Worked half an hour on fourth glaze.

Wishing I were 21 all over again, sitting on a wooden bench in a side street of Chinatown, and watching a kao ka that will go on and on and on through the night. The make-up, costumes, music, and singing were always terrifying to me, but at the same time fascinating.

Angelique and Jazz came down to a late lunch in the dining room; Aubrey still asleep from her night shift.

Photo from the Internet.

These are the things I always enjoyed, never tikoy and dragon dances: the Chinese opera in side streets, food I hadn't tried ever, wandering through old hotel lobbies and watching the aged, visiting curio shops, stopping by temples. I couldn't speak a word of Mandarin or Hokkien but always managed to get by. It was great feeling like a foreigner in my own country!

Worked half an hour on third glaze.

An early lunch at home alone; grandchildren still resting upstairs.

Good morning, Cubao!

The scent of a sunny seaside wafts through the darkest corners of the city.

Good night, Cubao!

Night creatures love preparing midnight meals. Their dining areas are in the hollows of trees.

One Message To One Of 233 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year

You with five syllables in your name: Who are the people who deserve your kindness the most?

Dinner at home with Angelique and Jazz.

Aubrey brought her dinner upstairs in preparation for her night shift.

Asked David to bring some food over to M.'s cafe staff.

Night chores.

My favorite time of the day has come again: an evening shower, and then snuggling in bed with a Netflix movie.

Worked an hour on second glaze.

David found the missing piece we've been looking for.

Worked an hour on first glaze.

M. now supervising the cleaning of our foyer floor.

Lunch in the dining room with Aubrey; Angelique and Jazz ordered food from outside and are eating upstairs.

Good morning, Cubao!

Sunshine flows on tin rooftops like molten amber.

Good night, Cubao!

Darkness has a voice, but it whispers.

One Message To One Of 233 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year

You with two syllables in your name: Try sulfur soap to rehabilitate and improve your skin.

Staggered dinnertimes.

Asked David to bring some food over to M.'s cafe staff.

Night chores.

My favorite time of the day has come again: an evening shower, and then snuggling in bed with a Netflix movie.

Worked half an hour on seventh layer.

Angelique and Jazz arrived from lunch out.

Watched Korea's Collectors (1:54:20). Kang Dong-goo, a talented grave robber, offers his services to a rich collector who murdered his father years ago. At first he offers a golden Buddha, and then volunteers to prove his abilities by asking the collector to finance the robbing of a funerary mural in China. Finally, he offers to retrieve the royal sword of the deceased General Yi Seong-gye from the Seolleung Royal Tomb.

The treatment is very light, almost as though the movie were a comedy. I stuck with it just to see those lovely props.

Alas, no one was eating noodle dishes or drinking soju in this movie. 

Worked an hour on sixth layer.

Angelique's fifth and last day of online final exams.

An early lunch at home alone.

Jazz arrived.

Angelique and Jazz are now off to have lunch out.

Worked an hour on fifth layer.

Good morning, Cubao!

The day stretches on the hills like a man watching the world on TV.

Good night, Cubao!

Moonbeams are bolts of gossamer fabric unfurled onto the earth.

One Message To One Of 232 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year

You with six syllables in your name: What are the toys you still want to play with as an adult?

Asked Nino to bring some food over to M.'s cafe staff.

Night chores.

Brief business meeting with M.

My favorite time of the day has come again: an evening shower, and then snuggling in bed with a Netflix movie.

Dinner at home with Angelique and Aubrey.

Worked an hour on fourth layer.

Worked an hour on third layer.

Brought two sets of bed linen to the compound laundry: Aubrey's and mine.

A delivery arrived for a tenant: a brewery machine. It's made of stainless steel and came all the way from China. The tenant intends to brew his own beer and sell it. 

Worked half an hour on second layer.

Lunch at home with Angelique; Aubrey still asleep from her night shift.

Happy Birthday to my second sister, Remi!

Good morning, Cubao!

Guard dogs always do their jobs well.

Must go back to Korean movies soon. I miss their noodle meals--whenever someone is taking noodles for lunch or dinner I go to the kitchen and fix myself convenience-store Korean cup noodles that I bought at the neighborhood grocery. I love that beef is always a special treat for them, and that characters take beef whenever they want something special or are celebrating something. (Yes, the neighborhood grocery also sells beef samgyupsal.) Also love it when the characters order soju, though I myself am partial to brandy.

Watched all eight episodes of Taiwan's 2020 Futmalls.com. This movie has three stories, about despondent characters who find solutions to their problems via a mysterious website called futmalls.com that exists only in the future.  

In "Best-selling writer" a writer who cannot handle rejection steals another writer's future through the mysterious website futmalls.com (three episodes).

In "No chance to grow up" a mother copes with the loss of her young son by trying a bottle of eye drops called Artificial Tears from futmalls.com that enables her to see her son grow up on a different plane (two episodes).

