MINUTIAE

  • Notes on graving

    Notes on graving

    The image of Dr. Nicolas Auguste Gay-Bellile’s grave, a massive head perched on top of a skyscraping tombstone, reminds me of Dune and the way director Denis Villeneuve showed the corpulent menace, Vladimir Harkonnen, using Holtzmann suspensors to rise and allow the baron to seemingly nullify gravity. The image of the sculpture is from a Read more

  • Watch over us, Tita Mercy

    Watch over us, Tita Mercy

    This piece came out in abs-cbnnews.com on 25 May 2020. Tita Mercy’s passing hit so many families, groups, and individuals whose lives she touched because of her tireless work on women’s health and reproductive rights. Just thinking about her now, that Tita Mercy is no longer with us, it makes my heart sink. But we Read more

  • Dreaming Colombo

    Dreaming Colombo

    Placeholder text for a post on Place Stories. Capital of Sri Lanka. A dreamy place. Humid, lush, alive. One night I headed to the Muslim area for street food. Then I went to the public wholesale goods market, which was bustling. The scent of spices wafted throughout the alleyways. Colors splashed everywhere. The red mosque Read more

  • Wyatt Earp

    Wyatt Earp

    This is my loyal horse, my companion, the bicycle that brings me great joy, on which I discovered the way I cycle is closer to the cerebral and emotional rhythms of walking rather than cycling. I stop frequently, I like having destinations but I am not bound by endings. I meander. I putter around. I Read more

  • Defending the Future: Steve Sawyer

    Defending the Future: Steve Sawyer

    “There are salacious rumors going around saying our planet is burning and that you are no longer around. Only the latter is false. Along Rue de Dunkerque I passed by Terminus Nord the other day and paused, remembering when you walked in by chance, with lovely Shruti, and later Athena joined. Sze Ping and I Read more

  • Jeff Woodke, the Ransomed Poet

    Jeff Woodke, the Ransomed Poet

    My good friend, Jeff Woodke. We first met in the climate negotiations sometime in the first decade of the new millennium. I was with Greenpeace International then, and he was with Tearfund, a non-profit set up by evangelicals, which was quite surprising. Jeff had a wicked sense of humor; we laughed often, at others, at Read more