The Wily Filipino

The Concert Mix.

Some of my favorite tracks by these artists, all uploaded for you in a "concert mix." You Bay Area folks are going, right?

*****
1. The Album Leaf, "Another Day (Revisited)," from In a Safe Place (2004)
2. Under Byen, "Byen Driver," from Det er mig der holder traerne sammen (2002)

Saturday 30 June 2007
The Album Leaf
with Under Byen / Arthur & Yu
@ Slim's

*****
3. Battles, "ipt2," from EP C/B EP (2006)

Monday 2 July 2007
Battles
with Ponytail
@ Slim's

*****
4. SUNN O)))'s "0))) Bow 1," from Flight of the Behemoth (2002)

(Sorry -- encoded at 128 kbps because Box.net wouldn't allow a file over 10 mb.)

Wednesday 4 July 2007
Sunn O)))
with Earth / Wolves in the Throne Room / Weedeater
@ The Independent

Not my favorite SUNN O))) track (that would probably be something like "Bassaliens"), but everything else was over 12 minutes long.

*****
5. The Psychedelic Furs' "Pretty in Pink," from The Psychedelic Furs (1980)
6. The Fixx's "Secret Separation," from Walkabout (1986)

Sunday 15 July 2007
The Psychedelic Furs
with The Fixx / The Alarm
@ Mezzanine

*****
7. The Polyphonic Spree's "Section 9 (Light & Day / Reach For The Sun," from The Beginning Stages of the Polyphonic Spree (2002)

Tuesday 17 July 2007
The Polyphonic Spree
with Jesca Hoop
@ The Great American Music Hall

*****
8. Sonic Youth's "Teen Age Riot," from Daydream Nation (1988)

Thursday 19 July 2007
Sonic Youth
@ Berkeley Community Theatre

They're playing the entire album from start to finish.

*****
9. Slint's "Good Morning, Captain," from Spiderland (1991)

(Sorry -- encoded at 128 kbps because Box.net wouldn't allow a file over 10 mb.)

Sunday 22 July 2007
Slint
with Phantom Family Halo
@ Bimbo's

They're playing the entire album from start to finish too!

*****
10. The Smashing Pumpkins' "Glynis," from the No Alternative compilation (1993)

Tuesday 31 July 2007
The Smashing Pumpkins
@ The Fillmore

*****
11. Pelican's "Red Ran Amber," from The Fire In Our Throats Will Beckon The Thaw (2005)

(Sorry -- encoded at a horrible 112 kbps because Box.net wouldn't allow a file over 10 mb.)

Sunday 12 August 2007
Pelican
with Clouds / 400 Blows / Gargantula
@ The Great American Music Hall

*****
12. Wing's "For All We Know," from Wing Sings The Carpenters (2003)

Tuesday 21 August 2007
Wing
@ Cafe Du Nord

Plus Wing wrote to tell me: "please inform all my fans as many as possible since i come so far and spend so much money wich i don,t care. i just want to greet all my fans in sanfran. my first visit." I asked if there were any other concert dates in other cities and she wrote: "i just doing one singing for sanfransico only.see how my fans like me. i,ll come back very soon if all my fans want me." That means you.

*****
13. Midlake's "Van Occupanther," from The Trials of Van Occupanther (2006)

Thursday 27 September 2007
Midlake
@ The Great American Music Hall

The House I Grew Up In.

It's only been in the last year or so that I became interested in what houses looked like. Since then I've had more appreciation for the house I grew up in -- therefore, this guided tour of sorts. (I'm extremely lucky in retrospect to have parents with great aesthetic sense!)

The house was designed by --- [name later, sorry] according to specifications from my folks -- the result of stacks of clippings of architectural magazines -- and construction finished in late 1971.

This is a shot of the "back" of the house (the front door is reserved for visitors). It's actually the first thing you see when you walk up the driveway though.

This is a view of the veranda on the south side of the house. There are stairs on the other side, but everyone used this anyway, so the millstone was placed there belatedly to facilitate climbing over.

More of the west side of the house. (The windows you see are in the kitchen and TV room.)

The east side of the house. (The screened windows are in the living room.)

A view of the veranda on the east side of the house. The sliding door is to my parents' bedroom -- another concession to opening up the house to the garden, but unused for reasons I'll explain later.

Steps in the back in better detail -- those are millstones.

