Albert Camoose > Recent Status Updates

Insane banger run of “The Boarding House” and “A Little Cloud”. Both painful in their own ways. The latter edges the former just because it gets under your skin with how insecure Little Charlie is about his friend

Finished the short story “The Sisters”. Reverend James Flynn dies and the narrator attends his wake. Story unfolds through recollection and conversation. There’s a passage here where the narrator remembers being taught Church practices and teachings that moved me. But the story just ends. Very vague on Flynn’s mental state before death. Might be the point. Worth re-reading

Finished Heart of Darkness. On to Secret Sharer

Just finished the November chapter. Impressive have never seen a non-fiction historical book abruptly turns into an actual transcript of its author, suffering from a nervous breakdown, and a psychiatrist/therapist to basically finish the book. Insane move but one that makes it stand out from your usual nonfiction book. Demented choice.

At the October chapter now. September was really brief. Hunter suffered a mental breakdown while writing a flashback. So now the book is a literal transcript of his conversation with a therapist. Hunter’s observations about the failure of the McGovern campaign is so familiar. It’s like the Kamala 2024 campaign if she were actually woke for a bit.

Finished the July chapter. Highlight here is Eagleton, the Democratic VP pick, is discovered to have some health concerns (checked into a hospital three times for depression, received electroshock therapy). McGovern being forced to walk that tightrope is nerve-wracking since you root for the guy but now the optics are against him

“The Mass of St. Sylvestre” - what a heartbreaking ending that reflects on the destruction of World War II.

“The Summer Solstice” - holy shit they were allowed to be this horny? Kinda crazy for me.

Finished the second book. Did not expect it to be a history lesson through the Spanish era to the American colonization to Japanese occupation to the Huk rebellion

Got damned teary eyed at the end of the story “P.D.” about this black German orphan boy. “The Hyannis Port Story” is quite dryly funny, poking fun at a loser conservative old man (a Goldwater voter!) who is resentful of the Kennedys. Then it ends on a rather sweet, forgiving note that would not have been the way I would ended it. Vonnegut is too nice.

Reading the stories at random. “The Bungalow House” is a great one. Can’t give anything away but it’s a story about storytelling type of story. Almost gets quite funny in its irony.

Reading the short stories at random. “Who Am I This Time?” is a great one. Just the sweetest romance between shy people (an actor and a receptionist) you’ll ever read. I didn’t know Vonnegut wrote stories outside of science fiction.

Finished Chapter 8 of Book 2. Mayang’s daughter Clarissa is obsessed with a zarzuela/theater actor. Nice passage about Mayang being enthralled by the theater. She’s me at the movies. In the prior chapters, the book gets eloquent in illustrating the final days of a person during 1900s Manila, lamenting the loss of boats in Pasig River.

Just finished the June chapter. It’s a recap of the trajectory of candidate Ed Muskie — the whole Democratic Party primary actually. Very funny to read how Hunter rants about the Dems constantly trying to champion mediocre, centrist candidates against Nixon. Only for George McGovern to fight his way through the centrist Old Guard party bosses on a genuine progressive platform. Sounds a lot like Bernie to me

Not Mayang’s kid being named Chris Hansen HAHAHAHAHAHA

Just finished the story “The Haunter of the Dark”. I think also finished “The Dunwhich Horror” last year or something. Apparently it’s been three years since I logged this lol. Strange. Anyway H.P. Lovecraft really do be just telling the same story again and again. But they are good. Sometimes you do wish he switches it up a bit. Have an alien invasion or something

McGovern a real g. Reminds one of Bernie Sanders if he won the 2016 Democratic primary. Love Hunter S. Thompson’s writing style. He is a character just like the presidential candidates he follows. I think it’s honest how he writes. Subjectivity is a powerful thing; it reveals greater truths.

German guy has a large penis. American occupation time.

Love love love this so far. A Marxist history of Rome. Amazing

On the Book of Numbers now, Chapter 1 done. Very funny to me how this is instantly more interesting than what came before. A historical fiction where we see the trials and tribulations of a family in 1800s Philippines, just around the Revolution.

Chapter 5 done. Things get interesting with Adrian’s encounter with Colonel Amor. References to Philippine rebellions are made. Also very Martial Law coded scene

Dili na lang ako magtalk

They really fucked up huh. Must be horrible being on the ground when the AP called Florida, Michigan for Trump

You can really feel the Hillary glazing, blaming on her failure on Bernie bros

Chapter 4. Anna goes into a flashback on her activist days. Seems like early Martial Law? Mention of Recto Avenue chaos reminds me of last September. So she was married to a Manolo before.

“Better not to call attention to yourself, better to live like the trees, better to be merely there like the plants, with no desire except to eat, sleep, and work, have a few thoughts, a few moments of happiness, not joy but happiness, better to exist without destiny, only to exist.“

TRUEEEEE

“She needed someone to walk with her through her broken road. I felt it in my bones and in my soul. She needed me. She needed the medicine that is love.”

🗣️🔥

Finished the section on Economic Independence. Great. So great. Senator Recto’s words still ring true. The Philippines has so much raw materials yet we give them away to foreigners instead of developing them into our own goods. We pay for goods foreigners process for us. We are treated as children, unable to produce ourselves. Funny though, Recto, with all his Marxist analysis on economics, hates communists.

Love the character of Doris Kilman, the long suffering working class woman, caretaker of Elizabeth Dalloway. After spending much of the novel following the POV of rich people like Clarissa, Peter Walsh, High Whitbread, here’s someone who’s actually closer to me.

“Here he was walking across London to say to Clarissa in so many words that he loved her. Which one never does say, he thought. Partly one’s lazy; partly one’s shy.”

Real so real. Little passages like these show how Woolf captures truthfully how people think. It’s romantic and awkward at the same time.