St. John and the Perils of Posting: Blogging as Sweet Remembering

Sigh. Sometimes, I find myself seriously reconsidering having our school, St. John, moved somewhere else. Don't get me wrong. San Antonio Village is a beautiful enclave at the heart of the Ortigas Central Business District, which is due, in great part, to the efforts of longtime Barangay Captain Gregorio Rupisan. It's just that most of my memories of San Antonio revolve around the carefree adventures of my storied "single" years, which, to hear my best bud Ralph tell of it, is the stuff of which legends are made of. While I would not recommend, by way of Chesterton, exploring a John-D Borra "whose manifest absurdity clings to the fancy like the beauty of first-love, and whose follies are recounted like the legends of a paladin", I find myself longing for the days when life was simpler and less taxing, when my chief responsibilities consisted of getting up ten minutes before class and getting paid. Nowadays, my working day begins very early in the morning (since, oddly, that's when I seem to do my best conceptual work) and there just seems so much to do.

Still, whenever I look at what we've accomplished, in no small part, thanks to the efforts of all the people involved in putting up St. John, my wistful reminisces seem to dissipate into the fondness of memory and fade cheerfully into some half-remembered twilight where the very lack of useful light makes all these memories, in a way, illuminating. I know I probably burdened the preceding sentence with more faux-literary twists and turns than any decent sentence could bear, but that's the beauty of blogging. Blogging is very much like reminiscing, and just as soon as you let it all out, everything seems to calm down again.

Watch out for the opening of St. John. It's worth the wait.

Acquired Tastes: Charley Rosen and Bill Simmons Redux

For those who are inclined to dismiss that crusty old hand, Charley Rosen, simply because he chooses to express his considerable intelligence through insightful articles that skewer NBA players who fail to measure up to his almost unattainable standards for excellence, here's a refreshing change of pace. Here, one can find a list of the nicest guys in the NBA, according to The Basketball Curmudgeon himself. While I would like Mr. Rosen to continue producing articles that celebrate his observation that the players mentioned in his article "prove the lie to Leo Durocher's oft-quoted dictum: 'Nice guys finish last'," if only to preserve good old Charley for the emotionally taxing NBA season, I have to admit that he's just not very good at producing warmly inspirational human interest pieces. It's like he so desperately wanted to show that he's not always testy and demanding, he deliberately avoided making any observations that could possibly be misconstrued as negative. The end result, of course, is that he sounds like he was gritting his teeth as he pounded out the treacly goodness that makes his article so un-Rosen.

Still, check out the article, if only for his recollections of what a class act Julius Erving is. I don't think that it is any accident that, for a commencement address, Pulitzer-prize winning author David Halberstam quoted Erving as the venerable pundit offered his classic definition of professionalism as "doing the things you love to do on the days when you don't feel like doing them". It's always delightful whenever, despite consistent evidence to the contrary, we encounter instances where excellence in one aspect of human endeavor (like suspending one's self in the air with the greatest of ease) is complemented by excellence in another (just being someone people enjoy sharing good stories about).

Something just as incredibly stunning as Rosen turning into Mr. Rogers on MSN Foxsports is happening at rival ESPN Page 2. Bill Simmons, the Sports Guy, goes out on a limb and delivers something close to social commentary after seeing The Rock in the sports movie, Gridiron Gang. If anyone could ever be considered the popular sports anti-thesis to Charley Rosen, it would be Bill Simmons. In the same way that one has the sneaking suspicion that Rosen was popping blood vessels the entire time that he was typing out that article on nice guys in the NBA simply because it wasn't "him", most readers would just as readily assume that Simmons would suffer just as much if he were forced to eschew the usual pop-culture references and snarkily smug humor that has characterized his writing since 1997. Still, Simmons, in my opinion at least, meets with greater success writing incisive social commentary than Rosen did writing "nice". Check it out here.

