- A man spared the guillotine is a grateful man indeed, and will go to the ends of the earth for the man who has pardoned him.
- Since honesty rarely strengthens friendship, you may never know how a friend truly feels.
- There is almost a touch of condescencion in the act of hiring friends that secretly afflicts them. The injury will come out slowly: A little more honesty, flashes of resentment and envy here and there, and before you know it your friendship fades. The more favors and gifts you supply to revive the friendship, the less gratitude you receive.
- Ingratitude has a long and deep history. It has demonstrated its powers for so many centuries, that it is truly amazing that people continue to underestimate them.
- The problem with using or hiring friends is that it will inevitably limit your power. The friend is rarely the one who is most able to help you; and in the end, skill and competence are far more important than friendly feelings . . . keep friends for friendship, but work with the skilled and competent.
- A person who has something to prove will move mountains for you.
- Without enemies around us, we grow lazy. An enemy at our heels sharpens our wits . . .
- Never let the presence of enemies upset or depress you — you are far better off with a declared opponent or two than not knowing where your real enemies lie.
- A man of power . . . often has dirty work that has to be done, but for the sake of appearances it is generally preferable to have other people do it for him; friends often do this best, since their affection for him makes them willing to take chances.
Month: October 2014
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Self stopped by London in April 2014. Her friend, poet Joan McGavin, accompanied her to Kensington Gardens. We looked for the new Serpentine Gallery but never found it. Instead, we stumbled across this:
Kensington Gardens, London: April 2014 The Serpentine is a beautiful, meandering river. Signs alongside tell viewers what kind of water fowl to be on the lookout for.
Sign along the Serpentine: April 2014 The day after self arrived in London, there was a tube strike. This sign at the entrance to the Russell Square Station said it all:
London Underground, Russell Square Station: April 2014 Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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This piece appeared in the Fall 2011 issue of Our Own Voice, a magazine of the Filipino diaspora.
There’s a legend about General Yamashita, who the U.S. held accountable for war crimes in the World War II occupation of the Philippines. Yamashita was executed shortly after the war, after a brief trial.
They say he stashed away bars of gold bullion, and treasure hunters have been trying to find the riches ever since.
Self suddenly recalled this piece after listening to Joanne Diaz, a poet, whose reading in Moe’s Books self attended last night, along with Jay D and Lillian H, who belong to her fabulous writing group.
Joanne Diaz is an AWESOME reader. Self bought the two collections that were on sale last night: My Favorite Tyrants (which won the 2014 Brittingham Prize in Poetry), and The Lessons.
“The Seeker of Buried Treasure”
He was a shaman. Oh, something very old.
Like the turtle you forgot about that grew to 10 times its size in your mother’s garden.
My uncle looked for the gold bars, you know.
Under the old fort.
Why would they be there? Why would General Yamashita leave them behind? Underneath an old fort in Manila?
Tell me where I can find it, the treasure that the Tiger of Malaya stole, the gold Buddha, the bullion.
You remember.
The necklaces of diamonds and jade . . .
The rest of self’s piece can be found here.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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Today, all kinds of signs:
Graffiti on the stairs to the tower of Great Saint Mary’s Cathedral; Signs at a train station in Wales (Self was immensely fascinated by how different Welsh sounded from — English. DUH!); and book covers for discovered writers.
The Daily Post challenge for the week tells us to publish an image of a sign. So far this week, self has been interpreting the prompt very literally:
Graffit sighted on the climb to the top of Great St. Mary’s Cathedral in Cambridge, UK: May 2014 
This is what “Welcome to Colwyn Bay” looks like in Welsh! Sighted on the train from Holyhead, Wales to Euston Station, London: May 2014 
Fell in love with the poetry of Marcus Cumberlege when she ran across one of his collections at the Tyrone Guthrie Centre in Annaghmakerrig. Scoured all the bookstores in Dublin, but had to go to Kenny’s in Galway to get their one used copy, a book called FIRELINES. Love. Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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This week’s Photo Challenge from The Daily Post is SIGNS.
“. . . signs are functional, but can also be decorative. Signs can direct us where to go, but they’re also pieces of art . . . “
Wholeheartedly agree!
Below are some signs that evoke sweet indulgence, or humor:
flavors in 21 Choices, a chain in southern California: the best frozen yogurt self’s tasted, by far. 
Hamlet’s advice to Ophelia on a bookmark! Self bought this at the Globe Theatre giftshop, on a visit to London earlier this year. 
Book Cover, Sighted at Vroman’s, in Pasadena. The self-help section of Vroman’s is, like, an acre. Just kidding! Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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A T-shirt self bought in Bacolod. Translation: “I am from Negros Occidental.” (Dear Departed Dad’s Home Province) 
Sighted at the San Luis Obispo Farmers Market, Thursdays year-round 
Aquarius Theatre, Emerson Street, downtown Palo Alto: A fixture of self’s Stanford grad student days. She saw her first Kurosawa movie here: She thinks it was “Kagemusha.” -
Butterfly Lamp, Hotel in Bacolod, Dear Departed Dad’s Hometown 
Ghostly Moon, Backyard 
Chinatown, San Francisco -
This is something self just realized today, after watching “A Walk Among the Tombstones” — she likes Liam Neeson in action mode, she thinks it’s good he’s mostly in action mode these days, she just doesn’t like him as much in drama, even when he was in that Paul Haggis movie with Olivia Wilde earlier this year (“Third Person”), and she likes Liam’s action turn in “A Walk Among the Tombstones” better than Denzel’s in “The Equalizer.”
In fact, self would go as far as saying she thought the script of “A Walk Among the Tombstones” was a pretty smart script. Even if just because it doesn’t seek to rise above its genre, it is a good movie (although generally she cringes at all scenes involving the degradation of women. So, there. Now you know what kind of criminals the movie deals with. The worst scene occurs early on: very poetically shot with tight close-ups. Ugh. So excruciating. The camera never blinks).
The casting of this movie is very smart. At a certain point during a chase scene, we are treated to a full-body shot (from the side) of Liam Neeson running. Wow, that guy runs with such intensity, it is wonderful to behold. She’d classify Neeson’s running right up there with Owen Wilson’s shamble.
Casting her mind back to “The Equalizer,” self finds that she has already completely forgotten what the movie was about (and she saw it less than a week ago). The only scene she remembers with any clarity is the one where Denzel ushers a pack of Asian women out of a factory where they have been processing illegal contraband, but does it as if he’s a Sunday-school teacher ushering out a pack of 12-year-olds. Like he’s not just handing each woman thick wads of cash. That was a good scene.
In both movies, the viewer is never in any doubt that the hero will prevail (Though self remembers seeing “The Grey,” which was possibly the worst downer of a Liam Neeson movie self ever remembers seeing). So it’s all the more worth it if the movie has flourishes that offer a few surprises. The acting, for instance. Which was across-the-board good in “A Walk Among the Tombstones.” (All self can really remember from “The Equalizer” is Denzel’s acting. Which is pretty much a given, come on. And don’t get her wrong: a movie full of Denzel is always welcome. But that’s ALL she can remember from “The Equalizer”)
The other thing self remembers thinking while watching Neeson is that George Lucas did him no favors by casting him as Obi-wan-Kenobi. As he also did no favors for Ewan MacGregor when he cast him as the young Obi-wan. As he also did no favors for Natalie Portman when . . . ok, you get her drift. It is a very, very fortuitous thing for Denzel that he made no appearances in a “Star Wars” movie.
The source material for “A Walk Among the Tombstones” is impeccable: the work of Lawrence Block, whose books self has read and enjoyed.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Kanlaon 