And had I known then what I later realized on the death-defying drive home, I would have preceded my conclusion of praise for you with an admission of pride in your growth and envy of your peace.
When, I wonder, will I want it that much?
Here’s to you, my brother.
I only open Tumblr when I really have to write something, so I was surprised and somewhat remorseful to see that my last post - concerning Baybayin - was read by a few people who reblogged or commented on it. I was interested to find that at least one person took offense at what I had written.
To put my last post in context, I was reacting to an FB post by a foreigner who was glorifying the pre-Spanish Philippine culture in the usual Orientalist way. I was particularly irked that so many of my FB friends liked his post. The final straw was an academic talk I attended in which one of the researchers who spoke literally said that Baybayin should be adopted, regardless of historicity or practicality, simply because we should use a “native” writing system, as the Chinese did, for instance.
To put that last post into even simpler terms: it was sarcastic. But I suppose the tone must not have carried well enough. I’ll do better next time.
Why is everything pre-Hispanic assumed to be more “authentically” Filipino?
Why does everybody love the idea of having been part of the Srivijayan empire, but not the Spanish or American empires? Is the assumption that the Srivijayans came here and held our hands and made friends, after which we picked and chose the elements of their culture that we felt would complement rather than supersede existing culture? Or, and I imagine this is much more likely, do we just unquestioningly continue to discriminate against Americans and Spaniards because of political games played by the upper echelons of the Commonwealth, Japanese, and 3rd, 4th and now 5th Republics?
Why do so many people equate having a written language to having a “very advanced culture”? Even if we ignore the fact that the Baybayin syllabary was something borrowed and not native, and so not in any way indicative of our level of cultural or technological development, the fact is that it was hardly used! It was used for correspondence and some legal documents, but it’s well known that Philippine culture (stories, history, etc) was passed on orally. Does it somehow cheapen the existence of our ancestors and their achievements if we recognize that the development of their culture was different front that of Europeans or Chinese or Indians?
Why would anyone think that adopting Baybayin is a good move? The term itself doesn’t even refer to all the variations of native syllabaries. The syllabaries weren’t universally used, many people did without writing. If you adopt this writing system, you’ll have to standardize it, which means just creating a new one! And you’ll have to modify it to be able to use punctuation that people recognize (you know, not just vertical lines, assuming you’re talking about a syllabary that even had punctuation) and so that it can be used to write loan words from Spanish and English. Of course, writing English will be next to impossible. Then of course we’d have to revamp the school system, books, signs, etc etc. Wouldn’t it be easier to just show our nationalism by not eating pandesal and spaghetti and just having rice and fish everyday? No, you know what’d be easier, if we just
Do we really have so few real accomplishments in modern society that we have to look hundreds of years back to cultures that were definitely not shared by most Filipinos in order to find something about ourselves that we can be proud of?
I had 2 extremely strong emotional reactions to art today, and I’ve been listening to a podcast on philosophy, hence my title. I’m sure I’m stretching if not abusing the meaning of sublime in one way or another, but I’m currently trying to overcome my intense dislike of using incomplete knowledge. It’s not like I’m writing a research paper.
The first reaction I had today regarded the teaser for The Force Awakens. It was very pretty and used fancy (for Star Wars) camera work, and seemed to be the “modern” Star Wars movie that we thought we were getting years ago with the first trailers for the prequel trilogy - a series that turned out to be the very opposite of modern film making and… taste. The one thing I didn’t like about the new trailer was the beach ball droid. It was silly, unconvincing, spoke of nothing, and was a painful reminder of George Lucas’s 3-part treatise on proving that special effects can, in fact, chew scenery. The cross-guard lightsaber was neither here nor there*, and I’ll wait to see what’s going to be done with it. On the whole, the teaser looked interesting and even a bit exciting, if I think about it objectively.
But ignoring objectivity, and I wish I were exaggerating when I say this, but I was afraid. I shuddered when the teaser started, surprising myself, and I sorted out my feelings by the time it had ended and my brother was telling me that the Falcon now had a rectangular dish.
