Manila may have one of the world's worst sewerage systems, shanties that sprout like mushrooms, potholes on main roads and you'd normally get mugged or robbed here, but it's never bereft of culture and art that courts controversy. It's not exactly squeaky-clean like Singapore, but despite the corruption in government there's a freedom of expression that Death itself couldn't gag. Not a lot of people supress their opinions.
As a bonus, cigarettes and alcohol aren't as badly taxed relative to other Asian countries. Books aren't taxed at all. It's not New York, of course, but ultimately this is just where my soul thrives. This is where I was born and where I was raised. Represent!
I was registering for a 16k run commemorating our National Hero and right by the counter there are a few flyers on what's happening culture-wise. There was an Independent Film Festival (Cinemalaya) a few weeks back, an International Silent Film Festival, a Jazz Festival at the Cultural Center, the controversial "Kulo" Art Exhibit, a Beethoven Piano Sonata Concert, to name a few.
The town may be shabby, but you will not have a "culture point" deficiency. And it isn't just the museums, heritage sites, world-class musicians and artists, bootleg DVDs of "art house" films or our inclinations to poetry and literature. There's always something going on in this town. Out here everyone's (or everyone pretends to be) a writer, photographer or foodie. And even this third-world city has its hipsters. Even our Senators call a special hearing about an art exhibit and imagine themselves to be art experts.
Self-promotion is shameless so I'm going to self-deprecate and say, even a home-office-family-oriented person like me gets to have an article on a respectable Music+Culture magazine. It must have made a mark, because it also gets to be on the band's facebook status even after a year from when it was written.
I would have wanted to experience and perhaps write (for myself) about the goings-on about this town. Sponsored by the Goethe Institute, the 6th International Silent Film Festival was on a few weeks back. Razorback performs a live score to the screening of L'Iferno (1911, Guiseppe de Liguoro) and I went as far as a mental outline. In my mind, I can hear them paying a toned-down version of "Diwata" breaking the silence of the movie as the demons of Dante's Inferno flicker in the history of cinema's first few attempts to have special effects.
I imagine the crowd. I'll judge them by appearances and by the snippets of conversation I 'll overhear. I'll assume that they are unpleasantly eccentric, I'll assume they are kindred spirits. I'll assume they are true patrons of art, I'll assume there are hipsters and pseduo-intellectuals amongst the crowd. They are all in this town.
Except that I didn't get to be in the festival. But I'd still like to think that whatever lifestyle you are on, you should never be on a culture point deficiency. Maybe one of my lunch breaks count. It was one of those busy days, and you get stressed out and hungry, but there was nothing close to edible in the pantry. So I decided to head out for lunch. In my world, lunch can happen between 4am - 6am. I drove out to the Subway at the gas station and got a Subway Melt with an upgrade to large calorie-free Drink and calorie-full Lay's Potato Chips. I ate it by the table they had outdoors, and lashed out E.M. Forster's Howard's End from my bag. I fed myself with a full chapter in a slumbering city. This may not count as a culture point, but it couldn't have just happened anywhere.
Around this time, the runners are already out in the streets. Pink light cracks through the sky as I drive back to the stressful hell of an office, and I say you've got to love this town.
