The upright piano is installed

I brought Nanay to a Japan surplus shop in Gensan last Friday, after work. She'd be picking oil paintings she had identified earlier. At home, she likes to put artworks on rotation. The paintings are nothing fancy or of real resale value; she likes color and landscapes and flowers without any idea of the hands that created them. The paintings were the reason for that visit. 

But I had an accidental, but providential, discovery. 

While waiting for her, I saw a couple of upright pianos on display. I asked the lady about them. "They've just been tuned, Sir," the lady said. "Feel free to play something."

So I did. My fingers were dusty, literally, from the playing. The Kawai looked abandoned and ignored, hidden by racks of Japanese cups and silverware. But I loved how the music sounded. 

I remember Auntie Netnet tell me about used pianos in the surplus shops three years ago. I ignored the advice and looked elsewhere. When wisdom prevailed, I realized I couldn't justify the cost of buying, say, a brand new Yamaha. I'm no concert pianist. I play in church. I play at home, mostly for fun and for meditation. Reading notes from the hymnal is an exercise in attention, like learning how to read the Distar textbooks in preschool. It keeps me away from my phone, and my mind and soul find clarity and silence in the music. 

"I think I'd like to buy it," I told the lady. 

The lady said, "Ask the owner for a discount."

I did. He gave me a huge one. He'd have the piano delivered on Saturday for a small fee. He said, "The piano is heavy, as you know. We'll have three people bring them to Marbel. But can you look for three or four strong men to help with the lifting. Maybe neighbors you can call to help? I'm sorry we're short in manpower."

Nanay had an idea: she summoned Uncles Malot and Boboy from Banga. Auntie Bebet was excited, too. Installing the old piano had become a family affair. 

I should have read and asked if the piano was any good. But I bought it on impulse. Nanay also approved: I could not bring any furniture at home without her approval. A query in ChatGPT revealed the following details: 

Kawai K-20 Upright — What You Have

• Model: Kawai K-20
• Type: Professional upright piano
• Height: ~122 cm (48 inches)
• Era: Typically late 1980s to 1990s
• Build: Japan-made (earlier K-series were Japanese production)
• Serial: A 781657 (fits with that general period)

What the K-20 is known for

• Warm, clear Japanese tone (less bright than Yamaha, more rounded)
• Responsive action, very suitable for classical practice
• Solid build quality — these age well if maintained

A step above console/studio uprights; closer to an “institutional” upright
In Kawai’s old lineup, the K-20 sat above entry-level models and was often used in:

• music schools
• conservatory practice rooms
• serious home pianists’ homes (emphasis mine!)

Maintenance notes (important at this age)

If it hasn’t been done recently, it really benefits from:

• Regulation (action adjustment)
• Voicing (tone shaping)
• Annual or semi-annual tuning

When well-regulated, a K-20 can still feel beautifully alive even decades later.

I played This Is My Father's World. Paul, who prefers classical music, especially Beethoven, listened in rapture, contemplating the beauty of God's creation, perhaps—or was he tired from all the barking during the installation? Or was he criticizing my amateur playing?  

The warehouse is Gael Marketing, just along the highway. You'll be overwhelmed by the choices, but prepare to contend with the dust. Bring a face mask, if you have a lung condition.

(The piano reminds me of William Trevor's short story, The Piano Tuner's Wives, read by Yiyun Li in The New Yorker Fiction podcast). 

Read more ...

The Power of the Dog by Thomas Savage

I read The Power of the Dog with rapture. Strangely, I feel as if I'd just read the best novel I will be reading for 2026. The story made me tense; Phil and George Burbank, brothers who lived in a cattle ranch in Montana, are characters who are deeply human and therefore extremely complex (my apologies for the diarrhea of hyperbolic adverbs: this novel is marvelously, amazingly wonderful). There's something about Thomas Savage's language that makes me want to write.  

A backstory: I picked this up at National Bookstore's bin of books that cost less than 200 pesos. That place at SM Gensan hosts many wonders. I got my copies of Jonathan Safran Foer's Here I Am and Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy—great books I would reread—from those discounted bins. 

Read more ...

Nagasaki

On a whim, my friend Mervyn booked us tickets to Japan. The weather was perfect. There were no earthquakes. We had nothing else planned, for as long as we wouldn't tire ourselves too much. The last thing we wanted was to take a vacation from our vacation by the time we got home.

Nagasaki wasn't in our original plans; to be honest, we didn't have any. We spent a few days in Fukuoka, recommended by our common friend, Roger, who considered it his city -- until he spent an extended time for training in New York. 

Such was the spontaneity of our trip. Tired from clinic work, Mervyn, whom I've known for years -- from medical school, to internal medicine residency, and then to medical oncology fellowship -- craved for new perspectives. I suppose I did, too. A change of scenery was not the answer to our burnout, but it helped. 

We booked Shinkansen tickets from Fukuoka to Nagasaki. I believe our trip was on a Saturday. Balikan lang. I slept while sitting on a bench, lulled by the swooshing of quiet buses and cars. Merv left me to my nap, while he watched the grand finals of Tawag ng Tanghalan on his phone. That morning, we visited the atomic bomb museum. The atmosphere was heavy, but we felt that to properly honor the city we should pay respects to its history. 

"Ang sarap ng tulog mo, brother," Merv said. 

"Oo nga eh. I feel so refreshed. Sino'ng nanalo sa Tawag ng Tanghalan?" I asked. 

Merv must given me an answer, but I no longer remember the details. What I do remember is: we had nothing else to do for the rest of the afternoon, so we walked on, until we found a steep hill we eventually climbed. At the summit was a parking lot that would lead us to a pop-up weekend bazaar in a Shinto shrine. We ate ice cream under the shade. We felt like intruders, but we were welcomed. 

Surpise, surprise: Nagasaki was included in New York Times's annual list of 52 places to visit in 2026.

Unlike Hiroshima, which was almost completely obliterated by an atomic bomb in August 1945, the urban core of Nagasaki, America’s second target, was spared when the bomb missed its mark. This gives the city center a kind of sliding-door surrealness: This was all supposed to be gone, but somehow it survived. 

 You don't really plan for great trips. In a sense, they simply happen.  

Read more ...

Berlin

View from my hotel room. Trees line road, their colors changing as winter approaches.

Read more ...

Realizations while teaching Research

I'm pleased with the mid-year student evaluation for Research 2, the clinical and community research class I teach weekly in medical school. It's the most important feedback a teacher can possibly get: what, in the end, do the learners think of the course? 

My students rated the course as excellent, including the non-traditional teaching-learning activities. One particular activity, the peer-review, gives me satisfaction more than the others. I pair one group of students with another and instruct them to carefully study and critique the work assigned to them. In class, I listen to my students offering generous, well thought out, and considerate critiques. I learn a great deal from this exercise, too, and it frees me up from the task of doing the reviews all by myself. 

As the third quarter is unfolding, I have some realizations, especially as regards to my Research 2 class: 

Expect great things from, and think highly of, students. They live up to expectations, or will attempt to achieve lofty things. 

Allow creativity to flourish. This means creating certain allowances for unusual ideas and allowing them to explore unconventional research questions. 

Give them time to think. Setting aside dedicated study time, where they can work and meet with their groups, helps. Academic load in second year medical school is heavy and burdensome; their minds need space to think. 

Start with the capsule proposal before the full-length version. Capsule proposals are brief, concise, easy to read and critique, and force the students to distill the intricacies of methods and statistical analysis without being overwhelmed by length. Only when the capsule proposal is finalized can they expand it to create the final version. 

Use Google Documents! I can keep track of the evolving versions of the proposal, and my inbox is less cluttered.

Read more ...

Single-function devices

I carry my camera, an Olympus OM-D Mark IV, to take pictures. The gadget, a single-function device, doesn't do anything else. It doesn't allow me to share photos directly to Instagram. To transfer the images from the camera to my computer, I need a physical cord. If I read the manual closely, I can activate wireless transfers, but where's the thrill, the ritual, in that? There are better cameras, for sure, such as the Leica Q: superior image quality preferred by photographs like Craig Mod, but it comes in a heftier price. Or the Canon DSLRs: excellent aperture speeds, high quality photographs, but they're bulky. And why don't I just use my iPhone? I do. But photography isn't as enjoyable. I suppose the best camera is the one that I actually use and enjoy.

I like Christopher Butler's essay, Single-function devices in the world of the everything machine, where he writes, "Limitation heightens creation."

Limitations expand our experience by engaging our imagination. Unlimited options arrest our imagination by capturing us in the experience of choice. One, I firmly believe, is necessary for creativity, while the other is its opiate. Generally speaking, we don’t need more features. We need more focus. Anyone working in interaction and product design can learn from rediscovering how older devices engaged the mind and body to create an experience far more expansive than their function.

The holidays are over. Photographs, like journal entries, remind me of the rest I relished these past days. 

Read more ...

The Land in Winter by Andrew Miller

I could not bring myself to sleep when the fireworks started. I peeked through the window and saw the Marbel midnight skies light up. I eventually got up, prayed with thanksgiving to God for adding another year, turned on the lamp, checked up on Nanay in the other room, and looked for Paul. Our family dog was hiding underneath the rattan chair, stressed out by the sounds of human celebration. 

All of the above is a preamble to what really kept me up: Andrew Miller's The Land in Winter. I picked it up at the Dubai airport for no special reason other than I felt like it. There's no rhyme or reason to my book choices, but the blurb at the back cover convinced me. The novel was going to be about a country doctor in winter time. At the book stall, at 2:30 am local time, I remember speaking to the lady in Tagalog without even asking if she was Filipino (she was). I looked for my credit card, hidden in the backpack, and she patiently waited, even as a queue of customers was forming behind me. "Happy New Year po," she said as I proceeded to the boarding gate. 

Andrew Miller is spectacular. There's so much interiority in the four major characters of the book. We read about two couples who live in the West Country on December 1962. They're neighbors. The first is Eric and Irene. Eric is the country doctor. Irene is the wife who leaves behind her city life to support her husband's career. The second couple is Bill and Rita. Bill is the Oxford-educated gentleman who pursues farming to escape his father's expectations; Rita is the wife whose past life contains many controversies. 

We soon learn that Irene and Rita are pregnant. A snow storm occurs, setting the tone and setting for the interrelated stories. 

The novel is brilliant. (Spoiler alert here) As the book is ending, Irene comes to a point of acceptance that her marriage isn't going to be perfect. 

It excited her, and she opened her eyes. The car, the moon, Eric's face (the face of an actor) were all changed. She looked at him, his concentration (there was ice out there), his frowning into the onrush of night. She might just sit there, do nothing, say nothing, but it no longer felt inevitable. Her anger, at that precise moment, was absent. The anger, the fear, the shame, the wound that had to be tended like a wayside shrine. And what had replaced them? Only this: the rattling of the little car, the whirr of the heater, the shards of light beyond the edges of the road. A sadness she could live with. Some new interest in herself. 

I'm starting 2026 on a high note, reading-wise. Finishing this book lends proof to my observation that buying books from airports is a good thing. 

Read more ...