This film series is Star Wars’s last chance with me. I believe I’ve written before about how those movies were burned into my childhood brain. Let me expand that by saying that the video games were my own personal Renaissance art collection, and the expanded universe held a place in my heart right next to the Star Trek Chronology books. Watching the prequels was a betrayal of life’s meaning to a degree that I can only compare to one day when I was about 25 years old and caught my dad smoking after a lifetime of hearing him rant about how much smoking and smokers disgust him, often doing so in public within earshot of smokers as they smoked. If these movies, of a franchise that’s easier to expand upon than almost any sci-fi or fantasy property ever, still suck - nay - if they are ANYTHING LESS THAN THE PINNACLE OF MOVIEMAKING ART AND CRAFT that will make me feel that humanity is worthy of continued existence if only because of these movies, then I will, I will…
I recently heard that every failed relationship makes us trust less. The prequels, abominable as they were, left some of my hope alive in that I knew that they had been caused by a perfect storm of Goitre Lucas and the Yes Men League and it being just a few years too early for this kind of effects-driven (based?) film, and I felt, irrationally or otherwise, that Star Wars, the Platonic form of Star Wars which Lucas had somehow divined and shared with us decades ago, would continue to exist (or be. haHA!).
But if this series fails despite having a beloved director who has his own radio tuned to the gods of pop culture being, an entire industry that is a veteran and lover of effect-driven spectacle, and the hindsight of over a decade, then it simply means that Star Wars movies… just aren’t good anymore, if they ever were. They are not appropriate for our time, and perhaps only appealed to simpler sensibilities of a bygone era. A product of their age and nothing more, continuing to exist because of nostalgia, antiquarianism, merchandising and herd mentality.
Not that I would believe any of these things. But if Abrams fucks this up, I will feel them. And so whatever else I try to convince myself of, my childhood will - as Luke once believed his father to be - truly be dead.
*aside from a million other more obvious concerns I could state regarding the crossguard, I’ll remind you that when sabers clash, they’re practically magnetically attached. It’s not like blades ever slide down each other.
For the sublime, and despite my opening caveat, I am sure of my usage here, please read Ashita no Joe up to when Yabuki Joe finally meets Rikishi Toru in the professional ring (I think its volume 8). Before this part of the story, I had already been surprised and amazed time and again, particularly because of the atypical (for a sports manga) protagonists and antagonists who somehow fit the criteria for stock characters of boys manga and yet are also real and multifaceted, the bold and mature plot developments, and the fact that all this is happening in a manga almost half a century old.
But this fight with Rikishi, and the way I felt it change the whole direction of the series, made me realize that I wasn’t reading something that was merely innovative, or a memorable relic. Ashita no Joe is a masterpiece. It is timeless. And if I never read such an engaging sports manga again, I will forgive all the mangaka who fail to reach these heights, and I will sympathize.
What happened to Archie comics? Even as a preteen kid in the 90s I knew that the production of good Archie stories had ended more-or-less in the 80s, and stories done after that were to be skipped. I would flip through the books my parents or aunts bought me and look for the older (more competent) art styles which signaled the stories worth reading. I grew up knowing that the Riverdale gang wasn’t a bunch of monotone, bland caricatures of human beings, but rather a crew of smart-alecky pals in a constant war of one-upmanship.
Tried reading the comics where Archie married Betty and Veronica - nothing funny’s happening, so what’s the point? Archie isn’t supposed to be a soap opera. That said, there are much better soap operas.
Also picked up the first issue of Afterlife with Archie (the one where they become zombies). I’ve yet to read the rest, but the 1st issue didn’t get me interested at all. It’s just a johnny-come-lately addition to the glut of zombie crap infesting pop culture. And again, it’s not even funny, so what’s the point.
Read the old Pureheart the Powerful stories if you want to see how Archie should really do genres - as parodies. It’s a kid’s comic. It’s not supposed to pander to your nostalgia, it’s just supposed to be entertaining.
To illustrate my points, I pulled an Archie comic from a few years ago off my brother’s shelf. In the 1st story (often the only new one in today’s books. The rest is just reprints), it takes Archie 3 pages of cleaning a pool to finally fall in, to which his supervisor thinks “that’s the 2nd time today”. That’s literally the first joke. Everything before that is just Archie talking to himself about cleaning a pool, and the supervisor’s big contribution to the comedy is an expository thought bubble.
Contrast this to an older comic I pulled off the shelf which I opened to a random story, looked like a 60s piece. Betty is entering the Lodge mansion and
Mr Lodge says, “Veronica’s still pretty miserable”.
Betty: “Oh right she went to the dentist today didn’t she?”
Next panel: Veronica smiling widely.
Betty: “Mr Lodge that’s the happiest misery I’ve ever seen”.
Next panel: Mr Lodge explaining.
“Her face is frozen from the dentist’s medicine”.
And there, the whole story’s set up in ONE PAGE. Betty and Veronica then go for a walk during which boys come on to Ronnie because of her encouraging smile, after which she beats them up in various ways while grinning happily. And the dialogue serves to move the story along, illustrate the characters, and keep up the comedy.
Reggie comes along, “Hi Betty. Hi gorgeous.”
