< orihinal na filipino >

Pista ng Wikang Filipino

   Kadalasan, sa ganitong paraan natin ipinagdiriwang ang "Buwan ng Wika:" magsusuot tayo ng barong at salakot, baro at saya.  Magluluto tayo ng bibingka, magbabalot ng suman.  Maghahanap tayo ng pagkarami-raming kawayan: magbubukod tayo ng ilan para sa tinikling, ang isa'y papahiran natin ng langis para sa palo sebo, at ang nalalabi ay puputulin natin para gumawa ng aparato para sa pabitin.  Sa loob ng isang linggo ng Agosto, o kung di man sa mga Biyernes ng Agosto, lahat ng ating kurso ay itinuturo sa wikang Filipino.

   Maraming nagsasabi na hindi sapat ang isang buwan para ipagdiwang ang wikang Filipino.  Ngunit sa aking palagay, sa tuwing sasapit ang Agosto, madalas na ipinagdiriwang natin ang salitang Filipino, at hindi ang wikang Filipino.  Madalas na ang Buwan ng Wika ay isang selebrasyon ng bukabularyo: ang pag-unawa natin sa ating sariling wika ay limitado lamang sa nilalaman ng diksyunaryong Filipino, sa mga kumbensyon ng balarila, at sa isang linggong tagubilin na ituro ang mga kurso sa paaralan "sa wikang Filipino."

   Ngunit limitado ang ganitong pag-unawa: ikinakahon ang wikang Filipino sa isang sistema ng pananalita, sa isang paraan ng komunikasyon.  Madalas na ang wikang Filipino ay limitado sa mga limitasyon ng pagsasalin, sa pagiging bukambibig lamang.  Sa panahon na isinusulat ko ang sanaysay na ito, sumasangguni ako sa isang diksyunaryong nagsasalin ng Ingles sa Filipino: aminado akong limitado ang aking kasanayan sa pagsusulat sa aking sariling wika.  Si Rizal na mismo ang nagsabi: higit akong sanay sa wikang banyaga (Ingles), kung kaya't higit pa ang amoy ko sa malansang isda.

   Dumanak ang dugo at buhay ang itinaya upang tayo ay magkaroon ng sarili nating wika.  Dumanas ang wikang Filipino ng pagkarami-raming isyu ng pulitika upang maging ating pambansang wika.  Nagbabago ang wikang Filipino upang sumabay sa mga pagbabago ng kultura at kasaysayan.  Kung tutuusin, ang wikang Filipino ay siya na ring nagsisilbing kulturang Filipino: ano man ang mga pagkakaiba natin bilang mga rehiyon, bilang mga katutubo/grupong etniko, kaibahan sa kasarian o antas natin sa buhay, ang wikang Filipino ang siyang nagbubuklod sa atin.  Ang wikang Filipino ang siyang pangunahing pamantayan ng pagiging isang Pilipino.

   Ngunit kasabay ng pagbabago sa kultura at kasaysayan ang "globalisasyon" at pagbabago sa pagtingin sa wikang Filipino.  Sa isang "globalisadong" mundo na Ingles ang siyang "wika ng komersyo at kalakalan," nakalulungkot na isipin na hindi na tinitingala ang wikang Filipino: kadalasang mas may prayoridad ang kahusayan sa Ingles kaysa sa kahusayan sa sariling wika.  Kadalasang "tunog-mayaman" ang Ingles, na ang kahusayan dito ay puhunan at susi tungo sa pag-unlad ng sarili at ng bayan.

   Ngunit ang ganitong pag-unawa sa wika ang isa sa mga pinakamalaking problema ng wikang Filipino: ang pagtalakay sa wika bilang isang bagay na walang buhay o kabuluhan, bilang isang materyal na konsepto.  Para sa akin, ang wika ay hindi lamang isang koleksyon ng samu't-saring mga salita na ginagamit ng isang grupo ng mga tao sa isang lugar o panahon.  Ang wika ang siyang pagpapakahulugan ng kultura o isang manipestasyon ng kultura.  O kung hindi man, ang wika ay hindi maiihiwalay sa kultura: maaari nating sabihin na ang wika ay kultura.

