Buhay na Patay

Isinulat noong Miyerkules ng gabi.

Sa mga araw na ito, pakiramdam ko'y parang 'sang zombie. Naglalakad ng kay bagal, lumo, walang direksyon at lagiang bakante ang mukha. Nauuubusan na yata ako ng lakas, upos na kandila. "Steady lang Sparks, isipon mo ang kinabukasan. Halawin mo ang insipirasyon mula rito." Ngunit pilit ma'ng hawiin ang makapal na hamog na nagkukubli ng bukas, ginugupo ng tamlay ng ngayon.

Bakit ba, sa tuwinang lalabas ako upang magparoo't parito sa lungsod na semento't sangkatutak na tao, nais ko na lamang sa isantabi'y umupo at hayaang dumaloy ang panahon. Wala na bang iba? Pare-parehong kulay, amoy at pigura?

Sa isang lugar sa lungsod, maraming nakahandusay sa kalye, parang mga buhay na patay, kay papayat, kay dudungis. Sa tuwinang sila'y madaraanan, kumukurot ang inggit. Sapagkat sila, walang bukas na iniisip. Sapagkat sila, walang magulang o kapatid, walang trabahong dapat pagbutihin, walang babayarin. Sapagkat sila, wala nang hinihintay kundi ang magpakailanmang
idlip.

Worthless Filipino

"The disease is in so deep, I see no cure in this lifetime."

It was almost like drunken ranting, the three of us, born in different decades, united in our despair. We were one in the general diagnosis that this little group of islands is rotten. And it seemed nothing could be done but jump ship or sink with the boat.

It started, as the past Wednesday evenings since the beginning of this semester, with an exchange of ideas on theories of public finance and fiscal policy. There is effort to keep it cool and academic, but as the evening wore on, the biting commentaries came as bone-chilling as the cold air-conditioning. While my fascination for how these things work is, at this point in my life, insatiable, it seems the deeper I dig, the more I realize how impossible it is to see past so much filth unearthed. I know I am fast approaching the breaking point. That moment when you’ve seen and heard and learned so much, you no longer care.

Syntax of Sin Taxes

Since eleven professors from the UP School of Economics have declared the Philippines in debt crisis last August, the media mileage has come and gone as glibly as the December pronouncement of the Arroyo administration that we are no longer in danger. It’s as if to say, “We are no longer in dire straights, so ditch the money-pinching because some ol’-fashioned Christmas spending would do everyone some good.”

More than the belt-tightening and the “heroic” dole-outs of certain people from Congress, an overhaul of the outdated and notoriously corrupt tax system would have done the trick. But in the Philippines, nothing is ever easy.

“Sin taxes” were expected to generate billions of pesos in extra income, but mainly, so we can show our creditors we can pay. Various protests were made, the dumbest of which was: “Sin taxes are anti-poor!” What in the holy fuck. That’s why they’re called sin taxes. They’re supposed to levy a high fee for indulging in things that are baaad for you; namely alcohol and tobacco. Indeed, we’ve one of the lowest prices of alcoholic beverages in the region, maybe even the world. God forbid our tambays and kanto-boys be deprived of their only means of rest and relaxation. God forbid we save some lungs of those who cannot afford hospital bills, from putrefaction.

The sin taxes bill was swiftly “handled” in December of last year and a watered-down version is the result, and indeed, was expected. Now there is all this ruckus about a 20% increase in VAT. With the downgrade in Standard and Not-So-Poor’s credit rating, the Philippine government is desperate to raise capital not only to pay for our $54 billion debt but to keep the state-apparatus running (if not working). The whole atmosphere in this great capital of ours is DESPERATE.

Fiscal Policy 101

Money is the root of evil. Money makes the world go round. Money is also the lifeblood of States. Capital accumulation, no matter which ideology, is key in development. Without money, there is no State. And since another way of politically and socially organizing ourselves has not yet been invented, then there is no escaping our government.

