read this wonderful blog with a collection of classic insults. read on...
"He has all the virtues I dislike and none of the vices I admire."
Winston Churchill
"A modest little person, with much to be modest about."
Winston Churchill
"I have never killed a man, but I have read many obituaries with great pleasure."
Clarence Darrow
"He has never been known to use a word that might send a reader to the dictionary."
William Faulkner (about Ernest Hemingway)
"Poor Faulkner. Does he really think big emotions come from big words?"
Ernest Hemingway (about William Faulkner)
"Thank you for sending me a copy of your book; I'll waste no time reading it."
Moses Hadas
"He can compress the most words into the smallest idea of any man I know."
Abraham Lincoln
"I've had a perfectly wonderful evening. But this wasn't it."
Groucho Marx
"I didn't attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it."
Mark Twain
"He has no enemies, but is intensely disliked by his friends."
Oscar Wilde
"I am enclosing two tickets to the first night of my new play, bring a friend... if you have one."
George Bernard Shaw to Winston Churchill
"Cannot possibly attend first night, will attend second...if there is one."
Winston Churchill, in response
"I feel so miserable without you, it's almost like having you here."
Stephen Bishop
"He is a self-made man and worships his creator."
John Bright
"I've just learned about his illness. Let's hope it's nothing trivial."
Irvin S. Cobb
"He is not only dull himself, he is the cause of dullness in others."
Samuel Johnson
"He is simply a shiver looking for a spine to run up."
Paul Keating
"He had delusions of adequacy."
Walter Kerr
"There's nothing wrong with you that reincarnation won't cure."
Jack E. Leonard
"He has the attention span of a lightning bolt."
Robert Redford
"They never open their mouths without subtracting from the sum of human knowledge."
Thomas Brackett Reed
"He inherited some good instincts from his Quaker forebears, but by diligent hard work, he overcame them."
James Reston (about Richard Nixon)
"In order to avoid being called a flirt, she always yielded easily."
Charles, Count Talleyrand
"He loves nature in spite of what it did to him."
Forrest Tucker
"Why do you sit there looking like an envelope without any address on it?"
Mark Twain
"His mother should have thrown him away and kept the stork."
Mae West
"Some cause happiness wherever they go; others, whenever they go."
Oscar Wilde
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lamp-posts...for support rather than illumination."
Andrew Lang (1844-1912)
"He has Van Gogh's ear for music."
Billy Wilder
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Flying thoughts Vol 1
May 2005
I took the photo of my empty coffee mug while waiting for the flight to Siem Reap amidst the hustle bustle of old Korean excursionists, poker-faced Japanese businessmen and urban techies in Phom Penh. If I die and become a coffee cup at the airport in my next life, I’d roll myself over with that cinematic slow motion. Of course, I’d pick the right sentimental idiot who’d be so dam sad he’d decide to pay for he broken coffee cup and put the pieces together in a collage. Then I’d be what I always wanted myself to be – a wall décor! hahahah
Funny how, in being alone for hours at the airport, I can almost hear the demons in my head pushing the clouds of indecision, and everything becomes sunny clear. I would travel the world over if only for being stuck in at least 2 airports in one flight, the longer waiting hour, the better. And I am not being sarcastic here. I like it especially when I get first to the boarding gate and everything is so quiet – the carpet sucks the footsteps, the whooshing of planes buffered by the walls – nothing but the bored flipping of expensive glossy magazine pages by estranged passengers, each silently swallowing their nervous anticipation. Well, there are those who needlessly fumble with their cellphones, whispering agitated goodbyes.
My imagination is a sucker for story lines, I have loads of stories running through my mind and if you combine all the hours spent waiting at airports, I could come up with 2 volumes of The Flying Thoughts, which, after a while even intensifies my fear that I have forgotten something in my absorption to different plots. Am I getting insane? I guess so…
I remember the 2-year old French “feeding bottles” (times two) competing for my attention in one of those flights. The lovers beside me abandoned their seats to some private world and the two gray-green-eyed kiddos joyfully took their turns amusing me with their mirrored playfulness. The other one (only called Moppet) , obviously being “more matured than her twin, Emma, sat beside me for almost the entire trip to Hongkong.
