral wake. In Episode 9 Meena visits Plenwarn in hospital. She is clutching a handkerchief in her right hand. In a succeeding close-up she brings up both hands to her face and the handkerchief is absent. Then, in the medium shot that follows, the handkerchief is in her right hand again.
At any rate this was a most enjoyable movie.
Quite interesting that the Thai "hup" means "yes" and is also equivalent to the Tagalog "po", which my Thai friend Joseph confirmed.
Monday, October 17, 2022
One Message For One Of 1,200 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with nine syllables in your name: Do not over-celebrate. Things that look rosy now will not look the same tomorrow. Always take a reality check.
Sunday, October 16, 2022
Your Messenger message:
"Good day, Sir. I hope that this will not take much of your time. I told you before that I seldom remember my dreams and when I do, it's vivid and I would somehow enjoy having them since it's a once-in-a- blue moon thing.
"My dream: I am in a hospital. I am helping a former student who is very ill. Actually, I don't recall him in my waking life. The hospital is old and a bit run-down and it resembles a dilapidated hotel. Its corridors are like a labyrinth and I have to transfer elevators just to go to the operating room where I meet the boy's family. The family is thankful and I inform them I have rented a room on the lower floors for myself but they can rest there if they want to. We go through the corridors and transfer elevators until we reach the 5th floor where my room is located. "We come across two middle aged men oddly wearing beige suits with matching fedora hats. They are berating the family and are now making a scene. I ask the student's family to go inside my room to protect them but the two men follow us inside. I am now irritated and I order them to go out of the room. Somehow I am suspecting there is more than them making a scene. When they left, true enough, my pocket is empty. They took my wallet. I hurriedly ran after the two men and tackled them on the floor. Eventually I was able to get my wallet back and they run away while shouting threats at me. I check inside my wallet and my crumpled 300 pesos are still inside. I enter an elevator and come across two thin middle-aged women. I am afraid that they are with the two men so I got out of the elevator and walked away from them. Then I checked my pocket and it is empty again. I run after the women and shouting match ensues and they quickly make their exit through the hospital lobby doors. I was able to grab my wallet from the hand of one of the thieves. I remind myself to report this to the police. "Then I woke up. I wanted to continue the dream since I want to know the ending but when I tried, I only dreamed in fragments which I can no longer remember nor piece together. "Thank you very much in advance, Sir. Have a good week ahead."My reply:
Hello _____!
You are both the dream ego (the protagonist) and the sick student in this dream. Your psyche is telling you that the only way to heal the student is to heal his family also.
The subsequent scenes with thieves show you the cause of the student's illness. It is being torn between opposing values, a form of dissociation: two men, two women, men-women, elevator (going up, going down), exit doors-entry doors.
Your psyche is also telling you that the root of your current situation lies in your past, when you were five years old (fifth floor). Try and do a secondary reflection on what transpired when you were that age that had such a lasting impression on you.
If you were beside me right now, I would hypnotize and regress you to that age.
One Message For One Of 1,200 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with seven syllables in your name: Continue to learn new things and be willing to unlearn others. You are on the right path to enlightenment.
Dinner at home with Angelique, Aubrey, and Jazz. We added Chinese and a cake to our regular dinner to celebrate her birthday yet another time.
My second eldest sister Remi holds the highest record for birthday celebrations in our family, though. Two years ago she had a big celebration every day for one week with different sets of relatives and friends.
Saturday, October 15, 2022
One Message For One Of 1,100 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with five syllables in your name: Be consistent with your new self. Do not backslide into your old one. It isn't worth it.
Watched all 12 episodes of Thailand's 2014 Bad Guys--easily confused with movies of similar titles--based on the South Korean TV series. It is set in Thailand and its original dialogue in Thai, and it was pleasant to hear Thai spoken straight without the usual sing-song.
Inspector Pitak, fired for misconduct, is reinstated by the chief of police to avenge the murder of his son and to capture the Rain Man, a serial killer who attacks whenever it rains. Pitak requests to form a team comprised of a female captain and three brutal murderers: Yak (a.k.a Thug), Race (a.k.a. Pretty Boy), and Sky (a.k.a. Psycho). In the course of their mission they encounter illegal organ trading, a drug cartel, a mass shooter, a Big Three syndicate, and corruption within the police system itself.
