Pet Shop: Hobby or Business?

The pet shop has definitely garnered a firm foothold in the economic landscape of the old hometown. While their number may not approximate those of the lechon-manok eating places or the must have one in each corner bakeries, the pet shop certainly can be seen and counted among the visible players in the malls and some of the heavily-trafficked commercial areas of the city.

While people from other places may wonder why my sudden interest and/or surprise in the pet shop as a business, let it be said that when I left the old homeland about 29 years ago, the number of pet shops in the city was an absolute nil. You wanted dogs or cats, you simply asked your friends or our relatives who had them. Birds or fowl as pets? Again you asked your hunter friends. Okay, so some solitary guy may position himself conspicuously in the market and sell a monkey or two or some birds, or even dogs. But not as an established business, in permanent locations, and providing the whole panoply of things needed to acquire and maintain pets.

So 30 years later, and the selling of pets ranging from dogs, cats, birds to fish, rabbits, hamsters, etc., has become a recognized economic activity designed for profit. Of course, the pet shop owner may still be the hobbyist/enthusiast/animal lover who was fond of pets and tried breeding them on the side. He may still be the guy who kept himself in the house most of the time attending to his aquaria and monitoring the progress of the many fishes that he kept in his collection.

But now it is a viable and thriving enterprise. Many families with pedigreed pets now breed them on the side and dispose of them in the pet shops around town. Pedigree and papers to show it are now common jargon among this group, and even as conversation pieces. A mixed breed can go for as low as 5,000 pesos, but a pure breed, especially those for which the locals have taken an endearing liking, or because they have seen or read that these breeds are famous and noted in other countries, can command as much as 25,000 pesos locally, and much more if in high-brow and affluent Metro Manila.

Having just recently revived an old aquarium left behind and having bought a puppy, I had occasion to travel around town giving pet shops the look-around and doing-over.

Consummated both transactions from this pet shop, located along extremely busy Corrales Avenue, congested with traffic from Cogon Market and with those heading for the malls in town.

Manned by a young couple in their 30’s, the smallish pet shop is housed in a neat concrete building owned by the couple’s family. Both husband and wife appear quite animated in hawking their wares and extolling the obvious virtues of acquiring pets. The husband is quite knowledgeable about the many intricacies of acquiring and maintaining different kinds of pets, and treats each walk-in customer with singular attention and focus. Like one was the most important client of their establishment. Very inspiring then to be dealing with such youthful personalities.

Of Pens, Pencils, and Markers

Writing has been with man most probably as early as when he learned to walk on two feet. It may have simply started as clumsy etchings on the sand or any soft surface using sticks or fingers, but we know how thoroughly inclined man is now with regard to scribbling. So engrossed or dedicated as to find time and resource for it even when doing something very personal. Maybe like relieving oneself? Many cannot help playing with their hands clasping whatever is available writing on walls and wherever pen, pencil, paint, or marker can reach and take hold. The many public bathrooms are wordy and graphic testimonies to this proclivity.

And writing implements have gone through a lot of evolution even with just our modern times, from the ink-dipped quills, to the more lasting and convenient fountain pens, to cheaper graphite pencils, and now, the explosion of the utilitarian ballpoint pens made famous and popular initially by the popular French brand BIC. Ball pens are now so cheap and common, they can be found literally everywhere. On the moon, too? Oh, Yeah! “Neil Armstrong and crew would have been trapped there had Buzz not improvised by jamming a ball point pen into the switch's hole to activate liftoff.”


This is not say that there are no more writing implements that can still cause considerable pain on the wallet and are exquisitely crafted, and even made of precious metals. In the not too distant past Parker, Schaeffer, Waterman, and other expensive brands made use of silver- or gold-tipped nibs that many of us wealth-deprived cherished with all of our puny hearts. And they were good writing instruments, too, especially for those inclined to calligraphy. Time was when Cross ball pens and pencil sets were the gold standard, fit and appropriate even as worthy reward for and acknowledgment of long tedious years of service and as keepsake tokens to loved ones. Of course many would say the Mont Blanc fountain pens stand on a high pedestal all its own as a superb writing instrument, not counting its very expensive price tags, running in the hundreds of dollars.

Anyway, however everybody else may view writing implements and their value and use, I took a quick inventory of all pens, pencils, and those indispensable marker pens, in the house and without counting, came up with 5 plastic boxes of them, excluding those strategically located in the house – in a desk drawer, on a cabinet in the kitchen, and maybe a dozen (those with both priceless memories but with modest monetary values attached) stored in a safer place.

Again, this collection did not materialize over time with any intended deliberate purpose and effort. We just over time ended up with them rather than the garbage cans from a variety of sources – from family members, friends, businesses, etc.

They obviously are mostly ball pens, or more appropriately ballpoint pens, of various shapes, sizes, materials, colors, etc.

