mababang langit

let's keep our fingers intact, ey? and while we're on the subject, here are a couple of recent photos of mine: bought this 1975 five-peso coin at an antiques store in megamall. it is huge and it's got my katukayo's profile on it. tanching tayo! try buying a red ribbon cake the afternoon of december 31st and this is what you get. the fact that they even print claim stubs in the triple digits tells you a lot already. all the tables in the restaurant had been cleared away, and the place was standing room only. first time i ever saw such a thing. the line at the cashier almost stretched to the comfort rooms.

yes, it's true.

i don't do twitter, but this just killed me: via

bookstore clerk 1: hanapin mo sa youtube! bookstore clerk 2: wala daw yan sa youtube. bookstore clerk 3: hanapin mo na rin! bookstore clerk 1: type mo, "katrina". bookstore clerk 2: walang h! bookstore clerk 3: pwede na yan! all: aay, wala nga.

Fact: Most film festival programmers are interested in movies about the poor. They are less likely to invite comedies about middle-class Filipinos mulling over the meaning of life than dramas about the proletariat struggling to survive. So when your aunt in Tarzana, California or Slough, England complains, ‘Palagi na lang yan ang ipinapakita abroad! Puro mahirap, marumi, mabaho, wala man lang mall o Boracay. Baka akala nila lahat ng Pilipino ganyan (All the Filipino movies shown abroad show poverty, filth and squalor; foreigners will think we all live like that),’ explain the situation. jessica zafra nicely sums up the current condition and immediate foreseeable future of independent pinoy cinema here .

... with her bayong from dior.

luciano lozano's ilustrista was one the first illustration blogs i ever subscribed to. so when he offered to give away signed postcards for his blog's second anniversary, i thanked the rss gods that allowed me to get my email in early. check out the lovely sparrow sketch on the envelope! i'm just thrilled. thank you very much mr. lozano!

art in site calls itself a "magazine for artists, by artists, about artists". imagine that. the maiden issue isn't due out until next year, but they're looking for 3,000 people to create [not design, create--you need to mail in the thing you made so they can stick it on the book] 3,000 unique covers for the release. pretty cool idea. interested? click here to register and reserve a slot. there's still over 2,000 slots left, and you have until september 15. credit to toni for telling me about it. and speaking of magazines: graphikapinoy is a free, periodical pdf magazine about the local visual arts scene. their latest issue is about pinoy illustrators, some wicked stuff in there :] via komikero

nakita nyo na ba yung jollitown sa GMA-7? bumili kami ng cd nun kamakailan. konyo na silang lahat. si jollibee, si mr. yum, si hetty, si twirly, pati yang traydor na hiphop na yan, si popo, nagtataglish na rin. parang awa nyo na ibalik nyo na'ng batibooooot!

saw this web ad while checking my email. apparently, mastercard's definition of "more rewarding journeys" includes being able to afford huge-ass luggage big enough to fit an open laptop .

how do you make the biggest drawing in the world? this guy used DHL to fly a GPS device along a path that traced an image around the globe. some may question the loops and squiggles (would transport planes fly like that?), but it's one hell of a grand idea. via laughing squid

college/high school reunion season is upon us, and this post from the totally excellent advertising is good for you triggered a reverie of lazy undergrad afternoons. in college, this guy was me: only instead of a cubicle it was a student's club room, and instead of a jacket i wore a t-shirt with holes, and instead of a really low chair i slept on the floor. i could do the same thing now but it's just isn't the same at home.

check out these guys on the left. they're some of the sponsors for my ten-year college reunion this weekend. and that about sums up my interest in said event. yeesh. i didn't think some of these brands sponsored anything at all around these parts, much less a bunch of thirtysomethings playing drunken "bring me". i feel a deep urge to whine and bitch, about what i am not sure.

just wanted to try if animated GIFs work on blogspot. theme-wise, this one's an evolutionary offshoot of the wallpapers i posted a while back. it's tiny because it was meant to be a forum avatar; i haven't bothered to try and locate the original. hope this works. EDIT: it doesn't work. right-click here and select "save as..."

detail from a satirical map of the world, published in japan around 1911. it's supposed to depict the philippines but i can't make out exactly what it is. anyone read kanji? here's the whole map: russia'a a big lazy bear, china's a pig, and so on... but what is the philippines ? it's driving me crazy. via bibliodyssey

a freak unseasonable storm knocked out the power last night, and i realized we were short on candles. so you know what i did? i took a bunch of gift handmade candles and lit them . i tore off the paper ribbons and handicraft-y jute wrapping and i set those suckers on fire. they burned real nice. we should take a match to every useless thing people give us because they can't think of anything else to give. it's very gratifying. there's a bunch of ceramic figurines in a box somewhere around here...

seen at trinoma mall: an indicator light to let you know which escalator to take when you want to go "up". i'm a little insulted, actually.

we first saw jojoy hanging upside-down by his plastic leg band two weeks ago. the band had caught on the trap-door of my father's aviary (it only opens inwards) and at first i thought he was dead, but thankfully he was only exhausted. but the band had scraped into his leg down to the tendon, so we took him home, disinfected the wound, and borrowed an unused rabbit cage to keep him in. he's been with us now for about a month. jojoy looks at things. he watches me work at the computer. he coos for his meal when he sees us eating dinner. we feed him a grain mix for pigeons that we keep in a quaker oats tin, hence the product placement. after he started walking on two legs again we tried letting him roam around the house (if he hasn't just eaten--things are tidier that way), and the kids squeal with delight when he beats his wings to fly across the room, or hang from the curtains, or slip down the side of the couch. he looks around and pecks at things.

in 1958, a man named gerald holtom designed the bisected circle we've come to know as the peace symbol : "' I was in despair. Deep despair. I drew myself: the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched outwards and downwards in the manner of Goya's peasant before the firing squad. I formalised the drawing into a line and put a circle round it.' Ironically the symbol itself is a mix of the military semaphore signals N — representing nuclear — and D — representing disarmament (semaphore alphabet). However, Holtom, a conscientious objector during the Second World War, subverted this use of semaphores by placing the D over the N, the “upside down logo” signifying his anti-military principles." this year, the peace symbol turns fifty and there's a website where you can submit your own peace-inspired art to stand beside similar works by kate hudson and noam chomsky (mine is pictured on the left). there seems to be some sort of sele...

this is one of three images that i am supposed to hand in tomorrow along with my ilustrador ng kabataan application . naturally, i haven't done the other two yet. it's gonna be a long night. funny--all us INK applicants will be illustrating the same story: nanoy rafael's naku, nakuu, nakuuu! it's also the same story all entrants to this year's PBBY-Alcala contest will be illustrating. i wonder what happens to all the works that don't make the grade. it would seem a waste, as they represent many hours of many people's lives, and it's not like those artists will be able to make use of them for other projects. hm. me thinkum too much. back to work!