The Wily Filipino

All Google's Fault.

Aaarrgh! I've been wondering for the longest time why I've been getting bizarre comments on one of my entries -- and now I know why: if you type in "Filipino" and "Friendster" into Google, guess what comes up on top of the list?

Now I know why all these kids keep posting...

Anyhow, I used to have bookmarks of various Filipino celebs and starlets who were on Friendster, but with the new Friendster rules all the bookmarks seem to be invalid now because they're not my Friendster friends.

This was going to be part of a future post on Friendster and civil society, called "Two Degrees of Separation from Giselle Toengi." (Did that link work?) And I haven't actually gone on Friendster in months, so there's little point.

[Post Satan- and Jesus-free for your protection.]

Burning in Hell.

The Dante's Inferno Test has banished you to the Second Level of Hell!
Here is how you matched up against all the levels:

Level	Score
Purgatory (Repenting Believers)	Very Low
Level 1 - Limbo (Virtuous Non-Believers)	Low
Level 2 (Lustful)	Very High
Level 3 (Gluttonous)	Low
Level 4 (Prodigal and Avaricious)	Very Low
Level 5 (Wrathful and Gloomy)	High
Level 6 - The City of Dis (Heretics)	High
Level 7 (Violent)	High
Level 8- the Malebolge (Fraudulent, Malicious, Panderers)	High
Level 9 - Cocytus (Treacherous)	Moderate

Take the Dante's Inferno Test

And in other Jesus-related news -- the fun never ends here at The Wily Filipino -- here are three must-read articles of varying hues, one courtesy of the Flips list, one from today's New York Times, and another from Leny Strobel: Philip Cunningham on extra-biblical elements in the film, William Rivers Pitt on the white Jesus, and Peter Steinfels on transgressive film.

Extra link, unrelated to the topic but referring to a different kind of savior: can you say October Surprise?

Dybbuk Box Update.

Lest readers think I'm a little one-sided, here's some spooky Jewish stuff. =)

For all those 80,000-plus people who checked out the "dybbuk box" auction on eBay, there are updates from Forward and (though the source seems dodgy) the Klang Valley Palm User Group.

Your New Favorite "Song."

With all the talk of Satan and all I thought I'd give you some Satan for real. This track comes courtesy of A. A. Allen -- actually, he didn't give me permission, but you folks know what I mean: if you like what you hear, seek out the CD. (Other Allen recordings, including videotapes, are available online as well.)

The album, credited to the A.A. Allen Miracle Revival Ministries, is entitled Crying Demons and is out on the Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster Computer God label. No, it's not his label, but Allen did sell these recordings for $3 a pop until they all burned mysteriously in some warehouse fire. One of the most popular evangelists of his time, Allen is one of those people credited with the creation of the televangelist movement; as you see in his biography in the link above, there's even a Philippine connection!

Anyhow, I thought you folks might like this track -- to quote the album's subtitle, it's an "Amazing Recording[s] Of Demons Speaking Through People Who Are Possessed By Them." It doesn't matter, quite frankly, whether you believe it's a real exorcism or not -- it's both inadvertently silly and, most important, quite creepy at the same time.

The mp3 is 22 minutes long, but I've reduced the quality to mono and a low bitrate so it's a more manageable 5 megs. (The original source material was scratchy vinyl anyhow.)

Hear it. (5.04 mb)

On Christianity, Mel Gibson, and the Battle with Evil.

Barbara's pissed. She's referring to a discussion on the Flips list where one poster referred to -- and I can't remember the exact phrase -- Christian basket cases. (I had a sarcastic response to her offlist, so I may very well be one of those name-callers.) This prompted various responses, of which Barbara's measured, sober post is one.

I'm not really in any position to criticize Catholicism -- I was raised in a Protestant, United Church of Christ-affiliated household -- but I do clearly see Barbara's point. There is little room, it seems, for such a thing as the critical Filipino Catholic (or even generic Christian) to exist; the operative animal metaphor constantly used is that of sheep. (In anthropology, there is a somewhat parallel tendency to try to keep "explaining" religious behavior -- giving rise to the implication that belief in the seemingly irrational is a philosophical/cultural "problem" to begin with, without having to take religious experience very seriously.) And as someone who was quite active in the church during high school and college -- yes, Campus Crusade got their paws on me, but more about that later -- I fully recognize and understand the deep, rational significance of religion in daily life. And there's no need to remind readers of the importance of liberation theology to the progressive movement in the Philippines.

