Blankets, by Craig Thompson (2003)

My friend recently told me about her relationship troubles. While she inevitably felt sad at the prospect of things ending, she moreover mourned the wasted time, effort, and emotions she had invested on the other person. She regretted how all seemed to come to naught.

Similarly, Craig Thompson's graphic novel Blankets deals with relationships, memory, and artificial space. It depicts the author's first relationship: one that began out of a two-week trip to the city, with a girl he barely knew but was kindred spirits with. It details the excitement and travails of infatuation: the prelude to the first kiss, shared silences and gazes, and the eventual physical separation following a relationship borne miles from home. And it is this artificial space that many of us can relate to -- how relationships stemming from constructs (college, proximity, companionship, and summer, among others) eventually deteriorate and vanish. In the end, we are left with nothing but tangible reminders of better times: a photograph, a letter, or a blanket, none of which appease the resulting emptiness.

Yet ironically, the most beautiful part of Thompson's narrative is a vivid description of our first waking moments following a beautiful dream that we do not want to let go off. We open our eyes, struggle to enter reality, and hang on to the vestiges of that dream's memory. But soon, we fall back to the routine of daily life, and can only vainly hope to return to that dream we hastily abandoned. Eventually, we doubt the dream's very existence, and for good reason: it was ours and ours alone. In contrast, a relationship both birthed and lost in constructed space seems more like a distant memory, too -- except that we shared it with someone else who can attest that it was once, for all intents and purposes, real.

My friend continued sharing her emotions, and her concomitant regret. In hindsight, I realized that Blankets's final frames perfectly offered my friend succor. The author reflected, as he walked through fallen snow and left behind fresh footprints: "How satisfying it is to leave a mark on a blank surface -- To make a map of my movement, no matter how temporary."

In the same way, the death of a relationship and the vanishing of memory can lead to the birth of a new self: one who holds neither grudge, nor regret.

Deee-Lite - "Groove is in the Heart" (1990)

It is a rare for songs to involuntarily elicit actual physical reactions from their listeners. These songs beg for an effect; in fact, they don't wait - they stick a gun to one's head and demand a dance move or two.

In many ways, this is the ultimate goal any song strives for: to transform itself from an object to a catalyst, or even a subject. In a time when music gets analyzed to death, dissected to its core elements, and drained of all life, it is refreshing to have songs that escape intellectualization and live purely in the realm of the physical.

"Groove is in the Heart" is one of those few songs which exude pure joy and places an involuntary smile on its listener's face. It is a song where the hipster head-shake-and-foot-tap seem woefully inadequate. It does not pretend to be anything more than a tune designed to bring people to the dance floor. And for its sheer bliss and lack of pretension, the world (or at least, the dance floor) is a better place for four minutes.

Up in the Air (2009)

My favorite simplification of Einstein's theory of relativity goes: touch a boiling kettle for five seconds, and it seems like eternity; talk to a beautiful woman for five seconds, and it seems evanescent.

I first experienced this when I was fifteen. Ignoring propriety and good custom, I asked my crush to the prom through text message. The ensuing two or three hours seemed like an eternity. Each passing minute heightened anxiety. Only when she replied -- thankfully, favorably -- was I able to do anything else. I continually experience this moment, and whether it be a mere pregnant pause or the half-day leading to an e-mail reply, it can incapacitate.

Beyond the impossibly cool lifestyle Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) had in Up in the Air, living out of a suitcase and flitting from airport to airport, Up in the Air stirred me most in its climax. Without spoiling the film for anyone, the plot's centerpiece is the moment which incapacitates. And this idea resonates even more for Bingham, who has never taken a chance in his life, emotionally revealing himself to the mysterious stranger that gave him a taste of committed life (Vera Farmiga). The time he arrives at her doorstep in suburban Chicago is his personal eternity.

How the movie ends is less important than the moment where Bingham places himself in that moment. And that's what life is all about -- a series of gambles-of-the-self, where we expose ourselves to the power of possibility (or destiny, for the fatalists), and willfully withstand incapacity for a chance at happiness.

Alphonse Mucha - "Maude Adams as Joan of Arc" (1909)

A good friend of mine has a fantasy art gallery scenario that she often replays in her head:

Woman (staring at a painting): "Why?"
Handsome stranger (standing beside her): "Because."

We tried acting out the scenario in an art gallery and it turned out more amusing than sophisticated. Humor emerges because we commonly see art galleries as centers of pretension. And this used to be my predominant view of gallery paintings, before I encountered this fantastic piece in The Met in NY two years ago.

I can discuss how Mucha's paintings all share the same style: bold lines, crisp pastel colors, and perfectly-captured facial expressions. But beyond a few cursory art appreciation classes I had in high school, I cannot speak technically of Mucha's skill.

Yet of all paintings I encountered in The Met that day, this one struck me the most. This is when I realized that the painting's title -- "Maude Adams as Joan of Arc" -- perfectly explains why. This painting is a movie poster. And it trumps the grotesque humanoids seen on perfunctorily painted movie posters in Ever Gotesco.

I encountered more Mucha paintings in Prague last year, where I learned more about his perspective on art. Surprisingly, the reason why I laud him is the same albatross he attempted to shed in his later years. He declared that art must communicate a "spiritual message, and nothing more" - denying the commercial background of his paintings.

Mucha is thus an enigma. That factor which made his paintings unique, that which grants him acclaim seventy years after his death, was the same idea he consciously rejected. To no avail, however: his legacy had outgrown his person.

A commonly discussed motion in high school and college debating circles is the banning of billboards. Opposition teams often argue that aesthetically, billboards are nothing more than eyesores. Mucha's painting defies this pigeonhole. Society, sadly, sees art-as-art as serving no function, and places higher premium on function and pragmatism. In doing this, society creates a false dichotomy between aesthetics and function.

Mucha's paintings thus serve as a refreshing reminder that the functional need not shed itself of beauty.

The Kinks - "Waterloo Sunset" (1967)

I recently checked my favorite Twitter posts, and I realized that I posted substantially the same thing thrice: that Waterloo Sunset is the best song ever written. There's no apter way then to begin this blog than by writing about this song.

There's no easy way to tell why we like certain songs. But one recurring factor for the songs I like is the songwriter's attention to detail. And that exactly is what makes Waterloo Sunset special. It is about the mundane: lovers meet in Waterloo station, two people among many. It is about that moment we gaze outside our windows and notice beauty in simple serenity. This song is about the way we construct paradise and project it to the environment surrounding us. Consistent with this blog's theme, beauty is not what exists, but what we receive.

Waterloo Sunset resonates even more as I just revisited my favorite city in the world, New York, and discovered a close second in San Francisco. Many of us know that feeling that crashes as soon as we touch down back home, back in Manila. Then it hits us: our favorite cities are such because our relationships with them are merely fleeting, ephemeral. Then three days, four days pass. Soon, we fathom that traffic-laden Manila is our charming little Waterloo Sunset after all, offering a paradise we barely see in the rush of banality.

The Kinks - "Waterloo Sunset" (song)