There are three ways for government to raise money:

1. Taxation

Contrary to what some politicians might like to project, those waiting sheds, roads, elementary school-buildings and basketball courts were not donations from their good and kindly hearts. And so we should not feel indebted to the current politico-of-the-term whose names are boldly emblazoned on their outstanding accomplishments. We shouldn’t be thankful for useless decorations and signboards because we, all three million of us income taxpayers, paid for them.

2. Borrowing

Since the Marcos years, borrowing seems to be the preferred mode of raising funds for national use. And later, I will explain why.

3. Printing Money

While printing money may be a useful short-term solution, no sane government will risk inflation. Too many peso-bills running after a fixed number of goods is not good.

The Philippines, like other developing countries, has difficulty in “capital formation” or simply--making money. This is due to:

1. Low levels of profits, incomes and savings

2. Widespread poverty: most of the incomes will be spent and not enough will be put in banks. Add to the fact that Filipinos do not seem to have the “culture of savings.” Instead we have the culture of mindless consumption—a nasty effect of our off-colored colonial past. Well, among other things.

3. Rich people in our poor country have greater propensity to consume luxury goods, engage in real estate speculation or foreign exchange, all of which are not productive. In short, we’ve an elite as irresponsibly waldas as the rest of us. Since they lead, who are we not to follow?

And so the vicious cycle of low incomes—high consumption—low savings—low rates of capital formation continues while no less than a senator is wasting precious national resources on the investigation of the Chief of Police’s “rude” behavior. What legislators like him should concern themselves about should be provision of things like; social overhead capital. Although I doubt this certain senator, his senator mother, or even his ex-president father, has even heard of such.

What is social overhead capital (SOC)?

SOC is education, health, power and irrigation facilities, roads. Since no private investors will sink down huge amounts of money for these public goods, then the government will have to do it. SOC is necessary for private economic activity to prosper, indeed, for all of us to function. It improves human capital. In the Philippines, SOC was miniscule to begin with, and now rapidly dwindling if the premier State University’s budget is any indication.

Tax-Me-Not

Of the three ways of capital formation mentioned above (taxation, borrowing, printing), taxation is the most effective, but also the most difficult. Why? Who in her right mind would voluntarily give up her hard-earned money to be given to the openly corrupt State? Nobody. And so every month our taxes are automatically deducted from our salaries through direct taxation and all goods we consume through indirect taxation or Value-Added-Tax.

While in other countries tax payment is a social contract; a binding act of trust between a government and its people, in the Philippines tax payment is a painful, agonizing, excruciating process. Who wants to make contributions to the payment of the Mayor’s new sports car? To the District Representative’s new mansion? To the Governor’s new mistress?

Why should we freely and whole-heartedly part with our peso when there are alleged billion-peso tax evasion cases of certain high-profile rich people? Oh, the Filipino rich. They who are most susceptible to taxation also have the means and power to evade them.

Debt Toll

The numerous incredibly poor don’t pay taxes. The many poor engaged in the underground economy don’t pay taxes. The microscopic middle class who can’t avoid taxes have been and are continuing to flee the country, and the rich don’t pay taxes and are not taxed enough. Well then, how will the State finance anything? Thank IMF and international creditors for foreign loans.

While taxation is the most effective means to raise money, Borrowing is the easiest. How so?

1. Public Borrowing allows debt payment to be delayed. Indeed, payment is deferred to “future” taxpayers, i.e. unborn Filipinos who are not here to protest bearing such burden.

2. The government that does not tax current tax payers (a.k.a. voters) incurs a political boon to the present administration (a.k.a “pogi points). It also passes the political burden to future governments to make the painful tax collection.

3. A politician need only concern himself with his current term. A politician will borrow now to make ends meet and finance government activities. To hell with interest rates and the future. When the time to pay comes, we’d all be dead anyway.

Given this logic, what government will not resort to borrowing when it can pass the burden of payment to future generations? Will the Philippines ever re-pay its $54 billion debt? Probably never. Will we at least reduce it? With peso devaluation, probably never.