Having written that, I share Leny's concern with how Mel Gibson's film could be easily appropriated by the U.S. rightwing -- and you all know how I feel about the right. Leny writes:

Whereas it is possible to interpret the movie as a call to Christians to embark on an inner spiritual journey, they might substitute a historical event-turned-Hollywood movie, as further license to tell people to take up the cause of the religious right in the arena of politics and culture. There is a fear of the "other" – the one who is not a conservative Christian, who is not white, who is an immigrant, who is poor, who is not straight – that turns that fear into the creation of an undesirable enemy who needs to be either converted or annihilated.

Her words (which, quite honestly, sounded alarmist at first) echo in my head as I read Michael J. Brown's article for Spirit Daily entitled "Gibson Saw 'Big Dark, Palpable, Force' While Filming The Passion," forwarded to the Flips list -- and I'm afraid I can't quote it in full, and I can't find it online either -- but hopefully you folks would find it enlightening. The article begins:

This is not just the story of a movie. If it were, we wouldn't be covering it so regularly. No, this matter with Mel Gibson and The Passion of the Christ and the extraordinary hoopla is a religious event that can be classed only as major spiritual warfare.

It comes at a time when there is an infusion of grace and also a step-up in the battle with evil.

I hardly need to connect the dots for you folks to recognize the implications of that statement.

Brown peppers his essay with loaded references, calling the New York Times as "no great friend to Catholicism" and Hollywood as "the belly of the beast" -- two institutions long talked about as being "run by Jews." But Brown himself would argue that the enemy here is really none other than Satan (and his minions, who happen to be...?):

Soon, some Jewish organizations (by no means all) were screaming that in portraying the role of Jews in the Crucifixion... Gibson was acting in a way that was anti-Semitic.

Chalk that up as another spiritual attack. The hallmarks of Satan include confusion, division, fear, and the devil's specialty of false accusation.

Later he writes: "There was the unfortunate flap over whether the Pope had endorsed it. The devil used this in an effort to besmirch both the Vatican and Gibson." Brown's cold, for-us-or-against-us, no-questions-asked rhetoric is obviously reminiscent of, well, one of my Great Satans.

(Some of you may be amused by Brown's words elsewhere:

We all have gone through runs of "bad luck" -- from time to time we all find ourselves under a cloud -- and often it's difficult to discern why this occurs. Sometimes it's simply a period of testing (again, think Job!). At other times it's our own fault because we've allowed dark forces to infiltrate. This can happen when someone brings occult or pornographic books into a home, views the wrong kind of videos, dabbles in things like astrology, or associates too closely with people who are carrying darkness -- sinfulness, the demonic -- around with them. [Emphasis his.]

You'll need to see the entire article to put the quote in context, though.)

In any case, I feel no need to give any more money to Gibson. Yes, I know, I know, I haven't seen it and I should see it before I make any judgements, and it may indeed be a spiritually transcendent experience -- but I know my cash will be funding something unsavory in the long run. It's already become one of those films that one feels pressure to see precisely because discourse is already exhausted prior to its being shown. Besides, wouldn't you rather see Starsky and Hutch instead?

Your New Favorite Song.

In partial support of Grey Tuesday, here's something for you folks to listen to: DJ Danger Mouse's "Dirt off Your Shoulder."

The Grey Album isn't that great of an album. For starters, you have to be a big fan of Jay-Z's The Black Album, and while Hova's in very fine form in it, it's just not The Blueprint or Unplugged. This is basically his vocals on top of little snippets and cues from the Beatles' The Beatles, and non-hiphop fans probably won't find it intrinsically interesting.

Having written that, the samples DJ Danger Mouse utilizes are excellent: riffs from instrumental bridges, incidental background vocals -- fairly minute clips that are, on one level, completely recognizable but unfamiliar enough to be exciting. The beatjuggled guitar from "Julia" that underscores the already electrifying "Dirt off Your Shoulder" is a case in point. Danger Mouse makes the comparatively lackluster "Glass Onion" sound totally alive.

What all this oddly emphasizes is that the link between Stockhausen and pop probably wasn't truly forged in "Revolution #9" -- it's alive and well in hiphop, by way of On the Corner and later, Grandmaster Flash.

