Reunion

Francis Santiago. Finally, after almost a year, I got to meet the subject of my winning shot during the 2008 Bangus Festival photo contest. (Don't get me wrong but exotic is not a sexual preference of this photographer.)

His group was supposed to be the guest performer at the street dancing competitions of the Hundred Islands Festival in Alaminos City this year. Even before any group could perform, however, word spread out that this group, Tribu Pandan, the winners of the recently concluded street dancing competition (open category) of the 14th Panagbenga Festival in Baguio City last month would join as an entry. Not another competing entry dared show up. Not even the juicy first prize of P75,000 could make them change their mind.

Me and my mentor good friend Raymund Sto. Domingo were so disappointed since we had to rush all the way from Dagupan in my rusty (yup, not a typo) pickup at six in the morning after a hasty breakfast of our official pink salmon sandwich and coffee, only to discover we had to contend ourselves with one streetdancing group. Not exactly our idea of fun.

Anyway, since there was not much we could do about the whole thing, I decided to make the most of whatever was left of the morning and engage the handlers of the guest performers in a small talk and hope I dig up some interesting facts I could use for this blog.

I first met the group earlier last year during their local Mapandan Festival of which they were champions. A few weeks later, the same group won again during the Festivals of the North street dancing competition of the 2008 Bangus Festival.

Choreographed by Jonas Dizon and handled by Josefina Landingin Soriano both of Mapandan in Pangasinan, the group shows a lot of promise because of the details of their distinct costumes, a variety of new and original props, their dance routine and above all their catchy original music. I learned the music was produced by the town's mayor, Jose Ferdinand Calimlim, written by Vincent de Jesus who composed the soundtracks for Baler, Pisay and Crying Ladies among others and peformed by May Bayot, Lani Misalucha's older sister. The music has been used by their own Mapandan Festival as its official dance score since their local festival started five years ago.

According the Jo Soriano, they already have their eyes set on the Pattaraday Festival in the province Isabela which they have been invited to compete in May this year. The festival has traditionally invited winning entries of big names in the national scene of street dancing like the Dinagyang Festival and the Sinulog Festival. Here's to hoping this kabaleyan group continue to inspire other local groups to improve on their otherwise ecological friendly costumes and historical performances by winning once more. (Ecological and historical since local streetdancers tend to recycle and repeat last year's grand idea.)

And Francis? He tells me his photo has already graced a calendar of a prominent mall in Dagupan City.

So Far Away: My close encounters with the Taong Grasa of Dagupan

A Photo Exhibit by Ed Sevilleja
Exhibit Notes by: Kaye O'yek, Manila

Ed Sevilleja’s collection of photographic images in SO FAR AWAY portrays different images of the street vagrants of his hometown, Dagupan City. This assortment of candid portraits, called Mga Taong Grasa ng Dagupan by the multi-awarded photographer, started in 2006 as a side project that centered on these oft-neglected personalities mocked or ignored in the peripheries of functioning society, providing close encounters that common passersby rarely ponder on. They are there, and they are smelly, filthy, and out of it, and so what? We see them and we continue on our way through the humdrum rhythms of our daily lives.

Finally presenting his Mga Taong Grasa ng Dagupan to the public in SO FAR AWAY, Sevilleja exhibits the personalities he encountered roaming the town streets with his favorite lens. In doing so, and choosing the most striking pictures that create a visual narration of poverty, hunger, detachment and deprivation, he forces us to take a second look, evoking not pity but empathy, grabbing a few minutes of our attention and letting these images burn indelible imprints on our consciousness before we go back to our collective apathy.

By focusing his viewfinder on these individuals, the photographer captures various characters in their natural state, freezing un-posed instances with his camera. In Takeout, the taong grasa seems to be beckoning, offering scavenged food from a popular fast food chain. Kama depicts a grease man lying on bare cement, apparently resting from exhaustion or as an escape from reality. Kodak is a picture of a playful mirroring of the photographer in action. Istrol shows us a woman walking the streets in broken rubber sandals and utter nonchalance, comforted by a cigarette in her hand. In Buyangyang, easily the most revealing portrait of the lot, Sevilleja chooses to print his image in wallet size and let the audience peer through it a few meters away within the exhibition space and see the details of the picture through a telescope, defining the concepts of distance and intimacy.

