Remember with Lacuna you can Forget
Review: Eternal Sunshine of the spotless Mind
Director: Michel Gondry
Story: Charlie Kaufman

Remember, with Lacuna you can forget1. The lacuna Inc. staff has made giant strides in brain research. They have discovered a simple and effective way to remove problem memories. No longer do you have to live with life debilitating memories. Live again, take the steps now!
Step one: the initial meeting
The first meeting with Dr. Mierzwiak serves primarily as an introductory meeting where the patient will be given a tour of the facility and the chance to meet the staff. After that, the patient will sit down with the doctor to fully understand the problem and tailor a procedure that is best suited for the patient. 2
Step two: preparing for the procedure
After the patient decides what memory he/she wants to be erased, the patient is instructed to collect any items that would remind him/her of the experience to be erased. These mementos would then be destroyed after the procedure. This is to ensure that the patient won’t have any unexplainable items after the process of memory erasure.Step three: mapping the memory
The team of Lacuna experts will use the information they have received and the items brought to create a map of the memory, useful in extracting the memory from the mind.3
Step four: the procedure
Following the map of the patient’s memory, the doctor and his team4 will begin to erase the unwanted memory. The process works on reverse timeline: beginning with the most recent memories and goes backwards in time. This approach is designed to target the emotional core that every memory is built upon. By exterminating the core, Dr. Mierzwiak is able to make the entire memory vanish.5
When the patient wakes up from the procedure, they remember nothing.6
_________________
1The contents of this review is a Frankenstein of ads for Lacuna Inc., reviews of the movie Eternal sunshine, and a tedious discourse of a hack powered by coffee and cigarettes. By the way, lacuna means empty space.

2Jim Carrey stars as Joel Barish, a wimpy wage slave who falls in love with an unstable free-spirited bohomie named Clementine Kruczynski (played by Kate Winslet) whose hair color is as volatile as the stock market. He then learns that after some time, Clementine undergoes the procedure first, after Joel wanted to avoid the taxing relationship. Now Joel wants to undergo the same procedure to forget; to rescue the damsel in distress from the tower created by his mind.

3The movie’s central story is about what’s going on inside Joel’s head during the procedure. It is here that the director and the scriptwriter lavishly puts us into layers of creative and insightful notions. Unlocking the secrets, the study of neurosis and the slanting of real life experiences is this movie’s piece- de- resistance. Kaufman finally made a script that is fragmented like an Orson Wells’ movie yet achingly and deceivingly beautiful like an amber setting sun. The makers succeeded in making a movie that sucks viewers into a Coney Island fieldtrip inside the mind (think Being John Malkovich) yet one doesn’t question what’s the point? We all just watch like a voyeur.

4Merswiak( played by Tom Wilkinson), the staff, Stan and Patrick (Mark Ruffalo, and Elijah Wood) and the receptionist, Mary (played Kirsten Dunst) who also have subplots of their own—Patrick gets creepy laughs as he tries to wooing Clementine with stolen memories and Mierzwiak with his dark melancholic presence in a clinic that looks like a dentist’s clinic. Stan finds dramatic nuances in comedic situations. Mary‘s a wounded soul who has a crush on the doc.

5Joel, in the middle of the process of erasure, realizes that the moments with Clementine were bittersweet and precious and thus he tries to store them in the wrong side of his brain—in his childhood memories although she was never played a single part—thus, the process becomes very messy as the techies try to zero-in on the memory.

6The movie revolves around two premises: a poem by Alexander Pope (Eloisa to Abelard):
How happy is the blameless Vestal’s lot!
The world is forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d.
And a part of Nietzsche’s Beyond Good and Evil, part VII: “Blessed are the forgetful: for they shall have done with their stupidities too.” I think they were quoted by Mary in the film, and both tells us that love, whether predestined for doom or bliss, doesn’t matter as long as we enjoy the moments shared. In the end of the movie, Joel falls in-love again with Clementine. Eternal sunshine of the spotless Mind almost captures the complexities of the human struggle of the heart to love even at the stake of committing the same follies. One more thing, everybody loves a love story.

--Romel Villaflor

 

FIFTEEN MINUTES WITH THE GUY-I-DON'T-KNOW-HIS-NAME

(felt like forever!)

By Shiella A. Ildefonso

01-61271

Early Monday morning, I found myself sitting alone by the fountain at the Atrium. There were only more or less fifteen students who stayed at the fountain's area. From where I sat, fronting the entrance door to the Admin building, there were about ten students at my right and the rest were somewhere facing the IT office and to the stairs going to the library. The students in my right were looking at me, I could feel the eyes looking at me while I was sitting there as if I was lost or I was new in the place or something. Then I heard one asked the other, “upperclass na siya?”, and one guy answered him, “dili uy, diba ning-dagan man na siya ug councilor?”, and inside my head I want to answer “ngano mura ko ug first year?”. But I continued opening my black folder, looking whether my papers to be passed for my thesis were there. It was so funny when I had to pretend that as if I was not listening to their conversation, since after checking my folder, there was nothing else to do but to eavesdrop(and I then realized, I had to, for this article.) and besides, I was still gathering my strength to face my adviser.

“Hay, kapoya aning dug-on ko uy!” a girl said while adjusting her blue jogging pants as she stood in front of one of the guys. She was the only female in the group.

“Kapoy gyud na noh, bug-at siguro na imong ginasuk-suk sa imong panty?” a tall musculed-gay with a mustache, wearing his PE uniform, and by saying that he looked at me as I looked at him, shocked with his reaction.

