unholy night posted by imani , Sunday, August 5, 2012 at 10:08 PM, in Labels: something else

enter balthazar of antioch - who is neither a nobleman or a magi - seth grahame-smith's unlikely protagonist in his most recent offering, 'unholy night.'

the author takes us to the judean desert in 2 bc - where herod's soldiers are in pursuit of the ghost of antioch - a thieving 'rat,' and a cold-blooded murderer who has, for the last decade, managed to steal and kill and slip off of the authorities radar when he needed to.

on one occasion he was actually caught by herod's men, only to escape getting his head cut off and this time, taking two other petty thieves with him. and please indulge me with a wild guess. yes, indeed. he met gaspar, a muscular, african thief and melchyor, a greek swordsman, hailed as the 'best in the eastern empire.' it was in their escape that they decided to follow a bright star shining down on them - leading them to bethlehem.

and just like how we have been told this story - this was exactly when and where they met a pair of zealots - joseph and mary - and their new born son, who was never named on the book but was pertained to as the messiah. balthazar was essential to much of the trouble faced by the fugitives in the book, and was also the unspoken leader of this odd band composed of both the religious and the non-believers. balthazar was also instrumental in securing that joseph, mary and their son reach egypt where they cannot be touched or executed.

within the story, we were afforded the chance to learn how balthazar grew up to be a celebrity criminal of some sort and what painful part of his life has pushed him to hunt and kill - especially those in position - mercilessly. but despite being a man of only one tangible belief - that is - the only thing worth worshiping is the god of wealth - the story does give us glimpses and moments when balthazar is deep in his thoughts, minding the causes that lead him to his life and assessing whether the same reasons still hold water.

the author has succeeded in weaving meticulous biblical and historical tales with that of his own funny, twisted ideas. the result was a surprisingly poignant and hilarious novel that any first-time reader would enjoy and would find to be 'adequate.'

peculiars posted by imani , Tuesday, July 31, 2012 at 1:05 AM, in Labels: something else

'i came to a place where the path emerged from the woods. in one direction lay home and everything i knew, unmysterious and ordinary and safe.'

penned by ransom riggs, miss peregrine's home for peculiar children is one such tale - it leads you to uncharted territories and opens new dimensions, whether metaphorically or literally.

i took the advice of my best friend jerlen (via our facebook group, 'booklust'). she said that the story is compelling and what's even more captivating are the odd pictures you'd find in the book. so off to the mall i went last week and found myself a copy from fully booked.

jacob is a 'regular' teenager whose life was dramatically altered when his grandfather died of unnatural causes. for years, his grandfather has told him of strange stories, mostly without proof, about having lived in a place where peculiar beings existed. everything went downhill when, on his grandfather's death, he saw odd apparitions and his grandfather's last words included finding a 'bird,' a 'loop,' an 'old man's grave,' and 'september 3rd 1940.'

unbeknownst to jacob, a grander plan has commenced and things beyond his wildest imaginings will soon be revealed to him. his grandfather's last words never did escape him, no matter how much he tried to shrug them off. and after getting the help of a psychiatrist, his father agreed to take him to a trip to cairnholm, an island off the coast of wales in the united kingdom. while he really did not realize what was waiting or what has been waiting for him there, it was only a matter of time before he would be introduced to a portal to go back to september 3rd 1940 and see those few who remain.

the story has a few surprises in it - the notion of finding love on a different plane or place, the author also dabbled a bit on time traveling, heroism at a point when you have lost all belief in yourself and that part of each of us that always yearned to be extraordinary - just that we are blinded by our own faults or that we, almost always, needed someone to tell us just how wonderfully strange we are.

it is something that i have enjoyed reading and i do make it a point to take a peek at the next few pages to check scary photographs, just to make sure i won't be taken aback when i flip them as i go on with the story. somehow, having read jacob's adventure with his peculiar lot, i realized that i have not grown old (too much, that is). i mean i think i have grown up, but there will always be a fraction of me that would want to remember being a kid, that fraction that needed, every once in a while, the capacity to believe that i am still worthy of such fun and adventure and that it is something i can will myself to go back to.

maleficent posted by imani , Wednesday, June 20, 2012 at 3:28 AM, in Labels: something else

i found an interesting photograph of angelina jolie on yahoo.com today. they practically waved a slab of meat to a hungry pitbull (or not really) - but this picture is enough to make us wonder how the movie would turn out - more of how it will be polished. this actually is reminiscent of lady gaga's (mother monster) look, she started sporting 'nubbins' and accentuated her lovely bone structure and declared that she was 'born this way.'

