So many people died, and the country aged overnight. This evening she looked at the wrinkles on her face in her bedroom mirror.
Photo by JR Dalisay / April 21, 2017
Thursday, August 11, 2022
Your Messenger message:
"Good day sir.. tanong kulang kung meron kang painting na batang jesus Christ na binigay mo sa kaibigan mo noon na nag aaral sa london na taga dubai.? Ksi my naka lagay T. perez at my petsa december 52 naka lagay.
"Ofw ksi nanay ko noon at amo nya po yung binigyan ng painting noon na taga dubai. Pag uwi ng nanay ko sa pilipinas binigay po ng amo nya yung paiting na binigay dw kaibigan nyang pilipino sa kanya noon. Nasa amin po ang painting na yon.
"West pointer po yung amo ng nanay ko sir. Isa pong soldier
"Sana po mapansin nyu po sir tony.. hoping for your response.. thanks and Godbless"
My reply:
Hello ________!
1) Hindi sa akin ang painting na iyon, sapagkat isinilang ako noong 1951.
2) Buo ang agda ko sa lahat ng obra ko--"Tony Perez" at hindi kailanman "T. Perez".
3) Hindi lamang ako ang pintor na Tony Perez. Maaari mo silang i-Google search.
4) Ipadala mo sa akin, sa Messenger, ang litrato ng painting. Baka sakaling malaman ko kung sino ang lumikha noon.
Wednesday, August 10, 2022
I don't like what this world seems to be coming to. At least five persons in my Friends List--persons I've never met before and do not personally know--have Messenger-messaged me with sob stories, asking for money, at first in huge amounts and eventually begging for at least 50 or 20 pesos. I cringe whenever I receive Messages like that. I find it demeaning, humiliating, distasteful, and undignified. I wish they would stop doing that--to me and to anyone else.
Your Messenger message:
"Hi, Sir Tony. I had a dream, a disturbing dream. Maybe you'd want to analyze it?
"Apoogies if I share it with you without asking your approval first. Here goes.
"about a money making business venture / like a network of some sort that would give you unlimited income so that one could buy anything that one wants from himself/ themselves and their families, but the price of it as you got wealthier, you would be involved in duping or killing others, or be assassinated your self if you opt out. Really weird. Can you analyze it?
"something like a mafia of some sort, it also had religious undertones
"you wouldn't know you were in it, until you opt out of it"
My reply:
Hello _____!
As you know, I never sugar-coat the medicine I prescribe.
Your dream is all about blind spots. You may not have been aware of it, but you have been more of a user of other people than a giver, even of and to the women you have loved.
I sense that the root of this problem lies within your father's values. Were you taught to be a winner all the time? Were you trained to have a Machiavellian attitude toward life?
The choice is always yours--to act on your blind spots or continue living as you are.
Watched Hong Kong's 2009 Bodyguards and Assassins (2:18:13), about an attempt, in 1906, to protect Chinese statesman, physician, and political philosopher Sun Yat-Sen from an assassination plot. Among the cast members is Donnie Yen in an atypical role, a far cry from his Ip Man series.
This movie is really about the beginnings of the revolution against the Qing Dynasty and the sacrifices many rebels made in the name of democracy. It has great fight scenes. Most of the death scenes are amazing--they are portrayed in a detached and dispassionate manner. Indeed, I found even the shots and the editing to be very un-Chinese. The movie could very well have been conceived and directed by Alfred Hitchcock.
One Message For One Of 500 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with five syllables in your name: Your art is truly unique. Ensure that you get the right exposure--which you seem unwilling to do.
Missed another painting day because of house work. Might miss another painting day tomorrow too, because I'm thinking of hiring Brian and Bertod to give the foyer and the kitchen a general cleaning.
Staggered dinnertimes; Angelique came down to dinner after I did and Aubrey preparing for her night shift.
Tuesday, August 9, 2022
Your Messenger message:
"Good morning, Sir Tony. I hope you are having a peaceful Ghost Month. First of all, I apologize for the incessant questions. There are curious things happening (which I am not new to), but what happened to me last night was incredible. Still I want to know if it was what I think it is, or if it was just the result of me getting steeped in dark aesthetic (which I know you might find funny).