Using a telescopic lens to capture most of the images, Ed Sevilleja keeps his distance from these seemingly unstable subjects because of the risk of physical harm, but his interest for his Mga Taong Grasa ng Dagupan nevertheless fuels his passion for pursuing the project and being on alert each time for that click-worthy moment only determined by a sharp eye for irony and aesthetics. With these portraits on photographic paper, Sevilleja affords us a way of seeing things from different perspectives, from realities close but still so far away from our own. In introducing these characters, he lets us dip our toes into their proverbial vessel of consciousness without total bodily immersion, creating visual confrontation against our own sensibilities without going into hyperbolic dramatization or psychology. The lines in the faces are enough, the images speak for themselves, and we are mere witnesses.

Painting workshop and trying to achieve an alpha state of consciousness

Ed: Pipol. Cut d crap, cut d niceties! Just get your ass at nepo b4 12:30 2day! If u cant or dont even know y, btr think again if ur in the ryt group! Gudam!

And so there goes my wakeup call to my art buddies via my celfone. A painting workshop is just hours away and I just want to make sure today is November 10 on their calendars as well as mine. As festival director of the 2nd Dagupan Arts Festival, I feel like it has become my obsession to spell T-I-M-E-(space)-M-A-N-A-G-E-M-E-N-T in the conscious part of my art buddies' brains -- c-o-n-s-i-s-t-e-n-t-l-y.

Franz: Uhm, ok. Did u rili send dt msg to evry1. Whoa!

Ed: Yup, hehe. Dats how i show my love n concern 4 dem! Im telling u franz, dis bunch is diffrnt. Dey hav a hard time staying in d conscious part of der brains, hehe.

About 25mins later, my old photography buddy Pipo who lives in Mangaldan (some 20mins away of easy driving) replies in a protesting tone..

Pipo: Pano yan boss, inaspalto nila daan namin.

Ed: Sy*t, i ddnt know ur ass was connected 2 d seat of ur car..

Aba, humirit pa rin..

Pipo: Sory dats my get up. R u nt readin my profile? http://www.mousehousecafe.com/DAC/Profiles/DomagasPipo/profiles-domagaspipo.htm

Dude, I did your profile. But, ok, ok... lets try to be a bit democratic today...

Ed: Onga naman. However, did u knw asphalt has (practically) no curing time or ur not in your conscious part of ur brain again..

Damn, can't help it buddy...I wanted to be nice today since we need every bit of muscle if not the thinking organ of everyone for today's activity. Kaya lang...

Some 2 hours later, Pipo still didn't reply back. Guess he's googling on his laptop (another part of his so-called get up) on smart bro for the characteristics of asphalt and its effect on his Honda's mags...

Damn, Raymond's not answering...he's facilitator for today's workshop and his line's dead. How good can it possibly get...

To top it all, Boni, our exhibit's curator at the same time who's supposedly in the same workshop venue isn't answering my calls. Wonder if nepo has gas leaks at its basement or something...

(to be continued)

Note: This WAS my first ever blog supposedly posted on November 10, 2007 at 10:05am during one of our better days when our 2nd Dagupan Arts Festival was staged. Haha! My adrenalin was rushing back then and from then on I promised myself never to write again when in deep stress. For some reason, I'm deciding to post this blog after all for all of my art buddies and hope they are all in a better state of consciousness, enough for a good laugh.
For those of you who wonder what ever happend to our painting workshop, we pulled thru. Raymund's phone had his usual perpetual lobat (even to this very day, he uses the same alibi), Boni claimed he never received any text and Pipo claimed he had a 2 hour detour + traffic problems. As a consolation, everyone showed up just in time and we had 11 happy participants in the workshop!

San Miguel Light as an economic indicator

Some people watch the price of crude oil, gas, diesel, rice, dollar, eggs, sardines, chicken, the stock exchange, unemployment rate, inflation, etc., etc. as an economic indicator of how things have changed so that they can adjust appropriately.

Me, I simply watch the price of beer.

Taking a quick survey of the bars in Dagupan City (courtesy of the powers of my old N70), I came out with this list tonight (Note: for this purpose, we shall define beer to be San Miguel Light beer):


Mouse House - P35
Quattro - P40
Hall of Fame - P45
Music WareHouse - P45
Diner's - P45
Joshua Tree - P49
Shinjuku - P60
Disc Capsule - P65
808 - P70

While I still have a few bars/cafes not on my list yet, I can conclude a few things and derive the following:

Mean Price of Beer - P51.56
Median Price of Beer - P45.00
Mode Price of Beer - P45.00

For mortals who puke at the sight of complicated numbers with weird operations and labels, let me translate:

Mean is the your usual average, computed the usual way (total divided by the number of values), median is the middle value (values arranged from lowest to highest or vice-versa) and mode is the value that appears most often. In this case, (pun intended) the median and mode have the same values.

