Nag-Fiesta sa Jaro si Mariano Perfecto

Pag-labay kan banda sa saindong iskinita, nagbugtaw ka na. Mas maayo kay aga ka nagsimba. Pasiring sa kapilya, tinangro ka nin esperma ni Santa Maria, nagsulo ka nin lima. Makipangudto ka ki Santa Marta. Kun daindata an saiyang afritada, luwaga sana. Nalalantaw mo sa Jaro an ginasiling na Reyna sa patio kan Cathedral ninda pinaparada, guyod-guyod an kapa ni Santa Catalina. Uy, maoogma an mga tindang kamunsil ni Santa Barbara sa bangketa. Mga tatlo ka kilo, dai na man pagtawada. Sa hapon, ma-derby si San Pedro sa plaza; rinibo daa an pwedeng magana; pumili ka na, sa puti, sa pula. Pag abot kan sinarom, magpasadpasad ka sa bisita. Si Magdalena dai naglaog sa panaderya, kiblita na bala. Bilog na aldaw nagbaligya si Dios Ama, mais na sinugba, sa plaza asta may talipapa, nagpidir ka kuta miski pira.

Panay News, September 25, 2011, D2.

Me myself needs I

Katy Perry’s “Firework” video is worthy of note. 

 

If at all, the realities portrayed by the characters, though mostly Caucasian, cut across most races and sensibilities. The video begins with American recording artist Katy Perry singing from the porch of a building. Then as she sings, fireworks shoot from her chest to the sky.

 

Then the video cuts to scenes of young people throughout the city. There is an overweight girl who cannot join her friend swimming in a pool where a party is being held. Later in the video, she “finds the courage to shed her clothes and jump in the pool” filled with the party swimmers.

 

Then, there is a cancer-stricken child in a hospital who cannot show herself out on the street because she is balding. But she goes out just the same and sees a pregnant woman in the same hospital with fireworks coming out of the baby being born.

 

There is a young magician being mugged by hooligans in an alley but uses tricks to overcome them. A boy at home witnesses his quarreling parents and how their bickering distresses his little sister; he stands up to them and pushes them apart. Also, a young man in discotheque who takes interest in a guy approaches him and kisses him, igniting fireworks from both of them.

 

Later in the video, young people are shown converging into a castle’s courtyard. There, together with the singer, they dance and “light up the night,” with their own fireworks shooting from their chests into the sky.

 

On many levels, the song empowers the self—telling it to assert and let it shine in a time and place where others see it unfit—“You just got to ignite the light and let it shine/Just own the night, like the fourth of July.”

 

The video also reminds us of Christina Aguilera’s “Beautiful” whose lyrics read—“You are beautiful no matter what they say/Words can’t bring me down/I am beautiful in every single way/Words can’t bring me down.”

 

All characters portrayed in the video rather only exemplify the struggle of the self in a society that values apathy or indifference most probably because of diversity.  The video also seems to say that free will should be exercised by young people. Perhaps the video features self-empowerment only of the youth because the producers have considered only the Youthube audience.

 

But for all these, the video preaches tolerance for all races and sensibilities. Showing the various predicaments of young people, it asks audiences to be considerate and caring, or assertive of what the self desires—if love is too trite a word to use.

 

The song implies that no one but the self can empower himself or herself. In particular, no amount of external force can salvage the youth from their own dilemma. As another American, diplomat Eleanor Roosevelt said, “No one can make you feel inferior without your consent.”

 

In many senses, the video allows for reflection of what the self can do what it really wants: to assert, to prevail, to shine. After all, at the end of the day, what really matters is the self soul heart [chest] making sparks in the dark.

 

Written by Katy Perry in collaboration with Mikkel S. Eriksen, Tor Erik Hermansen, Sandy Wilhelm and Ester Dean for Perry's second studio album, Teenage Dream, this sensible work won Video of the Year at the 2011 MTV Music Awards.

