Archive for April, 2011
Cleaning the air with color
Photo: Jose Tence Ruiz, one of 8 commissioned artists for a large-scale public art project along EDSA, supervises his work along the Barangay San Lorenzo wall. This painting will be unveiled on Saturday, May 7 at 8 a.m.
The Philippine paint manufacture leader BOYSEN, with the support of the MMDA, is launching an urban renewal initiative that simultaneously cleans the air and enables ambitious public artworks to be accomplished.
Eight huge artworks by 11 artists will be executed on EDSA, one every 45 days, until early 2012. In their hands the revolutionary paint product KNOxOUT becomes a medium of social change.
The BOYSEN KNOxOUT PROJECT: EDSA was designed around a paint that is activated by sunlight to transform airborne toxins into safe residues that can be washed away by rains. Scientific texts have demonstrated that for every square meter of surface painted with KNOx-OUT, the exhaust of 10 cars is eliminated.
Each artwork will cover 1000 square meters of high walls. The works will be executed on high walls along EDSA and on a selection of MRT pylons and station walls. At this size, collectively 10,000 square meters, the toxins in the exhaust of 100,000 cars can be neutralized. The project goes beyond “beautification” and beyond illustrating environmentalist ideas by using a paint medium that helps to address one major urban problem.
The commissioned artworks should make the often difficult ride down EDSA more pleasant. The artists are Jose Tence Ruiz, Neal M. Oshima, Baby Imperial and Coco Anne of B+C graphic design studio, the art department of the advertising agency TBWA, Virgillio “Pandy” Aviado, Alfredo and Isabel Aquilizan, Erika Tan and Tapio Snellman. The Boysen KnoxOut Project: EDSA is curated and supervised by Tao, Inc.
Auntie Janey’s Old Fashioned Agony Column #12
Harvey Keitel in Martin Scorsese’s Mean Streets
Dear Reader,
Here’s something that I got from Episode 6 entitled “Ah! This is Jealousy?!” of Aa! Megami-sama: Sorezore No Tsubasa. Keiichi Morisato said:
“To fall in love with someone doesn’t mean it’ll be only be full of good things. To be mad, to cry, to smile and yet to still want to be together. This feeling means you have fallen in love with someone, right?”
Yes, I have gone beyond maudlin and I am beneath pathetic, getting my romantic fix from Japanese animated series. Something is wrong in my life. Then again the Japanese watch all sorts of animated features, including hentai (I don’t get turned on by tentacle porn). Maybe I’m a Japanese trapped in a Filipino body! Note to self: Must gorge on sashimi tomorrow.
Watching the lead characters do something sweet for one another put me in the mood for reflection, which is apt considering that it is Holy Week. The spirits of the air whispered this to me: “The things we do for others that give us most satisfaction are the things we do freely. The lightest burdens are those we wholeheartedly take upon ourselves.”
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From the Daughter of Tiger Mom
Sophia Chua-Rubenfeld, offspring of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother author Amy Chua, has started a blog to address questions about her upbringing.
Q: If your mother prevented you from going on play dates, sleep overs and participating in school dramas, shouldn’t you have turned out to be socially incapable?
A: Thanks for asking – I’ve wanted to address this point since David Brooks published his op-Ed in the NYT. Let me indulge my not-so-inner nerd for a second: when you spend 7 hours at school a day, 180 days a year, for 13 years, you rack up 16,380 hours of social interaction. That’s the equivalent of over 3,200 five-hour playdates. So overall, I don’t feel too deprived.
Giving Us the Willies: Revillame and the Pinoy psyche
My column last Sunday in the Philippine Star.
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Triptych by Leo Abaya
At the Philippine Star-National Bookstore event F. Sionil Jose wondered why Willie Revillame is famous. It can’t just be the cash handouts—there are other TV personalities who give money away. The controversy that he generates—from suspensions for offensive behavior or language to sexual harassment charges to his ongoing legal battle with his former network—has not only failed to alienate his core audience, it seems to have made him more popular. His long, rambling speech before he went on leave from his show, pending yet another MTRCB review, may offer some useful clues.
Willie Revillame assumed the role of victim as he had many times in the past. He asked why he was being persecuted. He took issue with show business personalities who had criticized him on Twitter over the episode of the dancing 6-year-old boy. He was particularly offended by the statements of former child stars Lea Salonga and Aiza Seguerra. “Why are you doing this to me?” cried the “victim”, whose current network contract is said to guarantee him billions.
These are familiar statements because we have heard them from many mouths. They are the stock defense of every sidewalk vendor arrested for not having a permit, every policeman suspended on graft charges, and every politician caught stealing. “Why are you persecuting me?” and “I am the victim here.”
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Pasyonistas: the events of Passover in Jerusalem, 33 A.D. as witnessed by very minor characters in the passion story. Follow them on Twitter.
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