“Gyud!” the girl said while holding the sides of her jogging pants like of a skirt.

And everybody laughed. I assumed they were Computer Science students. I knew one of them, Gian, who was a member of the Bayla Vinta. And they looked like they were from their PE class, since all of them were wearing their PE uniforms and were most probably they were resting by the fountain.

They were talking and talking and laughing of things the muscled-gay was talking. I couldn't remember his jokes but for sure all of them were green jokes. He was talking so fast like he was running after something. He was eating his words like supposedly saying "Asa mo nag-adto?", he would say " Asmo'g-to?" (Like, ha?) And he had many expressions almost every after sentence, like "haller", "galore”, “char lang!”. He also added word to the expression “charmus” with “charmus-ginamus-iring-gigakus!”. And his laughter was totally torturing me to death. His voice was so harsh that he tried to sound like of a sweet lady, like when he said “Ay, 'Day”. He sounded terrible. Not mentioning his mustache.

"Hoy! Naa na mo? Naka-himo na mo?" guy in red shirt and black shorts and rubber slippers interuppted while holding his backpack unto his chest.

"Wala pa intawon oi!" the girl in jogging pants said to her blocmates as they were looking at her with smiling faces.

"Bitaw oi, mabuang na ko ani! Hay! Kapoy na kaayo! Daghan kaayo ug assignment bah! Naglibog na ko kung unsa ang unahon! Mabuang na ko ani! Naka-study na mo?" the muscled-gay with a mustache spontaneously ranted as he stood in front of one guy who was wearing white shirt and maroon jogging pants. Only then I noticed that there was another guy who was lying on the pebble-cemented mouth of the fountain pool, where he was facing to the oblation. He was wearing yellow shirt and maong pants. He used some of his blocmates bag as his pillow and said, "Ah, kaya lagi na. Na-kaya gani sa atong mga upperclass."

And they were silent. I wondered why. Although my head bowed as I was as if texting someone, I felt that they were looking at me. Then, feeling superior, I looked at them, and found that they were indeed looking at me. Then I hurriedly grabbed my bag and my black folder and went inside the building. Pretending that it was as if it was time to go in the building.

Upon entering by the guard's table, I heard one commented, "Bitaw". I might not had see who said it but the voice was familiar. I know it was that muscled-gay with a mustache, I somehow got used with his voice, even for that fifteen-mintue stay at the fountain area. His voice was ringing in my ears like the way my crush called my name. But this time, he was not my crush and I don't even know his name.

No Need for Sunscreen

By Michael N.R. Bonghanoy

IN THE AGE OF SKIN CANCER resulting from over-exposure to UV rays of the sun and the necessity of applying sunscreen, I am reminded of simpler days when one could just bask at the streaming sunlight from the kitchen window in the morning without so much worry, the body bathed in the warmth of light so serene. This is the first thought that came into my head when I first read about the film “The Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” in the dailies.

I must admit that I am a closet “feel good” movie lover. For someone who has been labeled as a connoisseur of the morbid, of violent and gory films, by people I know, this is indeed an extremely difficult revelation. I love ‘feel good” movies –– the kind that leaves a momentary, if not an artificial and calculated, sense of happiness which produces this tingling sensation inside me long after the film is over. I expected “Eternal Sunshine” to function as a film equivalent of “Chicken Soup for the Soul” that will somehow lessen, no matter how slight, my cynicism. But I was greatly disappointed.

The screenplay for “Eternal Sunshine” was penned by the zany Charlie Kaufman who has a penchant for over-the-top premises and the use of quirky narrative devices, evident in his other screenplays like that of “Being John Malkovich” and “Adaptation.” Complementing the postmodern thrust of the screenplay, the stylistics and over-all look of the film with its surrealistic MTV images, dislocation of objects, and fluidity of spaces, is courtesy of director Michel Gondry, a successful music video maker for the likes of Bjork, Radiohead, and Massive Attack. The two first teamed up in Gondry’s 2002 debut feature “Human Nature” which many critics called an “unwatchable” film.

“Eternal Sunshine” explores the dynamics of memory and its place in human romantic interaction. Clementine Kruczynski (Kate Winslet), an eccentric happy-go-lucky bookstore attendant who changes her hair color to suit her mood and keeps a collection of potato-head figures, is in direct contrast to the protagonist of the film, Joel Barish (Jim Carrey), a shy and introvert average guy, depressed over the break up with his girlfriend. In a way, the casting of the actors in the film is a joke in itself, reversing the roles that are usually associated with Winslet and Carrey.

After finding out that Clementine erased him in her memory through the services of Dr. Howard Mierzwiak (Tom Wilkinson) and his team of screw ups (Mark Ruffalo, Elijah Wood, and Kirsten Dunst) of Lacuna Corporation because of her unhappiness in the relationship, Joel signs up for the same procedure. Inside Joel’s mind, the viewers are treated to what one critic calls a “funhouse hall of mirrors” sort of visual feast –– faceless people, indoor rains, people disappearing like bubbles in the airport, just to name a few of this film’s digital flourishes. Because of the nature of the film, taking memory as its subject, director Michel Gondry and writer Charlie Kaufman got away with the surrealistic visuals.

