Theatrical: Strong Boy, Deaf Boy, and A Girl in an Abaya and Ayanasu (Woven)

Poster from PETA

Theatrical plays aren't really in my usual list of activities for a weekend, but art somehow fascinates me that no matter how inferior I am when it comes to interpreting movements that bear no words or a steady script, but instead rhythms and sounds that are in tune with beats that change as scenes progress. I call activities such as sitting too silently pretentious and unbearable as I am used to 'not watching stiffly', I guess. Gods, how I hate the silence each time, thus when it fills the crowd, I either break it or join it by falling on a deep slumber (I once fell asleep in CCP while a lady with such a nice falsetto tries to serenade everyone - not proud of that).

But I've been involved with people who can appreciate the beauty of movements while being silent as a wall, hence this activity. It's very different from my usual films, and so here's a review.

Strong Boy, Deaf Boy, and A Girl in an Abaya

This first part was brought to us by the Philippine Educational Theater Association. This was written by Palanca Hall of Famer Nicolas Pichay. Quick background story: this is about how three kids struggle to survive in Yolanda (Haiyan) tragedy.

Before the show, I was terribly distracted, to be honest. Everywhere around me were people who seem lively and interested, and my two friends were right there, talking as if their topics can never have an ending. Then I'm just there, checking out the ceiling, the lights, the temperature, and just sighing as if I'm the world's most problematic person. My friends tried to engage me but I'm just too not there.

Then the beats began and the lights went out except those that were focused on the stage. Dancing artists appeared from the backstage wearing black pieces of clothing. What distracted me from my distractions earlier were the way their eyes were like so focused you feel as though there's something they see that you don't. And in that moment, I've found myself engaged in every move and every shadow on the stage.

It gives that unique feeling, it was as if you're being opened by something that's powerful and interesting. The actors weren't really trying to put up a play, they're trying to let you know something that is too difficult to ignore.

Did everyone do a great job? Oh yes. Yes, especially that scene with Deaf Boy on top of the bamboos. I know it's hard to balance when you're on top of something that's narrow and moving (cheerleading days), so it must've been hella scary during the rehearsals. And the strongest feeling I've felt was during the Girl in an Abaya's moment with the villain who had a long stick, and she crawled underneath it, as if implying how the one who can whip can take advantage of anyone who can't steal the whipping tool. It was so sad I cursed under my breath (you can't exactly yell in theaters).

After those minutes watching them, I was alive again and then I started talking to my friends haha.

Ayanasu (Woven)

This one's by the Dora Theater Company (Japanese). Quick background story: this is about a family's journey after the 2011 tsunami.

Here's a pic taken by my friend:

The play was at first, comedic and normal that if you've watched lots of Japanese films, you'd really see their culture in every move, until the music changed to what sounds like mellow and depicting a harsh downfall.

The actors were really really really cute, haha. They were so good in using every muscle on their faces that if they smiled, you'd see the funny side. But at the same time, they were amazing because when things were sad, they were so consistent about it. And if those faces can't get you to feel anything, you should try seeing a doctor.

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All in all the experience was fun. I used to be in theater, did you know? Haha, it's so nostalgic in a way even if the plays I did had lines and weren't in any way silent.

After the show, we headed home. It was raining a bit, and I was tired very much, but when I reached my bed, I decided I didn't want to sleep and instead, write this.

P.S. I would like to thank The Japan Foundation Manila for sponsoring our VIP Tickets.

Movie: Transcedence

"People fear what they don't understand."

How very true - that was my first reaction upon hearing that line.

The movie was devastating, it affected me in so many levels: spiritual, professional, and personal.

Spiritual

The talk of god comes up during Dr. Will Caster's talk about the advancement of science using nanotechnology. He's a brilliant man involved in a group that is constantly looking for ways to make humanity create a step ahead in technology. During the discussion portion, someone asked: So you want to create a god, your own god? And his answer was That's a very good question, isn't that what man has always done? Which was a very good but not in a sense of humanity, morality, and spirituality, so it seems, because Will Caster got shot after this talk by that same audience member. Not shot by an ordinary gun, but a gun  loaded with a bullet that seems lethal enough to kill you in a few months.

Well, on the logical practical sense, isn't it nice to have things to work out faster, and easier? I think the purpose of intellect is to be used, otherwise, why would the god that audience member so dearly loved give this thing to humankind?