Of Hats And Caps

In this sainted land of overarching consumerism and an unrelenting era of abundance, it is not difficult to understand why people unwittingly become collectors of stuff. Thus, even if bereft of any crazed proclivities an Imelda Marcos would find casual and natural, items fall into one’s lap in great heap-full quantities especially consumer items that come in differing styles, colors, designs, shapes, etc. And reaching sufficient critical mass, they rightly then could be adjudged as collections. Whether they are shoes, cars, hats, cosmetics, accessories, toys, sports items, matchbooks, etc.

Since a lot of ladies, and I suppose men, too, are fond of personal accessories, we hear how good fortunes are spent on them not only for daily usage but also as prized “collections”. Thus collections of expensive and exquisite perfumes, exorbitantly prized hand-made designer handbags, different shades of lipsticks, etc. do not anymore raise many eyebrows. And imagine what good-sized fortunes are spent to collect either antique or just plain expensive cars? We read that the initial design of Bill Gates’ mansion had a garage that could accommodate 89-100 cars and that was just the initial design in a now completed house that had to undergo so many changes and additions that if they were cosmetic facelifts you would not recognize the finished product.

But anyway, the subject is collections, whether so designed and intended, or simply because one ends up with so many pieces of one item that it then becomes a collection. Let’s talk then about caps and hats. It is almost always when one decides to move to another location after dwelling in one place for a considerable amount of time that one realizes the extent of one’s “holdings” on certain things, whether considered valuable, useful, or not on both.


So proceeded I did to take stock of one such item – hats and caps. Cramped into one carton box in the spare room, I laid them out on the floor to be surprised to realize there were 40 of them – of varying shapes and colors, of different logos and purposes, and I suppose of different fits. One looks like the old railroad cap of yore one sees on old Western movies, others used primarily as visors against the sun, and the rest you wear identifying your favorite teams or government agencies. And one, my favorite, is a real cowboy hat in black, though a little too tight for my fit. And I do hereby declare that of this entire menagerie, it is the only one that I bought with my own money, a used one and bought at a flea market at that. The rest just happened to float around and end up at home, or in other words, given, left behind, or gifted.

But I knew there should be more around the house. Spotted a stray one prominently displayed on the dashboard of the truck parked in the garage. Next stop was the shed where bikes repose and found 4 more tightly bunched in a little leftover space. Thus the final tally scored 45. And wouldn’t you say that given that number that this could qualify as a collection?









Now let me see, it would take me over a year (450 days) to wear each one ten times assuming I wear a hat/cap everyday. Not too bad compared to a comparison with Imelda’s shoes. A similar estimate was made on her shoe “collection”. The unabashed conclusion was that she would have to wear out her feet before she could try all her shoes and walk on them – just for one time.

Now let me tell you about T-shirts, sleeveless or with sleeves, used or brand-new. And the initial dilemma would be: where do I begin? And please not counting those already disposed or given over time.

Can I include this bike helmet as another head covering?

What Is Art, again?

Maybe the above question is something we ought to ask often if only to highlight the attendant difficulties and uneasy confusion people encounter when trying to define what art is. The oft-quoted cliché that beauty is in the eye of the beholder could apply also in judging what art is, whether serious, pop, or whatever.

This untended difficulty reared its head during the last entry on my poster collection of Norman P. Rockwell works. Many critics had panned Rockwell’s works by denying him the honor of considering his work as serious art; instead that he was simply an illustrator however gifted he was as such.

And I always have a problem with such restrictive delineation because my mind has not really been able to grasp the exact parameters of what serious art really is. Should one rely strictly on the judgments of the art critics? But don’t they disagree amongst themselves? And many would go further and decry the lack of objectivity or relevance in many admired critics.

Anyway, I am not making this orphaned confusion my personal problem, because I simply follow my gut feelings and try to work up good feelings about the works that appeal to what I could consider my sense of what is beautiful, tasteful, or extraordinary.

To reveal somewhat what could be considered works that I value and keep, presented hereunder are several works which currently hang around the house.

The first one hangs almost unnoticed in the garage. Now, this is so simply because the interior of the house is already littered to capacity with other odd stuff. Anyway, it is clearly an oil painting of the Last Supper of Christ, but quite coarse and rudimentary if I may be forgiven in saying so. It appears to have been created from an art-by-the-numbers kit, the actual execution of which may not have been perfectly faithful to accompanying instructions (depth in the ceiling appears like an optical illusion image). But it is reasonably valued and loved by us because it came from a dearly departed widow who was very close to the wife. The same widow who gifted us with the antique furniture, subject of an earlier blog entry. According to her, it was meticulously created by her late husband who was quite an eclectic handyman around the house. Thus, it will be part of our house and will be reasonably cared for and treasured as work of art.

The next one hangs in one of the guest rooms and is accented with a wall clock underneath it. The subject is the same, the Last Supper of Christ. However, it is not painted. It is woven into a fabric. It was gifted to the wife by some client in the bank she worked. For my part, I got me an old wooden frame, sanded and spruced it up. Then installed the fabric tightly to the inner frame. I consider it unique because the intricate image is woven into the fabric, thus I treasure it and again consider it a valued work of art.

