3 october 2024
what is the role of an artist? what should an artist aim to do? should there be art for arts' sake? well, for that last question, i could offer an indefatigable no. i fear many modern artists have sought to divorce art from its necessary role as a pillar of culture; without art, culture is dull, and without culture, art is a self-serving activity for no one's satisfaction. art is a community effort-- to apply jean-jacques nattiez's model of music semiotics, there exists a poietic process, an ontological reality of the material work, and the aesthetic process, the latter of which is the very reception of the work by an audience. to say that "art is for arts' sake" is to remove the latter process-- then who is the audience? the creator? this reduces the artpiece to a mere prostitute for the artist, for their own satisfaction. now some may say this is a perfectly normal thing-- but then your art ceases to be art. it no longer tells the story of the culture. it no longer speaks to the reality of humanity, which it should. it is less than a utility; it is folly.
22 august 2024
the 2024 olympics have come and gone, and the philippines has another gold medalist in carlos yulo! and how do the filipino people react? by spitting on him because he sticks to his girlfriend, who provided for him while he was training in japan, while disregarding his mother, who herself disowned her own son on facebook posts (allegedly), took his money while he was a minor training (allegedly), and spent it on yves saint laurent and bikinis! rather than discuss that situation, which remains in civil litigation, i will take this opportunity to discuss the harmful trait of the filipino race; that is, our propensity for crab mentality. filipinos of all generations in all areas of the diaspora and in the homeland have a desire to bring the other down, because everyone wants to reach to the top. everyone is jealous of one another, and they will do anything to tear each other down. it comes from a deep-seated insecurity, that it's not enough to just swim, we must rise to the top. but what do people do at the top when all they have thought about is bringing each other down? absolutely nothing. and it's the reason why filipino society is where it's at-- because the filipino does not know how to reach for higher things and to constantly improve. apparently, we are a society built on kapwa and bayanihan, as trendy internet experts in filipino culture like to say. why don't we act like it?
16 july 2024
you know, some buffoon stole a large portion of my money today, and i don't know how. i have 2fa set up on my amazon, and yet he managed to take it from my account. i wish there was a better way to dispute these charges, but i don't know how, because i have a debit, not a credit, so once that money's gone... it's gone. gosh darn it. hackers get more and more intelligent these days, and i unfortunately do not. maybe i should pay attention to those security alerts on my google telling me my passwords have been compromised. keyloggers, trojan horses, ddos... who the heck knows. and on another note, i wish bezos made this website more intuitive. like, we have ai now- why can't we implement that stuff into our website? when i ask to cancel an order? and it's a gift card, so i have no idea how to cancel it. who needs gift cards... update: they used my email address above, are you kidding me? and then they had the gall to go into that email to redeem it? UGH. this is frustrating. welcome to the modern era of money exchange.
25 june 2024
one of the things that ive been thinking about a lot recently is the theology of love. what does it mean to love someone, to be in love with someone, to be passionate about someone? it's an understated avenue of theology and philosophy that needs more attention. it's wrong to think about this world in materialistic terms-- we're not just poor folk with worms in our brains telling us how to feel. there's a nobility to love that's lost in this modern day and era. and one of the places that i find inspiration with regards to this thinking is in the bible. there's a reason why the song of solomon, a piece of erotic love poetry, is in the bible-- and that's because that displays our love-relationship with God in the way that it should be. one of the pitfalls of protestant thinking is that the love of God solely exists as a mode of self-sacrifice. while such a love is noble (the greeks called it 'agape'), it is not the end-all-be-all for what it means to love. we ought to desire God, to desire union with the perfect transcendental values, with all our hearts. st therese of lisieux, st catherine of siena, st hildegard of bingen, blessed chiara badano, these figures have significant literature that discusses this passion for God. the knowledge that perfection exists should inflame our hearts to reach for it with all our strength. we are not fallen pieces of dung that cry out to God for mercy, as is the common thinking in protestant churches-- we have an innate worth and an infinite dignity. if we have an infinite dignity, we should expect an infinite love to come for us-- that being the unconditional love of God. why settle for less?
10 june 2024
one of the most recent trends on tiktok right now has been about this attorney, alain jayoma, and how expertly he succeeds in defending even the worst of supposed criminals. he can get rid of cases in one fell swoop, and he does it with a particular charisma that makes him feel like one of the boys, as opposed to a distant lawyer who doesn't have an investment in your case. the fact that he's trending and he's making it in this world is a little poignant to me, as an aspiring filipino who wants to become a lawyer here in america. we filipinos don't get enough representation for what we do, especially as nurses (and this is compounded by the context of jayoma's own past as a nurse), and he is an inspiration to myself to keep on going. i had my own doubts about my future as a lawyer- whether it would be worth it or not-- but when i started seeing jayoma on my fyp, he seemed like he had a fire in his belly, and i wanted to be just like him. to find out later that he was filipino like me was incredible. he gets a lot of sarcastic flak on tiktok for his propensity to defend so-called "supervillains", but to me, the work he does makes him a superhero.
6 june 2024
being a tottenham fan has been a constant in my life that i've been very happy to hold on to. i remember my first game that i ever actually tracked, it was spurs v watford, which we won 1-0. i think i was in las vegas at the time for my sat. i never really got why sports were such a big thing that people enjoyed watching until tottenham came around. and it's quite weird how you come across these teams. i actually wanted to be an arsenal fan when i was younger, but it didn't stick. so it's a little providential that i ended up supporting their enemy. and those early days were rough! being under nuno, who i think is a good manager, then going to conte, who i think is not, then ending up with ange... it's definitely been a rollercoaster of emotions. but so has life. and i think that the reason why people love sports is because it parallels life in a way, with all its wins and losses, and we enjoy its tragedy, its comedy, so to speak. tottenham exemplifies this relationship well. no matter what happens, i will always rep the lilywhite and blue, through thick and thin. come on you spurs!
5 june 2024
recently i had the very wonderful opportunity to conduct schubert's unfinished symphony in rehearsal with my school orchestra. it was a great experience for me as a budding conductor as well as a chance for me to display at least a little bit of the musical side of my brain within a critical context. my particular interpretation of the piece reckons this symphony in the context of the industrial revolution, of which schubert most definitely lived through; i am not particularly personally convinced, but nevertheless would not be surprised if the churning of machines and the rise of active trade played a role in the repetitive ostinato in the beginning within the strings. additionally, within this economic context, i sought to discern a particular nautical quality, of which i have close familial connection to. i imagined a lively port scene, from the early peaks of dawn, with the brass and woodwinds offering a ship's horn in their ebbs and flows, to the close of day, with the decrescendo seen around m. 106 before returning for another day.