Last week Rachele and Edgar brought in a lot of fighting cocks for breeding. This morning they brought in a big batch of hens.

Sunday, March 1

Four new canvases arrived today, each one measuring 6 feet x 3 feet. They are four of the seven canvases I will work on when I come back from Singapore, and these paintings are to be hung in the Orchid Dining Hall.

You don't need to have a computer chip implanted in your arm.

All you have to do is open an account on the Internet.

The safest people in this world are those who have absolutely no electronic presence.

Immediately after eating a ripe mango, I eat a chocolate candy bar. It's a wonderful, gustatory experience!

The people will not follow a religious leader who looks, thinks, talks, and acts like an old maid.

I don't lay out a full palette of colors when painting any more than I surround myself with words when writing.

Everything is in my head. My palette and my dictionaries.

I love First-World countries because they have hotels with smoking floors and smoking rooms. In other words, in First-World countries, there is always something for everyone.

Pretentious hotels in the Philippines have no such thing. They even threaten you with a P2,000 "cleaning fee" if you happen to smoke in your room.

Isn't Housekeeping paid enough to clean ANY kind of dirt inside a room?

And why P2,000? I smoke in my room everyday and all I have to do is empty my ashtray.

Thank God I can smoke inside my room on Grande Island.

I always travel with three different colognes. Changing scents is like changing clothes.

Besides, there is no man so boring as one who uses only one cologne.

Let us love each other only in acceptable ways.

It is conceptually easy to enjoy and love life, but it is impossible to do so knowing that other people are trapped in different states of suffering.

Watched "Hibbing 911" on Supernatural 10 on AXN last night. I love watching horror movies on the island. They make me sleep well.

I like the Supernatural  series. It is never too gory. When they do have to show something frightful, such as a vampire-bitten cadaver, the director makes sure that you KNOW you are looking at a dummy.

Every religion has talismanic objects.

Good day, Grande Island!

Still working on re-sculpting the doe statue. The reinforced wire forms are being affixed. We are almost ready for cement work!

A Gauguinesque life minus the erotics.

I had the chalet nearest the doe statue opened to rest in during the day.

Welding was delayed because a group of 72 guests requires a backdrop frame for a presentation they are staging. The EMD men whipped up a 100%-steel frame in two hours.

I observe that working for a resort is like working for a theater.

Saturday, February 28, 2015

My ninth day on the island this time around.

Cutting on the doe statue has been completed. I am now waiting to commence the affixing of reinforced wire forms.

Tina threw a bonfire party for the island staff last night, but I'd already showered and was in bed by then.

We are, however, planning to have a small staff party after the four paintings have been installed in the front office, possibly on Friday.

TV melodrama teaches the people that alarm-and-scandal is not a civil offense but, rather, an exciting and admirable thing to be emulated.

When riffraff have no wit, they resort to amplifying their emotions.

Too often, a rally for a cause is a mere dialogue balloon in a gigantic comic strip panel that has hundreds of other dialogue balloons.

Ben, who went back home to Cubao because the rectified turpentine made him sick, text-messaged that he is coming back to the island today.

This is the first time I'm staying two weeks straight on the island. I am doing it not only to finish the four paintings (done as of last Thursday) and commence re-sculpting the doe statue, but to partially test whether I will go nuts or homesick (or both) in insulation.

So far so good, but, the next time I do this, I should bring more clothes.

I'm as red as a lobster from supervising sculpting under the sun.

It is quite pathetic that some people will give you missed calls and deliberately missent messages, hoping that you will pick up an interest in them.

"Sir, Do You Remember Me?"

No, I don't. In the mid-1990s through the early 2000s I had hundreds, if not thousands, of students in magic, most of them fakes.

It's the fakes I don't remember.

Never start out and establish a business and then leave it alone to be handled by other people.

You have to be there. All the time.

Amazing how sculpture requires an entirely new set of (expensive) tools altogether.

Ron is usually the driver who picks me up at Cubao, takes me to Grande Island, and back. I have wondered why his face continues to fascinate me. Last Friday I finally figured out why. It is the face my grandson Vinci will have when he is grown up.

Good day, Grande Island!

Francis took the weekend off.

Boy and I are resuming re-sculpturing after lunch.

A long day.

We finished re-configuring the doe statue with wire. The wire forms were then inserted with welded, steel reinforcement bars.

In the meantime, we reshaped the statue with an electric grinder.

Fun resumes tomorrow.

Your Hangout message:

"Hi Sir Tony, may I just ask your opinion. I'm planning to apply for an Admin Assistant in the Medical Unit of the US Embassy. I think 16 years in the government service is enough, Based on the announcement, i think 1k increased lang ang difference from my current job, my questions is what else is the other benefits the embassy will offer, once you are hired. At this point, I really need a change of environment. Thank you Sir.  P. S - Im also open for your opinion if it a good decisison to transfer to another organization."


My reply:

Hi ________!

Frankly, I would never advise any of my relatives and good friends to work for the Embassy. There are absolutely no benefits except for the reimbursement of medical expenses.

Many people apply for work there mainly to avail of the 15-year-service special emigration application--and not everyone is accepted to that.

I understand why you are dissatisfied working for the Philippine government. However, moving from Philippine government service to American government service will change nothing. In the end, you will only have performed a disservice to your higher self.

Your Hangout message:

"Hello, Sir Tony. Gusto ko lang po humingi ng tulong. Nahihirapan na po ako sa sitwasyon ko ngayon. Tungkol po sa amin ng tatay ng anak ko. Last time po na nagtanong ako sa inyo, parang ang sabi niyo po bigyan ko ng second chance, na di ko po ginawa kasi galit pa rin po ako sa kanya nung time na yun. At may doubt din po whether nagsasabj siya ng totoo or ginagawa lang niya para maipangalan sa kanya yung anak ko. Ngayon po mukhang nakamove on na siya, at ako naman ang nag aattempt makipag ayos. Pero siya naman po ang may ayaw ngayon. Minsan po hindi ko naiintindihan yung sarili ko. May times po na gusto ko itry gawin yung mga sinasabi niya sakin kahit na masakit yung pgkakasabi niya. Pero di po maalis yung doubt na lolokohin lang po niya ako ulit. Nandon din po yung fear na madisappoint at masaktan ko ulit pamilya ko.

"Hindi ko na po alam ang gagawin. Hindi ko po alam kung dapat ba sundin ko yung tatay ng anak ko o nagpapauto lang ako sa kanya kapag ginawa ko yung gusto niya. Ayoko na rin po kasi magkamali ulit kung sakali na di naman pala totoo yung sinasabi niya na gusto niya mabuo ang family namin. Feeling ko rin po kasi, kami ng anak ko, we deserve a better kind of love. Yun pong walang kondisyon para mahalin at pahalagahan kami. Sa tatay po kasi ng anak ko, parang hanggat hindi ko gawin ang gusto niya, hindi ko makukuha yung klase ng pagmamahal na gusto ko mula sa kanya. Hindi ko po alam kung magiging worth it ba kung sakali na sumugal ulit ako sa kanya despite his hatred for my family, his mean words, his history of cheating and my family's objection to our relationship. Kanino po ba dapat ako makinig at sino po ang dapat kong sundin: ex ko po or pamilya ko? Wala po kayang pag asa na walang conflict between them para di ko na po kailangan mamili pa? Pasensya na po kung masyadong mahaba. And salamat po sa oras, sir."


