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You can watch Chris Marker’s La Jetée here

‘I will have spent my life trying to understand the function of remembering. Which is not the opposite of forgetting but rather its lining. We do not remember: we rewrite memory much as history is rewritten.’ Chris Marker, Sans Soleil

‘It’s not enough to love a woman when she is so difficult. You must love her tremendously. More even than one’s own dignity.’ Nicolas Roeg, Bad Timing

‘Life makes sense not when reason tells you that everything is as it should be. Life makes sense when some imponderable and apparently random even confirms your most irrational prejudices about the world.’ From Afghanistan, a novel by Alex Ullmann

I record these bits in a small notebook that I always carry so I’ll have something to read in case I run out of books on the road. It’s like the dead brother’s baseball glove in that much-loved novel, the one that had poems written on it so he wouldn’t get bored while waiting for the pitch. Of course Oscar Wilde recommends never traveling without your diary, because one should always have something sensational to read on the train.

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This just in: Pepe Diokno’s Engkwentro has won the Orizzonti prize (Best feature film in the New Horizons section) of the Venice Film Festival 2009!

Don’t know how the local box-office is doing but after the victories in Cannes and Venice, 2009 is officially a great year for Philippine cinema. I hope whatever official entity is in charge of promoting Filipino cinema uses the opportunity to do a real global marketing campaign. Our filmmakers have done the spade work, don’t leave them out there scrounging for funds so they can show up at festivals and markets.

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The invitations to the Good Ideas Forum have been sent out. If you posted a Good Idea but did not receive an invitation, please repost your idea in the Comments section of this post (so we’re sure to spot it) and The Elves will contact you.

Mourning the Death of Handwriting, in Time.

I keep telling people that writing in cursive is therapeutic. When you write on a computer it’s faster, more efficient, direct to the point. When you write something longhand, you allow your mind to wander and then try to bring it back to the topic. It’s like going off on a riff then returning to the basic melody. Also, writing longhand and then typing it onto a screen forces you to edit and tighten up your work, and I don’t mean just the typos. You won’t believe the sloppy drivel that editors have to make sense of. It’s a good thing there are gun laws. A writer from the 60s once said of mediocrities, “Balian na ng kamay, baka magsulat pa yan.” (Better break their hands, they might write something.) Now they all have keyboards hahaha. They can write with their elbows.

I’ve always loved blank books. How beautiful they look while they’re waiting to be defiled with ink.

They’re bulky and heavy though, and crossing out something you’ve written is agony.

You suspect the beautiful book is sneering at your inept prose.

Writing longhand is a kind of meditation.

Not to mention psychotherapy.

The catch is, no matter how bloodcurdling your journal you can’t burn it.

Happy Solstice and Merry Newton’s Day.

Literary Venice, or How to attract readers without books.

I’ve been using Moleskine notebooks for a couple of years, they’re the perfect companion on trips, and they’ve put up with heavy-but-reasonable use without complaint. Until now.

 

 

This carnet fell apart for no good reason. The binding on the second to the last page before the pocket came apart. The pocket contained two business cards, a concert ticket and a folded receipt, so it wasn’t exactly full to bursting. 

 

 

I take obsessive care of my notebooks—one of the vestiges of my Theresian upbringing—I don’t like dog-eared pages and I especially don’t bend the spine back (shudder). The only explanation I can think of for this disintegrated notebook is that the glue can’t withstand high humidity. Which doesn’t explain why its fellows are in perfect condition.

I still love Moleskines, I’m just a little disgruntled.

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A Czech weekly called Respekt released details from police records in 1950 which suggest that the writer Milan Kundera denounced a person suspected of espionage. The suspected spy was sentenced to 22 years in jail. Was Milan Kundera a rat? Does The Unbearable Lightness of Being ring true if it was written by an informer?

Samuel Abraham says, “the manner of reporting this tragic case represent another substantial drop in the level of decency and professionalism in journalism.” Bernard-Henri Levy reprimands the media and defends Kundera, saying, “”My thoughts are with Milan Kundera. I am thinking about this literary war which has been choreographed with the precision of a ballet, where the first blow leaves the enduring mark and a newspaper, which has the audacity to call itself Respekt, takes it upon itself to destroy you, and all you can do is sit out the beating, bend over double and live out the rest of your days with an infamous shadow which is not your own.”

Visit The First Annual Moleskinerie Exhibit, a retrospective of selected works by Moleskine users from all over. My pocket notebook is the one with the serial killer (freakishly even) handwriting. And I wasn’t even Best in Penmanship. Thanks to Armand and the Moleskinerie team.