   Sa ganitong pagpapakahulugan, nagiging palaisipan sa akin kung bakit "pobre" at "masa" ang pagtingin sa wikang Filipino, at kung bakit sa tuwing sasapit ang Buwan ng Wika ay nagmimistulang may pista sa mga paaralan na kung saan talagang "ipinagdiriwang" ito.  Kung di man nakakatawa ay nakakabahala ang "pagdiwang" sa wika at kultura: hindi ito tumitigil sa tagubiling ituro ang mga klase sa wikang Filipino, kundi sa pagsusuot na rin tuwing Biyernes ng mga pambansang kasuotan tulad ng barong Tagalog at patadyong.  "Ipinagdiriwang" natin ang ating kultura sa pamamagitan ng paligsahan sa pagluto ng bibingka at suman.  May mga patimpalak sa kung sino ang pinakamagaling sa pagsasadula sa trahedya ni Sisa sa "Noli Me Tangere."  Dito rin natin makikita ang mga sari-saring sayaw tulad ng cariñosa, tinikling, pandanggo sa ilaw at iba pa, at may paligsahan pa nito.  Dito rin natin malalaman kung ano ba talaga ang pambansang ibon (maya ba o agila) sa mga quiz bee.  At pagkatapos ng pistang ito ay babalik muli tayo sa kulturang kolonyal: sa kulturang hindi atin, sa wikang hindi sariling atin.

   Totoong hindi nasusukat ang pagiging makabayan sa pagiging bihasa sa sariling wika.  Kung sa akin lamang, hindi ako nakabababang uri ng makabayang Pilipino dahil lamang hindi ako makapagsulat sa Filipino na walang disksyunaryong pansalin, o di kaya'y dahil hindi ako kumain ng bibingka at nagsuot ng salakot ngayong buwan.  Ngunit hindi rin nasusukat ang pagiging makabayan ng isang lipunan sa pamamagitan ng pagtatabi ng isang buwan o linggo sa kalendaryo para ipagdiwang ang kanyang sariling wika at sariling kultura.

   Para sa akin, ang Buwan ng Wika ay hindi panahon upang magsuot ng barong, magpakabusog sa suman o magpumilit na magsalita o magsulat sa baluktot at mala-librong uri ng Filipino.  Hindi ito panahon upang magnilay-nilay kung bakit si Manuel L. Quezon ang nasa dalawampung piso at hindi si Lope K. Santos.  Hindi ito pagdiriwang ng mga salita sa talasalitaang Filipino at kumbensyon sa balarilang Filipino.  Ito ay pagdiriwang ng kultura.  Ito ay pagdiriwang ng kasaysayan sa ating buhay.  Ito ay pagdiriwang ng Pilipino.  Ito ay pagdiriwang ng wikang Filipino: isip ng Pilipino, salita ng Pilipino, gawa ng Pilipino, diwa ng Pilipino.

   Maraming nagsasabi na hindi sapat ang isang buwan upang ipagdiwang ang wikang Filipino.  Sang-ayon ako dito, kung di man dahil hindi natin sapat na ipinagdiwang ang wikang Filipino.  Nawa'y magsilbing tanda ang Buwan ng Wika na masyadong mayaman at matatag ang wikang Filipino, ang kulturang Filipino - at ang Pilipino mismo - para sa iisang buwan lamang.  Dahil sa lahat na ito, sigurado akong hindi limitado ang Pilipino sa isang balot ng bibingka, at ang kanyang yaman sa wika ay hindi nasusukat sa dalawampung piso na may mukha ni Manuel Quezon.

*      *      *

< english translation >

The Spectacle of the Filipino Language

   Often, this is how we celebrate "Buwan ng Wika:" we wear a barong and a salakot, a baro at saya.  We cook bibingka, we wrap suman.  We look for all lengths and kinds of bamboo: we take a couple lengths for tinikling, we grease one up for palo sebo, and cut up the rest to make a frame for pabitin.  For one week in August, or perhaps all Fridays of August, all our courses in school are taught in Filipino.

   Many people say that a month is not enough to celebrate the Filipino language.  But for me, August becomes a spectacle, a celebration of Filipino words, and not the Filipino language.  Often, Buwan ng Wika becomes a celebration of vocabulary: our understanding of our own language is limited to the words in a dictionary, the conventions of grammar, and the recommendation that for one week, school subjects should be taught "in Filipino."

   But this understanding is limited: the Filipino language is boxed into a system for conversation, a method of communication.  Often, the Filipino language is limited to the very limitations of translation, that it is a coherent utterance.  At the time I'm writing this essay, I consult from time-to-time with an English-Filipino dictionary: I admit to having a limited grasp in writing in my own language.  I take my cues from Rizal: since I'm more used with a foreign language (English), I reek more of the smell of rotting fish.