Photo credits:
Julius Erving
Simmons as illustrated by Charlie Powell

Lonely is the Night

Normally, my first reaction to even well-meaning commentary from foreign sources on anything remotely Filipino is that of defensive outrage. My feelings range from irritated condescension ("Thank you kindly, but it's really something that doesn't quite translate into Western culture.") to incoherent yelling as an expression of outrage so elemental that it predates language ("@#%!"). However, Dr. Tilman Baumgärtel's reasoned riposte to our Filipino filmmakers' enchantment with the digital format is the sort of incisive commentary that we should take seriously, not because Baumgärtel is knowledgeable about Philippine cinema (which is true of most critics), but because Baumgärtel truly enjoys Philippine cinema (which one cannot always say of most critics). I always pay attention to those who are, either due to understanding or circumstance, forced to skewer, either in part or as a whole, that which they love. (Of course, I don't have to mention, as it is an entirely unrelated issue, and in no way can be considered relevant to the preceding statement, that I am married.) Here's an excerpt from Baumgärtel's article:

I don’t know any other national cinema where night scenes are given such importance as in Philippine cinema. Apart from the American film noir, Philippine movies must be among the darkest in the world. Consider the frequent reference to the pa-siyam (novena) lit by candles, or the attack of the aswang under a full moon, a gripping chase scene in the dark back alleys of Manila, or the lovemaking in a pigsty in “Himala.” In Philippine cinema the night is often among the principal characters. It can be haunting, as in Mike De Leon´s “Itim,” or full of pitch-black despair as in Lino Brocka´s “Maynila, Sa Kuko ng Liwanag.” It might ooze with sensuality as in Ishmael Bernal´s “Manila by Night” or serve as the appropriately gloomy backdrop as in Chat Gallardo´s “Geron Busabos.”

In no other area does digital cinema look as poor as in such night scenes, and there seems to be little improvement in this area, thus depriving Philippine cinema of one of its most important characteristics.

Much like any loved one, Baumgärtel makes observations about Philippine cinema that simply invite, for lack of a better term, reprisal. After all, when one is dealing with affairs of the heart, the worst perspective to adopt is that of neutrality. More often than not, great loves invite no less than the most extreme reactions on the part of the impassioned parties. I expect no less from our indie film community. Right, Joey?

I AM S.T.R.O.N.G. Koronadal: Day One

Today, Andrea and I were asked to give a talk on the general topic, "Making a House a Home". I must confess that when I first heard that I was supposed to give the talk with Andrea, I foresaw a tragedy in the making, much like the ill-fated romance between Dr. Gregory House and his smitten admirer, that girl. Normally, I wouldn't cast myself in the role of the sarcastic, no-nonsense, grizzled veteran with the heart of gold, but we're talking about hithereto undiscovered levels of saccharine sweetness. What if we were dealing, metaphorically speaking, with a "diabetic" audience?

I need not have worried. What Andrea lacked in terms of expressing herself fluently in the vernacular, she more than made up for in terms of enthusiasm, sincerity, and sheer, joyful persistence. She wouldn't stop, not until the courageous student leaders before her (most of whom were rendered almost catatonic by her inability to construct a single coherent Filipino sentence) simply surrendered to her unyielding niceness and developed some weird form of telepathy; they shouldn't have, couldn't have understood her, but somehow they did.

But then, it does make sense that listening to Andrea spurs the development of extraordinary paranormal abilities. Certainly, in the case of Andrea, one could say there is "more than meets the eye". During a critical juncture in my portion, Andrea came to my rescue as the projector screen threatened to make short work of my short talk. I've never seen anyone move so fast, so demurely. Hence, much to her dismay, I dubbed Andrea "ang tunay na Darna", because by sincere, loving acts, she has shown herself to be the ultimate Filipina heroine: both "kapuso" and "kapamilya", if that makes any sense.

The talk went smoothly enough, though the student leaders stopped just short of commissioning a DNA paternity test when I insisted that Juan was really my son.

"Baka clip art lang."

"Siguro, naghanap lang si sir sa Google ng mga imahe ng mga gwapong bata."

"Baka gusto niyong i-Google yung i-cli-clip art kong mukha niyo", I thought. I considered making my displeasure known, but seeing how even most of the 15 year-old student leaders (like this guy, Ben) had more facial hair on their faces than I ever succeeded in "shaving" off mine, I decided to overlook their indiscretions. Still, the nerve! Note to self: must bring DNA test to next I AM STRONG seminar.

