Bill Murray on Anthony Bourdain: No Reservations

Saved this in the draft boards about a year ago. The words escaped me then just because... I was who I was. I could not remember what I was thinking then but certainly knew what I was going through.
Now all I can feel is that I am dying to pack my bags again, to roam the nooks and crannies of my choosing. And also, I'm hungry again.

the lust

I'm into my 48th hour of Anthony Bourdain's No Reservation marathon that has led up to his return to the city of his first episode, Paris, this time along with the bafflingly soft-spoken Eric Ripert. I also happen to be 5 days into my bed-in of nothing that is neither Lennon nor (Larry David's not Marriage Ref Jerry's) Seinfeld and more like sleeping next to a pile of laundry. As the last weeks of summer trickle away, the walls that smell like take-out, close in and I am swallowed by my cheap, crumb-strewn mattress, I itch to live a sliver of this person's life that I see on the idiot box. I have always been hounded of the there's-more-to-life but cannot necessarily act on it nor afford it all the time.

As the daughter of a school librarian/social studies teacher and a civil engineer my Potter-esque destiny is set in Muggle world. So aside from the encyclopedic (i.e. Book of Knowledge) wonders of world, the foodie fest, better weather and far better manners I wish to partake in, I thought I should keep these links in my backpack pockets. Slightly less magic. More nerd. Some caffeine.

1. The Most Amazing Libraries in the World

2. The Most Amazing Bookstores in the World

And something closer to home current zip code,

3.  America's Most Amazing Libraries

flickring: the last 12 or so

IMG_0368.JPG
Originally uploaded by cjbando
Funny how the days and the theory of relativity seem to meld into a blur of activities then at it's most mundane and inconsequential-- like convincing yourself to tackle the oft-postponed chores during nth repeat marathon of Star Wars on Spike-- then pounce out of its sheep's clothing, straight to your jugular, to remind you life is trickling past you and out of you.

There's that way overdue final writing assignment I could not seem to submit which is rather rude of me, towards my amiable mentors in Connecticut. There's the bed that needs to be covered and made, that I have been sleeping in for the past week san linens. There's the room that is something out of Hoarders, littered by Rolling Stone magazines, and stuff I ordered online, like the Balenciagas that have yet to fit me right and The Clash series Chucks that have yet to impress the male of the species, if not invoke envy. (I have not seen my floor in months.) Ah, and there's the laundry-- four months worth of laundry. One cannot wax poetic on that.

Of course there is this long-ignored blog. This used to be my solace, the ether I scream my travails unto as much as my self-indulgences. There has been social networking portals once but since my virtual social life has made the Faustian leap to emulating my real life (although thank heavens for Privacy Settings and post filters..), I guess this low-traffic snippet of the blogosphere has made it's comeback, unless sheer laziness and ennui renders me useless again.

Thank God for photographs. There is still testament that life still bear something of interest even in hindsight, that once I woke up one morning and something simply took my breath away just by being and in the background Marley assures me that every little thing's gonna be alright.

Up in the Air

I am fascinated by travel. Maybe it's the smalltown girl dreaming dreams or the gypsy in me itching to roam. I tend to judge people and places by the scenery from a window seat. There's part charm and chagrin at the sight of farmlands and heartlands. I often ponder if a city holds up to the expectations its flickering night lights tend to ignite and if there's a mathematical equation to the degree it can deliver or disappoint. Sunlight is quantifiable to happiness if not to the level of perk or one's talkative trait. How truly diverse a city is exponentially related to how authentic it's Chinese take-out is. Others tend to flaunt global citizenship by finding the right drapes to go with the new Moroccan paint of the family den. Or they may displace to more temperate climes, better pay, cheaper real estate and gentrified surroundings only to run in the exact same circles and exchanging the exact same trivialities. The world is one giant science project and travel is the agar to view through airline eyes. It is an open zoo worth the price of admission. There is a rather uneasy tax to seeing it all though-- an incertitude that life is passing you by as you flit past it and then there's seeing things for what they are and the weariness of knowing. Being away from home ever since I have been old enough to make a living, I am coming to a conclusion that no matter where I attempt to take root, it is nothing more than something to tie me down. I have only one home and it's the one that has blessed me to be free and never merely settle.