But I do get where he's coming from. And in the film, the anger from his party was coming from a reasonable background story. Apparently, someone who had been studying and pursuing the same technological advancement had tried the nanotech on a monkey, and well it didn't turn out well - the monkey 'begged for the humans to stop' so the story goes. That someone ended up dead, killed by this group who witnessed the event. If the events were for real, and not at all fiction, I would've come up to them and asked: So you want to create a god, your own god? And if they got confused and threw a why to me, I'd say: Gods take lives, and that's what you did - you took lives. Of course they'd argue that it's to save humankind, and all other life forms who'd possibly become high-tech monsters in the future, but still, murder is murder.

Professional

As an IT professional, I could say the same thing about the environment I'm in. People indeed fear what they don't understand. Why should they not? If a stranger called you on a phone and told you that you can claim a reward of say, a million bucks but you have to fill up this form, go to this place, would you not be afraid? No matter how good the promise of "nice things" brings, you'd still fear the unknown. We even fear ghosts simply because we don't understand why they exist at all, and thus theories emerge.

I'd say this, but not to come off as offensive - most of the time, old people are the ones who are so afraid of technological advancement. It is not just the monetary issues, I think, but the fact that it's back to zero again. It's going to take some time to go from manual to automatic. The buttons seem confusing all the time, and the screens are just too bright. The thought of being mocked by the younger generation also scares the older generation, and I bet nobody would ever want mockery on their everyday life event.

But we need advancement simply because we can't be forever stuck in manual counting. Life is a race, and whoever has a life can either run or die dissatisfied. Especially if your track is on the corporate world, you gotta adopt the trend, and adapt to it, else you lose the race.

Personal

Who doesn't fear advancement or the things we don't understand? Yes, in a professional sense it is important to not fear advancement, but in our personal lives, advancement doesn't necessarily mean things are on the positive ground.

(for example) Advancement in relationships: why should you think it is not supposed to be feared? It means commitment, time investment, etc., so why should we think all things that move forward in our lives are just pursuing the goodness?

Wrap

Sci-fis are always the best, in my opinion. From the rich vocabulary to the plot twists, they never seem to fail. The scripts are always wonderful and I tend to hang on into every word the actors say. It gets the mind working and at the end of the day, even if I get reminded about the reality that is slow and boring, I still find myself grateful for the little bit of distraction.

In Transcedence, the great people are the ones who understood each other, and are the ones who got misunderstood. I think a great deal of miscommunication took place. Will Caster should've put more heart onto that answer about creating his own god, and the audience member and his party should've used words before guns. Sometimes people are so impulsive it makes broken things look like they need complex calculus and methodologies when, really, it's just the simple arithmetic that's the key.

It's not that the scientific minds don't pay heed to souls and humanity, of course they do. But usually, the impulsive judgmental afraid minds who claim to be activists pro-humanity and morality, pull the trigger too soon and forget that they too now look like they're creating their own god by taking the laws into their own hands.

But did Will Caster and Evelyn Caster crossed the line? Evelyn did, Will was a dead man whose mind got altered upon getting uploaded. But Evelyn was a human being and here's the cliche: human beings make mistakes. Does that give "activists" the right to kill her? No, definitely not. But they do have a right to go to the authorities and work with them.

Evelyn did the biggest mistake a brilliant mind can ever do, but she paid it anyway, so I guess I don't have to hate her that much.

The Rate

4/5

Recommended?

To those with open minds. Close minds see nothing but the flaw ahead, I shit you not ;)

Animorphs: The Invasion by Katherine Applegate

The Invasion by Katherine Applegate
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

#animorphs_reread

This wasn't even my first Animorphs book, it was #2 - The Visitor (Rachel). But for this project re-read, I decided to do it in the right order. Haha.

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5 teenagers were normal until they met Prince Elfangor-Sirinial-Shamtul of the Andalite species.

Andalites - bluish in color; looks like a centaur (to me); has way way way advanced technology; you could say they're the heroic species because they kept on fighting the Yeerks.

