A dog-eared page from Diane Ackerman's " A Natural History of the Senses"

The Ocean Inside Us 

Our sense of smell, like so many of our other body functions, is a throwback to that time, early in evolution, when we thrived in the oceans. An odor must first dissolve into a watery solution our mucous membranes can absorb before we can smell it. Scuba-diving in the Bahamas some years ago, I became aware of two things for the first time: that we carry the ocean within us; that our veins mirror the tides. As a human woman, with ovaries where eggs lie like roe, entering the smooth, undulating womb of the ocean from which our ancestors evolved millennia ago, I was so moved my eyes teared underwater, and I mixed my saltiness with the ocean's. Distracted by such thoughts, I looked around to find my position vis-a-vis the boat, and couldn't. But it didn't matter: Home was everywhere.

That moment of mysticism left my sinuses full, and made surfacing painful until I removed my mask, blew my nose in a strange two-stage snite, and settled down emotionally. But I've never forgotten that sense of belonging. Our blood is mainly salt water, we still require a saline solution (salt water) to wash our eyes or put in contact lenses, and through the ages women's vaginas have been described as smelling "fishy." In fact, Sandor Ferenczi, a disciple of Freud's, went so far as to declare, in Thalassa: A Theory of Genitality, that men only make love to women because women's wombs smell of herring brine, and men are trying to get back to the primordial ocean -- surely one of the more remarkable theories on the subject. He didn't offer an explanation for why women have intercourse with men. One researcher claims that this "fishiness" is due not to anything intrinsic to the vagina, but rather to poor hygiene after intercourse, or vaginitis, or stale sperm. "If you deposit semen in the vagina and leave it there, it comes out smelling fishy," he argues. This has a certain etymological persuasiveness to it, if we remember that in many European languages the slang names for prostitutes are variations on the Indo-European root pu, to decay or rot. In French, putain; to the Irish, old put; in Italian putto; puta in both Spanish and Portuguese. Cognate words are putrid, pus, suppurate, and putorius (referring to the skunk family). Skunk derives from the Algonquin Indian word for polecat; and during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in England polecat was a derogatory term for prostitute. Not only do we owe our sense of smell and taste to the ocean, but we smell and taste of the ocean.

 got this from 

http://www.american-buddha.com/lit.naturalhistsenses.smell.htm

Thy Fiddle Shall Be My Fiddle by Miracle Romano

If I stripped you bare…

If I desquamated the substantiality
of you being an artist by heart,
I would still see you as a
nonpareil violinist and musician.

…but then if I sheared your reputation
as an impassioned violinist marveled by women,
I would still beam at you as a notable writer.

…and yet if I disregarded the actuality
of you being a wordsmith,
there would be the bookworm and literati
I find myself drawn to.

…but if I pared you
of your knowledge literature-wise,
your likeness to Jude Law would probably be
a reason to make me stick around. =P

…and yet again, if I stripped you bare
from all these attributes…
I would still be left with a beautiful soul…
and no one can take that away.

…but then, I cannot strip you bare
from all these qualities,
And I can only be grateful for knowing you
and having you by my side as a brother,
teacher, bestfriend – or anything we wish
ourselves to be.

I love you dearly… =)

May 08, 2007 

This was written (for my Birthday) by my best-friend, fellow-musician, fellow "polybibliogamist", life-time partner, fellow coffee lover, avid listener on life's woes & pleasures, fellow dreamer, fellow literature "afficionado", Miracle Romano. May you always be with me. Let's symphilosophise & sympoeticise life, Mir!  

photos by: David Cheok (with violin) & Miracle Romano (through a demitasse)

Romantic Notions: My City & it's Alter Ego ( a Memoir)

For the longest time I’ve been in Brunei, I’ve never cruised its famous capital with the curiosity and eagerness of a travel fiend. Being the inept traveler that I am, I was foreign to its inherent wonder.  Until now I do not know which road leads to where, I still stammer in very limited vernacular, finicky and at most times queasy over its culinary specialties.

Accustomed to the hustle and bustle of the city I grew up in, it was an unusual experience to walk its dismal streets and unfrequented shops that suffers neglect one Sunday afternoon. It was therefore a lonesome walk on a city that seems to have its own earthly pace, a distinct dance of its own time. I yearn my city that bursts with life and danced its mundane dance 24/7, I long to see people frolicking in abuse its decrepit roads and its plush malls. My city, it is restless. Restless and never peaceful. My hurried footing is out of mode with the slow and stately manner of this city’s groove.  I long for my city and its people’s vain ambitions. People with big hearts and fragile dreams.  In an instant I felt what I felt the first time I sat foot on this estranged empire: I was a foreigner, a trespasser, alien to its impenetrable beauty, a mere stranger.  I marveled its mini wonders and believed the unbelievable: that a place such as this, existed. A piece of heaven on earth, an abode of peace whose people are timid and resembles a person you live close by or you've once shared a cramped seat on one of your ride to school. 

I sat in the heart of Bandar’s monolithic landmark facing its monumental Mosque, its bodacious dome daubed with gold, bright and proud as the sun boasting its grandeur that exudes through time. It stood still as if waiting for an unrisen Savior. I sat and divined on its glory and arrogance, suffering the silence that shot like a scream from reality. The scream is the city, the city within me.