The film constantly shifts its point of view, scenes from the real world alternating with scenes inside Joel’s memory. In the middle of the memory-erasing process, Joel, decides to keep his memories of Clem. A chase sequence through the incredible landscape of Joel’s psyche ensues as Dr. Mierzwiak tries to zap Clem (or the memory of her). The film includes a subplot, an affair between the doctor and his assistant Mary (Dunst) who also had her memory erased, which provides a sensible resolution to the conflict. To Kaufman’s credit, the subplot was weaved tightly into the main narrative without being obtrusive.

In the end, I am wont to evaluate the film on the basis of the emotional resonance that it generates in me during and after watching the film. Sad to say, it did not quite stir me in an emotional way although I must admit it engaged me in a highly intellectual manner that resulted to a mild migraine on my way home from the cinema. I cannot feel the chemistry between Joel and Clem, no real intimacy or sexual tension whatsoever. Their relationship lacks depth, a deep bond that people can relate to and lament in the wake of its loss. The film is whole and technically beautiful, a well-oiled machine, with its loose ends tucked conspicuously by the tidiness of its logic, but it remains just that –– a machine. It is cold and calculated. Like its perpetually overcast setting, “The Eternal Sunshine of a Spotless Mind” just does not have enough sunshine to thaw even a single snowflake.

Franz Kafka once said that great art should function as “an ax for the frozen sea within us.” But just like Joel and Clem frolicking on top of a frozen lake, the film over-indulges in the play of beautiful surrealistic images but never really plunges into the depth of human emotion to really make the viewers sympathize with the characters. The sea remains frozen until the end of the film.

But despite the emotional icescape that lies at the heart of the film, I applaud it for two things: (1) for making me believe that Jim Carrey can really act (not over-act) and (2) for bringing back my respect for Kate Winslet which sunk with the Titanic in 1997.

The Notebook

by Sahara Alia Jauhali Silongan

September 20, 2004

Behind every great love is a great story.

The romantics say it is a classic tale of love found, lost and regained (1) that would bring tears to the eyes of those who believe how true love can do miracles. The cynics, on the other hand, consider the film a typical over-sentimental love story that would bore those who are tired of overused plots.

Based from the best-selling novel by Nicholas Sparks, Director Nick Cassavettes brings us The Notebook, a poignant story that will surely captivate the hearts of those who came to love Message in a Bottle and A Walk to Remember.

The film basically focuses on two stories – one is that of an eighty-year-old man named Duke and this old woman to whom he reads the other story from his notebook. Cassavettes captures the whole film, dividing it into two parts by occasionally shifting from the frame of the story to the story within the frame.

The story opens with an old woman (Gena Rowlands) overlooking a beautiful river from a window. (Her name is not mentioned until the middle of the story.) Accompanied by a middle-aged nurse, the scene tells us that the she might be in a hospital or something like a health center. Then enters Duke (James Garner) with his notebook and reading glasses. He sits next to the old woman as the nurse leaves them in the room. He flips open the notebook and reads her a story And so begins the tragic yet triumphant story of real love and its miracles.

The scene brings us back to 1940s Seabrook, North Carolina, sometime before the War, where nineteen-year-old Noah Calhoun (Ryan Gosling), falls deeply in love with the seventeen-year-old Allie Hamilton, (Rachel MacAdams) who at that time spends a summer in her father’s estate. He reads poetry with his father while she, a debutante, loves painting and takes piano lessons. They go out on a date, fall madly in love with each other and become inseparable. But Allie’s mother (Joan Allen ) doesn’t approve of the relationship, calling Noah a trash because he doesn’t belong to the high-class society like Allie does. Allie fights for Noah but the situation has created a tension between them that soon led to misunderstandings that causes their breakup before the summer ends. Allie goes back to her hometown without having the chance to say goodbye to Noah. Meanwhile, Noah is devastated to find out that Allie is gone. He writes her 365 letters a year but doesn’t receive a reply. Allie’s mother happens to be keeping her daughter’s letters that for months and months, Allie cries herself to sleep thinking that Noah has forgotten all about her.

After seven years, Noah who is still fresh from the War reunites with Allie who is now a socialite engaged to a lawyer named Lon Hammond, Jr. Allie is busy preparing for her wedding when she sees the ad on the paper featuring Noah’s picture with the newly reconstructed 18th century Plantation house as he once showed her. The picture brings back old memories and confused emotions to Allie that she soon finds herself back in Seabrook, standing before the house, seeing Noah once again. Noah was surprised to see her. Allie stays for two days while she and Noah do some catching up for the lost seven years. Noah discovers that she’s engaged while Allie learns that he wrote her everyday for a year. Seeing each other again rekindles old flames and brings back old feelings and the two fall in love again.

From time to time, the scene shifts back to Duke and to the old woman, now revealed as the future Allie suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. This leaves the viewers (those who haven’t read the book) to ponder on whether Duke is the older Noah or Lon. Some say it is an easy guess while others say it isn’t. I have read the novel so I was in for no surprises.

Just as everything becomes clear between the two, Allie’s mother comes into the picture, reminding her daughter of her betrothal to Lon. She then hands Allie’s letters from Noah and explains her reasons for keeping them. Allie later learns from her mother that Lon is on his way to Seabrook to check on her. This creates a conflict between Allie and Noah as she decides to leave him and go back to Lon though she confesses to Noah that she still loves him.

“The story ends,” says Duke who then closes his notebook. Allie demands to know who the young Allie ends up with but Duke wouldn’t tell her. Until miraculously, Allie remembers. This part reveals that Duke happens to be the old Noah. Once again, the old couple reunite, dancing to an old song Noah plays with his small cassette. After a minute or so, her Alzheimer’s attacks that she soon forgets her husband and starts to push Noah away. This hurts Noah more than ever. (I have to give James Garner a credit for his portrayal in this picture.)