My reply:

Hi ______________!

Actually you should have BOTH kinds of love: your family's and your partner's. The problem now is that you gave in to playing battle-of-the-sexes games with your partner, which has nothing to do with love. Explain this to your partner and hope that he has the sophistication to understand it.

If nothing else works, maybe you should move on too. If he has outgrown you, ask yourself whether it is possible for yourself to outgrow him as well.

The situation you are in is quite common. What you should strive for immediately is to be able to live and survive without being dependent on any man--or on anyone. As a matter of fact that is what every intelligent being should strive for.

Why travel from one place of heavy traffic to another place of heavy traffic?

That would hardly be a vacation.

It is more relaxing to be the person watching in the audience rather than the person performing or directing the show.

Someone please explain to me why children's party magicians and clowns are decadent remnants of the 1950s.

I like the calm, objective, and unbiased delivery of news on GMA 7. Other news programs verge on hysterics.

Of course I have to put up with Empress Ki and her series of highly surreal punishments and executions every night.

Why does she insist on trying to look sexy when the role does not even require it?

I am disturbed by people who suck in air between words on mike.

Unfortunately modern-manufacture oil paints have not, after all these centuries, eliminated the problem of pentimenti.

I couldn't knit much this time around, Different people came to talk to me and consult me about their personal matters.

I talk to myself aloud when I am painting. It distresses the apprentices.

Satellite dish temporarily down and access is only to GMA 7!

The characters in Second Chances are obnoxious, mule-headed, and self-centered. Especially the little boy, who comes across as a little girl madly in love.

All of the characters in that series deserve exactly what they have.

A failed career is called a vocation.

Loving someone who does not love you is a form of destiny.

The real solution to many problems is to get out of Metro Manila, for it seems that it is the font and source of abundant and eternal misery.

The director is very ill but wishes no one to know it.

The comedian comes to an end.

The season of iced juices approaches.

She rues the fact that she was a fashion model, and that people remember her only for that.

Good morning, Grande Island!

Working on the doe sculpture the whole day!

Your Hangout message:

"Hi sir, ...Sobrang nalilito na po talaga ako sa buhay at mundo. Ang daming obstacles. I'm getting the taste of the real world already and it's really tough. I'm going through some problems that need a thorough decision making. I've gone through humiliation which is of course the cause of my actions but I can take it. I can handle the pain and heaviness of life but what is more painful and unacceptable is when my family is involved. I didn't know it but the malicious rumor has been going on for some time now created by a neighbor whom my father had an argument with a long time ago. My mother just hid it from me when someone posted a note on our wall telling to be careful because this guy spreads rumors that my father is a ___________. Everyone knows in our place that this guy is a ____________ and ______ and has been despised because of his attitude. And today, my brother just heard a conversation of the guy with our neighbor mentioning the name of my father on ______. This guy,I think, had told the policemen about it. I just find it so ridiculous that even how we finished college was suspicious to our neighbors. We had to go through so much difficulties. My sister and I were scholars and my parents were buried with debts just to get through us to college. How can they be so suspecting and judgmental without knowing how much we went through. They said people envied us but we have nothing, our livelihood and our economic level are just the same as it was. Everyone might call it wrong to oppose someone who has done wrong things as what my father did.

"I don't know how to gather strength just to face all these battles everyday. I'm emptied and I need to fill myself up. I'm so confused and don't know how to live life vigorously. I humbly need you now sir as an adviser/grandfather who'd know me well. Thank you sir!


My reply:

Hi ____________!

Let things be--they do not involve you and it looks as if the person involved can handle it himself. You don't know what he is thinking and how he is feeling--therefore, do not even attempt to think and feel for him. It would be unfair to both of you.

Trust in truth and pray for blessings. Everything will turn out all right in the end without your fretting over negative people.

P.S. I note that your frustrations and causes of dissatisfaction beset you on or about your menstrual period. Be aware of this, and learn how to channel menstrual energy to creative, rather than destructive, ends.

I am able to use the computer in the Admin office now because the four paintings are done and awaiting varnishing.

I am, however, tasked to improve the statue of a doe, which is a challenging but enjoyable project.

Unfortunately I left my camera jack at home and am unable to post any photos on my Google+ page.

Many years from now, in retrospect, you will admit that he was a wise administrator.

You need to have an intense crush on someone in order to be able to work loyally for him or her.

Your loyalty otherwise makes no sense to me.

I do not easily give in to my children and grandchildren when they tell me what makes them happy.

I know that they still do not know what really makes them happy.

As I said before, it took me all of 63 years to decide what really makes me happy.

On the island, since insects exist in droves, one can hear their choral buzzing and humming at any time of the day. It is then that the sounds make sense, and it almost seems possible to comprehend what they are saying.

The biggest mistake of contemporary impressionist painters is believing that their works should be rushed and completed in record time.

For now, back to work. I mean, back to fun.

Stop watering the grass. It dies naturally between seasons, as leaves turn and change color. It is Nature's way of telling us that summer is on. Dead grass is a beautiful sight if you could only give up your glossy-magazine mentality and see it that way.

Whenever you water the grass I am reminded of the legendary King Leonidas, who spent the rest of his life on the shore trying to sweep the waves back into the sea.

Even if the world were my apple I still prefer persimmons and pears.

The beatitudes are the main reason why churches are extremely delighted and extremely willing to keep themselves rich and keep the people poor, which they do by taking money away from the people.

They are therefore also the main reason why scripture should never be taken literally.

Fantasy wears off after a year of marriage. He will find her too demanding, she will make him out to be too possessive.

Summer is on. The grass is a pied mantle of warm, earth colors, the talisay leaves are turning from olive green to burnt orange, and the palm nuts are turning from pale celadon to bright, cherry red.

The problem with ANY Tarot deck is that only 25% of the cards are conceived with inspiration. The other 75% looks as though the cards were rushed, created off the top of someone's head, based on cliches, or executed as afterthoughts.

I believe that it takes a lifetime of maturity to create a really outstanding Tarot deck.

The battle between bar detergent and liquid detergent will never end in this country because, if there is anything Filipinos like, it is tangibility. The solid presence of a detergent bar gives them a sense of security that the fluid, down-the-drain quality of liquid detergent cannot give.

To Filipinos there is nothing sadder than being left with an empty bottle of liquid detergent, whereas the sight of a gradually diminishing detergent bar implies the slow passage of time and of money well spent during that time.

Sometimes I watch military ships pass by from the open sea to Olongapo. I am told that they usually bear the cadavers of casualties, but I do not ask what they are casualties of.

On Grande Island there are more boats than there are butterflies. Their colorful sails are their wings.

Whenever this religious leader wants to sound meek and holy, he regresses to his childhood and babbles like a child asking for candy.

