#cuttscreative

Harsh reality. I went to the Divi

soria today… big market area. It is full of lots of cheap clothes and electronics, haberdashery, kitchen shops and destitute living conditions. I bought about 10 people lunch. Old men and small kids mostly. I actually went into a small grocery store for one family. Lady and 4 kids, and basically bought them groceries for a few days… It is so bloody sad.

Here's a link to a little instagram movie

Fabo is an artist and advertising man from Manila. This video shows a performance art collaboration with his lovely son, Miles. You, the spectator, sit as a silhouette as the pair create an impromptu illustration around and through you. It's a joy to be part of... and then the surprise, they hand over the artwork for you to keep. Here is a link to another collaboration - 5 Channels: Fabo and Marcushiro.

The Saturday Future Markets are the brainchild of 98B.. an arts collaboration in Manila. If you click on their name that is linked to the area on their website that gives you the whole story, directions, how to become involved etc etc.

The Collective is an artist run space on Maluguy Street in Makati. 4 art galleries, food, street artists, dj’s, music store, screenprint your own shirt etc etc. Great place.

Rush hour in manila lasts for 4 hours, 5 on a Friday. You are held hostage by a distinct lack of town planning due to a frenzied post war build. I asked taxi drivers and commuters if there is an obvious fix and it is merely the fault of councils and governments... More trains, more buses, overpasses? They all shrug and say the same thing..where? Every inch of space is full and no government wants to shut down the city for a year in order to start again. My first hand account of the drama...Intramuros to Quezon City. I walked to the LRT and had to wait for 3 trains before being able to get on. The train windows look like a parody of the sex scene in titanic... Hundreds of hands pressed against smoky windows. I finally pushed into the sweating flesh that was the packed train and off we went. Each stop was a hideous affair as commuters wanting to get off heaved from the inside while those getting on heaved from the outside. One poor Filipino woman next to me looked like she was going to have a panic attack (probably a tourist too) and so I shamelessly used her worry to elbow a little more room around us. I got off at Makati intending to catch a tricyle to the MRT line so as to get north... and by 'north’ I mean a mere 20 km away. I tried flagging down a tricycle to weave through the back streets but they just shrug...it's quicker to walk. Then I remember the MRT at rush hour from a previous attempt... there is a 500 metre long queue waiting to get tickets; then you have to re-queue to board the train (think a music festival drink ticketing system) and then you would have to wait for about 6 trains to pass before having any hope of squeezing onto one. (See metal centipede whose internal flesh is made entirely of acquiescing humans slowly pulsating with the dim blue glow of a telephone screen as they text with hands held above their heads). So I look at the route needed to get to Quezon and think about using a series of Jeepneys. They are full with people hanging off the back and they won't get there any quicker than a taxi. Getting a taxi in this mad Malay is an easy task... on every main intersection there is a security guard/traffic cop who helps people to cross, to direct the cars when they fall into a stalemate and generally keep the noxious flow. I tell him I need a taxi to Tomas Morato/Rodriguez (always pick a main intersection nearby as your end point) and he guides me across the road and stops a taxi. The taxi driver looks browbeaten by the request because he knows its a one and half hour shitfight. The traffic cop, the taxi driver and I haggle a reasonable fee and in I pop. It is air conditioned and so for the extra $10 that this is costing, it makes sense. The added bonus is that if the taxi driver speaks English well you can find out a lot about the city... because God knows you are crawling through it.

It took an hour and three quarters. So why not walk you say? It's dark, it's humid, it's teeming with cars, you have to get through major intersections not to mention some fairly rugged areas where walking is not a smart thing to do.

There is nothing I like better than taking home a part of any place I visit. There is no better piece of memorabilia than impromptu signage. Today I came across the most fantastic sign, warning of imminent and crazy dog attack if you dare to jump the fence of a derelict building. I took photos and an old man on the street chuckled. We spoke in mangled English and I told him I wanted to buy them. He laughed out loud and then disappeared only to return with a lady from the shop next door. She spoke better English and explained that her boss put up those signs but the boss lady wasn't here. Come back later. 2 hours later I returned and the matriarch was there. I explained that I loved the signs and would like to find the painter who made them. It turned out that the sign writer/illustrator was the chef and here he was.. emptying the bins. She let me buy the signs and the chef was sent off to find wire cutters and newspaper to wrap them in... she gave him the money. He gave me his number and she was happy for me to contact him later to get him to paint some more stuff for me.... I am thinking a series of security guards being mauled by different dogs, hit by a jeepney, attacked by mutant ninjas - it all depends on his sense of humour and my ability to find someone to translate the commission. At home I have a handpainted telephone sign from Ho Chi Min, an Indian locksmiths' sign, a hairy crab sign from Japan and now a security guard in a green gstring being attacked by a rabid dog from Manila!

Empathy seems to be well respected here. I was walking along East Avenue in Quezon City. A harsh reality. Poverty and desperation on show. This is the street full of public hospitals, social security offices, transport offices, a warehouse for the renewal of certificates for births, deaths and marriages. There are street vendors selling single cigarettes, envelopes for your paperwork, Biros to fill it out with. There are people asleep in their tricycles and on the concrete footpath and there are small children. A 5 year old holding a crying brother who can't be more than 6 months old. A pair of 2 yr old twins holding hands and picking up roasted nuts from underneath a neighbors' cart. I picked up 4 mandarins and was charged 20 pesos (50c). I gave 2 each to the kids and went to walk on only to be called back by the street vendor who gave me 15 pesos back. On another corner I bought some pineapple and some fried chicken. 15 pesos. I gave the fried chicken to a sad bedraggled looking man. That street vendor laughed and gave me 10 pesos after first zipping away my money as a done deal. It is now a happy ongoing venture... I get to graze on fruit all day and hand over some extra food to someone in obvious need and pay less than I would have if I ate it all myself.