Monday, January 23, 2006
10:44 AM |
Why Cities Without Gays and Rock Bands Are Losing the Economic Development Race
Fictionist
Susan Lara sent me the following article, after reading
the post below about homophobia in a
Freeman editorial.
By Richard Florida
The creative class: a fast-growing, highly educated, and well-paid segment of the workforce on whose efforts corporate profits and economic growth increasingly depend. Members of the creative class do a wide variety of work in a wide variety of industries -- from technology to entertainment, journalism to finance, high-end manufacturing to the arts. They do not consciously think of themselves as a class. Yet they share a common ethos that values creativity, individuality, difference, and merit.
More and more businesses understand that ethos and are making the adaptations necessary to attract and retain creative class employees -- everything from relaxed dress codes, flexible schedules, and new work rules in the office to hiring recruiters who throw Frisbees. Most civic leaders, however, have failed to understand that what is true for corporations is also true for cities and regions: Places that succeed in attracting and retaining creative class people prosper; those that fail don't.
Stuck in old paradigms of economic development, cities like Buffalo, New Orleans, and Louisville struggled in the 1980s and 1990s to become the next "Silicon Somewhere" by building generic high-tech office parks or subsidizing professional sports teams. Yet they lost members of the creative class, and their economic dynamism, to places like Austin, Boston, Washington , D.C. and Seattle -- places more tolerant, diverse, and open to creativity. Because of this migration of the creative class, a new social and economic geography is emerging in America, one that does not correspond to old categories like East Coast versus West Coast or Sunbelt versus Frostbelt. Rather, it is more like the class divisions that have increasingly separated Americans by income and neighborhood, extended into the realm of city and region.
The distinguishing characteristic of the creative class is that its members engage in work whose function is to "create meaningful new forms." The super-creative core of this new class includes scientists and engineers, university professors, poets and novelists, artists, entertainers, actors, designers, and architects, as well as the "thought leadership" of modern society: nonfiction writers, editors, cultural figures, think-tank researchers, analysts, and other opinion-makers. Members of this super-creative core produce new forms or designs that are readily transferable and broadly useful -- such as designing a product that can be widely made, sold and used; coming up with a theorem or strategy that can be applied in many cases; or composing music that can be performed again and again.
Beyond this core group, the creative class also includes "creative professionals" who work in a wide range of knowledge-intensive industries such as high-tech sectors, financial services, the legal and healthcare professions, and business management. These people engage in creative problem-solving, drawing on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. Doing so typically requires a high degree of formal education and thus a high level of human capital. People who do this kind of work may sometimes come up with methods or products that turn out to be widely useful, but it's not part of the basic job description. What they are required to do regularly is think on their own. They apply or combine standard approaches in unique ways to fit the situation, exercise a great deal of judgment, perhaps try something radically new from time to time.
Much the same is true of the growing number of technicians and others who apply complex bodies of knowledge to working with physical materials. In fields such as medicine and scientific research, technicians are taking on increased responsibility to interpret their work and make decisions, blurring the old distinction between white-collar work (done by decisionmakers) and blue-collar work (done by those who follow orders). They acquire their own arcane bodies of knowledge and develop their own unique ways of doing the job. Another example is the secretary in today's pared-down offices. In many cases this person not only takes on a host of tasks once performed by a large secretarial staff, but becomes a true office manager -- channeling flows of information, devising and setting up new systems, often making key decisions on the fly. These people contribute more than intelligence or computer skills. They add creative value. Everywhere we look, creativity is increasingly valued. Firms and organizations value it for the results that it can produce and individuals value it as a route to self-expression and job satisfaction. Bottom line: As creativity becomes more valued, the creative class grows.
Why do some places become destinations for the creative while others don't? Economists speak of the importance of industries having "low entry barriers," so that new firms can easily enter and keep the industry vital. Similarly, I think it's important for a place to have low entry barriers for people -- that is, to be a place where newcomers are accepted quickly into all sorts of social and economic arrangements. All else being equal, they are likely to attract greater numbers of talented and creative people -- the sort of people who power innovation and growth. Places that thrive in today's world tend to be plug-and-play communities where anyone can fit in quickly. These are places where people can find opportunity, build support structures, be themselves, and not get stuck in any one identity. The plug-and-play community is one that somebody can move into and put together a life -- or at least a facsimile of a life -- in a week.
Creative centers also tend to be places with thick labor markets that can fulfill the employment needs of members of the creative class, who, by and large, are not looking just for "a job" but for places that offer many employment opportunities.
Cities and regions that attract lots of creative talent are also those with greater diversity and higher levels of quality of place. That's because location choices of the creative class are based to a large degree on their lifestyle interests, and these go well beyond the standard "quality-of-life" amenities that most experts think are important.
Talented people seek an environment open to differences. Many highly creative people, regardless of ethnic background or sexual orientation, grew up feeling like outsiders, different in some way from most of their schoolmates. When they are sizing up a new company and community, acceptance of diversity and of gays in particular is a sign that reads "non-standard people welcome here."
The creative class people I study use the word "diversity" a lot, but not to press any political hot buttons. Diversity is simply something they value in all its manifestations. This is spoken of so often, and so matter-of-factly, that I take it to be a fundamental marker of creative class values. Creative-minded people enjoy a mix of influences. They want to hear different kinds of music and try different kinds of food. They want to meet and socialize with people unlike themselves, trade views and spar over issues.
As with employers, visible diversity serves as a signal that a community embraces the open meritocratic values of the creative age. The people I talked to also desired nightlife with a wide mix of options. The most highly valued options were experiential ones -- interesting music venues, neighborhood art galleries, performance spaces, and theaters. A vibrant, varied nightlife was viewed by many as another signal that a city "gets it," even by those who infrequently partake in nightlife. More than anything, the creative class craves real experiences in the real world.