The third one, or actually nine of them, is similar in that the images are woven into the fabric and all have Japanese motif, most prominent of which are the ones with holy and majestic Mount Fuji . I have already framed six of them and two of them hang close to the stair landing.

Now, the last two could not be considered ones of a kind, or maybe even originals because one believes that somewhere there are templates used to “manufacture” these works. Still I again treasure them and consider them truly works of art.

So there, I have answered the question above, based entirely on my own personal perception and judgment. The extraordinary ingenuity, the dogged determination to creatively produce something, and indeed, the uniqueness of the works, all played in setting my own standards.

And I end with this narrative which came from a news item I read in one of the national papers many years ago.

Some staid museum in New York (or was it elitist Boston?) had reported this rather unusual account about an abstract painting that it dearly treasured. It was a huge framed painting by some noted painter about an abstract subject. It had been prominently ensconced in an equally prominent and huge wall of the museum that was always well-visited and admired. A stenciled metal plate had a few statements about the painting, what it signified and its artistic highlights.

Anyway, after many years the solicitous keepers of the museum decided it was time to spruce up that part of the museum. Plans called for cleaning the painting and frame and repainting the huge backdrop of a wall.

But when the huge painting was carefully lowered down, a surprising revelation. At the back, the painter had handwritten some data and instructions about the painting, specifically about how it was to be hung. Surprise of surprises, the museum had been hanging the painting upside down all these years.

Moral of the story. Art and its appreciation are in the eye of the beholder.

How else to explain the above faux pas, where no viewer, whether learned or not, noticed that “the book was being read upside down”.

Here's a couple more of my keepers this time coming from my unworthy hands:

Poster Collection: Norman P. Rockwell

Posters of different sizes and for different subjects have also been a popular pastime for many enthusiasts. Those enamored with films go for the very catchy, colorful, and artful movie posters that are seen in movie theatres and malls and which surely easily draw the captive attention of the onlookers. While others more into hero adulation may go for sports posters whether of racing cars and their drivers, professional sportsmen, etc. In short, there are posters and posters for most popular fancies and passions.
As for me, I was fortunate enough to have acquired over time a precious number of them (about 76) all about one subject, poster prints of the the paintings/illustrations of the late artist, Norman P. Rockwell, a very popular symbol of things Americana.

Mention Saturday Evening Post and invariably the name of Rockwell comes up, because for 47 years Rockwell provided the original covers of the weekly magazine for a total of 321. But for the prolific artist/illustrator who lived from 1894 to 1978 his body of work totals over 4000. Thus creating a very fertile and interesting trove for any enthusiastic collector.

The posters in my collection have the following dimensions: 17” x 22” and were published by Clement Communications, Inc. from Concordville, PA 19331 under its Masterpiece Program. Many items in the collection were original covers of the Saturday Evening Post.

A gallery of Rockwell works can be viewed here. Though the Web is littered with images of the works of Rockwell.
A quote from the Wikipedia entry for Saturday Evening Post:

In March 1916 Lorimer agreed to meet Norman Rockwell, a 22 year old artist from New York. He immediately accepted two front covers he had produced and commissioned three more. Rockwell did covers and illustrations for the magazine through 1963, and gained his public fame by these works; several of these are among his critically best-acclaimed works.

Though many modern-day critics would discount Rockwell’s work as serious art, still his work represented typical slices of Americana, however idealistically or sentimentalized they may have been portrayed. Thus his many works are very easily recognizable not only because he signed all of them with his characteristic signatures, but more importantly because of the characteristically unique or Rockwellesque ways his many subjects are painted or illustrated. Opting one critic to exclaim that Rockwell was a twin of Salvador Dali separated from birth or kidnapped by gypsies.

Personally, I could say there are similarities, especially in the area of exaggerated imaging, but the attention to minute detail in Rockwell’s paintings are such that one cannot help but admire them.

An Uncommon Find

Rummaging through some stored boxes which came from the previous residence, I chanced upon this rather uncommon find, which at first glance looked nothing more than a pendant made of silver.

Upon closer scrutiny, we find that it is the remains of what used to be a Liberty Walking Half-Dollar (minted circa 1916-1947).

While the edges of the coin have not been touched, what remains on the obverse side are Lady Liberty’s image, the sun, plus the word, Liberty, and the word Love holed out at the bottom where the date would have been. The rest of the coin must have been chipped away, sacrificing what appeared on the reverse side.

When asked, the wife had no idea how it got there.

On defacing of coins, here is what the US Code has to say:

This next statute concerns the defacing of currently circulated coins, either foreign or domestic:

United States Code
TITLE 18
PART I
CHAPTER 17

§ 331. Mutilation, diminution, and falsification of coins

“Whoever fraudulently alters, defaces, mutilates, impairs, diminishes,falsifies, scales, or lightens any of the coins coined at the mints of the United States, or any foreign coins which are by law made current or are in actual use or circulation as money within the United States; or whoever fraudulently possesses, passes, utters, publishes, or sells, or attempts to pass, utter, publish, or sell, or brings into the United States, any such coin, knowing the same to be altered,defaced, mutilated, impaired, diminished, falsified, scaled, or lightened— Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than
five years, or both.”