"For context, I have been rebranding myself and changing my colors--all the deep and dark colors associated with Death and the Underworld. I am not fascinated with skulls, but somehow my dislike of them is slowly dissipating.
"Last night, after curating images with the same palette and motif, I found myself dreaming as if I were these two individuals who died in separate occasions and causes. In the first scene, I felt like I was in my friend's body in the hospital and I choked on my saliva (how he died). Then it shifted to me seeing things from the perspective of my boyfriend's dying father. There was a gurgling sensation on the throat (the father died of aneurysm and coughed lots of blood). I also saw my bf doing CPR on him/me. He confirmed the color of the shirt he was wearing, which I saw in the dream.
"The next thing, the 'scene' shifted to me wearing an violet-black ensemble, like in one of the images I had been looking at for aesthetic inspiration. I was in an empty mall, being 'led' by teen sales ladies garbed in the same dark purple and black ensemble. I broke off from their grasp, only to be blocked by a sales guy, also wearing the same colors. It was then when I said, 'ayokong sumama'. I woke up after and lit two sticks of incense kasi I remember it's the Ghost Month. I told my bf about this and he said he had a similar dream after his dad died, only that he felt there were snatchers in the mall and tried to protect his father. But his father just kept walking until he was gone.
"I am curious sir as to what you think happened. Did I actually travel the astral realm to see/feel how these two men died? Or was it just the result of the many 'dark/death-related stimuli' I had been consuming lately?
"And is it really possible that that mall is one version of what people call 'the tunnel'?My reply:
Hello ________!
The first part of your dream tells me that you have throat-related issues. The issues are either physiological or symbolic--if symbolic, that is where the blue chakra is located, implying that you have been having difficulty with expression and communication.
The mall is your social locus. In it, what you fear most is judgment from others, especially since you have observed how others like you have been judged, and were consequently considered outcasts.
Remember that dreams are symbolic, almost never literal.
One Message For One Of 500 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with four syllables in your name: Production work is one of your greatest loves, but watch out for people who try to take advantage of you because of your naivete and your vulnerability.
Watched all ten episodes of the U.S.A.'s The Sandman (2022). Its success can be completely attributed to the unique imagination and macabre sense of humor of its creator, Neil Gaiman, who draws characters not only from mythology, fairy tales, the Bible, and history, and transforms them into modern, urban archetypes but also draws them from the depths of his genius for storytelling. No one can ever charge Gaiman's mind with being that of a schizoid's, for, beneath all the bizarre imagery, everything comes up as being rational and commonsensical.
The movie suffers from a weak point of attack--a flurry of visual effects, presumably to simulate the opening panel of a graphic novel--then segues to a scene apparently patterned after that early one in Bram Stoker's Dracula, the arrival of Jonathan Harker at the vampire's castle. My interest perked up only in the middle of Episode 1, when Ethel is instructed by the Magus to have her baby aborted, and, even then, the premise was not clear, especially since we were henceforth presented with multiple premises. That has always been the problem with converting graphic novels and comic books into movies, especially since The Sandman came into print in 1988, at the peak of postmodern literature for juvenile audiences, when such novels were deliberately obscured by chaotic illustrations, terse dialogue, and scenes requiring interpretation, perhaps to avoid censorship and condemnation. The series was also available to the public in the Philippines out of sequence, so that the first issue I picked up was The Doll's House.
The movie, thankfully, sets itself aright from Episode 2 onward, thrusting the viewer from dark, two-dimensional drawings into cinematic, three-dimensional dramatization with the help of a fine ensemble. All the characters and subplots fit neatly together like pieces of a Chinese puzzle box. I loved the offbeat relationships in Episode 5 and even thought it could be developed into a one-act play. On the downside, it ended like a Stephen King novel, shedding its postmodernism and providing the usual closure of a horror movie.
I was honored to have actually met Neil Gaiman in 2007, when Fully Booked asked me to be one of the judges of entries for a competition in his name. He signed the back of my lamen and had his photo taken with my granddaughters. I reciprocated by giving him a jade ring.
Monday, August 8, 2022
One Message For One Of 500 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with nine syllables in your name: Prepare for the next challenge and career change in your life. Your future depends on it.
Your Messenger message:
"Good afternoon , sir Tony.