They favor active, participatory recreation over passive, institutionalized forms. They prefer indigenous street-level culture -- a teeming blend of cafes, sidewalk musicians, and small galleries and bistros, where it is hard to draw the line between performers and spectators. They crave stimulation, not escape. They want to pack their time full of dense, high-quality, multidimensional experiences. Seldom has one of my subjects expressed a desire to get away from it all. They want to get into it all, and do it with eyes wide open.
Creative class people value active outdoor recreation very highly. They are drawn to places and communities where many outdoor activities are prevalent -- both because they enjoy these activities and because their presence is seen as a signal that the place is amenable to the broader creative lifestyle. The creative-class people in my studies are into a variety of active sports, from traditional ones like bicycling, jogging, and kayaking to newer, more extreme ones, like trail running and snowboarding.
Places are also valued for authenticity and uniqueness. Authenticity comes from several aspects of a community -- historic buildings, established neighborhoods, a unique music scene, or specific cultural attributes. It comes from the mix -- from urban grit alongside renovated buildings, from the commingling of young and old, long-time neighborhood characters and yuppies, fashion models and "bag ladies." An authentic place also offers unique and original experiences. Thus a place full of chain stores, chain restaurants, and nightclubs is not authentic. You could have the same experience anywhere.
Today, it seems, leading creative centers provide a solid mix of high-tech industry, plentiful outdoor amenities, and an older urban center whose rebirth has been fueled in part by a combination of creativity and innovative technology, as well as lifestyle amenities.
There you go, Mr. Tundag.
Labels: queer
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Sunday, January 22, 2006
11:29 AM |
A Call For Lynching (Revised Version)
These are increasingly dangerous times for those who want to be who they are, because intimations of murder seem to come so easy for some people.
Look at the world around you. Smell it, and feel the undercurrents of the everyday. Unless you live with your head buried under the proverbial sand, you know that there is a cultural war going on around us, the stake of which is our very soul. And yes, our necks.
It is a war that puts frailty in our freedom, the kind that tells us we have the right to live the life we believe we should live, if only to be true to the human beings beneath our skins.
But it is also about how much of this world imposes on us the frightening notion that
there is no such freedom at all -- an idea that makes many unfortunate people believe that some just have
no right to exist. That it is actually better if there are laws to properly lynch them away out of existence.
Kill them, for example. Maim them away to oblivion.
If you are thinking,
What a Hitlerian thought!, you are right. This is the very same intolerance that drove the engines of the Holocaust in World War II, a Nazi genocidal project that wiped away -- through torture, hard labor, and the gas chamber -- the so-called “undesirables” from the face of Europe.
But this essay is not about history or old wars. It is about the world we live
now. It is almost too ironic to consider this debate again in the heels of the releases of two movies that dare declare the humanity of gayness. Much has already been said about Ang Lee's new film
Brokeback Mountain, and how it is unleashing a new level in the old debate about alternative lifestyles. An award-winning film based on the acclaimed short story by Annie Proulx, the story revolves around two cowboys who, while working in the quiet of Wyoming's mountains, find themselves falling in love with each other almost against their will. It is also about the 20-year affair they hold in deep secret, and how the silence and prejudice wreck havoc in their lives, and in the lives of the women they marry. Today, that film has become the water-cooler subject of conversation from all corners of the Western world, creating panic in some places, and outright sighs of relief in many others.
In the Philippines, this debate about sexuality has centered not around Ang Lee's film, mostly due to the fact that it has not yet been released for showing in our shores. The debate has instead circled around Aureus Solito's equally well-received
Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros, another acclaimed film that was the surprise hit in local cinema at the end of last year. A fresh and endearing story about an effeminate boy and his loving family of
brusko men and the chances they make in their lives in the slums, the response to
Maxi inmany quarters has been electric and positive. It is even translating that critical and commercial success to the fact that
it is receiving its North American premiere in the prestigious Sundance Film Festival, the first Filipino film to be included in the official competition.
But some, of course, predictably steer along the ultra-conservative route (I call it the scourge of ignorant fundamentalism), and has virtually pronounced the end of the world via a Gay Apocalypse. Some have even said that the debate -- and the two movies along with it -- is
not necessary. I've read more than few bloggers and some paper scribes talking about raising their eyebrows at the fact of having to mind
another gay movie. "What's the big deal about the gay life anyway?" most of these people ask, often with a tint of the self-righteous, often with the deadpan tone of the bored and the miffed.
What's the big deal? I'll tell you what's the big deal. Here is a perfect example to illustrate the necessity of this debate. Last December,
The Freeman -- a major Cebuano daily -- published an editorial in the heels of the Wesy Quisumbing controversy. (For those not in the know, Mr. Quisumbing, the transgendered son of a prominent Cebuano businessman, filed a harassment case against the father for being, above all things, an abusive homophobe.)
In any given day, an article that smacks of homophobia no longer raises my ire. But this was
an editorial, not just some column by a hack journalist, in a paper that dares call itself "The Freeman". (
How ironic. And yes, I used to write for this paper.) If an editorial is supposed to be the very soul of a newspaper, what then can we make of this tirade?
The editorial reads:
The Gay Issue Beyond the Quisumbing Case
An editorial by Jerry S. Tundag
The issue raised by Wesy Quisumbing against his father, industrialist Norberto Quisumbing Jr., that of allegedly stripping him of his positions in family owned corporations on account of his being gay, wouldn't have been any less interesting had the personalities been different.
Forget about the Quisumbings because that is their personal affair. But it is perhaps time that the issue of gay people and how society relates to them be given ample time for healthy debate.
