July 2011
7 posts
1 tag
1 tag
1 tag
1 tag
1 tag
1 tag
A fleeting motion
(via Tripwire Magazine)
“More than a photo, but not quite a video”
1 tag
1 tag
On shoes (a conversation from Dragon Age: Origins)
Leliana: The shoes made in Orlais were exquisite. Not at all like these clunky fur-lined leather boots you have in Ferelden. Ugh... just look at them.
Warden (me): I know, right? So ugly and shapeless.
June 2010
3 posts
1 tag
midday
midday, drowning in the whir of power generators, a collective of clockwork cicadas drunk on fossil fuels, a mechanical tinnitus, the throbbing of lives inexorable amidst a persistent season. the resolve reflected from faces whose contours are traced in sweat.
1 tag
“And Jabim is the Lord of broken things, who sitteth behind the house to lament...”
– Lord Dunsany, The Gods of Pegāna
2 tags
Write one leaf about dust bunnies
now, there is barely a flurry of activity here: the dust bunnies proliferate in the void but they are ever the quiet ones, they do not squeak nor speak your lines. they simply accumulate like the dialogues long rehearsed in the unswept corners of my mind.
(via writeoneleaf)
March 2010
3 posts
1 tag
Glamour
Pen & ink, watercolor.
1 tag
On rich inner monologues
(via Wondermark)
One of my goals when learning a foreign language is to be able to introspect in that language. I think translating one’s thoughts, desires and sensations into a language other than the native tongue or English is an interesting exercise. It could also be a way to gauge one’s grasp of a foreign language. Because thoughts are spontaneous, being able to express these...
1 tag
Je veux apprendre le français
I have been wanting to learn something new lately and I thought of learning French, on a whim. For the past years, I have been learning Japanese and I think it would be interesting to add another foreign language to my linguistic repertoire.
When I was in fifth grade, I borrowed a French language book from my classmate and attempted to learn French on my own. I soon gave up. It was difficult...
February 2010
3 posts
1 tag
A fragment of Mars
Mars has been visible in the evening sky as of late. At around 7 PM, which is usually the time I leave the office, it can be found above the northeastern horizon.
Looking at Mars makes me smile. I recall observing the planet during the opposition of 2003, when it was at its closest to the Earth. The next close encounter won’t happen until 2287. I think being able to witness a celestial...
1 tag
Medusa
I think Uma Thurman is mesmerizing as Medusa.
1 tag
Hazia
“Hazia. It soothes and numbs, letting the body be free of the mind. And the mind roams free. But when it returns to the body it needs more hazia… and the craving grows: and the life is short, for the stuff is poison. First there is a trembling, and later paralysis, and then death.” - Ursula K. Le Guin, The Farthest Shore
Pen & ink, watercolor. Discontented with the scan,...
January 2010
11 posts
1 tag
“Certain things they should stay the way they are. You ought to be able to stick...”
– J. D. Salinger, The Catcher in the Rye
2 tags
The heart is deceitful above all things
“The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” - Jeremiah 17:9
Watercolor on paper. Finally got this scanned.
2 tags
Write one leaf about ghosts
He has always seen himself as a wraith. Or something diaphanous, like a curtain or a cobweb that brushes past people’s faces and no one ever wonders what it is. He would stand at the crossroads and cry out but no one would heed him. “Did you hear that?” “It was probably just the wind,” they would say.
(via writeoneleaf)
2 tags
Write one leaf about nonsense
She was spinning spinsters into spindles. Or were the spinsters spinning spindles into her? “Such frivolity!” she exclaimed as she espied a big fat dripping from the recesses of the afternoon. It was that time of the year when interrogative pronouns migrate southwards and she sat by the window expecting to catch a glimpse of the who’s and the where’s. She had no particular...