Have I been mommyfied? (Kundera’s term is daddyfied) The flight was long enough for me to teach them how to juggle with their seatbelts for hours and play with utter abandon, unmindful of the other passengers. There’s that serene expression in kids’ face that I really like. Sometimes, all I have to do is hold hands with kids and things seem to be less complicated. I remember kate telling me she cried one time she went to church and a child of about 4 or 5 offered her hands in singing the Lord’s Prayer. Why is it that when we get old things become more complicated? I never seem to answer this question properly.
I agree with you, traveling in itself is an awareness building and enlightening experience. Aside from meeting old incorrigible Koreans and kids who were taught by their parents that life is a curse-ible experience (I later on learned from kate that the words being shouted alternately was not what the father claimed it to be, it was some sort of a bad word, in French), there is that self affirmation that I can always revert to my former self of being a loner or introvert, whichever is lesser in intensity and more flexible.
I took the photo of my empty coffee mug while waiting for the flight to Siem Reap amidst the hustle bustle of old Korean excursionists, poker-faced Japanese businessmen and urban techies in Phom Penh. If I die and become a coffee cup at the airport in my next life, I’d roll myself over with that cinematic slow motion. Of course, I’d pick the right sentimental idiot who’d be so dam sad he’d decide to pay for he broken coffee cup and put the pieces together in a collage. Then I’d be what I always wanted myself to be – a wall décor! hahahah
Funny how, in being alone for hours at the airport, I can almost hear the demons in my head pushing the clouds of indecision, and everything becomes sunny clear. I would travel the world over if only for being stuck in at least 2 airports in one flight, the longer waiting hour, the better. And I am not being sarcastic here. I like it especially when I get first to the boarding gate and everything is so quiet – the carpet sucks the footsteps, the whooshing of planes buffered by the walls – nothing but the bored flipping of expensive glossy magazine pages by estranged passengers, each silently swallowing their nervous anticipation. Well, there are those who needlessly fumble with their cellphones, whispering agitated goodbyes.
My imagination is a sucker for story lines, I have loads of stories running through my mind and if you combine all the hours spent waiting at airports, I could come up with 2 volumes of The Flying Thoughts, which, after a while even intensifies my fear that I have forgotten something in my absorption to different plots. Am I getting insane? I guess so…
I remember the 2-year old French “feeding bottles” (times two) competing for my attention in one of those flights. The lovers beside me abandoned their seats to some private world and the two gray-green-eyed kiddos joyfully took their turns amusing me with their mirrored playfulness. The other one (only called Moppet) , obviously being “more matured than her twin, Emma, sat beside me for almost the entire trip to Hongkong.
Have I been mommyfied? (Kundera’s term is daddyfied) The flight was long enough for me to teach them how to juggle with their seatbelts for hours and play with utter abandon, unmindful of the other passengers. There’s that serene expression in kids’ face that I really like. Sometimes, all I have to do is hold hands with kids and things seem to be less complicated. I remember kate telling me she cried one time she went to church and a child of about 4 or 5 offered her hands in singing the Lord’s Prayer. Why is it that when we get old things become more complicated? I never seem to answer this question properly.
I agree with you, traveling in itself is an awareness building and enlightening experience. Aside from meeting old incorrigible Koreans and kids who were taught by their parents that life is a curse-ible experience (I later on learned from kate that the words being shouted alternately was not what the father claimed it to be, it was some sort of a bad word, in French), there is that self affirmation that I can always revert to my former self of being a loner or introvert, whichever is lesser in intensity and more flexible.