Debt isn’t an evil thing to be abhorred and avoided at all costs. Debt can be good because it allows expansion of consumption possibilities. Debt is useful if used in productive activities, invested in infrastructure that will generate money to pay the debt in the future. Have we made our debts work for us? NO. A classic example is the $1.2 billion worth nuclear power plant in Bataan that has not produced a single watt of energy.

Breaking Point?

Ignorance is bliss, is it not? This way I could look to the skies in frustration and beg for the Lord's mercy rather than look to my fellow women and men for answers. I do not have to lament missed opporunities and human frustrations. Or I could simply jump ship and join the throngs fighting tooth-and-limb to migrate.

There might be hope in the Filipino diaspora. But often the Filipino diaspora is forgetful of its roots and offers nothing but apathy, or worse, contempt for its former home. If this doesn't speak of a fundamental flaw in all of us, I do not know what does.

If they find it so easy to cast off their Filipino citizenship, all too eager to be Americans, Candians, Australians, Europeans, then what is the Filipino worth?

Being a practitioner of language teaching and learning, I am particularly susceptible to the power of words. While the postmodern beckons convincingly, my favorite Marxist historian Eric Hobsbawm writes:

History needs to be defended against those who deny its capacity to help us understand the world, and because new developments in the sciences have transformed the historiographical agenda.

Methodologically, the major negative development has been the construction of a set of barriers between what happened in history and our capacity to observe and understand it. It is denied that there is any reality that is objectively there and not constructed by the observer for different and changing purposes. It is claimed that we can never penetrate beyond the limitations of language.

Nirvana

The Greatest Path to Nirvana

I've rediscovered Nirvana, that favorite band of old. I was a precocious fourteen-year old when I was first lured by the hypnotic music of these pioneering grunge musicians.

For a whole year I was a guitar-toting wannabe rock chick in an all-girl Catholic school, fashionably morose, proudly brandishing the calluses on my fingertips. I strummed and sang, lived and breathed Nirvana with a small group of similarly-inclined girl friends.

Then on April 1994, the group's front man put a shotgun in his mouth and fired. For months it was all I and my girl friends talked about. I shed tears, and listening over and over to the band's Unplugged album I realized it was too much for a young and impressionable girl like me to handle. I stopped listening to Nirvana altogether when I realized I had repeatedly toyed with the idea of killing myself more times than might have been prudent. As Butch suggested, Kurt channeled his anger well through their music.

Fast forward ten years later. I'm much older, hopefully wiser and better able to control suicidal tendencies should they arise. A decade has passed, Kurt's widow has disgraced herself and her husband's legacy one time too many, grunge has come and gone, empty hip hop is the new pop, but Nirvana still rocks.

TV Time: One


The TV is watching me. It has held me in thrall for quite a few hours now and it won’t let me go. I’ve been flipping through channels like mad and I am joyous there are so many.

There is always my favorite free channel, the BBC. I swear, when Britons speak they sound better informed and smarter than Americans do when they speak the exact same language. It must be the way they seem to enunciate each word where Americans let them roll off their tongues and come out their noses. Much like someone pounding away at a typewriter packs more conviction than someone flicking her fingers on a keyboard. Tack, tack, tack. Clip, clip, clip. Hear the difference?

I’ve a ton of work to be done, quizzes to check and papers to grade. But my body has been frozen in front of my television screen. There are simply too many interesting things to watch. Don’t you love the National Geographic? I swear these animals seem more human than I previously thought they were.

Before I thought animals were organisms motivated only by basic needs which are programmed into their much simpler brains to ensure their survival. But then here comes the National Geographic telling me certain animals, a monkey species in Japan, even certain hummingbirds, exhibit homosexual behavior! So instead of males shacking up with females, they instead seek out other males and simulate sexual activity. The way I understood the “logic” behind this “deviance” however was that two males unhampered by a reproducing female (who could not leave the nest) could then gather more food for the “family unit.” Purely functional then. I wonder if they enjoy the sex as much if at all.

I was shocked, aghast. Gay monkeys and birds were beyond my comprehension and previously unimaginable! But if the National Geographic tells me so, then I am convinced. What other proof need I?