-- Post From My iPhone, my so-called mobile life.

Location:Durness Ct,Nottingham,United States

one early blustery new york morning

Towards the corner of 41st and 5th, a few paces from the New York Public Library and a block away from fashionable Bryant Park, in a huff of feminine emergency to look for the nearest drug store, I literally stumble on this metal and concrete revelation. And this is just one of the thousand reasons I am helplessly, irrevocably in-love with New York. 

Click on the title or image to get the big picture.

from my table at the reading room

from my table
Originally uploaded by cjbando

The hotel is littered by white folk with the air of entitlement of the upper middle class.

The elegant middle-eastern concierge and the chic, skinny black girl at the desk do not seem to question my being there. But a lone girl checking into a Midtown NY literate-hipster hotel for a night can pique curiosity anywhere one goes be it Cauayan or Manhattan.

Concierge guy goes on to instruct me in all his cosmopolitan metrosexual conciergerie discretion about the rules of the hotel: no smoking... something about me AND my guest... Ooh-la-lah! How very clandestine. He proceeds to ask me wether I am there to shop and I say just to get away. That's not a bad reason at all he says.

I glanced to my left. Two tables away I see Elijah Wood in all-black and a faux hawk sipping espresso like the rest of us civilians. For a minute I thought he has fallen off one of the Tolkiens like an errant bookmark. Trust the fates who take delight in my constant punked state to set my token celebrity sighting in an NYC hotel called the Library Hotel to be Frodo Baggins.

The well-dressed white folks do not appear to wonder about my presence among them or are just good in hiding it like they always do. Perhaps it's due to the buggy eyes of my '07 fall-winter Miss Marc hobo or the DKNY bubble of polar bear and squirrel-- a welcome reject I have snagged from some red-neck outlet store but sshh, don't tell. Sometimes one need not dress to kill, just armed and camouflaged for survival. Natural selection.

A cute staffer of gay-boyfriend material approaches to inform me that my room is finally ready. I stuff my iBook into my backpack, grabbed my annoyingly necessary winter garb. Genetics is destiny and ones claim to the midoclorians, I thought as I flash him my Melki smile.

reflections on a backwater pearl part 2: Penny Lane likes my country

So there she was, in the midst of Manila's signature smog, looking over the taxi queues and the gladiatorial jeepneys, and the endless throng of people moving through dust, smoke and the garbage punctuating the streets- a smiling, laid-back ideal, all comfy and cozy. Behind her a thunderstorm condenses into a certainty of turning everything below her into muck in a good half hour.

My sister told me Natalie Portman endorsed Ba-yo last year. Either Padme Amidala had gone slumming or was being charitable. 

The clothes are really cute though.

reflections on a backwater pearl part 1, the rants

They may seem rearranged
In the backwater swirling, there is
Something that'll never change.

-Meat Puppets, Backwater, from the album Backwater, 1993.

Upon arrival at the NAIA, I realize, I have boarded a plane (my third in a series of connecting flights) in Nagoya to my final destination, Manila, and stepped out of a time machine.

There are about ten open cubicles at the fully packed Customs. Two are asssigned solely for OFWs and balikbayans. All the rest, including the closed ones are for the Anglos, the Euros, the snotty, noisy fellow Asians and a Midwestern family of Children of the Corn whom I shared a plane with since Detroit. The Flips outnumber the foreigners 5:1.

The average Flip man has no trepidation to openly stare and leer at any exposed female flesh even in the year 2007. The lighter the skin, the more lecherous the overtures.


It is some form of social buttress to rub in the have and have-nots. A freebie Lacoste tote and a hack-job Louis can supersede but easily cower in the face of true substance and character in most concourses.


To quote the great Jessica Zafra, "It is easy to be mistaken for an intellectual in this country." Peppering one's sentences with English words or phrases and random TV trivia is like accesorizing an outfit or brandishing a cell phone.


