Foot and Fire

I decided to send out my thoughts to sail despite the fact that the stirred waters seem to calm down now sometime after Tiktoker Euleen Castro, also known as "Pambansang Yobab," shared in a video her experience in Coffeebreak Iloilo stating that everything she tasted were tab-ang and then freely swore under her breath before a spread of food on her table. This blogpost of mine then is the quiet water coming back to its body after noisily hitting the seawall. Anyhow, I was gently reminded to write this down after reading the news that the Iloilo City Council is being pushed to declare vlogger Euleen Castro as persona non grata. Consultant for the Iloilo UNESCO Creative City for Gastronomy PJ Arañador recommended such a move and noted that declaring her as such will set as a precedent among content creators who should all be sensitive to the livelihood sectors and enterprises whose long years of toil a blogger can only disregard out of his or her own self-promotions, whims a...

  Hallucinations By Oliver Sacks Paper back, 322 pages Published in 2012 by Picador I finished reading this book (the first one from my Sacks pile) a long time ago. I just need a proper sitting to write about this one considering I was awestruck by the narratives and medical experience of Oliver Sacks. I need to go back and forth to the pages to remember the medical conditions and terms. I can't make an exhaustive blog on how I was surprised by the fact how hallucination is actually different from mental illness like schizophrenia.  Oliver Sacks caught my attention because he was the author of Awakenings, the book which the movie starred by my ever-favorite Robin Williams. I did not expect that the movie plot is based on a true story (or I might have forgotten about such a fact) but the movie stuck on me: A doctor in a public health system can make a difference if he pays extra attention to his patient. I wanted to be a public attorney who pays extra a...

Burying the typewriter Childhood under the eye of the secret police By Carmen Bugan Picaodor, 2012, 235 pages with appendices I bought this book from Book Sale at a super steal price of ten pesos without any doubt that it would steal my heart. I am delighted that it did. Of course, the tag is secondary to why I picked this one up because the title lent mystery to it and so mainly, the title caught my attention. I love the visuals attachef to title which refers to a machine that is now buried dead by computers and cellphones as means of communication. And there is some kind of homage in the title to the freedom of expression. Of all defects of democracy I suffer because we are not human if our freedom is repressed. Then comes the secondary title which gives me a bird's eyevew that this book must be about childhood in times of repression of the freedom to express. It turns out, Carmen Bugan mainly transported me to her childhood in Romania which has beauty in its comm...

Humble Pie Gordon Ramsay Autobiography, 2006 Nice read. Written twelve years ago but still introduces Gordon Ramsay very well to those who seldom watches tv series but had been a follower for once by Masterchef US. Though I am an open hater of swearing as while they may represent hatred, jealousy, irritation, fear, anxiety, mood swings, etc to the speaker,  swearing does not communicate to the receiver the message well and they may be everything ill but then nothing. But I was surprised that I finished the not-so-lengthy fast-paced narrative of Ramsay who is fast-talking and known as ill-swearing cook in London. The book is filled with vulgar slangs and swears e.g. bollocks, arsehole, fuck, shag etc but then I kind of smile at them in the end. This is because I am reading, not hearing them. Anyway, I still can't believe it that I was hooked by the life story of Ramsay, a perfectionist in kitchen which explains why his swearing is a bad habit. His first TV series are live and ...

Ghosts by Daylight Janine Di Giovanni Memoir, 2011 When everyone at one time or another dreamed of becoming an archaeologist, thanks to Indiana Jones movies, I, dreamed of becoming a war reporter though international news is far and wide then. I was in high school when the Bosnia and Herzegovina happened and it opened my eyes to the bitter consequences of war. While I read memoirs about lives while the wars were on-going, this is the first time that I got hold of a love story between two war reporters. Their love story started in Sarajevo. What I liked about the memoir is that how the author makes her function as war reporter seem so easy and natural to her, and the settling down and creating a home as difficult as it can get for her. It all lies in her honesty.  I also liked how the author and her spouse wanted to have a child who will bring them to a state of normalcy. Both struggled to put on their new roles. The author survived the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder be...

The Fly Trap Fredrik Sjoberg Translated by Thomas Teal Translation Copyright 2014 Pantheon Books, New York, 278 pages I don't want to admit this but I was trapped like fly to the storytelling of the author. After I finished reading The Fly Trap, I wanted to put names to the birds that visit our subdivision these days, they were varied. This is our second year in our new location. My sister thinks that our place is a birdpath for migratory birds. My theory is whether the presence of varied birds is connected to the activity of Mt. Kanlaon which is in Warning #2 for a long while already. Plus, I can't see Mt. Kanlaon right now from our place because it appears to be surrounded by clouds or replaced by clouds from my point of location. Last year, I definitely looked far because I can see Mt. Kanlaon with vivid outline but now, all can see are the white cottons with mix of blue or black depending when it shines or about to rain which may be clouds or ashes or smoke or mixt...