Later, Andrea, to recompense me for the many wisecracks that I kept on making at her expense, took a ridiculous video of me participating in one of Ma'am Lulu Romero's motivational activities. Jay Pronstroller, in commiseration with "Darna", spends his idle hours making equally ludicrous caricatures of me. Can anyone say conspiracy? One would have thought that my macro-oriented roommate would have at least made ludicrous caricatures of the micro-oriented females of I AM STRONG: Michee dela Cruz and Pie Pablo. Oh well.

I went home early with Andrea, Cathy Bautista and Jessica Gallegos. I'm not unusually vain, but I felt like someone had poured cooking oil all over my body, with a special lard based concoction reserved for liberal application on my face. I took a nice long shower, then proceeded to MacGregor with Andrea and Jess. MacGregor is THE BEST coffee shop in Koronadal, and a truly delightful find. If you took the wonderfully quirky bibliophilic charm of Fully Booked and married it with the understated elegance of Bizu, you'd probably get MacGregor, but only if the lawfully wedded coffee shop chooses to make Koronadal its home. I heartily recommend the MacGregor Elite blend, the Highlander. I would like to extend my most sincere thanks to Mark Anthony G. Nimer and Kem Alfred Radaza, who made the WalangFi (as opposed to WiFi) experience at MacGregor's bearable with their cheery efficiency. Thanks again!

Happy Men

"The truth is, of course, that the curtness of the Ten Commandments is an evidence, not of the gloom and narrowness of a religion, but, on the contrary, of its liberality and humanity. It is shorter to state the things forbidden than the things permitted: precisely because most things are permitted, and only a few things are forbidden." - ILN 1-3-20

I've oftentimes compared our understanding of our faith to being crushed by a tank filled to half its capacity. If ever I found myself on the short end of a tragic situation involving improperly mounted water tanks, I would like the headline to read "Optimist Crushed by Half Full Tank". In this situation, having a positive or negative view of life doesn't change the fact that life ends, i.e. one is crushed. However, while having a positive or negative view of life does not change the way a person died, it becomes incredibly relevant in describing how that person lived.

When I first started working in the University, Chesie Galvez (now Carino) and Audrey Enriquez, asked me what I would've wanted written on my gravestone. If I remember correctly, I answered "Here lies one whose name was writ on water", or something equally pretentious (as I am no Keats) and derivative. I've learned a bit since then. In Chesterton's preface to his biography of Robert Browning, he wrote that "His happiness is primal, and beyond the reach of philosophy. He is something far more convincing, far more comforting, far more religiously significant than an optimist; he is a happy man."

Recently, my class and I just finished discussing Canto XV of the second cantica (the Purgatorio) of Dante's tripartite epic, the Comedy. It was only then that I realized how beautifully Virgil explained the concept of sharing. Virgil suggests that in the context of a loving community, the more one shares, the more there is to be shared, an observation that seems to violate the basic human realities of supply and demand. When Dante challenges this, Virgil waxes poetic regarding the role that individual human souls have in propagating the good:

"That Good, ineffable and infinite,
which is above, directs Itself toward love
as light directs itself to polished bodies.

Where ardor is, that Good gives of Itself;
and where more love is, there that Good confers
a greater measure of eternal worth.

And when there are more souls above who love,
there's more to love well there, and they love more,
and, mirror-like, each soul reflects the other."

(translated by Allen Mandelbaum, Purgatorio. XV. 67-75)

Virgil proposes that if one considers good people to be like mirrors, and the embodiment of all Good as light, then when good people act in concert, more of the ultimate Good is shared. I am quite sure that there are some Dantean scholars who would take offense at my summation of Virgil's argument, but even this possible misinterpretation makes sense in terms of human experience. It is true that good people shine like a beacon in the night, and that a community of good people acting together seem to burn with the fire of a thousand suns, and that it would probably be a testament to both the goodness of the soul and the worthiness of the cause that there are moments when the aforementioned figures of speech are not considered trite, melodramatic, or simply cliché.

Which brings me back to Chesterton's observation on Browning. I have come to realize that it is both my privilege and duty to be an occasion for joy—to be a happy man, and by doing so, bring happiness to others. I have long ceased to worry about what to put on my gravestone, or of the legacy that I will leave behind when my time comes. All I know is that when my time comes, I will meet my Maker with a great big smile.