Comment:
(Like the statute I previously discussed, prior to 1994 when this law was amended, the statute read “fined not more than $2,000”. This was changed in 1994 to read “shall be fined under this title” which effectively gives the court the authority to impose a fine at its discretion. Of course the imprisonment terms mentioned in the statute speaks for itself.)

Old Olympic Games Postcards

Because the Olympic Games to be held in Beijing, China, are gearing up just around the corner, it is about time to start thinking things about the games.

The games have had a long history, stretching from ancient to modern times, the last one held less than two years ago in 2006. Starting in 1992, the games were divided into the Summer and the Winter Olympics, though still held every four years but scheduled in such a way that every two years, we have a version of the games. Thus, the last Summer Olympics was held in Athens in 2004 and the last Winter Olympics in 2006 in Turin.

In the 80’s to commemorate the games the International Olympic Committee based in Lausanne, Switzerland, begun printing postcards which showed miniaturized versions of the official posters of the different games. Now the IOC was formally established in 1894 and had is first Summer Olympics in 1896.

The postcards pictured below were collected over time and are by no means complete, showing only 1908 as the earliest and 1980 as the latest.

Hobbyists can then aim to collect the entire set of postcards beginning in 1896 to 2006, and hopefully to including that of 2008.

They most probably will be available at the Beijing Olympics. So everybody interested and planning to attend the games be sure to look for them.

Fit For A Museum

Harken back to mid-1984, in San Francisco.

Cupertino, in nearby Santa Clara County, is abuzz with new-fangled products coming out of its most prominent resident, Apple Computer.

Yes, Apple then was the flavor of the day for an entire valley that was going ape on technology. The entire Silicon Valley was in frenetic state singularly focused on emerging technologies related to the new product called personal computers.

And San Francisco, the populous and wealthiest core of all this, becomes the made-to-order market for these new-fangled tools. While consumer interests ran high for these never-before seen and experienced tools, retail sales were not really that impressive. Primarily because retail prices were not that great.

At that time, an IBM PCjr and Compaq Plus were selling at price ranges of US$4 to 5K. Now, add a couple of thousand dollars to those prices and one could own a brand-new compact car, comparatively speaking.










Under that rather forgettable market, retail stores selling computers were not going gangbusters and their numbers could be counted in one hand. As a matter of fact there were only about 3 big retailers in the San Francisco area, all aggressively engaging in enticing price reduction offers to prod anemic sales.

Anyway, on that same year, the family bought its first computer, an Apple IIc, which including necessary peripherals, software, and warranties divested the family coffers of over US2, 000. It was not top of the line, because that would have been the Apple Macintosh which carried a total price tag of almost US4, 000.

Now, what tremendous stuff did this new invention have or could do to justify carrying a price tag of about a third of a new car?

The Apple IIc was cryptically described thus, “includes 128K, one internal disk drive, printer/modem adapter, monitor IIc”.

To a typical computer user in the 21st century that meant, that it did not have a hard disk so one had to boot the operating system (DOS) from a disk, the internal disk drive was for a floppy disk, and the 128K signified that it could only hold and process that much at any given time, the rest will have to come from other disks.

But that was computing heaven then. Imagine being able to do Basic programming on it. And play those unbelievable games, shooting down spaceships and keeping scores. And create those intricate graphics? No doubt, countless hours were logged to learn about and enjoy the immense capabilities of that little box. Countless floppies were accumulated, some for saving files and others, mostly for applications that could be used for the computer.

Unfortunately, its effective life span was very limited. By the 90s, the powerful PCs had taken over and blazed a trail that left many of their precursors lying supine, obsolete, and inutile by the wayside.


Now, the entire bundle sits idly displayed inside an empty guest room, mute testimony to a forgotten past which goes back about 20 years. And for IT technology, much too long, much like dating back to the age of the Cro-Magnons.

But Apple’s progeny is doing a lot better. Its newest versions (like the MacBook) are even selling at prices way above those of its rivals, the IBM-compatibles, err, the PCs.

Religiosity From The Past (Part Two)

Following up on the initial entry which was about my maternal grandmother, continuing to rummage through the remaining stowed items in the new house has unraveled yet another interesting remnant from the past. This time an old devotional/prayer book owned by my late mother, again written in the language of her milieu, Spanish, and made in Germany. I had asked the wife how this new find got into our possession, but immediately recalled that my mother had lived with us here in the US for about 10 years prior to spending her remaining years in the old homeland. Then it dawned on me that among the few things that she brought from the old country were the prayer books, rosary, and novenas that were her constant and ever dependable companions.