In "Air doll & Internet celebrity kidnappings" a bug-collecting nerd orders from futmalls.com a doll that, when soaked in water, transforms into the image of a female livestream host willing to be intimate with him (three episodes).

In the meantime there is the constant presence of the members of the detective and investigative team, who do not become exempt from the clutches of futmalls.com.

The second story is the most heart-wrenching and the most insightful, though it is told in only two episodes.

The three stories are cleverly intertwined, and illustrate that we are haunted not by our past but by our future, and by loved ones who exist in parallel universes. 

Welcome to the Taiwanese Twilight Zone, but there is a B-grade mentality twist at the very end, and the movie is cut off abruptly, leaving a few loose threads untied.

Good night, Cubao!

Gnome children sleepwalk too.

One Message To One Of 232 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year

You with two syllables in your name: Do not eat fried food all the time. Rotate your meals with grilled, boiled, steamed, and raw-processed.

Dinner at home with Angelique and Aubrey.

Asked David to bring some food over to M.'s cafe staff.

My favorite time of the day has come again: an evening shower, and then snuggling in bed with a Netflix movie.

Asked Nino to fry lumpia shanghai for us.

Nino and David walked Keiko Kashigawa, Yukiko Taka, and Cloudy on the compound, then gave each of them a strawberry-scented anti-flea shampoo.

Worked half an hour on first layer.

Worked an hour on construction lines.

Angelique came down to lunch in the dining room.

Delivery of art supplies arrived.

An early lunch at home alone; Angelique and Aubrey still resting upstairs.

Good morning, Cubao!

Glass panes shield your house from the elements.

Just because you don't see people suffering and dying doesn't mean that they're not.

Good night, Cubao!

Shield yourself from the world, and sleep well.

One Message To One Of 232 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year

You with seven syllables in your name: Telling lies can make you ill, for they fester within you and contaminate all of the cells in your body.

Dinner ay home with Angelique and Aubrey.

Asked David to bring some food over to M.'s cafe staff.

Asked Nino and David to bubble-wrap the A.T.A.R.D.A.R. taladro for Y.

Night chores.

My favorite time of the day has come again: an evening shower, and then snuggling in bed with a Netflix movie.

Worked another hour on construction lines.

So strange. All of the male presidential candidates are beginning to look tired and broken. The lines on their faces are directed downward, like cartoon illustrations of grief: downward-pointing hair, eyebrows, eyes, and lips. As though they were auditioning for Clayface.

Except for Isko Moreno, who always manages to look fresh and energetic.

Back from jalan-jalan at the center. Bought two trays tuna sashimi, two trays salmon sashimi, and a bottle of Thai sriracha sauce at the Japanese delicatessen for our dinner.

It was a Great-Gatsby-summer hot afternoon, as hot as the chili sauce.

Early Valentine's Day goodies from my sister Sylvia in Sydney.

Angelique came down to lunch in the dining room. She got the highest final grade in her Law Review class.

Worked an hour on construction lines.

Lunch at home alone; Angelique and Aubrey still resting upstairs.

Good morning, Cubao!

The wise old mouse pays a visit to the mouse cemetery.

Good night, Cubao!

The house mouse stocks up in her pantry once again.

One Message To One Of 232 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year

You with four syllables in your name: Know that it is hunger that frequently makes you weak.

Dinner at home with Angelique and Aubrey.

Brought some food over to M.'s cafe staff.

Night chores.

My favorite time of the day has come again: an evening shower, and then snuggling in bed with a Netflix movie.

Watched China's 2019 Super Me (1:43:35). Sang Yu, a starving, unsuccessful screenwriter, has schizoid fugues in which a shadow figure physically attacks him. Harassed by his landlord and a movie agent he owes, he is saved from committing suicide by a kind food vendor who helps him assert himself in his fugues by telling him to declare aloud that he is merely dreaming. Very soon, during those fugues, he not only learns how to confront the shadow figure--he also returns to reality with valuable apports that he sells to collectors, and becomes very rich.

The movie is really a love story with fantasy trappings. Having acquired billions, Sang Yu purchases the flailing coffee shop of his secret crush, Hua'er, partners with her, and makes the business boom. Inspired by his crush, he writes a screenplay and becomes a world-famous moviemaker.

And then the twist happens.

Though not apparent to many, the movie is a deconstruction of the German fairy tale "The Fisherman and His Wife." In school we studied the 36 dramatic situations, but I  find it very interesting that most, if not all, contemporary movies are still actually variations of classical fairy tales.

Worked half an hour on construction lines.

Cecilia's portrait is finally rolled and sealed inside a PVC tube, ready to be picked up and transported to California, presumably after the pandemic.

A box of ice cream from my sister Remi.

Lunch at home with Angelique; Aubrey still asleep after her night shift.

Cecilia's portrait before trimming.

Cecilia's portrait after trimming.

Good morning, Cubao.

Garden mice ride in leaf canoes on shallow billabongs.