I AM S.T.R.O.N.G. Koronadal: The Calm Before the Storm

September 8, 2006.

Despite the arrival of my 2nd son Manuel, I could not beg off Dr. Antonio Torralba's invitation to speak for I AM S.T.R.O.N.G. in Koronadal, South Cotobato. I would love to say that I was challenged by the opportunity to address an audience that I rarely have the opportunity to be of service to, or with whom I seem to have very little in common with. But honestly, I was more intrigued by the fact that when I googled the search terms "Koronadal" and "Marvella Hotel", I got a grand total of four hits, two of them from blogs. I was amazed that I could get more hits with the search terms "progeria" and "Flannery O' Connor", than "Koronadal" and "Marvella Hotel". The lack of information on the capital city of South Cotobato, in a day and age where one could easily receive tons of information regarding the merits of "warp drive" as opposed to "fusion engines" on any decent nerd powered BBS, was, to my mind, inexcusable. And so, here I am.

There are no direct commercial flights to Koronadal City. The preferred route is via PAL, which takes you first to General Santos City, where one then takes a 45 minute drive to Koronadal. Before doing so, we dropped by the Dole Plantation in General Santos. In a country where adherence to international standards is more a function of effective public relations as opposed to the reality of the matter, I was pleasantly pleased to discover that Dole was ISO certified, and proud of it. Andrea de Guzman, my bubbly former student and co-speaker, was barred from entering the premises because she wasn't wearing closed shoes. Despite Andrea's impressive attempts to charm her way into the compound, the security guard firmly, but politely, informed her that she couldn't enter. Once inside, I was impressed not only by the facilities, which reminded me of a well-maintained private school, but by the professional demeanor of the workers we passed by. After dropping by the Dole souvenir shop, where I purchased souvenirs that my stomach will always cherish, at least for the 2.6 hours it would take for it to completely digest the mixed fruit cups and Pineapple Watermelon juice that I painstakingly selected, we set off for Koronadal.

Marvella Plaza Hotel is a cozy, comfortable place, with a warm and efficient staff. The rooms in themselves are nothing great, but the facilities are clean and the service is top notch. When I started unpacking, I discovered, to my dismay, that I didn't pack the adaptor for my Sony Ericsson charger. When I asked the staff for help, they immediately got one for me. Marlon, the all-around service technician of Marvella Hotel, even called me up in the room to make sure that the adaptor worked. Cool.

Once again reassured about the state of humanity, at least in Marvella Hotel, Koronadal City, I was in high spirits when Dr. Torralba treated us to a sumptuous lunch at Arpochi Seafood House, which is situated right beside the Koronadal City Sports Complex.
Arpochi (which was named, according to its proprietress, Mrs. Tagadaya, after her three pamangkins, Ara,Poging, and Chino), is a very charming, unpretentious carinderia-type of eatery that teases the olfactory pleasure centers with the scents of food so pure and unaffected that it recalls the delicious innocence that characterize Man before the Fall. Arpochi serves only five items: crabs, prawns, native chicken, squid and lapu-lapu. When we got there at around 1:30 pm, we were told that they had just run out of squid and lapu-lapu. Nevertheless, led by the wafting bouquet of culinary nirvana that Arpochi deliberately, and cruelly subjects all its customers to, we decided to order the crabs, prawns and the native chicken. What followed next was utter, delightful, joyful chaos. Never had so few, tried to ingest so much, with so much gusto and with so little regard for personal health than we, as mountains of crabs, prawns and chickens fell before our hunger like my brother-in-law Mike's manful self-discipline was eventually overcome by Adidas and Nike outlet sales.

So far, so good. The Koronadal Experience is shaping up to be quite a delightful one.

Manuel is Born!

It is with great pride that I would like to announce the arrival of my son, Manuel Zamora Borra, on this day of our Lord, the 5th of September, 2006. He came in early, at a hefty 8.625 lbs and 51 cm. I would've liked to comment on how Manuel came into this world with both eyebrows visibly intact, but that would be a slight to both my mother and Juan
, who have to continually insist on the possession of eyebrows where none can be seen...Oh, I did? Well, while I make it up to both my mother and my son (fortunately, the miasma that is their ire is nothing that chocolates can't disperse), here are some pictures of Manuel. Enjoy!

