By Rex Catubig THE train in the ‘60s was for me heaven sent. At an early age, I suffered from motion sickness that triggered vertigo and nausea when riding a car or the bus on long trips. It did not help that the Pantranco bus had hard wooden bench…
By Rex Catubig GAMBLING or games akin, provided the perk in our tranquil barrio. The kids indulged in the harmless though not exactly wholesome ‘buntayog’ or ‘tatsing’. While the elderly would sit for hours in front of the sari-sari store figuring out their moves in ‘dama’. But the more…
By Rex Catubig THE fascination with chance is rooted in my boyhood. But it is not all related to the DNA chain. Juvenile flirting with the bewitching flytrap of luck is the plausible excuse. It was the fun-filled Fifties. In the corner sari-sari store of Nana Pacing which I…
By Rex Catubig AN SOS from atanor Lilia Tuason sent this nocturnal senior scurrying through the maze of Galvan street market in search of burong dalag in the heat of midmorning. Not that she is conceiving the immaculate way but it was a favor for a friend. I’m loath…
By Rec Catubig “TO live, one must drive away from life occasionally”, so wrote Kerima Polotan, one of the best women writers in the 60’s. I’ve always taken that to heart, and one weekend recently, I charmed my way into the passenger seat of my friend’s borrowed car and…
By Rex Catubig GENESIS 19:26 of the Holy Bible depicts how Lot’s wife, in an unguarded instance of longing for the depraved and condemned life they’re fleeing from, looks back at the city being consumed by fire and brimstone, in sheer defiance of God’s injunction, and thus, turns into…
By Rex Catubig I went to school in our barrio for my primary grades—from grade one to grade four. Kindergarten was unheard of. Upon reaching seven years old, you are automatically grade one. Which for me was an unsettling experience. Suddenly, I was thrust into an unfamiliar environment, thrown…
By Rex Catubig IN what could be life’s pathetic irony, we are actually strangers to the people closest to us. We are photoshopped images or AI of what they perceive us to be. It is perception that is made up of biases and expectations that remotely resemble reality. On…
By Rex Catubig IT is said that the last to go as one approaches the final round, is the sense of hearing. While the body may have given up the fight, it is claimed that one could whisper into the ear of a dying man and he could hear it….
By Rex Catubig THEY were called midnight screenings. The showing after the regular screening hours of “oddball, unorthodox films at midnight”. In contrast to the matinee or morning to early afternoon shows which were usually priced cheaper and drew an older audience, the midnight movies, commonly noted for notoriety,…
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