for a change, it's nice to surf

by now, regular visitors of my blog (based on my regular tagboarders, that'll be eight) may have noticed the additions to the links. i am proud to say that, for once, i did not have to ask for fictionboy's help on this one.

some of the 'slim pickings' may be a surprise to some of you. hello kitty? why not? for the kiddies of my generation, hello kitty was, in our youth, as ubiquitous as pokemon was a few years ago. i had my share of hello kitty merchandise, made available by exchanging crest cartons for discounts at gift gate (in the 80's, the place to shop for toys). hello kitty was my sanrio character as little twin stars were for my sister. i had the stapler, the pouch (of course lost during grade school), the innumerable notepads, plate, even a three-minute sand timer.

free people is a clothing line i first laid eyes on in the good ol' days of sassy magazine and yes, they're what i lovingly call tablecloth dresses. i bought my first and only free people dress at rustan's when it was on sale, but the better story behind that purchase was how many times i went back and forth the sale rack before i finally got it. for even if it was on sale, the sale price wasn't exactly as pretty as the dress. moreover, the remaining piece for that style and color was a size larger. i wasn't exactly getting a steal.

but as my mother all too well knows, once i eye something really special, i have to have it. and so i went home to lb that weekend with a smile on my face and a pleading look aimed at my mother to adjust the dress size to my body frame.

oh, and do take a look at mcsweeneys. go straight to 'mcsweeneys recommends' and enjoy yourself.

*

it was through mayel, a former colleague at ateneo, that i discovered that antonioni's film blow-up was based on cortazar's story. i was telling her about a lecture by visual artist peggy phelan on interpretations of snapshots of a particular jumper during 9/11. (background: jumpers were people trapped in the twin towers forced to jump off their office windows. of course onlookers - and probably the jumpers themselves - already know that while they may have escaped a fiery death, an even bloodier way out was awaiting them below.) one of the people on the ground, probably shocked, amazed and disturbed at what was unfolding, decided to take a series of random snapshots aimed at the towers. later, the viewer's photos revealed one jumper's descent into his impending death. there were about five or six sequential photos revealing the person in various positions (some upright, others upside-down). after the series were published, there were some objections on the propriety of the photos, that they documented the last minutes of a person's death. phelan, however, contended that, on the contrary, the pictures were, in fact, a documentation of a person's fight to live. (somewhat like the half-empty, half-full argument.)

after i told mayel about this interpretation, she said she was immediately reminded of julio cortazar's story blow-up, in which a picture randomly taken was later examined and revealed to have included a detail of a crime. (one could probably think of those group pictures with ghosts innocently sidling up one of the participants.) i recalled having a photocopy of cortazar's short stories and quickly made a mental note to dig up my copy.

that conversation was two months ago. i wouldn't have come around to doing so had not the rat that was vacationing inside our dilapidated piano was rudely evicted and forced to take up quarters in my closet, right near photocopied cortazar.

so there. current read: julio cortazar's end of the game and other stories. still with bhagavad gita, though, where the introduction is almost as long as the text itself, heehee.