Following closely in the religious observance footsteps of my grandmother, my mother was also very diligent in her practice, spending whatever little chore-free time she could set aside for prayers and rites she had learned from her immediate forebears. And like many of her contemporaries she had mastered the difficult but delicate art of completely shutting out the rest of the world when into pious prayers and rites. Unlike many of us who are quite unable to singularly focus or hold our attention span for any length of time, her generation had the almost uncanny abilities to elevate their harried consciousness into some kind of altered state when deep in prayer. Even when the entire family was huddled together in deferential kneeling position during communal prayers at home. Almost trance-like, they might mumble through all the repetitious prayers in the rosary, the novenas, or the endless litanies of God and the saints. And while the oral or mental praying itself may have slipped into sub-consciousness, it was unmistakable that they had attained a higher level of existence that in our faith suggests to us that they had communed in unity with whatever inscrutable force may be present out there, beyond the superficial grasp of our everyday consciousness and reality.

Antiques, Anyone and At Home?

The wife is normally the one who occasionally surfs through cable channels showing antique shows dramatizing the valuation processes of items presented during the show. And it is typically during the segment when the valuation amount ranges are explicated titillatingly by the experts that the suspended curiosity index of the onlookers heats up and jumps off the scales.

The usual revelation that certain things looking so inconsequential, or old looking, or maybe even showing extensive wear and tear, are valued so much as to be out of the realm of normative reality. And getting the gaping audiences frenetically thinking down the road whether there might be somewhere in their own possessions similar items that would approximate such values. Things maybe grandma or some distant eccentric uncle did not want thrown away while they were living and then stowed away and forgotten after they had gone.

But, wake up, isn’t that the very nature of the world of antiques, where values are determined not so much intrinsically, or through functionality, but mainly because of rarity or at times, arising from some silly cravings of certain individuals with oodles of money to pursue their whims? Or maybe because of the more predictable gauges of the economic law of supply and demand? That is, value is pegged on a calculated estimation of how a very finite group of moneyed collectors would be willing to pay to acquire such as treasure or novelty, and, silly me, how much a seller would be willing to part with his junk.

I believe, by and large, that’s how antiques change hands, from owner to collector, or from one collector to another collector, rather than through some complicated mathematical and/or scientific processes applied.

Of course, a lot also depends on the specific item that is being valued. If it is a universally desirable and a very rare kind of item in this finite universe, then its value will depend largely on how much an interested group with financial resources would be willing to part in order to acquire that item. Regardless of every other measure that some exalted experts may deign to apply to it.

In some contextual regard and on a personal note, I suffer from an inveterate proclivity not to throw stuff if I can find a place to hoard or stow it. Thus, unless time, Mother Nature and its elements do the disposing, I tend to keep with longevity things till they get to be too old for any use, or they may have taken on the qualities of being antiques or collectibles. And this could be an advantage, or simply an untold burden to people living with me.








Anyway, some years back, a dear old friend of the wife who was in her 90’s died and bequeathed to us some old furniture and fixtures in her home after the wife had expressed on occasion admiration and beauty in what she saw. Though she was Irish and grew up somewhere in Montana, she had gone west and ultimately married somebody who came from an old Italian family in San Francisco. She had only one son who was only too willing to dispose of the furniture from her house where she lived alone.

The meticulous old lady had taken special care of the old furniture that she said was brought by her husband’s family from Italy.

So we are now the proud owners of these old furniture and fixtures and are displaying them at home. Though at the back of our minds, we continue to entertain this rather itchy impulse that maybe these items are worth more than what most of us would typically think. If only we could have somebody who knows take a look.

Though outwardly we are very happy that we have them and enjoy their looks and functionality and adequately thankful to both the old lady and her son for the generous gesture. We do like to include in visitors’ queries about them a bit of friendly reminders about their past history.

Profiling The Blogger's Workplace

Maybe we now have close to 40 million blogs around the globe, and still counting. We have been served up a plethora of insights about who these bloggers are and what they blog about. We invariably catch passing glimpses of them around town, in WiFi hotspots lugging their laptops. We see them in airports parlaying waiting time to rapt sessions on the web reading or writing blogs. We know friends who are bloggers and in personal conversations, they tell us about themselves and their blogs. Many of the more successful bloggers came from mainstream media and so we have known of them previously as journalists. In fine, we do pretty much have a good profile of who the more visible bloggers in our virtual world are.

But they do not account by any estimation for the bulk of bloggers. And precisely because these are members of the “citizen journalism” caste or more popularly, members of the Pajamas Media, they stay and lurk in anonymity, creating their blogs and reading other blogs in the privacy and secrecy of their little worlds at home. And indeed, mostly attired in their creased pajamas, lingerie, shorts, and I’m quite sure, a number bare naked at their computer table their fingers humping at the keyboard as they create their blog entries.

What would one give to be a fly on the wall and quietly and voyeuristically watching the proceedings? Other bloggers have of course given personal insights right in their own blog entries, describing in at times nonchalant prose how their computer stations are set up, what items are on their tables, and maybe what time of the day or night they crank out their entries.