"I hope you’ll see this message of mine. "I have been in a coma for just a short while, 3 days due to kidney and heart failure. "I dreamt and saw the wheels of buses, jeepneys, and cars. It’s like I was in the pavement. Then I also saw myself in a room lying down but the surrounding areas are pitch black. It’s like the only illuminated area is the room and the rest is dark. I was aware of the darkness and afraid of it and I don’t want to venture out. "I woke up and was surprised I was in the ICU. After this, I am hearing random words, sometimes robotic sounding and colors and paintings on walls that are not there. "Was it just a dream? Or did my soul really traveled or had a near death experience? "And how do I understand the random words I hear and colors I see in walls that I experience after my coma? "I am still trying to make sense of it all. Thank you for your time, Sir. "I wish you well always."My reply;
Hello _________!
First of all, I am glad you have recovered and are well.
You did have a near-death experience. You astral-traveled and momentarily looked around you through the eyes of a dying cat or dog that'd been run over by a vehicle. Your psyche then showed you your actual situation, the darkness being death encroaching upon you in the room you were lying in.
My interpretation is that you were rescued either by your ancestors or by extraterrestrials. The colors and images that you saw on the walls were all of your chakras being revived and reactivated.
You can thank your ancestors by lighting white candles and red joss sticks for them at your family altar.
Do not be surprised if your psychic vision was activated as well.
Sunday, August 7, 2022
Saturday, August 6, 2022
Home alone, Still resting from painting--I note that, for some strange reason, I have a hiatus in August-September and in January-February--and so I gave in to my nephew Raymond's urging me to begin watching The Sandman. I hope I like it. I sometimes find Neil Gaiman's hodgepodge of assorted archetypes from here and there and from very diverse sources disjointed, derivative, and discomfiting.
One Message For One Of 500 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with six syllables in your name: As early as now, think of and plan your retirement, for your career relies on physical prowess--everyone ages, and that prowess may leave you at any time.
Finished watching the U.S.A.'s The Devil All The Time (2:19:00). I loved this film, and it finally made me a Tom Holland fan. Set in 1950s-1960s small-town America, it is really about how narrow-minded, Christian fundamentalists weave their own religion out of their dysfunctions, frustrations, and miseries. The casting, acting, directing, and camerawork are superb, and the film has the slow, lyrical pace of South Korea's Burn and the chilling straightforwardness of the 1970 The Honeymoon Killers.
I can see why many Americans could not appreciate this film, though. It makes them feel very insecure. It shows us that corruption begins among the laid-back and the self-righteous. It showcases small-town fundamentalists as hypocrites whose lives ultimately contaminate everyone else's. Indeed, there are pockets of religious neurosis in every country, and the writer and director push that pie right smack into the viewers' faces.
The reality, sad to say, is that spiritual enlightenment SHOULD ALWAYS be directly correlated with mental enlightenment and psychological enlightenment, but that it almost never is in this world. That is why fundamentalism is never the key to salvation, why fundamentalists are not spared from having shattered lives, and why the neurosis is carried on unto every seventh generation. All we can hope for is that fundamentalism does not exist in other worlds, in other galaxies.
Wondering, though, why the Devil figures in the title. I didn't see the Devil anywhere in the film. All I saw was human nature.
Friday, August 5, 2022
i Will Never Go Out Of My Way For Strangers Again 1
Many years before I retired, our Cultural Attache passed on to me a request from one of the American officers from a different section. The officer was arranging a special dinner for himself and his wife, and wanted a pianist to be there to provide music for them the whole night. Most of the pianists I knew were from the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and so I was able to recruit a young woman who was willing to play the piano for the officer's and his wife's dinner.
A week later I called the pianist to ask her how the event went. She said, "Tony, that couple was really weird. They really freaked me out!" I tried to press her for details but she would not give me any.
That was only one of many requests I had to cater to for American officers, with strange outcomes, and I wish, to this very day, that I'd refused all of them.
One Message For One Of 500 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with ten syllables in your name: We are taught to be unselfish, but it is all right to be selfish from time to time. It actually raises our self-esteem.