He will climb over the hill and into the sunset.

The truth is, no married couple can live on love alone.

They live mainly on hard work.

People who persist in pushing their luck always move one step backward.

Testing limits, be reminded, is a sign of adolescence rather than of adulthood.

He is forever in training and will never make a name for himself.

In the Philippines the approach of summer to most people is heralded by vertigo, Unbeknownst to them, it is because on or around this time, they clean their ears with abrasive instruments rather than with cotton buds. As a result they damage the interior of their ears, which, in turn, affects their equilibrium.

Penmanship and drawing skills are directly correlated.

Dead grass ensures that the earth is fertilized for the new crop of grass that will emerge.

Good morning, Grande Island!

I finished the four paintings yesterday--what a relief, since I'm off to Singapore soon and I can put those initial, four works behind me.

I am still on the island, though. Sunday is vernissage, after which we are installing the paintings in the front office.

The island engineer and electrician are working on the bracing and lighting this morning.

It is one's immaturity that disables his magic.

The rank and file are thanking God it's Friday.

If I can access my e-mail messages through my cell phone, why can't I access my cell phone images through my e-mail--considering that the latter is the easier to program?

Quite a few things are designed for intelligent people, but most things are designed for stupid people. It's how commercial dealers are able to cash in.

Too Late, My Brothers

I have four Haring Bakal cloth vests. The instructions are to wear them whenever necessary, particularly during meetings, but to NEVER wash them. Amazingly, none of these vests ever get dirty or stained, and none of them stink.

The vests are inscribed all over with talismanic drawings and oraciones in WATER-BASED ink, which is the main reason it is not advisable to have them washed.

During the last typhoon that devastated Cebu, however, our master said that all of the templates for the vests were destroyed in the flood and that it would take some time before they could be properly reconstructed.

That made me think. I for one don't want my vests ever to be in danger of being damaged or having even portions of their inscriptions effaced.

The solution I came upon is to satin-stitch the inscriptions with DMC thread and, for one shirt, outline them with tiny, black, glass beads.

Ever seen an embroidered and a fully-beaded Haring Bakal vest? Come and see me.

Eat your hearts out, my brothers! Bwahahahahahaha!

Goodbye for now, Cubao!

Hello again, Grande Island!

Taking with me two painting apprentices.

Packing again. The owner of the island is having me picked up tomorrow.

Good night, Cubao!

The 16 new canvases aren't quite ready yet, and so I might as well go to Grande Island when they are. (They're huge.)

Turning 64 a month and a half from now.

"Will you still be sending me a Valentine/

Birthday greeting, bottle of wine?/

"...Will you still need me, will you still feed me/

When I'm sixty-four?/"

My morning exercise regimen has finally paid off. The two mother-of-pearl T'boli belts, each size 34, now slip down to my hips. The brass and unbelievably heavy T'boli belt, size 30 and my favorite, now fits me comfortably.

I was in a blue funk for a long time because I couldn't wear the brass belt at all, but now, I can!

Found my missing Haring Bakal "estampitas" (they are translucent rubber tubes with testamentos and oil inside).

It's Lunar Year Holiday but Angelique went to school to meet up with her classmates. They are working on a group presentation. Her entire group came here mid-afternoon. They hung out on the side balcony.

Whenever people are conversing on the side balcony and I am inside my captain's cabin bedroom on the ground floor, they sound as though they are in the driveway.

Later, they were all over the house. Apparently they are shooting a video for their Literature class--and decided to use portions of the house as backdrops because we have lots of "museum stuff"--I am not sure whether that is a compliment or not, coming from college students.

Tassels are beautiful, sensuous, and arabesque, but what I cannot appreciate about them is that they easily unravel, fray, and become tedious to repair.

Last night, one of my spirit guides said that something unforgettable will happen November 6.

Why is it easy for you to believe in ghosts when, as a matter of fact, murderers are never haunted by their victims?

Discovered a hole-in-the-wall Photo ID shop in the neighborhood!  It saved me a trip to Farmers Plaza.

Never hire people who will use poverty as an excuse for making mistakes.

I need to fill in the MTRCB Deputy form for renewal.

Quite annoying that I can't find any of my ID photos.

Music does not "play". It either flies or it flows.

"Everything's coming up roses/"

On The Walking Dead the zombies, their deformities, and their feasting on cadavers do not disgust me. They are all amusing entertainment, and are meant to show us that everyday is Halloween.

The REALLY disgusting elements of the series are the PROTAGONISTS: They all look like they didn't shower for months, don't use toilet paper, don't brush their teeth, and have severe halitosis.

Doctors who take up office space in expensive clinics will keep you sick and on maintenance, because you are their lifeline.

Good morning, Cubao!

Packing for Grande Island.

Good night, Cubao!

Reorganized my brushes this evening!

Grills should prevent the world from coming in, yet allow you to go out whenever you want.

Tony Perez's Art of War: When someone asks you, "Who do you think you are?", give them a reply that will answer their question forever and for good.

The answer can be arrogant, but that is all right as long as it is the truth and as long as it shows that you are superior to the person who is challenging you.

Bedeck your car with flowers and pretend that it's a carnival float. It will certainly go with the pace of the traffic.

All you have to do is tell six people that it is better to take the train rather than a bus. One week later, everyone will be taking the train.

When a sign says, "This Property Is For Sale", chances are, there is something wrong with the property.

Flirtation is never a good beginning for a deep and meaningful relationship.

Never take on my rejects. You will only be sorry thrice.

First, for taking on a reject and believing that the reject will change for you.

Second, for being frustrated with the reject because the reject will eventually betray you.

And third, for finally admitting to yourself your being such a fool.

Arrived from an evening shopping spree for art supplies with Tina and Tom. We bought six bottles of clear, gloss varnish for oil, three varnish brushes, and four brush cases.

Conserving and protecting animals are fine to me. But, if I am ever faced with a wild animal that threatens my life, I will leap over the millennia, be a caveman all over again, and kill it.

What is the point of being in the best of health and living a long life IF you are doing nothing for your country anyway?

Caught--twice--an absolutely gothic Bette Davis melodrama on TCM about ageing beauty. Interesting because of Bette Davis, who seems to be the original template of Helena Bonham-Carter.

Why does TCM announce that its star of the month is Elizabeth Taylor and then proceed to barrage its audience with movies starring other stars?

As a director chooses his own cast, so does a supervisor choose his own employees.

The foreman listened to me with piqued interest and amusement when I said that I wanted a small house for the tree spirits to hang over the ground floor cafe. I showed him a drawing, and we discussed its construction.

What do you really mean when you say that something is good?

The security blanket is a thing of the past. Today what every child needs is a computer.

JR is working on an indie film script that he wants me to dramaturge. I hope that he finally succeeds in achieving his dream.

Pet shrimp in a tank will alert you to earthquakes and other natural disasters.

More and more of my neighbors are reading my Google+ page, because Albums of my house are there. It's more convenient than dropping by to visit!

Magical knowledge is never bought.

It is also never sought.