Hear it.

Save The CSU.

At noon today I'm going to a big Save EOP rally on campus -- for those of you familiar with the California fiscal crisis, Gov. Schwarzenegger's most recent budget proposal, which comes as cuts on top of a whole series of previous cuts, will be hitting the Cal State system very, very hard.

Educational Opportunity Programs are absolutely critical to outreach and providing higher education to low-income students -- many of whom come from first-generation immigrant and refugee families -- and the total 2004-2005 reductions (about $240 million) has led to the proposed elimination of EOP.

At SFSU, the Career Center, Student Health Counseling and Psychological Services, including other so-called academic preparation programs, will be totally wiped out unless the students actually vote in a referendum to voluntarily raise their student fees. All in all, this will be the third fee increase in two years -- making it an increase of 58% for undergraduates and a whopping 110% for graduate students. (I'm also on the Library Advisory Committee, and the library is undergoing a serials review, in consultation with all the departments and programs, to figure out which journals and magazines have lower priority in terms of teacher/student needs.)

The problem is that it gets much, much worse. Ten percent (or 4,200) of incoming CSU freshmen will be turned away and "voluntarily" asked to attend community college instead. In what should be an utter union scandal, lecturers -- my friends and colleagues -- will simply have to be laid off! The impact on the students will be worse than they think: 194 class sections were already cut in 2002-2003, and the proposed budget will mean 575 more cut classes.

I already have to turn away maybe a dozen students for each section I teach -- not because I cannot handle over 50-55 students per class, but because the students simply won't fit. I've taught classes before where students had to take their midterms sitting on the floor -- and this after the University, in an attempt to increase class size, physically crammed more chairs into the rooms until Public Safety hollered that it was a fire hazard!

There is no way one can deliver quality education, without TAs, to classes over 40 -- and that's already way too much for most universities out there! -- and I am simply not willing to change my essay-based exams to multiple-choice ones. Class discussions are difficult enough to coordinate without having to deal with students sitting on the floor. As if the student fee hikes weren't bad enough -- and an overwhelming majority of my students, both in Asian American Studies and in Anthropology, work part-time or even full-time -- the cancelled sections will mean that students can't graduate on time because they can't get the units.

I cannot even begin to express how angry all this makes me.

This is why a coalition of teachers, students and staff -- in conjunction with the CFA -- is spearheading a campaign called Save The CSU. See also www.protestfeehikes.org for more information. (I'll be posting more on this subject from time to time as well.)

Leny Strobel's Passion.

Leny -- forgive me for the title -- has a great, great post on why she's not watching Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ.

I'm still a bit speechless; our religious experiences have some scary similarities, so now I'm inspired to write something as well -- but I know it won't be as well-written as Leny's.

"History Lesions."

Thanks to Jesse from turkeydinner.net, here's an article by Red Constantino on AlterNet where he succinctly spells it all out for you: the Philippines, Vietnam, Iraq. It's entitled "History Lesions" and well worth reading -- and even if it's all old news to you, pass the link on.

He also has a blog which seems to be spread out among various blogspot sites, but here's the main link to Red Constantino.

First Contact.

On this same night, 50 years ago, President Dwight Eisenhower mysteriously disappeared; a quickly retracted Associated Press article initially reported that he had died of a heart attack.

It turns out that he had chipped a tooth from eating a chicken wing, and had to be taken to a dentist -- or so he and his handlers claimed.

Michael Salla believes otherwise.

Musical Ramblings.

Too swamped -- back from Disneyland to face my three classes and a couple of proposals and more (and cleaning out the freezer) -- to write anything very substantive today. At least Izzy will always have fond memories of the Dumbo the Flying Elephant ride.

Is anyone heartened by the fact that there finally seems to be a critical (and commercial) agreement of sorts at the Grammys, who have always been notoriously unreliable? (I'm referring to Outkast's album voted as Album of the Year, by both the Grammys and The Village Voice, among many others.)

And is anyone else rooting for another critical and commercial success to win Best Picture at the notoriously unreliable Oscars? (I'm referring to ROTK, of course, and its Oscar will no doubt be in recognition of the entire trilogy -- but Clint will win Best Director, unless Sofia pulls an upset.)