I still read nonfiction from time to time but I am now fascinated with nonfiction that I bought memoirs, bios and autobios at the recent BIG BAD WOLF BOOK SALE in Cebu City, all for myself. Here, I'm sharing to you my provisions for the next two years, hahahahha!! Oliver Sacks is a classic read. BBW carried other titles there, though not all of his works (I can't find his bestselling The Man who Mistook his Wife for a Hat!!!). So I chose Hallucinations and An Anthropologist from Mars. He was a physician and taught neurology. I read reviews of his books in Brain Pickings and saw the movie Awakenings (based on Sacks' book of same title) which features Robin Williams as Sacks. I can't wait to start even one book of his. If i can, i'll pick up Hallucinations first. Now, I'm hallucinating that I can do that real soon. Stanley, The Impossible Life of Africa's Greatest Explorer by Tim Jeal.  Who does not love Africa when one was still small and full of wonde...

The Republic of Imagination (America in Three Books) Azar Nafisi Hardbound, 328 pages I loved her in Reading Lolita in Tehran because she reminded me not to be a passive reader and to appreciate fiction more, especially when I am in my reading stage when I devote most of my readings on non-fiction, memoirs and autobiography to be specific. I have a long list of readings after Lolita. Her stories in Lolita captivated me because of the fear and danger attached to her founding a reading circle in a totalitarian Iran. Her hunger for readings made me appreciate my freedom to read and I took it upon myself as responsibility to read more. And here comes this book. This is not as fast-paced and as interesting a story as Lolita but Author Nafisi made me rethink here of my reading. In my reading infancy years, reading excites me with stories of varied settings but when I have already made some travels, my reading interests shifted to culture and nonfiction and as I mature as a reader, I...

  The Ethical Executive (Becoming aware of the root causes of unethical behavior: 45 Psychological traps every one of us falls prey to) 2008, Stanford University Press By Robert Hoyk and Paul Hersey I believe, all leaders and decision-makers of a country should read this book. I have read this book years ago and sometimes after I became a public servant. This has been in my mind for a long time already given our social and political realities these days. One lingering question I could not get off my mind after I read this book was when it asked and answered: Why many good people became instruments of the holocaust? This book offered the root causes of unethical behaviors so we can recognize and avoid traps leading to them.      This book has scientific approach, not just some philosophical, religious or business sense to ethics. One has to read the thin book of 118 pages only to understand, but let me run down the 45 traps so you can have a bird's ey...

Apple and Oranges My Brother and Me, Lost and Found By Marie Brenner Softcover, 265 pages I was never wrong to have picked this up. This book was a lucky find at Booksale because I got it for P20, reminding me of that Cornetto ad, Saan aabot ang bente pesos mo? I was more than elated. I just can't get over the fact how the author weave her sibling rivalry into her family's history in a funny and then riveting storytelling. Even how the siblings chose and fought for what they want to do in their lifetime seems to have some connections in the past, like Carl, a lawyer who turned into an Apple Man and Marie, a journalist. They turned out to be not-so-alien when she assessed their lives according to how their ancestors have lived. Just when I am already persuaded that we can never really get into full circle in life if we cannot know our past, there is a sudden change in the story line. There is the urgency to heed Carl's wisdom: Go forward. Just go forward. And just when I am ...

The Bookseller of Kabul Asne Sierstad Paperback, 276 pages Virago, 2004 Kabul is in Afghanistan and Mikrorayon is the hometown of our bookseller. When Journalist-author Asne Sierstad came to buy books from Sultan Khan after she joined the army operations for days searching for news, she became interested to the life lived by the man whose hopes is to build a huge library after the war ends. Sultan Khan had dedicated his life salvaging books in the name of Afghani literature and culture, and in the process, he was able to save some old books from wherever source. But keeping the books safe from illiterate soldiers who burn anything with living things on the cover or anything that seems immoral is a challenge that could even mean his liberty and life.  This extraordinary passion led the author to turn more stones and she proposed to live with the household of Sultan Khan. She was able to live with the Khans for four months and the resulting tale reveals a portrait of an Af...