Tula ng Bagong Taon

Nilalanghap ang samyo ng gatas na iniinom
At ninamnan ang sindi ng sigarilyong tangan
Saglit na ugoy ng katahimikan
Panandalian man ay walang 'sing inam.

Malay na walang kaba't agam-agam
Naghahanda sa lagablab ng kapanahunan
Ano mang dalhin ng kinabukasan,
Sige lang.


________________________________________________________________________________

In pretty, straight-forward prose, I found this little gem. Here are some of the highlights. Read on.

A Hacker Manifesto by Mackenzie Wark

As the abstraction of private property was extended to information, it produced the hacker class as a class. Hackers must sell their capacity for abstraction to a class that owns the means of production, the vectoralist class - the emergent ruling class of our time.

The vectorialist class is waging an intensive struggle to dispossess hackers of their intellectual property. Patents and copyrights all end up in the hands, not of their creators, but of the vectoralist class that owns the means of realising the value of these abstractions. The vectoralist class struggles to monopolise abstraction.

Hackers find themselves dispossessed both individually, and as a class. Hackers come piecemeal to struggle against the particular forms in which abstraction is commodified and made into the private property of the vectoralist class.

Production produces all things, and all producers of things. Production produces not only the object of the production process, but also the producer as subject. Hacking is the production of production. The hack produces a production of a new kind, which has as its result a singular and unique product, and a singular and unique producer.

Information, like land or capital, becomes a form of property monopolised by a class of vectoralists, so named because they control the vectors along which information is abstracted, just as capitalists control the material means with which goods are produced, and pastoralists the land with which food is produced. Information circulated within working class culture as a social property belonging to all. But when information in turn becomes a form of private property, workers are dispossessed of it, and must buy their own culture back from its owners, the vectoralist class. The whole of time, time itself, becomes a commodified experience.

The hacker class, producer of new abstractions, becomes more important to each successive ruling class, as each depends more and more on information as a resource. The hacker class arises out of the transformation of information into property, in the form of intellectual property, including patents, trademarks, copyright and the moral right of authors.

Education is slavery, it enchains the mind and makes it a resource for class power. When the ruling class preaches the necessity of an education it invariably means an education in necessity. Education is not the same as knowledge. Nor is it the necessary means to acquire knowledge. Education is the organisation of knowledge within the constraints of scarcity.

Education 'disciplines' knowledge, segregating it into homogenous 'fields', presided over by suitably 'qualified' guardians charged with policing the representation of the field. One may acquire an education, as if it were a thing, but one becomes knowledgeable, through a process of transformation. Knowledge, as such, is only ever partially captured by education, its practice always eludes and exceeds it.

Where the capitalist class sees education as a means to an end, the vectoralist class sees it as an end in itself. It sees opportunities to make education a profitable industry in its own right, based on the securing of intellectual property as a form of private property. To the vectoralists, education, like culture, is just 'content' for commodification.

The very nature of the hack gives the hacker a crisis of identity. The hacker searches for a representation of what it is to be a hacker in the identities of other classes. Some see themselves as vectoralists, trading on the scarcity of their property. Some see themselves as workers, but as privileged ones in a hierarchy of wage earners. The hacker class has produces itself as itself, but not for itself. It does not (yet) possess a consciousness of its consciousness. It is not aware of its own virtuality. It has to distinguish between its competitive interest in the hack, and its collective interest in discovering a relation among hackers that expresses an open and ongoing future.

The arrest of the free flow of information means the enslavement of the world to the interests of those who profit from information's scarcity, the vectoral class. The enslavement of information means the enslavement of its producers to the interests of its owners. It is the hacker class that taps the virtuality of information, but it is the vectoralist class that owns and controls the means of production of information on an industrial scale. Privatising culture, education and communication as commodified content, distorts and deforms its free development, and prevents the very concept of its freedom from its own free development. While information remains subordinated to ownership, it is not possible for its producers to freely calculate their interests, or to discover what the true freedom of information might potentially produce in the world.