Betty, upset while Reggie takes Veronica in his arms: “Thanks, loads.”
In 2 lines of dialogue, the first uttered when Reggie appears, you know exactly who Reggie is and what he’s about. This is what Archie comics are supposed to be like. People get sarcastic. People get pissed. People are jerks. The boys are pigs and the girls are bitches (at the end of the story it turned out the medicine had worn out long ago and Ronnie was just enjoying hitting the boys). They’re American teenagers for pete’s sake. Why is everybody just plastered with a Stepford wife grin in all the new comics?
Poor younger me, he actually believed that bad Archie was just a product of the 90s. If only he’d known, even suspected, the depths to which it would eventually sink.
I mean COME ON Archie Comics. Joani Jumpp stories were epic verse compared to the drivel you’re selling today. JOANI JUMPP.
Still no internet at the office, and that may be a good thing, at least for the people who pay me.
That said, my mere existence is a good thing for those idiots, and they’d better realize it soon.
Had a great experience sparring new friends. First time I played someone so well-versed in long range. As usual, despite having trained many hours together, sparring proved to be the real ice-breaker.
Wish I had more serious training partners.
Wolverine has an indestructible skeleton, but as we saw in Age of Apocalypse and Ultimate Wolverine vs Hulk, this does absolutely nothing for his joints (parts of the skeleton held together by soft tissues).
So here’s a question: why is it that whenever Wolverine is burned or shot or cut to the point that the bones of an entire limb are showing, said bones don’t just fall to the ground? In case comic book artists weren’t previously aware, museum skeleton displays such as those for dinosaurs are held together by rods, screws, and wires.
Cyclops’s power, set to an angle wide enough to engulf Wolverine’s entire body, would *literally* dismember him by severing every single ligament the beams come in contact with. And Cyke could do it from half a mile away.
That said, why the hell is Green Lantern always getting punched in the face when he could fight his enemies from orbit?
And then, in a moment of clarity in the year 2091, society realized that, “cripple” having been replaced by “handicapped”, “handicapped” having been replaced by “disabled”, “disabled” having been replaced by “physically challenged”, which was then replaced by “differently abled”, which in turn was replaced by “people with disabilities”, itself replaced during a particularly sardonic time in word coinage by “crips”, which was overturned by “bloods”, then “crips”, then “bloods”, which was replaced by “unpowered”, which lost popular ground to “differently powered”, which was superseded by “no-money-for-cyborg-prosthetics”, which shortened to what was perceived as the less-pejorative “au naturel”, which eventually was seen as pejorative anyway and made way for “defective” (which by the 2080s due to the perfection of society had acquired a somewhat positive connotation that actually lasted for about a year), after all that, society realized that any word you use to refer to people who are perceived to have less than the majority will automatically become pejorative. This was explained by the theory of roses and garbage still smelling the same even when you switch the names around, which was discovered in the 2070s to have actually occurred in a cargo cult which had taught itself English through shredded novel manuscripts the Red Cross had used to build houses for them (the cult’s saying, “our breath smells like goddamned roses”, often chanted when praying for toothpaste and fluorinated bottled water to fall from the sky, became well known among American schoolchildren).
By 3010, after the great War Against Cloying Peace, everyone went back to using words like “blind”, “ugly”, “lame”, “dumb”, “squatter”, “maid”, “fat”, “poor”, and Context 101 became a required subject in the first year of high school.
I have a friend who has been living here for a little over a year. He hails from a 1st-world country, and he rightfully states that the political and social problems of the Philippines are the same as in any other country. However, he wrongly believes that our countries are therefore equal in suffering and that I shouldn’t be so indignant about domestic injustices and inefficiencies since “it’s the same everywhere”.
All I can say about this without going off on a rant is that Americans, for instance, worry about ulterior motives in legislation such as Obamacare. Filipinos, on the other hand, worry about legislation will 1) actually be made or 2) ever be carried out. Americans fear the changes that can be brought about by poor legislation, Filipinos wonder if changes will ever be made. Americans fear shadowy conspiracies. Filipinos wonder whether competent, educated legislators even exist. Marcos is still a kind of hero for many even with all the shit that he did because he actually managed to do some good things on the side. Many people I know favored Estrada becoming Manila’s mayor just because, however dumb or corrupt he may be, he can’t play the system like Lim did, and so will probably get away with less. We are similar but not equivalent, dammit.
I even had one balikbayan telling me that copyright law was important to fight for in this country. Yeah, stopping minimum wage earners from buying DVD’s of movies that already made $3B is really going to put us on the right track. Agh, fuck you all.