If you think this is complicated stuff for illustrating my choice of an economic indicator, you should figure out the scoring system of say gymnastics or diving in the Olympics starting Friday. Before computing for the final score among a panel of judges, the lowest and highest scores are first stripped out, averaged, then multiplied by the degree of difficulty of the routine.

Beer becomes lovelier after this.

Anyway, if you can still remember how much beer cost a year ago, I'd say the average beer was P40, about P10 lower compared today. If THAT doesn't indicate something in the economics of your current paycheck, then lucky for you. It's either your boss have appreciated the intricacies of this economic indicator and have adjusted your paycheck appropriately or your boss have deppreciated you, simply.

In addition to beer being a valid economic indicator (I assumed you have agreed with me since you have followed this spirited discussion up to this point) don't you know that just by knowing the price of beer in a particular place, one can speculate with precision what kind of crowd a place have more accurately than forecasting the forex for the next day?

Take the case of a P35 to P45 a bottle range. The crowd for sure you'll find in these bars that have this price range are college kids. They'll probably buy a bottle and sit it out for an hour or more, not even caring to look at the pulutan section of the menu.

For crowds of the P60 to P70 a bottle range, expect a high profile crowd in the working class, from the yuppies to the executives, from the konsehal to the congressman. (Of course, beer for the female sex in a majority of these places have a much higher price range for reasons I cannot comprehend.)

So next time the big three in the oil industry announces another oil hike, don't get affected. Get out, hit the bars and monitor the price of your beer instead. The higher crude oil gets, the more reason you should enjoy your beer. Why, because even if beer is a valid economic indicator, the price of beer is not directly proportional to the increase of the price of crude oil. Rather, the price of beer is inversely proportional to the price of crude oil because beer is now actually cheaper than the price of diesel and gas, by-products of crude oil.

Cheers.

Homo habilis

Homo habilis is second in line only after Hominid primates in an illustration I googled at terrestrialextras.com explaining the evolution of man. The website, as its name suggests, actually focused on Nativus coniunctus, a future derivative of man...but that's not the intention of today's exercise.

Furthermore, Homo habilis had a short body and long ape-like arms like the australopithecines. But they were distinguished from earlier hominids by their big brain (c. 630 cubic centimetres) and small teeth, according to another website at bbc.co.uk.

Now take a look at my shot taken three nights ago as we were on our third bottle of cold beer together with Kinigtot Bacolor, my artist buddy at the Dagupan Artists' Circle and Joy Ramos, my basketball buddy. It was one of those rainy nights we couldn't resist, most specially now that a night's out in our favorites bars in Dagupan just wouldn't equate anymore. An average bottle of beer cost about forty pesos before the oil crisis started this year. Now, a bottle of beer cost on the average fifty pesos! And even my favorite pulutan sashimi has inflated so much (I was talking about of the price, not its geometric volume), I reckon the average bar in Dagupan which keeps stock of it have problems with extending its shelf life for a few more days..


Well, the resemblance isn't exactly obvious, unless I subject my photo to Bones, America's famous forensic anthropologist (on television at least) to hypothesize how my subject would look like without his clothes on. Of course, he would have to be dead first since Bones only work with bones.

Drop the idea. Even if Bones were non-fiction, I wouldn't want to share this piece of supposedly extinct stage of man's evolution with her. He's mine. I rightfully own him. I even gave him a name, Carding. Shot him first almost two years ago (Takeout) when I started shooting "mga taong grasa ng Dagupan" as one of my more serious photography projects.

Unlike Eva Tot (see previous blog), Carding is one taong grasa I do not wish to communicate with.

Taong grasas are generally peace loving people. They try, as much as we do, to avoid contact of any sorts (not that contact) with other people.

However, Homo habilis had a secret weapon: stone tools. Crude stone implements were used to smash open animal bones and extract the nutritious bone marrow, bbc.co.uk continues.

That is why I am doing this comparison. Carding is one exception. Seemingly harmless, I wouldn't shoot him with a lens less than or equal to a focal length in a 2-digit range. I saw him once hurling rocks at some people who obviously earned them his ire. Mean. He didn't exactly smash open the skulls of these people, but if his aim had been as accurate as David (as in Goliath), the effects would have been the same.

Certainly, he is one violent soul, if he had one. I mean, if this guy was really a survivor 2.3 million years after he was supposed to be non-existent, he really wouldn't have one. Only Homo sapiens have souls I believe.

But then again, if supposing Carding didn't have a soul because he never fully evolved into a full Homo sapiens he was destined to be, what the hell is he still doing here, in the streets of Dagupan City?