It is passed on to you by a master.

A master chooses his own students. It is not the other way around.

Another sunny morning in my life.

Last December, before I retired, I met JR in a Chinese restaurant. We were both having lunch with separate groups of friends. I took a photo of the tank the shrimp were in. You may not think the way I do, but, from this photo, I believe it is pretty obvious that these shrimp were asking me to rescue them.

Shrimp are highly intelligent--not quite like dolphins, but definitely sharper than cockroaches. They can read people's minds and instincts (if not the other way around). If I were to buy another aquarium, I would definitely populate it with pet shrimp.

Every Filipino belongs to his own country, no matter what state it is in. Let us face it--those who left are those who never made it, and who were unable to find the right money, the right careers, and the right resources--all of which are, have always been, and will always be here!

The secret to success: Never imitate or aspire to be like others, no matter how successful you think they are. Assess your own potentials and capabilities, and proceed to establish the honest road to your own success--which will be unlike the success of others.

The problem, you see, has always been in comparing yourself to others in any business, including show business.

Whenever religious leaders strut about in apparel that the people themselves are not wearing, they look like they are wearing theatrical costumes for Mardi Gras.

I find it uncanny that my mind alerts me whenever it is 9:20 PM. I instinctively snap out of whatever I am doing, reach for my cell phone, and, sure enough, it shows me the time: 9:20.

It was the exact time that I was born.

Good morning, Cubao!

Slept eleven hours last night.

Good night, Cubao!

Though I've retired it was, to me, a long day.

Going out with Tina tomorrow afternoon to buy big bottles of clear, high-gloss varnish for oil paintings.

Bequeathments

Gave Angelique my Shepherd's Watch Sun Dial (made after that of Eleanor of Aquitaine) and Aubrey my Shepherd's Watch Star Dial, both of them pendants designed to tell the time by the sun and by the North Star. (Actually Aubrey chose hers first.) I bought them three years ago after I saw Jess Peralta wearing identical ones when we went to Palawan.

Five years ago, on the other hand, in Banawe, Ifugao, I bought myself an Ifugao chieftain's gear (headdress, machete and sheath, spear, loincloth,  mother-of-pearl pectoral, shell sash, and robe). Angelique was a freshman high school student then, Aubrey in her early grade school years. On impulse I also bought them complete Ifugao women's clothing (skirts, blouses, head cloths, necklaces, and bracelets) just in case they would need them some day.

Yes! Angelique asked me this evening whether I had Ifugao clothes she could borrow for a group presentation at her university. We searched in one of the big trunks and I proudly gave them the sets that I bought for them. (Angelique actually inquired first about an Ifugao MAN's attire for one of her male classmates, but I refused to lend those out to a strange college boy.)

The news broadcaster spent an hour griping and complaining about everything wrong in the country. At the end of the program he said, "God is enough."

What?

It is easy to tell if a teacher of indigenous Philippine magic is a phony. After a session with that teacher, you do NOT feel enlightened and empowered. On the contrary, you feel that you are more befuddled than ever. And, worse, you feel that something was taken away from you.

A messenger of bad news is more appreciated than a spokesperson of fake good news.

I frequently see, in my e-mail Inbox, that a lot of people are still requesting me to join them via Linked In. I NEVER use Linked In. As a matter of fact, because I opened an account some years back, this is what I placed in my Linked In profile: "I do not use Linked In. If you wish to connect with me, find me at 'Tony Perez Philippines Google+'."

Rose has come back. She was away for a few days; she had to go home to their province in the north because one of her children was hospitalized for dengue.

He worked hard for the position only to see that those whom he hoped to attract are actually repelled.

Good morning, Cubao!

It promises to be a sunny day!

Alas! We need to buy a new printer for the upstairs computer. The granddaughters need it for school.

Ah well--might as well take it as an opportunity to upgrade.

It is quite sad that people who are actively pro-human rights are the same people who commit insubordination.

Our foreman is offering either his son or one of his nephews, who are painters, to apprentice for me on Grande Island.

Not a bad idea.

Teow Li, Jerwin, Morcel, perhaps Mikki if she reads my blog, and friends--this is my Singapore schedule:

Day 1:
ETD

Day 2:
10:00 AM - 1:00 PM, First Workshop Session for First School for "disadvantaged" children
3:00 PM - 6:00 PM, First Workshop Session for Second School for "disadvantaged" children

Day 3:
Mentoring playwrights for TheatreWorks Singapore

Day 4:
10:00 AM - 1:00 PM, Second Workshop Session for First School for "disadvantaged" children
3:00 PM - 6:00 PM, Second Workshop Session for Second School for "disadvantaged" children

Day 5:
Mentoring playwrights for TheatreWorks Singapore

Day 6:
10:00 AM - 1:00 PM, Third Workshop Session for First School for "disadvantaged" children
3:00 PM - 6:00 PM, Third Workshop Session for Second School for "disadvantaged" children
Evening, watching a traveling tour performance of the winning play of a competition

Day 7:
1:00 - 3:00 PM, Clinical counseling workshop for parents and their children
Time TBD, Creativity Workshop for senior citizens/the aged

Day 8:
Mentoring playwrights for TheatreWorks Singapore

Day 9:
ETD

Note: I would like to go you-know-where with you possibly early in the morning of the mentoring days or during any of the lunch breaks.

There are at least two kinds of truth: literal truth and symbolic truth. Of the two, the second is the harder to disseminate and decipher.

It is extremely difficult for a movie or TV actor who is not a painter to pretend to wield a brush, especially if the director insists that the canvas be fully visible to the camera, which is, of course, a big mistake.

Watched Tenchi: The Samurai Astronomer on RED and was riveted to it by the exquisite sets and props.

Good night, Cubao!

Finally managed to upload all photos.

Working on my Singapore schedule tomorrow.

"Hey there/
You with the stars in your eyes/"

"New Pens" (Night of Monday, February 9, 2015)

Significant Events of The Day:

We'd been painting the whole day inside the studio. I felt impatient because I thought that our work wasn't proceeding fast enough.


The Dream:

I am at my ground-floor desk, between the studio and the library. A shipment for me arrives from the U.S. It contains a pen case, inside which is a pen with a ferrule shaped like a peacock's feather. It also has a converter. I'm glad I didn't order this pen, which I'd always wanted, on the Net, since it was coming to me anyway. Inside the case there are other pens, including a Frankenstein (parts mix-matched) Parker pen. I am absolutely delighted.

I am going to school. I fill the pen with with one of my inks. I first choose my orange-colored ink, then settle for a blue-violet ink with the name "Prince". The hue indeed befits royalty.

I keep going back to the room where the desk is in. Dad turns off the lights because he wants to continue sleeping. (?)

I decide to bring my new pen and ink bottle with me to school--or is it to the office? (My God, I am still employed in my dream life?)

I go outside onto EDSA. I walk near the overpass. I try to take photos of my new pen on the stair steps but can do so only with my cell phone. I need to go back home for my camera.

