5 posts from October 2007

Audio:  Show us a song or album you've recently downloaded.

It's an easy-listening song made by Aiza Seguerra for the television show Ysabella. Here's the lyrics:

I
Noo’y umiibig na ako
Subalit nasaktan ang puso
Parang ayko nang umiibig pang muli
May takot na nadarama
Na muli ay maranasan
Ayoko nang masaktan muli ang puso ko

II
Ngunit ng ikaw ay makilala
Biglang nagbago ang andarama

Chorus
Para sa’yo
Ako’y iibig pang muli
Dahil sa’yo
Ako’y iibig nang muli
Ang aking puso’y pag-ingatan mo
Dahil sa iyo’y muling magmamahal sa’yo
Para lang sa’yo

III
Muli ay aking nadama
Kung paano ang umibig
Masakat man ang nakaraa’y malimot na …
Ang tulad mo’y naiiba
At sa’yo lamang nakita
Ang tunay na pag-ibig na aking hinahanap

IV
Buti na lang ika’y nakilala
Binago mo ang nadarama
(Repeat Chorus)

Bridge
Ako’y di na muling mag-isa
Ikaw na nga ang hinihintay ng puso ko

(Repeat Chorus to end)

I'm definitely hooked with the new show Gossip Girl. It has a wicked storyline and every episode keeps you wanting more and more. As I write, I'm downloading its fourth episode and I'm glad to share to you a clip which fascinated me. I wonder who has a score for this? 

“The idea of happiness is surely the sun at the centre of our conceptual planetary system – and has proved just as hard to look at directly.”

~ Michael Frayn

There isn't much film about female queer relationship here. Pansin ko lang. It's always the gay male and everything that revolves around it: macho dancers, paid sex, stereotypical jobs, and bulging muscles (pun intended). I remember a conversation I heard about this topic and it revolves entirely on people still being sexist even with the third gender. If you're a parent daw, it's okay to have a gay male son than a gay female daughter. Some argue that there are more jobs for the bakla than the tibo. Ano ba naman 'yan?!

Good thing I chanced upon this movie in our family desktop computer. It's a 2005 film about lesbians and it's really, really funny. My sister was drooling over the groom (Heck, played by Matthew Goode) while I was giddy to see Piper Perabo again. The last movie I've seen with her on it was Coyote Ugly. I thought her career was dead na, haha.

Here's the summary of the film from Wikipedia:

Rachel (Piper Perabo) is a young Englishwoman marrying Heck (Matthew Goode), her boyfriend of many years. Luce (Lena Headey) manages a flower shop in a North London suburb, and is providing the flowers for their ceremony. As Rachel walks to the altar, her gaze meets Luce's. The connection between the two women is instant and intense. When Rachel accidentally loses her wedding ring in the punch at the reception, Luce rolls up her sleeve and plunges her hand in after it. She also makes fast friends with Rachel's younger sister, Henrietta (nicknamed "H" because her mother exclaimed "Jesus H. Christ!" upon discovering she was pregnant).

Some time later, Luce is invited to dinner with Rachel, Heck, and Coop (Darren Boyd), Heck's best friend and a perennial bachelor. Rachel suggests they fix up Luce with Coop, until Luce mentions that she's a lesbian. Heck takes this news in stride, and Coop is undeterred in his good-natured attempts to sleep with her.

While Heck works long hours at his increasingly unsatisfying office job, he encourages Rachel to be friends with Luce. The two spend an evening together, visiting a football match and an arcade (which becomes the setting for a Dance Dance Revolution sequence). At the end of the night, Luce walks Rachel back to her flat. Their goodbye grows awkward from tension, and Rachel tries to kiss Luce. But Rachel withdraws at the last moment and leaves.

Over the next few days, Rachel continues to deny her growing attraction to Luce in an effort to remain loyal to Heck. For her part, Luce has no wish to break up a committed couple. Rachel even confronts Luce directly about their feelings at Luce's flower shop. She tells Luce that a romance between them cannot happen, leaves, and abruptly returns seconds later to kiss Luce in the back of the shop. Their foreplay gets interrupted by Heck, who has stopped by to pick up flowers for Rachel. He tells Luce that he has sensed the distance growing between him and Rachel and partially blames himself for not being there for her. Hearing this, Rachel sorrowfully informs Luce that she can't betray Heck again. She goes so far as to rashly confess all to Heck, who feigns sleeping, without saying who. Heck later turns to Coop for support and tells him what Rachel inadvertently told him. Coop angrily confronts Luce after figuring out it was her Rachel fell in love with and she decides that being near Rachel without being with her is too hard. Luce makes plans to go on an extended vacation out of the country, leaving care of her shop to her mother.

