Huling Gabi Sa Gainesville

Sa wakas, tapos na akong magbalot. Binaon ko ang mga aklat ng tula at nagbisikleta patungong downtown; nagbakasakaling ngayong hapon ay di uulan. “Garage sale!,” sigaw mula sa porch ng isang tahanan. Hindi ko ito pinansin, hanggang may sumunod na sigaw: “Ted!”. Iyon si Maria, ang kaibigan kong Russo na may mapulang buhok. Tingnan mo nga naman. Lumipat na siya ng tirahan matapos ang semestre, at di ko na akalaing magkikita pa kami. Ngayo’y heto at nakapagpaalam pa ako sa kaniya sa bisperas ng aking pag-alis.

Sarado na ang Volta kung saan sana ako magkakape. Umikot-ikot ako sa Hippodrome, sa Harry’s, at sa may bandang Gelato Company. May taga-roon na umiikot-ikot din at nagpapatikim ng kanilang gelato na dati kong dinadayo. Sa huli, nagtungo ako sa The Top, kung saan umorder ako ng Pesto Gnocchi: may sundried tomatoes daw at roasted pine nuts. Hindi na sana ako oorder ng inumin pero half-off daw ang Chardonnay sapagkat happy hour, ngiti ng waiter. O sige na nga. Huling gabi ko na naman ito sa Gainesville, at ako’y medyo nalulumbay.

Ganoon pala ang gnocchi, sing lambot at lapsa ng bola-bola sa ginataan. Hindi ko nagustuhan; sanay ako sa pastang al dente. At ang pangalawa kong kopita ng Chardonnay ay hindi rin pala half-off, bungisngis ng waiter, sapagkat lampas na raw ng alas-siyete. Leche.

Subalit hindi ko na makuhang ganap na mainis. Magaan na ang aking loob, umiikot ng kaunti ang ulo sa alak. At higit pa: nabigyang-aliw ng mga tula ng mga kaibigang nasa malalayo.

Na Naman




Hatid na naman ng hangin
Ang hangaring makapiling
Ang pinakamalalapit
At, lalo pa nga,
Ang pinakamalalayo sa atin.

Ganito rin daw ang simoy
Nang magningning ang tala
Dahil binitiwan ng isang dalaga
Ang matamis niyang oo
At ang kaniyang supling
Sa atin ipiniling.

(Rofel Brion, mula sa Sandali)

Himig




Kay bait ng ulan.
Pinaliliguan ang lahat ngayong umaga.
Tinatagos ang nagpapatagos.
Pinupuno ang nagpapapuno.
Dinidilaan, hinahaplos
lahat ng masasapo.
At ang ayaw bumigay
tahimik lamang na iiwan
upang tumungo sa masisidlan.

Kay bait ng ulan.

Subalit kailangan ko pa ring
paniwalaan
     tutuyuin ako ng sikat ng araw
     kinahapunan
     kinabukasan
     kinabukasan.

(Beni Santos, mula sa Kuwadro Numero Uno)

Ganoon Lamang




Ganoon lamang pala:

Tiklupin ng isa-isa
ang iyong mga damit,
isilid sa maleta.

Sumulat ng paalam
sa munting papel,
lagdaan ng pangalan.

Buksan ang pinto
at langhapin ang hangin,
humakbang palabas.

Ipinid ang pinto
nang walang lingon-likod,
lumakad nang lumakad.

Ganoon lamang.

(Rofel Brion, mula sa Sandali)

Oo nga, Rofel: ganoon nga lamang.

At napawi tuloy ang lumbay ng isa pang muling paglisan.

 

Skullcandy, Eye Candy

I’m lovin’ my new iPod nano and Skullcandy headphones. I got the silver and black Lowrider last Sunday, but the cord snagged on the doorknob as I was rushing out, and the wires got pulled apart where it split in two. I was sooo pissed. I dug up the trash for that warranty card I never bother to read, and found (in fine print, with French translation) that I was covered not just for manufacturer defect, but, damage due to

sliding a rail, sliding down the emergency ramp of your aircraft, slammed in your locker, slammed in your car door, run over by a car, running into a wall, getting run out of town, mountain biking, road biking, sky diving, beating your boyfriend unmercifully, getting beat down by the man, blown up in an accidental experimentation with flammable substances…

This is what they call “aggressive music listening” (”d’écouter de la musique de façon abusive”) and adds that damage due to above “means you are living your life the way we want our product used!”. The warranty card comes with a detachable stencil to spray-paint their logo with on your skateboard, your cat, or your old man’s balding head. (The G.I. model comes with it’s own beer bottle opener.) These guys from Utah may have a street (or, rather, snowboarding) sense of humor, but also a wicked marketing sensibility. They know how to flip an unpleasant situation into something positive in their favor that also reinforces the identity of their product. Who would not want to be that aggressive music listener who obliterates his Skullcandy on the ski slopes? (In my line of work, it would probably be due to “accidental experimentation with flammable substances”. Ha!)

I really tried hard to like those Bose noise canceling headphones that cost an arm and a leg. I had been ogling at a pair of QuietComfort® 2 Acoustic Noise Cancelling® headphones for some time, while saving precious graduate student wages towards the I-wanna-get-me-those-damn-things fund. When it came time to buy, I did a little bit of cold feet research before forking out that $300, and was surprised that it only got about 3.3/5.0 stars from 260 Amazon.com reviewers. Consensus on the negative reviews singled-out the quality and strength of materials:

 

Los Caprichos: Goya’s Comedy of Horrors

I found a used copy of Francisco Goya’s Los Caprichos at the Smathers Library bookstore. This Dover Fine Art Books edition reproduces all 80 aquatint prints in black and white, with 6 additional prints of preliminary studies and unique proofs. Goya produced Los Caprichos after coming out of a mysterious and debilitating illness in his fifites that left him “a changed man: bitter at times, secretive, far less exuberant” (p. 2). It proved to be a turning point in his artistic development.