The premise of the series is interesting for its many turnabouts--antiheroes transforming into heroes, ruthless protagonists coming face-to-face with their tragic pasts and their former associates, and unexpected betrayals. Even the subplots are exciting, and the reenactment of murders enhanced by clever editing in which each protagonist is shown substituting for the actual murderers in "What If?" mode.
Every episode is a heart-stopper. Every episode, however, is also extremely bloody and extremely violent. The saving grace of the series is that the values of compassion, friendship, loyalty, and justice always shone through.
There are several glitches. Too many characters show up at the right time, especially Inspector Pitak, a la deus-ex-machina, to save the situation. The Ninkin prostitution scene seems highly unlikely for a girl educated in a sheltered environment. In addition, Ninkin has earned a music scholarship at Berkeley, yet, when she is shown playing the piano at home, they sound like John Thompson intermediate pieces. In Episode 8 Captain Alisa Yooyeunyong downs a bottle of wine and afterward gets on a motorbike and races with Prosecutor Padej of the District Attorney's Office. In a previous episode Sky informs us that he buys linseed oil for his girlfriend, who is an art major, but in Episode 10 he is shown painting a picture himself. A later scene does show his girlfriend painting, but she is not holding the brush right and her strokes are not convincing. "Identity Psychiatric Hospital" is a questionable name. In Episode 11, Pitak claims that his attacker has scales tattooed on his back, but in all scenes in which he was attacked, the attacker kept his shirt and jacket on. Finally, that Sky kept getting stabbed and shot in the stomach in many episodes was also verging on the ridiculous.
On the whole, the series provided good, entertaining screenings. It was fun to see all those perps getting knocked off by the team, and everything was ultimately more horrific than all the Jeffrey Dahmer movies combined.
Friday, October 14, 2022
One Message For One Of 1,100 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with six syllables in your name: Stand up not for what you want to believe in but for what is right. Do not be misled by personal delusions.
Your Messenger message:
"Back in the mid 90s I was hit by a terrible crisis.. I was forced to close my business down.. One afternoon in my room I prayed fervently for a way out of my situation.. Suddenly a really loud voice spoke to me..Do loud it was like thunder.. And I felt something shot down my whole body from top to bottom.. Gulat talaga Ako.. The voice though extremely loud and powerful said gently but forcefully... 'DO NOT FEAR' Nothing else followed..
"Years later I found out it is called locution.."
My reply:
Hello ______!
We all have survival instincts that manifest in different ways. In cases such as yours, i.e. a voice imparting a message, it is usually the voice of your psyche a.k.a. Higher Self a.k.a. Superconscious. Call it by other names if you will--the Freudian Superego, Conscience, Jiminy Cricket, et cetera. Fanatics and religious extremists will usually label it as the voice of God (which is why theologians detest psychologists because of their explanations of such phenomena).
The problem with convincing oneself that one hears the voice of "God" is that it leads one to think that he is very special, and he eventually becomes schizoid and lives an unhappy life of scrupulousness and of being judgmental.
Thursday, October 13, 2022
One Message For One Of 1,100 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year.
You with two syllables in your name: Seek beauty not only in Nature but also in your urban, home environment, where you are likely to spend the rest of your life..
Wednesday, October 12, 2022
Your messenger message:
"Hi. I have this recurring dream where I am flying over houses, mountains and fields.. It is an exhilarating experience.. In my dreams I do it all the time.. I just spread my arms and fly.. People wonder how I am able to do it.. I tell them to just do what I am doing. I tell them it is easy.. Just think you are flying and it happens.. One time I found myself flying over the Ateneo campus.. Sarap ng feeling.. But I can not fly over the sea.. I am gripped with fear and the bright skies darken.. So I avoid flying over the sea . I always wake up feeling good after every time I dream of flying.. I feel so free..."
My reply:
Hello ________!
I'm glad to know, you are about to experience full astral projection.
In my case I would wake up in the middle of the night with my nose touching the ceiling. I would raise my hands and feel the ceiling with my palms and could actually, physically, feel it. I would then, sometimes involuntarily, slide upward through the ceiling and the roof, or sideways through a concrete wall, and while doing so feel a tingling sensation and hear a crackling sound as I went through.