Although The Notebook is based from Nicholas Sparks’ novel, New Line Cinema presents a film that is to some extent unfaithful to the book but all the same heartwarming and wonderful. Had it been faithful to the original storyline, the movie, in my opinion, will not be able to achieve the success that the novel has. What is good about the book is that it is simple in form yet powerful. The simplicity of the plot, I believe, will not fit in a moving picture that by adding more romantic scenes and conflict that are merely implied in the book, film writers Jeremy Leven and Jan Sardi put more spice to the story as well as chemistry, if not tension, between the characters. By doing so, they were able to produce a more typical storyline, joining the lineup of those that are now considered as clichés. The Noah-Allie-Lon triangle reminds me of the final season of Dawson's Creek as it plays on who’s-going-to-end-up-with-who scenario. Had it not been for the actors’ brilliant performances and also the breathtaking scenes captured in the film – an ancestral white house overlooking the river, swans that floated close together in a clear lake, surrounding a pair of lovers in a canoe -- I must say that the movie will not be as good as it has turned out to be.

When I first learned that Ryan Gosling and Rachel MacAdams were going to star as Noah and Allie in the film version of the novel, I was, in a way, disappointed. Although I haven’t had any actors in mind that I think would best portray the characters, I just thought that Gosling and MacAdams would not pass Nicholas Sparks’ description of Noah and Allie in his book. Well, at least not physically. Both actors were too young to play the roles that they would best fit in a teen flick like for instance, Mean Girls, which starred MacAdams as the meanest of the mean girls. But after seeing the two performed, I had no complaints.

Ryan Gosling carried himself well as both teenage and twenty-something Noah Calhoun. Meanwhile, Rachel MacAdams proves that she could do more than playing Miss Popularity opposite Lindsay Lohan (Mean Girls) or a mean cheerleader turned into a man (Hot Chick). A perfect example of a modern day woman, MacAdams has successfully transformed herself into a 1940s socialite and this time she has a paintbrush in hand instead of a pom-pom. I must say that Gosling’s serious look about him captures an almost, if not perfect, portrayal of Noah that he captivated the viewers in the same way that MacAdams did with her sweet and high-spirited portrayal of Allie Hamilton (though the name is actually Allie Nelson in the novel).

The two young actors, however, could not compare with the performances by Academy Award nominees James Garner and Gena Rowlands. While Gosling and MacAdams make the audience fall in love with their depiction of a young romance, Garner and Rowlands, on the other hand, are responsible for the tear jerking scenes in the film. I was personally touched when Duke or the old Noah cried while Allie wailed as she suffered from Alzheimer’s attacks. Garner and Rowlands evoked such a painful scene that had me sobbing until the end of the film.

Moreover, performance by Joan Allen as the strict and sophisticated mother was notable. David Thornton (Allie’s father) and Sam Shephard (Noah’s father), however, only had a few takes in the film. Some critics say, though, that these three actors deserve more challenging roles considering the good reputation they have as actors.

As typical as the storyline turned out to be, I have to admit that I enjoyed the script – again, thanks to the actors who brought every line to life through their inspiring performance. A self-confessed sucker for romance that I am, I have to say that The Notebook is the only film that captivated me in such a way that it made me laugh and sigh and cry hard. I don’t usually cry in a movie and the last time I did was when I watched The Land Before Time when I was eight. And for the first time in my career as a movie addict, I fell in love with the characters themselves and not with the actors who played them. It really doesn’t matter to me if some critics consider the film too sappy or the love story too good to be true. One thing’s for certain, Nick Cassavettes’ The Notebook has become an addition to my list of all-time-favorite films alongside Randal Kleiser’s Grease and Baz Luhrman’s Romeo and Juliet.

(1) from a book review by Christian Science Monitor

A Review of Christine Jeffs’ Sylvia John Bengan 01-62083

There is one poignant scene near the end of Sylvia. Daniel Craig, whose face is washed with despair, bends over a morgue table and kisses Gwyneth Paltrow’s ashen forehead. This scene coalesces with another where Hughes finds the Ariel manuscript inside Plath’s London apartment. But nothing prepared this reviewer for a final love scene: Sylvia and Ted writhing in naked passion on the sofa. After which he will tell her, as she lies on his bare chest, that his mistress is pregnant, that he can’t go back to her again. She stares across the dimly lit room before resting her head back on his chest, realizing that nothing more will be rekindled. One cannot help but cringe, Hollywood didacticism in action. A curious guess from writer John Brownlow, who apparently yearned for a less grim ending, a quiet resolution.

Sylvia, the 2003 Focus Pictures production, follows the life of American poet Sylvia Plath who famously ended her life in the cold February morning of 1963 — the female wordsmith who made not only a most terrifying statement but also cemented herself into literary myth when she stuck her head inside an oven. The movie begins in Cambridge, where Plath is a student under a Fulbright scholarship. She later meets the young Ted Hughes in a party, intrepidly approaching him to praise his poem, and then biting his cheek after “kissing him quite insane.” Destined for a passionate and turbulent partnership, the two marries and travels back to Massachusetts where Plath grew up. Ted teaches at the University of Massachusetts while Sylvia at her alma mater, Smith College. Then the couple moves back to England, in a countryside cottage, and soon after, their children, Frieda and Nicholas, are born. The film then zeroes in on Sylvia suspecting Ted’s infidelity, which is proven true and leads to their separation, and later on, to Plath’s death.

