Rules and Instructions.

i bought these beauties in Digby, Nova Scotia when i visited last June.
i saved up all my money thinking i'd be able to get a wide-angle lens for my husband's minolta (only to die of heart-attack from the quoted $325-dollar price of the 24mm minolta wide-angle at Downtown Camera). I gave up when i left Toronto for Halifax and focused on splurging at the mountain equipment coop instead.

but if it something is meant to be it will be meant to be and indeed the camera presented itself to me. Arriving in Digby, we were treated to lunch to Mariner's restaurant which is just beside a vintage camera store--possibly the only camera store in downtown Digby. The moment i saw the minolta log i already knew the store's a goldmine.

Hurrying form one appointment to the other, i didn;t have time to check out the store ASAP and when i finally had the chance, i was 2 blocks away and had 30 minutes to spare. i ran like hell, missing my lunch and burning my lungs in the cold, dry Digby air. There, i found an olympus om2 (with normal lens (50mm) and a macro) and a yashica t4 (Mark, the owner of the camera shop said it was a $400.00 camera when it first came out) for my 5 year-old son, all for $30.00. Olympus OM2 with everything on it cost me $20 and the yashica cost me $10--that's including the 15% tax.

I could have gotten a pentax (with 50mm lens) with it but when i was about to pay for it, the shutter locked and Mark didn't really feel like giving me a bad merchandise. He knew it would cost me a lot of money to have it repaired, maybe more than what i paid for purchase. If I told him i would buy it for collection's sake but with only 10 minutes to spare, i forgot all about it. Also, i was thinking of how small my luggage was and how heavy bringing two cameras in my handcarry baggage would be.

The OM2 survived the 24 hour travel time, 4 flight transfers and changes in temperature/humidity. I didn't touch it for a month.


and when I did, it was for a funeral.
My husband's grandmother living in Guimaras died. The OM2 was my camera of choice to bring over the island because:
1. it is smaller than my sr-t, more "girlish"
2. it is easier to hide (good for people like me who love taking pictures but don't wanna be seen with a camera strapped to their necks)
3. it is light weight
4. it is not heavy
5. weighs like a feather compared to my sr-t.
5. did i already say it is lighter?

But my minolta is one jealous girl. She was just too great for anything; she was beyond compare. The fact that she can be operated without batteries totally destroyed the OM2 to me.

So what didn't i exactly like--batteries or sans batteries can't really destroy the reputation of a camera.

well, 2 shots into the whole 24 frames and it conked out. I woke up at 3am on the day of the funeral to nurse a sore throat and couldn't sleep i decided to test the camera. i shoot and it died; the shutter locked; it remained open just like that and i had no idea what the fuck went wrong. it tested well a month ago when i tried shooting it a couple of frames using it.

i tried detaching the lens, nothing happened. i opened the back of the camera, tried rewinding the film and nothing happened (except that i did expose 3 frames by opening the back of the camera). i tried doing the b settings and tinker with some more buttons and nothing happened. As an evolved dodo, i know that in times like this, there is really nothing to do but google. But I left my viao at the office and though my husband has an internet-ready phone, i practically turn into a luddite when i touch one. There was a computer in the house that is open for everyone to use but i am not very comfortable using other people's computer. besides, it's got a weird search engine app on it that drives me crazy. Then again, i didn't have a choice but to use it. From what i learned from google, OM2, being a super-mega-electronic-automatic-with-first-of-its-kind-off-the film-metering-capabilities-and-two-decades-younger-than-my-sr-t-101 is, i'm so disappointed, a battery guzzler. It requires silver oxides, the way point and shoot digicams, when they first came out, required super-mega-energizer-lithium batts for extended life. The alkaline LR44s that i use for my minoltas, the kind that i can easily get here in Iloilo does not live up to OM2's state of the art needs. (Mark, the camera shop owner said i could still use my LR44s but i sort of forgot to ask him about the draining rates of the LR44s with this cam and it turns out LR44s are useless for this--they drain easily.) The verdict: the camera is useless without the batteries. if you use the om2 with its batteries nearly drained the shutters will lock and remain so until you replace them batts with fresh ones.

