The Easter Egg Speaks

This is the link to the video. Lifted the original text from ANC 24/7 facebook page. Side comments enclosed in parenthetical remarks. Also try reading the naked emperor's 7 last words here. See? If we are all Christs, then this rotten egg is Pontius Pilate. Or Herod. Or any statist power that condemns us into calvary, washes his hands clean and tells us to unite for the common good--which is, needless to say, the common good of their class. Would saying that his apologists are the pharisees make sense? Before the yellow king's rhetorics, I'd like to quote Sir Gerry Lanuza: "God as the supreme Tyrant who plays cruel superego games with us, demanding payment for our sins, etc., is Satan himself. The legalistic reading of the Crucifixion that sees it as Christ paying the price exacted by the justice of the cruel Father is the “Satanic reading” to be opposed to non-Satanic reading: Jesus is put to death not by his father, but by the State."

(Bago mo simulan, sasabihin ko na ngayon pa lang na bargas ang post na ito. Huwag asahang magpapa-academic ako o anumang parang ganoon. Okay? Apir.)

"Kaisa po ako ng sambayanang Pilipino sa pagdiriwang nang pagbangon ng Panginoon mula sa kamatayan, nang tubusin Niya ang sangkatauhan sa kasalanan.

(Kaisa siya o! Digs? Joke lang. Pero, okay ha. Pa-messiah ka sa issue ng RH Bill. Kahit ma-excommunicate and shit. Feeling ko, roleplaying lang yan! Pero, feeling ko lang naman yun. Tsaka hindi naman ito baseless. Kahit sino namang naghuhudas sa mga constituents eh ginagamit ang Panginoon mara mag-appeal sa mga pinamumunuan o inaakala niyang pinamumunuan niya. AT, tubusin mo mukha mo.)

"Sa pagwawakas ng Semana Santa, hindi sana magtapos dito ang ating taimtim na pananalig sa Panginoon. Ipagpatuloy natin ang pagtupad sa Kaniyang mga aral at lalo pa nating paigtingin ang ating pagkakawanggawa.

(Sana rin lang, kahit hindi Semana Santa, taimtim ang pananalig mo sa Panginoon. AT ikaw ang magpatupad ng Kaniyang mga aral. Alalahanin mong bukod sa pakikipamuhay sa mga latak ng lipunan, tinuligsa din ni Kristo ang mga Pariseo at ang iba pang ipokritong gusto daw mailigtas ang kaluluwa ng mga tao pero ang ginagawa lang naman e panatilihin ang impluwensya nila. Therefore, tuligsain mo rin ang sarili mo!)

"Ito ang unang Pasko ng Pagkabuhay na ipinagdiriwang ng ating bagong administrasyon. Gaano man kadilim ang kabanatang ating dinaanan, ang pagsusulong ng tapat at mabuting pamamahala, kaakibat ang matibay na pagtitiwala at pagkakaisa, ang pundasyon natin upang malampasan ang kalbaryong ating dinatnan.

(Zzzzzz... May sinasabi ka? Eto, kalbaryo. Nagpapasaring ka na naman sa madilim na nakaraan, ha. Naipakulong mo na ba sina Arroyo? Eh yung mga Ampatuan? Eh yung paglilibing kay Marcos--na dumeadshit sa ama mo--sa libingan ng mga bayani? Eh yung mga namatay na journalist at advocates ng human rights at maging ng kalikasan? Eh yung mining sa iba't ibang panig ng bansa na nakakahasel sa mga katutubo, at di magtatagal eh eepekto nang malupet sa buong bansa? Tingin mo, may tiwala pa sa yo ang mamamayan? Just asking!)

"Patuloy nating alalahanin ang tunay na diwa ng Kaniyang dakilang sakripisyo. Bawat isa sa atin ay may maiaambag sa pagtuldok sa katiwalian upang maisalba sa hirap at pasakit ang marami nating kababayan. Sa pamamagitan lamang nito, mararamdaman ng bawat Pilipino ang tunay na liwanag ng pagbabago.

(Alalahanin mo ang tunay na diwa ng sakripisyo. AT, liwanag ng pagbabago mo mukha mo. Ang mga pinaka-recent na pagbabago? Wala. Walang mabuti. Palala. Latest na mga balita na lang! Dito sa bulatlat. Labor issue. Media killings. At environmental. Siyempre, sa pinoyweekly din meron. Oil price hike. Balikatan exercises. At mining. More mining.)

"Isang mapayapa at mapagpalang pagdiriwang ng Pasko ng Pagkabuhay sa ating lahat."

(Ayan, andami nang nabuhay na isyu ngayong linggo ng pagkabuhay. Payapa? Walang ceasefire, ata? Kahit anniv nila? Tama ba? Kaya mister president, ceasefire mo mukha mo. Ayusin mo muna ang mga isyung matagal naman nang buhay. Init init, nagpapainit ka pa ng ulo sa mga shit mo. Piprituhin ka ng taong bayan sa mayo uno. Happy easter. PS pala, AFP. Gasgas na gasgas na yung pamagat ng concert na "Himigsikan." Try something else nextime!)