To be sure, we do not advocate same sex marriages. The notion itself is revolting and we do not aim to go that far. But gay people are in our midst in increasing numbers and the sooner society draws parameters on how to deal with them, the better.
Not that it is even necessary to draw parameters. But let us face it. Society can never be unanimous in its feelings toward gays. There will be those who accept gays and those who don't and those who don't are what can prove to be troublesome down the line.
For down the line, as the gay population increases, they will interact more and more with the "normal" population (pardon the adjective for lack of a better word) and those who accept them will accept them, but God knows what will be on the minds of those who don't.
You do not hear about this in the news because it is not talked about in public, but in certain countries in the Middle East, gays are actually wasted, and it is up to you to determine what that means.
Here in the Philippines, where we have a more tolerant society, gays can even occupy the same high positions in society that the "normals" occupy. But that does not mean everything is all hunky-dory out here, as the Quisumbing case in fact shows.
Maybe the Quisumbing case is an isolated one. Or it can be just a scratch on a surface that is hidden under layers and layers of pretending that a problem does not actually exist. But sooner or later, we will all have to deal with the problem, or situation, if you will.
We like to pride ourselves as the only predominantly Catholic country in Asia. Well, even the sitting pope, Pope Benedict XVI, has finally chosen to seize the bull by the horns, so to speak. The matter of gay men in the priesthood has at last become the subject of papal edict.
The Regional Trial Court in Cebu has issued a gag order against discussing the merits of the Quisumbing case and we are not about to violate that. But there are issues that go beyond the instant case that now need discussion, perhaps even action, by our lawmakers.
It is virtually a call to lynch all gay men and women in the country. Prospects of genocide?
Most certainly. But what frightens me most may be the silent knowledge that a lot of the people we know -- perhaps even those whom we are familiar with intimately -- will
not hesitate to agree.
I sent the editorial to some of my writer/journalist friends in Manila and around the country. The fictionist Susan Lara countered the editorial's argument by sending in a famous
essay by the economist Richard Florida whose idea of the "creative class" as being the engine for economic growth declares that cities without rock bands and gay people will be economically marginalized. The essayist Lani Montreal also emailed me this short note: "I couldn't finish reading the article. It made me real sick. But yes, I will finish reading it and maybe forward to
Sunday Inquirer with my own comments. I just need to be in a different space right now."
Poet and gender theorist J. Neil C. Garcia wrote: "Thanks for letting me know about this bit of distressing news from Cebu. It's a pattern in our country, I guess: at least one or twice a year, something homophobic makes it to the media. I remember many years back in Manila we had our fill of gay-related news, and predictably enough, their accompanying stupid, bigoted, utterly disgusting commentaries (gays in the military, gay managers abusing their talents, etc.) our lives are fodder for such media carnivals, and while I used to think the best response was combative (in other words, fight fire with fire and write angry letters to the editors left and right), now I'm of the opinion that ignoring the entire circus is the best course of action. (This seems apt here, for the journalist in question is obviously incompetent and daft after all).
But there are limits. Do keep me posted about any additional noise on this issue. If things get interesting -- or worse -- I suppose we in Manila can raise a heavenly stink and perhaps get some stupid reporters and columnists fired (wishful thinking.)"
And stink we will make.
Labels: queer
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
9:32 AM |
Useless Sundays Drenched in Blackouts
"Do not let us speak of darker days...."
--
Sir Winston ChurchillThe sounds of Sunday in Dumaguete, the visitor will quickly observe to himself, is the drone of many electric generators, their low rumbling piercing the air like a disease.
What an ugly, dark, small city, he might even say, while snapping a quick picture of the tangled, black cobwebs we call our electrical lines. He will notice that they race like a threat between low electric posts lining the narrow streets, all of them sorry-looking wooden protuberances that have definitely seen better days.
Sometimes that visitor can very well be ourselves. Because when you are able to step back from your comfortable perspectives of things, to see what a stranger -- free from the blindness of the everyday -- might see, you will have to wonder:
how long can you crow about, with a straight face, the so-called progress of Dumaguete City when you constantly have to suffer its epidemic of blackouts?Let's see.
It's a typical Sunday in Dumaguete -- and as usual, this should be your day of reprieve from all the demands and stress of the working week.
Sundays are made for recharging the soul, you tell yourself. Which is why sometimes you take your time waking up on Sunday mornings. When it rains, for example, and the lull of the falling water outside keeps you cocooned in a sleep that is snug and cool. Most often though, Sunday mornings are brightly sunny, a testament to the day's name which calls for an abundance of sun. So on most weekends, you go about your early mornings tending to the sweet, inconsequential matters of housework or hobby. The silence is golden, something you know can only be true on the weekends. There is virtually no snarling traffic outside to cut you away from this reprieve from the fast regular days. So you turn on your coffee maker for that much-needed brew to start out your week. Your body longs for the caffeine that will keep it awake for the next few hours. You turn on the radio for the weekend news or for the lilting music they usually play when it's a Sunday, or you place a compact disk in its turning cradle because Sunday mornings are made for music. Some of you would rather turn on their television instead, to catch a cartoon, to see a rerun of a late-night gabfest, or to watch a movie you have missed because in your pressing days work is what counts the most and movie-watching becomes a luxury you can only enjoy on a Sunday morning. Or maybe you turn on your computer, to finally sit down and write out that long-delayed letter or the email you've been meaning to send, or perhaps to just coast through the rest of Sunday morning surfing the Internet, to catch up with the rest of the world.