eh.

the waiting kills. i had to wait for my husband to be up before i could ask him to fix the thing for me. he was still snoring, as the rest of the world, at 4 am.

i waited. i sipped the lukewarm tea. i read my Granta. i browsed through my August issue of Nat Geo (featuring the pine ridge project of one of my favorite photographers aaron huey).i read again my Granta. i decided to lie down on the rattan sofa. i read again my Granta and remember, shit, I hated my husband yesterday so i shouldn't be talking to him. and that goes with not asking him to do something for me. heh.

but i might for the sake of photography.

No. i still hate him so i am going to need to wait until iloilo so i can have this thing fixed. get me some silver oxides.

And then there was a scream from the room and our 5 year old has awaken, looking for me. He found me at the balcony wrapped in flannel blankets and the useless camera by my side. he asked what i've been taking it with. i said i wanted to take the picture of the gamblers down below from where we were. he asked where his camera was and i said i forgot to bring it with us. he said he also wants to take pictures of his friends.

he asked if he could have some chocolate milk.

I said he can if he'd drink some water first. he nodded and flashed a grin. toothless.

so i gathered my things and went down to the kitchen just as the gamblers were packing up to go home and return to their daily lives.

Gogol.

(photo by Kit Camena, minolta x700 and kodak pro-image 100)


"Where did my friend go?" Gogol asked, impatient.
"They went to the Sunday Mass."
"Why?"
"Because it is a Sunday."
"Why?"
"Because some people go to church and hear mass on Sundays."
"Why? Why do they have to go to church?"
"I don't know. Because they want to go to church. That's the way things are, Gogol."

Dragging him inside the house, he broke free from his mother, asked again the first person he met by the doorway where his friend went. every time people tell him his friend went to church, he asked with a bewildered "WHY".

Gogol, at five, has no sense of religious tradition. In the most logical sense, he is probably the most normal kid, being what he should be at five.
Religion, or religious icons, are almost always used as a figure to help discipline young children. Crazy parents tell their children not to be bad boys and girls because "Jesus will get angry." Since Gogol's parents were atheists, every time they find the need to provide him with a disciplinary figure, they would refer to the police. In the end, Gogol reversed the process and threatened to call the police if he found them doing things he thought was wrong. At one point, somebody had to tell him he would be sent to jail after he punched a classmate. He was not even moved, did not flinch, did not show any signs of fear. He said he can also send to jail any police because his father designs buildings and prisons for a living. 
Gogol, it seems, also does not have a sense of authority. Or at least does not look beyond his parents for other figures of authority. 


-----


"Why is there a cross there?" he quizzically asked his mother while inside the bank, waiting for their number to be called.
"Well, they want to put a cross there so there's a cross there."
"It shouldn't be there."
"Is there a problem with a cross being there?"
"This is a bank, Nanay, not a funeral. Nobody died so we should not put a cross there."
"Some people love to put crosses where they work, even if they shouldn't. It's the way things are, Gogol."

-----

Waway and his Che cap.

Waway drives people around in his red pedicab. He rents it from a pedicab operator for P35.00/day.

He was introduced by a landlord when we moved in to the compound. I was wary of him because he was so skinny, dark and he smelled. He looked like a pot-smoking hobo in pedicab. He still does. 

I took this picture a year ago for a personal project. He was very self-conscious when I asked to take his picture. My husband and I just got back from a morning appointment and we were in a hurry to get back home. It was a very hot, glaring day.

Before getting off the tricycle I asked my husband if it was appropriate for me to be taking Waway’s picture. We were a few meters away from the compound and I could see Waway lazing in his pedicad parked at the gate. He said I should take Waway’s picture. It may be the only picture I’d take of him. When we got off, there were no tenants around.

“’Way, I’d take your picture.”

“Now?” He straightened his body, surprised. 

“Yes, now.”

“Okay.”

