I know this is a couple of days late, but I believe I have never mentioned to anyone on this blog that I’d love to go to Istanbul someday. My curiosity was piqued when Kaye gave me a promotional music CD for a hotel in Istanbul. It’s a full album featuring different Turkish artists, and although still bordering on the electronica, it wasn’t the Trance Eurasia music I had expected were proponents of their country’s scene. The Music was more diverse than I expected. The Point Hotel’s album collection is aptly titled, “Sweet Dreams”, like you could dream about a very culturally sacrosanct Byzantine Turkey while you’re in Modern Istanbul (formerly Constantinople). I am very in love with the track entitled, “Pink Wings”, which sports undertones of the Islamic beat combined with ethereal vocals.
If you’d like to hear for yourself check out Point hotel’s Myspace,
Again, Eid’l Fet’r.
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The Carpenters is by far the most articulate pop band of their time when it comes to love melancholy. People who grow up to their songs will not wonder why the story of these two siblings is as tragic as, say, their song Aurora.
Yesterday, I felt rain on my head. Walking through a crowded place, everyone is bustling, running for cover, scrounging for a ride home.
Yet I moved through the noisy crowd like the film and music was slow and sad. Like Karen Carpenter cooed at my ear with her cold voice. I have always wondered why the rain was such a sad occasion on most literary references.
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Scarlett Johansson - Falling Down [Download] [Lyrics]
Oh, and by the way Scarlett Johansson can sing.
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Andrew told me that I could write anything I want on this blog, ANYTHING I was passionate about to write. If you know me personally, it’s hard to tell what field I belong to. That is because I’ve been all over the place and am practically interested in EVERYTHING.
A few months ago, I took the bold step of turning this blog into everything I was interested in. And now it’s turn out to be an “anything goes” kind of blog. But I haven’t done it any justice by waiting for its 2D walls to grow cobwebs. WELL. That’s always been my bane. Being too busy living life to write about it. I even missed writing about the very eventful Kadayawan, but if I released anything at this point, I suppose it’s like stale cheese. Which is worse than the smell of freshly fermented cheese…you get my point.
So, it’s back to basics for me and that’s the fact that I love music.
Did I tell you that I love music?
The other day, I was just thinking about it when I finally reunited with my lovely guitar after TWO YEARS. That’s a fairly long time to be away from an object you held on to practically everyday. Imagine you lost your phone and found it two years later: that’s how I felt.
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Tomorrow is supposed to be an historic day for the Blogger community of the Philippines, that’s because a Wordcamp is taking place in Manila for the first time. It’s too bad I’m booked to fly to Manila on the 18th instead which concludes how impractical it is for me to decide to fly in earlier for Wordcamp, come back to Davao then back again to Manila on 18. When I accidentally called Ria this morning (mistaking her for my friend Ria Lumapas), I got to ask her where she was and she replied matter-of-factly, “I’m in Manila.” Hearing those words, I suddenly felt a crushing sense of panghihinayang. The closest English equivalent of which would be…regret.
Oh well, life moves on. Hopefully when I move to the States I’ll catch the Wordcamp in San Francisco, booya!
Meanwhile, a blogger who’s not in the field is obviously mulling about the internet. Just now I downloaded the beta version of Google’s new browser Google Chrome and for a Beta version it has so far impressed me with its speed. It’s phenomenally faster than Mozilla 3.0 and is apparently more efficient than Safari. Apart from the exciting fact that Chrome is Open source, it introduces a very unique way of managing javascript by incorporating multiple process in one browser. Now the brainiacs from Google can best explain what that means not me, definitely, no. Luckily, they came up with a very friendly way of helping us understand…through a comic strip!