You say to yourself,
This is going to be a nice Sunday. And you say it with such sincerity, because we are all creatures of hope and renewal, and there is nothing like a transformed sense of humanity to mark the beginning of another week. Sundays, after all, are made for resolutions. It is already eight o'clock in the morning, and everything seems to be going well for this Sunday. You later plan to go out with friends by the afternoon, perhaps to catch a movie at Park or Ever Theater, perhaps to window-shop at Lee Super Plaza, perhaps to have another caffeine break at one of those lovely places and cafes that do not think it a travesty to open on Sundays.
This is going to be a nice Sunday, you tell yourself once more.
And then everything grounds to a screeching electrical halt.
Nine o'clock sharp.
The city, once more, is drenched in another exasperating blackout.
Welcome to hellish Sundays without electricity. Like walking the Boulevard, blackouts have become a strange Dumaguete tradition -- and the very fact that we
do not seem to care anymore should scare us. It tells us how complacent we have become, how inexcusably accepting of moronic sense of service. Think of the large electric bills you have to pay. Think of the many appliances you once had that have all gone bonkers because of the electrical surges and untimely blackouts we have to endure. Think of the countless inconveniences and lost opportunities you have swallowed because our electric company likes to play with our fates. And if you are a businessman, think of the oodles of money you have lost because most of your services cannot be carried out without electricity, or wasted because a substantial sum has to go towards the running of a generator you really should not have in the first place, if Dumaguete should rightly call itself a city of the first rank.
You know what you thinking when the city once more plunges into darkness:
Personally, you just want to go to NORECO II and burn the whole stupid place to the ground.There, I've said it. That felt good. That felt very, very good, didn't it? Like pus suddenly broken free from its festering boil beneath the skin. Like magma bursting from an exploding volcano. Like seething anger released from its repressions. I have just put into words the very thing every Dumagueteno thinks about when another brownout comes our way.
And what do they give us as a reason for the constant blackouts?
Maintenance. Maintenance? Is that a joke? They have been doing "maintenance"
forever, and nothing seems to have changed. Last Sunday, for example, the blackout came early, around eight o'clock, rousing us up from our Sunday morning extended sleep because of the overwhelming heat. The air-conditioning or the electric fan had stopped, and our rooms had become tombs.
Maintenance, we told ourselves, although deep inside us, we seethed with anger and frustration. By late, late afternoon, the electricity came back on. And then it began to rain. Just slightly -- not a storm, or anything. And just like that, the city once again plunges into darkness, leaving us in a mad scramble for candles and matches.
Maintenance, you say?I remember a summer two years ago when the Dumaguete National Writers Workshop -- with writing fellows from around the country and from the United States in attendance -- had to endure three weeks where every single day became a season of endless blackouts. This disrupted most of the workshop sessions, leaving National Artist for Literature Edith Tiempo in a huff. Ultimately, we had to transfer to a different venue, to one outdoor cafe -- because intelligent discussion about creative writing just was not possible in a hellhole.
That made me think: if constant blackouts are to be a fact of life for all Dumaguetenos, can we ultimately hope for progress? Progress needs electricity, after all, endless and continuous streams of it, and not just in spurts. We talk, for example, about bringing call centers and other new industries into the city. But why should any new business bother to come here, given our sorry electrical state? Should 24-hour/7-day call centers run on electric generators, too?
I guess I'll end this post now, and save it. It's another Sunday after all. Another blackout might suddenly pounce, and I certainly do not want to rant about two hours of work suddenly lost to the oblivion of darkness, courtesy of your local electric company.
Labels: dumaguete
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Tuesday, January 17, 2006
10:10 PM |
What World Outside? It's Warmer In My Room
Holy
hikikomori. Is
this a strange real-life realization of Luis Joaquin Katigbak's
"Subterrania", or what?
Labels: issues
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
9:13 PM |
In Between, and Straight to Your Heart
I watched Duncan Tucker's transsexual dramedy
TransAmerica, starring the formidable Felicity Huffman and the incandescently beautiful Kevin Zegers, a few weeks ago -- and found it a heartwarming road trip with a gender twist. (The offical website can be found
here.)
I remember telling Mark, "Felicity has
got to be nominated for this role." And now, she has just won the
Golden Globe Best Dramatic Actress award for her role as a man getting transformed into a woman. A role like this usually gets the Oscar nod (note Linda Hunt's Oscar-winning role in Peter Weir's
The Year of Living Dangerously -- where she convincingly plays a
male reporter, and note the gender surprise pulled off by the Oscar-nominated Jaye Davidson in Neil Jordan's
The Crying Game).
I watched the movie again with Mark tonight, after witnessing Felicity Huffman's coup at the Golden Globes where she memorably said in her acceptance speech: "I know as actors our job is usually to shed our skins, but I think as people our job is to become who we really are, and so I would like to salute the men and women who brave ostracism, alienation and a life lived on the margins to become who they really are."
(Very nice, Mrs. William H. Macy.) The movie is even funnier and more endearing the second time around. You
have to watch it. Check your gender squimishness at the door, and watch it if you can.
Labels: film, queer
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Monday, January 16, 2006
7:42 PM |
Maxi Talk and Other Links to Spend Away a Rainy Monday
1.Jessica Zafra unleashes the
podcast of her interview with Raymond Lee, the producer of
Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros, which is set to make its North American debut at the
Sundance Film Festival this week.
Mahaba ang buhok mo, Maxi! (You don't believe me? Here's
the film schedule at the Sundance website.)
2.You know about that Colin Farrel and Playboy bunny Nicole Narain sex tape, dontcha? Well, his lawyers have made good about the cease and desist order given the website selling the 15-minute tape. But DirtyColin has
some stills to tease you...
3.This is so much more of Mariah Carey to love.
Labels: film, queer
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Friday, January 13, 2006
4:45 PM |
The Buzzing is Faint
Effing Buzznet! Something's seriously wrong with
it. I can't even upload pictures without getting error messages. And God knows, I've been trying for three days already.