Sometimes you have to be extremely grateful for having enemies, especially when your spirit guides deflect their way the illnesses that should have been yours.

It is all right for an artist to not be humble as long as he does not think too highly of himself.

Good night, Cubao!

Active volcanoes are beacons for travelers in outer space.

One Message To One Of 232 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year

You with seven syllables in your name: A sandalwood image of Ma-Tzu, Chinese goddess of the sea, will protect your home from dangerous storms.

Dinner at home with Angelique and Aubrey.

Asked David to bring some food over to M.'s cafe staff.

Night chores.

My favorite time of the day has come again: an evening shower, and then snuggling in bed with a Netflix movie.

Engaging in politics will always take a huge chunk off your life and will never fail to leave you with disturbing memories.

Doing night chores is like finishing up for the day at the office minus having to worry about facing traffic and getting home safely.

Worked half an hour on construction lines.

Swung by the neighborhood grocery. Did minor groceries.

Watched Taiwan's 2021 The Soul (2:10:18_). A businessman is murdered inside his mansion. A prosecutor and his wife take on the case and discover a chain of seemingly occult events, a mere disguise for illicit relationships and brain surgery experimentations. The dark rituals, the Chinese black magic grimoire, and the moments of apparent spirit possession are all letdowns, for they function as red herrings in the story. The unfolding of the plot is straightforward enough, but many of the details are improbable and convoluted. Detachment from the characters and the material naturally ensues, and interest flags. After all, even in this day and age, transmigrations of the mind and heart are confusing and demand too much suspension of disbelief.

Gorgeous exterior of that mansion, though obviously a product of computer graphics. As for its interior, it was filled with too much derivative and decadent 1970s modern art.

Angelique came down to lunch in the dining room; Aubrey still asleep after her night shift,.

Started trimming canvas of Cecilia's portrait, preparatory to packing it.

Back from National Book Store Superbranch at the center. Bought more art supplies. Toto drove for me.

An early lunch at home alone.

Good morning, Cubao!

Bushes grow at the entrances to gnome tunnels.

Good night, Cubao!

A bed with a canopy and drapes is a room in itself.

One Message To One Of 232 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year

You with seven syllables in your name: Of your more than a thousand Facebook Friends, only 20 are really worth keeping.

Dinner at home with Angelique and Aubrey.

Brought some food over to M.'s cafe staff.

Night chores.

My favorite time of the day as come again: an evening shower, and then snuggling in bed with a Netflix movie.

Asked Nino to fry pork samgyupsal for us.

Aubrey came down to her mid-afternoon lunch.

Worked half an hour on construction lines.

Worked an hour on construction lines.

Sheet clouds above Cubao.

Starships passing over.

Angelique came down to lunch in the dining room.

A cup of jasmine tea.

Taking my rings off again to commence painting.

Lunch at home alone; Angelique and Aubrey still resting upstairs.

Preparing materials for my next painting.

The earth will speak again.

Good morning, Cubao!

The clouds are dollops of sour cream on the pie of sky.

Watched Korea's Memoir of A Murderer (1:58:02). A former serial killer who now has Alzheimer's disease suspects that his daughter's boyfriend is also a serial killer, and seeks to protect her. As quiet and as balletic as (also Korea's) Burning. Both movies, as a matter of fact, are studies in reality and unreality--and parallel realities and parallel unrealities-- and both well-crafted and extremely disturbing, though they have two different directors. 

Good night, Cubao!

Even the house gnomes hunker down and watch the evening news.

One Message To One Of 232 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year

You with two syllables in your name: Make the most of the night by sleeping well.

Asked Nino to bring some food over to M.'s cafe staff.

Night chores.

My favorite time of the day has come again: an evening shower, and then snuggling in bed with a Netflix movie.

Staggered dinnertimes.

Swung by the neighborhood grocery and D.'s store.

Forty winks.

Angelique's fourth day of online final exams.

Angelique and Jazz came down to a very late lunch in the dining room.

Took reference photos of a models for my Saint Sebastian painting.

M. and Nino wrapped the Peter painting. I now have two paintings ready for pick-up and installation at Maryhill School of Theology.

M. and Nino set up my next canvas on an easel--this one's not for Maryhill but for my prospective exhibit sometime next year.

 A mage with no financial stability is society's biggest joke, for he is nothing but a sad caricature surrounded by Halloween props.

Make a list of everything you desired and saved money for and purchased that are now merely dust-catchers and useless junk.

Good morning, Cubao!

Sunny thoughts rise in the air like shiny soap bubbles.

One Message To One Of 232 Friends, One Every Night Of The Year

You with six syllables in your name: Avoid false prophets who always foretell incidents of gloom and doom.

Good night, Cubao!

Sometimes you will hear the hue and cry of the enchanted rabble.

Asked David to bring some food over to M.'s cafe staff.

Night chores.

My favorite time of the day has come again: an evening shower, and then snuggling in bed with a Netflix movie.