On the overpass steps I see a crystal ashtray, a glass fruit tray, and a captain's cabin hanger that I decide to take back into the house. They are located outside one of our windows in this dream, and that window, like a basement window, is beside the stair steps. I'm surprised that no one picked up any of these items, though a bulb from the hanger is missing.

Back home (again), I am suddenly in the back area of our ancestral house in Pampanga. The room immediately near this, my eldest aunt's bedroom, is a dressing room. I hang the slim belt I am wearing on a clothes horse because it's the wrong belt. Another slim one, Dad's, is on the clothes horse. The belts are too slim. I want my usual, Haring Bakal, belt to hold my pants up with.

Rose is telling someone about the children. I seem to be too late for school and want to stay home rather than hunt for a taxi. I tell Mom, "Hindi ako pinapapasok ng Diyos" and laugh, but she says that I should go anyway. It's my last semester anyway, I think to myself, and I am confident that I will pass the exams.

I go down yet another staircase which is located, in this dream, below the servant's window--the place from which I lowered kittens in a cardboard box on a rope (the rope snapped and the kittens died) when I was a little boy--I begin to descend the steps, and think that maybe I should go to school because I haven't been attending my History and Economics classes for so long and I need to catch up, especially for the exams.


My Notes:

New pens, new projects. Yet, there seem to be unexpected and unforeseen delays.

The motif of stairs, going up (the overpass) and down (below the servant's window). My psyche automatically associates the latter with death.

Belts: My Haring Bakal belt has always been my protection, and it is missing in this dream; Vulnerability?

Again, having to take exams: the need for more knowledge.

Other motifs:
--"School": The need to increase my knowledge.
--"Back": The locus of my Unconscious in this dream.
--"Hang": To give up something or to take risks.

Over-all interpretation: I should be able to see new things that come to life not only as progressions but as symbolic regressions, particularly to episodes in my childhood. My Haring Bakal belt is missing in this dream because I need to be more vulnerable and more sensitive to other people.

Uploaded photos for "Painting for Grande Island (February 7 - 15, 2015)" on my Google+ page but the newly-charged battery drained off after some 300+ photos. Will upload more photos tomorrow.

I am using apprentices for the first time in order to speed up work (and secondarily teach the apprentices how to paint). We are trying our best to employ and train apprentices only from Olongapo, Zambales, Pampanga, and Bataan.

We have been painting for only three weeks now, and we have covered a lot of ground.

Employing apprentices means, to me, that:

--I can incorporate intricate, bravura passages in the works without getting stressed.
--I don't have to clean up afterward. The apprentices do so.

We are currently working on four huge panels for the front office.

We are doing the dining halls next--nine huge panels there.

Afterward, we are to make smaller paintings for each cottage. There are 20 cottages. Every cottage has four chalets--240 smaller paintings there.

The grand total is 253 as of now. Unless they add more paintings to the Honeymoon Suite, the Eagle Function Room, and the ferry terminal.

Granting that I remain alive and healthy enough to see the project through.

Two weeks ago we saw Affliction on HBO. Despite its attempt to look as though it were crudely shot, it employed the most difficult and the most polished special effects ever.

It was the type of "reality" movie no seventh-grader could have made.

I am always the 100th monkey who learned how to wash dishes. After I do what I do, other people instinctively do the same.

I couldn't wait to retire because I couldn't wait to be myself, my real self. My reason for being in this world seems to be to make other people REALLY think outside the box.

Yes, there are people who think outside the box and there are people who REALLY think outside the box.

I have no intentions of disappointing anyone. I never did.

Doing a general house cleaning always shows me the treasures I'd amassed over 63+ years.

One awkward convention that TV melodrama has not been able to solve to this day is the two-shot on close-up. The audience actually flinches seeing two people conversing abnormally close to each other's face.

"The Tutorial" (Night of Wednesday, February 11, 2015)

Significant Events of The Day:

I recall nothing except that the apprentices and I were painting inside the studio the whole day.


The Dream:

I am doing home tutorial in history for a boy. His mother is the classroom teacher. I have the necessary textbooks. When I go to the boy's house, though, I discover that he doesn't have any of them. It seems that the mother hid them away somewhere.

Exam time nears and, for some reason, I myself must take it. I go to my bedroom in the old main house and paint or do other things. I must review my voluminous notes on history though. Then Sylvia or Angelique comes into the room and tells me that the boy is calling on the phone. It is time to help the boy review for the exam.

I do not like the situation I am in.

My Notes:

At first I thought this dream was about the direct relationship between painting and magic. Afterward it occurred to me that my psyche sent me this dream to remind me that, when I am on Grande Island, my back is turned to everyone else who is at home, including my students in magic. As a matter of fact, when I am painting or doing other things at home, my back is still turned to them.

I must also take "the exam" because, even at my age, there are many things I still need to learn and know.

There should never be a toss-up between the people I love and the things I love to do.

If you are unable to sleep due to restless extremities, do not fight it off. Neither should you stand up and move about. Simply surrender to the restlessness and merge with it in your mind. You will drift off to sleep soon enough.

The same is true in handling aches and pains when immediate medication is not available.

Humility has nothing to do with poverty or with wealth.

The daytime roving guard has made it a habit of stopping by the studio to see the progress of our painting.

Blogger asks, "Please prove you're not a robot."

How could a robot ever open an account and have a full curriculum vitae?

Blogger is constantly reminding me that I have too many posts. For every post that I make, now, they show me a security code that I must enter.

Proof that Blogger is not accustomed to writers being PROLIFIC.

When others are trying to prove how terribly superior they are, I remind them that, no matter what, it is I who am wearing the diamonds.

Planned to eat five pieces of Frutos candy the night I left for Grande Island but ended up eating the whole bag! I will never buy Frutos again!

An apparently extraneous memory flashed in my mind one night on Grande Island. When I was 27 and waiting for my turn in the dentist's clinic, a mother came out and requested me and another young man waiting for his turn to hold down her son's head, arms, and legs while the dentist forcibly extracted his tooth, since her son was most unwilling to undergo the ordeal.

At the time that this happened, because it was so sudden and urgent, the young man and I had no choice but to follow. We held down the boy and of course the tooth got extracted. During the process, however, I observed that I was performing an anti-human rights act (although waiting for the boy to acquiesce would naturally have taken forever). I still remember this episode, and, I am sure, so does the boy, who is now a grown man, especially if he is the reflective type.

As to the dentist, the mother, and the young man, I am certain that they have absolutely no memory of this at all.

On Grande Island, I am the first person to have breakfast because the studio apprentices take theirs in the staff kitchen. I walk to the chalet, sometimes taking photos along the way, and, since it is I who holds the key card, unlock the entrance to the studio and the big, glass doors that open out into the sea. I change into my painting shirt and shorts--clothing that can get stained with oil and pigments without any regrets on my part.

Alone and absolutely surrounded with Nature, I often give in to the temptation of lingering, naked, on the open veranda, and merging with the environment. It is a most exhilarating experience, and something that I cannot do elsewhere, especially in urban Cubao. During these times I am saturated with the feeling of being powerful and being free.

Good morning, Cubao!