   Blood was shed and lives were put at stake that we may have our own language.  The Filipino language went through a gauntlet of politics to be our national language.  Filipino changes to go with the changes and dynamisms of culture and history.  Come to think of it, the Filipino language is itself constitutive of Filipino culture: whatever differences we may have in the way of regional identity, ethnicity, gender or economic class, the Filipino language binds us all in being Filipino.  The Filipino language becomes deterministic of what makes a Filipino.

   But with these dynamic changes in culture and history comes "globalization" and a change in the way we view the Filipino language.  In this "globalized" world where English is the "language of commerce and trade," it is quite saddening to think that we no longer look at the Filipino language with the same accord and esteem we did back then: often, there is a premium put in English skills and proficiency than skills and proficiency in the language of one's motherland.  Often, we look at English as "rich," that English skills are investments and are keys to self-development and national development.

   Understanding our language this way is one of the biggest hurdles confronted by the Filipino language: an understanding of language as lifeless, meaningless, as something inanimate and material.  For me, language is not a mere collection of different words used by a group of people in a point in time and a location in space.  Language is what defines our culture, much less what manifests our culture.  If not, language is inextricable from culture: we can even say that language is culture.

   Given this definition, it puzzles me why the Filipino language is seen as "poor" or "declassé," and why every time we celebrate Buwan ng Wika we are entreated to a spectacle: particularly in schools where we this is often "celebrated."  If there's nothing remotely funny about it, there is something bothersome about the spectacle of language and culture: it doesn't end with the recommendation to teach classes in the Filipino language, but it is further extended into wearing national costumes like the barong Tagalog and the patadyong on Fridays.  We "celebrate" our culture through cooking contests for bibingka and suman.  We hold contests on who acts out the best portrayal of the tragedy of Sisa in "Noli Me Tangere."  It is in this spectacle where we see our national dances like the cariñosa, the tinikling, the pandanggo sa ilaw, and others, in the form of dance contests.  It is here that we know what really is the national bird (is it the maya or the monkey-eating eagle) in quiz bees.  After this spectacle, this festival, we go back to our old colonial ways: we go back to a culture which is not ours, a language we cannot call - and never was - our own.

   True: nationalism and national pride cannot be measured in one's proficiency in one's own language.  In my case, I don't consider myself a lower form of a nationalist or that I have no pride for my country because I can't write in Filipino without a dictionary with translations, much less that I didn't eat my share of bibingka or wore my straw hat this month.  But nationalism and national pride for a people cannot be measured by setting aside a month or a week in the calendar to "celebrate" its own language and its own culture.

   To me, Buwan ng Wika is not the time to wear a barong, to stuff one's stomach full with suman, or to force one's self to speak or write in a crooked bookish kind of Filipino.  This is not a time to wonder and ruminate about why Manuel L. Quezon is in the 20-peso bill and not Lope K. Santos.  This is not a festival of words in the Filipino vocabulary and the rules of Filipino grammar.  This is a constant celebration of culture.  This is a constant celebration of history.  To celebrate Buwan ng Wika is to celebrate the Filipino.  This is indeed Buwan ng Wikang Filipino: the mind of the Filipino, the talk of the Filipino, made by the Filipino, the Filipino spirit.

   Many people say that a month is not enough to celebrate the Filipino language.  I agree: if only because we have not celebrated our language enough beyond the spectacle we have for it.  I hope that Buwan ng Wika serves as a reminder that our language, or culture - the Filipino people themselves - are far too culturally wealthy and culturally diverse for us to confine ourselves to a month of spectacular and superficial celebration.  For all this is worth, I'm quite sure that the Filipino is not limited to a bibingka wrapped in a banana leaf, and that the Filipino's wealth found in his/her language and his/her culture is not worth the 20-peso bill with Manuel Quezon's face.

< continuing the anthology >

   My travails into the world of thesis-writing has led me to believe that I am an antiestablishmentarian.  So says my old Philosophy professor, whom I consulted with a few days ago.  "Talking to you," he said, "gives me the impression that you're very much against structuralist thinking."

   My problem with much of structuralism and post-structuralism is that it is obfuscating: bastardizing theory into its most rudimentary and simplest arguments is one thing, but it all begins with understanding the theory first.  It is this requirement that makes structuralism so challenging: it is anything but simple reading.  I was just done with Gaytari Spivak's preface to her translation of Jacques Derrida's Of Grammatology, and I can confidently say that I still don't understand a damn thing.  I think a second reading of the 90-page preface is necessary before I engage in the reading of the actual text.