And here's the front door. (Sorry, I forgot to remove the guard railings to keep the dogs out!) The veranda runs all the way around the bedroom part of the house.

A sarimanok stands guard outside.

The same shot, from the opposite direction.

More of the front door. I'm not sure if the previous owner of the antique gallinera actually used to have chickens underneath the seat. The lamps are from a kalesa. That capiz-shell motif repeats throughout the house.

The foyer, kind of (as seen from the hallway). The religious icons are all antique (as are the fire extinguishers). The door -- as is the floor and the dining table -- is made of narra. It's endangered now, but not back in 1971!

A shot of the interior, looking south, as seen from the dining room. Apparently back in the day my folks would host poetry readings, guitar recitals, etc. in the sunken living room. (Usually there'd be big plants inside the house, but just not today.)

A shot of the interior, looking north, as seen from the living room. You can see the dining room, and the kitchen beyond.

More of the living room.

I love the way the screened windows completely fill the living room with light and different shades of green. The rattan furniture is custom-made. (The swing is a real kiddie magnet; I've read many a book in it.) The wood panels are opened in the morning and closed at night (a rather tedious process actually).

Pictures of the garden through the screen windows.

Close up of the furniture and the floor. Those are pretty big slabs of wood there.

More shots of the living room.

The dining room, where my dad is working. (I spent late nights writing my undergraduate thesis in longhand on F. Sionil Jose on that very same table.) Yes, that's one huge slab of narra wood, stained in a different color to contrast with the narra floors.

The TV room (usually filled with junk, and therefore politely hidden from view by the capiz-shell columns) and the kitchen. Our first Radiowealth color TV -- I won it in a nationwide raffle from Klim, after Eddie Mercado pulled out my name from a tambiolo during an episode of Spin-a-Win -- which came encased in ugly wood paneling to make it look like furniture, though no one could have mistaken it for anything else, lived in the TV room.

Our kitchen is pretty functional (that's my mom cooking), but there are always nice little touches like the twigs with little seashells glued onto them.)

And now outside: this is looking toward the driveway entrance.

Plus shots of the garden (that's all my dad's landscaping designs).

I think that it's an aesthetically beautiful house (and I hope you agree). It's not the best-designed house, though: despite the many screened windows, the house traps a lot of heat, so it's not fun to sit in the living room in the summer. (The bedrooms are air-conditioned though.)

The architect's original plan was to have the front door section extend out to the garden as a patio (and therefore making it more open to the outdoors). But this was nixed for the very reason that the sliding doors in my parents' bedroom, or the front door, are never left open -- the breeze, so needed during tropical weather, sucks all the mosquitoes into the house.

The bedrooms are also tiny in comparison, since the floor plan is mostly given over to the "entertaining guests" section. At least my parents have this large walk-in closet, but my brother and I shared a tiny bedroom as teenagers. (My sister had to share her also small bedroom with our books.)

There are two bathrooms, one of which is essentially decorative in function, and so (at its peak, particularly if Izzy's mom and I and and Happy and Clarissa were visiting) seven adults and two children would be queueing up in the one bathroom with a shower.

Otherwise I think it's a damn fine house.

I Can't Believe I Was Just Here.

Two Movies With Nothing To Do With Each Other #2.

There's no meat in Juan Carlos Fresnadillo's 28 Weeks Later -- well, there's a lot of it, actually (chewed up, mangled by helicopter blade, torn to shreds by machine gun fire, incinerated by flame thrower) but the stripped-down narrative is strictly about getting people from Point A to Point B and wondering which member of the team gets eaten alive in the process. I think I'm all alone in giving this a must-see recommendation (fans and critics both hated it, probably because it jettisons the political allegory of Danny Boyle's first film), but the action sequences have an appealing, telegraphic visual style to them that reminds me of the ending of Richard Linklater's Slacker: throw a running camera in the air and see what gets caught on film.

Auraeus Solito's Tuli is a disappointment coming after the heels of his brilliant debut Ang Pagdadalaga ni Maximo Oliveros. But it's a very good sophomore slump nonetheless: a town circumciser (played by Bembol Roco, who I haven't seen on the big screen in ages), his daughter, and her best friend, and the relationship between the three. (The copy I saw at the SF Film Fest, probably not really meant to be projected on a huge screen, was in not-so-great DV.) The screenplay is a little schematic in the way it sets up indigenous traditions versus Catholic practices (and the enforcement of morality wielded by the latter) -- quite in contrast to the slowly-unfolding, delicious ambiguities of Solito's first film.