He failed at faking confidence. 10 seconds it took to adjust my camera.

The midday sun was too bright and for split second i thought of cancelling it. 

If people without homes in first world countries live in their cars, Waway lives in his pedicab, or at least that’s what most people said about him. They said he was from Aklan. They said he came to Iloilo in the 90's. He doesn't bathe.  He wears the same set of clothes every single day, until they're not fit to be worn anymore. He smokes menthol cigarettes and never drives right after eating, also, when there is a Pacquiao fight. He never seems to get sick. He uses  a tattered cap to protect his head.

We have a handful of caps that the boys at home do not use. And clothes that Waway could use. But I don’t think he wants people to feel sorry for him.

One weekend afternoon, arriving from art class, I told him I already have a print of his photo. He just smiled and said, “Do I look handsome?”

“Of course, you do.”

And he went to pick up a hailing passenger.

15 pesos of fun.

It’s a light jacket weather, 7th of July, Saturday afternoon, just right after our Urban Plan Implementation class [around 4pm??]. He and I rode the jeepney despite the internet station being 0.75 kilometers away only because it rained so hard few hours earlier and as expected the streets are in a terrible mess.

While waiting for the ride I took a picture of a wide rectangular hole in the center of General Luna street, right across the UPV-Iloilo City campus because this would be the last time I’d see General Luna in its days of glory; it’s fading beauty. When the flyover is done, General Luna is also definitely done.
[the pictures were terrible.]
[literally.]


So we took a jeepney.


The internet stations in the shop are located at the 2nd floor. The first floor is reserved for gamers. We call it the stock exchange area because the atmosphere resembles that of the stock exchange. allow me to expound. The kids -- all of the kids scream in either frustration or glee every time heaven or hell comes in their gaming world. There are kids standing or hovering over a favorite gamer, a pawn, maybe. There are bettings, lunching on sandwich while standing up, spending almost the whole of daylight hours inside the darkened gaming shop, and once again, to reiterate, screams of frustration or glee resembling that of a stock exchange.
Half hour into our surfing a chorus of excited/victorious screams were heard form the downstairs. Somebody has finally sold a stock.
[more screams followed.]
[somebody have won.]


35 minutes into our surfing and we’re done but there’s still 25 minutes left so we decided to download MP3s and we’re lucky – the station has earphones. I’ve been wanting to have an MP3 of elliot smith’s song from the royal tenenbaums and another song, waltz #2.
[needle in the hay played when richie tenenbaum told himself on the mirror, “I’m going to kill myself tomorrow”].
My ultimate download was waltz #2. like a 5 year-old being handed down with the most delicious cotton candy she was aching for.
For almost 9 (nine) years now I only listened t a bootleg of it with first few notes missing because it tool me about 5 seconds to jump from our pink dining table to the bedside table where the beat sony cassette recorder was and push that record button on.
I carefully placed the earphones to my ear so as not to miss a single beat. A single note.
[waltz #2….
……how gloomy and depressing that day was when they played it on the radio…]
……elliot died. October 23. he stabbed himself almost 4 (four) years ago…]
……they said my mother called. I was still sweaty from the walk from school. My head is still groggy from the formalin in the dissection class…EMERGENCY…she will call again tonight…]
……I have to go home…tomorrow…lola died. Cardiac arrest.]
Series of calls were made to the airline companies…I have to go home. Tomorrow.]
……she took a full bath and ate full lunch. At 3:00 pm, she died.]
[summer of 1998.]
[manila is sooo hot. Sad and happy. Manic depressive.]
[I am happy to be leaving such a miserable place. I am sad to be going home to such miserable event.]


I told him he should listen to waltz #2.
[his grandma also died just a few years ago.]
He said our house is more appropriate for the just-rained-down weather. Waltz #2 can wait.
……on somebody’s death, perhaps.]


An hour into our surfing and we’re done. We were again met by seemingly thousands of screams coming from only 10 gaming kids as we made our way down to the counter.


It was the best 15-peso treat ever.