   My review of literature, in retrospect, is extremely horrifying to read: I'll take you to a reading of Edward Sapir at one point, and then I'll lead you to Roland Barthes.  In my home computer, I have appended a reading of Charles Taylor: philosophy students will laugh at the very idea of putting Barthes and Taylor in the same sentence, and then have the possibility of Derrida in it.  Of course, another teacher of mine recommends hermeneutics: which means I'm reading Spivak's preface (just the preface) and Hans-Georg Gadamer's Truth and Method tomorrow.

   Some of my friends are telling me that maybe I should slow down, and I'm taking it into account, only to go back home and look at so much work to be done.  This is, after all, science: continuous discovery is also continuous work.  Even the smoke-breaks I accord myself after a particularly harassing day of reading are spent in thought.  If anything, I experience a sense of fuflillment: that I've found completeness in the incompleteness of discovery.

   Or maybe I'm just doing something I happen to really, really like.

< oh the agony >

   Now a President can be "as strong as she wants to be," but I don't think it's right to make a show of this strength by disemboweling a smuggled Lamborghini with a backhoe.  I'm against smuggling and all, but I can't stand to watch a fine piece of post-Renaissance Italian art get wrecked under Presidential orders.

   I was watching government-run television this afternoon to watch government officials make a show of running construction equipment through their paces over BMW's and Porsche's, while the President watches.  This is part of a publicity stunt... I mean, effort in ridding the country out of smuggled goods: that this government has a zero-tolerance policy against smuggling.

   I'm all against smuggling, but I was almost at the verge of tears to watch such beautiful cars get destroyed.  I like cars: I am particularly obsessed with European sportscars that can outrun the venerable Sarao jeepney on neutral.  But then again, I'm just a lowly community taxpayer who has no say in the government because what I have to say will only be worth my taxes (I pay P5.00 in taxes every tax year).

   But it's a good thing that they didn't wreck the piéce de resistance in that Lamborghini.  I have a very soft spot for everything Lamborghini: especially the Countach, the Diablo, the Gallardo, and of course the Murciélago.  I come close to salivating whenever I race my beautiful silver-black Murciélago in the Need For Speed games.  I couldn't imagine a better car.

   So if that Lamborghini will be crushed, I implore: Madam President, spare that car.  Touch not a single wheel.

< ranting man >

   I was reading my friend Cindy's blog only to come across the outrageous story of a cancer patient being discharged from a public hospital on account that she can't pay her medical bills.  I don't know what "Stage IV cholangiocarcinoma" is, but it strikes me as a form of cancer.  A public hospital just released a dying cancer patient.

   Now I've heard of many hospital stories: I've heard of psychotics being released from the asylum because they lack money to pay for their medicines.  I've heard of doctors prescribing Paracetamol to every illness and disease.  When I did my research on public healthcare and food security for my Special Topics class, I was appalled at the sight of sick people almost convulsing in their rickety and rusty cots on the hospital corridors and charity wards, while entire suites and rooms were empty.

   The smell of a common bathroom in many a public hospital reeks of urine and feces, and for lack of water the tile is doused with bleach and antiseptic: prolonged exposure to the gases from the chemical reaction of alkaline chlorine and cleaning acid is fatal.  If my chemistry is right, you'd end up with chlorine gas, chloric acid and ammonia: two chemical weapons, and the active ingredient in fertilizers and improvised bombs.

   But to discharge an extremely sick cancer patient on account of having no money is borderline ridiculous.  We're talking about the life of a patient here: a life that could have been saved with chemotherapy or radiation therapy.  We talk about "rotten systems" in a lot of activist discourse: rottenness is often used to describe the system, but I think that there's something even more rotten about a system that allows you to rot.

   Call me an idealist, but I don't think our public healthcare system has no business turning away poor patients.  The health insurance system in the Philippines is bad enough as it is: the vast numbers of the uninsured poor can't be denied the inalienable right to good health and the equally inalienable right to life.  I don't consider myself an advocate of universal healthcare, but the state of healthcare in the Philippines pisses me off to no end: this is a place where you have to either avoid sickness altogether, or deny the fact that you're sick. 

