Leon Peckson

Absolutely love this!

The word that comes to mind: iconoclastic.

The success of a creator could itself be a kind of cage. The body of work that is intensely loved by many may become an idol to which they too can fall and worship. That’s fine and if that’s what makes them happy then they will have come to the fruition of their vocation as creators.

Buuuut if they find that they have not exhausted that vocation then they may have to make a kind of Abrahamic sacrifice—agreeing to smite all that they have done to answer genuinely the call of the creative spirit.

I think that’s what this is. Many examples of this in the lives of artists (Pablo Picasso’ earlier -and less known- representational paintings VS the abstract work we all now know him for; Pearl Jam’s first three or so albums VS the many many others that followed;—I think one of them said “we became a different band, we just forgot to change our name”; annnd (if this is not to put them in too high and balmy company) early Beatles VS post rubber soul Beatles.

So kudos to UDD Carlos K Tanada Paul Ean Mayor!

I’m not sure this is iconoclastic in another sense: I’m not sure such a drastic reinvention has been attempted in Pinoy Rock (I’m not an authority so you can check me on this). Even maybe the Bamboo era Rivermaya VS the Rico Blanco rivermaya was not so radical because they both were great rock ballad machines. But, hey, not like this is a competition. I make this point because, maybe, here’s an unprecedented phenomenon in OPM that’s really fun to witness for OPM fans.

I’m at pains to point this out because there could be an elephant in the room: I anticipate many saying things like “oh they’re not what they used to be!” Or that “without the gleaming ray of brilliance that is the once-in-a-generation talent of Armi udd loses its heart and soul”. Maybe the thing is not to sit sulking that way but to embrace this as something never done before but really interesting if it were.

And remember: it’s an Abrahamic sacrifice. Ambraham was only asked to kill Isaac. He agreed but then was stopped. We all still have all of the great tracks from udd’s past ANNNNND we have this. No one’s making anyone choose.

UDD - Run Deep Listen here: https://udd.bfan.link/run-deepComposed and Arranged byPaul Yap, Ean Mayor, and Carlos TañadaProduced byPaul Yap, Ean Mayor, Carlos Tañada, and F...

During the introductory workshop on teaching the Divine Comedy. Held at UA&P this morning.

Photo credit: Jojo Nicdao

Join us this Sunday at Fully Booked BGC for a free storytelling session of The Gruffalo and get a chance to meet our Jurassic guest!

Prizes await those who pre-register. Just shoot an email with your name and cellphone number to [email protected] with the subject KIDSFEST SUNDAY FUNDAY :)

Doing what I can to help.

My buddy from the bike trails.

What Our Books Tell Us About Our Selves

Our books bring to the surface what we have felt all along: we are heartbroken. The sense of this is strongest not when we are poor or lonely or humiliated. Rather the sense of this is strongest when we are rich, consoled by the love of another, and are most glorious. "You see me, don't you? How great I am, how like a god in form? A goddess bore me? And yet death comes to me too". It is at these moments, moments in which the dissatisfaction remains, that we discover how profound our capacity for longing is and how nothing in our power can appease this longing. Here is death's sting: that all our life we can rise no higher than heartbreak and that we must die in the throes of this heartbreak. Our experience of vast beauties (the dawn and night in a heavenly embrace, oceans obedient to the wind like a great orchestra is to a conductor's baton) also shows us the extent of this heartbreak: how often is our experience before such beauty one that seems to whisper " it's not me that you are after. Am I not but a memory of a memory of what you truly desire?". We know this as none of these things exhaust our desiring.

So often the great ancients took this data, this awareness of our heartbreak as a reason to despair. Lykaon and Akhilleus was a portrait of the full extent of human existence. Man could go no further than this. Human existence in its most sublime moments rose to nothing more than great resignation, a great settling for just this. But here is where Dante and Dante's universe passes judgment on our ancients. Our heartbreak is complete and impenetrable insofar as we attempt to remedy it ourselves. Dante and the Christian west makes a simple yet astonishingly honest conclusion: we are not to find our happiness in ourselves, rather we are made to receive it from another. This is the fault for which they are punished in Limbo: they insisted on the heaven that they could make for themselves and not one that was received.

This is what the puzzle of our existence tells us about ourselves. Or as Ratzinger put it this is what "the question human existence not only presents but itself IS" puts before us. Our heartbreak is data. It tells us that we are locks configured in a specific way and thus await a specific key. The key is the utterly transcendent other. The other that we cannot produce by any means of our own. The very structure of human life as man seeking woman and woman seeking man is as it were an echo of this but merely an echo of this.

We are now put before a crossroad: do we interpret the data of heartbreak as the ancients do or do we wager along with Dante, Ratzinger and CS Lewis that this data points towards a groom we must await, our lamps lit and with stores of oil for he that comes?

See you at the lecture tomorrow! We still have slots available for walk-ins so feel free to drop by if you can! :)

Drop by the Fully Booked BGC Customer Service to pre-register. The slots are filling up fast!

Date: May 20, 2015 (W)
Venue: 4th floor, The Forum, Fully Booked BGC
Time: 6:30 - 8:30 PM

Drop by the Fully Booked BGC Customer Service to pre-register. The slots are filling up fast!

Date: May 20, 2015 (W)
Venue: 4th floor, The Forum, Fully Booked BGC
Time: 6:30 - 8:30 PM

It occurs to me that pressing one's ear to a bookshelf looks and feels much more absurd than it sounds. What a silly metaphor. Thanks all for coming and tolerating my rambling. Send me a comment or a question. I'd really love to hear from you.

What do we hear when we press our ears against bookshelves?

A sense of the eternal; echoes of eternity.