Outside, I took pictures of the NU 107 signage. They signed off the air 8 years ago.

death of a father.

I could not quite recall exactly when it happened but I suppose the dying began in 2003, the year the family started rehabilitating the old lot across the river. Or maybe it was even way before that. Perhaps he began dying when I was still a child.

It took me a while to write the succeeding descriptives to
those lines I wrote having been overtaken by my own metaphoric ability. I wait on the bench under the trees in Jaro Plaza amidst the stench of the piss on the walls of the monuments. Today is a Wednesday. Time for the baby’s shots at the Health Center a spit away.

I strain my eyes to the lines I wrote having to content myself with a piece of stick-on ID I found in my wallet. That one was
meant for the trash but somehow saved itself by hiding amongst the receipt that I couldn’t afford to throw for plans of eventual household accounting. Colorful.
Like the tickets. Concert tickets that remind me of college.

His lifeless body moves across the house; wakes up, bathes, prepares for office, leaves for office and goes back just in time for the news or much later if there are visitors to entertain at the office.

He talks a lot about so many things but the current events is his favorite. He reacts to the news and talk shows on ANC. I’ve listened to all of it for 28 years; those very profound ideas I never thought I could even get to think of when I was a child. Five years ago I gave up. All I do now is give him a blank stare or plain yeses or nos in every conversation he tries to initiate. Those conversations and those arguments are mere repetitions of things already said by somebody else. If he were paid for every plagiarized statement or name he drops, he’d be a billionaire.

It is true. Indeed no matter how much you prepare for doomsday
you still could never be really prepared for it. You could always prepare a
script and trick yourself into believing something else is happening but in the
end you would still have to conquer it all by yourself and completely trust in
what doomsday has to offer you.

When I heard the news, I calmly told myself that such is expected. All men go through some midlife crises and my father does not deserve to be spared from them. He is no superhero after all. He will never be spared. And the thoughts crept into the farthest creases of my mind, kicked aside by plans of traveling and getting nowhere, getting drunk, kissing, hearing an old old favorite song, missing old old friends and eating putannesca or pan de sal ni Paa at dusk in August with the old old friends missed and new acquaintances met.

I remember reading LC’s beautiful letter when we were 17 and recently separated, she having to stay in Iloilo for Fisheries and I, praying to survive Biology and the jungle that surrounds UP Manila. She wrote the letter at the back of Brandon Lee’s The Crowe poster, photocopied on A3 paper. Such a long letter, considering her microscopic handwriting. She writing about her father having lung cancer was all I could remember from that letter, and that she was coping well with life in provincial Miag ao. I was not at all surprise by the lung cancer but was surprised at the timing.
How soon till he dies?
She laughs and tells me to read the letter again.
I didn’t. Of course. I wouldn’t.
She tells me it was just a wish, that she was wishing her father would die of lung cancer. Right now. When we are all 17 and young and naïve and boyfriend less and not yet jaded by life by love by everything.
It took me 3 years to understand what she meant.

News like that however, is also never spared from being talked
about during the Lenten holidays, Christmas or year-end reunions and the annual
family gatherings. First we talk of his inadequacy as a father. Then his
contradicting ideals, his rehashed ideas, his lack of a father figure, his
superiority complex, his sorry state having been very poor and fatherless as a
child. My mother would go on talking about how pitiful my father’s life was. I
get my mind and mouth working up until the talks about his superiority complex
then my thoughts would lock themselves and refuse to accept more thoughts when
my mother and other family members go into their social worker mode and be
empathize with my father. Of course all the talks about him happen in his
absence. He could never take the comments I give. What does he think he is, some
kind of a superhero? No, he could never really take them.

Did I also have a death wish for my father? For so so so so long I have put all those issues aside. For so so so long after recovering from the psychosis of Manila all I wanted was to give myself back something that has long been lost. I just wanted to stop blaming him for my dead dreams. But he never took a moment off to step back and look at what has happened.

Yes he died, at the very same day he began dying.

All the things he said. They never matter now. They would soon be dead deep within me.

20080121.