Ankoring Myself
May 2005
Last week I climbed the steep stairs of the legendary angkorwat, wearing a pair of comfortable sandals (an inch high, what was I thinking?!) and sleeveless Thai shirt. In my own assessment, I looked like a fashionable gypsy who wandered way too far from “base”. That happened after ten days of smelling saltwater while watching chelsea beat those morons, the pope being buried, rainier dying and the royal family boarding a bus to the reception and practicing my Khmer (i can pass for a khmer if i stay still and not open my mouth).
I have become a football fanatic (i changed my earlier choice of manchester U to chelsea), a well-informed citizen of the world and rediscovered my swimming skills in my spare time to compensate for the increasing number of white hairs and wrinkles due to crazy "development" approaches of a.. a...never mind.
I climbed the steep stairs of angkorwat and was shaking all over when I looked down at how high I climbed. Wow, some fear of heights! My pride prevented me from succumbing to the embarrassing urge of fainting. I would've wanted to faint the town red! hahahah
Being on top is like standing on the precipice of oblivion. The building has this indescribable ‘quietness” - sounds do not echo, whispers are carried away by the Apsara carvings, footsteps are absorbed by the Khmer mantras on the thick, old walls. Maybe I imagine too much things but I get this passive-aggressive feeling within the confines of the angkorwat. It is quiet but not empty. Well, empty but I didn’t get that feeling of nothingness. Proud but unimposing. Serene and yet you feel the turbulent past screaming all over the place. I may have heard the silent screams because i share the same internal turmoil?
It isn’t as disturbing as all other historic places I’ve been. Photographs and films may have stored away its own mind, its own history, it’s own sadness, its own character. Or maybe, it has accepted its fate. Whaaa, its freaky, talking to a beautiful bunch of stones. Maybe I shouldn’t be left alone to wander. I get all self-absorbed (?) and I always feel I am so in-sync with the world that I can be sucked in by the earth and be happy forever. Blame it on the moon.
Last week I climbed the steep stairs of the legendary angkorwat, wearing a pair of comfortable sandals (an inch high, what was I thinking?!) and sleeveless Thai shirt. In my own assessment, I looked like a fashionable gypsy who wandered way too far from “base”. That happened after ten days of smelling saltwater while watching chelsea beat those morons, the pope being buried, rainier dying and the royal family boarding a bus to the reception and practicing my Khmer (i can pass for a khmer if i stay still and not open my mouth).
I have become a football fanatic (i changed my earlier choice of manchester U to chelsea), a well-informed citizen of the world and rediscovered my swimming skills in my spare time to compensate for the increasing number of white hairs and wrinkles due to crazy "development" approaches of a.. a...never mind.
I climbed the steep stairs of angkorwat and was shaking all over when I looked down at how high I climbed. Wow, some fear of heights! My pride prevented me from succumbing to the embarrassing urge of fainting. I would've wanted to faint the town red! hahahah
Being on top is like standing on the precipice of oblivion. The building has this indescribable ‘quietness” - sounds do not echo, whispers are carried away by the Apsara carvings, footsteps are absorbed by the Khmer mantras on the thick, old walls. Maybe I imagine too much things but I get this passive-aggressive feeling within the confines of the angkorwat. It is quiet but not empty. Well, empty but I didn’t get that feeling of nothingness. Proud but unimposing. Serene and yet you feel the turbulent past screaming all over the place. I may have heard the silent screams because i share the same internal turmoil?
It isn’t as disturbing as all other historic places I’ve been. Photographs and films may have stored away its own mind, its own history, it’s own sadness, its own character. Or maybe, it has accepted its fate. Whaaa, its freaky, talking to a beautiful bunch of stones. Maybe I shouldn’t be left alone to wander. I get all self-absorbed (?) and I always feel I am so in-sync with the world that I can be sucked in by the earth and be happy forever. Blame it on the moon.
