Ardour

This Tumblr account was made for a time when the person using it was not quite at the right place they were supposed to be. It’s run its course now. This will be set to private once I find the time to get to it.

I love you all. I love the person in the late 2000s or early 2010s who made this. Everything about him - the corniness, the sadness, the slowly-disappearing passion for this and that - is endearing, and will no doubt seem familiar to anyone else who grew up in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

So I watched Spring Awakening last Sunday. And it was great.

Like, really great. I’ve only ever cried during a play maybe twice (not counting crying because I was the actor and I cried - which also only happened maybe twice) - once during a performance of Si Maria Isabella at ang Guryon ng Mga Tala and again during a performance of Mula sa Kulimliman (but those tears were out of laughing too much). Ateneo Blue Repertory’s Spring Awakening (directed by the young [would you believe me if I told you she’s 28?], beautiful, talented, most perfect person to have ever been created by God Missy Maramara) is my third.

But I’m not writing to talk about the staging of Spring Awakening. The staging was perfect in every way and I will say nothing bad about it ever. But as I was watching it I kept thinking about the text itself, and how it reminded me a lot of Lindsay Ellis’ video essay on YouTube. 

If you’re not aware of how Spring Awakening ends, then spoilers hereon out.

At the very last musical performance the whole cast of Spring Awakening gets together to sing a sad song about their departed friends, their ultraconservative society, and how they pinky promise each other to not be like their predecessors. Which is great - no, really. It really was great.

But, see, therein lies one of my main concerns with Spring Awakening and with pretty much any piece of Broadway. The problems presented are institutional. The solutions? It’s not to reform the institution or to destroy it or to agitate for a better one (in this case, better educational institutions). No, it’s to pinky promise that we as individuals will find individual solutions and not make too big of a ruckus when we do it.

I kept going back to Lindsay Ellis’ video essay and how, in her own words, Rent - another Broadway musical - was about “looking pretty and doing as little as possible.” It’s been a while since I’ve seen the video - or the musical, for that matter - so I do apologize if I’m misremembering things, but how does Rent end?

Mimi’s about to die but then she doesn’t. Everybody sings and cries and holds on to each other tighter because there’s “no day but today.” That’s great. So... what about that AIDS crisis, huh? What about that homelessness and squatting situation you’ve got going for yourselves? No? None of that? Alright.

This isn’t to say that Rent is a bad musical. It’s really great. But again - institutional problems, individual solutions. And the solution presented is to... what, exactly? Just live for the moment! We’re all gonna die anyway because AIDS sucks!

Again, I may be misremembering that, so I do apologize if that isn’t the actual take of the whole thing.

And then I thought about some of the other famous musicals that I’m aware of and are very popular - Les Miserables and H/amilton (yeaaah I am NOT going to go down the rabbit hole of angering the whole H/amilton crowd by typing that thing in).

How does Les Mis end? Death all around. Lots of it. Lots and lots and lots of it. But the French Monarchy’s still standing, Marius and Cosette are married - it’s even implied (if my memory serves me correctly) that they’re very much nobility or upper class now. So, great. The revolution’s just a distant memory by this time, and France seems to have moved on as though nothing happened.

Even H/amilton, with all its talk of revolution and actually following through on that revolution, seems to be very very supportive of the American system and has a lot of good things to say about America. Which is fine, of course, since it was written as a sort of fanfiction for non-white Americans written from the lenses of an immigrant. But then again it does have little to nothing to say about how only landed white males could vote and participate in politics, about how African-Americans are still slaves, about how the Native Americans are practically nonexistent in the whole story of the American experiment. The main sticking point A. H/am has with Jefferson and Madison isn’t that they’re slavers (although it has been pointed out), it’s that their politically opposed to him. Barely any mention of slavery save for a few passing glances. Not even a mention of how W/ashington was a big old slaver as well.

While I’m not saying that either plays are bad - they’re not. They’re excellent, they’ve won lots of awards and they’ve sold thousands upon thousands of tickets. I am saying however that due to the need to be able to sell these musicals to producers and to be able to continue selling tickets to middle to upper class New Yorkers, the idea of a musical play outright calling for revolution and institutional change might be frowned upon - especially if that institutional change includes things such as higher taxes for the wealthy (which producers definitely are) and more regulations and smaller profits for multimillion dollar businesses (which Broadway is).