Your Messenger message:
"Note: Some days ago I dreamed that I was part of a tour and we visited a cave. Somewhere along the way I had to leave my shoes and I failed to retrieve them later on. I remember I could not proceed because I didn't want to get my feet dirty, because somehow I lost my shoes. They were plain white ones. Fast forward to yesterday,... At the moment, I dont know yet what these things mean."
My reply:
Hello _________!
This was, in a sense, an anxiety dream. Your psyche is asking you to evaluate whether your present fear is well-founded or is simply a figment of your imagination. You--perhaps lately--have been concerned about the inside of your body, and wonder whether everything is well and you are in good health.
Regulate your diet, continue exercising, and listen to what your body is telling you. You may merely be having a preview of menopause.
Thursday, August 4, 2022
Watched Hong Kong's 1978 The 36th Chamber of Shaolin (1:51:07). I note that most Hong Kong movies have great titles but that the actual movies don't live up to them, like a Philippine production company I know of that values titles more than the content of its movies.
This movie was made five years after the death of Bruce Lee and still reflects the producers' efforts to discover another human phenomenon--without realizing that the success of Bruce Lee's movies was his unique, invasive meddling in the production of his own movies. No one else has proven to have his extraordinary talent, vision, and foresight.
36th Chamber is crude, with steel weapons evidently made of wood and a lot of swords too shiny to have been forged of iron. The cast members look as though they had stepped off the modern streets of Hong Kong and dressed in costume for a stage play. The plot is gothic and predictable: a male student escapes from town, which is tyrannized by the Tartars during the Ching Dynasty, and goes to the Shaolin Temple to learn high-level martial arts in order to avenge everyone who was oppressed, abused, and killed by the antagonists. There is no real conflict, there are only over-choreographed fight scenes. The protagonist's voice is also a liability--it is froggy and an octave higher than an average man's.
Having said all of that, I loved the movie and can understand why most other people did not. It took me into an albeit-simulated Shaolin temple and showcased some of its grueling exercises. That was all I expected, and all I wanted to see. Such a regimen can be boring to the ordinary viewer, plus the fact that Shaolin weapons are bulky, unwieldy, and unlikely to fit in anyone's pocket or even found in one's living room.
It is 2022 and already very clear that no one can replace Bruce Lee, either in the flesh or in spirit.
One Message For One Of 500 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with ten syllables in your name: Continue to enjoy the simple things in life, and you will live longer than everyone else.
Watched all 44 episodes of China's Handsome Siblings (2020). It is one of the most satisfying wuxia in my list. Twin brothers are parted from babyhood by a series of tragic events. One is raised as a prince in a palace run by women only, the other by bandits who call themselves The Ten Villains. In the end, both brothers are destined to fight in a duel.
The dramatic situation reminded me so much of the Tagalog epic _Ang Kambal Sa Sinukuan_, set in Pampanga, in which twin brothers are also separated, one brought up by amazons, the other by male warriors.
Everything in this movie is fine, except that I can't buy the feasibility of anyone holding an 18-year grudge. It has imaginative, well-directed, and well-thought-out fight scenes. It has an expert handling of the passage of time. I continue to be fascinated by the Mandarin word "kushu", which is able to stand in for the Tagalog "kasi" in most sentences. Like all wuxia, everything picks up and falls into place toward the middle of the series. Episode 27 is most thrilling, and all episodes henceforth are riveting. The story unfolds almost like a Western detective story. And the subliminal premise, typical of chauvinist China, seems to be that women cannot ever control the fates of men.
The outstanding performer is Chen Zheyuan as Jiang Xiaoyu. Ironically, it is from Episode 28 onward that he develops mannerisms--as opposed to nuances--that get in the way of his acting. He delivers a three-dimensional character nonetheless, and it is he who provides lustre to the cast.
Wednesday, August 3, 2022
One Message For One Of 500 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with five syllables in your name: Curiosity killed the cat, but you are curious as to what their friends are up to.
Tuesday, August 2, 2022
One Message For One Of 500 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with seven syllables in your name: It is not a good idea to blatantly take sides if you are not completely informed of everything on both sides.
Monday, August 1, 2022
One Message For One Of 500 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year
You with nine syllables inn your name: Pursue your art, but do not neglect your family. You need not worry about fame and fortune, for you are very talented, and multitudes will come to see your works.
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