Sometimes I would not rise, I would roll over and plunge into the floor and fall through darkness, and then find myself in another place, such as the wine cellar or basement of a mansion.
There was a time when I went sideways through my bedroom wall and continued moving sideways through the walls of other people' houses. I remember going through a room in San Juan or Mandaluyong and seeing an entire family sleeping on the floor, in one room; I initially thought that they were massacred.
As you continue astral traveling, you will be able to roam the streets in real time while your feet are approximately two feet above the ground. Real people will not be able to see you, even if you tap them on the shoulder. Spirits of the deceased, however, can see you, and you can actually stop and converse with them.
There are many triggers to astral projection and astral travel. The best one is that, since you are interconnected with everyone else, they need your presence at the time. The most common one, however, is that you are bored, feel entrapped, and feel that you've painted yourself into a corner in real life, and your psyche therefore seeks to release you from all that. Many prisoners astral-travel, though not all of them are aware of it.
One Message For One Of 1,100 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with five syllables in your name: Self-doubt gets in the way of your progress. Believe in yourself, for others believe in you more than you do, but be modest.
Tuesday, October 11, 2022
One Message For One Of 1,100 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with five syllables in your name: When you have found something that is precious to your life, take good care of it. Do not take it for granted, or it will eventually leave you.
Monday, October 10, 2022
One Message For One Of 1,100 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with 12 syllables in your name: Never lose interest in the things that you enjoy, because they keep you alive. Give yourself completely to the projects that come your way.
Your Messenger message:
"Sir Tony,
"I hope all is well. "I had a dream a year ago, I was walking with a woman in a tunnel and end up in a wide quiet ocean that huge diamonds are popping out. "Then early this year around June, I had dream that I was managing a kite while gushing winds, and preventing the kite to fell then on tope of me as I bend upward are two rainbows crossing each other. "It’s a weird dream and I am still curious about what it means. I hope you can help me. "Best regards."My reply:
Hello _____!
There is no dream narrative, and so, what you wrote are mere dream fragments.
Both dream fragments indicate wish-fulfillment dreams.
The first dream fragment seems to show a desire to have plenty, especially in terms of material things, for which you were subconsciously wishing to sacrifice a lasting, romantic relationship.
The second dream seems to show that you were in denial of your negative emotions--such as anger and grief--and that you perceived your psychological salvation to have been in the hands of two gay men or two gay women.
Sunday, October 9, 2022
I Shared a Photo of crocheted bunnies from Newsfeed and Facebook took it off, saying it was against their Community Standards, without explaining why.
Can't we Share photos of other people's craft projects?
Besides, there was a Share toggle. My understanding is, if there's a Share toggle, ANYONE can Share it.
Why don't they just take away the Share toggle, then?
Your Messenger message:
"Hi, Tony. I woke up at around 3AM earlier today (as I sometimes do), went to the bathroom and went back to sleep. I recall having a dream where I am travelling, I don’t remember where but I am in the mode of being in transit and for the most part walking and navigating unfamiliar and dirty paths, but what I remember distinctly is the feeling I had. Instead of being scared or worried (as I often do in similar travel-related dreams I’ve had, where I often would feel that I left something behind or I need to go back for something), I felt confident and looking back (immediately after I woke up) I realized I was hearing your voice saying something and I'm talking back to you in my mind as well, sort of telling you that I got this, etc. But I never saw your face and it never occurred to me consciously during the dream itself that it was you I was talking to.