i have no doubt at all that angelina jolie can pull something off like this - after all, she's always been our girl, interrupted. she will be playing the coveted role of maleficent, sleeping beauty's arch-enemy in disney's up and coming motion picture.

according to the news, the movie is slated for a 2014 summer release. this is definitely something i'll be looking forward to.

the stories they tell posted by imani , Tuesday, May 29, 2012 at 3:55 AM, in Labels: something else

who would have thought that the skeletal system shows as much as, if not more tell-tale signs of foul play versus its fleshy and muscular counterpart?

who would have.

that is what the fox hit series 'bones' teaches us. or has been teaching us for seven seasons. i doubt that i was the only one to get lost in the scientific blabber jabber when i started following the show. it was one of those that was both daunting and entertaining to watch, but i have to say that it is more science than science fiction.

enter our two major protagonists - dr. temperance brennan, played by the enigmatic emily deschanel and special agent seeley booth, a role given to the former vampire, david boreanaz. they, along with the rest of the jeffersonian institution's lot of squints - experts in pathology, entomology, cartography and perhaps other sciences that i have not heard of - fight crimes to keep the streets of washington d.c. free from criminals (name it - psychos, murderers, crooked cops, sneaky bastards, twisted maniacs).

the nice thing about bones is that the chemistry between the leads are undeniable...to the point - seething hot. that's probably the icing on the cake. what i really like about it is that the show's creator, producers, writers and directors offer the audience something to learn. it is like discovery channel - only that you cannot wait for brennan and booth's next heart-warming scene. these leads are striking contrasts of each other - yin and yang, light and shadow, creation and destruction. some have compared them with mulder and scully - though i think this bit is approached differently in 'bones.'

it got me through a brief, dark period in my life - where i found myself hurrying to go home so i can get myself my 'treatment.' though i would watch four to five episodes in a day, it never felt like i would suffer an overdose of it. what it left me with was the total antithesis of too much - i was left craving for more of it - more of the science and more of the tension between the main characters.

the character of dr. temperance brennan was based on forensic anthropologist's kathy reichs' novels - but according to reichs, who also produces the tv series, it would be a prequel to the more 'mature' dr. brennan as depicted in her books.

one of my favorite bones episodes was from season two - where the serial kidnapper 'gravedigger' was introduced. and just last month, i started streaming episodes from season seven online so i could do some catching up. and dig this: bones and booth had a baby.

the previous season left us with one hell of a cliffhanger - bones' revelation to booth that she is pregnant with his child and fast forward five months - they are sharing a domicile (in bones' own words), creating a new life and new memories together - and still dealing with fresh dead bodies and/or long time dead bodies.

in the last two weeks, i have scoured perhaps three book sale branches to get myself copies of kathy reichs' novels - and i so far have acquired nine of maybe a dozen books - for a little less than php 700.00. not bad at all. i have a good feeling tempe (and emily!) will be mighty proud of me as i attempt to devour the science as understood, interpreted and presented in the brennan tome:

brand posted by imani , Wednesday, April 4, 2012 at 2:47 AM, in Labels: something else

is the swedish equivalent of the word 'fire.'

and you guessed it right. this is a homage to stieg larsson's second installment to what i have aptly called the 'salander saga.'

the second book, which is called 'the girl who played with fire,' pretty much covered salander's tragic beginnings - how her father tortured her mother physically and psychologically, how her long term exposure to violence and disorder lead to 'all that evil,' which ultimately resulted to her being a ward of the state.

the first three paragraphs were actually written at least two months ago. i had the courage to go back to this 'post' again today, june 12th 2012.

for some reason i could not bring myself to write any more than what i have about larsson's opus. i am unsure why. perhaps it is because of my conviction that when i write about a book that i have read or give my piece about a literary material i have come across with means that it is all done. it has been finished.

and that was what i have probably been avoiding for over two months now.

then i realized that i still have the third book to write about. which makes it all the more depressing. i have created some sort of affinity with lisbeth - why she distanced herself from everyone else, especially to those she is most vulnerable with or most vulnerable to. i suppose it is this uncharted or unrecorded human response or instinct of hers that makes her do that.

that is something that i have not 'seen' or 'read' in any work of fiction in the last few years.

where do you get a protagonist who is both as indestructible as a thought made of steel, as resolute as any well thought of, well-written computer code, as volatile as the last known element on the periodic table. only in this novel.

only in this trilogy. only in this heart breaking treatment of possibly the best character ever to surface in the literary universe.

but one thing that is true about lisbeth is that she is elemental. as elemental as anything could get. as a matter of fact, she is sublime. as if her character or her persona transcends all forms of matter without any indication of changing its form.

