Movie Days

It's around 3 am. I just woke up and made myself a cup of coffee. It's sitting beside me, the teaspoon jutting out of its mouth like a metal tongue. It's a reminder that I must think and type fast because I got up to work on my civil society paper and blogging is a luxury of time that must be curtailed. I must type fast or suffer a lukewarm cup.

The last movie I saw at the FC was "Death in Venice" last Wednesday when I got my ID taken at the Registrar's. I'm really glad I caught it though it felt weird watching it alone. Or rather, walking home at the dead of night alone with no one else's film experience to hear of. Good thing someone called and told me how freaked she was about the "Maalala mo Kaya" episode.

The last free movie I saw was "Born in Absurdistan" last Saturday at the Shang-ri La. Good thing I had lovely company this time! It's one thing to walk home alone reflective and disturbed and quite another to laugh alone in a public setting. The former gives you a pensive, brooding quality, and that may even be fashionable. The latter is just plain nuts and will freak the other people having their snacks at the food court. A way out would be to meet their questioning stares with your own questioning stare. Then point at your salad.

Let's pause for a public service reminder. Yes, the European filmfest is still on and they won't go till after September 29.

I'm looking forward to watching "Y Tu Mama Tambien" with my sisters at the UP Film Center later, after work. I must see if the Mexican film is worth all the fuss that got me crazy everytime I missed it (Cinemanila, last week at UP Film Center, et cetera). The last Mexican offering I partook of was "Amores Perros" and it mortally impressed me.

Above that, I'm looking forward to just watching with my sisters. The last time we did that was around the beginning of the semester, also at the FC, my second viewing of "Amelie". We had a nice time at the Likha-Diwa afterwards. Mae talked about her ideas about her literary project in class while Ate vented her anxieties about the upcoming licensure examinations. I told them the people there kept a nice little restroom.

Mae already submitted her short story and Ate has new anxieties about jobs and residencies. Then there's the movie and the fact that they're my sisters so we won't run out of conversation. Yes, I'm looking forward to coffee tonight! My current cup just got cold on me.

Martial

I bought yet another pair of arnis sticks last Saturday. It's made of anahaw. Good thing I ventured to this fair of products from Bohol and Leyte.

I rummaged from the stock to get myself the heavier ones, those made of older wood. These are much heavier than the usual yantok of course. When I compared it at home with the kamagong pairs, I noticed the anahaw were even heavier. But then again, the kamagong were 'mura', that is, made of young wood.

Besides the aesthetic charms of the anahaw wood, a definite plus to practitioners is the shape of the pair. Unlike the rounded ends of the usual arnis stick, the pair had a more rectangular grip with edges rounded off. This provides a better simulation of sword and gulok handles.

I had a faint feeling I would find myself some sticks, knives, or larger blades at that fair. Maybe it was because of that play. A few hours before attending the fair, I watched the Rep's staging of "Much Ado About Nothing" at the Shaw Theater. I guess it was because of all those characters toting their sabers, making their "point" with it, and swearing by it. They did everything except actually fight with it. A disappointment, really. I just had a nice laugh instead. Well, that was what I came for in the first place.

Or so I thought.

I have been notified of the arnis tournament beforehand. The Hatawan 2002 will be held in the UP Gym this year during the anniversary of Martial Law, September 21. I haven't had practice for over a year now and I would probably hurt myself more than I would anyone else. I would also probably compete under a new weight class.

It's a shame really. The combatants usually come from schools but the upper weight classes are mostly attended by police and military practitioners. I've seen these monsters beat and wince. You know they can feel the pounding despite the padding. It's really a nice, comfortable event to get oneself a beating. Maybe that's what I'm looking for right now, an honest-to-goodness bashing.

The first time I heard of the tournament, I thought I really desired that state again, the calculated frenzy. It was an expression of the body, of a love-hate relationship with the world, of a commingling of the instinct to protect and the inclination to destroy. But I was caught in a dark web at that time. I didn't consider it a healthy reason to pursue training. Unbridled passion would get the better of me. I would give the discipline a bad name.

