I was home early today to watch the Filipino dub of Card Captor Sakura. The episode I just watched was really sweet, wherein Sakura went back in time to ask Clow Reed some questions.

I really liked the real Clow Reed, although his reincarnation is uber-cute, too. The original Clow has these chinky, smiling eyes and a really tall, slender physique. He is just so debonair.

By the way, when I went to the stationery section of a suburb department store on the way home, I passed by the corner where they have all the arcade games lined up. At the farthest end of the row of consoles was a boxy version of Soul Edge. I wanted so much to play it, but I was running after time so I could catch my CCS.

So Syaoran and Yue won out. Maybe I’ll go back to the store some other time and try out their Soul Edge.

I don’t know what came over me lately, but right now I am so obsessed with manga and the beautiful artbooks that are released to “complement” them.

I think what primarily drew me in to these were the really beautiful fan websites that are so obviously labors of love. Of course, the artworks are so gorgeous and much more elaborate than those in the comic books that I have long since been fond of reading.

I have lately been into more manga series than one could shake a sackful of tankoubon at. Let’s see: there’s Gals, Time Stranger Kyoko, Kamikaze Kaitou Jeanne, Furikuri (FLCL), D.N.Angel and Lagoon Engine.

I have also been having the time of my life watching the Filipino dubs of Detective Conan and Card Captor Sakura. I love Syaoran – and Yue, too. The Filipino voice actors are so good and they get the characters’ emotions effectively across.

Going back to manga, I think Time Stranger Kyoko is one of the coolest illustrated series I have ever read. I especially loved the clincher ending chapters. Sakataki is just so awesome, plus Kyoko really has chutzpah. What I would not give to be her, being able to sleep in the same bed with not one, but two, bishounen bodyguards.

My mother and I decided to watch a movie this weekend so as to, well, decompress.

We caught Original Sin, starring Antonio Banderas and Angelina Jolie, yesterday afternoon.

This film is an onscreen adaptation of Cornell Woolrich’s novel Waltz into Darkness.

In Original Sin, the audience is not meant to know who exactly the characters are and what are the actual motives behind their actions.

The primary enigma in the film is Angelina Jolie’s character, Julia, who is actually Bonnie. She kept on switching loyalties and one could only hope to guess what was brewing in her mind.

The film’s drawing force is the layers upon layers of deception that the characters pile upon themselves and each other.

These layers serve as masks – sometimes flimsy, sometimes opaque – of their true selves and what each of them really want and need.

The movie’s conclusion is a bit anti-climactic. However, when I thought about it at length, Love does not need a reason for what it decides to do.

Below is the skinny on Original Sin:

Can love release our true self?

A wealthy Cuban coffee exporter, Luis Vargas (Antonio Banderas), advertises for a US wife. Julia Russell (Angelina Jolie), from Delaware, sends her photograph, but the woman who steps off the ship is much lovelier. Luis marries her immediately and gives in to love.

But Julia may not be who she claims: first a private eye, Walter Downs (Thomas Jane), shows up on behalf of Julia’s sister, then the sister herself. By now, Luis has given his wife access to bank accounts, and when she runs with his cash, he pursues her with the help of Downs – perhaps to kill her.

Pursuit may be part of a con game as well, and Julia’s past explains some, if not all, of what remains of the story.

Earlier today, I randomly went through my electronic poetry collection, which includes the works of Edgar Allan Poe, Christina Georgina Rossetti and Rabindranath Tagore, among others.

One of the poems that has long since pulled at my heartstrings is The Gardener by Tagore. The entire work is quite lengthy, but it never gets stilted.

I first heard of the author when I was in my first year of high school, at our Values Education class wherein he was quoted in our textbook. I looked him up in the library and eventually came across some of the poetry he had written.

I was proverbially reunited with Tagore when excerpts from The Gardener were quoted in a Rurouni Kenshin fanfiction series, Of Love and Honor. This work, beautifully and lyrically constructed by Tin Mandigma, remains unfinished to date, but is recognized as one of the best fanfic pieces in the RK fandom. The central characters in Of Love and Honor are Aoshi Shinomori and Misao Makimachi – the Oniwabanshuu Okashira and his Itachi Musume.

Excerpts from THE GARDENER
by Rabindranath Tagore

I love you, beloved. Forgive me my love.
Like a bird losing its way I am caught.
When my heart was shaken it lost its veil and was naked.
Cover it with pity, beloved, and forgive me my love.

If you cannot love me, beloved, forgive me my pain.
Do not look askance at me from afar.
I will steal back to my corner and sit in the dark.
With both hands I will cover my naked shame.
Turn your face from me, beloved, and forgive me my pain.

If you love me, beloved, forgive me my joy.
When my heart is borne away by the flood of happiness,
Do not smile at my perilous abandonment.
When I sit on my throne
And rule you with my tyranny of love,
When like a goddess I grant you my favour,
Bear with my pride, beloved, and forgive me my joy.

Do not go, my love, without asking my leave.
I have watched all night,
And now my eyes are heavy with sleep.
I fear lest I lose you when I am sleeping.
Do not go, my love, without asking my leave.

I start up and stretch my hands to touch you.
I ask myself, “Is it a dream?”
Could I but entangle your feet with my heart
And hold them fast to my breast!
Do not go, my love, without asking my leave.

It is all over the news.

Anthrax and smallpox viruses are making their clandestine way into the Philippines, spreading through cunningly-disguised letter envelopes and inconspicuous-looking packages in the mail. Even the big Western honchos like the New York governor are not safe.

But I have to say “waging war” this way is much, much harder to detect and counteract than an all-out nuclear bombing or an attack similar to what happened at the World Trade Center last September.

Biological weapons such as airborne viruses do not manifest symptoms in the victims after a considerable time spent under “incubation,” a more high-falutin term for a virus/vector growing slowly but surely in a person’s insides until it’s too late for a preventive measure. Only then would the symptoms be outwardly expressed. Most of the time it would be too late to stop the infection from spreading, because it already has without people knowing that they also have virus inside them.

Biological warfare is literally spreading cancer-like diseases all over the population. Like nuclear explosives, viruses do not choose whom to infect. However, unlike nuclear weapons, these do not kill swiftly. Epidemic diseases make people suffer first, then finally kill them when there is no proper or sufficient medication. It is much more merciless and painful. If some would luckily not get infected, they get to watch their fellows suffering. A theatre of pain, free of charge.

Why did the world come down to this?

One would think that with all the scientific, logical and mathematical discoveries we have made, we would be much smarter and wiser and less prone to making innocents suffer for some stupid cause. We are talking about human life here. Lots of people, who call themselves leaders and visionaries, do not seem to have the proper respect for it anymore. Lives now become pawns, one as dispensable as the next.

If this is what modernization would ultimately bring to the global society, I would be very well lead to think that we are de-evolving back into our animal primates as we supposedly make “progress.”

It is a very sad thought.

Happy, happy, happy birthday to my way-cool grandfather!

My paternal grandfater is turning 73 years old today. He is still kicking – way, way better than his contemporaries that I saw in one of their high school class reunions of late. Rock on, Grandpa!

I read this quote from someone’s e-mail signature in a mailing list which I’m part of. These beautifully-stated words of wisdom are credited to Martin Luther King:

The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you may murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. So it goes. Returning violence for violence multiplies violence, adding deeper darkness to a night already devoid of stars. Darkness cannot drive out darkness: only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate: only love can do that.

Wow. ‘Nuff said, indeed.