Pounding The Keyboard

      I had an attack of vertigo yesterday so I just lay down on my bed almost the whole day. The culprit to my vertigo? Terrible lack of sleep. The culprit to my terrible lack of sleep? My bastar—, er, videoke-loving neighbors.       The torture began at the morning of December 24, around ten, I immediately cringed when I heard the familiar female machine voice counting which was immediately followed by a man belting out an Aegis song from the house nearby.       Hito ako, basang-basa sa olan       Walang maseselongan, walang malalapetan        Sana'y may loha pa, akung mailoloha        At ng mabawasan ang aken kalongkotan       It was followed by a barrage of ear-piercing renditions of songs by Renz Verano, April Boys, Marco Sison,   Parokya Ni Edgar, Journey, Air Supply, Eraserheads—no Pink Floyd, darn! At around four in the afternoon, another neighbor decided to join the fray and started videoke-ing loudly, too.   The playlist, though, was different: Lady Gaga , S

      I recently watched Darren Aronofsky’s mother! and I quite enjoyed it. It will certainly remind you of the classic Rosemary’s Baby. But looking at the reviews, a lot of people are panning it and actually hating on it, they say that it’s perplexing, confusing, pretentious, there’s a lot of senseless gore, and is an utter bullshit and is nothing but a piece of crap—some are even calling it the worst film of the century.       If you’d watch it without having an idea of what the film is about, you’d really get lost and would be confused with every scene. It’s an allegorical film and contains lots of symbolism and metaphors. To have a chance of enjoying it, one must know beforehand that Jennifer Lawrence is an allegory for Earth, her writer's block-afflicted husband is God, their strange male visitor is Adam and whose wife, of course, is Eve, and their two quarreling sons, Cain and Abel. The precious crystal is the forbidden apple. The baby Jennifer gives birth to i