The horizons of Metro Manila are riddled with billboards of fair-skinned and celebs endorsing skin-whitening products and cosmetic surgery centers, conveying to the ordinary, hardworking joe who aspire for their lives: If you are brown and your features are less than aquiline, you are not good enough.


Beneath these 50-foot images of misled perfection are shanty towns, perpetually constructed roads, decaying structures, the hustling and the hustled jousting for space on streets & in malls and then, there is the world's worst traffic.

In the face of dust and heat and an unfortunate lack of A/C during one's commute, thoughts form that Manila is a hellhole where hellholes come to die.

"Senator, love your suit!!" (written October 28, 2007 BWI pre-departure area)

"Haul his ass back to Baltimore!"-US Senator pertaining to Hannibal Lecter.
I'm loosely quoting from one of my favorite films EVER, Silence of the Lambs, which I managed to catch on the eve of of my departure from Charm City, Murrryland, Home of the Brave. Nothing except for the V-fest could make me prouder for ending up in this tiny historic state. The very words came back and bit me (pun intended) when I was informed my flight yesterday was unceremoniously rescheduled without any due notice from my travel agent. My bony ass was hence hauled back to Baltimore County and I have managed to catch the last few scenes of the Lambs repeat. Yes, that part where Starling found herself in Jamie Gumm's lair. Jodie Foster was just utter perfection in this, combining intelligence prevailing through white trashiness.

The rest of the day, I just drowned my sorrows with the Top Model Marathon and the very hilarious America's Most Smartest Model in either VH1 or MTV (couldn't tell the diff). My trip may had been derailed for a day but my IQ did get a vacation.

Now I'm here in BWI waiting for my flight to Detroit then Nagoya then Manila. After a very short few weeks, I'll be hauling my ass back to share the same air with Hannibal Lecter and Edgar Allan Poe (he's a couple of blocks from where I work. Really). Life is alright as long as you know how to grab it by the face and match it with the right bottle of wine.

Felicitous

I have always been in love with with New York City. I  cannot ascertain the exact place and time where it all started nor can I, the exact event or specifically, the movie that started it all. It has always been one of those things that just is. Scorsese? Coppola? Spike Lee? Death Wish? Travolta in Staying Alive? Perhaps. Violent and gritty (or cheesy mediocre sequel) as they are, they have never seemed to repulse me from the city of my dreams. I know about the strippers in Times Square, the muggers and the infamous windshield washers. McCluskey's death scene in the Godfather just makes me want to eat authentic Italian pasta--you know none of that sorry swill of ketchup and hotdogs (tamis-sarap my arse). The moonshiners of those Charles Bronson flicks my beloved Tatay loves to watch made me long even more to stroll down Central Park. Woody Allen? Maybe. He is something that has gradually been ingratiated to me by my sisters, time and my maturing neurosis. My introd to him has been through his reputedly, relatively less stellar films, New York Stories and Everyone Says I Love You. The former in the Coppola ep made me & my sister want to name our unborn daughters, Zoe and the latter reminded me of my family- have we been living in New York, rich & Jewish and breaking out into song when left to our thoughts.







I have been too young for Annie Hall although I have no doubt I have unwittingly or not morphed myself into her over the years allargando. I've always been deluded enough to identify with, and mayhap moulded myself into the immortal New York heroines of celluloid & TV: Alex Owens, for the longest time as a kid ; Parker Posey's Mary in Party Girl, while in college raring to get out;

 Felicity Porter as a new grad biting reality in Singapore wistful of college days; Holly Golightly as a growing film buff in a quasi-intellectual escapist phase AND;
of course, as Carrie Bradshaw, as a wanna-be writer & closet celibate

. Hmmm? In a nutshell, so far in a span of three decades, I have been a potty-mouthed welder/stripper with lofty aspirations, a falafel loving librarian/raver who's a master at layering in cold weather, an intellectual virgin/stalker who loves coffee and writing letters to her therapist friend, a fashionably iconic waif/whore with a cat and a promiscous columnist with great friends. All these and an eccentric, androgynous dresser with a penchance for nerds and baggy clothes.