After Three Days We Shall Rise

An inquiry: Why does Sabado de Gloria translate to Black Saturday and vice versa? That is not what this piece is all about. Just a random question. As random as anything else you can think of. Now.

I am uncertain of what I want to say and I do not even know what this piece is all about. To you or anyone who would come across this fragment of the cyberspace that exists nowhere you can drop by.

I am only certain that three days from now, after this holiday recluse, we shall rise and siege the stage to show them what we have learned.

(War drums beat. I am unsure though whether they strike at or from within my ribcage.)

Resurrected Art Enthusiasm

On The Critical Attitude by Bertolt Brecht

The critical attitude

Strikes many people as unfruitful

That is because they find the state

Impervious to their criticism

But what in this case is an unfruitful attitude

Is merely a feeble attitude. Give criticism arms

And states can be demolished by it.

Canalising a river

Grafting a fruit tree

Educating a person

Transforming a state

These are instances of fruitful criticism

And at the same time instances of art.

It is not easter Sunday yet and if I am not mistaken, Jesus is about to die after couples of hours, but I would want to share something today and celebrate this good Friday by posting a blog entry. (There should have been another blog post prior to this one because April Fools' Day is over--I've talk to people about this though there are still problems with the unearthing process and its repercussions--and I have found truths that lead into this return to whatever I am returning to.) But I'd keep the sharing short. After dealing with the most crucial hinge of the release from the deep shit that held me captive for almost three months, I've spent a week far away from home. Again. And it helped a lot, but it could have been a better experience if I tried talking with people more. And if *on second thought, I'd rather not elaborate*

As I have expected, the week-long cultural caravan and the Mangyan day, like most activities that expose one to social realities, shattered my established notions and placed question marks and exclamation points with what I had initially planned. This disruption of the direction I thought I would take is, I think, healthy--since contradictions such as internal conflicts cause progress within the space where the thesis and the antithesis collided. This spark of the need to reconsider--or even rectify?--my truths was followed then by questions leading into my rethinking of my poetics. Thus the exchanges of ideas re: writing with friends and writers, ie both by interactive communication and by reading essays and even poems of writers I consider literary models. Glad to have friends who can engage in critical discourse and all the profundities and pretensions and philosophizing that comes with it.

"(...), if either Foucault of Althusser’s theories of power and subjectivity have even grain of truth to them and we are all always already subjects, then counter-hegemonic cultural production must inevitably proceed from within the bounds of that subjectivity. Thus, the Romantic view of the artist as standing aloof from socio-political reality must be seen as a myth, most likely as a product and effect of that very reality the artist is said to escape."

Althusser and Foucault on the Limits of Ideology by Phil Tomson

Realizing that there are still a whole lot of art shit that need to be done and possibilities to be explored and questions not just to be answered but to be asked first, I again felt the urge to involve my self in the creative process rejuvenated. And now, my pen and my notebooks are not in vacation anymore. (Or so I thought!) Three months of rest is--not enough but--too much already. Now, I have to work with what I have (yes, I wasn't totally idle during those three dead months!): fragments that need to be put together to make a whole. And I am not alone in putting these pieces together--the social ills and my personal demons are there to help me conceive ideas and put them into a somewhat decipherable form.

With the re-discovered bliss of writing after that phase when I forgot who I was and I was not being my self and I kept both eyes fixed, neither on the commercial market nor the avant-garde coterie, but on the what-should-have-beens, I am back from the void, ready to tell stories about the monsters in the abyss I created. See? I thought I'd keep this entry short. And I failed. A good sign, I believe.

"Only this: if you are writing without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half a writer. It means you are so busy keeping one eye on the commercial market, or one ear peeled for the avant-garde coterie, that you are not being yourself. You don't even know yourself."

Zen in the Art of Writing by Ray Bradbury

PS! Happy Earth Day! Fvck Mining! Save the Earth! Serve the (Indigenous) People!

Kritika Kultura Omnibus + QBCCC panel

Check out the omnibus pdf of the first issue of the Kritika Kultura Anthology of New Philippine Writing in English. Download it here. More KK info and links here. Pasasalamat ulit sa editors Mark Cayanan, Conchitina Cruz at Adam David.

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To whom it may concern, I have recently changed my email address to tilde.acuna@gmail.com and I have (temporarily?) restored my FB account. I will try to access other email accounts from time to time, but to be sure, please send your concerns to the aforementioned email address. To collaborators and clients (naks, amfeeling!), I am still working on things. Please do bear with me. Thank you.

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For an illusion of productivity, here's a panel from my contribution titled "PSR:5MMiRV" to the Quarterly Bathroom Companion Comics Compendium Vol. 1. I shall publish the whole three-page silent komiks online soon. Maybe. See the link to the tumblr acct of QBCCC at the carcasses tab because I am too lazy to link. Salamat kina Josel Nicolas, DJ Legaspi at Mervin Malonzo.: