Liveblogging: Ateneo vs. De la Salle!

Given my almost dismissive attitude towards the basketball rivalry between Ateneo and La Salle, it should come as no surprise that I am devoting this entry towards live blogging their final encounter this UAAP season. As Winston Churchill, who was then quoted more famously by John F. Kennedy, once said, "I would rather be right than consistent." There's no denying the simple fact that for many of my friends, the Ateneo-La Salle game represents more than just a frenetically charged hoops encounter between two storied rivalries. It's an event of, if not quite biblical, then certainly epic proportions.

Besides, in lieu of braving it out with the rest of our hoops-crazy friends, we decided to watch the game, suitably fortified with chips and drinks, at St. John, the preschool that my sons go to.

2:16 pm.

Just went over Rafe Bartholomew's response to the good-natured ribbing he got over his New York Times article on the Ateneo-La Salle rivalry. Judging from the elegantly irreverent entries he posts on his blog, I believe him when he says that the New York Times editors had a lot to do with the blandness of the published work.

Ralph just came in to set up. He reports that the other members of our Ateneo barkada finally got tickets to the game. Just when Ralph starts warming up, Tina starts talking about work. Ralph quickly decides to activate Robo-Ralph, a barely functional operating system that he trots out during emergencies so he can continue to work on something more important. It's sort of like Parallels Desktop for the Mac, only funnier, because Robo-Ralph is unfailingly polite, and almost as bland as a feature article on Philippine sports worked over by the New York Times. Good times!

2:35 pm.

Still no Papot, or Ther. My sister Joey, her husband Mike, and my godson Miguel are here though. In totally unrelated news, I still can't find a picture of La Salle hotshot JV Casio, though there are millions of pictures for Ateneo shooter Chris Tiu. Anyone care to posit a theory for this?

Robo-Ralph's busy trying to look for "work" to do, while Ralph tries to figure out how to configure to couches in front of the TV so that people can watch, grab food and drinks, make snarky comments, and not cut in front of the TV. The logistics involved in the entire operation are mind-boggling. He might need diagrams soon. Joey's bugging Ralph about his arrangements. Fortunately, Robo-Ralph is still active, so her sarcasm is met with pleasantries. Deep inside, Ralph is dying. But in the interests of the ol' alma mater, he will make sacrifices. "To give, and not to count the cost..."

2:47 pm.

Papot and Ther are here! Now the whooping can start in earnest.

2:57 pm.

The endless dancing on Studio 23 was beginning to grate on all of us. Thank God, the pregame's on. There's some shooting game going on, and Mike begins the festivities by commenting on the performance of the Ateneo alumni shooters. "And that zero was brought to you by the Ateneo!"

Robo-Ralph's still doing "work".

3:07 pm.

Game time! Nobody can work an audience into a frenzy like my old professor, Sev Sarmenta. He's using his best stuff right now, and the crowd goes wild! Well, the St. John crowd goes wild, at least. Happily, Sev looks much the same, and the touch of silver seems to be working wll for him. Some men would kill for his full head of hair. I'm babbling, I know.

Still no game. The suspense is killing Ralph. Both of him.

3:23 pm.

Finally! Ateneo wins the tip. Not that it means anything, in the greater scheme of things. Turnover! On the next possession, La Salle scores. Damn! We have to find a solution to that trapping defense.

Thank God that Malabes remains the shooter who can't shoot. He's keeping Ateneo in the game. Francis Zamora and I had a conversation about him last night. He's trying to find ways to keep Malabes chained to the bench.

3:38 pm.

Long strips Maierhofer, but his pass is almost picked off before Escueta retrieves the deflection before being fouled going to the hoop. He he. I just wrote "Long strips Maierhofer". I'm suddenly afraid that a Google search might find me lumped in with pornographic or slash fiction sites.

3:43 pm.

Salamat with a picture perfect drop pass to a cutting Al-Husseini. I don't know what annoys me more about the previous sentence: that I have to concentrate while spelling Al-Husseini, or that I ruined a perfectly good alliteration by specifying that Salamat delivered an excellent drop pass.

3:48 pm.

And an Eric Salamat steal makes it 14-16. La Salle's on top, but a succession of heady plays from Salamat got Ateneo within two. I'm still resisting the urge to make the all-too-obvious pun. Still, Salamat!

4:08 pm.

I'm starting to worry, and not about the team. Ralph's about to burst a vein, and Chris Padilla is the oldest man in the room, so we might have a problem if Ateneo doesn't win. Every possession is a cardiac concern.

Malabes continues to provide hope...for Ateneo. May he never stop looking for his shot!

End of half, and La Salle is ahead, 29-26.

4:35 pm.

"Ateneo has never beaten La Salle four times in the same season." Not that Samsung Mobile is trying to put even more pressure on Ateneo. Facts are facts, after all. Here's another one. "Samsung has never sold more mobile phone units than Nokia." Two can play that game, Samsung.

For some reason, the "big" men of Ateneo, and I use the term here loosely, have played underwhelming basketball. If it weren't for guards Chris Tiu and Jai Reyes we would still be scoreless.

4:40 pm.

Arao finally gets the ball in the post. Two points! More of that, please!

Eric Salamat and Ford Arao go to the line two more times and nail all their free throws. La Salle is up, 40-39, but Ateneo's on a run. Isn't life grand when your players nail their free throws? Norman Black seems to agree, as he's showing more color now than at the start of the coverage. And no, I'm not going into color at this point. Suffice to say, Coach Black was a trifle pale when the game began.

5:01 pm.

Our "big" men have yet to assert themselves in this game, while our guards are killing themselves penetrating and dropping off to our hapless behemoths. This doesn't look good. I could live with a defeat, but Ralph and Chris are on the verge of collapse.

Ty Tang is killing us! He's nailed several shots to beat the shot clock already.

5:06 pm.

Salamat makes a gutsy drive, and one, to put Ateneo within six, 55-49. Hope springs eternal.

5:23 pm.

Jai Reyes for 3! It's now 60-62, La Salle ahead with 12 seconds. We have to foul.

5:24 pm.

We fouled the wrong guy. Rico Maierhofer, concluding a sterling performance at the wing, ices it with a free throw. La Salle wins 65-60. Chris Tiu winds up with more rebounds (8) than any of the Ateneo "big" men. Should we even dignify them with the term "big" after this disastrously Lilliputian effort? I'm exhausted! Congratulations to the Green Archers!


Photo Credits:

Picture of Chris Tiu comes courtesy of Aaron Vicencio's Photo Galleries.

Flotsam and Jetsam: Ateneo-La Salle, iTunes U

I came across Raphael Bartholomew's studiedly fair, but nicely bland article on the rivalry between Ateneo and La Salle through my good friend Jayvee Fernandez, blogger wunderkind extraordinaire. Funny how basketball seems to embody quite a lot of things to quite a lot of people in the tropical paradise that I call home. A shame about the, I suspect, many factors that Mr. Bartholomew had to take into consideration in writing his article, which really hamstrung the piece as a whole. Still, it provides me with an opportunity to plug Jayvee's site, A Bugged Life, where he comes up with decidedly more interesting geeky fare such as the entry entitled Undressing the Inspiration of Souls, Descendant of Seneca, That Which is Named Omnipotens, Son and Daughter of Leviathan. A mouthful, but only in the sense that it should be full in a Godiva sort of way.

It's been awhile since I visited iTunes U, but only because I had just finished Professor Hubert Dreyfus' wonderfully disputatious lecture series on Dante Alighieri's Divine Comedy in the University of California Berkeley section. They have quite a number of prestigious universities involved now, with one or two surprises from the lesser known institutes of higher learning. I'd recommend Al Gore's lecture "The Earth in the Balance" in the Stanford Environmental Science section. Good stuff. He should never have lost to Bush, but then, he talked like a Windows 98 NE version of the fabulous Tiger OS Gore we all know and love now.

Acquired Tastes: Before They Are Hanged

It seems that the good Lord would have me learn some patience. Otherwise, why would He have made the air traffic at London Heathrow so interminably bad that it delayed our departure by a full hour? As a result, I find myself waiting for Cathay Pacific's 10 pm flight to Manila, instead of the earlier 4:30 pm flight that I so wanted to catch. By the time I get home, my boys will be asleep. Grr!

Yet, not all is lost. Whilst I was in Merrie Old England (and I ask my English friends for my gruesome attempt at approximating British banter, but barely bearable alliterations always have been a weakness of mine), I read the second book of Joe Abercrombie's The First Law series, Before They Are Hanged. As I wrote earlier, Abercrombie, in his inimitably British way, what with the deliciously dark, subversive bent he brings to a brand of humorous epic fantasy that seems to have interred itself with the decomposing wit of David Eddings, is a marvelous read. Here's the synopsis that the publishers provided at the back cover:

"We should forgive our enemies, but not before they are hanged." Heinrich Heine

Superior Glokta has a problem. How do you defend a city surrounded by enemies and riddled with traitors, when your allies can by no means be trusted, and your predecessor vanished without a trace? It's enough to make a torturer want to run – if he could even walk without a stick.

Northmen have spilled over the border of Angland and are spreading fire and death across the frozen country. Crown Prince Ladisla is poised to drive them back and win undying glory. There is only one problem – he commands the worst-armed, worst-trained, worst-led army in the world.

And Bayaz, the First of the Magi, is leading a party of bold adventurers on a perilous mission through the ruins of the past. The most hated woman in the South, the most feared man in the North, and the most selfish boy in the Union make a strange alliance, but a deadly one. They might even stand a chance of saving mankind from the Eaters. If they didn't hate each other quite so much.