It's no good. I was in a state of black hate. I marvelled at how capable I am of very vicious thoughts. I both reviled and entertained these dark spirits. I tried to offer them good cheer, maybe so I can tame them into something more literary, something less potent. That is, in the short term.

But I failed miserably at every attempt. Neither mind nor body could exert any power. I grew so sick, migraine, fever, the works. I adopted an isolationist policy. And, to a certain extent, I continue to do so.

You'll find no warrior ethos here. New weapons are no better than old ones when the spirit is the same. One engages in acquisition to stave off some hunger. So that I did.

These blunt and bladed things will remain here, unmoved, gathering their layers of impotent, disfiguring dust. Even in my mind, they will gather no blood. Save mine.

Kahapon

Pinalad ako't nagkapanahon nuong nakaraang linggo. Inaantabayanan ko talaga itong Eiga Sai 2002, ang libreng pagpapalabas ng mga kontemporaryong pelikulang Hapon sa EDSA Shangri-La. (Mula Set. 3 hanggang 9 lamang sa Mandaluyong e. Katatapos rin lang sa Makati. Sakaling interesado ang mambabasa, maaring humabol pa sa Tanghalang Manuel Conde ng CCP sa Pasay mula Set. 17 hanggang Set. 20.)

Sa anim na pelikula, tatlo ang napanood ko. Kasama ko sina Jessel at Jol nuong nakaraang Huwebes. Unang pinalabas ang "Adorenarin Doraibu" (Adrenaline Drive) at sumunod ang "Nabbie No Koi" (Nabbie's Love). Lubos ang pananalig ko sa pagkakarebyu ni Jessel sa dalawang ito.

Sa pagbalik-tanaw, sa anim na pelikula, mga dalawa't kalahati lamang pala ang napanood ko. Nahuli kami ni Mon sa palabas ng "Ashita" (Tomorrow) dahil masyado kaming naaliw sa mga librong nakahandusay en masse sa Philippine Bookfair sa Megatrade Hall. Medyo maulan pa pero hala't sumige pa rin kami, patakbong tumawid patungong Shangri-La.

Life, Love, and Laughter ang tema ng Eiga Sai. Sawa-sawa ka naman talaga sa dalawang huling elemento duon sa unang dalawang pelikula. Masaya talaga. Pero para sa akin pinakamatingkad ang tema ng buhay sa "Ashita". Kung wala na kayong balak manood, hayaan nyong ikwento ko ha?

Mga pira-pirasong sulyap sa iba't ibang buhay ang ipinamahagi sa mga manonood. Nariyan ang isang salusalo, kompleto rekados ang mga handa, todo satsatan, at may kuhanan pa ng litrato! May isang pares na bagong kasal. Sa kalaliman ng gabi ng kanilang pulot-gata, nababagabag ang isipan ng lalaki. May lihim na hindi makuhang ibunyag sa kanyang bagong kabiyak.

Gayun din naman ang estado ng pag-iisip ng dalawa pang binata. Nasa tahanan ng puta ang isa, lugmok sa pagsisisi sa pag-iwan niya sa kanyang kaibigan sa maiitim na kamay ng peligro. Sa saglit ng magkasanib na kahinaan, nagbahagi rin ang babae sa kanyang kliyente.

Naghihintay naman ang isa pang binata sa kanyang sinisinta. Masiglang tumakas ang dalaga mula sa bahay upang makarating sa kanilang luntiang tagpuan. Masaya pa niyang isinalaysay ang kanyang pagtakas habang habol-hiningang sinasalubong ang katagpo. Subalit mabigat ang balita ng binata. Dumating na ang draft. Isasama siya sa pwersang susugod sa pagpapatuloy ng Ikalawang Digmaang Pandaigdig.

At sa isang bahay, dinadaluhan ng kumadrona ang isang babaeng ipit sa isang mahirap na panganganak.

Itinapon ng lahat ng karakter ang kanilang mga panaginip, pagbubunyag-lihim, pag-aalala, pagkabahala, at kaligayahan sa isang hinaharap. Bagamat balisa buhat ng mga suliranin at ligalig na kaakibat ng giyera, hinarap ng mga tauhan ang kanilang kinabukasan.