When Rachel and Heck are celebrating her birthday at her parents', H tells them about Luce's vacation. Heck then figures out that it was Luce who Rachel fell in love with after noticing her reaction to the news. Heck loves Rachel too much to abide her deep unhappiness, and eventually lets her go so that she can be with Luce. She then confesses to her parents that she is “in love with a woman” and with their help, Rachel tracks down Luce as she takes a taxi to the airport. The two women reunite and kiss each other in the middle of a crowded London street.

Watch the cute trailer:
I just hope to see lesbian films here sa Pinas. I don't know any but if you do know any local lesbian films, enlighten me by commenting.

Growth in numbers and in spirituality is what I always asked God for my choir and its members. I hate to say this but for months we have been stagnant: only a few (and I mean few) songs have been taught to us, motivation for members to show up is a little bit mundane even if I was giving grave threats of all sorts, and no parishioner has ever contacted us for interest in becoming a music minister.

I do not believe I have done my part that well. I know we gave out mini-fliers that I printed, posted primers and membership forms that I also printed, and behaved and served well for people to be impressed and eventually be enticed to join the group. But never did I muster the strength to make an announcement during the interlude between the communion and the recessional parts of the liturgical celebration because of pride. Damn pride. Or was it the fear of affirming to myself that we are not growing. I know that we do a great job with our mass services but there is this need in me for the group to grow in numbers. I know spirituality will come, though at a later time, but I do believe that they'll slowly see the path that Jesus walked.

My worries were due to the things that transpired during the conversation we had with our newly installed parish priest. While practicing for our evening mass service that Sunday afternoon, he walked in and commended us that we do know our craft very well. Knowing that he himself is a former choir member, it felt like he was really impressed but I really saw something bad coming our way. Call it pessimistic outlook or years of training of knowing how people will actually soften the blow. I know very well that he will just sandwich a nasty violent reaction with first, comforting (not to mention flattering) words, and secondly, a recommendation. Boy did he ever made the first move! Suddenly, his tone changed and said that our "voicing" can't be heard over the audio system. He immediately ruled in the ultimate reason which is due to the acoustics of the parish so he encouraged us to really go near the microphones whens singing. Good thing the halitosis issue of a former member has been taken care of or I couldn't possibly stand singing the entrance hymn without vomiting the second we are in the first five notes of the song.

Moving on, he also scanned the room and quickly found out that there were only five of us present at that moment: my choirmaster, my two sopranos, my accompanist, and me. I told myself that we were doomed. He commented in our lack of number which my choirmaster clarified that others were just late for the practice. The priest brushed the excuse aside and told us that we should consider recruiting new members. And then he told us an unimaginable thing: merging with another choir. He particularly told us a specific choir who we can do the merger with.

Weeks passed and I forgot all about the blow. That does not sound right, eh? Well, Rich, our accompanist, told me that a merger was proposed unto us by the specific choir mentioned by our parish priest during the conversation. I said that I'll think about it but in a positive way. Our problem of getting members will be finally resolved although mergers are not my thing. I have this sorta bad experience during college about mergers. Let's say that it didn't go well for me and I ended up crying because I was hurt. A lot.

See, merging two groups are tricky: it will be a merger not only of systems, people, but of passion. Wait, that's a copy for a commercial regarding bank merging. Point taken from the thought actually but what is bothering me is my view of merger as a clash of cultures. Both groups all have established identities already and a shared experience or worldview about service in the church. I just cannot disregard those years we spent together as a group and the years they spent together as a group as well. It might be true that both groups share a passion for what we do best but there's always the but thing that will really bite you hard in the ass.

A part of me says that I'm just overanalyzing all the things that were said by my choir members about this merger issue like whose name of the group are we going to retain, what will be the flow of command, who will be in command, and the new (or soon-to-be renewed) interpersonal issues between the members of both groups. I have to have a meeting with the other group to slightly alleviate my worries or I'll lose my sanity and my precious sleep. Maybe it'll also be a good thing if we do the meeting with the parish priest. He shouldn't take this lightly because I'm not.