cubao // 09292012

How long does a place take to introduce itself to strangers?
    How long does it take for a stranger to be familiar with the place?
    They say Cubao is a place of transit, not a destination. Daily, aliens arrive and depart. The place is not the destination, but the journey for these strangers.
    How long does it take for stranger to make a place familiar?

[VS]

Mixtape

[RR]

On certain days of the year, we go back. That was how I came to think of the place as a hub — a place of meeting and a break from our previous lives from a while ago. We were not related by blood or ritual but by pure circumstance.

[MD]

Bigla na lang ang daming tao sa LRT2 at sa MRT. Halos lahat nakasuot ng Blue o Green tapos siksikan. Nagtaka naman ako kasi Sabado ngayon. Naalala ko na lang na Ateneo vs La Salle pa la ngayon, tapos Sabado, Gimmick, tapos Payday. Patay. Siksikan na naman. Payday na nga tapos Sabado, paano tayo makakauwi nito. Sabi ng MMDA App, traffic pa-southbound. Simula Cubao hanggang Ayala.

   Alis na lang tayo ng maaga.

   Doon na nga lang mismo sa kanto ng KFC Araneta at ng Gateway, bago makatawid, tatlong kanta ng Foster the People na napatugtog. Tignan mo mga itsura ng mga taong lumalabas sa Araneta, makikita mo sino nananalo sa game.

   Ang cute noong mga matatandang nanonood no. Talagang die-hard fans sila. Saan ba nanggaling yang term na die-hard? At ano ba talaga ibig sabihin noon?

   Mahirap kang mamamatay o mamaamatay kang mahirap?

   Hindi ba ‘yon ‘yong movie?

   Hindi ba traffic sa EDSA? Sa Aurora Avenue na lang tayo dumaan. Pa-Sta. Mesa.

   Gusto ko ‘yong paakyat na daanan papuntang Sta. Mesa galling EDSA. Parang out of place sya pero ang ganda. Talagang nakacurve pa.

   Sana ganito kaganda lahat ng daanan sa Manila. ‘Yong ang luwag, tapos ang ganda ng akyat at baba ng mga sasakyan.

   O, nandito na tayo.

   Kala ko ba traffic sa EDSA?

[GF]

12:30 PM , Saturday, September 29, 2012 // Farmer’s Mall

In a country where names of places occupy fragile positions in the citizen’s lexicon, strange names are sources of humor, a pastime that only surfaces when you come to think of it. I pass by this mall’s tiled floors more than twice a week for almost a year now, a route I can choose to go home via the southbound train; I could walk and rely on the memory of the path in my head, embedded there by habit. But walking without a destination, without a specific need as a buyer or as a hungry commuter, a feeling of estrangement wells up at every step along the familiar paths within this incomplete structure—pillars white with covers emblazoned with promises of new establishments, a certain expanded sense of space, particular questions to people. A halal food stall is located at the same floor with the multitude of stalls selling shady branded items. Come to think of it, do farmers shop here? I ask.

An urban question:

where have all the farmers gone?

Come to think of it—

04:00 PM, Saturday, September 29, 2012 // Farmer’s Market

Places change their faces as one walks towards a certain direction; here, the names on the billboards possess more unintended strangeness—Kaka Chinese Drugstore, Mega Stone Pawnshop; here, the stark contrasts appear, the differences observable in the smells, the sounds, the things that accumulate on the sidewalks and pavement—blood, bile, dirty water, rotten leaves and fruits, fish scales; here, the people work with both the refuse and the goods passing through their hands in plain sight of those availing services, accepting both as parts of a former whole; here, people smell the way they’d smell under natural circumstances, like during hot, humid days where sweat is nothing but a sign of being alive; here people possess the same preoccupation—to live—but the conditions are different—subtract comfort, subtract abundance, multiply with resourcefulness and thrift; here, just a walkable distance away from the comforts of airconditioning, service-oriented smiles, and shopper-friendly environs, things are just different.

Four-wheeled ferries float;

EDSA, a concrete river,

the market, a port.

[GB]

Unlike the feet that speed through the city, the pavement cracks at a rate imperceptible to those who cannot afford to wait. One quickly discovers that the endeavor would take decades, naturally; one's skin would wrinkle even before the pavement could crack outward. Not long before a fissure grows and makes it impossible to step on is it replaced or reinforced that the one who would set up a camera to record a section of the pavement ('to document the natural process of decay that govern the artificial') finds the impending ruin overturned by repairs.

[PGO]

EXT. THE INTERSECTION OF SHOPWISE, SM, ARANETA AND A PARKING LOT.

“Bakit ang tagal naman natin makatawid? Nandoon na lang naman ‘yong Ali Mall sa likod ng SM.”

“Hindi talaga tayo makakatawid!”

“Dahil sa mga traffic enforcer na ang tagal magpatawid!!!”

“Ay, ito yong intersection kung saan kailangan pang lagyan ng tali para lang hindi makatawid ‘yong mga tao. Ang weird no? Sa Pilipinas ka lang makakakita ng tawiran na kailangan may lubid para hindi muna tumawid mga tao.”

“Nakakahiya.”

“Pero ganoon din talaga. Napapansin mo ba na kailangan talaga maglagay ng mga harang sa daan para lang doon talaga dumaan mga tao. Yung mga pink na harang.”

“Wala namang use ‘yon. Pwede ka naman lumusot.”

“Oo nga.”