2 tags
Write one leaf about arriving early
I have been making it a point to arrive early at work. So far so good, I’d say. Of course, arriving early at work means having to wake up early. My body clock has adjusted to this and I can wake up early with ease. So it seems I have paid off any sleep debt I have accumulated in the past. Upon waking up, I would discover that the house is still dark. Usually, I would find it, in the same...
1 tag
On sadness
I recall reading about the 613 kinds of sadness from a book. Who knew such a diversity of sadness existed? There is the “sadness of hands”, the “sadness of domes[tic]ated birds”, the “sadness of a bad convers[at]ion”, even the “sadness of feeling the need to create beautiful things”.
I wonder which particular sadness overtook me. Keen as I am to...
1 tag
Write one leaf about having a dream
I had a dream about an old friend. It has been years since I last kept in touch with him. It is not that he has gone somewhere distant but our lives have moved on to different directions. And we were content with that.
In my dream, he told me he was leaving for Haiti. He had studied French and his brother arranged for him to work there and assist with the relief operations. As we said our...
1 tag
What I talk about when I talk about writing
I have been in a writing mode as of late, which is good.
When the year started, I decided to write a journal again. I used to write one during my early years of college but eventually abandoned the activity. This time though, I decided it will not be a daily chronicle of events but rather a collection of ideas I find noteworthy.
Also, recently, I began to participate in Write One Leaf. According...
2 tags
Write one leaf about surrender
“Well, when one has no one, nowhere else one can go! For every man must have somewhere to go. Since there are times when one absolutely must go somewhere!” - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Crime and Punishment
On such a predicament as described by Marmeladov, a character from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, it is one’s tendency to reassess one’s options. Surely, one thinks,...
2 tags
Write one leaf about getting your hair cut
Since I was a kid until my second year in college, I have always kept a short haircut, usually a close-cropped one and later a white sidewall. After the ROTC program was abolished, I decided to grow my hair long. Many of those who knew me asked about the sudden change in my appearance. Some even asked if it’s an expression of defiance against some authority or some norm and I would tell them...
2 tags
Write one leaf about hailing a cab
It seems a lot of people here opt to take a cab on Friday evenings. Friday, after all, is the last day of the workweek and most would spend the evening with their family or friends. This sudden outflow of people result in congested streets. A trail of red tail lights, like a weary procession of fire ants at dusk, leading to homes, to the mall, to whatever nook and cranny one belongs, is an...
December 2009
1 post
1 tag
A reading list
A list of books I’ll be reading over the holiday break:
1. Fyodor Dostoevsky - Crime and Punishment
2. Ursula K. Le Guin - The Farthest Shore
3. Jonathan Safran Foer - Everything is Illuminated
I also got this:
It’s Natsuhiko Kyogoku’s Mouryou no Hako (Box of Mouryou). I won’t be reading this anytime soon though since the book is in Japanese and my Japanese...
November 2009
2 posts
1 tag
Ah, merciless Love, is there any length to which...
I finished reading Penguin Classics’ Doomed Love, which is actually the first four books of Virgil’s Aeneid. Aeneas, fleeing Troy, is on a divinely appointed journey to Italy. He arrives at Carthage after Juno sends a storm to devastate his fleet. There, Aeneas meets the tragic queen, Dido.
Since Carthage is a city highly favored by Juno, Venus causes Dido to fall desperately in love...
1 tag
“Mastermind. Wake up and pull yourself together. Grotesque as it sounds —...”
– Mystique (X-Men #196)
October 2009
3 posts
1 tag
because I have no business there
because I have no business there, I will sit on this chair here and wait until like paint, I will be a memory of white, flaking and sullied revealing the dark iron of which it was wrought. this chair speaks Art Nouveau communicating through curves and circles and convolutions. I will sit on this chair here and wait until my slouching disappears into its concave, a...
1 tag
petrichor
a faint petrichor lingers around you, and i inhale, deeply to collect the dregs into my lungs. i will exhale into a glass jar, seal it tightly, and store it in a cool, dry place away from sunlight. because someday, you will disperse into the atmosphere and i don’t know if i should follow.