So anyway, here are two pictures of Dumaguete's St. Catherine de Alexandria Cathedral. Took this during the magic hour of New Year's Day, without a flash. I
hate flash photography.
Mark says the last one reminds him of
The Exorcist. I think I have an idea why. In any case, Dumaguete is one Gothic place. The exorcist will feel right at home here in our Southern, sugared decay.
Labels: dumaguete, photography
[0] This is Where You Bite the Sandwich
Thursday, January 12, 2006
12:14 PM |
From Grafiction Master Arnold Arre...
Labels: books, philippine literature
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Wednesday, January 11, 2006
Yay. People seem to be in a foul mood of late in most of blogosphere. I've been hopping from one blog to another, and people seem to be
seething. Must be the post-holiday back-to-work funk. Must be the extra calories we packed in from those endless noche buenas. Must be the wishy-washy weather. Must be the post-New Year blues, that strange in-between time in January when one hovers between the hopefulness of resolutions and the collapse of things into the persistence of old habits and reality. Yesterday was almost a disaster for me, too. Depression set in before I could say, "I need Prozac." Thank God I caught myself in time, took a deep breath ... and let things go. My therapy has always been to clean the pad from top to bottom.
That felt good.
Goodnight, all you sweet people. Tomorrow is always another day.
Labels: blogging
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Saturday, January 07, 2006
Just had dinner with Bing Sitoy at Persian Palate. I remember the rush going into the six o'clock rendezvous: I was running late, and the silly attendants at Rose were still not finished with my facial and my foot spa. And I am very serious about my facials and my foot spas. What should have been a late afternoon of splendid pampering (something I needed, given the stress of editing the accreditation self-survey reports for the past few days at work) was seriously marred by murderous thoughts.
Nah, not really. I was just tired of it all, and was deeply disappointed. I wanted to tell the slow attendants to hurry everything up. Bubu was pissed for the most part, and I felt even more tired, and we ended up in Scooby's with him devouring a burger and a hotdog bun. With generous helpings of mayonnaise and catsup. I saw him off in a tricycle for home in Bantayan, and I decided to walk all the way to the Boulevard, where Persian Palate was, to clear my head. It didn't take more than five minutes. But Bing was already there. So was Moses. I don't remember much what we ate: some nan, I guess. I think I had chicken kebab and mango lassi. All I remember is the talking. About Denmark, and crazy writers, and Dumaguete serial killers, and sex and falling in love, and taking a stand against deadening convention, and Boy Abunda, and terrible Filipino films, and gaining weight, and losing weight, and marriage, and sex scandals, and Butch Dalisay and Exie Abola and Dean Alfar and Krip Yuson, and agents, and
Story Philippines, and old boyfriends, and the all-too real lives we mask in our fiction. Three hours of that. I guess we ate a lot of nan, too, but I am not sure. Now, I'm headed to the funeral wake for a bigshot Chinoy guy I know. I'm supposed to meet Gideon and Gerard here in Scooby's before we head off to the Carmelites where the body lies in state. Still waiting... I don't know how long this will take, but I think I need my sleep. Saw John Madden's
Proof and Rob Marshall's
Memoirs of a Geisha back-to-back last night, and I had a long lecture this morning. I'm tired. Okay, there's the funeral, and then perhaps I can call it a night.
Labels: friends
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Friday, January 06, 2006
11:41 AM |
Show Me the Money!
Eh, sorry for the interstitial ads, guys. It's an experiment in ad revenues for this blog. I'm just wondering how long it will take me to make a dollar with this kind of shameless commercialism.
But on that note, get this:
a very good friend of mine will be receiving about P40,000 for just 15 days of ads next week. (And if you clicked that link, you just made her a dollar richer, too.)
Makes you want to get a
PayPopUp account and a
Google AdSense account too,
eh? Come on now, join us in the Dark Side.
Labels: blogging, web and tech
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Thursday, January 05, 2006
9:23 AM |
2006 PBBY Alcala Prize Call for Entries
The Philippine Board on Books for Young People (PBBY) is now accepting entries for the 2006 PBBY Alcala Prize. The contest is co-sponsored by the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) and The National Library. The winner will be given a cash prize of P25,000.00, a gold medal, and an opportunity to be published with the help of the PBBY. Prizes will be awarded in an appropriate ceremony to be held during the celebration of National Children's Book Day on July 18, 2006.
Contest Rules:1. The contest is open to all Filipino citizens except those who are related to any PBBY members up to the third degree of consanguinity.
2. Entries must be based on any of the three winning stories:
Can You See (What Buboy Sees)? by Marielle Nadal;
Tonyong Turo by J. Dennis Teodosio; and,
Rosario and the Stories by Ian Rosales Casocot. Copies of the story may be requested from the PBBY Secretariat.
[Or you can email me for a copy of my story at icasocot(at)gmail(dot)com.]3. All entries must be original unpublished illustrations that have not won in any previous contest.
4. All entries must consist of three (3) illustrations that are of the same size and medium.
5. A contestant may send in more than one (1) entry.
6. Each entry must be signed by a pen name only, preferably on a small piece of paper pasted on the back of each artwork. Entries with a signature or any identifying marks are automatically disqualified.
7. Together with each entry, contestants must submit a separate envelope, on the face of which only the pen name of the contestant shall appear. The envelope must contain the contestant's full name, address, contact numbers, short description of background, and notarized certification vouching for the originality of the entry and for the freedom of the organizers from any liability arising from the infringement of copyright in case of publication.
8. All entries must be sent to the PBBY Secretariat, c/o Adarna House, Room 201, JGS Bldg., 30 Scout Tuazon St., Quezon City by March 4, 2006.
9. Winners will be announced no later than March 25, 2006. Non-winning entries must be claimed no later than April 29, 2006, after which they will no longer be the responsibility of the organizers.
For more details, interested parties may contact the Philippine Board on Books for Young People, at Room 102, JGS Building, 30 Scout Tuazon St., Quezon City.
Telefax 372-3548, or email pbby(at)adarna(dot)com(dot)ph.
Labels: philippine literature
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Wednesday, January 04, 2006
9:25 PM |
A Viewing Report Card
I think I gave up on Filipino films this year. Perhaps because of lack of time, or perhaps I just didn't want to be disappointed again. See, this here below is my sorry report card in Filipino film viewing. All things marked with an X, I've watched.
So let's see how I fared....[ ] Uno (Ronnie Ricketts)[ ] Let the Love Begin (Mac Alejandre)[ ] Dreamboy (Gilbert Perez)[ ] Bunso (Sadhana Buxani and Ditsi Carolino)[ ] Melancholy (Raymond Red)[ ] Diliman (Ramon Mez de Guzman)[ ] Romeo Must Rock (Roxlee)[ ] Salvaged Commercialism (Raymond Red)[ ] Bathhouse (Crisaldo Pablo)[ ] Birhen ng Manaoag (Ben Yalung)[ ] Bahay ni Lola 2 (Joven Tan)[x] Santa Santita (Laurice Guillen)[x] Boso (Jon Red)[ ] Can This Be Love (Jose Javier Reyes)[ ] Nasaan Ka Man (Cholo Laurel)[x] Bikini Open (Jeffrey Jeturian)[x] La Visa Loca (Mark Meilly)[ ] Pepot Artista (Clodualdo Del Mundo Jr.)[ ] Pinoy/Blonde (Peque Gallaga)[ ] D'Anothers (Joyce Bernal)[ ] 24 Hours (Jose Aurelio Lozano)[ ] Tandog sa Baryo Sanghay (John Paul Seniel)[ ] Mga Pusang Gala (Ellen Ongkeko-Marfil)[ ] Lovestruck (Louie Ignacio)[ ] Dubai (Rory B. Quintos)[ ] Tuli (Auraeus Solito)[x] Masahista (Brillante Mendoza)[ ] Bilog (Crisaldo Pablo)[x] Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros (Auraeus Solito)[ ] Shake, Rattle and Roll 2k5 (Richard Somes, Uro dela Cruz, and Rico Maria Ilarde)
[ ] Exodus: Tale of the Enchanted Kingdom (Erik Matti)
[ ] Enteng Kabisote 2: The Legend Continues (Tony Y. Reyes)
[ ] Terrorist Hunter (Val Iglesias)
[ ] Blue Moon (Joel Lamangan)
[x] Mulawin (Mark Reyes and Dominic Zapanta)
[ ] Ako Legal Wife: Mano Po 4?! (Joel Lamangan)
[ ] Kutob (Jose Javier Reyes)That's seven movies I've watched out of the 37 released this year.
Dismal. (But I did include some out-of-reach short films and documentaries in this list.)
Ayay, I miss the mid-1990s. Now
those were the years...
Ikaw, alin ang napanood mo?Labels: film
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Tuesday, January 03, 2006
7:08 PM |
The Terrifying Lady Sets Sail
Story Philippines's Vanni de Sequera just emailed to inform me that my anti-love story "The Painted Lady" has been accepted for publication in the second issue of the landmark all-fiction magazine.
Woohoo! The publication date is February 2006.
Labels: philippine literature, writing
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6:39 PM |
Movies For My Life (With Additions)
[meme from the coffee goddess]
Total number of films I own on DVD, VCD, LD, and VHS: Around 400 titles or so in VCD and DVD, but I donated all my films in VHS (about 200 titles) to the Silliman Library last year.
Yes, I am
that kind of rabid cineaste.
Why not rent, you say? Because I know my dismal record as a video renter: it takes me days, sometimes months, to return videos -- which totals to a hefty amount of penalty. I'd rather own a film than pay fines.
The last films I bought: Jim Sharman's
The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Miranda July's
Me and You and Everyone We Know. Werner Herzog's
Grizzly Man. Vincent Gallo's
The Brown Bunny. Francois Truffaut's
Day for Night. Billy Wilder's
The Lost Weekend. Orson Welles's
Touch of Evil. Quentin Tarantino's
Pulp Fiction. Sylvia Chang's
20/30/40. Steven Soderbergh's
sex, lies, and videotape. Martin Scorsese's
Mean Streets. Sydney Pollack's
Tootsie. Fenton Bailey and Randy Barbato's
Inside Deep Throat. Ron Howard's
Cinderella Man. Q. Allan Brocka's
Eating Out. Nicolas de Boiscuille's
To the ExtremeFive films which I watch a lot: (1) Audrey Wells's
Under the Tuscan Sun -- every time I feel my life is going nowhere. (2) Rob Reiner's
When Harry Met Sally.... -- every time I want to see how magical movies -- and screenplays -- can be. (3) Nora Ephron's
Sleepless in Seattle -- every Valentine's Day. (4) Chris Columbus's
Home Alone -- every Christmas. (5) a toss-up between C. Jay Cox's
Latter Days and the entire first season of Bravo TV's
Queer as Folk -- every time I want to feel
kilig.
And five more... (1) Peter Weir's
Dead Poets Society -- still my manual for teaching. (2) Mark Waters's
Mean Girls -- because it is really,
really witty. And educational. (3) Blake Edwards's
Breakfast at Tiffany's -- because it is beautiful, and has Audrey Hepburn singing "Moon River" in it. (4) James Cameron's
True Lies -- the one action picture that doesn't bore me to death. (5) Richard Linklater's
Before Sunset -- the perfect sequel to
Before Sunrise, which chronicles our pain and accommodations, ten years after our breezy march through exhilarating youth. Can you say everybody's autobiography?
Five films that mean a lot to me: (1) Quentin Tarantino's
Pulp Fiction -- because it blew me away with its revolution in film writing and directing. (2) Woody Allen's
Hannah and Her Sisters -- because New York is my fabled city, and Allen its foremost storyteller. (3) Fred Schepisi's
Six Degrees of Separation -- because it hits me between the eyes with its power. (4) Steven Spielberg's
E.T. The ExtraTerrestrial -- because it makes me remember when I was a kid. (5) Isao Takahata's
Grave of the Fireflies -- because it makes us see the human tragedy in war.
And eleven more... (1) Wong Kar-Wai's
Happy Together -- because it gave me the mood for love. (2) Lino Brocka's
Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang -- because it taught me first about what Filipino filmmaking could offer. (3) Peque Gallaga's
Oro Plata Mata -- because it blew me away, even in memory. (4) Ang Lee's
Eat Drink Man Woman -- because it first showed me Asians can be masters of film as well. (5) Anh Hung Tranh's
Scent of Green Papaya -- because it showed me how silence can be beautiful in film. (6) Stanley Donen and Gene Kelly's
Singin' in the Rain -- because it taught me how musicals can rise above song-and-dance crap. (7) Mike Nichols's
Working Girl -- because it was truly funny. (8) Peter Weir's
Picnic at Hanging Rock -- because it is eternally haunting. (9) Wash West's
Naked Highway -- the best gay porn ever made, so much so that I don't even want to call it porn. The film
moved me, dammit. (10) Louis Malle's
My Dinner With Andre -- because it is about two people talking for two hours, but you're hooked. (11) John Hughes's
Ferris Bueller's Day -- because Hughes is adolescence's philosopher, and more so than
The Breakfast Club, this should be every young person's cinematic Bible.
Guilty pleasures, or bad movies (or just sly geniuses) that I truly, truly love. Andy Warhol's
Blow Job. David Mirkin's
Romy and Michelle's High School Reunion. Garry Marshall's
Pretty Woman. Emile Ardolino's
Dirty Dancing. Robert Wise's
The Sound of Music.
[to tag naya, ginny, james, and paolo -- all of whom I can't directly link here,
darn]
Labels: film
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Monday, January 02, 2006
1.Maryanne Moll, the third prize winner for last year's Palanca for the short story (for the wonderful story "At Merienda"), now blogs. Sir Butch Dalisay also writes about
the blogging life in his weekly column in the
Philippine Star.
2.David Byrne
gives a fascinating account of his trip to the Philippines, to research on his Imelda Marcos musical, "Here Lies Love."
3.From Marie's
resurrected blog:
Here is where loveliness can live
with failure, and nothing's complete.
I love how we go on.
~ From "Loves," by Stephen Dunn
Lovely.
4.And because I am the youngest in the family, this fact from BBC's
"100 Things We Didn't Know This Time Last Year" completely amuses me:
69. First-born children are less creative but more stable, while last-born are more promiscuous, says US research.
Ahahaha! True.
[via pine for pine]
Labels: blogging, writers
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Sunday, January 01, 2006
12:01 AM |
Just One Line to Start the Year
To friends, love, and family, and the occassional stalkers,
Happy New Year to everyone.
Labels: life
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Saturday, December 31, 2005
12:35 PM |
A Pause Before the Year Ends
"Love don't make things nice. It ruins everything. It breaks your heart. It makes things a mess. We aren't here to make things perfect. The snowflakes are perfect. The stars are perfect. Not us. Not us! We are here to ruin ourselves and to break our hearts and love the wrong people and
die."
~
Nicholas Cage as Ronny Cammareri in Norman Jewison's wonderful
Moonstruck (1987)
"There is a cure for homosexuality."
"What is it?"
"Fame."
~
Sarah Schulman, in her play
Manic Flight Reaction"New Year's eve is like every other night; there is no pause in the march of the universe, no breathless moment of silence among created things that the passage of another twelve months may be noted; and yet no man has quite the same thoughts this evening that come with the coming of darkness on other nights."
~
Hamilton Wright Mabie"Good resolutions are simply checks that men draw on a bank where they have no account."
~
Oscar Wilde"We spend January 1 walking through our lives, room by room, drawing up a list of work to be done, cracks to be patched. Maybe this year, to balance the list, we ought to walk through the rooms of our lives... not looking for flaws, but for potential."
~
Ellen GoodmanLabels: life
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Thursday, December 29, 2005
7:32 AM |
A Short Review of Mulawin
The best thing about Dominic Zapanta and Mark Reyes's
Mulawin the Movie -- Regal Films and GMA Films's paint-by-numbers film adaptation of the television
fantaserye favorite -- may be the fact that after watching the movie, you get a strange craving for chicken.
Barbecued.That said, all you can really do is spend the rest of the movie commenting on the trivialities, because those are the only things that will keep you entertained in this fowlish quagmire. Trivialities like the zombie-ish line-reading that mistakes itself for dialogue (
take that, Bianca King!). Like the horrid special effects that will elicit more giggles than awe. Like the strangely immobile characterization of Eddie Gutierrez as Dakila. (What is he doing here
ba?) Like how Angel Locsin as Alwina, fights like a chicken beheaded -- a kind of silly chicken dance that involves a lot of tiny
tinikling jumps and a semblance of Darna movements. Like how Richard Gutierrez's make-up artist should really be given the Frankenstein's Monster Award for Horrid Foundation. Like how Sunshine Dizon, as Pirena from
Engkantadia ... if she really must wear a midriff-baring costume, should really learn to spell C-R-U-N-C-H-E-S, or even simply, just G-Y-M. All that the wasted Dennis Trillo does is stalk the cast and look sad. And all that Richard as Aguiluz proves is that he has no range as an actor, and belongs sadly to the limited frame of TV's small screen.
