‘The Spirit of Delight’

Virginia Woolf speaks of visits by the ‘spirit of delight’, and my friend Carol Gibson of the same experience. As does my partner in ‘magic moments’. And I am reminded of it by Proust’s ‘madelaine’, the taste of which sets off ‘A la recherché du temps perdus’ (‘Remembrance of Things Past’). And I am occasionally and unexpectedly found by this seductive phantom. And wait and long for more.

Yesterday - remarkably - there were several calls.

The first was brought on by the perfume base of the cold cream worn by a tall slim elegant late thirty-something woman in a Cuban restaurant, ‘Café Havana’ in Malate, one of the districts in the former night life (i.e. sex industry) area of the city. Which is now re-constructing itself as a trendy hip Paddington (Sydney) Chelsea (London) Soho (New York) shopping, dining out and clubbing scene.

And then twice later in the evening in ‘The Library’, a gay karaoke-Comedy Café venue. Similarly evoked by the same scent.

The delight was in the intense and vivid sensations associated with passively imaging, in a random fashion, the very specificness of the ordinary day-to-day lives of each of these people. The actuality of the feel, colour and odour of their clothing, and of the objects in the rooms in their houses. The essences of their children, partners and lovers. The particular way they moved about. Their gestures. And the manner of conducting the events of each day in their social roles. Particular to and defining them.

There is no effort in undertaking this imagining and no need to consciously direct my thoughts. I am simply guided, unexpectedly this way and then that.

Curiously, and like a shape-shifter, the spirit assumes many forms, almost as many at the number of visitations. Which is integral to the pleasure it brings. At least for me. It has been the still recognizable smell of the paper of my first ‘John and Betty’ Reader in primary school. And the cool hard finger touch of the surfaces ad edges of the large cut-glass beads of my grandmother’s costume jewellery. I guess if there is any underlying continuity, it’s something visceral and emotional. But the sensation is not that first experienced – it’s the remembrance of it. And through the passage of time, the emotion has in some way been distilled and intensified. Like a good stock.

I need to be ready for these moments to be able to fully appreciate them. Cos they are so fleeting. Maybe five minutes if you are very very lucky. I drop everything and, perhaps like Bernadette of Lourdes, and many of the Catholic saints for that matter, drift into a near dream-like state to fully immerse myself.

Mmm. Better take my medication!

But seriously, do any of you know this?

To Market To Market

Walked past Guadalupe Market earlier in the week and have been itching to go in ever since. Today was the day. So into a tricycle … .

The entrance – promise of things to come:

Attracting attention:

Dead animal act (Birdie - 'All About Eve'):

‘Will you buy, some of my supply’ (Billy Holiday - 'Love for Sale'):

More ingredients for dins:

We’re so funny:

‘I’m not ready for my close-up Mr de Mille’:

'The eyes have it':

Something fishy going on:

More fishiness:

‘No guts please’:

‘Eggs-actly’:

We’re still pretty funny:

Heading back home:

A pleasant shop window diversion:

Now that guy obviously totally knows what to do with his mouth!

Rockwell – A Snazzy Adjunct to Noddy Land

We’ve booked in for the three months of our stay into a unit at Manansala, Rockwell Centre, a gated estate in the Makati district – a bit like Beverley Hills in Los Angeles, or Knightsbridge in London.

Now Rockwell is a veritable Noddy Land of a mini-suburb with a boggle (the right group word?) of high-rise apartment buildings at its centre. These luxury towers surround the world’s largest swimming pool cum spa. With a plethora of restaurants and pleasuring facilities fringing ‘the waters’.

All of which extend out to a small forest, in case you wanted to … well, you know. This is the Attendant of Trees:

And here are some of the Denizens of the Forest:

And a typical woodland activity;

Adjacent to the pool complex is a four-storey mall, an old converted factory. The Power Plant has three cinemas, a bowling alley, a super fab serious bookstore, every well-known clothes designer (Salvatore Ferragamo, Kenneth Cole, … ), luxury goods stores of every conceivable kind, restaurants serving the widest range of fare … you could live out of it. A monument to high-end consumerism.

We’re on the 27^th floor of the Manansala building, with balcony views like these:

Now just to give you some idea of the insane level of indulgence here, each intersection has at least two and up to four police to smilingly assist you cross. And any shop in the mall will russle up at least two boys to assist you home with the goodies you purchase.

So after a hard day working your credit card half to death, you can collapse on a chair on the balcony to catch the knock-out sunset:

And gobble down your dins of squid and tocino:

But when the revolution comes and the poor rise up and slit the throats of the rich, we’d better bugger off back to Oz!

