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What might not have occurred to anyone who saw the call for submissions for the project “Nothing to Declare” was how big it could be. And when I say big, I mean huge; I mean in terms of the kind of space it would require, in terms of the kind of curatorial agency it would be premised on.
Across the two museums and one gallery that carried the exhibit, the one that’s still running is at Yuchengco Museum—a good thing too, if we are to consider the kind of context it necessarily has there: in the company of the Botong Franciscos and the Juan Lunas, given too the ceiling to floor installation of falling paper rocks “Suspended Garden” by Tony Gonzales and Tes Pasola, that the museum has kept from an exhibit in 2010. Continue reading »
because i’d be lying if i said that Maria Ressa throwing the words libel and malicious my way didn’t render me speechless, literally and figuratively. but maybe what was worse than throwing that my way was the fact that it was also retracted with a brush-off: filing a case would be too much for too little. i haven’t been patronized like this publicly, have never felt let down by someone i respect since, oh i don’t know, i applied for… Continue reading »
brought Angela to Love Loss and What I Wore, the local staging of a Nora Ephron and Delia Ephron original. mixed reviews in the US, but an interesting enough text owing to this third world Pinay’s class consciousness. and Bituin Escalante and Menchu Lauchengco-Yulo are equally brilliant in it. go see it, bring your mothers and girlfriends. will only run until Jan 22! :) saw it last year, and did this review. Five women in all black outfits, mostly in the same… Continue reading »
It is this rendering of the visceral as questionable that happens on the level of spectatorship with the series entitled the “Battle of Love” made up of etchings all entitled “Violación” (“Rape”). Here it is the Picasso’s hand that falls heavier or lighter as it renders the act of sex, presumed to be at its most violent, across a set of five images that look the same. But are different.
what is being brought to light too, i find, is that while Lito Zulueta’s biases are questioned precisely because of the place he occupies in the Philippine Daily Inquirer vis a vis UST, his engagement with this issue has not happened in the broadsheet he works for. whereas Luis Teodoro’s attacks on him have happened in a regular Business World column. the discussion, thankfully, continues.
Tito Jorge would’ve laughed out loud, would’ve teased that this 35-year old was bawling like his widow under the watchful eye of Mother Teresa and an oven called Serenity. The 68-year old man had taught humor well. Irony, too. It seems it took him long enough. In 1994, Tito Jorge was working at the UP Film Center and on the last day for submission of UPCAT applications, arrived in the rain carrying with him – rolled up under his shirt… Continue reading »
two weeks since the discussion that had most everyone ganging up on UST and Lito Zulueta and siding with Marites Danguilan Vitug ang rappler.com, where is the discourse on media (online and otherwise) at this point? rappler has quietly revealed itself to be about helping out government instead of being a critical voice that at the very least asks: how much was paid BBDO for this campaign and is it worth it? i guess no questions like that for “uncompromised journalism” now tagging… Continue reading »
congratulations are in order: the DOT after all has triggered a meme of itsmorefuninthephilippines and its campaign has functioned exactly the way they imagined (with the help of a media enterprise now admitting its bias, yehey!) it is not without its critics, myself included, but i don’t mind letting it have a life all its own, commentary included about as much as unthinking celebration: if we can trip on the DPWHere, how can we not trip on this one? which… Continue reading »
“Graceland” a film by Ron Morales is taking the online platforms for independent filmmaking and funding creative projects like no other Pinoy film has, indie and otherwise. At the award-winning film website Indiewire, the film got the most votes out of four films and was declared project of the week, which makes it eligible for the project of the month competition by January’s end. Over at funding platform Kickstarter, pledges for the film total over $15,000 dollars, more than half… Continue reading »
because 2011 ended with some sadness, and the new year had me on a roll, which is to say it forced me to hit the ground running. one must be thankful. the yearender for arts and theater and the one on popular culture were up before the end of 2011. though with the Metro Manila Filmfest happening at the end of the year, too, these could only be overshadowed by the notion of ending-with-a-bang and a foreboding of the year to… Continue reading »
(in the midst of all this talk about Pinoy films, indie and otherwise, from people who haven’t given it a chance in a long time, and are ready to dismiss it anyway.) here: listen to this Pinoy indie film director talk about his film Graceland, with quite the interesting plot of a kidnapping layered with class division and struggle, with an unabashed social realism made different by a merging of the film and the docu, of the fictional and the… Continue reading »
truth to tell i didn’t care much about this “expose” of Marites Danguilan Vitug because it was a non-Corona non-issue to me. non-Corona, because exposing the lack of a dissertation, the number of years he took to finish the phd, his ineligibility for the honors he was given, point to the fact that this was always a UST issue. the basic question being: why make corona an exemption to university rules? and i didn’t care for that question because i knew without… Continue reading »
or let’s begin 2012 by talking about oppression, shall we? My issue with self-help books is that they are mostly American. And anyone who lives off of the Philippines’ contradictions and silences, crises and sadnesses would know that not much of American self-help applies to the every Pinay. The 11 stupid things women do by Veronica Pulumbarit, based on the book by Dr. Laura Schlessinger Ten Stupid Things Women Do To Mess Up Their Lives among other sources, reeks of a… Continue reading »
while i try and wrap my head around the mere existence of this movie, here’s a male voice i trust and love because it is consistent and self-conscious and always intelligent, even as it is Pinoy male macho. Ang tunay na lalake ay walang abs (At iba pang komento sa pelikulang Manila Kingpin: The Asiong Salonga Story) ni Yol Jamendang Eto ang lagay – matagal na, matagal na matagal na akong hindi nakakakita ng trailer ng pelikulang Pilipino na may… Continue reading »
the cultural discourse on bayanihan and the Filipino’s propensity for kindness and reaching out has undoubtedly changed since the disaster that was Ondoy in 2009. then, relief efforts were galvanized online, like a grand display of how we could all be heroes, how we could help in our own ways, with narratives on heroism cutting across artistas going on their boats and surfboards to help out those stranded on the rooftops of their homes, with the nameless | faceless pinoys… Continue reading »
will be joining bloggers_united and other bloggers for this tomorrow: old books from my and stuartsantiago‘s shelves, and some CDs from past lives / tastes / interests. do come! you might find something you like, and we can chika. :) cheers!
“An old student once quoted to me Allan Gurganus’ remark that it was the writer’s job to take the world personally. I think that that’s true. When I read about The Who or John Ashcroft, or the disaster at Chernobyl, I’m reading about it because I’m interested in the subject, and by interested I mean to suggest that not only my intellect but my emotions have been engaged. And when I’m reading, I’m trying to read receptively; that is, I’m… Continue reading »