To say that
Mulawin is a bad movie borders on kindness.
It is the very equivalent of cinematic bird flu.Labels: film
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Wednesday, December 28, 2005
5:36 PM |
Things Change
"Chance is the fool's name for fate."
--Fred Astaire, The Gay DivorceeThe fact that New Year's Day used to be celebrated on March 1 until the Gregorian reforms of 1582 (and for some countries, even as late as 1752) tells me all that I need to know about the protocols of celebrating the passing of the old year into the new:
all things change, even the fixed dates of our rituals and celebrations. So how much more the vagaries we call our lives? But always, because we are such hopeful creatures, we pray for the better end of things. Nevertheless -- in our silent cautionary regard for the murk of the future -- we also prepare for what can prove to be the worst of our lives. This essay is really a short observation on how best to contemplate the changes we command for ourselves come the new year -- noting hopefully that this is not a list of damning resolutions, just wishes for the good end of circumstances.
Things change, and life is short. There goes your theme for the year, for
every year.
How does that much-recycled witticism about the singular constancy of death, taxes, and the sheer changeability of our lives go again? I was thinking of that very same thing on the last week of December this year, while I was on a taxi navigating the turtle traffic from Ayala Mall to Lahug's I.T. Park where I was to meet Mark in Bo's Coffee Club. I had spent the day window-shopping and having rich conversation over lunch with a couple of writer-friends, and I was ready to pick up Mark for a late afternoon plan of watching
Mulawin in SM City.
In the musty interior of the generic white cab with its generic velvet upholstery, I saw Cebu City's tall buildings and occasional roadside shanties in blurs and snapshots, and thought that there was much about the city that had remained constant for me, ever since my childhood.
I thought:
How many Christmases and New Years have I spent here? I was only a kid of seven or nine when I first beheld Cebu's sparkling city lights and humming bustle, always a temptation for a small town boy like me. There was only Cebu's downtown to consider seriously then: what was hip and cosmopolitan was concentrated mostly around what was then a very posh Colon Street (if anyone now can believe that) and the many asphalt tributaries that fed into that commercial river. Uptown was Nowhere Land, and what was considered the epitome of extravagant holiday shopping was the mammoth opulence of White Gold in what was then the new blank wilderness of the reclamation area. I still recall the boyhood shivers of discovering a totally different world. I always associate this memory with the songs of Swing Out Sister, particularly "Break Out" which conveyed to me the appropriate soundtrack of those days when I was riding at the backseat of my brother Rocky's car, him at the wheels, and my mother beside him on the passenger seat asking him about that wonderful dimsum he took us out for dinner to just the other night. I remember the steamed rice as a concoction of utter sublimity -- something that still remains in the vestiges of my tastebud's memories. Smelling dimsum these days always provokes in me a rush of salivary delight.
Today, though the commercial geography has altered, nothing much has changed in the way I still celebrate Christmas holidays in Cebu City: last week, I still found myself in the backseat of a car, albeit a taxi, but I had given the driver an old recording of Swing Out Sister favorites, cued on "Break Out." He found it a strange request, but I had begged of Christmas indulgence, and so I had my soundtrack in sync with memories.
And yet... White Gold, of course, is now a burnt out shell, a ruin that has not risen to reclaim past glories. And there are other worthier shopping paradises that now dot the metropolis like a rash: the big malls, of course, which could bear no mention at all in this post. Things have remained the same, but how things have also changed.
All things change. I am older now; and perhaps I can also stake claim to becoming wiser. There are now different desires that go beyond dimsum -- laptops, iPods, digital cameras, sleeker cellphones, Blueberrys, faster Internet connection, the search for constancy in love's negotiations, the fervent hunts for the proverbial green grass at the other side of whatever fences....
It struck me, while I was getting out of that Cebu taxi and paying the indulgent driver the fare (plus tip), that the need -- and the want -- for change is one life force that keeps us alive. That while a significant part of all of us craves for a kind of constancy to tame the relentless inertia of life, its twin of also wanting change is what keeps us from becoming too complacent. It breaks us out -- like the Swing Out Sister song -- from the decay of sameness, from the boredom of knowing only the excruciatingly familiar. Because what has become routine and what has become the tired hallmarks of our lives so far is a kind of prison, a compromise of our childhood aspirations. If we look back to our more innocent days, when we were kids with such gigantic capacity for dreaming, we all wanted to be giant versions of our hopes. "I want to be an astronaut!" "I want to be the President of the Philippines!" "I want to be a movie star!" "I want to build the largest building in the world!" Even, "I want to be Superman!"
But adulthood ossifies us into accepting the false allures (and limitations) of pragmatism, of binding circumstances, of dream-killing abuses of all kinds. And soon we settle for whatever it is that we find ourselves becoming. Most times, it means surrendering most of our dreams.
Instinctively, we find ways of breaking out of that. We make New Year resolutions, for example, even if most of the time, the hold of adult habit and the all-too-human collapse to failure keep us from becoming what we wish to have for ourselves. And yet,
we try. And try again. Despite my knowledge of own defeats in these attempts, I like the idea still of constantly trying, because it means I have not given up on myself, and because it means I am still capable of dreaming.
All things change, as they must. Come New Year, I will look forward to that first sunrise. I'll take a deep breath, and I'll....
Labels: life, travel
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