Going to New York feels less like a trip and more a homecoming. I feel a kinship with the so-called weird, rude New Yawker. As my Baltimore friend Bruce the Cabbie with the PhD puts it, I may have been one in another life. I've been there three times before and each experience leaves me wanting to roam its streets less the cheesy tourist and more its denizen--caffeine and commuting and all. My time. My leisure. My pace. My terms. My self.


As the Fates would have it, I live across the street from Baltimore's cushiest tour bus line to NYC. On one of my extended days off, I hatch a plan to run away alone as I've always fantasized. I gather up the courage to dial myself a seat reservation. On the day, as I cross the street to the huge Shoppers parking lot where the bus is at and took my seat inside, I feel like falling into the great unknown, a familiar recurring sensation when I embark from my comfort zones to acknowledge my gypsy tendencies. The tour guide tells us there are going be no stops in other parts of the county to pick up any other passengers. He tells us our drop off point is at the Rockefeller in 51st and 5th and of the importance of being prompt on the time of departure and that we are on our own once we are there. YES!

I expect for us to arrive there at around 10AM but because of uneventful traffic and the expert maneuverings of our driver also named, Bruce, inside the Lincoln Tunnel, we arrive at 9:15AM. Stepping off the bus and I get welcomed by the sight of the adorable Al Roker doing a segment of the Today Show. After taking his picture and inadvertently getting caught on camera myself, I dodge towards Dean & Deluca only to find waif-like Campbell Brown crossing the street in the same direction as I am as she gaily gets greeted by an NYPD officer directing traffic, only she heads for her next segment. I order a cuppa joe and a spinach & cheddar muffin that draws notices from the neighbouring tables. Ah NYC! One of the only places I know where conversations spark without unease, subtle or otherwise. A tasty-looking muffin is a tasty-looking muffin. Like everyone else cares to admit inside that cafe, I surreptitiously glance around for Matt Lauer but to no avail. I have my itinerary which is to roam the halls of the Guggenheim and the Met.

Outside, everyone is armed in tanks and wifebeaters for the probably the hottest day of the year. Bottled water in hand I step out of the air-conditioning secure in my years of training under El Nino at the mother country. After lighting a candle at St. Patrick's, I walk 2 to 3 blocks or so to the station at Lexington & 53rd to catch the 6 train Uptown. Yes, in my J-Lo hat that makes me look more like a Maoist than Jenny from the Block-- stopping only at yet another cafe to realize bathrooms can be hard to come by in the Big Apple.


Secretly referring to the map inside my messenger bag, I weave through strange new streets that are somehow achingly familiar towards 86th & 5th to the Museum Mile.

In the Guggenheim, I wander through its meandearing curves, gaping at the Picassos, the Pollocks, and the Kandinskys-- fighting back tears and voices that say, "You've once only seen this in books,"-- wishing one of my sister were there with their two cents' worth--two of the five people in my vast circle who truly get me and my geeky preoccupations. And oh, upon entry of the first galleries I get welcomed by a gi-normous nude (upon initial glance and by popular expectations) of a female. Realizing it of a male and according to the audio tour head piece, it turns out to be a nude of actor Sal Mineo. Then I realize Sal Mineo is not circumcised. Needless to say, it's my favorite piece.

I eat a snotty lunch of asparagus & smoked salmon salad, write a couple of postcards to my friend, Shivaun and to my sister Melissa and realize I have enough time to go to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Once there, I get artfully overloaded more. I move through the ancient Egyptian collections in disbelief. I harken back to the days where I used to marvel at these pieces on a calendar from the 70's, while already a good way into the 80's. If only my mom is here. By the time, I get to the Cezannes, the Monets, the Renoirs and the Van Gogh, the VAN GOGHS, I am about ready to be on my knees. Van Gogh's Wheat Fields and Cypresses, I have always thought as a happy scene. Looking closely, I realize the extent of his torture as the idyll contrasts with the violence of his brush strokes, as if he wants to drown whatever it is that racked him with paint. His more popular portraits of flowers like Irises and Sunflowers have been done while he was in an asylum. I see his self portrait, yet another that I used to just gaze in an outdated calendar our Aunt sent us. It has used to spook me a tad bit as a child but looking at it close enought to see the steam of my breath on its glass case, defying that art be admired at a distance, he seemed more like a sad grizzled man, no different from the characters I come across with on the streets or on the job.