For all their talk of revolution and being that one play that gets the younger generation into talking about being anti-establishment, all of them very much advocate for the establishment and for not disrupting the status quo too much. For not being “too political” (yes I am well aware that all art is political).

Noong taong 1895, umakyat si Bonifacio kasama ang ilang mga kaibigan sa mga kuweba sa Pamitinan, hinahanap nila ang nakagapos na si Bernardo Carpio. Naniwala si Bonifacio na kapag nahanap nila ang kanilang Hari, bubuka ang mga bundok, yayanig ang lupa’t lalabas ang higante. At gamit ang kaniyang mga kamao, pagigibain ang mga pader ng Intramuros at palalayain ang lupang hinirang. Ang hinihintay na tagapagligtas.

The first Filipino strongman was not a president, it was a king chained beneath a mountain. Bonifacio felt himself to be so weak that he wanted whatever power Heaven could give him. He believed that his faith in liberty would be so great, the sky itself would rain thunder on the mountains of Montalban and release the long-awaited hero. But he was only a legend.

Sa kawalan ng ilaw sa loob ng kuweba, hindi na mahanap ni Bonifacio ang sarili niya. Sa paghahanap sa isang nawawalang hari, nakalimutan niya na may walo siyang kasama sa paglakbay. Hindi naniwala si Bonifacio sa sarili niyang kakayahan at dahil doon nakalimutan niya na kahit natutulog si Bernardo Carpio, bumabangon naman ang mga Anak ng Bayan.

And yet, inside this cave, all Bonifacio could cling to was hope. With a lamp in one hand and a piece of charcoal on the other, he etched onto the dark wall: Viva La Independencia Filipinas. He called and Bernardo Carpio turned away, buried himself deeper into a mountain. He called and the workers, the farmers, and the poor answered. Bonifacio’s faith in liberty was so great, a hundred thousand Filipinos broke their chains and lifted themselves up to meet their oppressors. Bonifacio forgot to look to the people beside him.

Nakalimutan niya na katabi niya si Emilio Jacinto, ang tinatawag na Utak ng Katipunan. Noong namatay si Bonifacio, sumikap si Jacinto na ituloy ang laban ng Katipunan. Hindi siya sumali sa kilusan ni Aguinaldo at mag-isa niyang tinuloy ang digmaan laban sa Kastila. Nagkaroon siya ng malaria at namatay.

He was 23.

Nakalimutan niya na katabi niya si Aurelio Tolentino, ang unang mandudulang makabayan na, gamit ang kaniyang panulat, tinuloy ang kilusan noong dumating ang mga Amerikano. Kalahati ng buhay ni Tolentino’y nagastos sa kulungan at tuwing palalayain siya, bumabalik siya sa kaniyang mga dula. Ang huli niyang ginawa sa buhay niya ay magsulat.

He was 47.

Bonifacio wanted to give Bernardo Carpio a gun and expected him to win a war with some bullets and an iron fist. He didn’t realize that behind him stood a million Filipinos, a million Bernardo Carpios armed with a bolo in one hand and the spirit of the working Filipino in the other. The history of our nation was not written by Bonifacio, it was written by his followers: ang mga manggagawa, men and women whose hands know what it means to be calloused, whose backs know what it feels like to be tattooed by the sun.

‘Wag nating kalimutan: karpintero si Hesus. Hindi niya sinabing malakas siya, hindi niya sinabing nasa kaniya ang lahat ng sagot. Hindi siya nagpabuhat sa likod ng kaniyang sandosenang apostol. Isa lang ang lagi niyang sinabi: magmahal ng kapwa.

Bonifacio was looking for Bernardo Carpio and he forgot to glance to the people beside him, to the revolutionaries that brought knives to a gun fight, to the protesters with linked arms fighting tanks with flowers, to the workers who have to get through four hours of traffic a day just to make ends meet. We buried Bernardo Carpio and, in return, we received a hungry people, making their way, as we speak, to their fields.

Michael Lee is one of my all-time favorite spoken word poets and Anvils is one of the poems of his that I just adore. That’s why I thought I’d show some love from all the way in the Philippines. To translate something is a great exercise for me, someone who is used to writing in colloquial Filipino but never in such a formal way. Here’s to you, Michael Lee!

