You cannot absolutely love a person whose language you do not speak and understand.

If you mix watercolor paints with acrylic, the watercolor paints will take on the characteristics of acrylic (non-soluble, indelible).

If you mix poster paints with acrylic, the poster paints will take on the characteristics of acrylic (non-soluble, indelible).

Mixing these water-based paints with acrylic allows you to achieve new shades and hues, as well as extend your acrylics.

Earth changes are ongoing, albeit apparently slowly because either we are in denial that they are happening or because we are microscopically focused on our own habitats.

There is no such thing as a perfect friend in cyberspace. Expecting to find one will always lead to your disconnecting from that friend or that friend disconnecting from you.

If it will offend your loved ones, don't post it.

Watched all three episodes of My Kitchen Rules last night ("Semi-Finals 1," "Semi-Finals 2," and "Grand Finals"). Quite entertaining. It was much more pleasant to watch shows like that rather than shows that have disturbing violence before drifting off to sleep.

The most amazing thing about those three shows in a row is that they didn't make me feel hungry, since I may have been visually over-sated with all that food on the screen--on the contrary, it kept reminding me that I should go on a diet.

Do rebels realize that there are rebels who rebel against them?

Buy sunglasses only from your optician, who knows the distance and reading lenses that are good for your eyes.

You cannot come full circle if you never left your position in the first place.

Your house should look beautiful in all seasons and at all times of the day and night. This can be achieved by means of multiple sources of lighting.

You have more than one objective in life. Know what all of them are. Only then will you know exactly where you should be going.

Re-viewing "Brewster McCloud"

Watched Brewster McCloud  on TCM last night. Its magic was still there. The first time I saw it was when I was a senior high school student. I thought then that it was spectacular but visually understated considering that it was filmed at the peak of the Flower Power movement, the Beatles, marijuana and LSD, fluorescent posters, black lights, bell bottoms, hipsters, paisley prints, an unprecedented Aubrey Beardsley revival, the London Look, Courreges, Tom Jones, Marianne Faithfull, The Dave Clark Five, and Vogue was dominated by Twiggy, Veroushka, and Penelope Tree.

The film's message holds true for today as it did for its intended generation. It is essentially about the young non-conformist (Bud Cort) who is led by his Anima (Sally Kellerman) to figurative, spiritual freedom only to be hindered by all men's fatal flaw--falling in love with a real human being (Shelley Duvall), becoming grounded, and, as a result, being unable to figuratively fly.

Even as a high school student I was amazed by the casting direction--the performers who were chosen to play key characters actually looked like birds without make-up on: owls, herons, cranes, crows, ravens, you name it. It inspired me to do the same should I have been a director someday, and I began looking at everyone around me and made special note of those who looked like cats and those who looked like dogs.

Brewster McCloud is a tribute to the filmmaker's imagination, a newly-told story about man being placed in a cage by the establishment, and his dream and his attempt to escape it.

Among its many messages, it tells us that:

--even if you manage to escape the establishment, the establishment will go after you, capture you, and strangle you;
--sometimes you may have to strangle society before it strangles you;
--society is comprised of predators;
--the Anima speaks to you only once; and
--life is an illusion.

Of course there will always be someone who disagrees with you, but why should that stop you from saying what you sincerely believe?

I showed you four orgonite muffins in your dream. Their dominant colors were yellow and black.

Do you remember?

Women on the Train

Since I am a senior citizen I always take the lead carriage on the train. It is the carriage reserved for the elderly, pregnant women, people with restricted mobility, and children. More often than not I am one of a few men, and I am surrounded with crowds of women.

On Wednesday afternoon I rode the LRT1 from Taft Avenue to Doroteo Jose. An old woman accidentally shoved the arm of a middle-aged lesbian; the arm was bandaged, and I happened to see, by scanning the arm, that it bore a knife wound. The lesbian shrieked and complained that her arm hurt badly. The old woman, not seeing the bandage at first, retorted that her arms were aching too. Despite the intervention of the carriage guard a verbal spat ensued. The old woman eventually kept apologizing to the lesbian in English. It was the lesbian who put an end to it all by announcing, "Tumigil na ako--tumigil na rin kayo!"