10 G Forces
July 2004
1o things i thank the G Friendship for:
1. All the times you listened to my senseless complaints – academic or otherwise and my nonsensical tales of men with bad nails, doctors with nice hands, marriage proposals from psychos
2. For popping in my office so that you can imagine me writing you, for all the dinners, beers, vodka, scotch, and the conversations that range from bizarre love triangles, amusing tales of kabadingan, extremely puzzling tales of stalkers
3. For pulling me around when I can’t swim in PG
4. For putting up with what many people think are my eccentricities
5. For reading my long emails
6. For introducing me to so many wonderful people I’ve never known before(i.e., Murakami, Coetzee, Gramsci, Todaro, and well, even Peou, Aglietta, Wallerstein & Braudel, to name a few)
7. For putting names into my father’s long time unknown ‘friends’- the sensation of being home when I hear jazz which my father plays every Sunday morning for as long as I can remember
8. For watching films that fail to evoke happiness
9. For trusting me enough to share how you feel about many things in life
10. For believing in me when I can’t even trust myself
1o things i thank the G Friendship for:
1. All the times you listened to my senseless complaints – academic or otherwise and my nonsensical tales of men with bad nails, doctors with nice hands, marriage proposals from psychos
2. For popping in my office so that you can imagine me writing you, for all the dinners, beers, vodka, scotch, and the conversations that range from bizarre love triangles, amusing tales of kabadingan, extremely puzzling tales of stalkers
3. For pulling me around when I can’t swim in PG
4. For putting up with what many people think are my eccentricities
5. For reading my long emails
6. For introducing me to so many wonderful people I’ve never known before(i.e., Murakami, Coetzee, Gramsci, Todaro, and well, even Peou, Aglietta, Wallerstein & Braudel, to name a few)
7. For putting names into my father’s long time unknown ‘friends’- the sensation of being home when I hear jazz which my father plays every Sunday morning for as long as I can remember
8. For watching films that fail to evoke happiness
9. For trusting me enough to share how you feel about many things in life
10. For believing in me when I can’t even trust myself
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Carlos-ian Wisdom (From CRC)
Thanks for the lovely photo...when I see pictures like those, I always lament that one of my unfulfilled desires is to photograph LIFE, people, places, things...I am 6 years into retirement and I may yet fulfill this dream...as in second wind...
So, what's in a number? 27? 28? 29? Remember, they only have meanings because society constructed meanings for them...Note how our so-called debutantes at 18 years are "presented" to society in elaborate debut balls...
Do you know the historial antecedent of the debut in Europe ( which we don't share...)? 18 years used to be the time when their women are ready to become wives/mothers and are presented to the eligible males to be chosen... sus, how can you "present' somebody at 18 when they are having sex at 9???
I am re-reading a book now by Levinson titled Seasons in a man's life. It details the psychological, physical and hormonal changes that happen to women/men and how , because of the constructions and strictures of society, they are "expected" to do certain things at certain ages...this is where failed expectations come in, the angsts, the sense of failure, despair...
Why do singers/rockers kill themselves at an early age? I guess it may have something to do with the dog-eat dog life in the entertainment world where you have to sell your soul to be ahead of the game. It is also on account of the ungodly hours that they spend on the road, practising , etc so their body clocks have to be adjusted by drugs...the road from there is a slippery slope to a sense of hopelessness and despair and a sigh away from self destruction...Just a hypothesis...
Will be in US on 17th. Let's have lunch when I get back...
So, what's in a number? 27? 28? 29? Remember, they only have meanings because society constructed meanings for them...Note how our so-called debutantes at 18 years are "presented" to society in elaborate debut balls...
Do you know the historial antecedent of the debut in Europe ( which we don't share...)? 18 years used to be the time when their women are ready to become wives/mothers and are presented to the eligible males to be chosen... sus, how can you "present' somebody at 18 when they are having sex at 9???
I am re-reading a book now by Levinson titled Seasons in a man's life. It details the psychological, physical and hormonal changes that happen to women/men and how , because of the constructions and strictures of society, they are "expected" to do certain things at certain ages...this is where failed expectations come in, the angsts, the sense of failure, despair...