To see the original poem, as performed by the man, the legend himself: “Anvils”

Palihan

May tig-dalawang buto ang ating mga forearm, gumagana sila bilang mga tuning fork. Naririnig mo ba ang tugtog? Rinig mo ba ang tunog na bitbit mo sa gabi? Nagising ako sa gumagapang na alingawngaw sa loob ko na akala mo’y puno ako ng mga pumukaw na bagay. Tinipon ko lahat ng mga palihan na nahanap ko, inayos ko sila sa harap ko na parang mga drum at nagsimula akong magpatugtog.

Sa bawat kalatong nanginig ang braso ko na parang binanat na lubid, at lumakas ang tunog nila: musika ng kampana sa simbahan, mga nagtatagay na panday, inakyat ko sila sa tainga ko at naririnig kong umiindak si Kapitan Moy. Naririnig ko ang nawalang sining,

ang kultura ng paggawa, ang pagpatak ng dugo sa bibig ng hanapbuhay. Sa kada-indayog ko, desperado kong hinahanap ang Pilipinas na naniniwala sa kabanalan ng trabaho. Sa kada-indayog, naaalala ko na hindi kailanman nagkaroon nang ganitong Pilipinas.

Kahit bigas o niyog o tabako o mga gusali man ang nasa dugo mo, ang pawis mo ay isang wika na gusto kalimutan ng bansa. Dapat daw tayong mahiya sa wikang ito, pagsanayan daw natin sa ilalim ng liwanag ng lampara at dilim.

Sinasabihan tayo na ilibing ang kasaysayang ito sa ilalim ng mga necktie at suit. Isang kasaysayan lang ang pagkakatiwalaan ko, ang isinulat ng mga kinakalyo, ang isinulat ng mga obrerong pinangalanan natin ng highway at kinalimutan.

Mahal kong Pilipinas, hindi ka isang Kristiyanong bayan kung nakakalimutan mong karpintero si Hesus. ‘Wag ka mang-api ng mga taong malapit sa kunwari ninyong sinasamba: ang mapagkumbaba, ang mahirap, ang manggagawa.

Ang Pilipinas ang ama na sinasabihan ang anak na tumayo, ngunit hindi siya binibigyan ng tsinelas. Ang Pilipinas ay ang Ama na hinahampas ang anak at sinasabihan na walang utang na loob pag gumanti.

Ang Pilipinas ay isang piano. Ang mga key ang gulugod, ang mga key, mga nagtatrabahong indio, mestizo’t moreno. Ang tagapamahala, isang pyanista ng mga likod nag-aakda sa balat, puwede niya tayo ipatugtog, ngunit hindi siya ang may-ari nang himig na ito, hindi siya ang may ari nang tugtog ng pawis at panginginig ng braso. Kung wala ang ating martilyo, kung wala ang ating kadena, isa lang siyang tagapamahala ng multo sinusuntok ang kaniyang daliri sa isang ilusyon nang kapangyarihan.

Kada umaga, tinutugtog ko ang palihan hanggang mabasag ang martilyo o hanggang masiraan ako ng ulo. Ito ang tugtog ng dagitab at penitensya, isang tunog na nawawala sa taingang bingi, sa isang bansang itinayo sa likod nang mga ninakaw na tao. Isang hungkag at nasusunog na bansa, parang pipe organ ng mga kanyon.

Ngayon, habang nagiging kasing kapal ng dugo ang pawis ko Tinugtog ko ang palihan parang isang kuyog ng mga putakting may baril na nawawala sa tinggang tiyan ng kampana.

Tinugtog ko ang palihan na parang paniking tinatawag ang dilim, nasa himig na bumabalik sa akin ang kaniyang sagot. Isa itong litanya, ang palihan ang pastor, ang tumutugtog nating buto ang korong kumakanta. Kung natagpuan ko man ang Diyos, siya’y nasa dulo ng bawat hampas.

I feel like I was born too late.

Everything is going so fast, everybody is rushing to go here and go there - and, most importantly, everybody is rushing to do this or that. My generation is plagued with the need to succeed right now. Everything that I can do with my life I have to do it right now.