Free information must be free in all its aspects - as a stock, as a flow, and as a vector. The stock of information is the raw material out of which history is abstracted. The flow of information is the raw material out of which the present is abstracted, a present that forms the horizon the abstract line of an historical knowledge crosses, indicating a future in its sights.

The politics of representation is always the politics of the state. The state is nothing but the policing of representation's adequacy to the body of what it represents.

And always, what is excluded even from this enlightened, imaginary state, would be those who refuse representation, namely, the hacker class as a class. To hack is to refuse representation, to make matters express themselves otherwise. To hack is always to produce a difference, if only a minute difference, in the production of information. To hack is to trouble the object or the subject, by transforming in some way the very process of production by which objects and subjects come into being and recognise each other by their representations.

When the Dead Walk Among the Living

It was nothing short of horrifying. Horrifying. On the day where the whole university commemorated her death and her father's, she walked the quad, clad in black, her hair pulled away from her pale face.

I'd been talking about her in my morning classes, joking with my students. "You may be alive now...but who knows next semester?" A smatter of hesitant laughs. Deaths are a matter of fact to me nowadays. There is no mystery or fear left after all the deaths I've experienced in the past months. But Thursday, I was not prepared for.

Smoking my after-lunch cigarette, I and a few students litter the smoker's pocket. The wind was a mite cool and the skies overcast. A few puffs and I notice her on one of the pathways. From afar I recognized her features. My God. Dead girl walking.

Suffused with a cold kind of panic, I continue to puff away, avoiding eye contact with her approaching. From the periphery of my averted eyes I saw her sit on one of the stone benches. She seemed so alive. Please Lord, let her not speak to me. But me being who I am, "gifted" with certain abilities, I knew I wouldn't be so lucky. But this was the first time any spirit had ever manifested fully.

I was leaning down to kill my cigarette when she catches my eye. "Hi Ma'am. Do you remember me?" If I were prone to cold sweats, I'd have sweat pools by this time. "Of course." Maybe because she dropped my class last sem, maybe because she had such a difficult time with me, her restless ghost came to pay me visit.

"I didn't know Spanish this sem was so difficult."

"Oh, ok. I've to go, I have class." With no backward glance I hurry back up the department, panic barely contained with each step. Such a powerful haunting! Where the fuck was the class list?

All along I'd thought it was my former student who died in Phuket two weeks past. Same name. Same spelling. Different middle name. I really shoudn't watch so many Asian horror flicks so I wouldn't see dead people, walking around like regular people, even if they were still very fucking much alive.

She was a perky, pretty chinita with long wavy hair. Sheepish smiles when I called on her and she hadn't a clue. It was a game of "Who Is..?" to memorize nationalities and professions. God, and I remember her for not knowing who Albert Einstein was. He's a physicist Shar. I'm sorry your young life was taken away by arbitrary tectonic activity and even more arbitrary Phuket waves. Here's to you and Albert. May you meet in the afterlife.

What Wooden Cocks May Bring

Natural disasters happen here all the time, and we Filipinos are so goddamned used to it we really don't give a hooting fuck if it happens elsewhere. My favorite columnist is ranting about just how insensitive we can be:

I was completely embarrassed when BBC reported on how the world celebrated New Year's Eve, which was that most of it did not celebrate it at all. On one hand, it showed Filipinos dancing in Ayala and exploding firecrackers in their homes. On the other it showed Indonesians, Thais, Sri Lankans, and even the peoples of countries who had not fallen victim to the earthquake and tsunami holding candles or prostrating themselves in temples in supplication or silent prayer for the dead. Sweden cancelled all traditional festivities and declared its intention to donate whatever money it could raise from it to the victims.

I say, what else is new? People die in catastrophes all the time, livelihood and property destroyed. For all we know people drop dead in hunger on our streets somewhere. We take it all in stride and make merry anyway, because exploding firecrackers is escape. Imbibing liters of alcohol is escape. Shouldn't we at least thank the government for making sure the "sin taxes" won't significantly raise the prices of booze? Because well, wouldn't that be anti-poor? And God knows they'll be needing lots more of that for the coming year.