"At this part, someone else enters the dream, a former co-worker of mine who was the HR manager in my most recent/last employ. (I left early this year and enjoy work much better as a consultant now.) I hated her because she is a suck up to the owners and she has caused me a lot of grief. She must be part of the trip or going to the same destination because I invite her to hitch in my car, and she has a male companion I do not know. We were walking to my car and we were about to leave when I was surprised that she rode the driver’s seat and proceeded to run the car, and I was running alongside it to catch up, but it was in reverse. I kept asking her what was she doing but she was just laughing and smiling, acting stupidly. There are a number of near misses of hitting objects or buildings, and then the car eventually does come to a halt hitting a building but there was no gory crash or damage. The car just sort of bumped the building and stopped. So I started berating my former co-worker, I’m trying to express to her that she has 'walang utang na loob' because I’m already giving her a ride and yet she had to do that… so she starts crying… I’m having difficulty communicate, the words do not come out clearly and I felt my chest tightening so I told myself to relax and take a deep breath… that’s when I woke up (at 7:45 this morning). "Just wanted to share with you, I am going on an actual trip this week—my first overseas vacation since the start of the pandemic…"My reply:
Hello _____!
First of all, let me assure you that your dream has nothing to do with the trip you are actually going on, other than serve as a trigger for an anxiety dream.
Whenever we dream of being on a trip, usually a car trip, it means that we are in a state of transition that we are not yet completely, psychologically prepared for. In this dream the HR manager is the dark side of your Female Self. She has apparently been taking over you during the past few days, possibly manifesting as any or all of the following: being wishy-washy or undecided, being reckless, calling unnecessary attention to oneself, grabbing credit, being ungrateful, or the like.
Not to worry--going on a trip after a long hiatus naturally arouses anxiety and awakens dormant personality quirks within oneself. I suggest that you make a thorough checklist of everything you need to do and have. Let your head take over.
One Message For One Of 1,100 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with four syllables in your name: Your art is very promising, but learn how to mix colors rather than use them straight from the tube. If you keep on doing the latter, your colors will remain oversaturated.
Saturday, October 8, 2022
Watched all three episodes of the U.S.A.'s 2022 Conversations with a Killer: The Jeffrey Dahmer Tapes, a documentary on serial killer Jeffrey Dahmer based on 32 hours of taped conversations made between July to October 1991 and collected by defense lawyer Wendy Patrickus. The documentary includes video interviews with police investigators, reporters, a forensic psychologist, psychiatrists, the district attorney and prosecutor, a medical examiner, an LGBT museum curator, and the perpetrator's and victims' relatives and friends.
This documentary provides a clearer chronology of the murders than that in Dahmer (Monster: The Jeffrey Dahmer Story). Some of the details are also presented differently here; a few examples are the mannequin (Dahmer smashed and disposed of it in this documentary while his grandmother threw it in the trash bin in Monster), the library note incident (absent in Monster), the murder of 14-year-old James Doxtator (absent in Monster), and the pig dissection episode (he brought home only a pig's head in this documentary while he asked his professor for an entire pig's body in Monster).
It was eerie hearing the dead man's dispassionate voice narrating and describing his crimes. One always hopes that there will be no more men like him now and in the future. In the end, though, this is merely one case study of a lonely man who wished that the objects of his desire would stay with him forever.
Your Messenger message:
"Had a very lucid dream after 3am kanina sir, and you appeared there, only younger. I was vlogging and I ended up in an artist's workshop. There was an old artist, there was a young one. They were both working on some sort of installation art... I ended up interviewing the younger you. You even performed poetry. Later on, people started coming in, young people, many with gothic fashion sense. They gathered there, like for a Saturday party. I didn't know anyone, you weren't there anymore. Apparently, the workshop was adjunct to a main house, and the party was there. We were seated at a sofa, there was this girl beside me who looked tired. And there was another girl who showed me how to lengthen my phone like an extendable baton, futuristic stuff... Then she told me about her father, how she lost her father. I vlogged about her. Then I realized I was in a dream, a psychedelic dream. I was confused the whole time, like I was drugged. I even asked them where we were. They said: 'Somewhere!'
"I realized I had to go... That I have a son. I asked them, 'Don't you have families? Kids? You can't stay here. I can't stay here. I have to go.'
"I forced myself to wake up... My heart was racing when I woke up... Still quite confused.
"Good morning sir
"I hope you are having a great Sunday"
My reply:
Hello ______!
Your dream indicates that you are--and have always been--torn between your present situation and roads not taken. You have always realized that the road you chose to take does not lead to the kind of happiness you want: Is this road a job your feel miserable in? A talent you are only half-heartedly practicing? A rut in which you feel abandoned and unloved?
