Don't Let Him Waste Your Time

 This song is one that I would remind myself when I feel like I'm wasting my time over people/ situations that I know would do me no good. Most of the time, you need someone (or a song) to remind you not to waste your precious time. Thanks, Jarvis!

This month, I spent  most of my days thinking about how I should better plan my time so that I could do other things outside work and school. I enjoy those two but there are days when i just want to read a good book and write my heart out.

Quick notes before heading to work

It's a Saturday morning. In a few hours, I'll be going to the office for some extra work. This is not my idea of a great weekend but at least I have a few minutes in the morning to write, type and mentally prepare myself for the stressful week.

I'm currently listening to an Italian version of Romance in Durango called Avventura a Durango. I used to not listen to Romance since I used to think it's  just a weird Dylan version of Marty Robbin's El Paso. I'm now beginning to see that the song is actually beautiful. It's like El Paso but not so much. 

Another song I associate with Romance in Durango is Desolation Row from Dylan's 1965 album Highway 61 Revisited. To me, Romance is the romantic sibling of Desolation because they both sound hot and bring a sense of urgency. El Paso doesn't sound urgent even though it's a song about a man on the run. Anyway, the perfect time to listen to these songs is when you're traveling around the Luzon Central Plain during the peak of the dry season. 

Fabrizio de Andre, the guy who sang Avventura a Durango, also wrote an Italian version of Desolation Row. His version is called Via della poverta and it's a song I listen to every once in a while. 

it ain't too late

... to write a new post to welcome the year.

I started the year watching a documentary on John Steinbeck. The documentary featured Melvyn Bragg in America, talking to people about the enduring legacy of Steinbeck and visiting the places featured in several of his works. One work featured in the documentary that caught my interest was The log from the Sea of Cortez. It's a book I've never heard of before, and it's about Steinbeck and Ed Ricketts's expedition to the Sea of Cortez in California. As someone who spends days away from home doing fieldwork, I was inspired to also chronicle the environments of the places I visit. Doing so will allow me to discover new things about places and give me a better understanding of the people inhabiting them.

Another documentary I saw this month was about Renoir. I didn't know much about him before watching the documentary, and it was nice that it presented a detailed story of his life and works. What I got from the documentary was this renewed interest in learning about Paris' urban planning. Renoir lived when Paris was undergoing major changes in its city design, which influenced the subject and themes in many of his works. He was able to bridge the past and the present by taking inspiration from the works of those who came before him to make artworks that reflected the realities of his time. 

Out of all the artworks featured in the documentary, I like those that featured groups of people doing everyday things. Pont Neuf reminds me of what it's like to live in the city with all the noise and the constant movement of the people.

 Pont Neuf (1872). Photo taken from the National Gallery of Art website

Speaking of city life, the Renoir documentary inspired me to try the works of Emile Zola, whose 20-novel work Les Rougon-Macquart features stories exploring life in Paris of people from different social classes. The novel I want to read from the series is The Ladies' Paradise, which is set in a department store.  The idea sounds cool, tbh. Mannequin (1987) is the only work I know that's set in a department store, so this girl is interested in exploring more department stores.  Also, as someone exposed to department stores and malls, I'm interested to see what makes their 19th-century bastions of consumerism different from the ones we have today. 

Point Zero# 3: Forever Young by One Direction

  This is Point Zero. In this series I will go back to  songs that furthered my musical education. Each blog post will discuss the roads that led me to discover some of my favourite artists and groups. This series will also reminisce the good old days coupled with some reflections along the way. 

There's not much I remember when I think about 2011. Aside from long and slow summer afternoons and quiet Sundays, I can't remember memorable moments that happened during those 365 days. But recently, i realised I was just saying that because I was too preoccupied with stressful moments at school to really have time to look at 2011 from a more matured and objective perspective.

Now that it's been 13 years since that year, I can now say that 2011 was not a bad year at all. In fact, it was a year full of challenges and discoveries, which includes discovering One Direction through their version of the song Forever Young. 

The story of how I discovered One Direction is unlike the other stories I've already shared in the previous Point Zero posts. I discovered the band through a group of high school classmates who discovered the band on the internet. It was during the early days of One Direction craze in the Philippines, when the band was relatively new and only few knew the band. Local magazines i used to read were not yet covering them and only those who are active on social media sites (Tumblr and Twitter) were familiar with their songs.

I remember where in our school we were when my classmates started gushing about five unknown boys from far away: we were in our school cafeteria filming a project for one of our class. It was a few days after the weekends and they were talking about a group they discovered on the internet. They would say the names of the boys and gush about their looks. As one of their clueless classmates, I was curious about this  group they were talking about. Despite their descriptions, I can't form  an idea or appearance of One Direction members. Do they look like Justin Bieber or those Kpop boy groups I  see on TV?

When I got home, I searched the internet for this mystery boy group. This video was the first One Direction video I've seen, a performance of the song Forever Young. This video gave me an idea about their looks. Now the mystery boys have faces! They don't dance like these Kpop boy groups and they don't sing songs similar to Justin Bieber's.

Since I wasn't really into boy groups during that time, I never really considered myself as a fan like my classmates. I had my one Direction fave (hello, Niall !), but I never participated in Twitter parties and Tumblr discussions. The most of I did related to One Direction was tuning in to music channels to watch their music videos. I remember those summer mornings of 2012 and 2013 watching their videos play one after the other while singing my heart out. By 2013, the band was already big in the Philippines that I heard of their new music video (Best Song Ever) from younger students talking about it inside the jeep I was riding.

Looking back, I realised that although I wasn't a big fan, their songs were part of my teenage days. In some ways, even though it wasn't intentional on my part, One Direction influenced my life more than I imagined. For a time, their song Fireproof  was a compass I used when looking for new songs or artists to listen to. I remember looking for artists whose songs sound similar to Fireproof because I love that song. It remains to be my favourite One Direction song. 

Also, when I started listening to The Beatles' discography, their changing sound felt less intimidating because One Direction albums taught me to be more open when artists explore new ways to make songs. I try to apply that in my life as well, though I think there's still a lot to learn in order to master the skill effortlessly. 

Writing this now makes all the reminiscing bittersweet. 

Rest in Peace, Liam Payne