Food for Aliens

Nowadays it is very easy to learn anything that there's really no excuse for anybody not to learn something new everyday except extreme laziness. In fact, all you need to do is go online, ask Google for a step-by-step video demonstration on Youtube and voila, you can be an expert at anything.

Three minutes. That's how long it took to learn how to make Sushi. It's so brilliantly simple that the whole process just felt so beautifully zen, so wonderfully Japanese.

Sushi 101. Sticky japanese rice+salmon+carrot+cucumber. 

When I think about Japan and the Japanese, I always have this idea of them as kind of an alien race. How they always seemed so mentally advanced, coming up with out-of-this-world ideas like Ultraman or Tamagochi, Casio watches, Sadako, Hello Kitty, Hentai, Harakiri, Harajuku, Dragon Ball Z, Yoko Ono, the list of perverted pleasures go on.

Yoko Ono at her performance art, "Cut piece." 1965. 

Even their flag is so strikingly strange and elegant that only they could possibly think of putting a bloody red circle smack in the middle of a white cloth and pull it off as their national identity. Of course it might also trigger a vision of fresh white panties and the first blood stain of a 14-year old Lolita, but isn't that kind of the point?

What does this remind you of? 

Anyway going back to Sushi, I start to think of the Japanese and how far ahead they seem to be from the rest of us. I mean just think about it, you're one of the first few people in the world, and you're sitting alone trying to figure out what to do with fish, seaweed and boiled rice. Would you really think of rolling your food and cutting it into pretty little round pieces?

It sounds so easy but would you really think about doing it? I bet, being the sensible (and lazy) human being that you are, you will do the right thing and try to stuff them all in your mouth with your hands.

Fat sushi vs. slim sushi. 

As I stare at my sushi, I think to myself that THIS is where the genius of the world lies. THIS is what separates the artist from ordinary everyday people. The discipline and the ability to create sushi, to find something neat and meaningful in a world of chaos and mediocrity. Maybe sushi is the answer to life's biggest question and the Japanese - with advanced chip processors lodge in their brain centers since the 8th century - knew it all along.

Okay, maybe this also means that I have watched too many X-Files episodes and have spent a major part of my adolescent years thinking about aliens and existence, but damn you Japanese and your Sushi. You are weird, and you are awesome.

It's 2014, and I made my first-ever sushi. Evolution. 

Staring at Walls

Before I came to Dubai  I had this bad idea of a fake city devoid of any art, culture, history or inspiration. All I ever knew about it were all the superficial superlative stuff - the tallest buildings, the gold, the Louis Vuittons, the Ferraris and Lamborghini’s of the affluent Arab masters. 

Perhaps in some ways, on the surface it is true, but I would now rather reserve judgment. The truth is Dubai, of all places, has gotten me face to face with Art, as much as it did with consumerism.

Unimpressed with the grand shopping festival culture, I was drawn to the inner dungeons of the city, and pretty soon found my way to the backstreets of Al Quoz, in spacious empty warehouses converted into comfy loft galleries.

"Saying goodbye means forgetting." This sculpture reminded me of Peter Pan.

A collection of war portraits painted based on real photos.

Growing up in the Philippines, where much of high-brow art was reserved for the buyers or the academe, my initial idea of art galleries was synonymous to my idea of museums, which is pretty much lethargic, confined to memories of boring school field trips.

By this I mean, staring at hanging paintings on the wall didn’t really appeal to me as a cool activity until Dubai, where the galleries have more to offer than any mall, and where staring at art seemed more interesting than  staring at people getting drunk in a bar.

To its credit, in a few short years, Dubai has managed to attract a bustling creative scene, that after three years of hosting the annual Art fair every March, it apparently has become one of the major avenues for showcasing the region's best on a global platform.

Filipino visual artist Mark Ganzon was commissioned to paint the Art Bus
that can take you to all the Galleries around the UAE for 50dhs 

Women behind bars, ignoring the open door.  

The Conductor.