The Met still begs for more exploration. I have to go back to Maryland. Seeing there is still some time to get lost, I risk a bus to Midtown Manhattan, trusting instinct and common sense and get duly dropped off in front of the Rock with more than enough time for one more stop: The Soupman at 6th Ave. better known to Seinfeld fans as the Soup Nazi. Eventhough I'm  the only customer at that point crazy enough to chug hot soup in 100 degree weather, I still expect to be screamed at, "Back in line!" "No soup for you!!" To my chagrin, the two fellas who man the cash register are awfully nice. I relish my chicken & corn chowder in quiet as some more customers filter into to the store but not before the servers snuck me a berry smoothie on the house. Wow! Not what I expect from the infamous soup nazi. Finishing my early dinner and waving good-bye to my buddies from my new haunt, I arrive perfectly on time for my bus-- a rarity for me. Smoothie in hand, I gaily say hi to our kindly silver-haired tour guide.

Once again, Bruce our driver gallantly slices our chariot through New York traffic. I look out the window unto the Manhattan skyline, silently I say to it, "Good-bye for now my lover, my New York," and promptly nod off into a deep restful slumber the moment we hit Jersey. I wake weaving in the familiar roads of Greenspring. We applaud our driver, our tour guide as I smile contentedly for the world is now alright again on this perfect day. Alone.

from the big apple, with love

August 2, 2006
10:00 am
Rockefeller Plaza Dean & Deluca
50th & 5th, NYC

Dearest Shivaun,

Sorry.

I didn’t mean to ignore you. Somehow in between the printing and mailing of my reply, life over took and ran me over. July has been such a cruel month. I’m reeling over my uncle’s death, my father’s baby brother, by liver cancer. My cousin on my mom’s side just got married and she was walked down the aisle by her brother but closing in on the altar, by her dad, my mom’s eldest brother, who is also ailing of lung cancer. They both just got diagnosed this year. But, the sudden loss of Tito Jenny, devastated me. I’ve barely even come to grips with the fact that I might not be able to see two dear faces next year when I come home.

I’ve run away to New York to be alone. I need to be. I’ve done nothing but wallow last month that I feel like a hypocrite for all the soapbox preaching I typed unto my previous (unmailed) letter. Solace in the the gritty concrete arms of a lover and his urine perfume -- the city of my dreams. My Big Apple.

As everyone braces for the hottest day of the year, I shall commiserate with the voices inside my head over a defiantly hot cup of Felicity’s coffee and Javier’s spinach and cheddar muffin, both overpriced. I’ve already taken snapshot of Al Roker. I think I might have been seen on camera. My fifteen minutes on the Today Show: I slowly and surely am transforming into a Yank. Saw skinny Campbell Brown crossing the street. Now, where in the Rock is Matt Lauer?

I’m going to light a candle across the street at St Patrick’s then, walk three or four blocks to the 6 train station heading Uptown and the Bronx to 86th Street, and walk a couple more blocks to the Museum Mile near Central Park. I shall escape the brutal UVs of summer holed in the Guggenheim and then the Met. I am going to be in my quasi-intellectual elements and feel like I’ve come home and surely along the way, I am going to wish you, or one of my sisters, or my mom & dad are there to share the experience with-- just somebody whose hand I can grasp as I get overwhelmed by all that magnifiicent art.

I’ll be sending you a postcard from one of the museums. Please come and visit me one day. Miss you.

BTW, I’m glad Italia won, but I was rooting for a third world country, maybe Ghana cause they'd beaten the US. Nobody really cares about “soccer” in this country. I used to not care much about the sport but I tend to rebel against the inclination of whatever majority I’m amongst. Thank you for making sports poetic instead of an overrated celebration of dim-witted jocks by the hoi poloi.


Love,

cjb