INTERMISYON

Ang ganda ng umaga. Kahit na kagabi di ako makatulog kasi naiinis pa din ako kay Antoine Walker, para syang etat ng kabayo, ewan ko ba, i don't know lang, ha, sabi nga nung brod ko na amoy kabayo. Ayun, hanging on the edge of death ang Miami Hitad, pag nanalo ang Chicago Bulok bukas, pustahan, sila ang magiging world champs kuno.

Pinakikinggan ko ngayon yung Gabriel's Oboe ni Enio Morricone, version ni Yo-yo Ma. Eto yung theme song sa The Mission na ewan ko ba, tuwing naririnig ko e para akong nasa gubat, naaalala ko siguro ang Amazonia. Bale ba naman me dumapo pang dalawang parrots sa patio, yung bang kulay munggo, tapos yak-yakkan sila ng yak-yakkan, ano kaya pinag-uusapan nila? Siguro sabi nung babae sa lalaki, Yak-yak-yak, sobrang laki naman ng human mo.

Haynako, nagtennis na naman ako kagabi, isang set lang lupaypay na ako. Matanda na ang likod ko, retired na sa three setters. Hanggang panonood na lang siguro sa tennis, para walang tensyon. Oist, nung Sony Erricson Open sa Key Biscayne nung isang buwan, ang gara. Dumating kami ni bunso ng maaga, sabado nun, e di wala pang gaanong laro pero may mga nagpa-praktis sa ibat-ibang practice courts. E di almusal muna kami ni bunso dun sa isang open cafe, tapat ng isang practice court. Kape, kape, sabay dutdot sa soft pretzel. Di ko pinapansin yung nagparaktis kasi nagbabasa ako ng NY Times. Maya maya napahiyaw si bunso, namangha sya dun sa dalawang nagpapraktis kasi hatawan sila ng hatawan ng volleys, malakasan, tas magkalapit lang sila sa isa't isa, tas ang tagal talaga nung volleys.

Nung nag dead-ball, sigawan yung kakarampot na nanonood, pati na rin syempre kami ni bunso. Teka lang, sabi ko, syet, si Tim Henman pala yun! Tas kapaluan nya yung ka-doubles daw nya na hindi ko alam ang ipinangalan sa kanya ng nanay nya. Ayos, merong free entertainment. Kaso lang yung pretzel, ang alat! Andaming asin.

Tas nung pinanood namin si Sebastian Grosjean vs Richard Gasquet, katabi ko pa yung tv camera, gusto ko ngang iharap yung mukha ko sa lens, kaso baka magsigawan sa ESPN sabihin nila, what the hell is this!!! Must be the face of sports from the distant past!

O sige, maghahanap muna ako ng maiaalmusal. Sasamahan ko na tuloy ng bayer pain killer at ng matahimik muna itong si manong.

TECHNOLOGY, POLITICS ETC ON SPEECH AND LANGUAGE, PART 2

First, here's a poem by Yves Bonnefoy -

Between sky and room
Sometimes our mirror
Takes the small earthly
Sun in its hands,

As though
The paths, the hopes
Of things and names
Joined on the same shore.

We start to dream
That downstream from this river
of peace, words will not ask
Too much of the world,

That words will not cut
The throat of the lamb
That trustfully
Follows our speech.

- Part I, Towards the Same Shore
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The world is noisy; within the confines of my office I am not impervious. I can hear the sound waves penetrating my thin walls, and learn - by awful accident - certain information that are as unwelcome in my stock knowledge as the lyrics of an average rap song. How much of what we know gives us growth? How much of what we hear moves us? If a secretary calls the other end of her phone a little piece of shit, does that embolden our spirit?

The great American environmentalist-poet Wendell Berry has known so much of this bang and babel about and around us that, in his essay An Entrance to the Woods, he refers to a visit to a forest as some kind of death which, for all intents and purposes, could really mean some kind of rebirth -

"The man who walks into the wilderness is naked indeed. He leaves behind his work, his household, his duties, his comforts - even, if he comes alone, his words."

