Category: Uncategorized
-
The Immutable Laws of Silence & Distance
Colored panels (Beijing, 2018) What a strange feeling, to realize that you can never really touch anything. I type this inside a speeding car, believing I am sitting comfortably, except my body doesn’t even truly touch the seat—instead, the electrons of this seat repel the electrons of my body, ensuring that I am only ever…
-
The Observer Effect
The other day, I was watching a video on Facebook about a group of filmmakers who were caught in a predicament: should they rescue the emperor penguins which were trapped in a ravine, or should they let nature run its course and uphold the documentarist’s code of non-intervention?
-
Wherein, I Try to Capture a Feeling: A Week in Shanghai
Terminal 2, Pudong Airport, Shanghai (2018) There is a gap we do not talk about, the in-betweens. We always talk about point A’s to point B’s, one goalpost to another, the beginning and the end. It’s the middle spaces that get lost in what we talk about: the gray, fuzzy areas that are undetermined and…
-
I Did A Thing
A still from “Delia & Sammy”, a feature length finalist in CineFilipino 2018 Okay, indulge me please.
-
Bookends
I am writing this as I’m taking a break from packing all my belongings in a large suitcase, seeing all the things I’ve accumulated over the past few years. I am moving out of my unit this end of April–the end of my two-year lease in this studio and a four-year stay in this building.…
-
Begin at the End
Indonesia, 2012 Time. Recently, a friend and former colleague passed away in his sleep, much to the surprise of all of us he left. He was young—in his early 40s. You could say there still was more to life at that age. But life goes on. We amble forward.The inevitability of death shouldn’t be that…
-
A Softer World
“”Little Children on a Bicycle”, by Ernest Zacharevic (taken during my first visit to Penang, Malaysia in 2013) I’m lucky. Before I begin to even delve into the many things that I feel lucky to have (which is not the intention of this post), I understand that it sounds as if I’m smug about the…
-
Counting Down the Days
A blur Where did the year go? (And how many people across the world are saying the same thing?) Truth be told, there were times when I’d remember a memory (the Coldplay concert in Taiwan, for example) and realize that it happened just not too long ago. A few days, a few weeks, a few months…
-
Higit sa Salita
Dear Ate Belle, Kamusta? Alam ko na wala namang point na magsulat ng sulat sa mga patay. Pero iniisip ko, siguro, kapag pwede na ang mag-time travel, madadala ko itong sulat na ito sa’yo. O baka, merong makakabasa ng sulat na ito sa future, at magta-time travel siya para ipabasa sa’yo. Mahigit isang taon…
A Writer from Manila 