The Haruki Murakami Diet

It started over coffee with two of my former college English professors. Since we're all almost about the same age, we had only two topics to juggle around: men and books.

Topics about men are all the same, we were done talking about it in fifteen minutes. Now, books. Now, you're talking.

We talked about this local bestselling author who used to be their student. Then Saramago, that Portuguese atheist Nobel Prize laureate for literature whose books are being sold real cheap at an underground bookstore right around the Manila City Hall.

Of course, all this talk about books would have to boil down to our latest author addiction. One of the ladies gushed about Haruki Murakami. She said she used to scour bookstore after bookstore for Murakami novels that came few and far between. But now, the big bookstores carry almost all his published books. There's a happy girl now.

Going back to Murakami. My teacher talked about this writer's works like a lover. The depth and intensity is just so, I was vacuumed into it. Right there and then I promised to start a new love affair with a Japanese. My first was with Yukio Mishima, but that was a long time ago.


I begun with Norwegian Wood, his most erotic work, according to reviews. It was indeed erotic! Now, we can already set that aside. It is more than a coming-of-age genre. It is a review of the past that leads to one's present consciousness. There's sex, a lot of school-age sex in it. (Sorry, I cannot simply put that aside.) And paranoia and psychological upheavals that almost always result to suicide. Now, suicide. That also went a-plenty in Murakami's novel. If I remember it right, there were at least five suicide incidents in Norwegian Wood. So is it a dark novel? Yes and no, with a lot of snow. It has wit and humor and guilt-real truths that mock you. It is a novel that takes you to its pages and keeps you there long after the characters have moved on.


A Wild Sheep Chase. This kind of title wouldn't stand a chance of being read by me had I not read one Murakami novel before it. What can I say? It is a crazy myth about a man trapped in an exclusive web of the powers-that-be. A nobody who is made to believe he meant something to the world. The novel is an attack to the "vainglory of modern Japan." The main character explains: "What I mean is, I don't really know if it's the right thing to do, making a new life. Kids grow up, generations take their place. What does it all come to? More hills bulldozed and more oceanfront filled in? Faster cars and more cats run over? Who needs it?" And I knew I would have a lasting affair with Murakami the moment I read the following line. The most poignantly descriptive narrative, the most creative work that can only come from a real talent. This line, this metaphor owned me: "Then I fished my keys out of the recesses of my pocket and leaned forward, forehead against the icy iron door. From somewhere behind my ears, a click. Me, a wad of cotton soaked through with alcohol." Like who, what writer can describe being drunk in such a fashion - "a wad of cotton soaked through with alcohol"?


Dance Dance Dance. A sequel to A Wild Sheep Chase. If the latter is a work of political commentaries, Dance Dance Dance is an attack on society. Man and society set the music and all we have to do is dance, dance, dance. Stop dancing and you will be swallowed by the wall whole and untraceable. The main character (an unnamed one even from the first novel) finds six skeletons representing the facets of his life: the one-armed poet, the high-class prostitute, the ex-girlfriend with the most beautiful ears, the movie star, the pretty hotel clerk, and the thirteen-year old beautiful and talented adult child. The first four have all died: the follower and the giver; the dreamer in a fairytale; the thinker; and the schizophrenic. The last two remain alive: the normal and the down-to-earth; and the weak trying to be tough. The work shows that the world is a cruel musician and choreographer. There cannot be just one kind of dance. So we have to dance, dance, dance.

My experiences with Murakami have just been so I have stocked my iBooks collection with 9 more of his works:

1. 1Q84 (Done reading.)
2. Hard-Boiled Wonderland and the End of the World (Done reading.)
3. The Wind-up Bird Chronicle (Done reading.)
4. Pinball 1973
5. Kafka on the Shore (Done.)
6. Sputnik Sweetheart
7. The Folklore of Our Times
8. Tony Takitani
9. After Dark

Pictures Source: Amazon.com

Happy to be Filipino in the Philippines

After reading Michael Tan's column at the Philippine Daily Inquirer today regarding Filipino TNT's (taga ng tago) and illegal aliens of the world, I got to thinking how happy I am being here in the Philippines. Being here without a speck of a wish or a dream or a need or an ambition to live and work elsewhere in the world.

This country has nurtured and nourished me all my life, all my family included. It has cradled me in its arms, put me to rest on its shoulders, given me sunshine and the rain, bathed me in its rivers, lakes and beaches. It has given me shades under its trees, fed me its fruits, made me drink its juices. It has educated me and made me whole, strengthened me, and allowed me to dream.

This country, one of the poorest in the world, has given me much in terms of opportunities. It has extended its arms to give me what's best in the world, what's needed in the world: books and technology. I have iPad2 and Steve Jobs' biography by Walter Isaacson. I have a Macbook and a Samsung desktop, a Blackberry and a Cherry Mobile. (Do cellphones really have to come in fruits these days?) It is ALL here. Like SM, we've got it all for you!

Philippines is paradise. That is one secret I hope more Filipinos will discover.

"The Rich Get Richer, The Poor Get - Children."

Appeared in a novel first published in 1925, that is as candid today as it was truthful before.

Poor boy meets rich girl. Poor boy and rich girl fall in love. Poor boy, a soldier, leaves to call of duty. Abandoned, rich girl marries a rich man.

Five years later, poor boy returns filthy rich - no, he did not win the biggest lottery of all time; picture how, and you may be right - and pursues rich girl who is now married, by throwing big parties only the New Year's Eve parties in Time Square can compete.