Ahhh, a world of silence. A rebirth indeed.
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How much of our comfort are we willing to part in exchange for silence? And how much of silence do we really need? Let's be careful of what we wish for...
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I still remember this episode from a long-ago tv show called Tales From the Unexpected where a man (I can't remember why, probably because of his noise) was condemned to virtual silence by an Orwellian state. The twist here was that rather than telling him to shut-up, the rest of society was ordered not to listen to him. For a while, the man enjoys this. When he falls in line at a canteen and orders for food and is ignored, he helps himself and gets all the food he wants. Problem starts when he is sideswiped by a car and nobody helps him because they do not hear his screams of pain and anguish. He goes to a hospital and nobody attends to him because, well, he is not there.
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Recently I have encountered two fictional characters whose lives, for a while, have been governed by silence. One was Lucy, a 12-year old kid from Paul Auster's Brooklyn Follies who runs away from home (sort of; her mother actually persuades her to) and moves to her uncle in Brooklyn. When she reaches his townhouse, she refuses to talk and her method of communication is reduced to a shaking and nodding of the head. The readers will learn later on that while Lucy's silence is seemingly self-imposed, there is actually a higher authority that regulates this imposition: the religion practiced by her mother and stepdad asks them (and its members) to commit to silence evrytime they sin; somewhere along the way, Lucy thinks she dis something wrong.

And then there is Dwayne, the 15-year old boy from Little Miss Sunshine who initially refuses to talk while living in his rebellious world of Nietzche's existential angst. And as he was able to vividly convey, silence can be very subversive.
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We oftentimes see a sign that says Silence is Golden. But if the world is flooded with gold, will gold be precious? If the world is nothing but silent, will all that silence be golden? Is Lucy's silence cute? Did Dwayne prove his worth in salt by refusing to talk? If silence had historically ruled the day, will the slaves find freedom from leg irons to enable us now to - ironically - listen to the words of Martin Luther King?
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Lest we forget, silence is the refuge of the weak and crowning virtue of the strong. While the tyrant can gag us dumb, sometimes, the very enemy itself does not have a voice.

blood test

intermisyon

sabado de gloria na pero anlamig pa din sa miami. naalala ko nun sa pilipinas, ramdam ko e pinakamainit na panahon na kapag semana santa, lalo na ang byernes santo kung saan ang init ay nanggagaling di lang sa itaas kundi na rin sa ibaba, para kang hinuhurno ng isang higanteng magtitinapay. haynako, tas ngayon e anlamig, ikanga ng hotdog ni dennis garcia, ewan ko ba (kung bakit type kita, di ka naman gago).

tas ba naman, di naliligo yung mga tao sa bayan namin mula huwebes santo hanggang sabado de gloria (nung tinanong ko yung isang tambay kung bakit ganun, sabi nya, totoy, masama ang maligo, matatanggal ang libag mo). ayos, may pagka-sagrado pala ang libag sa mga ungas na to. kaya pagdating ng linggo ng pagkabuhay at ang mga tao e naglipana na sa beach, asahan mo, ang aplaya ay magiging isang pagkalaki-laking sisidlan ng libag.

yung mga tambay din, syempre dahil walang ibang mapaglibangan (sarado mga sinehan; walang gaanong palabas sa tv), ang inaatupag na lang e madyong at inuman. sabi nung isang manang sa mga nag-iinuman ng ginebra, hoy! para kayong mga h_ _ _ _ o, byernes santong byernes santo e nag-iinom kayo!, sagot naman nung isang tambay, aba aba, di nyo ba napapansin na nag-iinom kami ng gin ng walang chaser at pulutan, di ba ito'y isang pagpepenitensya.

haynako. ewan lang ha, pero ngayon siguro e wala ng gaanong saysay ang tradisyon sa pinas, malamang e nangaliligo na ang mga tao, tas beer na ang iniinom ng mga hudas.

at ako? eto. natatamad maligo kasi ang jinaw.

TECHNOLOGY, POLITICS, PHILOSOPHY, and RELIGION as essential ingredients in the history and future of SPEECH and LANGUAGE

Part I

I was discussing the status of the US automobile industry with a first generation German-American when he startled me with this question - Do you know why Germany is far ahead of the United States in automobile and electronics technology? When I said no, he curtly replied, Because German is a complete language.

I have not heard of this theory before, that language has such a direct effect on technology, and left me without much to say on that topic of conversation - aside from suggesting that American English vocabulary has something like 20,000 words. Yet I can't help but think if the Philippines' non-existing automobile (or even bicycle) manufacturing industry was a direct representation of its palpably limited vocabulary, more particularly in the fields of engineering, science, and technology.

But if language advances technology, technology does not seem to turn the favor. To know what I mean, all you have to do is look at your last text message (yours or your frend's) and find that syntax is dead, spelling even deader. You can also pick up your phone and call your bank, and instead of honing your communication skills, all you are being told to do by the prompt is to press 1 for yes and 2 for no. (Ever wonder why some people, despite the convenience afforded by the phone or computer, take the effort of falling in line in a bank if only to talk to a live, charming teller?)

Here then is my reverse theory. As technology advances, language diminishes. Which bring us to the context of the first theory. If language ultimately dies, guess which is going to follow next?