Ancient secrets will be uncovered. Bloody battles will be won and lost. Bitter enemies will be forgiven – but not before they are hanged.

Pick it up. The darkly comic was never this...comic. Imagine Ricky Gervais doing Lord of the Rings and you just might have Before They Are Hanged.

Photo Credits:
Picture of Before They are Hanged comes courtesy of Amazon U.K..

Flying Home!

I'll be the first to admit that I have provided better blog entry titles in the past, but I can't really be bothered. Whatever literary pretensions that I have harbored in the past (and a cursory look at my blog history is enough to induce more than an involuntary shudder at the painfully self-indulgent titles I have given inconsequential entries) pales in comparison with the joy that lifts my heart when considering my immediate future: I'm coming home!

Of course, just as soon as I come home, it's off to the salt mines once again, what with my mentor, Dr. Antonio Torralba, desperately in need of a man to do the I AM STRONG talk, "Matters Concerning Young Men" in Pangasinan...

Still, my heart soars already. I'm coming home!

Acquired Tastes: KYAS '07

It is only natural, considering the paucity of artistic talent in yours truly, that I am equally parsimonious in praising the artistic talents of others. As was observed by Tyne Daly, in a delightfully pugnacious quote that was used by my good friend Alexis (before she went Celtic on me), "A critic is someone who never actually goes to the battle, yet afterwards comes out shooting the wounded".

But the years, and the humiliating experience of acting for Kultura's adaptation of William Shakespeare's The Comedy of Errors, where my obvious lack of talent was all the more brought to light by the stellar cast which bravely tried to make up for my deficiencies, have mellowed this crusty young curmudgeon.

Thus, it is with great pride, and more than a little affection, that I would like to extend the following invitation on behalf of the many truly remarkable artists who have made our lovely little community so much happier through their inspired performances. From our friends at Kultura:

Translations

A solo exhibit by multimedia artist Valerie Chua
September 3 to 7, 2007 (Mon-Fri)
Telengtan Hall, 5th Floor, APEC Communications Bldg., UA&P

Hanging Out

A solo concert featuring Athena Tibi
September 13, 2007 (Thu)
7:45 p.m.
Dizon Auditorium, Ground Floor, Development Communications Bldg., UA&P

Indie Trip

A concert featuring Up Dharma Down and Drip
September 21, 2007 (Fri)
7:45 p.m.
Li Seng Giap Auditorium, 2nd Floor, APEC Communications Bldg., UA&P

FREE ADMISSION for all events!

For inquiries, contact 637-0912 loc. 380, 0917-8334564, or kultura@uap.edu.ph, or drop by the Office of Student Affairs at the 1st Landing, APEC Communications Building, UA&P.

*** For non-UA&P audience members, please make sure to bring an ID so you can secure a guest pass at the entrance. Also, please observe the University’s dress code to prevent delays in entering the campus (no slippers or flip-flops, shirts must have sleeves, pants and skirts must fall below the knee). See you there!

Acquired Tastes: New Fantasy Novelists

Longtime readers of epic fantasy like myself, in lieu of waiting with bated breath for the latest opus from either Robert Jordan (whose last effort, Knife of Dreams, was magnificent) or George Martin (whose last effort, A Feast for Crows, was dismal), have taken to exploring relatively new fantasy authors, and with good reason. Newcomers such as Steph Swainston and Joe Abercrombie, if their initial works are a valid indicator of their storytelling gifts, have much to impart to a whole new generation of fantasy readers, at least insofar as characterization and sheer cheekiness is concerned.

Swainston seems further along, at least in terms of artfully distilling both sure-handed characterization and delightfully surreal plotting, though her graphic depiction of the horrors of addiction (in the person of Jant, the winged immortal narrator of her critically acclaimed The Year of Our War) demands a mature sensibility that prevents me from wholeheartedly recommending it to younger readers, as I'm not entirely certain if I'm mature enough to be reading it.

But Abercrombie's book, for all of its pretensions towards generating sympathy for its supposedly blatantly characterized anti-heroes, is really all about heroes. All his principal, supposedly "grim" and "morally compromised" heroes may dally with the darker aspects of the human experience from time to time, but they never seem to seriously want to live the life of the morally bankrupt. Plus, they're great fun and wonderful wits, not in the almost unbearable way that the characters of David Eddings can sometimes be (seriously, how can almost everyone in the Belgariad possess the same gently subversive humor and adopt the same patterns of slyly affectionate wit?). Despite the blurb on the back cover, and the stubborn insistence of its main characters, this book is a celebration of heroism, in spite of it all.


Photo Credits:
Image of The Blade Itself comes courtesy of Amazon.