more to come in the next few days.

that is if i can bring myself to gather what sadness and anguish i can recall about her.

in between posted by imani , Tuesday, March 6, 2012 at 11:53 PM, in Labels: something else

today and the days that passed, i did not stop and did not allow my 'compulsion' to get the best of me. my compulsion being this weird way i had before when i would pick up a different book when the one i am currently reading has become stale or boring.

right after reading 'the lost symbol,' i looked at my shelf and took one of gabriel garcia-marquez' celebrated novellas - 'chronicle of a death foretold.' let me tell you something about how i came to love garcia-marquez.

i was in college when my friend mumai first handed me a copy of his masterpiece 'one hundred years of solitude,' (cien anos de soledad) and from then on i understood that he is one gifted storyteller. his talent is immense and even when there were moments i found myself lost in the labyrinth of his tales, he always managed to pull his readers out of it and show them an ending so satisfying, you will forget you ever got lost in the maze of his characters' names, the places they have been to and their odd and mundane experiences.

a couple of years later, when i started working and received my first pay, i made it a point to get myself a copy of his novel, along with paulo coelho's 'by the river piedra, i sat down and wept.'

and then i remember finding this great deal in powerbooks back in 2006, i suppose - when i bought 10 of garcia-marquez' books for a mere php 1, 100.00. by then i already have a copy of 'one hundred years of solitude' and 'love in the time of cholera,' so i opted to give the other copy as presents to our doyen, ernie.

so right after finishing 'chronicle of a death foretold' - which was this obscure narrative about how its protagonist, santiago nasar, was murdered and the events that lead to his slay - i picked up dan brown's 'digital fortress.'

i asked my wife which book i should read the next and she said that it would be nice to shift from one literary genre to another - and i totally agree with her. i suppose i just have a bias for the robert langdon series - which was why it took me a little longer to finish reading the 'digital fortress.' but in the same dan brown convention - you are to expect puzzles upon answers and answers that would reveal more mystery than enlightenment.

in the last two weeks, i scoured 3 different branches of 'booksale' in manila (there's one in harrison plaza, robinson's place manila and another in sm mall of asia) and have been 'lucky' to get a 2nd hand copy of 'digital fortress' and 'deception point,' which i bought for php 180.00 and php 195.00, respectively.

here's a picture of all of brown's books sitting on my study table:


i am still in that standstill phase - allowing my brain to 'rest' and take a break from reading thrillers but i am certain i will get to 'deception point' before this month ends.

that which was found posted by imani , Friday, February 24, 2012 at 11:54 PM, in Labels: something else

the last couple of months, i have been dividing my 'extra' waking hours between writing, work and the promise that i will go back to my first love - reading. it was through reading, i suppose, that i was able to discover my knack for writing and speech.

despite the several sudden changes in my line of work, i vowed to keep my mind preoccupied - and have been delving in stories of adventure, fantasy and the living, breathing pain that is the human condition through the last 3 books that i have read.

yesterday, i was able to finally finish dan brown's most recent work. and i was actually two years behind - as robert langdon's third adventure was first unveiled in 2009.

this time, the lost symbol takes us through langdon's journey in decrypting codes and secrets of the exclusive brotherhood of masons. all came spiraling when the protagonist was invited for a lecture in the u.s. capitol only to find his friend peter solomon's severed hand in the rotunda. peter solomon also was the worshipful master, having been initiated to the highest of masonic degrees - the thirty third.

in typical dan brown fashion - he leads us to a maze of signs and symbols, allowing langdon to decipher each item he stumbles upon, only to find out that the answer leads to another conundrum.

robert langdon's adventures has spanned almost a decade, with angels and demons first hitting the shelves in the year 2000, followed by the da vinci code back in 2003. the mythology and facts mentioned on each of the books were just too many to remember, unless you are a symbologist with an eidetic memory.

but what i liked about this particular protagonist, or the way his character evolved, is that he makes a manifold of empyrean and mundane things seem easy to relate to. i do know that all of dan brown's novels have sparked criticisms - their film adaptation even more.

it is true that he is not umberto eco - an author who actually studied and teaches semiotics (that being the study of symbols), however, he is able to mix the idea (or truth) of religion, science and history in a grandiose narrative - all of which transpires within twenty-four hours (or less). i suddenly remembered that such an approach to a story is comparable to jostein gaarder's 'sophie's choice,' which tours the reader through philosophy and its origins.

but the real adventure his thrillers give its readers is the priceless trip one could make through time and space - one day langdon was in paris, then there was italy, and then in this case, the political seat of the united states.