Nangyayari ang lahat ng ito sa Nagasaki, ikawalong araw ng Agosto, 1945. Hindi lahat ng kwento ay magkakaugnay, ngunit pinagtagni-tagni ang mga ito sa mantel ng digma. Kinaumagahan, nadebelop ang litrato at nailuwal ang isang magandang sanggol. At buong-loob na tumingala sa bagong umaga ang ating mga bida.

Pagsapit ng tanghali, ibinagsak ang bomba.

Arts of Darkness

We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,
With an alien people, clutching their gods.
I should be glad of another death.

-T.S. Eliot, "The Journey of the Magi"

I read Joseph Conrad's "Heart of Darkness" to gain a better reading of Chinua Achebe's "No Longer At Ease". Achebe is an excellent Nigerian representative of African postcolonial literature. He was born in 1930, six years after Conrad's death. Conrad had Polish roots but he took to a seafaring life rising to the post of Master Mariner at the British Merchant Navy.

Achebe initially engaged Conrad's novel with the acclaimed "Things Fall Apart". Here, Achebe drew fiction around the exposition of African culture that existed and flourished in its own manner, belying Conrad's representation of brutes bereft of 'the light of civilization'. However, I chose "No Longer At Ease" as intertext because of it's comparable and, in a sense, parallel movement.

Conrad based his novel on his own troubling experiences in the Congo. I found his language initially difficult. Marlow, his narrator, used a hybrid of the British 'eloquent writer' variant of the time (replete those magnificent adjectives) and sailor-talk. If by any chance the contemporary reader gets used to it, it's an enjoyable read.

Conrad chronicled a sailor's journey into the depths of the Congo in search of Mr. Kurtz, a product of genteel education and paragon of European civilization. Kurtz set a high benchmark of ivory trade in the region. Superiors and equals either praised or envied him for his mysterious yet productive methods among the dark 'brutes' in his remote station. Kurtz had not reported for months and management got news of his illness.

Marlow would later unravel a 'disease' beyond physical ailment. It grew from the perceived moral burden of a white man to bring the light of reason and culture to a savage land. It was worsened by the chosen method of Kurtz. To become, unto them, a god.

Achebe, on the other end of the time line, shows Nigeria on the verge of independence from English administration. Obi Okonkwo is the grandson of the willful Okonkwo, patriarch in "Things Fall Apart". Obi makes his way back from studies in England to take an administrative post in a scholarship office.

The story is drawn along two major lines. Fresh from the university, Obi seeks to bring the light of his idealism to the dark byways of the corrupt bureaucracy. Obi struggles to marry Clara (an osu or untouchable) despite warnings from his family and community.

Akin to Kurtz, the pride of the rational man swells in his Europe-cultivated mind. He wins various skirmishes in both love and finances, rejecting bribes and keeping his 'intended' close despite mounting criticism.

Achebe succeeds in social realism, his language bringing into play elements from Ibo and Nigerian English unified by his somewhat terse narrative style. The language is unintimidating and much of the foreign elements are used in sentences and paragraphs where the reader can easily infer meaning from context.

Achebe brings the Okonkwo line to crisis at the verge of the 'incipient dawn' of independence, at the very point that is supposed to be hopeful. Obi is heir to the best of both worlds. His diasporic but tightly-knit community taxed themselves mercilessly to send its most promising son to Europe, the seat of power. He came back to occupy his high niche and pay his debt.

But through deft storytelling, Achebe shows how Obi Okonkwo grows doubly alienated from the modern and the traditional. Like Kurtz but in his own manner, he forsakes the love of his 'Intended' and sheds the reputation and dignity woven around him. He is engulfed in the black grease of the bureaucracy.

Like Kurtz, he succumbs to the worst of both worlds. They both identified their respective darkness with the light of their vision. Their fate is to have called home the very darkness they despised.

I will take, from the yarn spun by Conrad's Marlow, their common epilogue. We find them in an 'exalted and incredible degradation':

There was nothing either above or below him. He had kicked himself loose of the earth. Confound the man! he had kicked the very earth to pieces. He was alone, and I before him did not know whether I stood on the ground or floated in the air.