The disasters and tragedies in the dying days of 2004 are portent of things to come. And believe me people, 2005 will be worse. So say all my professors (who incidentally are also NGO and GO consultants), so say my classmates (who are diplomats, civil society workers and government employees) so say my students (both the rich and the poor ones), so say my family, so says my dog. Ah, isn't ignorance bliss?

But for the mean time there is nothing left to do but explode firecrackers, abuse our livers and then prepare for the brunt of the worst to come. Here's to not killing ourselves in 2005. Cheers.

Of Postmodern Sex

“But isn’t sex always sexier in the mind?”

Last night at chuckey’s toma party, listening to more outrageous sextories from a friend got me motivated to finally write something I’d been meaning to write about for quite some time now. Mediated sex. Sex through the media, i.e. SMS and the internet.

I’ve been a netizen for four years. And with those four years, I confess to having had my share of sexual conquests and blunders. When I broke someone’s heart quite callously, I thought, “I really shouldn’t do this again.” But there’s a certain high in making someone cum just through your words, maybe even sometimes your voice. For certain people in a particular state of mind, mind fucking works. Without question, nothing a beats real-person sex; the smells, the tastes, the sensations. But sex seems sexier, hotter, hornier in the mind. So much so that when you finally get to doing the deed, it’s almost an anti-climax. What makes you wonder is, why so?

What is postmodern?

Postmodernism: philosophical ideas, mainly derived from poststructuralist theory, and also cultural formations, especially associated with global popular culture. (McGuigan)

Now, before this brief definition scares you away from reading the rest of this article, let’s dissect some key terms in the definition.

Postmodernism is a movement in the visual arts, cinema, architecture, philosophy, literature and various other “knowledge” disciplines on the latter half of the 20th century. Postmodernism is simply a collection of new ideas to interpret social phenomena, a new lens through which “observers” may view reality.

Since it’s a “post” then it implies a modernism. Modernism emphasizes the importance of our being “material,” made of bone and flesh, with material needs (food, shelter, clothing) in order to survive. Our reality is constructed by our materiality. You are what you eat. The reality of your body is the sum of the genes you inherited, the food you ingest, and the amount of physical work you do. You do poorly in school partly because you may be malnourished, and so, pre-disposed to “failing” in life. These are some “modern” explanations to the reality of your body.

What then, is a “postmodern” explanation? For one, it breaks away from anchoring reality on the material. It veers away from claiming there is an observable material reality out there waiting to be discovered and analyzed. Rather, reality is perception. There is no “real body,” only a “sign.” You are who you perceive yourself to be, and others’ perception of you. And since we’re not an all hooked up in a bee-hive brain, we all have different perceptions or interpretations of what is real.

Since the invention of language, what is “real” has always been mediated by language. Words, both written and spoken, in a way mediate between a subject (you) and an object (reality).

Postmodernism is heavily influenced by linguistics, particularly semiology; “A science which studies the life of signs at the heart of social life.” Simply put, semiology claims that:

A Sign as a unit of meaning is made up of:

1. Signifier—acoustic sound, visual mark (the sound your mouth makes when you speak and the swirly lines you make when you write)

2. Signified—concept of meaning associated with Signifier

A “sign” could be CAR. The car’s signifier is the letters C-A-R and that sound produced by your voice box. The car’s signified is the idea triggered in your brain when you see the sign “car.” Your mental picture of a car (indeed, for all I know, not only a mental picture, but also a mental smell, mental noise or whatever) will not be the same as mine, for a variety of reasons. Your idea of “car” might mean a Volkswagen Beetle while “car” might trigger “gas-guzzling Ford Expedition” in my brain. Maybe you have never seen a Ford Expedition in your life and that is why your idea (or signified) of CAR is different from mine.

Semiology shifted the emphasis from the notion that there is some kind of 'real world' out there to which we all refer in words which mean the same to all of us. Reality is constructed through “signs.”

We are the active makers of meanings. We don't sleep on a structure of metal, foam and springs, we sleep on a BED. The fact that we refer to it as a BED means that it is to be slept on. We don’t usually eat on it or shit on it. We do not live among and relate to physical objects and events. We live among and relate to systems of signs.