1 tag
“Good to expand my social Venn diagram… into more circles.”
– Claire Bennet (Heroes Volume 5: Redemption)
September 2009
1 post
1 tag
Bundak
Hinaot nga mubundak ka sa imong kasuko aron ako musayaw ug maglipay ug dili ma-ignorante sa imong mga laraw, dili ma-wala sa imong ukon-ukon, sama sa buta nga nagasalig sa imong mga propita, ang ilang mga pagtagna kay usahay mupakyas.
August 2009
1 post
1 tag
Time waits for no one
A foray into watercolors.
July 2009
2 posts
1 tag
White
Picture yourself inside a white room. A medium-sized room, with stark white walls, a stark white floor and a stark white ceiling. On the ceiling are a couple of fluorescent lamps brilliant enough to illuminate the entire room with stark white light. Apart from being stark white, the room itself is stark —- no windows, no furniture, not even a door. (And you wonder how you got to the room in...
1 tag
I haven't written in a while
I don’t know. Whenever I cast my line into the great sea of words, I get nothing.
And yes, there is a great sea of words, not unlike an alphabet soup. But instead of letters swimming in its depths, there are words. The alphabet soup is the so-called primordial soup. After eons and eons of linguistic evolution, these letters have combined to form words. There are short words like...
November 2008
2 posts
2 tags
doleful dolefin
doleful dolefin sad pineapplefish on the way to the cannery, a delmontefish
2 tags
The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom
For Illustration Friday (supposedly). Didn’t get to finish coloring this until yesterday.
Last week’s theme was “wise”.
October 2008
1 post
1 tag
“Rehabilitation doesn’t happen overnight. I am trying.”
– Sylar (Heroes Volume 3: Villains)
July 2008
1 post
1 tag
Echo, my voice is an echo of places I don't know...
I noticed that for quite some time now, I don’t get to talk much on weekends. My average weekend-day word count would probably be less than a hundred (or fifty even) if talking to one’s self and singing would be excluded. Unless I meet with friends, the only time I could speak is when I take public transportation or buy stuff. Then, I could say things like “Plete palihug”...
May 2008
5 posts
1 tag
Where does this ocean go?
For Illustration Friday.
This week’s theme is “worry”.
1 tag
éléphant
I decided to participate in Illustration Friday regularly. I think it would be a great creative exercise.
This week’s theme is “wide”. Elephants came to mind.
Experimented with using type for texture.
1 tag
… as a lamp in daylight
2 tags
Above sea level
明日どこへ行くかな。どこか写真を撮ろうと思ってるけどどこに行くかまだ決めていない。
今朝早く起きた。卒業証書のため、大学に行きたかった。でも蛇口から水が流れなかったのでシャワーを浴びないですぐに会社へ行った。今晩家に帰ったとき、まだ水が流れていない。こんな状況が嫌い。
何これ。この気持ち。なんか憂うつ。
Medúlla
It’s been a while since I listened to Björk’s Medúlla. I vividly remember how I would wake up from a noontime nap to the ominous choral of “Where is the Line” or the ethereal voices of “Mouth’s Cradle”, as if slowly I am pulled to a different world. I find it surreal.
April 2008
3 posts
1 tag
Merzel
My friend Merzel.
It’s been a while since I did any vector work.
2 tags
薬売り
「ほおー」
The Medicine Seller from Mononoke.
I attempted to do something Yoshitoshi Abe-ish. It’s hard to color with just the trackpad though.
The room is based on a room at Ryouanji Temple in Kyoto.
I got the Japanese pattern here.
pencil, Adobe Photoshop CS2
This took me almost 20 hours to finish, sketch included. I think I’ll stick to this style.
1 tag
Tonight I can write the saddest lines
“Tonight I can write the saddest lines. I loved her, and sometimes she loved me too.” - Pablo Neruda