Particularly as poor persons impersonating the enemy.

The Pleasures of Small Country Towns - Marilao

Just back in the metropolis after a couple of days visiting Aussie friends in Marilao, a small country town thirty kilometres outside Manila. This bustling little hamlet is an ancient centre of jewelery manufacturing.

The scale of the place is lovely. Small low-rise houses, many in a 1950’s international style. With a sprinkling of well-preserved older houses, some dating back to the C18:

It's on a grid of leafy streets, almost overflowing with orchids, bougainvillea, and bromeliads.

We arrived the day of the annual town fiesta, so lots of parades and processions, rivaling those of Semana Santa (Holy Week). Some of the icons in the church waiting to wend their way through the streets:

So, our arrival:

The welcoming band or, alternatively, the local band in parade for the fiesta:

Miss Earth, 2007 visiting from Chile:

Anticipation of some serious cake work:

Curiously, we didn’t see this guy in Marilao:

Or even this one:

This one is definitely not the Mayor of the town:

And these are not two of his councilors, working on a hard community project:

But maybe these are a couple of tourists, relaxing after a strenuous day's sight-seeing:

Finally, back in Manila, looking over the Bay at dusk:

Tired but happy!

Jane Austen – The Movie

Hey guys.

In the air over the Celebes Sea between Indonesia and The Philippines. More yippie – never get tired of flying out and the anticipation of the trip.

Pigged out on vile airline food. Not an oxymoron – I was just bored. And it wasn’t that bad. Maybe.

And have just seen ‘Becoming Jane’. They’ve run out of novels to translate into movies and are now cannibalising her life for material. But a mix of fiction and fact – the basic outlines are there but racy and fast. Authors can draw on their own lives and, then, to a greater or lesser extent. So it’s interesting the screenwriter/s have put the two together. A kind of what-if autobiography-fiction.

Jane Austen is pursued by a hunting-fishing-fighting-rake type and a dullard. And accepts the latter sort of to avoid the difficulties of the former. But within 24 hours takes up spinsterhood. All with some intense snogging and at a cracking pace.

Not quite the Jane I know, but the film would have been pretty killing if the ‘authorized’ version. Though it must be said of the author that she was not the ‘narrow-gutted’ spinster of D H Lawrence. But aggressively critical of the construction and of the social and legal position of women in early C19 England. For example, giving strong focus in a number of the novels to the laws of inheritance disallowing property descending though the female line.

Bout to land so back later!

Jane Austen's brother (not!):

Off Traveling Through Asia!!!

Hey guys, I'm off traveling for a couple of months in Asia - from tomorrow morning. Yippie!

But am taking my trusty puter so will be posting along the way - I know your insatiable appetite for intellectual stimulation ... and more sensual stuff. And my desire-need-whatever to post it out there!!!

I took this pic in a fishing village in the Philippines a couple of years back. One idyllic morning.


So keep well and safe!

Will get something out in the next few days.

The Art of Japanese Haiku

The haiku is a Japanese form verse consisting of 17 syllables in three units: 5, 7 and 5 syllables. It began in the late C19, and is not to be confused with hokku, a starting verse setting the tone for a potential chain of verses or haikai.

The haiku above reads:

Calm and serene
The sound of a cicada
Penetrates the rock
(Matsuo Basho, 1644-94)

And two others:

I long to meet my parents
as they were
before my birth

The crow has flown away:
swaying in the evening sun,
a leafless tree
(Soseki Natsume, 1867-1916)

Often haiku set two disparate images down, each in some way illuminating and intensifying the other. In the last poem, there are two senses of the 'departed'.

Some haiku may seem whimsical:

I want to sleep
Swat the flies
Softly, please.

For love and for hate
I swat a fly
and offer it to an ant
(Masaoka Shiki, 1867-1902)

Each haiku contains a kigo or season work, indicating when the poem is set. The sound of cicadas in the earlier example would suggest early summer.

Haiku were an important influence on certain types of early C20 European avant garde poetry, such as that of Ezra Pound.

Today, this influence is more directly imitative:

The flap of a bat,
drip drip of monsoon waters.
Ancient image stares
(Phil Wahl)

Behold the ego
Set in glowing emptiness
On the edge of time
(Noel Kaufmann)

through the fingerprints
on my window -
cloudless blue sky
(Paul Mena)

Thought I'd try my hand at one - inspired by the following set of images:

Golden sunlight through bare branches
Blond strands of a man's hair
An erotic darkness

Mmmm ... . Better stick to academia! Or I'll risk a long jail term from the quality literature police.

My defense - it's not as easy as it looks.

Wanna try?