First things first: Checked construction work on our ground-floor cafe.

Francis, the oldest studio apprentice, talks in his sleep. He carries on loud and long conversations with his dream companions, though his words are unintelligible. We do not bother, however, to record his dreamtalking with our cell phones.

We've been painting so much that we've been unable to explore the Back Beach, on the other side of the island. I'd been there only once before. It has old, military bunkers among forests, and symbolizes, to me, The Unconscious. I thought I'd have my hermit's hut built there but changed my mind and decided that it would be too far from all the amenities.

This is one hermit, after all, who is a complete hedonist.

You can take it with you.

Apparitions and spirits are not only clothed differently at different times, they wear jewelry and have accessories as well.

Fulfillment is when you are watching your painting go right.

At 63 going on 64 I have found that there are things that are so much better than sex. Among them, to me, are:

--a big breakfast
--a full body massage
--ice cream
--Almond Roca
--a long, hot shower
--an exquisite antique
--interesting jewelry.

Tina gave us bags of dried peanuts from China and a variety of pastries to snack on. They lasted only two days.

Everyone pays up, including the desperate and the destitute. Only the unenlightened think that they can get away with anything.

During low tide, there are many treasures that the ocean leaves on the island shore.

The wind casts shadows, but not everyone can perceive them.

Tuned in to the news every evening and watched the world unfurl around me.

One is poor if one must settle for the cheapest things.

There are things that you must do only for yourself, but never for show.

Listen to your dreams. The solutions to all of your problems are in them, if only you will remember, record, and review them.

Flies and mosquitoes know murderous intent. That is why it can be difficult to swat them.

Local TV shows, including news programs, use a lot of canned music. I wonder if they pay royalties for those--or if they are even aware that they could be sued for not doing so.

The security grills are in place on our ground-floor cafe and the men have now raised our flower boxes. They are now working on the ceiling.

Still deliberating whether to spend my birthday in Cubao or on Grande Island.

One thing for sure: I will be back on Grande Island this time for a two-week stretch (February 21 - March 8).

It is time to fumigate your house first with insenso, and then with kamanyang.

Both are forms of baby amber.

Man Against Nature is a most fascinating and timely theme.

Cerulean sings of the sky, ultramarine, of the sea.

Your junk pile is a reflection of your mind.

True independence is doing whatever you like no matter what other people say.

A student who perceives his master as competition will go nowhere in this world and in this lifetime.

Such a student suffers from a severe Oedipus complex, and is, actually, dysfunctional.

It took me all of 63 years to know what I really want and how I would like to live my life.

Whenever I am painting my mind is visited by the most pleasant memories.

There is no such thing to me as a "leading" university because all of the smartest people I know never went to such a university.

My choice of school for my grandchildren has nothing to do with the school but everything to do with the traffic route to and from the school. We all want to come home alive, safe, and happy EVERYDAY.

We put in a full day of work because we don't have to commute to and from the studio. We just walk leisurely to and from the chalet in the morning and back from it to the chalet in the evening.

Take no shortcuts in art. The long way often produces the best results.

The problem with many "professional" psychologists is that they do not make use of their knowledge--pretty much in the same way that artists who have a lot of equipment insist on using only one brush.

The most overused phrase of the 80s was "show and tell".

Because painting is a visual art, doing it eight hours a day produces the most vivid dreams at night.

I have decided that I dislike taking tub baths. They make my body feel heavy and sluggish afterward--as though I retained and amplified all my burdens rather than washed them off.

Sometimes I use the zoom function of my Canon not to take photos but to look at something as though through a telescope.

It is a great substitute for opera glasses.

The order is kind and beneficent only to people it thinks serves them well.

"Yes.Tomorrow."

My heart breaks whenever children of the poor ask their parents to buy them something that they like, not yet knowing that they cannot afford to buy it.

I once knew a poor woman who would always reply to her child's request to buy something, "Yes. Tomorrow."

Saw Letters From Iwo Jima on HBO all over again. It is, to me, Clint Eastwood's best movie, with sensitive performances by a Japanese cast. It has a straightforward story with tangible antagonists, meaning that I feel he is most unsuccessful whenever he goes "psychological" (as in Bridges of Madison County and Mystic River).

Watched All Is Lost and Gravity on HBO and decided that both are one and the same movie.

Bipolarism originated with the clergy, and, yes, bipolar clergy color your perception of all clergy irreversibly.

Valentine's Day was spent with my three studio apprentices doing something we love. Painting.

Considered taking along a student with me ti Grande Island, but decided that he would only feel neglected because I would be totally focused on my painting.

I love it whenever people tell me that they remain mentally haunted by my postings in a social medium from which I deactivated.

No man is an island, but only at low tide.

I suddenly felt that one studio apprentice would pass away at a young age, not hitting the age of 30. I hope that I am wrong.

Whenever you describe something to others, ensure that the description matches the reality, and that it is not more beautiful than the reality.

Never talk like an impresario.

When some people say "bronze", they really mean "brass".

The studio apprentices were so impassioned with painting that, during break time, I overheard them excitedly planning to make their own painting in their community--then they dejectedly realized that they neither had the paint nor the equipment to do it.

On Valentine's Day, Tina sent us fresh strawberries for dessert.

Why is it that in every religion's history, there is not only God hut a human being who, it seems, communicated with God, and why do people place their faith not only in God but in that human being as well?

I have begun painting and solving painting problems in my dreams.

No matter how much faith you think you have, you must still work for money in order to pay your bills. Your own bills.

I have taught you everything you need to know, but you cannot remember.

Like a jealous husband, the sun spoils food cooked by fire.

Live and work for your children, never for your family.

Departed Grande Island 1:30 PM.

Arrived Cubao 6:30 PM.

Day 12 of construction work on the ground-floor cafe.

Thank God I am rid of commuting.

It is quite heart-rending to see the habitats of informal settlers being torn down. The most traumatized of all are the children, who were born there and who have known no other home but where they already are.

These are the children who will grow up with great distrust and great resentment toward the government.

Good morning, Cubao!

Off to Grande Island and offline again for the next nine days!

He is hiding in a place that has three syllables.

Night classes

3:00 AM

Fly with me tonight. Visualize me holding your hand before you drift off to sleep.

I see a wide fissure in the middle of a main road.

Leaving Cubao again to travel tomorrow.

Cherry is anxiously waiting to see, once more, what kind of disaster might happen.

I am partial to drawing and painting nudes and human anatomy because--believe it or not--not every Fine Arts major can do human figures.

My sisters and I maintain a Group Hangout. It's one of the fastest ways of communicating to one another without other people seeing our messages.

Rediscovered the leather-and-fur Tibetan shepherd's hat that Finesse gave me as a gift years ago. It looks better on me now.

Whenever I feel pangs of hunger I simply cross the street and buy a bottle of fried peanuts from the boy who keeps a stall at the corner. There are four varieties. I buy the one with skins off and with red-hot chili-peppers, of course.

It is awkward to expect forgiveness for yourself and then conveniently withhold it from others.