Yeerks - like slugs; parasites; if they entered your head, they'll take over your brain and then you're done; antagonist specie

Prince Elfangor - his spaceship landed, or crashed, rather, at the exact time the 5 teenagers were passing by this construction site; he was badly wounded and was dying when they found him; he gave them the power to morph (an Andalite technology that the Yeerks weren't able to acquire)

Visser Three - ambitious Yeerk who wants to be Visser One soon; was able to possess an Andalite's body thus making him the only Yeerk (so far) who can morph

Controllers - human beings possessed by Yeerks in a forced way

Collaborators - human beings/species who weren't forced by Yeerks to be possessed; they sort of welcomed the idea of being possessed by them

The Invasion was narrated by Jake. Just Jake. They can't afford publishing their identities since that night at the construction site. Jake has four other friends: Marco, Tobias, Rachel, and Cassie.

Jake - the leader because as Tobias said: people listen to him and he knows how to plan; he wasn't thrilled about being in this whole mission of saving the Earth until he learned that Tom, his brother, was a Controller.

Rachel - Jake's cousin; the not-just-a-pretty girl; you don't mess with Rachel ;]

Cassie - the friend you wish you have haha; seriously this girl's really interesting and if you hate her, then I don't know what to do with you.

Marco - the funny one!; Jake's best friend; most practical person ever; his mom's dead and his dad's messed up (see funny people have terrible things beneath them); he was the last to say okay with the whole mission thing; he's smart, really, I suppose I like Marco more than Jake; he has the best lines haha; he came up with the name, Animorphs

Tobias - *sobs haha; most messed up family scenario; father's unknown; mom left him "a few years ago"; best character plot, in my opinion; he was the first to say yes to the whole mission thing; bullied at school (*sobs); favorite character

The Morphing Technology

Prince Elfangor gave the five teenagers the power to morph. It's pretty simple - you touch the animal, and as Tobias said - you have to want to become the animal - and then acquire its DNA. The DNA then stays with you, you only have to touch the animal once to have its DNA.

There is only one rule: never stay in a certain morph for more than 2 hours. If you stay for more than two hours, you'll be stuck in that morph forever and you won't be able to return to a human being.

*//spoiler//*

Tobias stayed for more than 2 hours in his red-tailed hawk morph (so yeah...) during that first "fight" with the Yeerks were they faced Visser Three again. They were able to get out of it alive, but they failed to save anyone, not even Jake's brother Tom.

View all my reviews

Will Grayson, Will Grayson by John Green and David Levithan (Quotes)

I don’t really understand the point of crying. Also, I feel that crying is almost—like, aside from deaths of relatives or whatever—totally avoidable if you follow two very simple rules: 1. Don’t care too much. 2. Shut up.

I know part of knowing someone is being mean to them or whatever.

Shutting up works. Following the rules works. So I shut up, and I don’t care, and I keep walking, and soon it’s over.

Well, I listen to my parents. They know what’s good for me. I’ll listen to anyone, frankly. Almost everyone knows better than I do.

I want her. I don’t. Maybe I am a robot after all. I have no idea what to say, so I go ahead and say the worst possible thing. “Very cute.”

god, you’re one nasty fucker.

now, if there’s anything stupider than buddy lists, it’s lol. if anyone ever uses lol with me, i rip my computer right out of the wall and smash it over the nearest head. i mean, it’s not like anyone is laughing out loud about the things they lol. i think it should be spelled loll, like what a lobotomized person’s tongue does. loll. loll. i can’t think any more. loll. loll!

everyone in our school has afterschool activities. mine is going home.

at some point last year, her gloom met my doom and she thought it was a good match. i’m not so sure, but at least i get coffee out of it.

i just want to say, ‘i feel sorry for you, really i do.’ but that might start a conversation, and a conversation might start a fight, and then i’d feel so guilty i might have to move away to portland or something. i need coffee.

i do not say ‘good-bye.’ i believe that’s one of the bullshittiest words ever invented. it’s not like you’re given the choice to say ‘bad-bye’ or ‘awful-bye’ or ‘couldn’t-careless-about-you-bye. ’ every time you leave, it’s supposed to be a good one. well, i don’t believe in that. i believe against that.

i am constantly torn between killing myself and killing everyone around me. those seem to be the two choices. everything else is just killing time.

it is only my respect for your parents that will prevent me from murdering you outright.

Love and truth being tied together, I mean. They make each other possible, you know?

I like you. And I didn’t know whether I liked you until I thought of you at that concert with some other guy, but now I do know, and I realize that makes me a bitchsquealer, but yeah, I like you. I think you’re great, and very cute—and by cute I mean beautiful but don’t want to say beautiful because it’s cliché but you are—and I don’t even mind that you’re a music snob.