***

And from a dim, illiterate mind came a line,

just a line

because the second line

comes too seldom.

Bandar, how different you are but familiar

You are beautiful

too beautiful for words

and i only lisp. 

written on December 14, 2008 

この愛

Kristine Clair, Sui Generis

(Kristin Clair and her element, kudos to Carem Lemence for this photo)

“It was another memorable night, an intimate affair that took place in a mere function room of the  “Orchid Garden Hotel”  which seated not more than 30 people waiting in baited breath to be entertained by a girl that emerged on the stage in a stunning Gold dress. Her face wore a smile that showed no sign of staggering genius, so innocent that one can hardly believe that a soul, though foreign to life’s highs and lows, possesses such pathos & whose tiny fingers shows no telltale signs to have mastered semibreves and demisemiquavers to perfection. What goes on around her head at this time, one can only surmise. A lingering melody she’s dying to perform tonight or perhaps a mere flight of fancy girls her age are prone to? If only we can invade her mind right now.  She is yet to deliver another performance, like her other performances, that will leave the crowd in complete awe.”   

                   Once again Kristine Clair Galano(now 10) has proven herself a violinist par excellence as she performs a selection of pieces by Johan Sebastian Bach, Johannes Brahms, Fritz Kreisler & Pablo Sarasate on the eve of 14^th October, 2011 at the Orchid Garden Hotel. She has displayed a potential that brought people to tears and admiration at the tender age of 4, gave solo recitals on Suzuki Books 1 to 4 and received master classes under the tutelage of the world’s finest pedagogues and travelled to New Zealand and (recently) Beijing to hone her God-given talent. A violinist with an untiring heart for delivering music that seems to achieve a step closer to perfection every day. KayCee’s warm timbre on the violin filled the room, and augmented its poor furnishings which are hardly conducive to relay the sound of a ½ size violin. She has converted a heavily carpeted and draped function room into a concert-worthy space as her Scott Cao bursts into every virtuosic passage and heart rending themes with the bravado of an experienced performer. 

                    Her concert started with 2 Kreutzer Etudes (No. 2 & 9) which are stepping stones to every aspiring violinist as it requires considerable techniques:  a secured left hand, precise in every run on the lower and upper reaches of the violin and a disciplined right hand to deliver a very even sautille and detache, attentive to a range of dynamics being specified. Johannes Brahms’ F-A-E Sonata is a standard entry for every performing violinist. One measure of a gifted violinist is how he/she gives justice to a Brahms work. Known to be deeply romantic and technically challenging as it involves dense chords and requires maturity, intensity, drama, mastery on soaring and heart rending melodies that clutches on you like a profound moment, Brahms work is a defining entry for every musician. KayCee, with no magic but sheer talent, did not fall short in delivering Brahms’ oeuvre. It was intense, period. The 2^nd Movement of Bach’s E Major Concerto, a slow, singing and meditative piece of work, followed.  Fritz Kreisler’s Preludium and Allegro is perhaps KayCee’s shining moment to prove her virtuosic skills on the violin. The 2-pages Allegro Movement can leave an ill-equipped violinist panting and aching (eventually spoiling the music) as this piece is technically demanding. She, however, gave a solid performance and manages to smile amidst a whirlpool of notes on the 2^nd page. She proves her prowess on her instrument as she manages the triple stops with such ease and clarity. The piece ended with a thunderous applause. Not a single audience was faking a smile, they were sincere with their applause, spellbound. Pablo Sarasate’s playful yet insanely demanding piece, Caprice Basque, wraps up an evening of musical enchantment.  In this piece KayCee, with no shadow of doubt, is a true talent who deserves the world’s attention. She played every piece with conviction. At 10 years old she has achieved a sense of musicality and ease that of someone who’s devoted a great fraction of her life on the violin’s sensitive and delicate nuances of sound.  She has once again delivered a remarkable performance. But this won’t be her last achievement, just as I will not be the last person writing these words of her, con fuoco.

Dog-Eared pages from Lorrie Moore's "Birds of America"

Birds of America is the celebrated collection of twelve stories from Lorrie Moore, one of the finest authors at work today.

"Willing" 
---

 "Walter leaned her against his parked car. His mouth was slightly lopsided, paisley-shaped, his lips anneloid & full, and he kissed her hard. There was something numb and on hold in her. There were small dark pits of annihilation she discovered in her heart, in the loosening fist of it, and she threw herself into them, falling. She went home with him, slept with him. She told him who she was."

"Which Is More Than I Could Say About Some People" 
---
"Staring out through the windshield, off into the horizon, Abby began to think that all the beauty and ugliness and turbulence one found scattered through nature, one could also find in people themselves, all collected there, all together in a single place. No matter what terror or loveliness the earth could produce-- winds, seas- a person could produce the same, lived with the same, lived with all that mixed-up nature swirling inside, every bit. There was nothing as complex in the world -- no flower or stone -- as a single hello from a human being." 

"Dance in America"
---
"I tell them dance begins when a moment of hurt combines with a moment of boredom. I tell them it's the body's reaching, bringing air to itself. I tell them that it's the hearts triumph, the victory speech of the feet, the refinement of animal lunge and flight, the purest metaphor of tribe and self. It's life flipping death the bird."

October 10, 2011