Now/here no/where woman

Walt Whitman wrote: I AM THE POET I am the poet of reality I say the earth is not an echo Nor man an apparition; But that all the things seen are real, The witness and albic dawn of things equally real I have split the earth and the hard coal and rocks and the solid bed of the sea And went down to reconnoitre there a long time, And bring back a report, And I understand that those are positive and dense every one And that what thhey seem to the child they are [And that the world is not joke, Nor any part of it a sham]. (A poem Whitman didn't complete. Taken from Ceslaw Milosz's anthology, A Book of Luminous Things) Umberto Fiori wrote: CHIN If someone in the street shouts at me "What was that you said?". stops the motorbike, gets off, takes a run at me, grabs me by the collar -- it means that words when somebody says them don't just drop into the void: somewhere, somebody hears them. And people see me: I'm not just stared through...

 

Standing before the larger-than-life, hyper-detailed work of John Frank Sabado, one cannot help but wonder: Where lies the source of Sabado’s phantasmagoric imagery? The answer throbs quietly in the loving arms of this earth. The roots of Sabado’s work lie in the simple story of a boy growing up in a forest that shrank as the boy’s world expanded. Sabado was born into the lifeworld of the Lepanto logging concession in Mankayan, Benguet. There his Ilocano parents worked to support and educate their children. As a boy he spent his days going to the river, fetching water, catching eels, hunting for mushrooms, gathering firewood. To him these chores were not work. They were no different than the mock wars that he and his playmates would wage in the forest. There were many dangers lying in wait for adventurous little boys living in a logging concession but no harm ever befell Sabado and his friends. This was deep play in the arms of Nature, whom Sabado describes with a wide grin as ...

Christ the Locksmith's Lament When a key is lost you come to me for I can pick any lock, open even the chambers of your heart. But once I throw the doors wide you slam them shut again, bolt them quickly from the inside with heavy beams. I am left on the outside listening to the echoes of closed entries, knowing you believe I cannot be trusted not to enter unbidden. © Padmapani L. Perez, 2010 THE EXHIBIT RUNS UNTIL MARCH 31, 2010 . Read all about it at here, at Snippets from the Manila Art Scene , and here, in Ystyle .

How does the lechon rice at Ayuyang Bar and Feliz Restaurant rate on the two seestars' and Fritson's snout system?

(Un)Made by Walking (wrote this for the catalogue of Kaw's Bored on the 4th of July one man show in the Ateneo Art Gallery) Kawayan de Guia arrived at the Omi International Arts Center in Ghent, New York spent from the journey from the Philippines, out of sync and empty-handed. The hosts at Omi drove him to Houston, the closest town from the Arts Center, to buy some materials for the work he would be doing as one of 30 artists from all over the world participating in a three week residency. They took him to Walmart. Within five minutes of being in Walmart Kawayan was assailed by a wave of panic. In that inexplicable moment of terror, Kawayan decided that he should return to Walmart at his own pace, and on his own terms, to understand the way he felt about being there. On America’s Independence Day (Kawayan calls it, “America’s day to shine”) he set out at dawn and walked alone for six hours across 30 kilometers of Route 66 through a landscape he describes as, “Eerily empty. Forgot...

The first on-the-spot water media painting competition to mark the Ibaloi Centennial. Scheduled on Feb. 20, Saturday, starting as early as 8:30 and ending promptly at 4 p.m., the event at 308 Piraso Road, Tam-awan, Pinsao Proper, Baguio City, is sponsored by the Baguio Aquarelle Society and the Cordillera News Agency. Their aim is to raise awareness of the Cordillera's precious natural heritage, trees and the indigenous people's culture being the most prominent. The title of the contest was inspired by a nature poem by Basho, a Japanese poet. More details? Click!

This is the f***ing front page of the effing Philippine Star? Lactum's advertising hacks had this to say about mothers and revolutions in the "headline story": "A small effort makes a small impact. Mothers can easily participate in the Nourishment Revolution by serving three balanced meals a day and a glass of Lactum to their children. Discreetly, as they mix the milk solution, mothers are incorporated into the movement through every revolution the spoon makes. With more mothers participating in the Lactum Nourishment Revolution, they can help Pinoy children achieve proper nourishment and moms can be 100% panatag." DISGUSTING. Where's the real news? Arundhati Roy had this to say about selling headlines in The Ordinary Person's Guide to Empire (2004): "There's been a delicious debate in the Indian press of late. A prominent English daily announced that it would sell space on page three (its gossip section) to anyone who was willing to pay t...