   I take my cues from "John Q:" sick, help.  Sick, help.  When people are sick, they deserve a little help.  And in a country full of sick people, a little help goes a long way.  But if Cindy's cancer patient is proof of anything, even a little help is just too much to ask.

< hmmm... >

   We all know the story of the boxer and the fighter: when the fighter's punches proved stronger and rattled the boxer, the latter proclaimed, "I am leaving, I am leaving," but the fighter still remains.  The moral of the story is rather simple: if you lose, suck it up.

   I was watching "Wowowee" yesterday to watch Boom-Boom Bautista field out his tearful excuses for losing his match in the recently-concluded Philippines vs. Mexico Boxing World Cup.  Apparently, his hands hurt so much from the fight that he couldn't stand the pain, that's why he was the only boxer in the Filipino contingent to lose.  If we're going to buy into Boom-Boom's reasons, we can't blame him for losing: we can blame his loss on the pain in his fists.

   Very rarely do I agree with Willie Revillame, but he's right: no champion ever won all his fights.  Even Rocky Marciano, the heavyweight legend, lost a few fights on his way up the heavyweight championship of the world and became undefeated in his championship reign.  Legends like James Braddock, Barney Ross, Jack Dempsey, Joe Louis, Joe Frazier and Muhammad Ali added to their legends by losing a few fights before they won them all.

   As a boxing fan, I'm one with the Filipino nation in consoling Boom-Boom for his loss.  But is he a champion in my eyes?  He could have been: if only he carried himself like a champion even in losing his fight.  Losing is one thing, but to make excuses for a loss is another.

   Unless Boom-Boom was screwed by the scorecards of incompetent judges who wouldn't know a straight hook from Captain Hook, then there is reason for him to make excuses.  Boom-Boom lost the fight fair and square: the match was called right down the middle and I'm sure he gave it all he had, healthy hands or bruised hands.  But sometimes, even all you have is not enough to win you a fight.  Boxing is all about determining who the better man is between two men wearing boxing gloves punching the daylights out of each other in a ring.  There is a winner or a loser in a boxing match: that's the way of the squared circle.

   I remember the first time I actually lost respect for Manny Pacquiao: there was a time that he blamed the loss of one of his fights on a pair of socks he bought abroad.  To Manny, the fibers on the inside of his socks bunched together and caused him to lose traction and grip on his feet, so he lost the match.  Manny's first commercial endorsement was for Darlington: a brand of socks that eliminates his "himulmol" problem.  Only an idiot would have bought into that excuse: no world champion before and after Manny Pacquiao ever blamed the loss of a fight to a pair of socks.  I think that Gabriel "Flash" Elorde would have rolled over in his grave to know that the successor to his belt and his legacy lost a fight because of a bad sock.

   As a boxing fan, I know that you wouldn't be put in a big-money fight if you're not talented.  You wouldn't be in a championship card if you don't have the makings of a winner.  It doesn't matter what gauge your boxing gloves are, what brand of socks you wear, how many advertisements are on your trunks, or how banged-up you are entering the ring to fight.  Winners and champions carry around golden belts in their waists and are carried high above the shoulders of their trainers and cornermen to bask in the glory of winning.  Losers exit, stage left.

   But like I said earlier, boxing is all about determining who the better man is.  You may not be the better man leaving the ring because you lost the fight, but you wouldn't be in that ring - and you sure as hell don't deserve to be in that ring - if you didn't have a reason to be the better man.  You win some and you lose some: that's just the way the story goes.  That's the way of the squared circle.

   I know from experience that losing sucks big time.  There's nothing worse than swallowing pride and eating humble pie.  But we all have to do it at one point or another in our lives.  But it all depends on how you eat your humble pie.  Some choke by eating theirs with their heads bowed low.  Some take too long to eat it.  Some delude themselves into thinking that it's another kind of pie, and some don't eat theirs at all.  I've eaten a lot of humble pie to know that there's only one good way to eat it: with your head up high, chewing and swallowing with a steady pace.  There's no way humble pie will taste good, and pride will always be a little too hard to get down.

   I would rather have it that the fighter in Boom-Boom Bautista was what I saw, and not the boxer of the old tale.  Boom-Boom lost, and there are no if's and but's about it.  Someday, those bruised and painful hands of his will heal and win him another fight, perhaps a championship.  But I'm sure that those hands didn't lose his last match either: I'm very sure that his opponent's hands also hurt like hell after that fight.