This afternoon, a rainy one that caused a horrible crush at the train station, I rode the MRT from Taft Avenue to Cubao-Araneta Center. An old woman accidentally leaned her arm on the head of the young woman in front of her. The young woman complained that her hair was being pulled. The old woman, apparently not a good sport, went into a tirade of insults that ended up with many of the passengers shouting her down.

I note that women, regardless of age, are not ladies when they are with one another. I've seen them push one another aggressively and struggle for seats.

Stress, fatigue, rejection, and urban loneliness can bring women back a step closer to the Stone Age. Whenever that happens, they are the ugliest people I have ever seen.

Men When Walking

There are seven buildings interconnected by stone walkways on our office compound. It is not uncommon for employees to walk from one building to another several times in one day and pass one another while doing so. I love it when this happens--it is always an opportunity for me to study the psychology of other men.

Male co-workers who pass each other by will already have seen each other from a distance but pretend not to have done so. They will look up at each other barely three steps away with eye contact as brief as three seconds. The typical greetings are  "Good morning/day," "How are you?," How're you doing?," "Hello," "Hi," and "Hey." The typical responses to the second and third questions are "Fine, thank you" and "Good." Anything longer than that--such as "I'm having a three-day migraine," "I saw you yesterday in the cafeteria," "Nice shirt," and the like is considered improper and unnecessarily over-friendly. The point, after all, is not to greet the other but to acknowledge the other's existence on the same turf. The messages exchanged are tantamount to "I am not an enemy; I hope you are not an enemy either." It is barely one step ahead of the Stone Age.

There are men, of course, who ignore one another or deliberately look away--these are men who begrudge you something, who resent the fact that you have something they do not have or know something they do not know.

There are also those who are so steeped in thought about their work that they don't even notice you.

And then there are those who test others' mettle by doing the unexpected to watch their reactions: prolong eye contact, smile warmly, and wave. I am one of the last. I am a writer and an artist, and I love making people step out of their boxes.

On an electronic form, if a field is not required in filling out the form, why include it on the form at all?

Massage the sides of your neck in an upward direction to unblock the flow of blood to your brain.

There would be more love and affection in this world if the inner child in every person were visible to all.

The least you can do for your parents is live up to the name they gave you.

It is unfortunate that, when people read about the lives of saints, they especially enjoy the parts where they were tortured and killed in the most unusual ways.

The cafeteria ran out of Snickers bars and I'm going crazy.

Shared publicly, for the month of September only, my PSYCHIC PREDICTIONS, PRESCRIPTIONS, AND METAPHYSICAL MESSAGES FOR THE MONTH OF SEPTEMBER on my Google+ profile. You may view them there.

Long weekend because Monday is U.S. Labor Day.

Now I have more time to rearrange furniture and decor in the house.

A gentleman cannot have too many handkerchiefs.

There was nothing interesting on TV last night and I ended up watching Law & Order Special Victims Unit 15, a program that always manages to depress me because, at 63, I feel that I have seen it all but, after watching an episode, I then feel that I mayn't have.

No wonder the program is immediately followed by Just for Laughs.

It takes me only five minutes conversing with and psychically scanning a person to make me decide whether I like that person or not.

Everything can be enjoyed, including hard work, as long as you bother to find out how it can be done.

The only time we cannot enjoy something is when we psych ourselves into believing that we prefer to be doing and enjoying something else.

Never be concerned with how desirable you are, because you will always be desirable to some and not desirable to others. It is really their problem and not yours.

The best way to turn off someone is to show him/her that you are interested in someone else.

Life gives us great options everyday, except that we are too focused on our present setbacks to even see and consider them.

A person not consistently loved is like a plant not regularly watered. Both wilt and fade, until it is too late.

The hardest thing to revive is a love that has wilted, faded, and gone.

Why wait for a sign when all of the indications are already under your nose?