I fucking hate guys who quote poetry to girls. Since we are being honest. Also, wisdom is a better fate than the vastmajority of kisses. Wisdom is certainly a better fate than kissing douches who only read poetry so

they can use it to get in girls’ pants.

Typical boy—you’re interested as long as she isn’t.

“I don’t have a bad attitude—”
“—is the kind of thing that people with bad attitudes say.”

i am just going to pretend that she doesn’t exist. because all the other options would get me
expelled and/or arrested.

when things break, it’s not the actual breaking that prevents them from getting back together again.
it’s because a little piece gets lost - the two remaining ends couldn’t fit together even if they wanted
to. the whole shape has changed.

maybe our friendship wasn’t meant to last longer than a year. maybe the things that drew

us together - doom, gloom, sarcasm - weren’t meant to hold us together.

we would have been better off if we’d never been friends in the first place. i’m not going to try to punish

her - i’m not going to tell everyone what she did, or bomb her locker, or yell at her in front of

everyone else. i just want her to go away. that’s all. the end.

mom: how’s it going?

me: fine.

and it’s true, for once.

Not that smart. Not that hot. Not that nice. Not that funny. That’s me: I’m not that.

I think about how much depends upon a best friend. When you wake up in the morning you swing

your legs out of bed and you put your feet on the ground and you stand up. You don’t scoot to the edge

of the bed and look down to make sure the floor is there. The floor is always there. Until it’s not.

It seems to me that all the things we keep in sealed boxes are both alive and dead until we open the box, that the unobserved is both there and not. 

still, what could i say? that i didn’t just feel depressed - instead, it was like the depression was the core of me, of every part of me, from my mind to my bones? that if he got blue, i got black?

He acts like he doesn’t care, but he’s closer to falling apart than anyone else in the whole freaking play.

The things he says aren’t annoying; it’s the way he says them

I’m waiting for him. To come out and apologize. Or else to come out and yell at me for being a pussy.

I know it’s immature, but I don’t care. Sometimes you need your best friend to walk through the doors. And then, he doesn’t.

It wouldn’t hurt if he weren’t right—if I hadn’t known somewhere that my weakness aggravates him.

And maybe he thinks like I do, that you don’t pick your friends, and he’s stuck with this annoying

bitchsquealer who can’t handle himself, who can’t close his glove around the ball, who can’t take a

dressing-down from the coach, who regrets writing letters to the editor in defense of his best friend.

i don’t want to be thin or conventionally beautiful or straight or brilliant. no, what i really want - and what i never get - is to be appreciated.

do you know what it’s like to work so hard to make sure everyone’s

happy, and to have not a single person recognize it?

there’s a difference - i see it, but i am

worried that i am the only frickin’ one who sees it.

because every morning when i wake up, i have to

convince myself that, yes, by the end of the day, i will be able to do something good. that’s all

i ask - to be able to do something good. not for myself, you whiny shithead bastard complainer

who, incidentally, i really, really like.

minutes have to pass before i can admit that, yes, even though i tell myself i’m feeling nothing, it’s

a lie. i want to say i’m feeling remorse or regret or even guilt. but none of those words seem like

enough. what i’m feeling is shame. raw, loathing shame.

i am awful.

i am heartless.

i am scared that these things are actually true.

need is never a good basis for any relationship. it has to be much more than that.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but

everything goes better for you when you talk to people.

I just think if you don’t say the honest thing,

sometimes the honest thing never becomes true, you know.

there’s something a little Drama Queeny about your anti-Drama Queenyness

I mean, who you want to screw and whether you screw them? Those are important

questions, I guess. But they’re not that important. You know what’s important? Who would you die

for? Who do you wake up at five forty-five in the morning for even though you don’t even know why

he needs you? Whose drunken nose would you pick?!

When you date someone, you have the markers along the way, right: You kiss, you have The Talk,

you say the Three Little Words, you sit on a swing set and break up. You can plot the points on a

graph. And you check up with each other along the way: Can I do this? If I say this, will you say it

back? But with friendship, there’s nothing like that. Being in a relationship, that’s something you choose.

Being friends, that’s just something you are.