To be sure he was one of the court painters of King Carlos IV, but had he died before the drawings and prints for Los Caprichos were made, he would today be rated as an attractive painter of the pre-Revolutionary era and, in graphics, as mainly a reproductive etcher–not the major artist and the father of modern art which he had started to become. (p. 1)

Caprichos literally means ‘fancy’ or ‘whimsy’, but there is certainly nothing fanciful or whimsical (in the ordinary sense of lightness or playfulness) in Goya’s Los Caprichos. It is also not properly horror, despite the attendance of witches, devils, and hobgoblins. It is rather said to be a satirical attack on 18th century Spanish society, specifically “the Spanish Inquisition, the corruption of the church and the nobility, witchcraft, child rearing, avarice, and the frivolity of young women” (Indepth Arts News, Portland Museum of Art). I do not know anything about 18th century Spanish society, but I can still catch echoes of Goya’s contemptuous laughter through his unsettling images. The dead-pan commentary of the Prado manuscript certainly helps. That these graphic prints still manage to convey the artist’s dour humours two-hundred ten years later attests to both his gothic and comic genius.

4. Nanny’s boy. Negligence, tolerance and spoiling make children capricious, naughty, vain, greedy, lazy, insufferable. They grow up and yet remain childish. Thus is nanny’s little boy. What’s monstrous about this picture is ostensibly the tacking of a grown man’s head onto a little girl’s body. To me, even more repugnant than his thick eyebrows or mustachioed lips, are his stubby hands, fingers stuck in the mouth, and those heavy boots beneath the daintily embroidered skirt.

 

Biology Today, 1972: A Psychedelic Textbook

Cheeky illustration for the chapter on “Human Sexual Behavior”

Gnostic illustration for the chapter on “Life and the Origin of the Species”

From a review of the 3rd (and “cleaned up”) edition:

The first edition (1972), was published by CRM Books, had no designated author but was attributed to fifty-four “Contributing Consultants” (including seven Nobel laureates), a team of thirteen persons listed under “Special Consultation,” and a “Book Team” of sixteen people including John H. Painter, Jr., Publisher, who wrote the preface. That edition was ablaze with stylized artwork, references to the humanities, photographs, colorful representation of biology at the sub-cellular level, and explicit materials on human sexuality and drug abuse. Such illustrations as that of heroin administration, insertion and placement of the diaphragm, two aging prostitutes on the streets of New York, diagram of the human male and female sex organs during coitus, and the painting “Noah’s Ark” outraged some educators, parents, and reviewers to such an extent that large-scale adoptions were few. That book might now be considered a “clas- sic” for it is hardly likely that such a fine humanistic biology textbook will be published again. (If you have a copy, hold on to it.)

(William H. Yongue, Jr., The American Biology Teacher, Vol. 43, No. 2, Feb. 1981, pp. 108-109)

Here are more examples of the textbook artwork from A Journey Round My Skull’s Flickr site:

 

Welcome To The Garden Of Earthly Delights!

I have recently re-discovered one of my favorite New Wave groups of the 80’s–as a psychedelic rock band. Although XTC has long been a darling of the critics, they have never been chart-toppers, due partly to the fact that they have stopped touring in 1982 after front man Andy Partridge collapsed from stage fright. They have since been making music from the studio, sustained by a strong cult following who can’t get enough of their stuff.

XTC’s endlessly clever records and tight, self-contained singles won a following of fans and critics whose fanaticism almost made up for the band’s lackluster sales figures… The band members have become the deans of a group of artists who make what can only be described as unpopular pop music, placing a high premium on melody and solid if idiosyncratic songcraft. Throughout their long career, the members of XTC have made consistently excellent music…

(Michael Azerrad, Rolling Stone, 23 Mar 1989)

I admit to being one of those devotees who genuflect at the altar of XTC. I can still listen to Oranges and Lemons without feeling a generation removed. It still sounds fresh two decades later. On the other hand, I can no longer stand A-Ha’s Take on Me, especially when the frat crowd sings along on 80’s Night at Market Street. Even New Order, The Cure, and Midnight Oil–those staple 80’s innovators–are starting to sound really dated. Perhaps it’s because XTC has really not been New Wave, nor punk, since Making Plans for Nigel, and have carved their own idiosyncratic aesthetic from a melange of 60’s influences like The Beatles, The Kinks, and The Beach Boys. Pink Thing and The Loving (complete with faux Beatlemania screaming), for example, could have been hit singles from the early 60’s, while the pastoral buoyancy of their concept album Skylarking sits well within that era’s flower-child sensibility. This musical anachronism is perhaps another reason the 80’s listeners did not get their music–further cementing their cult status only to fans who are ‘in the know’.

XTC English Settlement (1982) Skylarking (1986) Oranges & Lemons (1989) Nonsvch (1992)

Just as straight rock-and-roll and folk bands had turned psychedelic by the late 60’s (Revolver, The Beatles, 1966; Something Else by The Kinks, The Kinks, 1967; Pet Sounds,The Beach Boys, 1966), so did XTC albeit two decades too late with 25 O’Clock (1985) and Psonic Psunspot (1987). This was an homage to the period on so many levels: recapitulating the exuberance of melody and lyrics, the amorphous collage-work of the album cover, and moreover, the child-like irreverence of the production. Like The Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Loneley Heart’s Club Band, where the Fab Four assumed flippant alter-egos, XTC also invented theirs (The Red Curtain, Lord Cornelius Plum, Sir John Johns, E.I.E.I. Owen) and the fictitious band called The Dukes of Stratosphear.