The biggest mistake of young actors and actresses is trying their best to look seductive, succeeding only in making themselves look jaded before their time. Ironically, should anyone ask them whom they are trying to seduce, they will not even be able to give an answer.

One goes out of one's way to look seductive for the lecher in the audience and not for the general public.

Or look seductive for one's talent manager, upon instruction.

People flinch whenever they see Manny Pacquiao's mother on TV not because of her eccentricities but because they subconsciously perceive her as Manny Pacquiao in drag.

A female broadcaster close to middle age does not laugh on screen, she cackles. Whenever she does that she exudes psychic information about her problems: an unloving husband, a problem child, and career frustration.

Watch her and pay close attention to her whenever she cackles. It's an excellent exercise in the development of psychic abilites.

How some hackers work:


1) First you receive this with the subject "Email verification".

"We are conducting a verification exercise for all accounts. Please Click Here to verify your account is valid."


2) Then you receive this with the subject "Sign-In Alert":

"Dear User We received alert that your account Has a pending Limit of emais to receive, And we noticed Few emails are on pending

"Please login to verify ownership of this account.

Ignoring this message will result to account closure and your data will be lost.

"Please

Verify here

"Your account would be upgraded automatically.

"Thanks.

"Yahoo! Mail"

3) And then a similar message with the subject "Account Update".


4) And then a message with the subject "Account Update...Final Warning!!!"


Just delete everything permanently.

Society has conditioned many people to go on dates on weekends, but the fact is, among the many primal, archetypal legacies that have been handed down to us by our remotest ancestors is the mating season.

In Europe, if you go by Henrik Ibsen's Miss Julie, it occurs in the spring.

The unorthodox employee is the most effective employee of all.

He sees things that others do not see.

He has resources that others do not have.

Only patience will lead you to realizing your dreams.

I met a middle-aged woman who took marijuana at a festival. When she came back she was loud, flighty, effusive, and uninhibited for days. I haven't seen her in a while, and I wonder how long it took for all of that to wear off.

I've had sausages from Tuguegarao, Vigan, Pampanga, Calumpit, Lucban, Alaminos, Iloilo, and Bacolod. (Those are the only ones that I distinctly remember.) The sausages from Tuguegarao and Calumpit are the ones I like best.

The Wands must still point to the earth.

If you have a figurine of a goat, set it on a table or pedestal of its own facing the volcano.

Re-reading my Batman in the Eighties volume. Someone please tell me why Bruce Wayne eventually sent Dick Grayson away and then adopted Jason Todd, who then died. I want to know!

Ideas for original patterns for handknitted sweaters are swimming in my mind, and I wonder why because the timing is all wrong. I plan to go back to handknitting only after my retirement.

I do have a blog containing my fabric art, but will open it to the public many years from now.

It is possible to send telepathic messages to anyone by staring at a TV screen on which a live program is playing.

Never curse someone or something, or express your anger, while facing a mirror.

Celebrate everything, including your sadness.

The primary cause of a headache is hunger.

Eyestrain comes only second.

There are two ways to get rid of bad breath without using mint candies or gargle solution:

1) Eat three handfuls of plain corn flakes. The flakes will absorb the smell inside your mouth and drag it down to your stomach.

2) Munch on several leaves of arugula. I love it! Your body needs bitters, anyway. Your breath will smell like the breath of the god of the forest.

Addendum to your Hangout Message: 

Your original message: "Maaaari ko po bang ikonsulta ang panaginip ng katrabaho ko? Mga 3-4 na beses na raw po niyang napapanaginipan na sumasakay siya sa elevator. Pagdating sa taas, pagbukas daw po ng pinto, maraming  bangkay ang nakikita niya, tapos ay may isang batang babae raw po ang humihingi sa kanya ng tulong.

"Maraming salamat po."

Your question today:

"Bakit daw po batang babae ang humihingi ng tulong? Thank you po, sir Tony."

My answer: Hi again _______!

The little girl in the dream is the dreamer's inner child. It is immaterial whether one's inner child is male or female.

The dreamer's inner child is asking the dreamer to revisit transgressions suffered in his/her past or in his/her childhood--and then forgive the transgressors, and then forgive himself/herself. Only then will the inner child continue to live and continue to give the dreamer all of the gifts that he/she deserves.

The corpses in the dream are the opportunities that the dreamer deliberately allowed himself/herself to miss, along with lost triumphs and unrealized successes.

Every inmate in prison could have been a great artist, except that he/she did not meet the right teacher at the right time.

Every patient in a mental hospital could have been a great psychic, except that he/she did not meet the right teacher at the right time.

Every resident in drug rehab could have been a great teacher, except that he/she was not sufficiently loved at the right times.

Creativeness and destructiveness are polar opposites. They are different from each other, yet they are one.

You cannot be haunted by work, but you can be haunted by love.

A true artist will never skimp and save on an excellent pencil sharpener.

We have a hot-and-cold drinking water dispenser in the kitchen. So strange, but now I also want one in the upper-floor family room, which is surrounded by four bedrooms, and another in my ground-floor, captain's cabin bedroom. For a long time before this, it seems that having more than one drinking water dispenser in the house was inconceivable to most people. Yet, gone should be the days when one wakes up in the middle of night, and then have to rise and saunter to the kitchen to fetch a glass of water.

It is possible to shine like the sun among torches and candles.

Watched the National Heroes Day Special on History Channel last night: "Special Forces S1: Philippine Marine Force Recon". I was totally fascinated with the martial art using the bolo, which was described as "the extension of life."

Also watched the episode that followed, "Special Forces S2: Philippine Scout Rangers", although I'd seen it before.

Watching only parts of The Serialist on RED. A very lyrical treatment of the case study of that notorious, sociopathic, Japanese snuff photographer.

I don't like spending my time seeing people getting hurt on the screen. As a matter of fact, last night, I couldn't even sit through a National Geographic documentary on ancient Africans getting ritually whipped and scarified.

Isn't it mind-boggling that, no matter what state the economy of one's country is in, no amount of stability actually causes or dispels loneliness?

Once in a while I sip a goblet of chilled Baguio wine, and usually on a weekend afternoon. It makes me feel that my mind is like a big, white sheet clipped onto a clothesline. As the wine engulfs me, the clips gradually fall off and release the sheet to billow in the breeze and unfurl against the blue sky.

A bangle is typically worn on the wrist of one's weaker hand.

Witches may have cats, but mages have dragons.

A mage's power resides in his hair.

Alchemy--the systematic attempt to mix base ingredients to produce higher forms of material--exists today in cooking, visual arts, perfumery, and magical spell-casting.

Joycie Alegre informed that, today, Hershey's chocolate rather than chocolate tablets is used in preparing moron.

Wearing the right earrings enhances psychic hearing. That is why most women can intuitively listen between the lines.

A total of 12 Singaporean playwrights submitted manuscripts for dramaturging. Apparently their deadline was August 15 rather than August 31.

"Writing from The Heart" in Singapore is one example of a long-term workshop that ensured long-term relationships between me and the participants. I will actually see all of those plays through their production stage.

Watched The Lone Ranger on HBO inside Room 301 of Asia Stars Hotel in Tacloban. Not the best Johnny Depp I've seen--you can't see his facial expressions beneath all that make-up--but the movie was interesting enough to make me watch it through its final shot.

Is it time you really fear or your incapability to cope with it?

A change in food results in a change of mood.

It is still a good idea to keep pet birds. It brings the smile of Nature into your house.

Sometimes being fastidiously religious leads to moral stagnation.

Never jump up from bed upon waking.

It is better to set your alarm 15 minutes earlier and then gently merge with your environment before rising.

Your body should walk well. If it does, so will your spirit.

People who seek to control you only seek to control themselves.

I eat three to five chili peppers (siling labuyo) with every meal. When the heat spreads within my torso, I feel like a lantern that is all lit up.

Tacloban - Manila (Friday, August 22, 2014)

A glorious, sunny morning. The goddess of the wind always blesses me when I am traveling. This is the back of Asia Stars Hotel, where I stayed for three nights after my first night in XYZ Hotel.