You are both the old artist (who you want to be) and the young artist (a road not taken) in your dream.
You are also both girls in your dream: one who looks tired (your present) and one who shows you how to extend your baton (your psyche, advising you to look much farther than your current dreams). The latter girl's story about her father reflects that family relationships may be the cause of your being bogged down in life.
The party to which you were not invited represents the other people you have always been comparing yourself with.
In the end, you remind yourself that you must leave, because you have a son who is waiting for you.
You are that son. Be a father to him. Watch him grow. That was the road not taken.
One Message For One of 1,100 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with two syllables in your name: You live a happy and fulfilled life, yet you seem to be unaware of it. Know contentment. Do not be concerned with wanting and having more and more.
Watched all six episodes of Thailand's 2019 Thai Cave Rescue, a completely dramatized movie on the rescue of the 13 members of the Thai soccer youth team the Wild Boars from Tham Luang Cave in northernmost Thailand. Since it has more running time, it contains a lot more characters, details, and trivia than The Trapped 13: How We Survived the Thai Cave. While the latter is more concise, the former is able to fully showcase the dynamics between characters, and transforms the story into a drama with insightful depth and in multiple dimensions.
There was no attempt to make the actors look like their real-life counterparts. The actor who played the coach, for example, was a handsome young man who would have most likely abandoned rural Chiang Rai for Bangkok, thus creating a huge strain on my suspension of disbelief. The ensemble acting, however, was great, and all six episodes beautifully written and beautifully edited, all of these attributable to a director who clearly loved his subject matter.
Some of the actual timeline events seem to have been jumbled up as compared with those in The Trapped 13, such as the water pumps scenes and the death of the retired Thai Navy SEAL, to whom Episode 4 is entirely dedicated as tribute to a national hero. The action is swift; physical contact with the lost team is made as early as the end of Episode 2. While The Trapped 13 is more gripping because you saw the actual characters on the screen, Thai Cave Rescue is engrossing both as dramatized news coverage and as movie entertainment due to cleverly interspersed scenes between the stranded team, the boys' parents, the rescuers from England, Australia, Canada, the United States, Cyprus, Finland, Damascus, Germany, and Singapore, and the local officials. I found Episodes 5 and 6 most exciting, when the team members are actually transported underwater to safety.
The presentation of the story in this movie is not chronological. It begins with a crucial point in the rescue operations, when the youngest team member, 11-year-old Titan, is being persuaded by a diver to leave the cave he is trapped in, and then flashes back to the day before the boys enter Tham Luang.
This movie is also most admirable because it does not overlook the spiritual, Buddhist aspect. Like The Trapped 13 it includes the legend of the princess-goddess Chao Mae Nang Non plus a parable on death. On the whole, the message is that salvation is contingent on the gods and the goddesses, and it is usually the gods and the goddesses that are indigenous to one's own culture.
Quite interesting that "sabay-sabay" in Thai means "very easy".
Friday, October 7, 2022
One Message For One Of 1,100 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with four syllables in your name: Review your Friends List. There are at least three persons there with false identities.
Thursday, October 6, 2022
Watched Thailand's The Trapped 13: How We Survived the Thai Cave (1:43:00), documenting a rare disaster with a happy ending. It is all about the Thai youth soccer team, the Wild Boars, that got trapped in the Tham Luang Cave in 2018 and how volunteers from different parts of the world came together to rescue them while the whole world watched their suspenseful plight.
I was in Singapore conducting a creative writing workshop in July 2018 before the rescue happened. My workshop was scheduled on evenings, and I spent most days of the week watching the live TV coverage, including replays, of the discussions as to how to rescue the team through their being delivered in ambulances to hospital while bystanders on the roads cheered.
The documentary has many recreated scenes involving actors, but is essentially told from the points of view of the boys and their coach four years later, the boys' parents, local officials, and rescuers from different countries. Sadly, there was one casualty on the rescuers' side, a Thai SEAL delivering oxygen tanks underwater, who passed out and never regained consciousness.
I found it quite interesting that prayers and petitions were made to Nang Non, the spirit of the cave and the mountains. Her legend is included in the documentary--that of a princess who fell in love with a stable boy and eloped with him. Pursuing soldiers killed the stable boy, and the princess killed herself with a hairpin. I was reminded that, to this very day, many visitors to Mount Makiling continue to pay homage to Maria Makiling in many different ways.
