Xn3cTs

reposting… november, 2003.

best regards,

ian

—

Nietzsche, Hume and the Buddha

When I first heard of Nietzsche, it was in association with Hitler and the Nazis. I simply dismissed him as a rabid, power-hungry maniac who probably had an unhappy childhood. A classmate in college wrote a paper on this Nietzsche guy and I was silently chuckling on the thought that a comic book idea (”superman”) can be the subject of a scholarly paper.

But when I did get to read him (years later), I was simply won over by this crazy guy! He says provocative things that, when thought about, actually make sense. He’s probably among the few philosophers who doesn’t come across as an insipid intellectual. He’s got style, lots of it. He doesn’t say things just for effect (although sometimes it feels like that). He’s an artist, an artist-philosopher. He’s very passionate and his sincerity comes across. He also has a weird sense of humor. Indeed, he writes with his blood. Indeed, he’s a dynamite.

(more…)

Para Mama, Para Nga!!!
(isang monologo para sa bagong taon)

alay sa mga bwakanang files ko na nabura noong bisperas ng bwakanang bagong taon…

ni Body Dancer

Sampung taon na ang nakararaan ng una akong mag-odisyon para maging scholar ng Tanghalang Pilipino Actors’ Company. Mula sa mahigit limampung ininterbyu bago mag-odisyon, naiwan kaming kulang-kulang 20. Tatlong araw yung odisyon. Bawa’t araw, nababawasan kami. Matira matibay. Survival of the fittest. Darwinian natural selection. Selecta. Choose your own adventure.

Umabot ako sa pangatlong araw.

But ultimately failed to make the grade.

Almost made it. But didn’t.

(more…)

isang eulohiya para kay Ramon Jose Leyran, sinulat noong Octubre 10, 2003.

—————————————————————–

Lamay: Pakikiramay, Buhay, Kamatayan
ni Michael Ian Lomongo

Kung di ako nagkakamali, nabuo raw ni Wency Cornejo ang kantang “Habang May Buhay” sa isang lamay. Kakaiba nga ang lamay ng mga pinoy: sa mga probinsiya, may pasugal (madyong, baraha, trembe), may inuman pa sa iba, may mga laro (juego de prenda), may kantahan, kwentuhan, tugtugan, may pakain din (kape, tinapay, biskwit, sopas, kendi, atbp.). Para ngang lagi tayong naghahanap ng dahilan para magkaroon ng selebrasyon.

Minsan, meron akong kababata at kaklase sa elementaryang namatay. Malalaki na kami nang maaksidente si Rhey sa motorsiklo. Natural, nagkita-kita sa lamay ang mga dating magkakaklaseng bihira nang magkasama-sama. Meron din kaming kaklaseng nasa ibang bansa noon. Tumawag siya (si Elna) sa telepono at nakibalita sa isa sa amin, at ang sabi niya: “Magkakasama kayo d’yan? E ‘di ang saya-saya n’yo!”

Hindi na siguro kakatwang makakita ng mga taong tumatawa habang tumutulo ang luha sa mga lamay. May lungkot dahil sa pangungulila sa isang kasama o kaibigang hindi na makakahuntahan o makakabiruan. May saya dahil may pasasalamat sa magagandang ala-alang pinagsaluhan ng magkakaibigan.

(more…)

Artist’s Statement for ONE SORRY HORSE

How does one incorporate the mistakes of one’s life into the very essence of who and what one is? How does one transform the accidentals of one’s life into what is essential?

I first wanted to present the idea of a “holy horse,” not in a satirical manner, nor through the presentation of purity (as in a “white horse”). Besides, the idea of a “virginal horse” seems to be a contradiction in terms. Instead, I wanted to convey the idea of a holy compassion that one gains by plodding through the dirty dust and murky waters of life. (Think of Milarepa and St. Augustine of Hippo.)

But in the process of discovering how to present this visually through the taka, I made a lot of serious mistakes. I didn’t know what to make of these “accidents” until I thought of making this bewilderment the very point of the exercise. The remorse I felt for not reining in my instincts was brought into the work, and deliberate “accidents” (dismembered ears and tail) were added to the accidental mistakes (splotches of paint originally intended to dirty the “holy horse”) to signify the loving acceptance of one’s fate.

“Balinguynguy,” as friends fondly call it, was born out of a mistake.

And I wouldn’t want it to be otherwise.

best regards,

ian

From “The Book of Lights” by Chaim Potok:

“From the age of fifteen until the age of twenty-one he lived in the apartment world of his aunt’s whispery talking and his uncle’s coughs and brooding silence, and he did not know which was more frightening. For a while after his cousin’s death he thought his family had somehow been singled out for a special curse. But he talked to friends and found that throughout the neighborhood ran a twisting river of random events: parents died in slow or sudden ways, children were killed, relatives slipped young from life. The world seemed a strangely terrifying place when you really thought about it. He tried not to think about it too often.