What is postmodern sex?

The signs SEX, FUCK, LOVE, DICK, CUNT may have as many meanings as there are interpreters. And we are active makers of the meanings behind these signifiers. The written words “I am sucking your clit” elicits different responses in us, and our individual “system of signs” connect the words “I am sucking your clit” to different equivalences most pleasurable to our egos and our senses.

And so, through mediated sex we are able to fulfill our fantasies and wants not so much with another human being, but really, with ourselves. You’re alone typing away on your computer screen “communicating” with someone of a similar proclivity, but you’re not having sex with them. You’re screwing with yourself, in your mind. You’re not screwing him and he certainly isn’t screwing you.

You wonder why you feel so empty and emptied out after having your sexual encounter with the random cunt or dick of the day. And for those who are bolder, you wonder why, upon meeting your cybersex partner, there seems to be no connection, no spark, no nothing. Only awkward stretches of silence when you’ve run out of things to say. The mind fuck seemed infinitely better than the promise of the real. Well because, a promise was all it was.

Father Christmas Must Die
By TINA LOUISE

Father Christmas is a lie,
A gift wrapped up in red.
Rosy cheeked phantom,
Saint Nic a long time dead.

Fine example of generosity,
As his wrapped gifts are dropped
Down the chimneys of the homes
Of privileged little tots.

So when they ask why the poor,
Don't have Santa too,
More lies must be invented,
To cover up the true.

That Father Christmas is no more
The hero Santa Claus.
Consumer society has adopted him,
And used him for their cause.

A logo, branded image
For shops to sell their stuff.
A messed up folklore legend,
Redesigned with soft white fluff.

Why do we still use him?
What purpose does he serve?
Other than to say that lies,
Have some valid worth.

The tale of old Saint Nic,
Still can have its place,
In story books and tales told,
Of why we still embrace.

The time of giving every year,
To mark the caring season,
The joy of sharing what we have,
For no selfish reason.

As for teaming him with faith,
What an odd way to tie,
Faith and lies on the same day,
Father Christmas must now die.
____________________________________________________________________

Ah, Christmas excesses. Christmas means abundance and overindulgence in all things bad for you and your health. Have I said Christmas was shitty this year? Well, literally shitty for me. Four days of pooping my brains out, I have. Four days!!! Methinks I've been food poisoned in a certain resto-cafe that serves "Twice-Cooked Adobo." There, be warned.

Note to self: if food tastes funky, don't fucking eat it!

Just a random pic the boyfriend and I took at the annual UPD lantern parade. Must admit, sure don't appreciate them austerity measures when yer desperately wanting to feel christmasy. Sigh, they even repeated last year's theme which was "Perya" (loosely translated -- "fair"). Which means they've recycled some of the floats from last year. Gripe, gripe, gripe.

No more classes, no more books....

A two-week reprieve that isn't really a reprieve since I've papers to check, a book review to do and a report on Korea to prepare for has finally come! And for the past couple of days I've gone on a French film frenzy. Here are some of the terrfic finds I've managed to pick out from among the many Hollywood flicks....

Comment j’ai tué mon père (How I Killed My Father)

SYNOPSIS

Forty year-old Jean-Luc is a successful gerontologist living in the wealthy Parisian suburb of Versailles with his beautiful wife Isa. On the surface, Jean-Luc appears to have everything one could want from life, however the unexpected arrival of his long estranged father (Maurice) promises to shatter Jean-Luc’s facade.

A quiet yet lively man, Maurice abandoned his wife and two young sons years ago, without any apparent misgivings, to practice medicine in Africa.

Like most European movies, this film is slow-paced with well-written characters. It builds into a climax so nerve-wracking it is testament to the brilliant acting and directing. For those who have father issues, you'll need a tissue box while watching this one.


Sous le sable (Under the Sand)

SYNOPSIS

Marie Drillon is a strong, attractive, professional, independent middle-aged woman trying to get her life back on track after the sudden disappearance of her husband. Even for a superwoman like Marie, the shock of the tragedy is psychologically traumatizing.