In 1953, the young Sylvia Plath suffered a nervous breakdown that made way to her first suicide attempt, downing a handful of pills and shutting herself in her mother's basement. This event inspired a ghastly, vividly electrifying scene in her novel The Bell Jar, the strongly autobiographical book she wrote through the latter years of her marriage with Ted Hughes. Sylvia Plath’s material crosses over the different forms she operated in. So in her poem “Lady Lazarus,” this early brush on death’s surface came out as: “…I meant/To last it out and not come back at all./I rocked shut//As a seashell./They had to call and call/And pick the worms off me like sticky pearls.”

Blythe Danner, playing Aurelia Plath, shares this episode to the Ted Hughes character, a part of the film that attempts to presage the fatal descend of Paltow’s Plath. But Sylvia’s relationship with her mother, Aurelia, was yet another immense universe that governed the poet’s short life, one that largely influenced Sylvia the mother and wife, most significantly Sylvia the poet. The movie shied away from this premise, as if fearing a black hole. The best Christine Jeffs’ film could offer is this small, narrative tool of an exchange between Aurelia and Ted.

Despite its apparent limitations, Sylvia was wonderfully shot, the scenes skillfully selected, a production of handsome results. John Toon invokes all four seasons of Sylvia Plath’s spirit: sunny college, drizzly beachside, eternal autumn, and the wintry spiral to suicide. Frieda Hughes publicly condemned the film and prohibited access to her parents’ works. Still the filmmakers found a way to locate many of Plath’s images on screen: crashing waves; house made of cobblestones; snowy roads; mirrors; the Yew tree outside her London flat; the bald, leering moon; a garden where irretrievable smiles fell; walls where babies’ shrieks melted; the fluorescent light “wincing on and off like a terrible migraine.” Excerpts of Sylvia’s poetry are tossed in, noticeably those that fumed about her suicide attempts. But somehow the message, rather tersely, still comes across: women poets in Plath’s era had a harder time. On the launching of her book of poems, The Colossus, Plath encounters a critic who doesn’t even know who she was, let alone review her book when an e.e. cummings collection is coming out. A scene where Paltrow reads the last parts of “Daddy” is particularly striking, but leaves you wanting for more.

The cast offered inspired, oftentimes moving performances, especially from Paltrow and Craig. Daniel Craig’s portrayal is vibrant as it is enigmatic. He renders a passionate poet, intense lover, a husband bewildered by his wife’s fascination with death, perhaps the Ted Hughes many Plath followers crucified for his “brute, brute heart.” After watching the film, one senses the haunting presence of Hughes, brought back to life by Craig, this remarkable persona Plath deemed as her father’s double, “the vampire” who said he was him. Fearlessly rising above her character’s reputation, Gwyneth Paltow shows a controlled and stylish impression of Plath, when she was in love, happy, and broken down by a destructive neurosis. Watch her smolder in a superbly executed dinner party.

The film, vividly photographed as it is, only offers a short glance of Sylvia and Ted’s life. For the Plath and Hughes readers, it could be disappointing; so much happened in their life together that this hundred-minutes picture didn’t capture. Roger Ebert argued that Sylvia’s “life and work were so entwined,” and so it wasn’t a trouble for him that the movie focused on Plath’s “sad, interior sort of madness.” I agree that Plath’s work gallantly mirrored many events in her life, especially the latter and most harrowing parts. But the effect this film leaves is still not quite fulfilling, insights considerably suffering in spite of biographical facts. More so, a fascinating creature such as Sylvia Plath is difficult to depict, above all on celluloid, without submitting to the stereotypes, the myth and assumptions about her life through years of biographical studies, cult followings and literary scholarship.

Disregarding Paltrow’s performance, what we have is only a thin layer of Sylvia’s persona, apart from the many guises revealed in the poet’s Unabridged Journals. In this film, we are left with a woman wounded by her husband’s betrayal, a man who is baffled by his wife’s temperament (“I know I couldn’t live with her anymore.”), and a palpably incomplete study of a relationship that, for sure, was more than just a domestic catastrophe. Although even for a brief moment, the informed viewer can bask in the shapes, textures, colors, and sensations that surrounded Ted and Sylvia. “Life was too small to contain her,” or so the production teaser says. Pointedly with the scorn of Plath’s daughter, this movie too was.

by June Tesorero

Rivermaya

Between The Stars and Waves

2003

 

First, a brief history lesson from the school of soft rock/pop. Rivermaya broke into the Philippine music scene in 1994 with their self-titled debut album, propelled by that joyous ode to precipitation – Ulan. This hit was followed by the anthemic Awit ng Kabataan and the love song 214. The succeeding albums churned out other hits that stamped the band into the public consciousness as THAT OTHER BAND. But while the Eraserheads have since splintered into other heads, Rivermaya is still here, filling the airwaves with pop songs that make sense.

 For a band that rock purists have looked down upon since its first hit a decade ago, Rivermaya has proven some manufactured bands have real talent and staying power. After the slow exodus of three original members (guitarist Perf de Castro left after the first album, vocalist Bamboo in ‘98, and bassist Nathan Azarcon in 2001), keyboardist Rico Blanco and skinner Mark Escueta brought in the replacements and carried on. In the band’s latest outing -  their tenth in ten years – Between The Stars And Waves (2003), the new and improved Rivermaya show their arsenal is as powerful as ever.

