aural memory: evergreens on the 5
in the absence of pennsylvania, or rather in my absence from pennsylvania, oregon’s scenery has smote me. goodbye susquehanna river, hello evergreens.
simon and garfunkel - ‘i am a rock’
I have my books
And my poetry to protect me
down at eagle rock
the latest family outing took us to eagle rock (which i used to confuse with fraggle rock) for lunch at goldilocks and grocery shopping at seafood city. little did i know that the westfield mall that hosts both is now a kind of unofficial hub for filipino happenins in the glendale-pasadena-burbank area. the goldilocks itself is a fil-am community center of sorts. our lunch stretched to almost two hours, with my mom connecting with the folks in both booths adjacent to ours. they exchanged the obligatory inquiries into hometowns, last names and maiden names, possible common friends and schools. these conversations weren’t too out of the ordinary, except that it’s been a while since i’ve been surrounded by filipinos only (well, filipinos who still have a vivid sense of and connection to the motherland) and i actually understood a good portion of what was being said. so, a different sense of familiarity, refracted by my time in madison i think. madison has had that effect on me in general since getting back to the west coast — refracting my experiences of formerly familiar and mundane places and interactions with old friends and family.
my attempts to speak to our server failed when i realized that it would probably take me five minutes to put together the sentences necessary to place an order or to even ask for more water. i can’t fossilize this hesitance to speak…
going to seafood city, though, was the crowning moment of the afternoon. the store is a full-sized supermarket, its shelves stocked with all sorts of filipino vittles. the seafood section is magical indeed: an array of fish, shrimp, shell fish, and squid laid out buffet-style in 4 or 5 aisles. still, we could have been in any american or even asian american market, but for these distinctively filipino touches:
along the walls of the market, where you might see giant posters of your average blonde or brunette american consumer being greeted by the checker who stands a few feet away, there is instead a giant poster of an elderly filpino man mid-pagmamano (a gesture of respect). the “salamat po” written above the exit of the store is a final jarring reminder of the intended patrons of the store. it’s validating, maybe even empowering in a strange way, to walk into such a vast space that is technically meant for all kinds of consumers but whose products and marketing collateral targets one’s own culture.
—
the double bonus for the day: this evening the mom prepared sinigang and camaron rebosado. seafood city seemed to have inspired her.
electric air
a magic formula of sorts for, or symptoms of an impending storm, lightning and all: a few hours before the downpour, the air so humid that moisture gathers on your skin even while you stand still, your lungs work extra hard to separate the moisture from usable oxygen; an overcast sky, which could also forewarn of a tornado; heat that can render indoor air-conditioned air sickness-inducing; a stickyness enough to make you say ‘fuck it’ and take a long walk through the wetness that hangs everywhere, no matter what kind of odd sweat marks imprint themselves on your clothing.
it’s necessary payment, though, for the result a few hours later: heavy, heated, microwaved rain and a lightning show to accompany it. the sky lights up so often that you stop bothering to look up because you’ll never get any work done with such constant movement of your head away from the screen and towards the electric air.
i’ve been missing me some classic midwestern and mid-atlantic summer weather. it’s best experienced on a covered but not enclosed porch, with quiet friends and possibly a smoke, definitely a beer.
spoon and lohan together at last
oddness last night at the annex for the smoosh and aqueduct show. smoosh, tween-aged rockers that they are, playing more interesting music than headliner aqueduct. really! the drummer’s pretty darn good. said A, “it’s like spoon meets lindsay lohan.” me: “woah. that just does not compute.” during aqueduct’s set, the ladies of smoosh ran around the annex as if playing a game of tag, which after awhile did seem like more fun than sitting through aqueduct. i can’t find sample lyrics to post, but trust me when i say that they are gems of horror.
just weird. seattle, what music are you releasing into the world?
my mind is elsewhere
madison does indeed deserve its own post, several in fact. my mind, though, is wandering to other cities and regions that i’m looking forward to returning to and exploring once august 13 rolls around: seattle, san francisco and oakland, los angeles, portland, and back to seattle. the engine behind all this wandering is of course this music i’ve been listening to — the shins bring me to oakland, the dears to the 110 in LA, elliott smith to portland, andrew bird to seattle (oddly).
but madison. i have a little over a week to document this town, or at least what i’ve gotten to know of it in the past month and a half.
a preview: on my bike rides i’ve found the perfect homes — covered porches, older but not crumbling, overlooking the lake, shaded by trees.