Nag-Fiesta sa Jaro si Mariano Perfecto

Pag-labáy kan banda sa saindong iskinita, nagbugtaw ka na. Mas maáyo kay aga ka nagsimba. Pasiring sa kapilya, tinangro ka nin esperma ni Santa Maria, nagsulô ka nin lima. Makipangúdto ka ki Santa Marta. Kun daindata an saiyang afritada, luwagá saná. Nalalántaw mo sa Jaro an ginasiling na Reyna sa patio kan Cathedral ninda pinaparáda, guyod-guyod an kapa ni Santa Catalina. Uy, maoogmá an mga tindang kamunsil ni Santa Bárbara sa bangketa. Mga tatlo ka kilo, dai na man pagtawáda. Sa hapon, ma-derby si San Pedro sa plaza; rinibo daá an pwedeng magána—pumili ka na, sa puti, sa pulá. Pag abot kan sinárom, magpasádpasad ka sa bisitá. Si Magdalena dai naglaog sa panaderya, kiblita na balá. Bilog na aldaw nagbaligya si Dios Ama, mais na sinugbá, sa plaza asta may talipapa, nagpidir ka kuta miski pira.

Panay News, September 25, 2011, D2.

In June of that year

Realism and magic realism

Rating:	★★★
Category:	Movies
Genre:	Other

Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan surely catches our attention because Natalie Portman’s Nina Sayers grows feathers after she kills Mila Kunis’s Lily backstage to perform the Black Swan role in the final act. You cannot just forget the film because of that.

This psychological thriller—featuring Natalie Portman’s Nina Sayers, a ballerina haunted by some schizophrenic ambition—brims with magic realism, an aesthetic style in which “magical elements are blended into a realistic atmosphere in order to access a deeper understanding of reality.” The effects particularly in the final ballet scene where Nina grows more feathers than the previous times it appeared would surely remind us of the film.

Because of the device used, we are made to believe that “magical elements are explained like normal occurrences that are presented in a straightforward manner” allowing the “real” (Nina Sayers dream to be the Swan Queen) and the “fantastic” (she really becomes a Swan) to be accepted in the same stream of thought.

The obsession to become the Swan Queen later brings into the character graphic hallucinations that eventually cost Nina Sayers’ life.

Natalie’s facial features being transformed into a swan—rouged eyes, aquiline nose and elongated neck—all compliment to a dramatic flourish—where at the end of the performance, even we the audience could be convinced that she very well looks as the best Swan Queen for Tchaikovsky’s Swan Lake.

While Nina Sayers’ obsession for the Swan Queen role is enough persuasion, the horrific undertones notwithstanding, we the audience get the eerie feeling in Aronofsky’s close-up shots of the lead character who dances her way to death as the ambition-obsessed ballerina who lived and was haunted by realities she herself created.

Anyone or anything from Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan will win an Oscar. Choreography, effects, actress. Let’s see.

Meanwhile.

The first time I watched Christian Bale’s Dicky Edlund in The Fighter, I already rooted for him to win a Best Supporting Actor citation.

A drama about boxer “Irish” Micky Ward’s unlikely road to the world light welterweight title, The Fighter features Ward’s Rocky-like rise as he is shepherded by half-brother Dicky, a boxer-turned-trainer who rebounded in life after nearly being knocked out by drugs and crime.

A far cry from Batman and his previous roles, Christian Bale’s Dicky Edlund exudes with stark realism, a has-been boxer backed up by his mother who hoped for a could have been contender, reminiscent of Marlon Brando’s Terry Malloy in Elia Kazan’s On the Waterfront (1954).

Not another boxing movie at the Oscars you might say. But there is more to this boxing movie which rather “depicts subjects as they appear in everyday life.”

In The Fighter, we see Dicky Eklund’s mere claim to fame is his 1978 boxing match with Sugar Ray Leonard, where Eklund knocked down Leonard, who eventually won the match.

Now a crack addict, Eklund is in front of HBO cameras making a documentary about him. Dicky has also acted as one of the two trainers for half-brother Micky Ward, a decade younger than him, first known as a brawler and used by other boxers as a stepping stone to better boxers.

Both boxers are managed by their overbearing mother Alice Ward (Melissa Leo) who believes it better to keep it all in the family. Now unreliable owing to his crack addiction, Dicky’s move with Alice at one of Micky’s bouts dawns on the latter that his boxing career is being stalled and even undermined by them, who are only looking out for themselves.

The situation allows Bale’s character to deliver an uncontrived performance that highlights a family drama and gives sibling rivalry a kind of high never before seen onscreen before.

