Edmund

Eating out alone

Saturday evenings are really busy for me, and I just don’t have the time to prepare supper, so I just eat out. The restaurant is usually quiet by the time I get there, so that’s a plus—I sometimes like to fancy myself as the lonely flapper in Edward Hopper’s Automat:

But most of the time I’m the man with his back turned in Nighthawks:

The two Hopper paintings above are about urban alienation, but—trust me—isolation and loneliness (the two necessary ingredients of being single) happen in rural areas too. Like where I am.

Then a young couple—with their unruly little children!—comes in. The imagination clouds burst . . .

A library without Dante

I was browsing my catalogue of books—yes, I have each and every book I own catalogued—and I couldn’t believe it when I found out that I still do not have Dante’s Divina Commedia (Divine Comedy). I saw a nice hardbound edition in the bargain bin at Chapters some months back, but I didn’t pick it up. The Gustave Doré plates freak me out, and I think that’s part of the reason why the greatest epic poem of Italian literature is not in my collection—most decent editions of Divina Commedia contain Doré’s iconic engravings. I first read Inferno via the Bantam Classics edition, whose accompanying semi-abstract illustrations were scarier than Doré’s take on the plight of the damned. Too bad it’s no longer available. Since the Folio Society doesn’t have an edition of Divina Commedia, I ordered the Oxford World’s Classics paperback. The cover features a nice portrait of Dante in profile, but I don’t think it has inside illustrations except for maps.

Like

I am extremely disturbed and annoyed by the almost-epidemic use of the word “like,” especially among young people—“like” as in:

Dad was like, “You have to go to school.” And I was like, “Okay, dad, you’re crazy.”

Shakespeare, Austen and the Brontës had to be rolling in their graves!

Edmond Dantès as a mestizo

I’m re-reading the great Filipino novel Noli Me Tangere by José Rizal. Oops!—it’s not actually a “Filipino novel,” since it was written in Spanish. (And besides, the great Filipino novel has yet to be written.) What I’m reading is the Penguin Classics edition, translated into English by Harold Augenbraum. I do feel that I’m reading the Noli for the first time, thanks to the clear modern translation. The Tagalog translation that we used in High School was rather archaic, and thus much of Rizal’s biting sarcasm, wit and humor didn’t get very well through our rebellious adolescent minds at that time. The text that we used in school was also heavily expurgated—we didn’t get to read the portion in the Epilogue about María Clara’s descent into madness one stormy night after being presumably raped by the loathsome Padre Salví inside the nunnery.What more, our Noli textbooks were cheap (but pricey) and badly printed newsprint editions. Reading the Penguin Noli is like seeing a long-lost friend who has undergone a great make-over.

Matres dolorosæ. Which is greater? The Noli or its sequel El filibusterismo? I believe the debate still rages on. As for me, I like the Fili better, as it is darker and much more philosophically profound. Unfortunately, it doesn’t have a Penguin edition. Moreover, the Fili doesn’t have the Noli’s colorful dramatis personæ. For one, it does not have Sisa, the long-suffering mother who lost her mind when she lost her children. Much has been written about how Rizal patterned his Crisóstomo Ibarra/Simoun after Le Comte de Monte-Cristo’s Edmond Dantès. Could Les Misérables’s Fantine have influenced the creation of the Sisa character?

My two all-time favorite movie quotes

“Fools! Idiots! Imbeciles! Oh, they’re hopeless. A disgrace to the forces of evil.” — Maleficent, Sleeping Beauty (1959)

“You idiots! You fools! You imbeciles!” — Cruella De Vil, One Hundred and One Dalmatians (1961)

Those ’70s films

Warner Brothers has launched the Warner Archive Collection, where previously unavailable movies are being released for the first time on DVD. These films, however, are not being remastered, and the DVDs cannot be played on PC drives. The selection, I think, is not that great, but I did find two films that I’ve been wanting to see again for ages: The Abdication (1974) and One on One (1977). Back in the early ’80s, these two movies were played a lot during the early mornings and mid-afternoons in Manila on RPN-9. I remember making up excuses to skip classes just to watch those Channel 9 staples. (That’s where I first saw The Omega Man and The Thirty Nine Steps—the faithful 1978 version with Robert Powell.)

The Abdication stars Liv Ullmann as Queen Christina of Sweden and Peter Finch as Cardinal Azzolino, and it fictionalizes their close relationship as a romantic one. The real Queen Christina, of course, was a very masculine woman and was rumored to be a lesbian. In any case, The Abdication is a very, very beautiful film to look at—the cinematography is simply astounding.

One on One stars Robby Benson, one of the many Zac Efrons that populated the ’70s heartthrob scene. It’s a coming-of-age basketball drama with music by Seals and Crofts. I’ll never forget this film, because (aside from Melanie Griffith’s scene-stealing cameo), I didn’t need a make-believe excuse to skip class when I first saw it: I really had to go home that afternoon because of severe diarrhea.

Confessions of a tweenager trapped in a grown man’s body

A very good article about grown-up men (like me) who love Hannah Montana and other Disney and teen stuff. Read this.

If bookmarks could kill

My copy of Max Beerbohm’s satire Zuleika Dobson from The Folio Society arrived with a free exclusive bookmark. At first I thought it was a letter opener—and I’m scared of letter openers or any other sharp objects for that matter. I mean, how many times have paper knives been used as murder weapons in Edwardian mystery novels? The bookmark also looks like a gadget that an elegant James Bond villain would use. I’m throwing it away.

I can’t wait to own Kimmy Dora: Kambal sa Kiyeme on DVD. Its trailer alone is proof that Filipino comedy is the best. The film opens in Manila next month. ’Di ba, Mamay?

My backyard pets

They’re quite cute when they’re on your lawn, but it’s really unnerving when you see them on the highway.