Thinking of Kichiro

The hotel owner's portrait on the firewall overlooking the parking lot?

Checking out

Waiting for my flight after checking in, at the vehicle-for-rent owner's airport canteen

Departure area

Always choose translucent red for a water bottle--unless you are too much of the warrior type. The color infuses the water with aggressive energy.

We depart on time: 1:45 PM.

What I had on the plane: tribute to all survivor victims

Baggage claim

An airport car takes me home. I arrive home 5:00 PM.

Perfection and Imperfection

Going through my Tacloban notebook and I see that I scribbled something about perfection and imperfection. I cannot recall exactly why I did this; perhaps it was during a conversation over lunch with Boyet, who has remained single, and Raquel, who is married and has a daughter in college. I scribbled down "perfection and imperfection" and two names, not Boyet and Raquel but "Noel and Dudu", two people who do not even know each other and who belong to two different worlds in my past.

I remember Noel, who was young and unmarried when we were working on the same team at __________ ______ _________. He was very finicky about women. He was attracted only to women who had flawless complexion, impeccable taste, proportional figures, and every hair in place. A single mole would turn him off completely.

Dudu was a college friend, and, on the other hand, was attracted only to men who had blatant imperfections: a limp, a stammer, or some other kind of "defect". He was absolutely repelled by male models and movie stars.

Where are Noel and Dudu now, I wonder? Have they found the woman and man of their quirky dreams?

Are they happy? Are they content?

"Writing from The Heart" Workshop at U.P. Visayas Tacloban (Thursday, August 21, 2014)

My album for the "Writing from the Heart" workshop at the University of the Philippines Visayas in Tacloban is on http://tonyperezphilippinescyberspacebook18.blogspot.com. The program partners were the Embassy of the U.S.A. in Manila, the Outreach Division of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, the Heritage Research Center of U.P. Tacloban, and the Office of the Dean of Mass Communications of U.P. Tacloban.

There were 25 participants. Since I was given only one day to conduct everything, we began at 8:00 AM and went overtime through 6:00 PM.

Among the observers were Joycie Alegre (director of the Heritage Research Center) and Dulz Cuna (a visual artist).

The participants are MassCom majors who, aside from being survivors themselves, are being tasked by their university to interview other survivors and produce a book of stories on the days and aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban.

Later that evening, we went to Libro coffee and book shop and art gallery, where Dulz Cuna's exhibit of Typhoon Haiyan paintings are being showcased.

A Story in The Wink of An Eye

We sped past the scene too quickly for me to take a snapshot, but it remains in my memory. Yes, even the briefest, tachistoscopic, glimpses at the world provide us with stories we can develop in our minds.

Riding from Guiuan to Tacloban the afternoon of Tuesday, I saw from my window two, unpainted houses: one on the roadside, the other, behind it. On the house nearest the road a young man, a cross-dresser actually, was leaning on a railing outside and gazing out into space. I was able to read his mind. He was unhappy where he was, and he was mulling over the possibility of moving to a place with faster action, like Manila. Yet, he was unsure as to whether he would survive such a milieu or not.

In the house beyond, another young man was standing outside and looking at him. I also read his mind. He was trying to comprehend the psychology of a cross-dresser, and was being thankful that he had no such concerns.

Both young men were cousins, and were neighbors.

Both young men were immobile, while the car sped by at least, like characters in a rural Edward Hopper. The mobility occurred in my mind--an upright domino fell against an adjacent, upright domino, triggering a chain of associations that I could later work into a short story or a novel.

I saw how the first young man was lonely and confused. Society frequently made fun of him. He'd fallen in love several times before only to be treated as a sex machine, and with sadistic sex at that. He would receive affection and tenderness only by a long shot.

My companions were chatting about trivial things. I did not bother to break their mood by telling them about what I saw, and about what I was thinking,

I merely wondered whether they also see such scenes in the wink of an eye, and, since they are not creative writers and probably never will be, I wondered further what they do with them.

Tacloban - Palo - Tacloban (Wednesday, August 20, 2014)