Archive for September, 2009

Liveblog: Noynoy-Mar’s Concert… Thing

Liveblog: Noynoy-Mar’s Concert… Thing

Along with Dementia, my name is Marocharim, here at UP Theater for etonAPOsila: a fundraising/solidarity concert for Noynoy Aquino and Mar Roxas 2010.  This, of course, does not signify an endorsement or anything; as usual, I have nothing to do on Eid’l-Fitr.

7:45 PM. The APO Hiking Society is now performing. For those of you who don’t know who APO, that’s Buboy Garovillo, Danny Javier, and Jim Paredes are an institution in Philippine music, and are quite political in their points of view.  And guess who’s suffering from technical difficulties with his fucken’ camera… ewuroihsdfjsdk.

7:53 PM. Juana Change, resplendent in a yellow wig and a yellow shirt, is up.  Say what you will about the “populism” of the Juana Change message, but it is very effective for the bunch of supporters they have here.  Juana Change had the audience eating out of the palm of her hand.

8:05 PM. Aiza Seguerra is up.  She’s singing “Kaleidoscope World:” the acoustic version.  Brings back memories of Francis Magalona.  And apparently, our liveblogging has just been called up (and no, Manolo Quezon is not here, Juana).  You can email the Noynoy Aquino for President Movement ay napm2010 at yahoo dot com. There’s something for you.  Technical difficulties… arrrgh…

8:14 PM. Aurora – whoever they are – is up for a rocker number.  Yellow may not be the color of rock, but they’re spreading a message of change, as well.  Reminds me of the “Two Sides Live” concert… you know what, I didn’t eat yet.

Break time.

September 21, 2009 0 comments Read More
Ideal Bandwagons

Ideal Bandwagons

A Yiddish proverb goes: do not throw the arrow that will turn against you.

I sometimes think that the “bandwagon effect” is so misunderstood to the point that it’s demonized and maligned.  To some people, joining the bandwagon is to be like bacteria, hitching a ride on the bigger germ, on the way to infecting a cell.  It seems that joining a bandwagon is so conformist and so plebeian that the only recourse for intellectual and political freedom is to not ride it at all… and in effect, ride another bandwagon in the process.  See, it’s not plain old-fashioned stupidity at work: rather, it is an exercise in making a rational, coherent, wise choice based on the information that’s available.

Many, if not all, our political and economic judgments are made possible in great part because of the crowd.  That doesn’t make crowd behavior or herd instinct unwise or stupid or anything, though: it has a lot to do with articulation.  When people join a bandwagon, they already have an idea of what’s going on.  They already have an idea of their ideal, and it just so happens that this particular bandwagon represents their judgments, their preferences, and things that they value.  Faced with those options, they hitch a ride.

September 21, 2009 0 comments Read More
That Crushing Feeling

That Crushing Feeling

It’s hard to fight that crushing feeling.

It starts with a dream.  Little hopes, wishes made by a long shot.  You hope Mister Sandman carries the right thoughts.  Or the dreamcatcher is stringed to capture every moment of that dream.  It doesn’t take too long when you wake up with a smile on your face.  Suddenly, the world is bathed in sunshine.

There’s something about that crushing feeling that’s hard to explain.  Perhaps, and perchance, that’s what the poem is made for.  Short, small pieces of verse; words pieced together to convey the right emotion.  Yet what is so right about something that feels odd, or something that seems wrong?  The right question for all the wrong answers… or is it otherwise?  Does the heart need any other explanation or reason other than for what it feels?

The heart confuses the mind.  It befuddles it with questions never asked, and it saddles it with answers at the same time.  Not of knowing - there’s always a perfectly rational answer to a rational question – but of feeling. It’s hard to escape.  You just wonder if there’s a reason for it, but then you savor the moment.  You take pleasure in the momentary, the fleeting, the inevitable while.  It just happens.

Maybe that word – “crush” – is just the most proper of terms.  It breaks right through you.  It takes you out of your rhythm, yet it takes you in its arms.  A hug, a caress, an embrace.  You don’t fight to send it out, but you take it in.  Slowly but surely, it would not end.  It just goes on.  It transforms, it changes, it becomes.

There’s no fighting that crushing feeling.

September 20, 2009 4 comments Read More
Dagtang Lason, Translated

Dagtang Lason, Translated

It’s a long weekend.

Radio lately has been a treasure trove – or such – of bad LSS.  There’s “Nobody” by the Wondergirls, those songs by 2Ne1 (which, to my untrained ears, is any Korean girl-pop song that isn’t nobarreh-nobarreh-batchoo, so sue me).  And then there’s Dagtang Lason.

I don’t have to like the state of Pinoy hip-hop today (don’t get me wrong: I do) to recognize the market value of “crappy” songs.  They are songs made in the streets: populist lyric poetry, made by non-poets in the interest of explaining and sharing realities of a society they experience.  Baby Kupal: Mazakerista ng Tondo, following this logic, should be the next National Artist for Literature.

Which means that I, as a lyrics translator, am obliged and “required” to translate that song into English… simply because I can.

September 19, 2009 1 comment Read More
The Cough

The Cough

Every midnight, she coughs.  The flower boxes down below are tinged with blood the very next morning.  She’s alone in her room, confined, coughing the hell out of her body at every given minute.  All that happens while I sit in my room with the lights out, listening to a cough I couldn’t do anything about.

The sound of the cough crosses the corridors and the courtyard, and I can hear her from my room.  Coughing is never a pleasant sound to hear, especially if it comes from the very bottom of your lungs.  At my most creative, her cough – coupled with copious amounts of phlegm – reverberates through the space with the resonance of a pebble thrown into an empty can.

All I have right now is the echo of the cough; that, and the sounds of electric fans and air conditioners.  The cough that pierces the apartment complex at midnight has given way to silence.

The sound of suffering is a cough.

September 19, 2009 0 comments Read More
Just Craning Around

Just Craning Around

I never thought I’d inspire somebody with one post, but these are the things that make writing – and yes, paper crane folding – all worth it.

September 18, 2009 1 comment Read More