Two Movies With Nothing To Do With Each Other #1.

I stopped calling movies slow a long time ago, but Ato Bautista's Blackout is sloooow. A psychological thriller about an alcoholic landlord (nicely played by Robin Padilla, complete with greasy hair and ugly glasses) prone to blackouts, the film could use faster pacing to communicate the main character's rising panic -- either that, or the turgidity is meant to represent Padilla's alcohol-addled mind. In any case, it's a bit of a slog, and Bautista squanders the opportunity to mess with the audience's heads: there's some promising scenery-fiddling early in the film that I thought would lead to a good "Can You Spot the Difference?" game, but unfortunately not. Instead we get a more conventional "Is This Alcoholic Delirium, Or Is This Really Happening?"

Lee Yoon-Ki's Ad Lib Night was easily the best film I'd seen at the San Francisco International Film Festival (after Pedro Costa's Colossal Youth). It's a rather moving character study, but I was caught off guard by the initial almost-comic premise: a young woman is stopped in the street by two strange men who ask her to do a favor -- pretend to be the estranged daughter of an old man at his deathbed. Surprisingly, she agrees, and off the film goes, as it segues imperceptibly from an emphasis on the impenetrable protagonist to the harder work of familial mourning and squabbling.

The Nacho Libre and Esqueleto Traveling Roadshow Part Two!

This is actually earlier than our Ateneo gig (which is later the same afternoon at 4:30). Seriously though, any readers of this blog in the area are welcome. No cover charge, no one drink minimum!

-----
You are cordially invited to a lecture by visiting scholars
Dr. Benito M. Vergara, Jr. and Dr. Francisco Benitez

June 14, 2007 at 2:30pm (SHARP!)
College of Mass Communication
Plaridel Hall, University of the Philippines, Diliman
Room 201

Same details as below.

Eksena.

Tagpuan: David's Salon, sa tabihan nang parkingan sa ilalim nang Robinson's sa Los Banos. Alas-onse nang umaga.

Tauhan: Jem, isang batang lalaking walang kibo na taga-shampoo at tagakuha nang sopdrink; Evelyn, isang customer; Sonia, isang maliit at buntis na hairdresser; Jaylord, isa ring hairdresser na puro itim ang suot.

Malakas ang aircon sa loob, sa awa nang diyos. Hindi mo marinig ang ingay nang mga batang naglalaro nang Ragnarok sa tindahan sa harap. Sa loob nang parlor malalanghap mo ang iba't-ibang amoy nang kemikal at shampoo. Pati na rin ang nasusunog na plastik.

"Eh biruin mo ba namang anim na oras yung rebonding. Eh magsasara na, sila na lang ang hinihintay," kuwento ni Sonia. Si Sonia ay buntis at mukhang malapit nang manganak, dahil parang bumagsak na ang batang pababa sa kanyang tiyan.

"Paano kasi iba-iba technique nang tao," paliwanag ni Jaylord. Kasalukuyan niyang ginugupitan si Evelyn. Mukhang malapit nang silang matapos. Hanggang balikat ang buhok ni Jaylord. Naka-itim siya na polo at itim na maong na parang binaston sa may paanan.

"Puede ba naman iyon, anim na oras? E di dinugo nang hindi oras yung customer?" tanong ni Sonia. Ubod nang bilis ang kamay niya sa paggupit sa akin.

"Ikaw ba, anim na oras magrebonding?" tanong ni Evelyn, sabay tingala kay Jaylord.

"Hoy Evelyn, hindi ha?" sagot ni Jaylord. Kinuha niya ang hair dryer. Mas magaling naman ako kay PJ.

Tawa si Evelyn at si Sonia. "Ang galing mong manira, wala lang dito si PJ," sabi ni Sonia. Tawa rin si Jem.

"Hmmph," sabi ni Jaylord habang sumimangot. Binuksan niya ang hair dryer sabay tinikwas ang kanyang buhok. Madalas niyang ginagawa ito.

"Hoy, iyan yung nangangamoy!" sigaw ni Sonia. Unti-unti kaming nakaamoy nang nasusunog na plastik. "Natakot yung isang customer kahapon noong ginamit ko."