Rediscovered art books I didn't know I had: Pierre et Gilles, Baron von Gloeden, Muybridge's photographic sequences, and Thomas Eakins's photographs.

I also have Balthus, which will be conveniently sold off later. Eloisa purchased my entire set of Egon Scheiele to give Mikah as a gift, thank God. I have granddaughters in the house.

Stripped an antique etagere of books. Will place antique, clay pottery from Batangas, Mindoro, and Palawan inside instead.

No one is obliged to pass on anything to anyone. Many of my secrets die with me.

Only selfish people pray with words.

The insecure are unable to accept criticism.

People run to mages to do magic because they are too lazy to do things for themselves.

When people do that to me, I beset them with books to read and instructions as to how to do things on their own.

Covering dirty people with new clothing does not make them clean.

Even charity has overkill.

I won't be home February 13 so I might as well greet the Spirit Questors a Happy 19th Anniversary. The REAL Spirit Questors, I mean.

Won't be home on Valentine's Day either, so I'm greeting all my Google+ Followers a Happy Valentine's Day now.

While I was selecting paint tubes with Tina yesterday, the saleslady asked me casually if I were Chinese. I replied that my grandfather on my father's side had Chinese blood. (My grandfather on my mother's side was pure Portuguese; my grandmother on my mother's side, Spanish.) Later I whispered to Tina that it is always a good sign whenever a saleslady asks me if I am Chinese--it means that I will get a hefty discount. Tina (who is South Korean and married to a pure Chinese) countered that, whenever salesladies asked HER if she were Chinese, it meant that she would get charged higher prices. Bwahahahahahahaha!

I observe that other retirees are unhappy because they continue to seek employment after retirement, which is not what being a retiree is all about.

Good morning, Cubao!

Tomorrow I will be on Grande Island again.

To wake up in bed, roll over, and drift back to sleep is sheer luxury. It makes one feel like the richest man in the world.

Caught E.T. on HBO and enjoyed it as though I were watching it for the first time. I was riveted to Drew Barrymore, and I wondered whatever happened to the other child actors' careers.

Not everyone is Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible. As a matter of fact, ONLY Tom Cruise is Tom Cruise in Mission: Impossible.

Memoirs of Service: Private-Sector "Exchange Programs"

Never give in to foreign, private-sector agents who seek to engage you in "exchange programs". What they really want is to travel to the Philippines and work here and NOT sending you abroad to work there.

Always begin painting with cadmiums, because they are middle tones. Never begin with chromes--they are the brightest tones.

If you begin with chromes, there is no way to highlight your figures after you are done.

If you begin with phthalos and lakes, which are the darkest tones, there is no way to shade your figures after you are done.

Middle tones allow you to go higher on bright or lower on dark when you have to.

Karma is not inflicting on yourself unnecessary suffering; it is, rather, the selfless service you need to give other people.

Placed an order for more cradled canvases.

Bought Valentine's Day pastries for Angelique and Aubrey, since I won't be home on February 14.

Packing for third week of painting for Grande Island (February 7 - 15, 2015).

Back from P. Noval Street and NBS Quezon Avenue with Tina.

NBS Quezon Avenue was a big disappointment. It used to be one of the most complete art supply stores in town. Now it has hardly anything.

Tina travels to Grande Island tonight; Rachele, Edgar, and I on Saturday. An island wedding is scheduled February 7 but, since I will be painting in the studio about a kilometer and a half away, I won't see it.

Leaving in a while with Tina to purchase more art supplies.

Knitting and hoping to finish this project soon.

It is all right--and it is most fruitful--to have a love affair with another person's mind.

Found my missing box of blenders. Putting together my dry-medium stuff in their own wooden case.

Day 10 of construction work on the ground-floor cafe.

Rather than operate the cafe ourselves, we are thinking of renting it out to the highest bidder.

What one thinks and what is are usually two different things, and not everyone has the capability to distinguish between the two.

If you attended only two or three of my workshops in psychic abilities and magic, or if you joined me on a Spirit Quest, or if you participated in some activity with me, that does NOT mean that you trained under me.

To claim that you've trained under me means that you shared all of my interests completely, lived and slept under my roof during training days and nights, ate with me, and performed menial duties with me.

Good morning, Cubao!

Slept eight hours last night.

My former co-workers predicted that I would continue to wake up at 4:30 AM as I used to when I was still working in the office, but they were wrong.

A change of lifestyle, a change of activities, a change of pace, and a change of outlook result in a change in sleeping schedule.

Rose's cousin is staying over because he needs to take his medical in Metro Manila. He is enlisting to be a Philippine Marine.

To date, I consider the anatomy book that my son Nelson used for his Dentistry course the best anatomy book for any artist. All my other books on anatomy pale in comparison.

Good night, Cubao!

Overhauled my art supplies cabinet this afternoon.

All of those art books and antiques and pieces of jewelry that I bought and stowed away from the age of 18 onward--I'm savoring each and every one of them now that I've retired.

The expertise of a real mage relies not only on his ability to cast a spell but to uncast that same spell as well.

When a phony medium cannot access a spirit, he or she will put on a serious facial expression and say, "The spirit is not available because it is currently being processed for reincarnation."

Never believe such tripe. Time in the astral realm is not linear. There is no traffic and there are no queues. A spirit can be "processed for reincarnation" in what, to us, is a mere split second.

Why don't they just admit, "I'm sorry--I can't do it"?

Adam and Eve could have re-entered the Garden of Eden. However, they did not know the password.

When there are no available ecorches, thin friends can help out with muscle and bone structure shadows and highlights.

If you force people to convert to your religion, they will pretend to do so, then revert to their own beliefs whenever your back is turned.

Every statue or graven image is a conduit to the astral realm.

Flower and candle offerings are made on altars, and gifts for you appear on them.

Your hair will grow only to the maximum length that your body can sustain, pretty much in the same way that vines will grow no longer than the earth can sustain them.

Study your hair. It should have natural curls. It determines the magnitude of your magical power.

Good morning, Cubao!

Day 9 of construction work on the ground-floor cafe.

Night classes 3:00 AM

Nothing shakes only once.

A year and a quarter ago I advised you to insulate your house with sliding doors that could be double-paned IF AND WHEN winter comes to the Philippines due to earth changes. Now you are shivering and wearing sweaters inside your own bedroom whereas I--I am in a T-shirt and summer shorts and having a cup of espresso in mine.

For 40 years I served various institutions and agencies.

Now I serve only literature and art.

How strange. When I was painting only on weekends, I developed frozen shoulder. It was painful and quite hard to shake off.

I am now painting eight days at a stretch, always the entire day, every other week. My forearms and fingers ache afterward, but I no longer have frozen shoulder.

It's too wonderful to be able to watch daytime TV shows that I absolutely couldn't when I was still working in an office.

Finally caught an episode of NCIS: New Orleans with scenes set in the French Quarter. Love those balconies with iron tracery! I had to make certain changes for our own house, though:

1) The "open proscenium" type of iron tracery is conducive to Akyat-Bahay invasion, and so I covered everything with ironwork, taking care to install huge, iron windows that are padlocked but that can swing out to still give an open-proscenium effect whenever we want them to.