Art as therapy.

My favorite author Kurt Vonnegut once said that “the arts is very human way of making life more bearable.” He couldn’t have said it better.  Perhaps I will never learn enough of art history, or be anywhere close to drawing a straight line, but what I’ve seen is enough to compel me to write and drag people out of their comfort zones into a strange world of walls that talk.

More my style. A collection of woodworks by
Spanish grafitti artist Ruben Sanchez.

Threads and tongues.

Where are the superheroes? A bold statement by FN Designs.

Don’t take my word for it! Check out the interesting exhibits at the Sikka Art Fair at the old Dubai Museum,  Al Serkal Avenue in Al Quoz, the Gate Village in DIFC and Madinat Jumeirah. Art Dubai opens every second week of March. For a full calendar of activities log on to : https://www.facebook.com/DubaiCultureArtsAuthority

Manila is not just a Brown Envelope

An old blog entry. January 2008.

It is a Sunday, the lazy sun is about to set here in Manila as I type this down on my old room where its never quiet, honks and engine roar from the jeepneys below, bells from the ice cream vendor, endless murmurs of passersby, kids playing outside...all these while sunlight strikes my window and a cool breeze blows from the curtains.

Manila Bay Sunset. (Not my photo, grabbed from Internet)

I am here and I still feel homesick, like I haven't been living in this town, or in this country ever since, or as if I've already left. It's funny coz I started this year feeling I should be somewhere else, doing something else. I don't know. I still feel that way most of the time, but right now I am sitting here, typing with my coffee and the classic egg pie from the bakery right across -  and I'm good. Sometimes this is all I need. A moment. A still frame that delays the passing of time, even for just a few stops.

I've realized that I will always long for Manila, especially the city, the old Manila where I used to live with my parents, where I studied high school, took up university, where I landed my first job at fledging PR and events company run by obsessive compulsive people.

It was in a house in Malate, I had this one corner where I wrote about all kinds of stuff, from furniture, to Chinese cuisine, Macanese festivals, hotel promos, budget travel, rubber shoes, grilled burgers and even yatch spare parts, name it. After work, I'd walk around the cultural center and breathe some badly needed air, badly polluted but who cares, watch the sun go down on Manila Bay, with joggers, lovers and sea leeches all in tow.


Last week I took a trip down there, old Manila, with some business I had to attend to, but still it was refreshing to be walking down its streets again. The orange jeepneys, crowded Taft avenue, the LRT, the old buildings, 3-star hotels brimming with all sorts of foreigners, bars in Nakpil, all kinds of bars, the streets lined with money changers, 7-11s, government agencies, employment agencies, internet cafes, Starbucks filled with med students who treats it like its their school canteen, fish balls and cigarette stands, an occasional kalesa (horse carriage), cheap paintings portraying rural scenes, all side by side in the streets of Manila.

Kalesa on the main road. Taken with my Holga 2008.

Of course I am aware that there are cellphone snatchers, sleazy pimps, swindlers and street garbage lurking in the background as well, but its all part of the chaos, so i swing my bag in front of me the way any street-smart Manileña would. It was a breezy afternoon like this, I look around, the crisp air whispering stories at me. In fact, every corner, every nook had a story to tell, just lying there waiting for scavengers like me to pick them up.

Somewhere near Binondo. Holga 2008

Carriedo LRT station. Holga 2008. 

But all is not lost, because I know someday these scenes will somehow find its way here and reappear in another world, fictitious or not. For now, I just want to share this feeling of homesickness, and the joy of finding those lost streets again, and maybe share with friends abroad, those thinking to go abroad, or even those just thinking of going on a vacation tour to some other country, or those who have never been here, that there is really so much of life here in Manila. It might not be the clean, progressive, chewing-gum and smoke-free city or the peaceful away-from-everything else paradise island that they have out in the south, but if you're looking life and stories like I do, I have to say, Manila will not dissapoint.

Ssssh. Manila Motel Rates. Holga 2008.