"Ginagalaw ninyo kasi," sabi ni Jaylord. Tinigal niya ang pagboblowdry at inilipat niya ito sa ibang outlet. "Ako lang ang hahawak nito," sabi niyang bilang babala sa mga katrabaho niya.

"Sasabog iyan," sabi ni Sonia. "Hindi mo ba naaamoy?" Lumalakas na ang amoy nang nasusunog sa loob nang salon.

"Hindi 'to sasabog," sabi ni Jaylord. "Paano kasi, pag tumatama sa kahoy, nag-pipeedback yung init sa loob noong dryer kaya dalawang klaseng init yung nagsasama sa loob. Kailangan patakbuhin muna nang matagal para mawala ang amoy."

Medyo natahimik ang tropa sa loob nang salon. "Nagsalita ang expert," sabi ni Sonia makatapos nang ilang segundo. Umaandar pa rin ang hair dryer.

"Hoy! Dalawa anak ni Eb!" sigaw ni Sonia. Hindi ito narinig ni Jaylord, dahil nakayuko siya sa hair dryer at inaamoy ang likod noong makina.

"Putaragis ka!" sigaw rin ni Ev. Pero nakatawa siya. "Hayaan mo munang manganak si Sonia!"

Nakangiti lang si Jem, pero mukhang kinakabahan siya at katabi lang niya si Jaylord at ang hair dryer.

"Hindi 'to sasabog," inulit ni Jaylord. Nilakasan niya ang setting nang hair dryer. Mas umingay sa loob nang salon.

"Ano ba naman, Jaylord!" Bumunot bigla nang suklay si Sonia sa tabi nang lalagyan malapit sa mga bulaklak na plastik at inihagis kay Jaylord. "Itigil mo na 'yan!"

"Hindi 'to sasabog sinabi, eh." Kalmado si Jaylord na inaamoy-amoy yung hair dryer. Medyo lumayo na si Jem. Ako tumitingin-tingin na rin sa pintuan kung saka-sakaling kailangan akong umisplit bigla.

"O, ayan, wala nang amoy." Matagumpay na pinakita niya ang hair dryer. Baka nga lang nasanay na kami sa amoy nang nasusunog na hair dryer, pero tunay ngang hindi na naming maamoy.

"Oo nga, ano?" Mukhang medyo hanga si Sonia.

"Mga wala kasi kayong tiwala sa akin, eh," sabi ni Jaylord. "Mga walang tiwala."

Tinaas niya ang isang kamay na hawak ang hair dryer. "Trust in Jaylord," sabi niya. Tumalikod siya at umexit.

The Kiko and Sunny Wrestling Tag Team!

Seriously though -- any readers in the area are all invited (I can personally vouch for the brilliance of Kiko's paper):

Filipino Department
Ateneo de Manila University

invites you

to the lectures of
Dr. Benito Vergara, Jr. and Dr. Francisco Benitez

June 14, Thursday
430 pm
Faura Audio Visual Room

Filipinos can imitate any sound:
Improvisation. Karaoke, and the Labor of Filipino Overseas Musicians

Benito M. Vergara, Jr. , Ph.D
San Francisco State University

In 2003, over 58,000 Filipinos were scattered worldwide in nightclubs and hotel lounges; however, the majority of people who migrate as Overseas Performing Artists (OPA) travel to work in Japan. OPA is, in this instance, a euphemistic, bureaucratic category that denotes the sex trade, and comprises the crucial distinction between Filipinos working in Japan and those elsewhere working as more professional musicians.

Vergara argues that the practices of performance and improvisation, both as musical activities and as metaphors of everyday migrant life link both kinds of OPAs. OPA returnees constantly spoke of a spontaneous and natural Filipino ability to imitate, especially through karaoke. This imitative performance, however, did not allow for musical improvisation; they were limited to learning and mimicking particular idioms from a globally shared musical repertoire. Such practices parallel the relationship between the state and individual. One can see performance and improvisation as strategies utilized to compete with restrictive migration policies , to evade state surveillance, or, more ordinarily, to resist drunken customers. As an economic strategy, migration also exemplifies a kind of adaptability, despite exploitative government policies of migrant labor.