 

            Featuring young axemen Mike Elgar (recruited from 7Ft. Jr.) and Kakoi Legaspi, and bassist Japs Sergio from dreampop outfit Daydream Cycle, Stars and Waves is proof that the band has released itself from the shackles of its tumultuous, controversy-riddled past. This album is probably their best since the debut, and it’s the biggest seller too.

 

            Rico Blanco, who has since taken the post of head Maya, has found his voice, and has created songs that no longer aim to rival Bamboo’s vocal capabilities. Part of the reason why Rivermaya is still in flight is because it was always Blanco who did songwriting duties. The songs therefore are still very good, lyrical, catchy and radio-friendly. Blanco knows he is a talented songwriter, and in this album he puts his talent to use.

 

              Each song in the album is a memory, and each memory is bittersweet. In 241(My Favorite Song), Blanco admits, I wanted to turn you on/ my favorite song/ wanted to be near you but/ somebody owns you now.  This song is in the same vein as the popular Balisong, but is much much better, and is less annoying when overplayed. This song makes you want to cry your eyes out and hug your pillow tight on a rainy night with the lights off, remembering the one that got away.

The numbers are all heartfelt, and the emotions are, most of the time, restrained. But it is the effort at restraint that makes the songs wonderful. They are the songs of a man on the brink of tears, but trying to keep it all in.

 

             The entire album is almost one big love song, except it is cut in two. The first half are songs penned by Blanco, and the rest are composed by Sergio and Elgar. Some of Elgar’s  and Sergio’s are experimental, and there are shades of the Beatles and the Smiths lurking somewhere.

 

            Sergio is the revelation in this album. In Table For Two, which he composed, he merely whispers, but it is enough. This is the one song fans would want to keep for themselves, a song too beautiful to be released as a single, too sacred for the pop charts.

 

There are lovely attempts here at poetry, the images and metaphors and rhymes thrown in good measure. Some are simple yet succinct  (you mesmerize me with diamond eyes), some are on the verge of sounding forced (sun blinks between the trees/ that waltz gently in the breeze), and some, well, try (only then can I be happy as unity/ ride with me, take a stroll into humanity).    

 

            Between The Stars And Waves wears both its heart and its art on its sleeves. With commissioned photography, art direction and artwork by Kawayan de Guia as background, this album might as well be called Love In The Time Of Robots and Electric Meters, for it chronicles love’s determination to succeed in this modern dystopian age. But another band has that title already.

 

            Yes, this album is unabashedly about love, that shameless little worm that eats you slowly from the inside and grows on your tongue like a fungus. This is romantic love in a lot of incarnations. This is you - whether you are wallowing in self-pity because you are alone (A Love To Share), lusting after a gyrating girl on television (Noontime Show), rushing to catch a glimpse of your crush (Atat), trying to make amends (Pinaiyak Mo Na Naman Ako), or are just being plain torpe (She).

   

               On bad days the album may bring you down. But like love, it will buoy you up as well. Truly, panahon na naman ng pag-ibig.

 

 

 

 

Revisionist History:
Beck
Odelay
Geffen, USA 1996

The problem with setting an empire is that of maintenance. With “Mellow Gold,” Beck made an image that would continue to haunt him even until this day. The snot nosed slacker with a bad haircut, predilection to eclectic vintage clothing and a bohemian stock made it in the music industry with his surrealistic sonic blending school of cross-pollination avant-rock-folk-hip-hop hit in 1994 witha song that became an unlikely anthem and its refrain a mantra of a “Loser” slacking jilted generation (I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me?).But Beck is not just a flash in a pan one-hit wonder novelty (his appeal exceeded the gimmicky catchy appeal of “loser”). Mellow Gold (an album that never reached the Philippine music retailing market) took a stab at everything with a sometimes warbly, sometimes droning experimental Dylan-esque tongue twister.Now, with a record deal and albums under Geffen, uber Beck fans think that the king of the slacker generation “sold-out” with the release of his 1996 album “Odelay.”
Odelay, his second album with BGC (actually his fourth, if you count the last two indie releases, One foot in the Grave and the other one whose title escapes me while I’m making up this piece of crap [?]) was produced by the Dust Brothers( the same guys behind the success of Beastie Boys’ 1987 psychedelic album, Paul’s Boutique). Compared to Mellow Gold and his subsequent albums, it ismore consistently appealing and more musically erudite (except for Midnite Vultures, which was a musical curveball; a concept album that mixes a 70’s kind of funky party beats with a banjo and sings through a flanger while trying to “find the logic of our sexx laws” and “making all the lesbians scream”). Odelay was also nominated for album of the year in 1996 Grammy’s.
Beck brilliantly mixes country, hip-hop, folk and psychedelia with rock:
“Devil’s Haircut” is a pop tune with an addictive fuzzed-up guitar, 60’s lounge act beat, video game ruckus and his stream-of-consciousness. “Lord only Knows”sounds like a country rock song. There is also some rap-based cheesy organ riffed pimp beat harmonica drenched fare like “Where it’s at,” “Hotwax,” “Novacane,” and “high 5.” There were also songs in the album that seemed to be the prototypes of the new Beck song on heavy rotation on MTV (Lost Cause from a new album). “Ramshackle” has this gentle melancholic rubbery drone (achieved with the help of legendary jazz bassist Charlie Haden) and the loungy “New Pollution.”Beck‘s surrealistic musical foundation rests on his weird music and even weirder lyrics. In the world of Seussian pop, it’s not what you say, it’s how brilliant it sounds when you say it (I’d like to thank Captain Beefheart for establishing that absurd theory). With talks about Beck being a sell-out, I’m still a believer that the future of post- hip-hop rock & roll will come dressed in a vintage 70’s shirt sporting a crooked smile, a seussian string of words, a diverse musical influence and will be armed with “two turn tables and a microphone.”