Meanwhile, Amy Adams’ Charlene Fleming—Micky’s new girlfriend, a college dropout and now local bartender who inspires him—pulls out the fulcrum to the other side, opposite Micky’s family, when she salvages him from this predicament.

Much to Alice and Dick’s anger, Micky comes to choose between them and Charlene. The story’s rising action renders each character emotionally charged—each one wanting to claim what is good for the fighter, and each one being allowed to shine individually onscreen. Awesome story.

Bale’s character greatly evolved from the Batman lead role and other virile roles to one that exudes with so much life. Like Tom Hanks’ Andrew Beckett in Jonathan Demme’s Philadelphia (1993), Bale must have shed weight to fit the role of a has-been boxer who makes business out of his brother just like his mother.

Earning three Oscar nominations for Bale, Adams and Leo, The Fighter drives some of the best punches among other films I have seen in the past year.

The first time I watched it last year, I immediately thought it was essentially noteworthy of recognition. Christian Bale’s crack[ed] character is so real you will find him in your neighborhood.

With the larger-than-life performance of an underdog who wants to bounce back, Bale’s character transforms the movie about his brother to a movie about himself. If at all, he is the Fighter being referred to in the film.

Let’s see how some real practitioners of the craft consider these performances, which other people might call art.

In June of that year

In June of that year, you started tutoring Seth, a freshman and Zandro, a sophomore—both were newcomers in the school where you chose to teach.

Seth appeared cool and quiet, but there was much eagerness when he started talking about himself, his participation in class and school activities, and other things he does in school or at home. He was a growing young boy whose parents whom you chanced to meet desired much good for him. Composed, serene, you saw in him a promising young man who will make a name for himself.

Meanwhile, Zandro was the bubbly type, always wearing a smile, and always less serious and preferred to read ghost stories, not to mention that he was an avid online gamer himself. He wanted to be a nurse because he wanted much money—lots of it. He said he would have to work abroad so he could always provide for himself. Also, he always wanted to eat. 

Every now and then you would excuse the two boys from their classes to chat with them. To you they always sounded hopeful—in anticipation of the chats with you. You would talk to them about how to help their parents do chores in the house, study harder so they would not flunk any class or be good sons to their parents. You also talked to them about how to gain friends in school. Seth said he had new friends—all of the freshmen were his friends. The playful Zandro confessed how he would participate in the sophomores’ horseplay in between class sessions or even during classes. 

In your chats, you approached them like they were your younger brothers. At first you mentally prepared your questions for them. Later, you would just talk to them very casually. Through the days, they had become your friends, so to speak. The chats you had had with them had gone smooth and personal, like they were your younger brothers. Your words would usually end up as friendly pieces of advice for these young boys growing up. And how they sounded so real, so convincing to them. 

Every time you talked to them, you thought you saw yourself in them. You saw enthusiasm in the things they did or wanted to do. They were struggling to become themselves. Full of hope and anticipation, the boys had a lot to live and to learn. They always appeared as if they had to know a lot of things. 

Continually you had told them how to be always good, and would always ask them about how they would fare up to virtues like charity and service, honesty and truthfulness, diligence and stuff. Talking about these virtues with these boys made you aware of your own shortcomings. It made you start to ask again your own life question. It made you want to quantify your own [sense of] achievement. 

Though you’d gone that far, you had not really gotten far enough to try to live sensibly—with a definite purpose. You thought you had to have a definite purpose. Just like them, then, you seemed to long to fling your arms wide open to the world and take on what life really had in store for you.

In June of that year.

Power of One

Power of One

If there’s one thing worth noting about Mahatma Gandhi, an Indian lawyer leader who lived through the years of British Empire, it would be his advocacy of world peace, evident in his influence to the world after tirelessly seeking to unify Moslems and Hindus in his homeland. 

Copyright. Ben Heine 

His nonviolent initiative to achieve peace between and among his fellow Indians took the world by storm and has been immortalized in the hearts of many peace-loving people, including political leaders worldwide.

Even when he was young, Mahatma Gandhi already naturally had an instinct to work to dismantle differences between people by taking efforts to liberate the oppressed from their oppressors. Inspired by his personal experience of discrimination by the British in South Africa, he rallied for equality between and among Indians and the white race. The initiatives he took created a large following in and outside the British colony.