the funny thing was when i started to read the book and remember the character tom hanks played in the last two films, it was much easier to let my mind unravel and imagine, because there's a 'face' to it now. i even went into a soundtrack downloading frenzy, getting what tracks i could from the internet - suites that were used in the da vinci code and angels and demons - and i could swear i 'hear' the haunting hum of the melody hanz zimmer was tapped to compose for the film interpretations in my head as i turned the pages.

all in all, despite split reviews of the novel, i enjoyed the wild, entertaining and intellectual ride. and i am secretly hoping there would at least be one or two more additions to the phenomenon that is robert langdon.

they are among us posted by imani , at 8:38 PM, in Labels: something else

according to danielle trussoni's first novel, angelology.

she gave us the story of evangeline cacciatore, a young nun residing within the safe confines of st. rose convent in milton, new york. since she lost her parents as a teenager, she has lived her life content with the notion of serving Him and their order.

one fateful day, she met verlaine, a persuasive art historian who was seeking her help on some research and from that point on, we were taken to an interesting story about how entangled the world we live in is with that of the mystical lore of angels.

the book was both ambitious and daunting - as we face the possibility that angels, after all, are not just spiritual beings, as the nephilims, descendants of angels and humans, reveal the shape and form of what trussoni called 'monstrously beautiful.'


i was digesting the book for a good eight days, and found myself getting a little lost especially towards the middle of the novel. however, i would have to say that there was one particular thing that made me want to go through the whole ordeal: the idea of reigniting a battle between secret societies and some darker machinations always did its part. impeccably.

from eco's foucault's pendulum, to dan brown's angels and demons and the da vinci code, to c.s. lewis' the chronicles of narnia and even j.k. rowling's harry potter - as humans, we've always been drawn to stories that depict the triumph of good over evil. just the same, this story leads us to the tyranny of the dark angels who bind their wings and the unstoppable decline of their race which was the result of impure, manipulated genetics.

the premise is compelling, but the topic was also too broad all to be congested and placed in one single book. i suppose it would have been better if the ending wasn't rushed. not that there was an end, there was actually a cliffhanger. i am imagining that perhaps a follow up is in the works.

the triumph and misery of thieving posted by imani , Wednesday, February 8, 2012 at 1:28 AM, in Labels: something else

a little over a week ago, i had the courage to pick this book up from my dusting shelf and leaf through the pages again. i thought the courage was temporary and would eventually be futile but i underestimated myself.

in the same way, this story is never to be underestimated.

"the book thief' was set in 1939 in the nazi-plagued germany, our protagonist arrives on the lonely street of himmel, a german word which translates to 'heaven.' she was nine years old when i first met her. days before that, her younger brother died due to a lethal cough and her mother resorted to putting her in a foster home. her name was liesel meminger. and before giving color to the inane life on himmel street, she took something that did not belong to her. she took the grave digger's handbook (from none other than the grave digger in her brother's snow-laden burial).

she did not know how to read - it was her foster father who taught her how to, a placid soul who knew the weight of pain and somehow lightened the burden by playing his accordion. her foster mother, as the author has written, was made entirely of cardboard - unfeeling, unattached and has the fancy habit of calling people 'saukerl' or 'saumensch (look it up in the duden dictionary). this family hid a jew in their basement, just when hitler and his minions were in the height of their power. she has also denied her best friend the chance of a kiss - several times. and as the title suggested, she went through this pleasurable era of stealing books. and unfortunately, there were no available recovery programs to help lift her from her subtle addiction.

liesel found liberation in learning, as we all have, i suppose. but the very thing she loved the most - words - was the reason her country and its people were trapped for so long, in the claws and daggers of the nazi regime.

i found myself reaching for the book between my wake and my slumber. fumbling through several pages, or a dozen pages at a time, which totally depended on my ability to keep myself awake. and then i could not stop thinking about how the story would end, as i seem to have formed an affinity for the tragedy and victory of its characters, and all the little stories they lived through during this war-torn era.

it was more than being war-torn. take...war-ransacked or war-robbed. as i approached the last 80 pages, i suddenly had this feeling of wanting to read it slow-motion. or at least i attempted to prolong devouring the last few bits of it, i was afraid of what i would find in the end. i could not conceive of the atrocity that happened several decades ago - and the fact that it did unfold, and that real people suffered.

perhaps the best realization was that it was not fiction at all. these were real events. more real than any real thing or occurrence could get. that in that god-forsaken place, young girls such as liesel did exist - that people like her had to endure all the monstrosity depicted in the book.

markus zusak produced a brilliant novel, which is both a silver lining in the sky at dawn and the thunderclap in the darkest nights of our existence. written with death (without a scythe, as it explained) as the narrator, it is blunt as it is humorous. i have spent the last couple of days feeling depressed - because the story told truth in its rawest form, and because i simply could not help myself.

the photograph you see was taken that very same day i bought it - out of compulsion - and i am glad i stopped to read the gist and gave it to myself for christmas.

the black swan posted by imani , Friday, March 11, 2011 at 7:23 AM, in Labels: something else

Earlier this morning, I was driven by the lack of better things to do to reach for a DVD that has been sitting on my shelf for as long as I could remember.

After weeks and weeks of wanting to see it but never finding the time to watch it I finally saw
The Black Swan, the title character which Natalie Portman hauntingly embodied – the same role that bagged her all the major awards this year – including the much-coveted Academy Award for Best Actress.

The movie was directed by Darren Aronofsky, whose previous accomplishments included The Fountain and Requiem for a Dream.

The film was opened by the scene where the artistic director of the New York Ballet company telling young, eager dancers that his new version of the Swan Lake would need a new lead, in the hopes of making the new season’s presentation ‘real’ and ‘visceral.’

We then catch a glimpse of Nina Sayers (Natalie Portman), her face lighting up, dreaming to land the role of the Swan Queen – she is a perfectionist, follows the routines rigidly but Thomas (played by Vincent Cassel) feels unsure if she can pull off the darkness and rage of having to play both the White Swan and the Black Swan. Determined to be a cut above the rest, she does her pirouettes until her toes bleed and her nails crack, she self-mutilates (perhaps to silence the voices in her head), she eats nothing less than a halved citrus and sticks her finger inside her mouth so she could vomit what she has just consumed. Nina looks frail and undernourished – and as the film progresses we begin to understand what these physical tortures did to her mind.

Nina is trapped in a claustrophobic apartment she shares with her Mommy Dearest, Erica (Barbara Hershey), trapped in the idea that everything must be done with precision, with no unmeasured line or curve to be taken, otherwise, she cannot fit in the cookie-cutter world she lives in.

As she ascends to stardom, Nina slowly loses her mind to paranoia and gets distracted by seduction and conflicting desires. She delves into the blackness of her own soul so she could keep the role and so she could live up to her own expectations. She uses dancing as an escape but then the movie transports us to this slow and painstaking metamorphosis of a talent dying for the love of ballet while trying to discover what freedom could do for her.

I grew up in a family that likes to listen to music of all genres. I know that Peter Tchaikovsy wrote the demanding classical ballet The Swan Lake. Now, I vividly remember the jumps in the notes and the intricate play of instruments to define and differentiate Tchaikovsky’s masterpiece. The Black Swan is in itself an achievement of bright minds doing the best they could to master their craft, but I would have to say that the classical version is not as deadly shocking and serious.

Though the film had in it a number of computer-generated effects to give us an idea of the troubled and wicked mind Nina has, I am still convinced that nothing in it felt mechanical. I did not see the apparent shift in scenes and dialogues, there were no cuts in the frames. All felt like a flowing, continuous elegy.

It is an art-house triumph, with two of Hollywood’s geniuses (Portman and Aronofsky) polishing the already beautiful – making it as unforgettable as our own personal episodes of obscurity and clarity, our own battle to do more good than bad, our own misery to have darkness be defeated by light.

berso sa metro ii posted by imani , Friday, October 8, 2010 at 5:21 AM, in Labels: something else

tulad noong disiplinadong nalunod
na binilang ang mga along sasapat para

siya’y mamatay, at nagbilang, at

nagbilang muli para maiwasang magkamali

hanggang sa huling alon;

maging ang alon na singtaas ng isang

bata’t umabot sa kanyang noo,

ganyan ako nabuhay, medyo pabaya

gaya ng kabayong karton sa loob ng banyo,

alam ko na ni minsa’y di ako nagkamali,
maliban sa mga bagay na pinakamamahal ko.

autobiografia ~ luis rosales

berso sa metro posted by imani , Wednesday, October 6, 2010 at 2:11 PM, in Labels: something else

i have seen this a long time back. i have walked past signs and missed to read the words. i have told myself countless of times i would one day stop to read it. there may have been instances i glanced at it ~ but never really took the time to discern what it is, or what it could mean. in my universe at least.

until one day, on my way to our rendezvous, i took a good look at it and was dumbfounded on how these lines embodied exactly what i feel about you:

lahat tayo ay dadaan at lahat ay maiiwan,

pero tayo ay dadaan,

dadaang gumagawa ng daanan,

daanan sa ibabaw ng karagatan.