And sometime ago, I read from an MSM newspaper which featured the life of a youngish wife and mother who was quite addicted, in some particular context, to blogging. Pictures were included, showing a well-strewn desk with a dirty ashtray and an opened can with the remnant of some drink. One picture showed the lady in a grimacing growl, showing mock rage and anger, very early in the morning in her robe and ready to plug away on her PC for her regular cadenced attack against Pres. Bush and his administration.

Would these be typical profiles of bloggers in their workplace, or more appropriately, in their private study? For political bloggers, maybe. But there are millions of us out there who most probably do not fit the profiles of these more rowdy and public bloggers.

BTW, because of our numbers that little study where we maintain our blogs or surf the blogosphere must now be as an integral to the typical family home as the entertainment center in the living room, the wide-screen TV in the family den, or the reading desks in the study room. Needless to state, many lives now revolve around that little spot. We are told that not only outdoor time but even TV time have been drastically cut in exchange for more time with the worldwide web.

This leads to some personal introspection and a little house tour with the camera. And being in between jobs I do have more time than many bloggers.

This would be the main station in a loft converted into a den. Two tower PCs underneath the table stand in readiness, the other as ever-ready back-up. Having been a network guy for sometime, I may have installed more precautionary measures than the typical blogger. Like this PC still has Win98SE installed, this version still considered very hardy and typically not anymore targeted for virus attacks and similar malicious schemes. The full keyboard, compared to the smaller ones in laptops, allows for faster touch typing, a hold-over dinosauric remnant from the ancient times of typewriters. I suspect many bloggers nowadays practice the Biblical method of typing, the look and see method. But we actually took up required typing lessons in college. This one small printer services the entire house network. Though I used to maintain in the old house a home LAN with about 14 nodes, this one here is networked simply, all originating from an off-the-shelf broadband router, Ethernet and wireless capable.

To the left but still inside the loft area are three tower PCs, two sharing a common monitor linked together through a keyboard-monitor-mouse adapter. All of these provide additional access to the Internet should the main one be otherwise occupied.

Underneath a desk in the loft area, two PCs also lie in wait. One has a networking OS, NT4.0, installed and the other has a CD burner should the need arise.

Thus, when I do get the chance to update my blog, the menu is cooked right here in the loft area.

But in the kitchen area is where the laptop resides, since it occupies very little space. Thus, when with company and the need arises to access the web, this would be where we would go.

This would be the visitor’s room downstairs. And this PC may be used by them, except that I would have to run a long patch cord to connect to the router upstairs. But that 100-feet cable also lies in wait for any need.

Then for the unused remnants of that home LAN from the older house, they have temporarily been consigned to different parts of the house. Some in the extra visitor’s room upstairs now being used for storage, and on two sheds erected in the backyard.

In conclusion, that is how my workplace, or for me, my leisure place, looks like; so randomly strewn around and so untypical, mindlessly bundled together by somebody who acts a bit like a packrat and a bit like a paranoid too insecure about losing precious access to the Internet and not having provided for alternate recourses.

Religiosity From the Past

(Click images to enlarge)My late maternal grandmother was of great religious faith, having been born and raised in the City of Cebu, Cebu, one of the islands in the Visayas Region of the Philippines. On this city was planted the cross that circumnavigator Ferdinand Magellan used to symbolize the archipelago’s being deeded and dedicated to Mother Spain as her own; and which to this day, that religious symbol still stands on the very same site and securely protected inside a kiosk

My grandmother was quite steeped in the diligent practice of the many enduring rituals of the Catholic Faith. Said her rosary regularly, read from her many missals and devotional prayer books, went to Mass during Sundays and holydays and other days when able. Everything done in Spanish, the language she was taught by her elders.

She has been dead and gone for quite a while and my only nostalgic reminder of her has been this very old devotional prayer book no larger than a typical wallet. Published in 1881 in Barcelona Spain, it has gilt-edged pages and its contents all written in Spanish are adorned by many lithographed images of angels and children. Its title after all is El Angel de La Infancia, which literally translated means The Angel of the Childhood, and dedicated to the children of first communion.








This devotional prayer book would have been very common in that part of the archipelago where many Spaniards, in the over 300 years that Spain colonized the islands, stayed and intermarried with locals composed of native Filipinos and families of Chinese traders.

And prior to my generation, Spanish was the language of polite society in Cebu, in their many printed publications, in their social conversations, and in many of the old private schools. Even the local dialect, Visayan or Bisayan (the local dialect does not have the letter v in its alphabet), has many terms derived from Spanish. Most city dwellers then conversed in Spanish amongst themselves, and the rest of the locals at the very least counted in Spanish, or responded in telegraphic Spanish.

The Evolution Of The Affordable Computer

In the not too distant past, I had prided myself in having built my own PCs (desktops, specifically) at prices considerably lower than prevailing market prices for similarly-built units.