P.S.
Be ready with your Beck-tionary…

--Romel Villaflor

The Monstrosity That Is

THE EBL HALL PAGING SYSTEM

Rowena Rose Lee

 

            The Elias B. Lopez Hall Paging System has a life of its own. He is a bizarre creature with a voice that posses only a brain box, voice box, veins, and multiple lips that adorn the dormitory walls.  His main purpose in life is to annoy other entities into distraction – and that includes people, trolls and frogs.  The EBL Hall Paging System is the voice of un-reason, the voice of repetition, the voice of nonsense. 

            Elias B. Lopez Hall is a much too respectful name for a dormitory from hell. One can find it (what’s the word?) languishing (yes!) in disrepair in the boondocks of UP in Mindanao.  Nothing in the dorm can be considered respectful.  In fact, it is an unspoken rule that carrying respect into the premises of EBL Hall is a crime punishable by death: a slow torturous demise that entails smelling each toilet bowl every morning.  Many believe that the top hierarchical beings’ primary reason for installing the paging system in the dorm is to remind its residents not to bring a stitch of respect anyplace near its vicinity.

            Thus, the paging system – THE PAGING SYSTEM – from henceforth will be called TPS, is born.

            TPS, whose veins reach into the length and breadth of the dorm, actually comes to life in the lobby.  His brain, if we could accord him the honor that he ACTUALLY has a brain, resides in a rectangular piece of machine hidden under the eaves of the service counter.  His (shall we say) “brain box” has several impressive looking switches and buttons, of which only one really works.  A dilapidated microphone, which serves as his “voice box,” hangs on a hook besides his brain. This is where the different voices of TPS begin.

            It is fortunate indeed, that there are no institutions that are against the abuse of microphones, for TPS probably owns the most maltreated MIC in the world. It is not uncommon to hear pages like so¹:

            “Paging … (bog, bog, bog) … Hello? Hello? … Paging … (garbled name) … please proceed to the lobby … (bog, bog, bog) … Hello? … (bog, bog, bog) … Hello? … (bog, bog, bog) … Paging …”

            Supposedly hidden (but blatantly exposed) wires or veins from TPS’ brain box hang haphazardly along the ceiling corners of the dormitory.  These veins can be likened to cobwebs emerging from the (uh, what’s the word?) back parts … hind quarters … behind … a-hole …. excretory hole (whatever) of very direction-challenged spider suffering from a severe case of diarrhea. TPS’ veins then terminate either into cheap speakers or worse still, into megaphones.  In continuing the tradition of absurdity, some of TPS’ shoebox-sized black speakers are painted yellowish white to match the yellowing walls of the dormitory.

            TPS is a rebellious spirit, although he posses none of the attributes of a “true” spirit.  Like all dormers of the EBL Hall, he is keen on breaking rules, especially rules concerning him!

            Honto? Hai, honto desu.

            In the dorm lobby, a sign reads: “PAGING SYTEM: 8:00 AM TO 9:00 PM ONLY!”

            Hapless dormers, however, can hear TPS demanding for someone to get down to the lobby “pagdali²” as early as six in the morning and sometimes as late as eleven-thirty in the evening.  One can only surmise three scenarios for TPS' rebelliousness.  One, TPS is so deprived of basic education that he cannot read. Two, TPS is blind (more probable as he possess no eyes or sight apparatuses). And three, TPS is befuddled by what the correct time is (granting him the honor that he can actually tell time.)³

            The one thing that really distinguishes TPS from other paging systems in the world is his different voices and his different ways of speaking.  He has this uncanny ability to of voice metamorphosis.  His voice can be sometimes be piercing, sad, harsh and guttural, melodious, slow, very slow, feminine, funny, deep, mellow.  But if there is one word to describe the voice of TPS, it would have to be INSUFFERABLE. Dormers, which include “normal”⁴ people, a troll in A37, and frogs from the bathroom, are known to react differently to TPS’ voice.  “Normal” people shun it, affecting selective deafness.  Others like the troll in A37 and her like types seem to fancy hearing their names being repeatedly broadcasted by TPS.  While others like the frogs emerging from the first floor toilets take on more violent reactions.  These frogs (and some dormers), have been seen scrambling away and bumping into walls when TPS speaks. 

            On rare good days⁵, when TPS comes to life, one can hear him humming deeply over the speaker and he delivers a message that is clear and audible. 

            But on typically, bad, badder, baddest⁶ days, TPS screeches static on the lines that he gleefully mixes with the noise of the lobby, the blaring TV, the repulsive chorus of the song BECAUSE OF YOU, and the ringing of the phone⁷.  Then he announces repeatedly a message that is so incomprehensible minute after beastly minute. Perhaps TPS’ demented mind believes that repetition makes him more endearing to his hearing public.  We may never know the real score, but TPS does teach a lot of people lessons in tolerance.

            When TPS speaks, it does not automatically mean that he speaks reasonably.  In fact, there are many unreasonable messages that float out of his lips. Have you heard him page for a being named Erik from a (what?) cow?