Transnational Desire
in Star Cinema's Kailangan Kita and Milan

Francisco Benitez, Ph.D.
University of Washington

By looking at 2 specific films, this paper attempts an initial exploration into how commercial cinema in the Philippines mediates the affective and emotional labor required to maintain the flows of migration from the Philippines. This exploration suggests that these commercial films imagine a neoliberal mobile subject where the individual is not just the enterprise but the entrepreneur of him or herself, and does so in a manner that sutures desires for social mobility to transnational labor markets.

Francisco Kiko Benitez is assistant professor in Comparative Literature at the University of Washington where he teaches courses on colonial and postcolonial literature and theory, Asian American and diasporic literature, and Southeast Asian Film and Literature. He received his PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, and his BA from Cornell University where he graduated with top honors.

Benito M. Vergara, Jr. is an assistant professor in Asian American Studies/Anthropology at San Francisco State University. He obtained his MA and PhD in Anthropology and MA in Asian Studies at Cornell University. He is the author of Displaying Filipinos, published by University of the Philippines Press.

-----
General Programme

Welcome Address
Benilda S. Santos, Ph.D.
Dean, School of Humanities

Introduction
Rolando B. Tolentino, Ph.D.
Filipino Department

Filipinos can imitate any sound:
Improvisation. Karaoke, and the Labor of Filipino Overseas Musicians
Benito Vergara, Jr., Ph.D.

Transnational Desire in Star Cinema's Kailangan Kita and Milan
Francisco Benitez, Ph.D.

Open Forum

Closing Remarks
Christine Bellen
Acting Chair, Filipino Department

Up Dharma Down / The Dawn / Taken By Cars / Paramita, saGuijo, Makati, 6/7/07.

I've only been dreaming about this for two years: to see Up dharma Down in concert. (First it was waiting for their first album to be released.) And my wish finally came true last night after seeing them at SaGuijo after travelling almost 7,000 miles. (There were about five bands who played -- Ruthie had warned me that club gigs usually didn't have headliners, but had bands play short sets one after the other -- but for me the evening was all about Up Dharma Down.)

Our group (earlier it included my brother and most of Eloise's siblings and their partners) arrived at saGuijo an hour after the concert was supposed to start (key locked inside the ignition, then driving up and down trying to find the venue, then the folks at the door had no change). But we made it in, thank goodness -- and there they were, the best goddamn band in the entire archipelago playing only a few feet in front of me. We may have missed the first or second song, but came in just before they started playing my favorite UdD song ("We Give In Sometimes"). Totally. Freaking. Awesome. Then they played a fantastic "Sleepwalk," and another song for an (unreleased?) movie soundtrack (Armi said she couldn't even find it on LimeWire or Soulseek). But just hearing them play "We Give In Sometimes" was enough. I was done for the year.

The Dawn played next -- perfect, in a way, because they were the very first band I've ever seen play live. (The late Teddy Diaz was still the lead guitarist at that point.) They were in excellent form, with Jett (in a Misfits T-shirt) sounding much like he did back in 1986, and the obligatory Carlos drum solo. Plus they played songs I hadn't heard in probably two decades: "Love Will Set Us Free" and "Living Seed."

(Taken By Cars and Paramita are going to blow up soon; keep an eye out for their albums. Taken By Cars' debut album will be out in July or August.)

I should also put in a good word for saGuijo: the place is tiny -- it's literally the living room of a house -- and so the musicians are always only a few feet away from you. There isn't a bad seat in the place, unless you're by the bar -- even if you’re outside you can see them through the window -- and you can sit on the floor up front, which is fine too. Beers are P50 (the first one is P10), and the sisig was outstanding. If I lived nearby I'd be here every night.

Blurry pictures here.

Campaign Against Atrocious Music.

Radioactive Sago Project's Lourd de Veyra, in a Pulp interview:

I... listen to everything from Basil Valdez to Justin Timberlake. Anything except the kind of emo-metal crap and today's nauseating brand of pop-rock -- it's just enough to chip away at one's sense of tolerance. I know it sounds bigoted but we must urgently engage in affirmative action against atrocious music. All the evils of the world can be traced to bad songs. Bad songs cause mental pollution, which can lead to social injustice, disrupted traffic systems, terrorism, environmental degradation, government corruption, and Kris Aquino.

The title of the Project's new album is Tangina Mo Andaming Nagututom Sa Mundo Fashionista Ka Pa Rin.