"When our eyes touch, is it day or is it night? "

Fuck! I am sick of the prison that is myself. I am constricted by my pathetic, banal existence. My soul smells of a sick man's room--the part in me that I still give a shit about suffocates from the weight of stale breath.

I desire change. The elements of my life need to be shuffled like tiles on a mahjong table. My mundane life awaits (but does not seek out) the beautiful intrusion of the event or person that would, who would, bring about the change I seek.


* * *

Why can't I love?

I read and read and try to learn more about love, but the only thing I encounter in both theory and experience is love's constitutive empty core, its inherent failure.

Philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy posits that love "shatters" the self and consequently opens it up for consumption of the Other. It facilitates an authentic non-dominating relation.

Wrong!

More and more, I think Freud comes closest to the "truth." His work seems to suggest that love is always bound to collapse into self-love. Also, I concur with Lacan: "Love comes to compensate for the lack of a real connection."

Fuck! I remember the old days when the memory of a kiss was so real that I could hold it tight in my hand and tuck it under my pillow before I go to bed so that it could permeate my dreams. Now, a kiss for me is the easiest way to confirm what my partner ate for dinner or if she is a smoker. I might as well be kissing dirty dishes and ashtrays.

I have lost my ability to love. I blame you, but I know I should not. We live separate lives now, but I occasionally find your letters in my clutter, your handwriting on the margins of some of my books, your images in my dreams. Why does it seem that I suffer and you don't. Our relationship has been reduced to empty words. A purely formal relationship, though I (we?) pretend that it is not. Why waste our time? Please touch me, hold me, let our lips meet, for only then perhaps could I finally let go of you.

* * *

Jacques Derrida and Jean-Luc Nancy:

"When our eyes touch, is it day or is it night? "

"When our I's touch, there is the promise of day and night, the anticipation of life and death, that facilitates friendship and love, and the singular-plural relationship to come."

"But remember when I moved in you...and every breath we drew was Hallelujah."

“A letter always arrives at its destination.”
--Jacques Lacan, Seminar on the Purloined Letter



We crossed paths in the hallway as I was headed for my office. It does not help that we work in the same building. This I failed to anticipate.

—“Hi. How have you been?” I said (not asked). In such situations, it is the ethical duty of the "villain" of the narrative to initiate. Fate decided to cast me for the part, so I guess am committed to playing it.

—“I’ve seen better days.”

Formulaic pleasantries are hollow; for the most part, they mean nothing. But we both share the knowledge that there’s a “blaze of light in every word” be it the “broken or the holy Hallelujah.”

No other words were uttered, but several paces past each other, that person looked back. And I know only because I did too.

When I got home, I wrote a draft of a letter (a reply, really) that I will never send.

Oh Canada!

Back in Canada at last!

My Manila to Tokyo to Toronto to Kingston trip was so draining. When I got to my apartment, I collapsed on the bed, and, as I imagined, looked like an octopus that got washed on shore--lifeless, jello-ey, and literally out of my element.

* * *

The immigration officer at the Canadian border (prolly Asian-Canadian and way hot) got me all flustered that I had difficulty stringing together coherent sentences. Although, I did catch her giving me a good probing look, but I guess that's part of her job. I went through immigration procedures quickly, but felt that a part of her wanted to keep me there longer than necessary.

Vanitas vanitatum omnia vanitas.

* * *

There is something about Canada that just makes me want to stuff my face with food. It's probably because relative to the people here am on the "thin" side. This is quite a change from the Philippines where a couple of my students even referred to me as "burly." In Canada, burly is more properly used to describe moose, bison, and occasionally pro hockey goalkeepers.

On Leaving

Just before I leave a country where I have set up a temporary home, I make sure to visit those places that I associate with fond memories. I would go to the site alone, and just aimlessly walk around, hoping to absorb through a kind of osmosis the spirit of the place. It would be difficult for me to explain this odd ritual. Perhaps it’s related to the impulse that makes criminals want to return to the scene of the crime. Or, perhaps it’s really nothing more than cheap sentimentality, plain and simple. Whatever the reason, all I know is that it is for me a necessary practice. My life after high school has been one of perpetual (loco)motion. Being always on the move and not being able to fully come to rest describes my lived life as well as my “inner” life. Being in those places, for some reason, creates the illusion that time comes to a hault, and for a person who is always in between places, it is an illusion that is just so tempting to embrace.

I have paid a visit to the UP CAL, the table tennis centre in Amoranto, and the Starbucks at Trinoma, and I still have a day and a half to quickly drop by the Fully Booked at Promenade and the Lit. Dept. at DLSU. And, of course, it just hit me that even my attempt to come to a momentary stop is fueled by the energy of movement.

A Poem for Me :-)

A couple of my students composed a poem for me. I am flattered and sincerely grateful. Thank you guys. My critical faculties are paralyzed by the sincerity of your work.

Jeremy
A burly structure and confident stance,
Orchestrating a flurry of thoughts, words;
All that witness, gladly fall in a trance,
The slavery of knowledge reigns in hordes;
Through spectacles of judgment he chooses,
Those with the courage to expose their thoughts;
Erudition constructed from bits and pieces,
Those who are taught then teaches,
Exceeding even the greatest of books.


Thank you guys. I am humbled. I really am.

The Problem with Packing

There is something to be said about packing. While it is often a source of anxiety for it triggers endless worrying about things forgotten and lost, it also affords us the opportunity to confront a kind of truth about ourselves. Once the bare necessities, the essentials, have made their rightful territorial claim, the meager space left in our suitcase makes us realize that it would be impossible to take with us the entire carcass of our past. It is trite to say that humans are cursed with being unable to distinguish between those memories that should be forever kept and those that should be left behind. We lug along with us mundane objects that have been fetishized and invested with more meaning that those objects could hold: picture albums, journals, scrap books, toys from our childhood, letters from lovers past and present, among others find their way in the pockets, corners, and odd spots of our suitcase, insisting that the memories they contain remain in the semiotic economy of our present.

This time around I know better. There are benefits in traveling light. For the first time, I could finally afford to take with me the full weight of my self-importance.

Year in Pictures: Fall-Winter 2007

FALL-WINTER 2007



Agamben: "Dasein is simply an animal that has learned to become bored."


Lacan: "The mirror-stage is a drama whose internal thrust is precipitated from insufficiency to anticipation....from a fragmented body-image to a form of its totality..."


My table tennis paddle collection. Clearly the phallic signifier of the set of pics--that which sticks out.



Bakhtin: "Carnival is not a spectacle seen by the people; they live in it...It has a universal spirit...While carnival lasts, there is no other life outside it."


Sontag: "[Art] is nothing more or less than various modes of stylized, dehumanized representation.”