Why do singers/rockers kill themselves at an early age? I guess it may have something to do with the dog-eat dog life in the entertainment world where you have to sell your soul to be ahead of the game. It is also on account of the ungodly hours that they spend on the road, practising , etc so their body clocks have to be adjusted by drugs...the road from there is a slippery slope to a sense of hopelessness and despair and a sigh away from self destruction...Just a hypothesis...
Will be in US on 17th. Let's have lunch when I get back...
Freezing in Beijing
Its 1 am and i just arrived from a long cold walk in Tiananmen Square. Beijing is wonderful at night but is a cold, almost dead and bare country in the morning. This is my last night here and i am now convinced that school is such a hassle. I have to get back to manila tomorrow in time for my exam on friday (yes, i am enroled in the DPA Program in NCPAG). I am thinking of skipping that exam, getting an incomplete and staying here for two days, hah! It would be worth it, am sure. I remember we wanted to wander around Asia together but things changed, eh?
On Finding the "Civil" in Civil Society (Letter to KL)
I have serious problems with CSOs being preoccupied with the Weberian-type bureaucracy, but I'd like to think that the common objectives directed to MPA management, the "sense of belonging" to a single cause and the relative flexibility of their "rules and procedures" qualify them as CSOs. Was it Ostrom's group who wrote that 'conventional' theories are not sufficient to explain the dynamics of managing the commons?
A French technocrat, Aglietta(?) used some of Marx ideas in developing some sort of a regulation theory and compared society to a balloon, the burgeoning middle (representing the middle class) makes it possible to float in the air but widen either the base or the top and it immediately falls down. There's more of us going down to the base.
There's no shortage of brilliant minds interpreting the world in various ways, but only a few are up to the challenge of actually "changing it". The vanguards of the proletariat are now part of the executive that manages the affairs of the bourgeoisie. They're in Congress engaging in self-referential monologues.
You have to see To Live, an interesting perspective of China during the Communist Civil War, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution, told not in an overly political and dramatic sense. There's no car chase but a lot of chasing counter-revolutionists, you can't tell the difference.
A French technocrat, Aglietta(?) used some of Marx ideas in developing some sort of a regulation theory and compared society to a balloon, the burgeoning middle (representing the middle class) makes it possible to float in the air but widen either the base or the top and it immediately falls down. There's more of us going down to the base.
There's no shortage of brilliant minds interpreting the world in various ways, but only a few are up to the challenge of actually "changing it". The vanguards of the proletariat are now part of the executive that manages the affairs of the bourgeoisie. They're in Congress engaging in self-referential monologues.
You have to see To Live, an interesting perspective of China during the Communist Civil War, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution, told not in an overly political and dramatic sense. There's no car chase but a lot of chasing counter-revolutionists, you can't tell the difference.
A very long story (letter to a friend)
"Life is never too short, its just that you've been dead for so long", says the shirt of a teenager. Here's how i've been resurrected last December and since i am too lazy to write, might as well post an edited version of my email to Rae.
~~~
Just came back from a long holiday in the province (no internet, no malls, no frills) and I was able to recharge, sleep 12 hours a day and hopelessly answering bizaare questions from 4-year old cousins while watching national geographic and cartoon network, so here’s a long account.
It seems to be no life at all but it was what I needed. I regret not being able to catch up with anyone during the Congress. Every email i receive starts with "although we were unable to talk during the EAS Congress..."
I wanted to give you Pablo Neruda's Memoirs (you would've loved the book!, i swear)when we got hostaged to the SOA-PEMSEA dinner (again!) which lasted until the wee hours in the morning. Some parts of the "dinner", I no longer remember, thanks to Anchor Ice Beer and Great Wall Wine (?). I discovered that I can really get drunk to the point that my brain would stop taking in more memories, dangerous, eh?
My friends were teasing me the next day about my "obsession" with my shoe laces. They said that I kept on stopping along the way to check on my shoe laces (which were fine, by the way), but I really can’t recall any of it. The months of exhaustion may have finally taken its toll. We were all so drunk so i am not really sure if they were just bluffing or imagining something or what.But i couldn't dispprove their claim...