~antonio machado

my life according to tori amos posted by imani , Saturday, February 6, 2010 at 11:15 AM, in Labels: something else

i found the questions on facebook and decided to answer them.


Pick your artist:
Tori Amos

Are you a male of female:
Strange little girl

Describe yourself:
Abnormally attracted to sin

How do you feel:
Not dying today

Describe where you currently live:
Every part of you

If you could go anywhere, where would you go?
Dark side of the sun

Your favorite form of transportation:
Cars and guitars

Your best friend:
Sister named desire

You and your best friend are:
Marlene Dietrich’s favorite poem

What’s the weather like:
Raining blood

Favorite time of the day:
When sunny gets blue

If your life was a TV show what would it be called?
Heart attack at 23

What is life to you:
A sorta fairytale

Your relationship:
Sweet the sting

Your fear:
Ghosts and spooks and maybe you

What is the best advice you have to give:
It might hurt a bit

Thought for the day:
Assholes are cheap today

My motto:
Enjoy the silence

anthem posted by imani , Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 11:39 AM, in Labels: something else

Before I took my two day hiatus, I resolved to finish Ayn Rand’s novella, Anthem. And I did. And it felt like an accomplishment really. I have this nasty habit of reading 2-3 books at a time, most specially if I encounter a plateau on one of the novels I am reading. But that wasn’t the case with Rand’s Anthem.

I was drawn to the novel with the first sentence she ever wrote down. Rand said ‘It is a sin to write this. It is a sin to think words no others think and to put them down upon a paper no others are to see.’

The story opens in a dark, futuristic world where people without a sense of identity exists in dystopia, or what is also alternately called cacotopia – characterized as a fictional society where people suffer from all sorts of deprivation, oppression and terror. Both terms were coined in contrast to Thomas More’s idea of a utopia – an ideal place.

In a tunnel, Equality 7-2521 explains bits and pieces of his bleak existence. He dwells in a place that breathes in the irrationality of socialism. The World Council is bent on eliminating any and all individualist thoughts – which is why everyone talks to everybody else using plural pronouns (we, our, they). People who assert their individuality (by mere utterance of the word ‘I’) are burned at the stake and are what Equality 7-2521 calls The Saints of the Pyre.

He was raised, like all children in the world of Anthem, away from their parents and was sent to the Home of the Students. He excelled in math and science and dreamed of being a scholar but everyone’s fate is decided upon by the Council of Vocations and he was tasked to be a Street Sweeper. For the rest of his life.

Children are conceived in the Palaces of Mating, and it is deemed a crime in this society to do anything other than what you have been sentenced to do. But Equality 7-2521 remained curious, undertaking scientific experiments when he has fulfilled his work for the day. He rediscovers electricity and creates what can be compared to a light bulb.

He meets Liberty 5-3000, a woman whom he eventually will fall in love with, an act, a thought that is nonetheless prohibited, but the protagonists’ understanding of each other’s plight draws them to one another. Equality 7-2521 calls Liberty 5-3000 ‘The Golden One’ whilst she calls him ‘The Unconquered.’

One afternoon, Equality 7-2521 spends too much time working on his experiments and was caught. He was taken to the Palace of Corrective Detention where he was kept and tortured and lashed for days without end, however, his will to live and see a better world urged him to stay alive until he was able to find a means to escape.

He takes his invention to the Council of Scholars and everyone was taken aback and appalled because it was not ‘authorized’ and would definitely tip the equilibrium of their society. They tried to seize his invention from him but before they could do that, he ran away and went to the Uncharted Forest.

There he was haunted by the idea of leaving all those who mattered to him behind. But he was never destroyed by fear. He has nothing to lose.

Then he was followed by Liberty 5-3000, and it was in this encounter they realized what they hold for each other but struggled to verbalize their emotions. In the Uncharted Forest, they stumble upon a century-old house built during the Unmentionable Times (before the creation of Anthem) and in it they found scrolls upon scrolls containing the Unspeakable Word – ‘I.’ They learned the sanctity and value of individuality and Equality 7-2521 decided to call himself ‘Prometheus’ – the Titan who stole fire from the God Zeus and gives it to mankind. Prometheus, as we all know it, was punished and was chained to a rock where carrion birds fed on his liver in the day and by night his flesh grows back so he may be devoured again and again for the rest of his life. He also grants Liberty 5-3000 a new identity – he calls her Gaea, a titan of the earth and mother of the Gods.