After building, tweaking, and upgrading countless PCs both at home and work, I finally ended the personally-commissioned project, capping it with a PC that had a total cash outlay of $140.









I had proudly thought then that it would be a while before commercial versions of PCs could top that record. Granted that some parts used by me were salvaged from some junked PCs.

My unheeding pride came crashing down when Nicholas Negroponte of MIT came out with his $100 laptop project some years back. This commendable project, primarily intended for distressed countries which suffer from affordability problems, continues to this day and one can follow its successes and grandiose plans on its wiki site.

Now, comes this latest news from Popular Science:


The $72 PC





Now that is truly something, though personally I had entertained no doubts that such projects were viable and could be easily done. And this somehow validated that personal belief.


Now, let us pay attention to the parts used to arrive at the finished product:

Intel SU810 motherboard ($5; centrix-intl.com)

Two 64MB PC100 SDRAM modules ($4 each; pcprogress.com)

Intel Celeron 500MHz processor socket 370 ($11; pcprogress.com)

Intel Socket 370-compatible heatsink and fan (~$5; newegg.com)

Gateway 4000437 NLX riser card ($25; alancomputech.com)

512MB USB flash drive (free; salvaged)

Momentary, normally open SPST switch ($3.29; radioshack.com)

Insulated wire for switch (free; salvaged).

ATX power supply ($14.50; amazon.com)

I have no doubts that many stores, like Fry’s, have on inventory many of these older-model standard motherboards that they’d be willing for dispose of for a song, or maybe give away as bonuses when one buys other items with them. And the same would be true for those old memory chips like SDRAM.

Now, with regard to the CPU and its cooling system, in my $140 clone, I had put an AMD 1 GHz, overclocked to deliver 1.333 GHz and fortified with an extra chassis fan to assist its own fan cradled on top of the heatsink.

This $72 PC does not have a hard disk or a CD drive. Mine has both, plus a floppy disk drive which now sells for maybe under a dollar. And what’s more I installed 2 hard disks on it, at 20GB each purchased at under $20 each (if I am recalling it right). It even has an older 6X DVD drive cannibalized from an old PC a relative had junked. Similarly, it has a 350w ATX power supply that came with the tower case that sold for under $30.

And the OS? Since I had in the past maintained store-bought PCs, I had in my possession disks for certain MS OS, like Win98 SE, which I installed on this last PC. I had hoped that Microsoft would not mind much having an “unauthorized” installed copy of this old Windows version that has now been completely and officially severed from it in terms of technical support.

The bigger problem I believe has been whether it still “pays” to build one’s own, rather than rely on commercial units from certain companies which now market them at very low and affordable prices. Even laptops are now within striking distance for many. Units equipped with dual-core CPUs are now advertised at under $500. Recently, Dell announced it would be selling units through Wal-Mart. The global chain that promises the lowest prices every day!

But as a hobby or pastime, enthusiasts will continue to push the envelope, or blaze their own unique trails, to set their own records. And more power to them, because we become all the better for their efforts and the inspiring examples they show us.

The Voice(s) of Elvis Presley

Elvis Presley has always been a phenomenon, both in life and in death. But more so in death, when we measure it in terms of financial successes, and even in popularity and longevity. His songs and other iconic items about him continue to tap into new areas of the globe, ably assisted by a mini-industry that was spawned by his enduring image and popularity, the Elvis impersonators, or as now nicely referred to, the Elvis tribute artists.

I had often wondered whether this personal but enduring child-like adulation of his singing that I treasure was a unique aberration, but still a local limited aberration. However, the continued world-wide and unflagging responses to his songs to this day would seem to belie this.

This brings one to wonder what exactly was in his singing that has made it so durable, in spite of all the equally gifted artists that have come and gone after him and the varying ways that songs are now both composed and delivered to ever-changing fickle audiences.

Why indeed should his old-style singing endure above the deluge of singing artists that now colonize the colossal entertainment firmament? After all, Elvis and the ensuing rock and roll phenomenon broke loose more than 50 years ago.

But rock and roll has undeniably prevailed, and Elvis continues to reign as its undisputed King, which title by no means just implies an empty and hollow attribution.

His voice and style of singing must have something to do with his durability

For most of us music illiterates, we probably should turn to the experts in music to find out and reveal for us what vocal gifts Elvis was blessed with. Elvis himself probably was not fully aware of his unique gifts, for after all he was essentially self-taught in his music, in both his singing and the instruments that he was fond of using, the guitar and the piano.

Here are some descriptive analyses of the voice(s) of the King as discerned by music people.

But first, a few basic primer points on music and voice.

Let us recall our musical scale – do, re, mi. fa, so, la, ti, do. Which is an octave, that is, of eight notes, beginning and ending on the same letter name. The “do” refers to C, “re” to D, and so on, E, F, G. etc.

The highest male voice is the tenor, and then next comes the baritone, and lastly the low bass, with many variations in between.

