news from me...

Another... first post.

2006-04-12T05:17:00.000-07:00

Because of my teen-age alzheimer's , I forgot how to log-in, my log-in name, and even my password (though not all at the same time), so for a long while I was unable to do anything in this account... also because I have been keeping another (older) blog at livejournal.com. You can find more about me in this pink fluff (totally ironic) .

Wow, finally I got back again.

Will be featuring a lot more of book/anime/manga reviews, and life's tidbits. (hopefully better than the others that I have already posted.

Ciao. :D

Something new: Synesthesia

2005-10-03T05:11:00.000-07:00

Some people perceive A as the prettiest pink they've ever seen; others share that jazz leaves a taste of velvety chocolate. When I was younger, I loved Wednesdays because of its refreshing light blue color, and Fridays because of it's cheerful yellow hue. They peak my emotions and assures me of a good day, whatever happens. While some struggle to produce such creative adjectives for prose, some naturally lives, breathes and speaks it, in a form of condition known as Synesthesia.

I came across an article in the Philippine Tatler regarding this rare phenomenon. It' s a combining of any two senses that to occur in one out of 5,000 people, with a higher occurence in women (ratio of three women to one man). This enables those afflicted, called Synesthethes, to experience an overlap of senses: touching or hearing sounds trigger a lively display of colors, tastes are associated with sounds or figures, etc. Some can see specific letters or words in specific colors, as seen here.

This condition aids some synesthethes in producing fascinating works of art, literature and music. Some of the most notable synesthethes are Franz Liszt (Composer), Arthur Rimbaud (poet), Vladimir Nabokov (writer) and Richard Freynan, a Nobel laureate... (and probably, yours truly will be added in the growing list of famous synesthethes, in time ;p) In some ways or another, all of us are capable of "doubling-up" our senses by how we could feel and associate different things with different words. Let us try this experiment for instance:

The Booba Kiki Exercise.

Lets say that we have two different figures: one is rounded, while the other is a bit jagged. Now I will tell you that these two figures are representations of two Martian Alphabets, booba and kiki. Try to identify which is booba and which is kiki.

Most probably, booba would be associated with the rounded figure. Majority who took this
exercise in the study answered the same thing.

This fascinating experience does have its downside. Synesthethes have complained that they are highly distractable, and needs complete silence to be able to focus on something (which is a bit impossible). The study's lack of popularity also does damage, as some synesthethes are left in the dark about what they are experiencing, forcing them to hide it from those who might take the condition the wrong way.

To be able to experience how it is to have this condition, click here . To read about the perspectives of some synthethes, click here. A very helpful article on this subject can be found here.

Review: Smoke and Mirrors

2005-10-03T03:13:00.000-07:00

I am finishing my copy of Smoke and Mirrors, written by Neil Gaiman. It was introduced to me by a friend back in college. I loved it the moment I read it and swore to buy myself a copy. Three years later, I found the reprint in standard paperback version and bought my own copy. The new format costs less and does not deviate much from the original, save for the size and the quality of the paper used (yes, I am OC about these things), but the bonus snippet of Gaiman's latest work, The Anansi Boys made it a bargain. (Are those white pages even acid-free?)

The book is a collection of short stories and poetry. I am not much of a poet and, for the life of me, cannot get Mr. Gaiman's poetic structure. The stories, however, are good; my favorites would be Chivalry (Story about Sir Galahad's quest to retrieve the Holy Grail, sitting peacefully on an old lady's sidetable) and Murder Mysteries (angels... angels. I'm a bit confused about the hints that the author said he gave, though.) The Introduction is also a very big bonus, featuring a story called The Wedding Present. It is about a couple, living a happy life, reading abput the worst that could happen in their lives from a story given to them. In the end, we find the characters wishing to live terrible world offered by the yellowing pages. It reveals how we readers (or at least I) tend to fancy the otherworlds that fiction offer - our exitplug from reality (also as emphasized in Life Furnished in Early Moorcock). Some pieces are connected to each other (as Only the End of the World Again and Bay Wolf; a part of Golfish and Other stories and Queen of Knives) or repeats the use of elements found in the other stories (the aforementioned tales and, I think, Shoggoth's Old Peculiar). If the Strange Aeons or the Ctulhu are connected to Larry Talbot's work, I can only hazard a guess. The book also has creative retellings such as Troll Bridge and Snow, Glass, Apples, which are written for adults. They offer fresh perspectives, making readers think twice about how we treat our fairytale villains.

Babycakes reminds me of an assigned reading back in freshman English, entitled A Modest Proposal. Both suggests the same thing about, uh, the untapped potentials of babies. The reasons, though vary; AMP comes as a possible solution to poverty in France (or was it the world?), while Babycakes is offered in a grimmer treatment, which suggests babies as a substitute to a loss. I wonder if Mr. Gaiman saw the similarity.

The book is not as good as it was when I first read it. As I read as much page as I can with the limited time that I have, I cannot help but ask: What are these stories trying to say? Why are they written? Because, I really don't get why. And the poems leave me confused. It seems to me that they were written as just that; stories. But what I find fascinating about it is on how it stretches the imagination to delve into the "what if" of things. Some of the pieces written are parts of realities continued by the absurd, the otherworldly, the extraordinary. It's like finding perfect sense in dreams, of things that you'd normally find silly the moment you wake up. Fascinating would still be the best to describe it. I may not be as crazy about it as I used to before I owned my copy, but the book would still be a very important influence that pushed me to take up the mechanics of being Creator in my own End of the World back in Lit class.

Thank you, Neil.

*argh... I hate this version. The better review was accidentally deleted. And unfortunately, I cannot remember how I wrote it... inspiration left me...

first post

2005-10-02T03:04:00.000-07:00

Wow... the presentation here looks a lot nicer than livejournal.

At the moment, I am here, contemplating about the usual... life and death... and why I'm not somewhere comfy checking my students' midterms (long overdue) or doing my second periodical exam (blech!) or my lesson plan.

Another journal to check every once in a while... Funny how these things are finally getting to me... I still can't get the rationale of having a public journal... but, here I am... waiting for it to become useful...

it will be useful...

So... How are you?