2) French iron tracery is too labor-intensive, expensive, difficult to repair and replace, and requires tedious cleaning on a typically dusty Philippine street, and so I went with Grecian squares instead.

Back from my sister Remi's birthday lunch with siblings.

Rediscovering the Spandex bands tricycle drivers use. They make great arm warmers.

Am so thrilled that a man who vends such items frequents our street corner every morning.

Every member of the family must have a writing desk, or a table to work on, with or without drawers.

Day 8 of construction work on the ground-floor cafe

I never take on students who will only turn out to be social failures.

Good morning, Cubao!

Good night, Cubao!

Lunch with my sisters at 11:00 tomorrow on the occasion of my sister Remi's birthday (while I am in Cubao, anyway). I might as well buy something that I'd always needed.

Just allow the words to flow from your Higher Self.

Very chilly evening in Cubao

Velazquez, Van Gogh, Picasso, and Matisse made painting seem so easy--almost like child's play.

Today, contemporary painters go out of their way to make painting seem so hard. Possibly as a defense mechanism against computer graphics and advertising.

I taught a five-weekend "Living The Tarot" workshop years ago. Here is one of the interpretations I gave the participants:

The suits of the Tarot deck (Wands, Swords, Chalices, and Coins) represent the four different modes of colonization/imperialism/evangelism/conversion in the world:

Wands (Sceptres) represent colonization by a king's decree, or foreign policy.

Swords represent colonization by means of war, or forcible conquest.

Chalices (Clergy) represent colonization by religion.

And, finally, Coins represent colonization by commerce or trade, which was the main reason behind Spain's arrival in the Philippines.

Frankly, why make up a bed:

--if you have to go back to it at the end of the day?
--if it isn't being photographed for a magazine spread?
--if your house is neither a hotel nor a military bunk?
--if you can't even make up unmade-up situations in your life?
--if, in the end, a made-up bed is merely an image of hypocrisy?

Perhaps it is a piecemeal crusade without banners.

"We don't need another hero/
We don't need to know the way home/
All we want is life beyond Thunderdome/"

The first Saturday and Sunday of our second painting week were, again, cold and windy nights. After that things got better. Mornings and evenings were breezy but comfortable. Sometimes the studio was warm, and the air was still.

Youth is when you insist on doing things your own way, which might turn out to be the wrong way. Adulthood is your opportunity to do things the right way. Retirement is when you enjoy the memory of the former and the fruits of the latter.

No single religion can ever dominate this world, so why bother going to battle to attempt it?

There will always be sectors of society that will not believe in what others believe in.

Every night, while my painting assistants were fast asleep, I plodded on through The Book of Abramelin The Mage.

Electrical wiring should be completely overhauled and upgraded--connections, fuse boxes, wiring, insulation, switches, outlets, and all--after every 30 years.

Children's memory of past events is short--a result of computers, ephemera in social media, and the convenience of electronic deletion.

Gone from the members of this generation are the natural abilities to remember. Unlike my sister Alice, for example, who can remember the moments immediately after she was born, and can vividly describe everything that she saw around her during that time.

One of the things I seem to have inherited from my father is the fondness for building and rebuilding. Whenever I hear the workers' grinders, hammers, and welding equipment, or merely see the their night lights when they are camping in the front area at night, a sense of security comes over me.

Good morning, Cubao!

There were some pleasant surprises waiting for me when I arrived home yesterday evening.

The first, of course, was that the workers have been making good progress on the ground-floor cafe.

To everyone who sent me e-mail messages and requests:

I'm afraid I have already become The Hermit of Cubao and The Hermit of Grande Island. I am unable to help any of you while I am painting.

I will be painting for Grande Island, conceivably, for the next three years.

Good night, Cubao!

Five days with you and will be packing once again for Grande Island for the third week of painting (February 7 - 15, 2015)! In the meantime Tina and I need to buy more paint tubes!

If I painted clouds the way they are, no one would ever believe that they were real, and that they were exactly as I saw them.

Timothy Dacanay, thank you for the book! You are the most thoughtful writer-friend I have ever known in my entire life!

A colonist is an invader.

A TV show with too many and too long and too repetitive commercial breaks has a high probability of being channel-hopped over.

Doing things without having supervisors is true bliss.

The worst assumption of every professor is that he is more intelligent than everyone else.

The names of the spirits in The Book of Abramelin the Mage should not be spoken out loud randomly and casually.

The best part of the day is when I walk into the studio early in the morning. I contemplate the previous day's work with satisfaction and I eagerly look forward to the day's work ahead of me.

Forgetful people have great wisdom, but they do not bother to write their insights down as they come.

I love eating butterscotch rock candy. It's like eating fragrant amber.

Once you stop wishing you were someone else, your real and irrevocable happiness begins.

Say what you think and what you see, not what other people say you should think and should see.

If other people disagree with what you think and what you see, that is really their problem and not yours.

Self-aggrandizing persons will always put other people down, because their neurotic underlay is paranoia.

I recall that the office I used to work in was also beside water, on Manila Bay. I was conscious of it mostly during break times, in the Octagon.

I wondered even then if any of my co-workers saw the sea through the eyes of an artist.

Most of the week the weather was pleasant. I was able to observe more closely how sea water behaves at various distances, at different times of the day and the night, and how the wind affects it. When swirling wind touches the water, it is an invisible comb that runs through the ocean's fluid hair.

He is unable to deal with other people's deaths. Whenever they occur he regresses to his childhood, after which subconscious denial takes over.

"No one can tell me what to do" has been my motto since graduate school.

"I do only what I want to" is my new motto from retirement onward.

I know what "hard labor" means, but to tell other people to "study hard" and to "work hard" makes no sense to me. Both imply that studying and working are not to be enjoyed.

Painting may be the highest form of alchemy, for the gold it produces from base materials will always outlast its creator.

Camayan Beach Resort is right across the water. We held office off-sites there twice in the past. It is ironic that I am now on Grande Island watching its beacon lights from a distance. The experience is somewhat like gazing at an old photograph.

I cannot appreciate wearing earphones to listen to music except when I am in bed and feeling bored. Especially when traveling, I find that using earphones deprives me of utilizing my other senses, thereby decreasing my powers of observation.

You can dissect a good artist's painting like a cadaver in order to see the layers of paint and brush strokes that made it work, but, in the same manner that you cannot put back the pieces of a cadaver together again, you cannot restore that painting to its original condition.

Contrary to the notion promoted by popular literature, the sea cannot ever be haunted despite the disasters and tragedies that occurred, and continue to occur, in it. The sea is heavy, while spirits of any nature are light, and so they tend to ride the wind and settle on the surface of the earth like birds and butterflies seeking shelter.

Moreover, the sea is a cleanser. It purifies all negativity. That is why, even by wading on the shore, you immediately feel like you have left all of your worries behind.

At last! Work commenced on our ground-floor cafe last Tuesday!

Hello again Cubao!

Arrived 6:30 PM.