“The voice covers two octaves and a third, from the baritone low-G to the tenor high B, with an upward extension in falsetto to at least a D flat. Presley’s best octave is in the middle. D-flat to D-flat. Call him a high baritone.” “Moreover, he has not been confined to one type of vocal production” “He is a naturally assimilative stylist with a multiplicity of voices – in fact, Elvis’ voice is an extraordinary voice, or many voices.” – (Henry Pleasants, The Great American Popular Singers)

“I suppose you’d call him a lyric baritone, although with exceptional high notes and unexpectedly rich low ones. But what is more important about Elvis Presley is not his vocal range, nor how high, or low it extends, where its center of gravity is. By that measure, Elvis was all at once a tenor, a baritone and a bass, the most unusual voice I’ve ever heard.” – (Gregory Sandows, Music Professor at Columbia University)

“He rarely over-sang when recording, delivering a vocal to suit the song.” – (Paul Simpson, The Rough Guide To Elvis)

“(He) could jump from octave to countless other octaves with such agility without voice crack, simultaneously sing a duet with his overtones, rein in an always-lurking atomic explosion to so effortlessly fondle, and release, the most delicate chimes of pathos.” – (Mike Handley, narrator and TV/radio spokesman)

“..a musician … pointed out that despite an impressive vocal range of two and a half octaves – something approaching perfect pitch -, Elvis was willing to sing off-key when he thought the song required it. Those off-key notes were art.” – (Patrick H. Adkins, The Dream Vaults of Opar)

“The guy had a variety in his vocal styles and approach; he could make more vocal tones, with just his voice, than a guitar player with 50 pedals and gadgets. If you never even saw the guy, you could plain feel, not just hear the emotion and passion in his voice.” – (Country singer Roger Wallace)

“The voice has mixed propensities, hovering between tenor and bass and everything in between. Even a convincing falsetto lay within his range.” – (Jackson Baker in Memphis Magazine)

“There is nothing wrong, and everything right, in opening the vowel in the higher register so that the higher notes can be sustained. Elvis Presley was very open in his singing style even though he was ‘the’ rock and roller.” – (Brian Gilbertson, world-famous voice teacher)

“Presley’s registration, the breadth of his tone, listening to some of his records, you’d think you were listening to an opera singer. But …it’s an opera singer with a deep connection to the blues.” – (Jerry Wexler, co-founder of Atlantic Records)

“…Elvis’ range was about two and a quarter octaves, as measured by musical notation, but his voice had an emotional range from tender whispers to sighs down to shouts, grunts, grumbles and sheer gruffness that could move the listener from calmness and surrender, to fear. His voice can not be measured in octaves, but in decibels; even that misses the problem of how to measure delicate whispers that are hardly audible at all.” – (Lindsay Waters, Come Softly, Darling, Hear What I Say)

And here’s what they say about how some of his more enduring songs were rendered.

It’s Now Or Never – “he ends it in a full voice cadence (A,G,F) that has nothing to do with the vocal devices of rhythm, blues, and country.”

Milky White Way - “he’s got the strength of a bassman and the sweetness of a tenor.”

All Shook Up/Are You Lonesome Tonight - “His jagged, bubbly highs, and Southern baritone jump from those recordings like spirits from a cauldron. Elvis crooned romantically, then screeched relentlessly, always pouring his heart into the lyric and melody” (James Campion)

Hurt - “…singing in a register that gave more impact to his phrasing, and even hitting notes that could cause a mild hernia.” (Mike Kalina)

Heartbreak Hotel - “…where Presley alternately shouts words with full lungs, then gulps the following back, as if under water but without missing a beat.” (David Townsend)

Loving You - “…Presley’s baritone on this, the ultimate slow dance number, is almost too powerful, virtually rumbling the floor.” (David Townsend)

That’s Alright Mama - “…what I liked about the early records was that beautifully vulnerable high voice. (Jon Landau, Rolling Stone)

Long Black Limousine – “…the accompaniment is ornamented with bells, horns, and female choir, but it is Elvis’ voice upon which the words depend for their dramatic effect. In a departure quite uncharacteristic of country music, there is a fierce, almost shocked indignation and passionate intensity in his voice, transforming a fairly ordinary song into a vehicle for saving social protest. (Rolling Stone)

Hawaiian Wedding Song – “Elvis takes particular advantage of his voice’s strong lower middle and higher note registers, made particularly difficult because of the need to sing in cascading notes. (BMG Review)

In the end, when his physical health started deserting him, the timbre of his voice faithfully stayed with him, enabling us, his faithful fans, to overlook the caricatured image of a bloated Elvis in the funny oversized and bejeweled suit.

Live Long the King!

Graphics:

All Shook Up
Graceland Cellars
2004 California Sauvignon Blanc
Vinted and Bottled at Santa Rosa, CA

1973, Aloha From Hawaii
Elvis Presley: Entertainer of the Century
Plate Collection
The Bradford Exchange

Credits:

Wikiquote