Epic Poetry in Motion: Hellas beats Team USA

"I fear the Greeks, even when they bring gifts."

One could easily attribute Team USA's shocking 101-95 loss to an inspired Greek team to the decline of liberal education in the Western hemisphere. After all, even a casual student of Virgil (and by this I refer also to the average University of Asia and the Pacific student) would have known better than to underestimate a people known for both their resilience in the face of annihilation (Thermopylae and Marathon spring to mind) and their patient, passionate rationality even under the merciless heel of conquering foes (one could hardly deny the impact of Greek thought on Roman culture). Yet, instead of making overblown, pretentiously untenable remarks on the state of education and international basketball, let's just stick to basketball for the meantime. I'm sure that there is an audience for a paper on "The Follies of Forgetting: Anamnesis as an Integral Component to International Basketball", but that audience would probably consist of just myself and my geek (not Greek) friends.

First, here are some links to get you started. Charley Rosen, basketball curmudgeon extraordinaire, comes up with a list of reasons to account for Team USA's loss. Not surprisingly, Rosen comes up with eight eloquently worded reasons with a single recurring subtext: "I told you so." Still, he makes excellent observations regarding the state of professional basketball in the US:

"The most basic of the cultural factors that is destroying the beauty of basketball-as-we-should-know-it is America's obsession with numbers: The stock market and its fluctuations. The GNP and the unemployment rate. Ubiquitous rankings and poll results. Test scores. Gross and net worth. Ledger entries in red or black ink. What's your APR? Your IQ? Your credit rating? Who's Number One?

In virtually every aspect of our society, value is expressed in numerical terms. This makes us unwitting captives of a linear mode of thinking that doesn't truly honor the mystery of the human spirit — or the complexities of the games we play and watch.

No wonder that, in the wonderful world of the NBA, the players, the fans, and the media are infatuated with statistics. Points scored, shots taken, rebounds corralled, assists distributed, and so on. However, except for games played and minutes played (and sometimes Personal Fouls), these numbers are concerned only with what happens when a player is in the immediate proximity of the basketball.

That's why so many of us are mesmerized by the ball/spotlight.

That's why American hoopers have such brilliant ball skills and particularly excel in one-on-one and two-on-two situations.

That's why a team of smart, experienced, and cohesive players, who can't come close to matching our athleticism, beat us so consistently in top-flight international competition."

Henry Abbott at TrueHoop provides a useful repository of pre-screened links to insightful basketball analysis on Team USA's defeat in the blogging community. I'm almost embarrassed to mention this at this late stage in my blogging, but TrueHoop is one of my first stops on the Net. I've long been a fan of both Mr. Abbott's sincere and intelligent appreciation of the sport, and his hard work in putting a cohesive and enjoyable hoops blog for the educated basketball aficionado.

This belated, and well-deserved citation of Mr. Abbott's blog brings me to another Net pleasure, The Mighty MJD. Check out the entry entitled Break Out The Olive Oil. Though The Mighty MJD has a regrettable tendency to lapse into profanity every once in a while, he's funny, informative, honest and sneakily intelligent. His astute observations on sports and popular culture make him a pretty reliable Net stop after TrueHoop.

I wasn't able to watch Hellas beat Team USA as my wife and I are hurriedly making belated preparations for the arrival of our second son, Manuel, who's arriving a little too early for our OB GYN's tastes, but I must confess that it was surprisingly satisfying to find out that they did. Let's not try to read any sociopolitical subtext into this, mind you. I'm just speaking as a sports fan. The fact that I try, on a semi-regular basis, to express myself in more or less American English should attest to the fact that I really don't engage in any US inspired bashing. As a sometime athlete reared on movies such as The Loneliness of the Long Distance Runner and Hoosiers, it was a pleasure to hear of yet one more instance when the whole was worth more than the sum of its parts, that a talented bunch of individuals were able to find that elusive state of perfection where creative individual talents were harnessed into a coherent game plan. That's all.

Still, I can't help but wonder. What if Coach K and the members of Team USA were schooled in classical literature?