Eat, Pray, Love Elizabeth Gilbert softbound, 334 pages Memoir, Penguin, 2006 It is hard to start reading a book when one has a slight negative prejudice towards it. Before I saw the movie, I already skimmed a few pages of it in a bookstore and I was turned off by the very idea that the author wanted to avoid: Another tale of prozac-filled brain in a cold urban jungle of New York City by a woman who divorced her husband and a society filled with sexual permissiveness but devoid of spiritual warmth. As a starter, I really hated too much anxiety-filled drama so that I did not decide to read this one then. But I came to read it this June and I am glad I was ready for it. It was a delightful read as it tackles a personal spiritual journey (or I must say, journey towards selfhood). I got her now than when I was skimming the book in my 20s. There is a point in our lives when we are faced with a question whether we made a right decision all along or just tagged along the linear dicta...

The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks Rebecca Skloot,  Paperback, 313 pages 2010 Broadway Paperbacks When we hear the names of pills that cure, we usually do not ask how it came to be. We are simply not interested or have no time to research. We are simply hopeful with the promises of cure, and continue with our struggle to get cured. This may be perhaps because pills' names are not based on the name of a person who has contributed to its formulation. Science wanted to appear scientific which often translates to precision, disinterest and . In this book, the tissue sample taken from the cervix of Henrietta Lacks was named HeLa and she was identified as a woman who eventually died of cervical cancer in 1951 at the age of 31. This footnote in science textbooks and discussions is the springboard of author Rebecca Skloot to ask who is that woman. It eventually became a personal mission for her to know more. Hela was called "immortal" because the first tiss...

To the Stealers of Rembrandts Gerlie Uy (c) 2017 Come on. Not that you admired the fine strokes of his brushes, the thickness of his lines and old paints, or the subtleness of his curves all under the control of his disciplined pulse. Come on. Not that you fathomed the different portraits that he journalled, the landscapes he captured, or the mundane events made extraordinary by him all many events and centuries ago. Come on. Not that you related well in the darkness casted with light, in the plainliness made special, or in the expression of a fearful or watchful eyes in every framed work of art. Come on. You should understand that stealing his work not simply a crime against property, but a heavy crime against all of us: stealing his work seals my chance to see it; You owe that too to your future grandkins.  Come on. You should know by now: a stolen Rembrandts has no ready clean buyers, and everyone wants it back, even...

We Just Want To Live Here A Palestinian Teenager, An Israeli Teenager – An Unlikely Friendship Amal Rifa'i and Odelia Ainbinder with Sylke Tempel St. Martin Griffin US ed. 2003, 153 pages I Am Khan 2010 Bollywood Movie With English Subtitle I picked up the book loaned to me by a good friend thinking I could finish it in one setting but I was wrong and I ended up reading the same in installments. The thin book can actually be read in installment without losing one's way considering it is a moderated exchange of letters. A topic is given and the girls exchange their thoughts on matters such as Talking About Myself, Thinking About the other, Intifada, Travel, Jerusalem, School, The army, and How I become what I am. Along the way, the exchange between the girls becomes an invitation to review the Middle East conflict and to peep to the wishes and dreams of common people who lived their lives caught up in conflicts. Yes, the title sums up everything: We just wan...

The Dressmaker of Khair Khana Gayle Tzemach Lemmon Nonfiction, Harper, 2011 Paperback, 243 pages Khair Khana is in Afghanistan, a country known to me as war-torn and the place where Osama Bin Laden was killed. That is the macro picture. But this book gave me a micro shot of Afghanistan through the story of Kamil and her sisters. Fresh from reading a memoir called Reading Lolita in Tehran, I still have the full grasp on how women were treated when the Mujahideen (holy warriors) are running the Muslim country. Both events narrated in Reading Lolita and the times when the Dressmaker of Khair Khana was established happened in the 1990s and both stories were born out of the fact that women in these two Muslim country were suddenly limited in their clothing and space. This book chronicles the triumph of the human spirit in times of adversity, specifically that of a woman during the precarious times. When suddenly the times changed in Afhganistan, Kamila saw herself alone to ...

Reading Lolita in Tehran Azar Nafisi Memoir, Randomhouse 2003. Paperback, 347 pages This memoir is a sure delightful read among readers as they can immediately connect with the relish of the author in reading in a way that only readers can savor. Though I do not read fiction nowadays, I still can relate to the joy of reading. But amazingly, this book offers more.  While the author and her students reflect on their lack of freedom in their country, Islamic Republic of Iran, in every character or circumstance in the novel that they read, I cannot help myself from reflecting as to how in my country, Philippines, freedom is disregarded simply because it is just around. I can only conclude that want is always a good motivator in achieving something. The memoir tells of a reading circle hosted by the author for two years at her house at the time when universities were either closing or being dictated by Mujahideen (holy warriors) and when the author was out of he...