Jollibee

There is a fast food joint in Philippines called Jollibee, which is more popular here than McDonalds. It is also everywhere; in small cities Jollibee exclaims from bus stops "Keep T_____ clean", massive signs loom over elevated highways, and resturaunts are crammed full of blank-eyed customers. I made it my mission, in the early days of my Philippines stay, to try and take a photo of every Jollibee we passed, and every reference to Jollibee I saw. Often this was from car windows and I now have a large collection of blurry signs photos and napkins that people have given me. I only ate Jollibee once, and it wasn't very good. But, anyway, here are some of the photos:



Just remember, kids: Jollibee is not a bee... he is your friend.

three photos of lakes and two taken from a car

Scenery from my first few days in the Philippines.

Isang Puti Sa Pilipinas (On Holy Week, With Whippings).

I am here in the Philippines for the CISV Asia Pacific Regional Workshop/Junior Asia Pacific Regional Conference. Together with a Swede named Bebbe I am training Japanese, Filipinas, Indonesians, Koreans and Thais to be staff in a Seminar Camp. In spare moments I am encouraging as much dancing, human-pyramid building and teenage hook-ups as possible. I am hanging with kids I haven't seen since they were eleven, in Norway four years ago. I am sharing a room with a moonfaced Chinese guy called Terry. There are about a hundred of us in all. We play basketball at dusk and sing songs about the deliberate arson of superhero residences. The mood is rosey and confident and bright. We are on the edge of a volcano inside whose crater is a lake, in the middle of which is another mini volcano, inside of which is another mini volcano - a volcanic Russian doll. Filipinos smile and laugh a lot, and speak all cute like Americans with a special interest in diphthongs. I would build beautiful gardens in honour of a great number of them. Yes, oh, yes: this is a lovely place to be.

Before the conference there were days on a lake, warm days with dragonflies and Japanese laughter. On the edge of lake we slept in a tent, albeit the type of tent with electric lights and as big as apartments I have lived in. The day before was Good Friday, when, in a nearby province which, much to my disappointment, I could not reach, a number of men followed the annual Filipino tradition of being nailed to crosses in tribute to big JC. Big news this year involved the Scottish guy who attempted to be the second ever non-Filipino to take part in the cruxifiction but, after having carried his cross two kilometres to the makeshift Golgotha, and having watched the pained faces of the other wannabe Christs, broke down and cried and said he could not do it. He was booed and pelted with fruit.

In other areas of the country, citizens were flagelating themselves with spiked whips.

In the old Spanish city of Intramuros the people sold cotton candy and long balloons and assembled to complete the twelve stations of the cross and to kiss the toes of the statues of Christ. The stone walls and cobble roads glowed in the lantern light. We ate halo halo, some weird Filipino muck involving ice and milk and toasted popped rice and jackfruit and coconut meat and sweet yam and flan and shreds of sweetened plantain and motherfucking mungbeans and sometimes, if you're lucky, icecream. It gets my weird food award, hands down.

Hey, it turns out that if I bemoan things on my blog then events seem to be changing for the good shortly afterwards. ie: I sobbed about kidnapped activists - shortly afterwards the survivors were rescued. I got sad about the schisming of young Katie Moore and myself - voila, she is back in Australia and will be beating me back to Perth. Having this sort of power can really go to a cracker's head. I'm thinking of just starting to bitch about everything thats messed up in this world and cross my fingers.


No, you're perfect.

Quick Administrative Notes

1. Later today I will be going to the Philippines for a couple of weeks. I plan to update more frequently than I have been in recent times. You might even get photos.
2. I have a new blog, in addition to this one, but I haven't really updated it yet since the first night I made it, so we'll see if it ever actually comes to anything. Its called the Chimerical Clam-Bake (regretably) and its meant to just be a collection of linkage to things that capture my attention for short periods of time. Please email me suggestions.
3. If you borrow someones bike to go to the service station to buy Ginger Beer before a game of Scattegories don't forget to put it back inside the house before you sit down to play, because otherwise it will probably get stolen later on and you'll have to give your friend $400 for a new bike.
4. Recently enjoyed:
{film} Paradise Now (2005)
{book} The Brief and Frightening Reign of Phil - George Saunders
{comic} Acme Novelty Library 15 - Chris Ware
{food} sushi from Taka in Shafto Lane
{concert} Sigur Ros at Perth Concert Hall
{person} Katie Moore
{phrase} "lemon squinty"
{article} "My Crowd" by Bill Wasik (from Harpers Magazine)
{juice} guava nectar
{customer} Hollie Raymond
{Perth band} Institute Polaire
{teen slang} "totally H.K." (abbrev.=Hard Kore)
{arabic word} "shebab" (def: youth)
{pen} Faber-Castell PITT artist pen, small, light brown

three weeks

1.
20th March
Out there is a thick gash of dark glowing green, laid out under the black curve of the sky. On the pier, men stand with fishing rods and buckets and swap slow stories with sudden endings. Above our heads, the bugs spin and whiz, collecting gleam from the floodlights which spill across the fields of white sand - "sort of like it's a whole constellation shooting out of control" you say (or something like that; my memory only allows paraphrases).
We arrange ourselves to stop grains from getting in our hair, on our scalps.

The kissing is quiet, and beautiful, and broken with words.


2.
7th April
That was three weeks ago, almost.
So I let myself abandon my defences and my fear and reservations and I let myself descend, again, into the weeks of soft air and tensely packed hearts. Nights smell like vanilla and tomorrow is always looming, and so we lie there, tucked close, refusing to turn over to the dawn. The cats are leaping at the door. There is wind in the eucalypts. There is anxiety, yes, but there is also relief inside of us, and it leaks out of our eyes, owl eyes, squirrel eyes, and wraps itself around our bodies, glowly warmly, set firmly in stone. The windy mornings become bright afternoons which become nights trapped and cold and still. I hold your hair, soft and thin, grasp your tiny shoulders, feel your breath. The world is calm. Your voice is small and the leaves are blowing and the candle flicks and the cats are gone. There is a language of lost words seeking refuge from stunned hearts. Then it's dark and silent, and for now, at least, you and I are here.


3.
12th April
When you go there is a dull clash inside of me like the sound of a 40 gallon drum being dropped a kilometre or so away. This is everything familiar and I'm imagining as though its lines I've been delivering in scenes I've been playing for years, to different crowds. But then we're out on stage and the whole thing seems strange and I can't pick why but then I realise its a different set altogether, a different stage, and now you're uttering different lines and I start to panic; this wasn't meant to go like this. You look up, out of the top of your eyes, and you speak, and I realise, fully. This is completely something else.

And I wasn't expecting water.

When you go I really stand there a few moments waiting for you to come back. Its only moments, but in that time I really believe that it will happen. I have never stood there like that before.

When you go, I walk outside and the cold autumn air echoes around the airport carpark. The air is vibrating more and more and it pops into a vacuum, a silent emptiness. Inside the car I am finding it hard to breathe.

Come back one day soon, please Katie, to dance above this grass.