Going back to his homeland India, Gandhi, now popular for his South African rights initiative, continued to work as a lawyer and journalist and vowed to address inequality prevalent in their country through nonviolent means.

Such privilege to be looked up to by the rest of the world as a role model virtually gave Gandhi the opportunity to cultivate his personal vision for peace, which is best seen through his conscious pursuit of dharma, the highest good in Indian belief—and his own desire to constantly set an example of sacrifice for the sake of others.

Through his own intermittent jail terms which he served for the cause he found worth fighting for, Mahatma Gandhi showed his followers and admirers how to consciously pursue the good—both in words and in action—by this time he had now become a person of great fame and influence, a personal icon for anyone on what is right and wrong.

Articulate as a lawyer and diplomatic in his relations with the affairs of the state, Gandhi constantly protested against hostilities and conflicts arising from racial and cultural differences and religious fanaticism. Fasting to stage protest against riots, Gandhi showed that peace can be achieved through inner peace.

In so doing, Gandhi’s vision for the world to become a more livable place had not gone unnoticed. World leaders began to recognize the importance of such an unassuming, merciful—similarly Christian—attitude in the conduct of human affairs.

By now, the British Empire, after not being able to find any way out to [stay in control of] India—ironically barraged by Gandhi’s quiet means of protest lasting through a number of years—finally granted independence to India.

Not long after, the Indian independence further gave way to more spaces where oppressed groups of people can voice out personal and national freedom—and this included the movement of the Moslem-dominated part of India to be later called Pakistan, which seceded from the Indian sovereignty, later creating more tensions between the two races.

While incessant conflicts between Hindus and Moslems still persist today, mahatma Gandhi’s consistent and sincere pursuit of the peace through nonviolent means in order to solve the issue of differences have simply been enormous to inspire people all over the world to similarly work for peace.

Solely, his life inspired other world leaders to properly address conflicts, discrimination, and social unrest between and among social and religious classes, paving the way for a more tolerant community living in harmony despite diversity.

In June of that year

In June of that year, you started tutoring Seth, a freshman and Zandro, a sophomore—both were newcomers in the school where you chose to teach.

Seth appeared cool and quiet, but there was much eagerness when he started talking about himself, his participation in class and school activities, and other things he does in school or at home. He was a growing young boy whose parents whom you chanced to meet desired much good for him. Composed, serene, you saw in him a promising young man who will make a name for himself.

Meanwhile, Zandro was the bubbly type, always wearing a smile, and always less serious and preferred to read ghost stories, not to mention that he was an avid online gamer himself. He wanted to be a nurse because he wanted much money—lots of it. He said he would have to work abroad so he could always provide for himself. Also, he always wanted to eat.

Every now and then you would excuse the two boys from their classes to chat with them. To you they always sounded hopeful—in anticipation of the chats with you. You would talk to them about how to help their parents do chores in the house, study harder so they would not flunk any class or be good sons to their parents. You also talked to them about how to gain friends in school. Seth said he had new friends—all of the freshmen were his friends. The playful Zandro confessed how he would participate in the sophomores’ horseplay in between class sessions or even during classes.

In your chats, you approached them like they were your younger brothers. At first you mentally prepared your questions for them. Later, you would just talk to them very casually. Through the days, they had become your friends, so to speak. The chats you had had with them had gone smooth and personal, like they were your younger brothers. Your words would usually end up as friendly pieces of advice for these young boys growing up. And how your words sounded real and convincing to them.

Every time you talked to them, you thought you saw yourself in them. You saw enthusiasm in the things they did or wanted to do. They were struggling to become themselves. Full of hope and anticipation, the boys had a lot to live and to learn. They always appeared as if they had to know a lot of things.

Continually you had told them how to be always good, and would always ask them about how they would fare up to virtues like charity and service, honesty and truthfulness, diligence and stuff. Talking about these virtues with these boys made you aware of your own shortcomings. It made you start to ask your own life question. It made you want to quantify your own sense of achievement.

Though you’d gone that far, you had not really gotten far enough to try to live sensibly—with a definite purpose. You thought you had to have a definite purpose. Just like them, then, you seemed to long to fling your arms wide open to the world and take on what life really had in store for you.

Bread and Butter