The narrative ends with Prometheus talking about how he wants to help his friends regain their individuality and from then on start to plan for a future where reason, values and volition are not to be considered transgressions. The last word on the book is ‘EGO’ – the same word Prometheus inscribed on the rock he was chained to.

Anthem is the second work I have read of Rand, the first being ‘The Fountainhead.’ And already, I am drawn to her thought process. Her philosophy, Objectivism is based on the principle that reality is an objective absolute, that man must perceive and understand reality in order to survive. She also said that one’s highest value is one’s ability to reason. She said that man is the means himself – this means he will never sacrifice himself for others and will never sacrifice others for himself.

I cannot wait to read her most popular novel, Atlas Shrugged. Though I would have to confess, I am daunted by the 1000+ pages.

lisa ray posted by imani , Tuesday, January 12, 2010 at 2:13 PM, in Labels: something else

i read about the news last weekend, while i was biding time at work. i really couldn't do what i was supposed to do anymore so i decided to check the web. i searched for whatever update was available about her and was...downhearted when i read about this one:

37 year old indo-canadian actress and former model, lisa rani ray, was diagnosed with a rare and incurable form of bone marrow cancer called multiple myeloma last june 23, 2009.

during my two-day hiatus i was contemplating on whether i should blog about it or not, my heart is still mending, as if she is a close friend or a relative. i don't know why i reacted that way. i so far have seen her in 3 films and some bits and pieces of the movies she starred in on youtube. she has starred in i can't think straight, the world unseen and water - those were the 3 movies i was talking about. but it was her movie 'bollywood/hollywood' that catapulted her to fame as an actor.

perhaps her influence on me stems really not on the movies i have seen, but the heart rending posts she continues to share thru her blog lisaraniray.wordpress.com.

her blog's shout out is: 'never stop fighting.' that i think is brave, apt, courageous, audacious and simply brings her into an utterly different kind of light. her battle against myeloma necessitated the use of steroids, which has a number of side effects, one is causing the person to look 'bloated' (this was the exact same word lisa used on her blog).

lisa started getting treatment a week after the results came in. her blog takes her audience through her journey in dealing with cancer. she looked like she has gained weight and her post last december 12, 2009 shows us that she has lost her hair.

lisa, i am re-posting my third tattoo for you. for all the ordeals i had to confront, i always turned to the Almighty. i am sure that you are doing the exact same thing right this very moment. have faith. never succumb. one step is a complete journey. my heart goes out to you. this life is worth celebrating and allow all of us who respect and admire you do that every day.

you are amazing inside and out.

belief and technique posted by imani , Sunday, January 3, 2010 at 8:21 PM, in Labels: something else

Jack Kerouac’s Belief and Technique for Modern Prose

1. Scribbled secret notebooks, and wild typewritten pages, for yr own joy.
2. Submissive to everything, open and listening.
3. Try never get drunk outside yr own house
4. Be in love with yr life.
5. Something that you feel will find its own form
6. Be crazy dumbsaint of the mind
7. Blow as deep as you want to blow
8. Write what you want bottomless from the bottom of the mind.
9. The unspeakable visions of the individual.
10. No time for poetry but exactly what it is.
11. Visionary tics shivering in the chest
12. In tranced fixation dreaming upon object before you.
13. Remove literary, grammatical and syntactical inhibition.
14. Like Proust be an old teahead of time.
15. Telling the true story of the world in interior monologue.
16. The jewel center of interest is the eye within the eye
17. Write in recollection and amazement of yourself.
18. Work from pithy middle eye out, swimming in a language sea.
19. Accept loss forever
20. Believe in the holy contour of life.
21. Struggle to sketch the flow that already exists intact in the mind
22. Don’t think of words when you stop but to see the picture better
23. Keep track of every day the date emblazoned in yr morning
24. No fear or shame in the dignity of yr experience, language and knowledge
25. Write for the world to read and see yr exact pictures of it
26. Bookmovie is the movie in words, the visual American form
27. In Praise of Character in the Bleak Inhuman Loneliness
28. Composing wild, undisciplined, pure, coming in from under, crazier the better
29. You’re a Genius all the time
30. Writer-Director of Earthly movies Sponsored and Angeled in Heaven

As ever,

Jack

Jack Kerouac “Belief and Technique for Modern Prose: List of Essentials” from a 1958 letter to Don Allen, in Heaven & Other Poems

on impulses, phantoms and the creative process posted by imani , Saturday, January 2, 2010 at 8:43 PM, in Labels: something else

If you persist in throttling your impulses you end by becoming a clot of phlegm. You finally spit out a gob which completely drains you and which you only realize later was not a gob of spit but your inmost self. If you lose that you will always race through dark streets like a madman pursued by phantoms. You will be able to say with perfect sincerity: “I don’t know what I want in life.”

~ Henry Miller, Rosy Crucifixion: Sexus

eight rules for writing fiction posted by imani , at 8:36 PM, in Labels: something else

this was written by kurt vonnegut. i chanced upon this a few minutes before i left work last december 31st. i thought it would be nice to share this with you.

1. Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.
2. Give the reader at least one character that he or she can root for.
3. Every character should want something, even if it is only a glass of water.
4. Every sentence must do one of two things – reveal character or advance action.
5. Start as close to the end as possible.
6. Be a sadist. No matter how sweet and innocent your leading characters, make awful things happen to them – in order that the reader may see what they are made of.
7. Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
8. Give your readers as much information as possible as soon as possible. To heck with suspense. Readers should have such complete understanding of what is going on, where and why, that they should finish the story themselves, should the cockroaches eat the last few pages.

meeting in the middle posted by imani , Friday, September 11, 2009 at 3:05 PM, in Labels: something else

‘We finally caught up with each other…’

I spent a good part of my afternoon (yesterday) watching the TV. My eyes were tired but my brain was restless. So I reached for a DVD and watched ‘The Curious Case of Benjamin Button’ for the umpteenth time.

There is something about this movie that is just so engaging, enthralling, enchanting. It may be the story, the characters, the actors’ chemistry. Or maybe it is just me.

I suddenly remembered what it felt like – watching the film in the silver screen. Everything about it is just so magnanimous. It lasted two hours and forty-five minutes but the creators definitely were visionaries.

Some parts of the film made my eyes tear up (or perhaps I was just plain exhausted), including:

• The way Benjamin and Daisy embraced each other when the latter went back to New Orleans after recuperating from an accident.


• When they watched the sunrise together and Daisy tenderly said: ‘I promise not to lose myself to self-pity again.’


• Here’s another good scene: After Daisy’s return, they were sitting across each other. Daisy said: ‘You have not said two words.’ Whereas Benjamin, with his gaze anchored at her, quipped: ‘I don’t want to ruin anything.’


• When Benjamin took Daisy to her room and she closed the door behind them and all that you can hear was the lock clicking.


• The way Benjamin amorously said: ‘Absolutely.’ (Come on people, that scene is hard to forget)


• This line says it all: ‘Some things last.’


• The bittersweet moment when Benjamin was leaving his family and he left the money and the key on Daisy’s bedside table. Daisy was looking at him, trying to comprehend what he is doing and Benjamin looked at her, stunned and unable to say anything.

Here’s something that I wanted to share with you. This was the letter that Benjamin wrote for their daughter Caroline on her 13th birthday (if I am not mistaken):

‘For what it’s worth, it’s never too late or in my case too early, to be whoever you want to be. There is no time limit. Stop whenever you want. You can change or stay the same. There are no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best, darling.’

‘I hope you’d see things that stopped you. I hope that you feel things you never felt before. I hope you meet people with different point of view. I hope you live a life you are proud of. If you find that you are not, I hope you have the strength to start all over again.’

Written September 4, 2009

words of wisdom?! posted by imani , Wednesday, September 2, 2009 at 6:19 PM, in Labels: something else

Your fences need to be horse-high, pig tight and bull-strong.
Keeps skunks and bankers and lawyers at a distance.
Life is simpler when you plow around the stump.
A bumble bee is considerably faster than a John Deere tractor.
Words that soak into your ears are whispered...not yelled.
Meanness don't jes' happen overnight.
Forgive your enemies. It messes up their heads.
Do not corner something that you know is meaner than you.
It don't take a very big person to carry a grudge.
You cannot unsay a cruel word.
Every path has a few puddles.
When you wallow with pigs, expect to get dirty.
The best sermons are lived, not preached.
Most of the stuff people worry about ain't never gonna happen anyway.
Don't judge folks by their relatives.
Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer.
Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll enjoy it a second time.
Don't interfere with somethin' that ain't botherin' you none.
Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance.
If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing to do is stop diggin'.
Sometimes you get, and sometimes you get got.
The biggest troublemaker you'll probably ever have to deal with watches you from the mirror every mornin'.
Always drink water upstream from the herd.
Good judgement comes from experience and a lotta that comes from bad judgement.
Lettin' the cat outta the bag is a whole lot easier than puttin' it back in.
If you get to thinkin' you're a person of some influence, try orderin' somebody elses dog around.