Marie isn't sure what happened to her husband (Is he dead? Did he run off with someone else?) and she's in denial about him being gone. At Parisian dinner parties with her supportive, careful friends, Marie still talks about her husband in the present tense. At home, she still imagines that he is with her; she pours two cups of tea in the morning and she reminds him to set the alarm clock before going to sleep at night.

A film exploring what grief might do to a woman married to the same man for 2 decades or so. Makes me wonder how my mom ever copes. Where Marie verges into extreme denial and bouts of hysteria, my own mother just keeps plodding on. I suppose we're all made of different stuff. Mind you people, I chose these films totally at random!

Sitcom

SYNOPSIS

A middle-class family must deal with racism, incest, homosexuality, and other issues when a pet rat comes into their life. A bitterly funny satire of family life from France.

This is Ozon thumbing his nose in French bourgeois sensibilities. It mocks just about every aspect of a "traditional" bourgeois household. Although most "sexual" images are tastefully implied, it manages to tickle forbidden funny bones. Its hilarious, knee-slapping fun.


I stand alone (Tout Seul)

SYNOPSIS

The story of a brutal, unemployed butcher at the end of his rope, I STAND ALONE is a violent and dark film exploring the darkness of the human soul. The nameless butcher, just out of prison, looks for a new job. With each rejection he becomes more and more certain that the world is out to get him, leading to stunning acts of violence as the protagonist goes on a hate-filled rampage. Containing graphic sex and violence, I STAND ALONE is a disturbing but powerful look at one man's tormented soul.

What to expect from a film by the same director (Gaspar Noe) who made Irreversible? Extreme acts of violence and unspeakable acts designed to make your stomach churn and your brains a-turning. If you can stand it, watch it.

Sur mes levres (Read My Lips)

SYNOPSIS

In its opening shot, READ MY LIPS shows Carla (Emmanuelle Devos) inserting her hearing aids and getting ready for work. But it's evident that her hearing problem does not hold her back as she throws herself into answering the constantly ringing phones at her job as an unappreciated secretary for an architecture firm.

Swamped with work, Carla asks her boss to hire an assistant for her, Paul (Vincent Cassel), an ex-con who is trying to get his life back on track. To everyone else--her sexist coworkers and her sexy friend Annie--Carla is a dog with a disability. But to Paul, who is Carla's subordinate, she's a femme fatale. In Paul's life--to his parole officer and the two-bit thugs to whom he still owes money--he is an untrustworthy outcast and a bum. But to Carla, he is a secret weapon with skills (lock-picking, physical intimidation) that she needs. Likewise, Carla becomes Paul's secret weapon as her ability to read lips opens up a new world of possibilities to his plotting, criminal ways.

READ MY LIPS is a story of romance through and through, and, in its second half, it is a fast-moving and constantly flip-flopping heist drama. Once Carla and Paul really start working together, the tension between them only helps them along. Never trusting each other, never predictable in their actions, these characters imbue Jacques Audiard's masterful film with a breathtaking suspense that is simultaneously alluring and repellent.

I loved this film. Vincent Cassel is hot. Need I say more? :)

Ma femme est actrice

SYNOPSIS

MY WIFE IS AN ACTRESS is a clever French comedy from Yvan Attal, who directs, produces, and stars in the film. Jealous and paranoid, Yvan (Attal) is the husband of Charlotte (Charlotte Gainsbourg), a popular young actress who is constantly being cast in starring roles opposite attractive and seductive male actors. This drives Yvan crazy. But because he loves her, he must let her pursue her career dreams.

A sports writer who operates in a world that is equally exciting, if not quite as glamorous, Yvan's own career is always secondary to Charlotte's. When she travels to London to work on her latest film, sharing the screen with the studly older actor, John (Terence Stamp), Yvan makes furious and impulsive trips via Eurostar back and forth between Paris and London.
He worries that his marriage with Charlotte will not withstand the weight of his heartache.

Roughly the equivalent of a Hollywood romantic comedy, this French version still manages to come off as more real and infinitely more intelligent.