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Photo courtesy of http://morofilm.blogspot.com
My friend Jun Macarambon, who co-wrote “A step for my dream” had their film officially selected in this year’s Cinemalaya, inevitably the most prestigious film festival in the Philippines. I haven’t seen the film myself, but the fact that it made it to the festival should keep everyone’s heads up. It was directed by Monalayn Labado, also a Mindanawon. Hopefully, their producer Teng Mangansakan II, also a documentary filmmaker from Mindanao, would allow to screen the said film for this upcoming Mindanao Film Festival for everyone to see. Lately, the influx of critical Mindanao filmmakers shaking the national and international scene have grown since, perhaps, Lav Diaz. Other films to watchout for that are made by a Mindanao filmmaker include Sherad Anthony Sanchez’s film (director of Huling Balyan ng Buhi) “Imburnal”, which was recently shot in some parts of Bankerohan and Dumalag. It is an entry for this year’s Cinema One Originals. Also, an advocacy film was recently made entitled, “Hunghong sa yuta” which has already run on local cinemas. Noticeably, most of our fresh breed of filmmakers have done stories on Mindanao, treating these stories with a fair sense of what Mindanao truly feels like.
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Yesterday, that is June 12th, was the commemoration of the very elusive Independence day of the Philippines (since some historians argue among themselves whether it took place during the late 1800s or Post-Commonwealth). In fact, I’ve heard smart alecky remarks from some that we’re not a free nation at all so the theory in practice is rather pointless. But never mind that, ABS-CBN enshrines freedom and have televised that “symbolic interaction” by simultaneously doing a 411 primary school flag ceremony in all ABS-CBN headquarters nationwide. Back at the mothership you realize that they come across as unpretentious, just as long as you think about Eugenio Lopez in all his dignified exuberance say the words, “Mabuhay ang Lahi ng Kayumanggi” without first expounding this profound idea. It’s interesting really, so many social issues to digest in such a short declaration. Are we really a nation who embraces Kayumanggi? What with all this hype of Glutathione and Eskinol sikerto ng mga gwapo? What is the social construct behind Kayumanggi? Was Lopez particularly lauding an idealistic view of our lahi? What does that mean also? Race? Culture? Essence?
You can only relate to this if you’re a Filipino and watched TV most of the day like I did.
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In the height of realising what a big role media has in influencing ideas and inevitably lifestyles, I couldn’t JUST talk about music. I’m part of a generation who hardly cared, the Gen Y, the 2k tykes who are at the prime of their existence today but have been sucked into the vortex of information, entertainment and hedonism. There’s nothing wrong with any of that but what I keep asking ‘em mindless lot: (rephrased) do they always go wherever the wave took them without looking up and noticing they were driving to a waterfall? Thoughtless conformity! Without the slightest offering of skepticism or discernment of its quality!
Enough of this Deep Talk, and hello world.
Welcome to the “NEW AND IMPROVED SOUTHISMS!” Don’t you just love Music? I love it so much. What about movies? TV? Radio? Photography? I love ‘em too. Can’t decide what to write with all those things in mind. So here it is. Like it? The whole point of this blog is to grab you by the nuts and show you the fascinating things happening around the Southern region. Wait, there’s more: you get to think twice about it. Show me some feisty opinion as expected from yours truly. I hear someone belt, “Secret, secret? I got a secret!”
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I haven’t written anything like this in a loooooooooooooooooooooong time.
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Hey Dennis,
Nice to hear from you again. Haha, I’m guilty of not revisiting you on the music marketing for your bar, I’ve been unreasonably busy. But when I talked to Rocky I actually appreciated some of his choices, and I’ve discovered something new from him too (which is something vintage i.e. 80’s German/Euro Electro-clash-pop). And speaking of Electro-clash-pop and depending genres, I’m really in to it since two or three years ago when I discovered my most favorite Swede-band, who was on the rise then (The Knife) along with them guys from LCD Soundsystem who released their first album in 2005. Plus there’s Thom Yorke, who finally (as expected) made an all electro-album. (a) By the way on Thom Yorke going electro, he just had to go out of control SOLO because people were starting to blame him for Radiohead’s inadvertent shift from their trademark electric guitar rock band to the synthetic but very bop not-everyone-buys-it sound, (b) Radiohead’s new album is a personal favorite because they noticeably LESSENED Thom Yorke’s electronic ambitions in their band by letting him vent it all out on his own & (c) Best part about it, they haven’t broken up. ANYWAY, you don’t want to hear me wax poetic about it but they’re my staple tips to people lately.
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Hey just want to make a quick update in case any of you are interested. The independent gig schedules are as follows: Read the rest of this entry »
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