And did you folks love the way Timbaland raved about the O Brother, Where Art Thou? soundtrack in the New York Times Sunday Magazine from a couple weeks back? "Coldplay and Radiohead are the illest groups to me." (Though he could have given a little credit to Chad Hugo -- it's the Neptunes, Tim...)

And I thought I'd plug an album sure to be on my best of 2004 -- and it's only February! -- Kanye West's The College Dropout. Amazing. Go out and get it now.

Field Costumes of Bontoc Igorrote Women, Philippines.

This woman "in working dress," is described by Dean Worcester (Secretary of the Interior of the Philippine Islands) as "suggestive of the style prevalent in the days of Eve." The photograph was taken either by Worcester or Charles Martin for the Bureau of Science.

Such photographs taken for the ethnological archive were later commercially reproduced in National Geographic (see the November 1913 issue for the same photograph, cropped and hand-tinted), or, as we see above, as a divided back postcard from 1910, sent to a Mr. Percy Breece of Delaware.

(Click on the images for a bigger version, then turn your head to the right to read the back.)

One not only sees, in the example above, the generation of ethnological types that legitimated the fiction of colonial "tribal" categories. It is also an interesting blurring of photographs made for anthropological analysis and public, indeed, prurient consumption -- a mixture of scientific rigor and commodified entertainment similar to that of the Philippine Reservation at the St. Louis World's Fair.

Your New Favorite Song.

A couple of days ago on the United flight back to SF they showed a video featuring a rather lovely-looking folk/country singer named Mindy Smith. The song was an uninspired, polite cover of Dolly Parton's "Jolene." Presumably it had her imprimatur, as it had (the even lovelier) Dolly at the beginning and end of the video, writing the lyrics into a book. (Later I discovered that it came from an all-Parton covers album by Smith.)

This had the unfortunate effect of reminding the viewer how much better the original was; this new, bland version was sung with little feeling, making it perfect as a soundtrack to sipping your latte.

In contrast, I'm offering as Your New Favorite Song the way a cover of "Jolene" should be done: gritty, a little sloppy, and slightly emotionally overwrought. And even if you don't like the White Stripes, you have to agree that this kicks ass.

Hear it. (4.11 mb)

NYC-Related Ramble.

Just came back from New York (only to realize, as I browsed through a copy of Time Out New York, that I was missing Eileen's reading the very day I was leaving). It was raining in NY (and sleeting up in Ithaca), but no matter; I ended up walking in the freezing rain to make my usual pilgrimage -- no, not to Cendrillon, but to the Dakota and Strawberry Fields.

I was invited to give a talk at a terrific symposium at Columbia organized by Coco Fusco called "Visualizing Race in American Photography" -- yeah, there I was all starstruck with all those bigshots! And if you don't live in NY or Seattle, the accompanying website and exhibition catalog would be the next best thing -- though it inevitably pales in comparison.

A photograph of Bennie Flores Ansell's piece "The Collection Box, Morpho Stiletto" doesn't do it much justice; one should really see the inkjet transparencies of shoes, in the shape of butterflies, pinned inside a box, to experience its fragile yet creepy tactile quality. I met the artist at the show and we had a nice chat about our respective obsessions about Imelda Marcos -- anyhow, I highly recommend checking out her website, where she has a mini-gallery and a discussion of "the interface of the values of beauty, identity and gender classification." (We talked about the possibility of some conference thingie, or at least more scholarly and artistic work -- hey, maybe I'll do another one of those mini blog parties! -- on Imelda. Anyone interested in answering a call for blog papers?)

Anyhow, it seems I'm missing out on a "po(e)tluck and literary feast" at Pusod this weekend; I'm kicking myself (no, really) as I have to be in Disneyland for Madeline's cousin's wedding. (Yes, really.) I think the bride actually comes out of a pumpkin-shaped carriage. And part of the contract is that Mickey and Minnie have to dance during the bride and groom's first dance. (Yes, really!)

So I've been praying, please, oh god, let Donald Duck pronounce them man and wife. That would totally make my weekend.

So you Bay Area folks: eat my share of adobo.

Oops!

And yes, there was a Filipino connected to that boob:

In an interview posted on MTV.com in the days before the show, Jackson's choreographer, Gil Duldulao, talked about the show, saying: "She's more stylized, she's more feminine, she's more a woman as she dances this time around. There are some shocking moments in there too."

It was apparently a "wardrobe malfunction."