burned out firechild

Scrounging at book sales there are great books that you may find… and there are great books that find you…

I came home late Saturday morning and chanced upon a heap of near battered paperbacks on my way out of SM Bicutan. After poking here and I ended up with dusty copies of the cider house rules, rendezvous with rama (arthur c. clarke) and the postman (which turned out to be a kevin costner flop). All ready to head for the cashier where I will be asked if I have an sm advantage card, i decided to have a look at the larger medical manuals and children’s books… And there I found "Women Who Run with the Wolves"– or rather, it found me…

It seemed to be an anthology of fairy tales on the so-called wild woman archetype, and strangely I decided to buy the black 300Php thing and drop the other 30-50Php books.

Now I know why I had to buy the damn thing. After having dreams of corpses and apples and an unexplained feeling of restlessness mixed with fatigue, I found in it some answers or clues at the least.

"A woman must be careful to not allow over responsibility (or over respectability) to steal her necessary creative rests, riffs, and raptures. She simply must put her foot down and say no to half of what she believes she "should" be doing. ART IS NOT MEANT TO BE CREATED IN STOLEN MOMENTS ONLY"

"((Gifted) women, even as they reclain their creative lives, even as beautiful things flow from their hands, from their pens, from their bodies, still question whether they are writers, painters, artists, real ones. And of course they are real ones even though they might like to bedevil themselves with wat constitutes ‘real’. A farmer is a real farmer when she looks out over the land and plans the spring crops. A runner is real when she takes the first step…"

Basta. Para siyang chicken soup for disillusioned-overworked-artists-who-slave-in call centers. But it’s actually a collection of Jungian / feminist analysis of fairytales / folklore from different cultures… the red shoes, vassalisa the wise, the ugly duckling, bluebeard, la llorona… Basta yun. Lahat ng aspeto ng pagiging babae, pagiging biktima sa mga relasyon, exile, kalibugan, kawalan ng saysay sa buhay, pagiging ina, galit, pagiging insecure sa yong itsura, ganun… Interesting din ang pag-explore ng "wild woman" archetype sa iba’t ibang bahagi ng mundo

It helped satisfy a craving for some semblance of meaning, reminiscent of the former me back in my post college days when I had no money and would loiter in Sunken with Sunny, Chet, Che, Twin, and complain laugh, engage in pseudo estoric talk, and kababawan talk and boy talk and sing songs, write songs, and haay…. ayun.

ayokong mag-blog! ayoko talaga! bakit ba ako nagsusulat dito ng mga walang katuturang bagay imbes na…

1.) tumawag na ako sa mga hinayupak na customer para naman makabenta at maituring na kapanipakinabang sa kumpanyang ito

2.) mag-research tungkol sa autism at behavioral therapy sa sa gayon maging kapanipakinabang na nanay sa anak ko

3.) mag conserve ng energy ng sa ganoon may laks pa ako at pasensya na i-practice ang mga activities ng therapy ni declan sa bahay ng sa ganoon hindi niya ito nakakalimutan at may evident na improvement na makita sa kanya

4.) simulan ang pagsusulat ng kahit sequence outline man lang ng "pangarap kong full length" nang sa ganoon di siya manatiling pangarap na lang at unti unting maisakatuparan kahit sa ms word document man lang

5.) mag hanap ng mura pero matinong bass o gitara or both nang sa ganoon di na lang kami laging nanghihiram kina bernie ng gamit sa recording at para makapag-practice ng totohanan dahil ang isang banda ay di nabubuo ng puro songwriter lang, kelangan ng kahit onting musician skills

6.)maghanap ng paraan na magkaroon ako ng trabahong hindi depressing at hindi nakaka-supress ng creativity ko pero magsusweldo sa kin ng sapat para magkaroon ng kumportableng buhay kami ni declan at may extra pang pan-intrega kay mama at pang-pursue ng mga personal interests dahil sa totoo lang wala talaga akong talent sa pagbebenta, o account management at wala akong balak na tumanda sa ganitong larangan

7.) mag-suklay, mag-ayos ng sarili, mag-make up at magpaganda baka sakaling may matisod akong patron of the arts at mawala na nang tuluyan sa listahan ng problema ko kung paano magkakaroon ng pera for all of the above at makaka-concentrate na lang ako sa self improvement, paggawa ng mga pelikula at musikang may kabuluhan at maalagaan at ma-improve ang sitwasyon ni declan

siguro yung # 7 malabong mangyari in this lifetime pero attainable naman ang #1-6… kaya tama na hindi na ako magsusulat dito… magla-log out na ko sa friendster at babalik na sa trabaho…

aargh! ngayon nagka-blog na rin ang friendster just when i set up one in yahoo360. To save time I guess, it’ll have to be cut n paste scenario so one post in one blog’ll be the same for the other… let’s start with this one I posted in yahoo360 last April 13….

I am in one of my hypothetical situation moods today. And (knock on wood) in the possibility of acquiring deafness, I am positive that amnesia would soon follow. This is because, I think, my lifetime’s memories are segregated by my the various musical phases I’ve gone through… so far.

There was my angstsy grunge phase, 3-chord punk phase, my Swedish/Norweigian guitarpop phase, my new wave/ darkwave phase, my POP-py twee phase, my guitar feedback sonata phase, among others…

Now I’m in my Femme phase. Grrl groups, grrl vocals. All thanks to Oracle Phils. lightning fast internet connection. Rediscovering the raw Bjork in The Sugarcubes, a tough Brody Armstrong in The Distillers, the sweet painful songs of  Camera Obscura, Stars‘ hip pop crooning from Amy Milan, the too happy girls (dunno their names) of Call & Response, this one punk track from the No-no’s, and of course everything by Sonic Youth with Kim Gordon singin in it.

Don’t know why. It maybe just gives me a reason to go to work everyday other than the obvious excuse of survival.