The rescue entailed quick decision-making on everyone's part. It was heartwarming to see the boys and their coach recovering in hospital, and afterward taken on a world tour including travel to Argentina for the Youth Olympic Games in Bueons Aires. They also met their football idols, the Manchester United, in England, and appeared on the Ellen show.
One Message For One Of 1,000 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with four syllables in your name: There are careers that do not go well with a life of romance, and such is your career. Seek to be wealthy and successful--that is where your happiness is.
Wednesday, October 5, 2022
One Message For One Of 1,000 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with six syllables in your name: Do not regret what you left behind, for your spirit guides led you forward to better things.
Watched the U.S.A. 's 2022 The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes (1:41:32), a dramatized documentary based on 650 recorded interviews gathered by Anthony Summers, author of Goddess. In 1982 the District Attorney of Los Angeles reopened the case of the actress' death, 20 years after it happened. The tapes contain testimonies from a variety of sources, including Marilyn Monroe's co-actors, directors, agents, longtime friends, housekeeper, photographers, the family members of her psychiatrist, hairdressers, a lawyer, an ex-cop and private detective, a writer and a journalist, a law enforcement informant, a surveillance expert, and an FBI agent.
This is a more straightforward narrative and chronological unfolding of a story than the 2022 movie Blonde, which has multiple flashbacks, but there are scenes in both movies that, predictably, intersect, so that both movies fit together like the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. While both movies feature the men in Marilyn Monroe's life, this documentary makes reference to politics, the Mafia, and Communism. Blonde is more concerned with the life and dreams of the girl-woman Norma Jean; Mystery seeks to investigate the circumstances surrounding her death and clarifies, perhaps once and for all, why and how her life really ended. There is one shot in _Blonde_ that makes both movies unforgettable: that lap-dissolve of Marilyn in bed, with the phone off the hook, as she moves to lie on her side to simulate her position in death.
Both Blonde and The Mystery of Marilyn Monroe: The Unheard Tapes are 21st-century tributes to the most popular female star of the 20th century.
Watched the U.S.A.'s Blonde (2:47:11), a post postmodern semi-biopic on Marilyn Monroe based on the novel by Joyce Carol Oates. Indirectly, it is a commentary on the Hollywood star system of the 50s-60s and how men in power abuse rising, female stars; thankfully, most of that has changed and movie denizens are now aware of their rights as human beings.
The members of the cast deliver convincing performers. Despite having eyes like Sophia Loren's and the facial structure of Helena Bonham-Carter, Ana de Armas manages to look like Marilyn Monroe in many of the scenes. More importantly, she did not push her acting toward caricature as Faye Dunaway did in Mommy Dearest.
The movie was created with a marked decision to be a work of cinematic art. It has many Life-Magazine shots. Lighting plays a big part in every scene, and blocking is cleverly choreographed. It might as well have been directed by Ken Russell, with that almost over-the-edge irreverence toward the female body. Its interesting feature is the attempt at being Chekhovian--important events are deliberately left out so that all we witness are their aftermath. The problem, of course, is that the direction, cinematography, and production design keep calling attention to themselves, constantly reminding us that we are merely watching a movie. The resulting alienation is therefore Brechtian rather than Chekhovian. Pretentious shot after pretentious shot becomes tiresome, and what is Marilyn Monroe's life really in the end but one, long, Freudian melodrama.
Many of the scenes in the movie were too "crafted," as though to help the actors look deep and intense and vie for awards, or at the very least for those scenes to be plucked off for a trailer. Head shots come across as "saved" audition shots. The screenplay suffers from a weak point of attack. We are introduced to the conflict only one hour into, or more than one third of, the movie, when the protagonist says, for the first time, "I wanna go back." It is at this point when the viewer sympathizes with the protagonist, and only then does the premise become clear: this is all about the protagonist's Elektra complex and how it was transferred to the different men in her life. I saw that it was also about the protagonist's split personality as Norma Jean and as Marilyn, but decided that this was not intentional because of the movie's title: Blonde.
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