Carpooling Loonies
Ways to choke on chicken soup
Deciding how to start my new year was a frazzle. There seems to be this global encumbrance stemming out from the words 'New Year's Resolution'. If 'next year' actually means 'a few minutes later', how is one expected to make a firm determination to do something positive? Realistically, there aren't so many people who spend the whole year round making a kilometric list of ways to make themselves become better persons for the new year to come. Instead, people only begin to think there ought to be 'this goal' when somebody bumps into them and drops the big question on their feet:What's your new year's resolution?
"I will stop cussing. And that's really none of your f***ng business."
Resolutions are a fad, like those spurious open-toe footwear that every girl has got to have (most of them oblivion to the fact that their toes are the subject of a reality TV show called "The Cruddiest Toes on Earth- -Asian Edition").
Oh, and have you noticed how coffee shops have become a dernier cri over the past couple of years in this city? Try to look back and think of how many people have called you or sent you text messages asking, "Te, when ta mangape?" The nth time I received that message last year, I just had to ask if drinking coffee had become a massive ritual and was only allowed to happen where designer coffees are served. Having coffee has become an eventful exercise that people do to become part of the coolest clique in town. All you need to do is save a couple of those twenty peso bills for a refillable cup of coffee that the cliques (comprised of the younger generation and young professionals) take when the clock says it's four p.m., time to find your spot at the coffee shop where your social status is determined by the kind of coffee you're having and the model of cellphone resting beside it.
The last time I went to a coffee shop, I swear I went all the way to South Korea. Wherever you go in Iloilo these days, you 'd have to endure loud Koreans and their painfully pealing so-called English tutors who teach a flaky combination of English in Korean accent and grammar that hasn't been named yet. I seriously wonder if these foreigners who come here to learn English know they're being taught a totally different language by some of these "tutors". But if the influx of these Koreans to Iloilo bring in money and generate employment for the hundreds of undergrads and the athirst jobless people, why not, right? Even if it means having to "go through them" every turn you take.
**********
The Metro Manila Film Festival made a lot of noise as the year 2005 made a graceful exit. Fantasy was a common theme among films with special effects going beyond the capacity of a Pinoy studio. So, to please the Pinoy viewer even more, they brought one (maybe two?) of these fantasy films to a foreign studio where the special effects of King Kong were also created. They stood proud of that; paid a great deal of money to foreigners to do their special effects so the starving Pinoy could save and pay to have a little taste of that pathetically copied fantasy. The gullible Pinoy viewer then waited in a very long queue outside a theater to see a senator with super powers, or actors who could fly and all that. Amazing, huh?
But where was the story?
In a third world country (oops, should I say 'developing country' just in case there's a sensor for politically incorrect terms around here?) some brilliant film makers allow themselves to fall into the bandwagon of mediocrity. It's money they want, it's money they're going to get. That's why we end up watching lamentable versions of Lord of the Rings and some superhero movies.
***********
Mr. Nygel John Militado is a competent student journalist and photographer from the Central Philippine University. Militado's captive photo of CPU's festival of Lights appeared on the front page of the December 12, 2005 issue of TNT but was not duly credited. Our sincere apologies. The short and beautiful write-up that came with the photo was written by Ms. Clarece P. Benjamin.
E-mail the author at jinki_young@yahoo.com