< fashion/jolography >

   I know I have the fashion sense of a dog wearing a sweater, but I can't help but laugh whenever I see Janno Gibbs on TV wearing those aviator sunglasses.

   As a "jolographist," I think that to be "jologs" is temporal.  What defines jologs is not space, but time.  In showbiz, timing is everything: you have to keep up with the times in order to keep your career up.  You have to be "uso:" it's one thing to be "laos," but it's another thing to be jologs.  "Jologs" itself is arbitrarily defined, it is relative to the cultural and media milieu of a person evaluating a celebrity's timeliness and relevance to popular judgment.  What I consider "jologs" may be in fact "uso" to another person, perhaps a fan of that celebrity.  We really lack a barometer to judge, evaluate and define what is "jologs" and what is not.

   My theory may sound rather peculiar, but wearing shades indoors is a good way to ascertain the jologs-ness of a celebrity.

   The association with a Filipino showbiz celebrity's public image and shades is not something arbitrary: it is something historical and concrete.  The best (and perhaps only) case for this is Randy Santiago.  Mind you, it's not just because Randy has an eye defect.  There's just no way that you can make a visual image or a mental concept of Randy Santiago without his shades, so much to say that Randy Santiago equals shades, and shades equals Randy Santiago.  It's not only associative, it's also reciprocal.  Identifying Randy Santiago starts with shades, so as to say that he is an "exemplification" of sunglasses, that he is indeed at one point in his career identified as "Mr. Shades."  For all intents and purposes, Randy Santiago is an "original," a Filipiñana: following the reciprocity, shades defines Randy Santiago, and Randy Santiago defines shades.

   I don't know if it was "The Matrix," but more and more celebrities - hosts of TV variety shows, in particular - started to associate shades with "coolness" and "hipness."  A Onemig Bondoc or an Ian de Leon would start to wear shades.  A Dingdong Dantes or a Dennis Trillo would wear shades indoors and look sort of uncool.  A Janno Gibbs would wear his aviator sunglasses and not take them off even in the darkness.  Shades, all of a sudden, becomes accessorized: it's no longer that identifying object that we use to recognize a Randy Santiago.  Somehow, it becomes the opposite of the association: it is not cool, it is not hip, which basically means that it is jologs.  (And people ask why Richard Gomez lost his bid for the Senate: trust me, it's the shades that did him in.)

   I'm not a fashion guru or anything, but shades tend to be veneers: they sort of obscure the relationship between viewer and celebrity, between fan and idol.  It is often said that eyes are mirrors to the soul, that we establish connections with each other when we look into each other's eyes.  Eyeglasses are one thing: I couldn't very well look into another person's eyes without my glasses, for example.  But when you obscure that with something as opaque as shades, you obscure that connection as well.  It may look "hip," but there is a certain kind of aloofness in it, that the person refuses to establish a connection.

   With shades, the person's view is also obscured by that sense of "coolness" that it can be taken as a semiotic for an obscured sense of context.  Who wears shades indoors?  Instead of perceiving the world clearly, shades (especially when worn by celebrities) give that literal dim view of the world, and a dim view of people in general.  You try too hard to be cool to the point that you're no longer cool.  And in the world of Pinoy entertainment, when you're not cool, you're one of two things: you're either "laos," that is to say past your prime, or "jologs," that is to say past your prime but you try to be primetime.

   So I have the fashion sense of a dog wearing a sweater.  At least I know I'm not cool: I don't have to try to be, when we all know that glasses are a heck of a lot cooler than shades.

   Don't get me started with Joseph Bitangcol, though.

< hmmm... >

   Growing around "Sesame Street" makes me think about a rather strange correlation between Elmo and the "emo" genre of rock music.  It's not that Elmo hates himself and shallowly slashes his furry wrists with a single-edged razor blade (although that could be a reason why Elmo is red), it's just that Elmo personifies everything else about emo: to me, it's a dysfunctional form of music, just like Elmo is a dysfunctional Muppet.

   Whenever I listen to a song generally considered "emo" - like those of Jimmy Eat World, Dashboard Confessional, The Used, and Coheed and Cambria - I kind of feel a symphony of suicide.  Often, an emo song can be deconstructed into nothing more than a series of unfortunate events involving not having the girl of one's dreams.  While the "emo" lifestyle may strike some as "depressing," I sense more evident and manifested forms of an incurable and debilitating neurosis: it's a lot like the emotional equivalent of compulsions to rub alcohol on one's hands.  Besides, I'm not neurotic by claim: I am clinically psychotic.