            “Paging Erik of baka … Erik of baka, please proceed to the lobby.”⁸

            There are many other (what’s the word?) strange… odd… bizarre… outlandish… weird… extraordinary… peculiar… surprising… funny… startling… astonishing… astounding… shocking… incredible… amazing… (whatever) messages that TPS spews out that one can only scratch every part of the body,⁹ in hopes that understanding will come – or at least, swift  and painless death.

            Where else can you hear pages like these but in the EBL Hall?

            “Shentury Tuna … paging Shentury Tuna, please proceed to the lobby right now.”

            “Uh … (2 seconds) calling the uh … (2 seconds) at-ten-shun of uh … (2 seconds) An-to-neth A-ya-ton (10 seconds), An-to-neth A-ya-ton (10 seconds). You are uh … (2 seconds) requested to proceed to the uh … (2 seconds) lobby A-S-A-P (10 seconds).”¹⁰

            “Calling the attention of Birheng Maria, baba na ‘mo. Pagdali. Mangaon na ‘ta.”¹¹

            “Paging Mabalahibong Bakulaw … Mabalahibong Bakulaw, please proceed to the lobby right now … (garbled) … (garbled) … libreng tuli.” ¹²

 

 

Footnotes:

¹ All pages or messages here are printed according to how the author heard and interpreted them. Verifying the clarity and authenticity of these pages are up to the readers. In Filipino, “Kung ayaw niyong maniwala, eh di ‘wag. Subukan mo kayang tumira sa dorm ng isang semester nang makita mong hinahanap mo.”

² Meaning “quickly” or “now”

³ The correct time in UP Min. is almost non-existent.  There are different time zones for the EBL Hall, the ILC Building, the Canteen, the Administration Building, the CSM Building, the Guardhouse, Room A40, etc. etc. etc.

⁴ Whoopi Goldberg: Normal is in the eye of the beholder.

⁵ Rare, as in G-O-O-D---L-U-C-K---S-A---‘-Y-O!

⁶ Don’t correct me. I know ‘itsh wrongramers.’

⁷ Awa ni Lord, may phone na sa dorm.

⁸ Baka is the Filipino term for cow.  Okay, okay.  He actually means BACA – BA Communications Arts – but you have to admit, it’s still weird being addressed as Erik of BACA.

⁹ … especially the groin area

¹⁰ By the time Antonette Ayaton finishes hearing the page, she has already graduated from Architecture.

¹¹ Your guess is as good as mine.

¹² Author’s all time favorite page, but of course, she doesn’t answer to the said description.

After the government decreed that a university should be cut-out in the woodlands of Bago Oshiro, Tugbok, Mintal Davao City (a big transition from the humdrum of pastoral life to the chaos of university life [literally and figuratively]) , residents of Sitio 117 decided to alleviate their income a little (aside from planting Rubber and fruit trees) by becoming:
A)Habal-habal drivers
B)Mob of people against the putting up of the university because of the discrepancy in the land grants
C)Vendors
The clump of stalls was jokingly christened by the students as KFC(Kanluran Food Court), a sign that they craved for the amenities of being twenty-peso ride away which is civilization. Students frequented these stalls because the these thatched nipa shed is conducive for:
A)Studying
B)Smoking
C)Loafing
D)Both A,B and C
But thereś this shed cum sari-sari store, which not only sells:
A)Junk foods worth one peso
B)Fruits
C)School supplies
D)Cigarettes
E)All of the above
but also has a spacious area of interconnected split bamboo, which has more legroom than any other stalls(read:a room to stretch your feet, lie on your back and dream about who cares). It is run by a nice old toothless lady who answers to manang. Because of:
A)My curiosity
B)Essay class
C)Both A and B and a suggestion of boredom
I asked manang everything that day from:
Whoś minding the store?
Her real name was Laurencia Logronio; she lives in Sitio 117, Bago Oshiro Mintal Davao. She grew up and met her husband, Alfredo, here in Sitio 117. She spoke in monosyllables at first, so I´ĺl stick to what I have gathered from her (honest).
It was a sleepy Monday afternoon when I casually talked with her while savoring a sought after smoke after two classes. I learned that she mothered nine children, of which three are still in school (one in high school, two are in their elementary years and the rest of the Sitio 117 Brady bunch are already working as warehouse checkers and operators for printing companies). Before there was the university, manang was a housewife (I don´t want to call it plain—do you consider taking care of nine children and doing the all the housework plain?) and Alfredo was tending Rubber trees aside from the fruit trees that were planted on their backyard.
The things everybody wants to know but never got asked
She does not really mind that the students oaf around her store because she specifically had the store made like a small thatched house—with a small wooden gate and the long benches. ¨The hardest part of minding the store is when you have to peel those fruits that I sell which I get from our backyard;also following after those who eat here and putting their empty food wrappers at the proper place.¨
She´s happy that the students are frequenting the place to relax and consuming all her Marlboros(which manang said was the most selling[for lack of a better word] cigarette in her store). Before I left I asked her what was her dream job then. ¨When I was young, I really wanted to become a math teacher.¨ She said with a toothless grin (but forgive me dear readers, the question was not pursued).
Their house is located just within the Kanluran campus (¨just a ten minute walk.¨ she said) and about 8:00 in the morning, this fifty-one year old lady is already minding the store.¨Ëvery Monday to Thursday, I net about150-200 pesos but during Fridays, few students have classes, I am lucky if I can clear 100 pesos.¨ At around 5:00 PM, she goes home to retire. Every weekend, she buys the goods she vends the following week. This has been manang´s routine for five years now.

--Romel Villaflor
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