kultura

pinoy rock ‘n’ roll: dead and alive

Probably the best and the worst that could possibly happen to a rock concert happened this rainy Saturday night. In the midst of an early Flores de Mayo (complete with floats and throngs of people) on the streets fronting the Cultural Center of the Philippines, and the traffic that’s expected of any payday weekend in the metro, Fiesta ng Musikang Filipino (An OPM Chronicle) was celebrating its second night of, well, what they made us believe would be pure unadulterated Pinoy rock ‘n’ roll. That expectation of course, has its basis in the fact that the Juan dela Cruz Band had topbilling for this concert series of three nights, and that my friends and I were just giddy at the thought of watching Pepe Smith on stage – a rare treat for those of us who came to Pinoy rock ‘n’ roll when he was already considered a legend. But there was nothing rakenrol about ticket prices (which were steep at P1000 pesos for orchestra seats – thankfully ours were free courtesy of 105.9 RJ Underground DJ Mikey Abola), and that would only be the beginning of an evening that celebrated what seemed to be both the death and life of Pinoy rock as we know it. (more…)

komentaryo

preying on the birds

i’m the last person who will look down on what people enjoy reading, nor will i insist that you must read certain books in order for you to be called “literary”. i will insist though that anyone who decides to diss any form of literature, particularly philippine lit, even more so literature in our vernaculars, has better sense than just his or her superficial notions of taste and literature, and in this case, language. (more…)

komentaryo

we wish for some truths

chanced upon Korina Today, with Samantha Echavez, Carljoe Javier and Dean Francis Alfar, talking about their works included in what seems to be the anthology on tales of enchantment and fantasy, which is really beside the point of this critique.

the point being this: Alfar says that having readers isn’t a matter of length or short attention spans, as with the blog and its accessibility in terms of form, but that it’s a matter of, and i quote, “the story”. he says he doesn’t think it’s true that there’s a problem with readership, and that readers will be lost to new media, because the Filipino reader wants a good story. he then of course, talks about himself, and his experiment with Salamanca, which he says, he had published in parts on his blog for 30 consecutive days, and he got a lot of comments, and he won the palanca and got published by ateneo press. (more…)

kultura

why say sorry?

or the dynamic of women’s choices.

the romance as a genre in philippine movies has, since the turn of the millennium, been common and surprising in turn. the surprises i personally trace back to regine velasquez’s foray into her julia-roberts-type of romantic films, where situations are perfectly created for both her limited acting skills, and for the middle class women that she portrays (and has as audience). although it can be said that much much earlier than that, judy ann santos and piolo pascual, as well that ricoyan-claudinebarretto-dietherocampo movie were the beginnings of more interesting takes on the romance (hello, boksingero si judy ann? naman). (more…)

kultura

one last time: harry

once, long ago, someone was reporting on “The House of Spirits” in my M.A. class, and she started it off with the line: this has as audience the professional as well as the non-professional reader, but their appreciation of it is different.

i don’t remember much of what else she said, but i do remember that a classmate and i could barely let her finish, because her premises were unacceptable. my mother who reads for leisure (as opposed to reading for academic purposes) does not deserve to be called an unprofessional reader, not only because of the fact that it’s derogatory, but too, because it limits her appreciation of books to the kind of market she’s part of. nor was it acceptable to even presume that all people who read for academic purposes, and are therefore professional readers, will have intelligent and informed appreciation of texts. hello, if you’ve been in the academe long enough, you’d know that this is so not true. (more…)