Nil

Life can turn out to be a big joke sometimes. But often, I forget to laugh.

I sometimes wonder why people would like to live it eternally. Or again and again in unending cycles. It's like saying I'd like to eat rice forever although the more exoticized parts of my stomach revolt at the thought! It's just that rice is the only thing we serve around here. And somewhere, sometime long ago, we developed the idea that projecting an eternal paradise of unending rice in our collective mind will somehow make it more tasteful.

But I guess people have to give life value or else the choice to not live will be much too attractive for comfort. When that happens, no one will be left living to pay tithes, provide captive audience to the speeches of the "important," strengthen the republic, and tell multi-colored lies to.

There won't be anyone left to imagine Nations, write newspaper articles and theses to justify actions of the absentee elite for the inarticulate masses, and generate GNP or GDP at the expense of remaining biosystems. Now that would be the easiest way to imagine utopia, a world without homo sapiens.

And I won't have to commit any wrongdoing. I don't have to feel any guilt when I do and when the people close to me suffer my karma for me. There won't be me, other people, or closeness. And I don't have to go on forever imagining soul-mates and forever-flames or whatever because I am truly and concretely nothing. Not a statistic,Tax ID number, a passbook, or 15-minuter which is just being virtually nothing.

I won't be any good to anybody either too but who would care? Ripples don't make sense without the sea anyway. And even with the sea, ripples don't matter.

A thinker said that what we have here is not really existence but just the non-existence of non-existence. I don't see much difference where even existence could be nothing but a preface, afterthought, and taste of non-existence. And he should be mighty glad non-existence didn't exist else no one will publish him and shell out pennies for his thoughts.

So there I have it, my yesterdays, todays, and tomorrows framed in the context of "nothing-anyway." But here I have the sun, it's high in the sky, telling me it's certainly noon in my place in-the-world, and my stomach tells me that I must have my lunch.

Here, I have friends. Maybe I'll spend an evening at Jol's. He might say "yeah-whatever" when he reads my mind and launch a dirtier (and infinitely more entertaining version) of everything I've just thought. Nathan will tell me that I must get myself a god or better yet, the God. And I'll get another taste of the classic Nathan-Jol debates discussing if I should-call-on-God or if it goes the-other-way-around. We all drink our spirits but, as usual, I get drunk before anybody else does because they're shooting their mouths off and I'm not. The rest of the gang will probably come in too late to change the topic to something more showbiz.

Here, I have family. Monica might come in, read my mind, and make me forget everything I've just thought. Or if I'm home, Dad might call me anytime now and ask why I'm home again and not working my butt off somewhere. Ma might call too and ask the same thing and I'll have to explain my schedule for the nth time. With a smile of course.

I think I'll have to wear it in perpetua.

Ate, Mae, and JR might come in anytime and asking where's-the-food? Thereupon I'll rub my stomach with a silly grin and that will irk them. But I'll say:

"Pipe down people! I'll have some rice cooking in a minute..."

And pretty soon, I'll be eating with kubyertos or bare hands, deep in the small talk that would take forever unless someone gets the bright idea of turning on the boob tube with gameshows featuring SexBomb Girls interspersed with newsflashes featuring GloMac. And I might get a taste of another one of those classic debates on who looks and sounds better.

I'll forget work, classes, and whatever problem or reason that got me all existential and nihilistic in the first place. Whatever this is I'm living, there's probably much more of it left to live.

Life can turn out to be a big joke sometimes. But often, oh so very often, I forget to laugh.

Doctor in the House

You made it Ate. You have the license now and we can finally call you doctor. You can now choose to preface your name with a "Dr." or end it with an "M.D." Any case, everybody will call you "doktora."

We're all swelling with pride right now. Our parents are happy and Ma is burning phone lines, calling up relatives. And I'm really glad you did good by them.

I remember you four years ago. You were teary-eyed because you passed the entrance exams to UP-PGH but the family didn't have the resources to send you. It was a decision they had to take and it would affect all of us. You were the stubborn one but you didn't force your will on them. You knew where you stood. You would compromise us all.

We had two younger siblings and they had futures too. Through Grace and the familial will, we all made it through. And now, you cap our parents' great effort with your name.

Congratulations.

It is not my habit to look hopefully into the future. You had your rose-colored eyeglasses always trained forward while I had darker lens looking back.

But I see it dear sister. For you, the best is yet to come.

On Spurious Solidarity

This day is dedicated to Quezon, the recognized "Ama ng Wika" or father of the Filipino language. I remember this because back in my elementary days, we had "Linggo ng Wika," a whole week with essay-writing contests, declamation jousts, and morning assembly speeches by Filipino teachers. Most of all, the fines were suspended and we could speak in Tagalog, my beloved mother tongue, without paying a peso for every word we didn't deliver in English.

Although, I don't want to dedicate this piece to Quezon, I'd love to write more about language. I hope my readers will forgive a few more meta discussions, more writing about writing.

The previous article notwithstanding, I confess I've trimmed down on the use of the theoretical "Man." Sometimes, the tendency of presenting and encountering the construct is the feel of abstractness, of imagining the collective embodied as an individual, homogenous throughout its parts.

Using "she" as the pronoun at least removes the phallus from the embodiment or repopulates the embodiment with the identities of the marginalized genders. One could see that it is also more faithful since the population is quantitatively more female.

But I still find the theoretical man construct a bit intrusive to the process of stimulating critical thought. Upon viewing the embodiment floating above us, sometimes our minds also fly with it and leave on the ground the diversities and contradictions inherent in humanity.

After my thesis, I've found that I lean more on the use of "we," "us," and "ours" and (since the the work was entirely in Filipino) "tayo," "atin," and "natin." At least here, the reader is free to check if the statement really applies to her and her own experience.

The guiding text for the thesis was Norman Fairclough's seminal work entitled "Language and Power." Here, he encourages the researcher and writer to put themselves in their work. I agree that the scientists' traditional omission of the "I" in their technical ouevres is questionable. I don't think they need to gloss over the fact that there was a human being behind their empirical presentations for the sake of appearing more "objective."

Nope. I'd like to see more of those I-me-mines, especially so that the accent on responsibility for findings could be more audible. I believe this is especially necessary in the social sciences where the readers must be made aware of where the author is coming from.

After warning the reader that he will write in the first person, Fariclough proceeds to discuss his use of "we." Here's a clipping from his note on style:

"...I have operated with an image of the reader as not just someone to whom I am telling things (though sometimes I am!), but also as a partner in a collaborative venture. This is why I have sometimes used the pronoun 'we' inclusively, to refer to the reader and myself. But... this use of 'we' can be manipulative; it can claim spurious solidarity, for instance when a politician uses it to convince people that she is 'one of them'. I hope that readers will not feel similarly dragooned into partnership: obviously, some readers will not see themselves as partners... but... I have found it easier to write as if they did."

I guess that's a mouthful. In typing that, an eyebrow reflexively cocked with Fairclough's use of 'she' as a pronoun for the theoretical politician. Then, remembering recent speeches especially of the state-of-the-nation variety, a naughty grin followed.

Not Elsewhere

Tinig's volumes 17 and 18 are out. I've got SONA articles left and right, but I'm thinking of submitting literary pieces for a change. Jol, I never thought I'd say this but I miss the Adarna workshops.

I miss too, the man behind the finer points of my thesis, Prof. Monico Atienza. I make sure not too mention him too much because I dread to disgrace his legacy. But that stricture can't be allowed here because he lent me his Fairclough and Mao. Also, I want to direct friends to his poem in the same way that Alex tipped me in the forums.

Thank you Sir Monico, for believing in my work and still signing the recommendation to the Asian Center despite every inconvenience. It is my honor that you peruse of my thesis to instruct your classes, while all errata there reflected my stubborn affront to your diligence in evaluating it. Someday, maybe, I will catch up with it and teach in my own fashion.

Still Not Elsewhere

Well, workers, students, and inhabitants of Quezon City, have a nice day! I'm going there this afternoon to claim some loose pages I had bound at the university shopping center. And of course, I'll meet my angas team mates there to gather around the birthday kantogirl!