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Viva La Vida!

“It’s challenging,” he said, “but only because you know the reward will be a field of people in Mexico singing along with you, which is such an adrenaline rush that it’s worth all the hours of, ‘Oh my God, this doesn’t work.’ If you get that bit, that the whole is bigger than its parts, then that’s your ticket all around the world.” - Chris Martin, of making music.

I just would like to remember this moment when I breathed the same air with my  most treasured band in the world.  Chris and the boys came over to Atlanta and sang all the songs that needed to be sung.  I stood outside with friends listening to their music - and when they sang Fix You, I almost crumbled.  Everybody sang to the song and it was a spine-tingling feeling. That anthem has been my saviour during those times when I thought I cannot be saved. 

I love you, Coldplay. I really, truly do. 

100 Years of Solitude

But the lucidity of her old age allowed her to see, and she said so many times, that the cries of children in their mothers' wombs are not announcements of ventriloquism or a faculty for prophecy but an unmistakable sign of an incapacity for love.  The lowering of the image of her son brought out in her all at once all of the compassion that she owed him. 

And this is why I have a love/hate relationship with reading epic books. I get attached to them afterwards, I'd gush, I'd weep, I'd have emotional hangover for days. Even weeks. 100 years of solitude is magnificent in its sprawling entirety. I cannot choose a favorite Buendia because each one has its distinct charm, creatively described by Gabriela Garcia Marquez.  100 Years of Solitude (Cien años de soledad) is so highly recommended. 

Between The Comic and The Appalling

Ah, the memory of out of town trips with a best friend.  Taken last August 2011, on our way to a mystery spot, among a canopy of trees at Santa Cruz, California, Jaja driving, millions of stories shared in between. On a different note,  I would like to share a touching poem , If A Clown by Stephen Dunn. 

If a clown came out of the woods,
a standard-looking clown with oversized
polka-dot clothes, floppy shoes,
a red, bulbous nose, and you saw him
on the edge of your property,
there’d be nothing funny about that,
would there? A bear might be preferable,
especially if black and berry-driven.
And if this clown began waving his hands
with those big white gloves
that clowns wear, and you realized
he wanted your attention, had something
apparently urgent to tell you,
would you pivot and run from him,
or stay put, as my friend did, who seemed
to understand here was a clown
who didn’t know where he was,
a clown without a context?
What could be sadder, my friend thought,
than a clown in need of a context?
If then the clown said to you
that he was on his way to a kid’s
birthday party, his car had broken down,
and he needed a ride, would you give
him one? Or would the connection
between the comic and the appalling,
as it pertained to clowns, be suddenly so clear
that you’d be paralyzed by it?
And if you were the clown, and my friend
hesitated, as he did, would you make
a sad face, and with an enormous finger
wipe away an imaginary tear? How far
would you trust your art? I can tell you
it worked. Most of the guests had gone
when my friend and the clown drove up,
and the family was angry. But the clown
twisted a balloon into the shape of a bird
and gave it to the kid, who smiled,
let it rise to the ceiling. If you were the kid,
the birthday boy, what from then on
would be your relationship with disappointment?
With joy? Whom would you blame or extoll?

Hitting A Jackpot out of A Thousand Misses....

"In my life, I have learned to be more curious than afraid."  Sums up how I feel about cooking.  I'm a complete beginner and my knowledge is limited to: I don't know when soy sauce is used to flavor, all I know is that when I put black pepper on anything, it tastes like heaven has arrived.

Of all the failures in my humble Atlanta kitchen (god knows there were a lot), this one stood out as my favorite success - my chicken and dumplings of which I customized for Filipino taste :). It's creamy and the broth is sufficiently thick, perfect for cold weather. Also, I made the dumpling from scratch!  Original recipe here.