I woke up feeling like a zombie on 17th of December and realized that I just missed talking to people I would’ve wanted to talk to! So much for building partnerships...But the worse part of it all is that I couldn’t take a morsel of food without the feeling that I was gonna throw up . It didn’t help that I am not such a big fan of Chinese food, i just don't know why I can't get it in my system but don’t tell anyone.I lose a lot of weight when i'm anywhere in china, even hongkong for that matter. No one appreciates KFC and McDonald's more than I do when i am in China...
We left Haikou for Hongkong on the 19th and got to visit the Peak. Last time we went there, it was still being constructed, and well now, aside from the stunning view of the Victoria Harbour , it’s a good coffee place . There’s the “cute” WWF Office along the way and I contemplated dropping by to say hi to Andy but I decided against it knowing full well that they may be very busy wrapping things up before the year ends and besides I am not well acquainted with him so he may not remember me at all. Darn, missed that chance, Fra____r!
We were actually making an inventory of people we know so we can all give them a call but we can’t seem to come up with any names, hah! I visited the space museum and the museum of art, out of a freakish obsession with museums and anything that reeks of history, especially when it’s teeming with “communism”, hahaha. My friends enjoyed the shopping, they went to every nook and cranny buying every conceivable gif while I was fighting the impulse to buy another SLR camera. It’s a sickness really, camera shopping, tsk, tsk…i should see a shrink.
~~~
Just came back from a long holiday in the province (no internet, no malls, no frills) and I was able to recharge, sleep 12 hours a day and hopelessly answering bizaare questions from 4-year old cousins while watching national geographic and cartoon network, so here’s a long account.
It seems to be no life at all but it was what I needed. I regret not being able to catch up with anyone during the Congress. Every email i receive starts with "although we were unable to talk during the EAS Congress..."
I wanted to give you Pablo Neruda's Memoirs (you would've loved the book!, i swear)when we got hostaged to the SOA-PEMSEA dinner (again!) which lasted until the wee hours in the morning. Some parts of the "dinner", I no longer remember, thanks to Anchor Ice Beer and Great Wall Wine (?). I discovered that I can really get drunk to the point that my brain would stop taking in more memories, dangerous, eh?
My friends were teasing me the next day about my "obsession" with my shoe laces. They said that I kept on stopping along the way to check on my shoe laces (which were fine, by the way), but I really can’t recall any of it. The months of exhaustion may have finally taken its toll. We were all so drunk so i am not really sure if they were just bluffing or imagining something or what.But i couldn't dispprove their claim...
I woke up feeling like a zombie on 17th of December and realized that I just missed talking to people I would’ve wanted to talk to! So much for building partnerships...But the worse part of it all is that I couldn’t take a morsel of food without the feeling that I was gonna throw up . It didn’t help that I am not such a big fan of Chinese food, i just don't know why I can't get it in my system but don’t tell anyone.I lose a lot of weight when i'm anywhere in china, even hongkong for that matter. No one appreciates KFC and McDonald's more than I do when i am in China...
We left Haikou for Hongkong on the 19th and got to visit the Peak. Last time we went there, it was still being constructed, and well now, aside from the stunning view of the Victoria Harbour , it’s a good coffee place . There’s the “cute” WWF Office along the way and I contemplated dropping by to say hi to Andy but I decided against it knowing full well that they may be very busy wrapping things up before the year ends and besides I am not well acquainted with him so he may not remember me at all. Darn, missed that chance, Fra____r!
We were actually making an inventory of people we know so we can all give them a call but we can’t seem to come up with any names, hah! I visited the space museum and the museum of art, out of a freakish obsession with museums and anything that reeks of history, especially when it’s teeming with “communism”, hahaha. My friends enjoyed the shopping, they went to every nook and cranny buying every conceivable gif while I was fighting the impulse to buy another SLR camera. It’s a sickness really, camera shopping, tsk, tsk…i should see a shrink.
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