dancing on the tombstones of life

now playing: Jack Johnson - Never Know

Jack Johnson is (surprisingly) rocking my socks off.



In this uberly-globalized world, Philippines now (cheesily) celebrates All Hollow's Eve. The Filipino Channel (TFC for those pinoy-savvy) is filled with odiously westernized celebrities in HORRENDOUS halloween costumes. I mean we have an amazing culture of witches (ie. wak-wak, mangkukulam), monsters (i.e. mananaggal), and scary stories (people are incredibly superstitious for a devoutly Catholic country)... yet the popular media prefer to celebrate lame-ass American holidays (yes, even Thanksgiving--the day Americans celebrate Native American peoples kindly sharing food and turkey to ingrateful Puritans who would later destroy them--has made it across the Pacific). Not saying that I don't like celebrating these holidays with friends and family, but seriously, Philippines has an amazing culture of holidays yet they refuse to give it equal media-time. It leaves a bitter, sad taste in my mouth.

At any rate, normally Filipinos celebrate November 1st--like Mexicans and Spaniards (thank you 300 years of colonization)--as All Souls' Day, and November 2nd as All Saints' Day. When I was little, my town would have all the girls dress up in amazing gowns and we paraded across all the barrios holding candles and flowers, praying and processing into the local church to offer gifts to the Santo Nino and get presents for being the prettiest girls.

On All Souls' Day Filipino families head over to the cemeteries to pray for their deceased loved ones, and then party and dance and eat Lechon afterwards. Yes, we quite literally party on graves. It's pretty fun actually. We spend the night lighting candles, then eat. Yay for fiesta!




Ah, but those were the days. Mine, on the other hand, has been spent locked up in my room listening to Pandora-dot-com and my surprise mixes of Norah Jones, Jack Johnson, John Mayer, Bob Dylan, Allison Kraus and Dolly Parton (my study, read, write mix). My eyes are burning and I can't seem to get past one sentence.

I am a hot mess, if I do say so myself. And no, it is SO not a good thing.



On a happy note, I've finally managed to send off those postcards I've been meaning to send. I hope they make it to their wonderful destinations. It took me a while to write a measly paragraph on each of the postcards... I hope they're not too cheesy or stupid.

Side note: The best book of NYC postcards I've found (I've spent weeks scouring New York for beautiful postcards) has to be the New York Times's book of New York City postcards chronicling decades of the newspaper's best historic photographs of NY. It's really pretty and I can't bring myself to rip out the postcards to send to people. It's just too good of a compilation and I wants it all to myself.

I really should take Paolo's advice and just print out my own postcards since I have amassed an entire collection of stunning NYC scenery... Except I do enjoy finding gems in unexpected places.