Finally they meet again. A tragedy here. Another tragedy there. The novel ends with three gruesome deaths: a vehicular accident that rips the victim's body apart, a murder, and a suicide.

The Great Gastby by F. Scott Fitzgerald.

The Jazz Age, coined by Fitzgerald in the novel, is an era of lawlessness, wantonness, materialism, and excesses. A new dawn of sexual freedom, and greed.

In that age, only the rich get richer. In that age, if you're poor and you want to get rich, you don't go to school and be a topnotch or drop-out of it and invent something. You lick ass to kick ass. In that age, the poor and humble and meek only get babies, not rubies. In that age, one is a fool to love. For love has no chance in a caked soil simmering summer.

Ironically, the worst of the wealthy are those who were the dirt poor once, the downtrodden, the last in the line of the underdogs. Today, these are those who buy bags the tag price of each could build a house for a family of five. And you pity them for abandoning the past completely with all the gala of pretense. Those rich get richer and become the poorest all at once.

The Jazz Age resurrects stronger, and uncontested.


(Book cover from Amazon.com)

So Is God Happy Now?

Is God beaming from ear to ear seeing what we have seen, heard what we have heard? Has Quaipo become the seat of holiness after all the physical, mental, financial, and material sacrifices offered for the feast?

The government assigned some 8,000 policemen and soldiers to patrol, protect, guide, assist those who joined the procession. Was it worth it? Was it needed? How many people elsewhere whose safety was put to risk because of this pull-out of uniformed men? Telcos shut off cellphone signals in most areas of Manila to lessen the possibility of bombing and terrorism. How many people who had an emergency, but couldn't use their mobile phones because of this? Was it worth it? Was it needed? Roads and traffic were re-routed to give the devotees all the ground they could walk on barefoot to exalt their faith. How many people lost their way, got reprimanded for being late at work? Was it worth it? Was it needed? Hospitals were booked to welcome those who might get hurt, get sick, get killed. Seventy or so ambulances left their base to be where the procession was. A number of schools and offices were closed for the day. Was it worth it? Was it needed? Is that how God wants to be worshiped and remembered? Really?

We ask God for protection and yet we put ourselves in harm's way. We ask God for pardon and yet we punch anyone who gets in our way. We ask God to heal us and yet we go to a place that common sense tells us would make us more sick. We ask God for mercy and yet look how selfish and unforgiving we have become. We ask God for riches and yet we leave work to join the circus.

Tradition? Lucban, Quezon has its own feast called Pahiyas. Their celebration is as Catholic and traditional as Catholic and traditional can be. But their celebration is festive and welcoming and full of thanksgiving that local and international tourists never fail to join the festivities. Nothing like the feast of the Black Nazarene in Quiapo. Nothing like a paganistic, pre-historic celebration held in the time of spiritual enlightenment and freedom. No friars to fine, mock and torture us for our absence in the practice and our failure to give tithes.

Someone has to put a stop to this madness.

The new Manila Archbishop Luis Antonio Tagle has to make a stand, and put a stop to the yearly crazy procession altogether. Keep the Black Nazarene inside the church. Celebrate the mass there, instead of the Luneta Grandstand. Masses are supposed to be held in churches, right? Unless there is none within a 10-kilometer radius. Let the devotees go to church and worship. There is nothing in Moses' tablets of commandments nor in Jesus' two greatest commandments that tells the faithful to join a bloody, deadly procession in order to be heard by the Great Almighty. Or is there?

God doesn't need to see us suffer to attain grace. He's already done that part for us. So what are all these masochistic, pseudo-spiritual practices about?

Archbishop Tagle, we have so much faith in what God can do through you. Stop all this madness before it explodes. (And that's from a love song!)

It's More Fun in the Philippines!

The Philippine Department of Tourism is at it again. After the failed "Pilipinas Kay Ganda" slogan of 2010, DOT introduces its new battle cry (?) -- "It's More Fun in the Philippines."

Twitter at 11 AM Philippine Time had #ItsMoreFunInThePhilippines trending worldwide. And it was not even lunch break here!

I wonder, was there a linguist or a grammarian in DOT's panel of consultants? Adding a comparative word MORE in the slogan begs the question "More than who, more than what, more in what aspect?"

Still, when you talk about FUN, it doesn't always have to be good or upright or normal. There is fun in naughty and mischievous, fun in foolishness, fun in being daredevil, fun in being different. Ikaw na!

The Philippines may not have the best of economies or the cleanest of cities or the oldest of cultures, but the Philippines is the inventor of FUN: from big time fun to fun size, from Juan Tamad to Boy Pick-up, from ukay-ukay to halo-halo, from Market Market to Tawi-Tawi, from Lapu Lapu to NoyNoy.

From the dancing Traffic Aide to beer bellied kalabit-penge cops. From lousy drivers to slow-as-turtle lady drivers. (Political correctness, give me a break!)

Yes, we have kidnappers, carnappers, terrorists, leftists, professional street protesters, political clowns, political dynasties...Wait, aren't these universal social varmints?

Anyway, we have those and more. FUN. SMILE. HOPE. FORTUNE. WINSTON. MARLBORO. REAL CHEAP. CAN BE BOUGHT PER STICK. WHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD?

But what's this? :(

1951 Switzerland Tourism Ad

And this:

Philly's More Fun (2007 Commercial)

Video from www.youtube.com