   Now I admit that there was a time that I actually came so close to being emo, but I'm too much of an egomaniacal megalomaniac to be one.  For one, I don't write depressing poetry that has something to do with episodes of unreciprocated love for a beautiful girl.  If I'm going to have to do so, I would pontificate: things would take the character of the written equivalent of a priest's homily spread through the pulpit.

   Slashing my wrists doesn't appeal to me: self-mutilation must be taken to its logical extreme.  If one gets a form of emotional catharsis through shallow cuts into the epidermis, there must be even better results in wearing a barbed-wire choker.  If one gets satisfaction from burning one's self with lit cigarettes, I strongly suggest self-immolation.  There's a ton of social acceptance to be found in burning the heretic: being burned alive in the city square is a very good way to gain back the love of your ex-girlfriend.

   Trust me: if you're going to appeal to being suicidal, step up to the plate.  Any emo person who is really bent on harming himself or herself but can't do so can always call me up.  I have a dozen ways to kill people with a toothpick and make it look like suicide: one of which is to stick the toothpick straight upward into your gum line and make it look like you bled to death trying to dislodge stray bits of food in between your teeth.  Or if you're interested in the "discount package" of self-mutilation, I could put you on an exercise regimen that works on your lower-body flexibility, and when the time comes that you really want to do so, I'll make you literally kick your own ass.

   I figure that emo people are a lot like Elmo: frizzy hair, big googly eyes, an obsession with self-acceptance, high-pitched scraggled voices, ambiguously gay, third-persons in their own world, people obsessed with social acceptance.  I wouldn't be surprised if the Chinese-based factories of big toy shops start to make "Tickle Me Emo" dolls painted with excessive amounts of lead: I'd buy one and make an emo friend of mine lick it good.

< romantic experiment >

   Sometimes, I dream of my wedding day.

   There I am, standing by the altar, flanked by my dad, my brother and my best man.  I breathe in deep of the fragrant smell of gardenias and white roses, checking if everything about my tuxedo is in order.  My dad pats my back: an assurance that everything from this moment on will be all right.  If it's any guarantee, this will be the beginning of the rest of my life.

   Then my beautiful bride is walked down the aisle by her father, looking most beautiful on the most beautiful day of the beautiful beginning of the rest of her beautiful life.  As we exchange rings, exchange vows, and exchange our "I do's" in that fleeting moment of romantic bliss, even something as sappy as "Love of a Lifetime" by Firehouse becomes our song: that forever in my heart, I finally found the love of a lifetime.

   Yes, I can be a hopeless romantic.  Last night, I was playing one of these Flash games that required looking for all sorts of stuff in a pile of clutter with a wedding theme (yes, it's a girly game: I was taking a break from my "Civilization IV" epic where I was rewriting the demise of Greek civilization).  And after I finished it in record time, I found myself almost at the verge of tears.  I don't usually cry playing games unless it's a high-stakes gamble that I lose: playing "Dream Day Wedding" was the first time I actually cried playing a game.

   Some of my friends think that I'll probably end up an old bachelor: in the first place, I can't commit myself to make a romantic relationship work.  A marriage is just too big and too much a responsibility for me: we're not talking about pet goldfish, we're talking about the rest of my life with the love of my life.

   I sort of resigned myself to the fact that I would probably end up a bachelor or marry late in life: with the state of the economy, I probably couldn't afford the wedding of my dreams.  Weddings, to me, are completely necessary, it's not because of institutional legitimation, moral dictates or anything.  Weddings, to me, are extremely beautiful days, if not the most beautiful day in anyone's life.  I'm planning it now: before God finally smites me with that well-placed bolt of lightning, I want to see my sister's wedding.  I want to see the weddings of my friends Noel and Marian, Mhik and Abby, Andrew and Di, Dette and Bernard, and so on.  Then I could die happy, and the hearse plays AC/DC's "Highway to Hell."

   But not before I cry: I always cry at weddings.

< romantic experiment >

   Like every good Filipino romantic film, "A Love Story" apparently revolves around two rather profound existential questions: when does a mistress become a wife, and when does a wife become a mistress?