(more…)

Books Liked/Loved:

The Count of Monte Cristo (Alexander Dumas)
El Filibusterismo (Jose Rizal)
The Little Prince (Antoine de Saint-Exupery)
The Favourite Game (Leonard Cohen)
Thus Spoke Zarathustra / Genealogy of Morals (Friedrich Nietzsche)
The Trial / Metamorphosis (Franz Kafka)
Doktor Faustus (Thomas Mann)
Cubao Midnight Express (Tony Perez)
The Alphabet of Grace (Frederick Buechner)
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance (Robert Pirsig)
Written on the Body (Jeanette Winterson)
The Brothers Karamazov (Fyodor Dostoyevski)
The Unbearable Lightness of Being (Milan Kundera)
Personal (Rene Villanueva)
Foucault’s Pendulum (Umberto Eco)
Lady Chatterley’s Lover (D.H. Lawrence)
Siddharta / Narcissus and Goldmund (Herman Hesse)
The Book of Lights (Chaim Potok)
Angela’s Ashes (Frank McCourt)
The God of Small Things (Arundhati Roy)
A Little Book on the Human Shadow / Iron John (Robert Bly)
It Is Here Now - Are You? (Bhagavan Das)
The Last Three Minutes (Paul Davies)
The Dancing Wu-Li Masters (Gary Zukav)
The Clowns of God (Morris West)
Zen Guitar (Philip Toshio Sudo)
Sophie’s Choice (William Styron)
The Artist’s Way (Julia Cameron)
The Day of the Jackal (Frederick Forsyth)
Inside the Music (interviews with contemporary musicians)
Writing Down the Bones (Natalie Goldberg)
Ordinary People (Judith Guest)
The Teachings of Don Juan (Carlos Castaneda)

A Thousand Bitter-Sweet Poems for Women
By Michael Ian Lomongo, March 21, 2001

Last March 10, I watched PETA’s “Komedi Club,” a festival of 10 to 15-minute plays written by members of the PETA Writers’ Bloc. In celebration of the International Women’s Day, the plays featured during that weekend (March 8-10) were written by women playwrights (except for Nick Pichay’s “Kahit na Magtiis”). The line-up included “Flight,” an interpretative dance choreographed and performed by Martina Gonzales-Quesada, Regina Lasam, and Verni Severo, incorporated with a poem by Inge Saltarin; an adaptation of Liza Magtoto’s Palanca-winning “Despedida de Soltera“; Sheila Crisostomo’s “Emergency” (the grand prize winner of the second Charley dela Paz Awards of the PETA-PDP Writers’ Bloc); Nick Pichay’s “Kahit na Magtiis”; and Lallie Bucoy’s “Isang Libong Tula para sa Dibdib ni Dulce.”

I liked the last two plays best.

(more…)

A reaction on

Against Interpretation by Susan Sontag

Posted in autografitti@yahoogroups.com, August 5, 2003.

—

I can understand the dislike that Sontag has for hermeneuts and their penchant for reducing a work of art into its purported meaning, especially when such meaning is made to appear as esoteric and accessible only to initiates. I’m inclined to think that this is the same dislike that we have for so-called experts, academicians, philosophers, and intellectuals. These personages are supposed to illumine life but most of the time they only succeed in clouding and cluttering it with hot air, pollution and garbage.It is interesting to note that Michel Foucault argued for an “ars erotica” vis-a-vis the “scientia sexualis” in Volume I of The History of Sexuality. Of course, he was not talking about an “erotics of art” but an “art of erotics.” But he, like Sontag, is wary too of hermeneutics and its promise of getting into the “depth of things.” (The truth/meaning of things.)

(more…)

This was my first post in autograffiti@yahoogroups.com. May 6, 2003.

—-

Hi to everyone!

Thank you for joining Autograffiti.

As mentioned in the invitations you received and the description of the homepage of this new e-group, this is meant for artists and philosophers of all stripes, colors, and kinds.

Why Autograffiti?

Err… For want of a better name? =P

As I was thinking of possible names for the group, the following came up: essais, essaying_the_self, askesis, agon (greek for contest/battle), enkrateia (self-mastery), the_crucible, autography, and others which I now forget.

Where am I coming from?

From the belief that life, philosophy, and the arts are intricately connected. Our struggles to become the good/better/best artists that we can be cannot be divorced from the effort to philosophize. Being an artist necessarily involves creation, and perhaps the greatest artwork in progress that we all have is our very lives.

Thus, you will notice that the names aforementioned are all, in one way or another, connected with the idea of creation/trial/formation of oneself.

(more…)