Fuck it, I do pick you. I want you to come over to my house in twenty years with your dude and your adopted kids and I want our fucking kids to hang out and I want to, like, drink wine and talk about the Middle East or whatever the fuck we’re gonna want to do when we’re old. We’ve been friends too long to pick, but if we could pick, I’d pick you.

on the other side of the

silence. you’d think that silence would be peaceful. but really, it’s painful.

i just wish it wasn’t all trial and error.

because that’s what it is, isn’t it?

trial and error.

i guess there’s a reason they don’t call it ‘trial and success’

it’s just try-error

try-error

try-error

weltschmerz. it’s the depression you feel when the world as it is does not line up with the world as you think it should be. i live in a big goddamned weltzschermz ocean, you know? and so do you. and so

does everyone. because everyone thinks it should be possible just to keep falling and falling

forever, to feel the rush of the air on your face as you fall, that air pulling your face into a

brilliant goddamned smile. and that should be possible. you should be able to fall forever.

Notes: The Second Messiah by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas

Some things here are just my opinions so...yea don't dwell much on it.

• The book of Revelations contains impenetrable apocalyptic visions that appear to be a memory of the destruction of Jerusalem. This was written by an unknown Jewish-minded Christian (is there any difference? Jewish minded and not but Chirstian all the same?) around 40 years after the fall of the temple. Yet also the Revelations is about the creation of a New Jerusalem. (Why's it always about Jerusalem...haha when I read it I thought it was for the whole world thus began the apocalypse fuss).

• But I knew this revelation was a big metaphor or something like that from the start. There's no way it's going to happen in the literal way. Maybe this is from  a modern human's perspective but this is much more convincing especially since predictions or phrophecies had failed too many times already.

• Oh but the destruction indeed happened. The destruction of Jerusalem, at least. So it's now safe to assume that the bible's just really done for us all. *_* It's a record of the past events, just too tampered and well written compared to the others. Humans wrote it, and these humans didn't translate anything from God. They simply recorded the happenings.

• On James' part: He was 'played down' by the Roman Catholic Church. Considering he's the brother of Jesus, this is somewhat weird because right now we believe in Jesus but his brother was 'played down'. 

• It was because these Roman Catholics wanted to make sure they look like they have a direct line of authority from even way back to Christ. This is where Peter and Paul comes in. This is the politics side, in my understanding. You see it may not look obvious but everything has a government side, even the religions, and all gov't side could play with dirty tactics. Although I still believe that the cleanest election's done by Popes, there's still a dirty side in it....that comes after the election. When you sat there to govern the church.

• It was logical to declare Peter as the first Pope because he was...as implied and directly said in the Bible, the sort of successor, right? So it's easy to believe that with James' character diminished and compressed to an almost irrelevant one, at least to any position.

• The Rosslyn Chapel in Scotland: This now holds the scrolls removed by the Templars. This was one great lesson as the authors had deducted the meaning of Rosslyn:

ancient knowledge passed down generations. 

Simply put, whoever is associated must be/could be (nothing is for certain yet) a source of the truth in all these. 

• I'm gonna stop at this part where the latin words on the archway of Rosslyn Chapel were carved:

Wine is strong. A king is stronger, women are even stronger.
But truth will conquer all.

• It doesn't make much sense now to me but why does it remind me of Sophie Neveu's grandpa's ritual from Da Vinci Code? *_* That doesn't make sense either.

Notes: The Second Messiah by Christopher Knight and Robert Lomas

So far...

-The past Church provided answes to life's puzzles when no one had a better solution, but then science advanced.

-Turning water to wine is a metaphor (most of the 'miracles' in the bible were)

-James (Jesus' bro) died because his explanation didn't make any sense to his inquisitors - he was thrown and stoned to death.

-The Paul vs. James: Why did James' religion died out? James who actually succeeded Jesus (I thought it was Peter, really!).

-James' didn't die really, just that his scrolls were hidden; refer to "terrible period of Jewish history".

-The Jews indeed believed in Yahweh, but on that 'siege' (battle that lasted fr 139 days) he "slept". The temple that kept their scrolls was burned (IDK yet if the scrolls were burned). Due to this, some lost faith.

-Simon cosplayed, lol. Okay he dressed himself in white tunics with some purple mantle - white symbolizes ressurection; purple-royalty. He was chained anyway, after he told the whole truth to Terentius Rufus.

My head aches now. And I'm only in page 23. Poor brain. *_*