   Now if I were Aga Muhlach (pardon me while I commit suicide through laughter), I'd choose Angelica Panganiban for extremely obvious reasons.  I have nothing against Maricel Soriano: I'm very sure that she's a very beautiful woman herself.  The thing is that any man in the position of Aga would make no qualms about choosing Angelica for extremely obvious reasons.  Never mind that she confessed about being a chain-smoker, or if her sexy pictorials in men's magazines would make her a babaeng mababa ang lipad: while my parents would probably disown me if I ever did become Angelica Panganiban's boyfriend, groom or husband (pardon me while I laugh myself to death again), there is nothing profound or existential about such a question.  It's extremely obvious: with a face and a body like that, who (other than extremely jealous menfolk) cares?

   The thing about the trailers to "A Love Story" is that it strikes me as an "existential dilemma" of choice.  While it would appeal to the C.S. Lewis or Jean-Paul Sartre found in every Filipino moviegoer, it sometimes strikes me as a questionable question.  If it were indeed existential, the idea would be that the question is limiting.  What keeps you from a ménage-à-trois if "love" is indeed the object of conflict here?  Why have one when you can have both?  If you love them both, why bother subjecting yourself to moral choice when there are no choices in the first place?  Why contemplate on happiness when there is perfect happiness in, so to speak, being always somewhere in between?

   Extremely obvious reasons, Aga.  Don't let your heart control your, uh, head.

< wearing the jester's hat >

   Shoutouts go to Shari Cruz of Misteryosa.com, who is celebrating her 20th birthday today.  Welcome to the twentysomething club.

   Anyways, now that the first draft of my thesis is over and done with, the idea is for me to relax until my adviser finishes reading my draft.  I should be temporarily out of "thesis mode," which means eliminating any thought process that has anything to do with my thesis.  Besides, my draft is 50 pages long single-spaced: had I double-spaced it, I would have just typed out a conclusion for the preliminary data analysis, printed the whole shebang out, and passed it off as complete.

   I don't know if I'm alienated or if I have overworked, but I seem to can't pry myself away from the thought processes involved in thesis writing.  My waking moments are spent contemplating the ideas I adopted and employed for my thesis: Edward Sapir, Ferdinand de Saussure, Charles Taylor and Roland Barthes, among others (I have yet to touch on Jacques Derrida).

   I was reading blogs today when a thought crossed my mind, much like the question that has been bugging me for the past three months: is there an inextricable link between blogger and blog?  Does our understanding of a blog come from our understanding of the blogger, and vice-versa?

*      *      *

   Based on my research, there is a tradition in French poststructuralist theory called the philosophy of "différance."  In my interpretation (which is completely worthless to people doing research), différance is a metaphysics of absence: that there is no functional (one-to-one) correspondence between the phenomenon and presence.  To Derrida, there is no presence or binary opposition: there is différance.  The relationship between something like "black" and "evil," or "white" and "good," is (in the tradition of de Saussure) arbitrary and conventional.

   This brings me to the question at hand.  It is a mistaken notion to associate the "death of the author" thesis to Derrida: instead, the seminal essay was written by Roland Barthes.  To Barthes (again, in my interpretation which is completely worthless for purposes of research), the association between "author" and "text" is an association of convenience.  The text is "eternally written:" it is read in the absence of the author (or in his terms, the "scriptor").  The author takes the character of a tyrant: you can look at a text as a monologue from the author that "silences" voices.  There is no way we can understand the intentions of the author because he/she is "not there:" as such, our understanding of the text is independent of our understanding of the author.  The term "death of the author" is to "disentangle" this relationship in the text: to bring the "reader" into the text, hence you have literary criticism (which is something closely associated with Barthes).

   But how does this extend to blogs?  Let's take mine for example: it is often the notion that I write about myself, but in essence, I'm writing about things.  Like every blogger, there is no way the intentions of an entry (a text) can be derived from an understanding of who the blogger is.  People read my blog in my absence: if I wrote about myself, it would just be a "thing" to other people, and that it is subject to interpretation.  Asking the question of why I wrote something, for example, is irrelevant.

   Derrida reminds us that "there is no meaning outside of the text," which is essentially deconstruction (to bastardize Derrida).  The text I (the author) write, for example, is that which you (the reader) don't experience.  It is non-coincidental: what I write is not what I am, and what I am is not what I write.

*      *      *

   But bleeding ourselves to death over an understanding of postmodernism and/or poststructuralism won't do anything if we do not understand.  What I'm trying to point out is that text - be it a poem, a novel, a newspaper article, a Friendster profile or a blog - is a monologue of the author.  The "birth of the reader," though, is easier said than done.  You tell me how.