“Hindi lang naman sa mga harang na yon. Ang pangit din ng pagkaplano kung saan yung babaan. Dapa lahat parang sa Ayala ‘yong set-up. Na nandoon ka na agad sa kung saan ka baba. Hindi tulad ng sa Mantrade na ang layo-layo ng bus stop. Tapos ang layo ng lalakarin para makapuntang Pasong Tamo o MRT station… Ang tagal naman natin makatawid.”

“Ganoon talaga.”

“Gusto mo

lakad na lang tayo

tapos tawid na lang tayo

sa kabilang dulo.”

INT. GATEWAY.

“Nasaan ‘yong Mercury Drug?”

“Sa third floor pa yata.”

“Watson’s pa la to.”

“Ok lang, tubig  at biogesic lang naman bibilhin ko.”

“Ang cute naman noong mga liquid hand soap.”

“Sige hawak-hawakan mo lang yan. Nacucurious ako ano amoy nila.”

“Wala naman e!”

“Talaga namang wala, nakaseal pa…”

“…ginawa ko din yan!”

(cut)

[GF]

Everyone just got here – some days, some nights. The market of mystics have gone, in place were towers of glass and stone – or, perhaps, the market of mystics was elsewhere now. But tellers of fortune and sellers of curiosity were still here. I suspect they have no intention of leaving this world.

Towers have sprung up everywhere like mushrooms after the rain.

[MD]

Hindi naman yata dapat puro commercial buildings dito. Hindi ko nga maintindihan. Parang driveway naman dapat yan pero ginawa na lang parking. Ang liit naman ng daan na to. Hindi ba pare-pareho ang sukat ng mga kalye ditto. Ang dami naman kasing kotse dito. Ang dami ding tao na lakad ng lakad. Dati mga jeep, dumadaan sa mga kalsadang to. Kaya grabe ang traffic. Grabe kung grabe. Ngayon nga na wala ng mga jeep, ang traffic pa din. Paano pa kung mayroon. Ginawa nila na nilagay nila yun mga sakayan ng jeep sa mga terminal. Yung isa nga dead end. Kung tanga tanga ka at wala kang alam, iikot ka lang.

Sayang lang lakad mo.

Pero hindi naman talaga sayang. At least, nagamit mo naman yang binti mo.

[GF]

12:00 PM, Saturday, September 28, 2012 // Gateway

Consider this: what if we can measure the movement of feet on the floor and the amount of individual square meters without a physical object occupying it every split second in a place as transient as the trains, buses, jeeps and taxis that pass through it? I think of ways how to measure details, how to record things so mundane yet somehow important in a place where people could sometimes think: bastard in front of me walking slower than normal, I have a fucking appointment in five minutes at a place ten minutes away from here, or Jesus, what a can of sardines this place is! And the smell! Oh my god the smell! People shuffle past, I wait to be carried to a higher floor on the escalator, and then I move again, thinking, how useful, oh please, how useful an endeavor, as I shuffled on. The gates of this place open to the taxi bay, the jeepney and FX bay, the east and west-ward train tracks, and the elevated walkway to another mall leading to the transport terminals at EDSA. How apt, I say to myself, very apt indeed,

a place in transit

change suddenly, unnoticed,

as customary.

12:45 PM Saturday, September 29, 2012 // National Bookstore Superbranch

On faces: what is the value of a face, of a physical manifestation of a name, in a city whose movement rises and falls according to the trends, a place reliant on the idea that prevails at every given point in time? Inside a bookstore with a claim to a nationalistic identity, a cartload of Halloween masks features one made in the likeness of an international Islam fundamentalist-terrorist leader. Somewhere on the second floor, a pile of books labelled “Science Fiction” includes realist fiction, a couple of high fantasy novels, and a box set of a trilogy about S&M. Jokes so inappropriate laughing at them seems too perverse. After laughing, I ask: what is the value of a face?

Stuff money can buy

are sold or stolen, taken

regardless of names.

[GB]

Here and there are seemingly lost pavements to how it was like in past – 2 weeks, months, years, and decades ago. Cubao is in silent protest against the changes its strangers are inducing, enforcing for her to comply with what they know, to what is familiar to them, from wherever they came, to where they are heading. Cubao is a victim of impatience, misery of these people longing for arrival or departure.

   How long can a place remain familiar to itself?

   Perhaps Cubao does not want to become a place familiar to anyone. Perhaps she hopes to remain a stranger to everyone.

   How long can strangers remain strangers?

[VS]

Winding down with the last aspirin swallowed in the morning bed covers stained with piss in mounds of garments reeking in the corner when to repair a broken faucet de-clog the toilette find soap settle last month’s water bill scrub bloody underwear with leftover bleach just pour hot water or better yet listen to five grumbling stomachs just get last night’s fried fish and brown bahaw or catch a whiff of bacon and eggs from the neighboring condominium overlooking dreary alleyways hawkers lurking  to trade the latest fabricated pair of Chucks nuts balls cigarettes mugged leather bags menthol candy not to mention stealthy exchanges for cheap drugs and sex get off the nearest apartelle toe the crooked lines on the asphalt reach the junction avoid pipe-laying projects partial road blocks men drilling stony earth soaring debris caught in the eye tearing up silent sighs further upsetting previously peace-less minds attached to bodies racing in god-forsaken trains blasted buses scheming taxis hasty jeeps slap dashing private cars urging constant departure and arrival to monetary tardiness compulsory labor of the auto-pilot in you in you in you and in you until the next dark coffee and round of stale cigarettes is consumed humbly get by with convenience store heists the lottery and highly intellectual noontime shows for lunch

[CA]

05:15 PM, Saturday, September 29, 2012 // Araneta Coliseum

I walk across General Aguinaldo Avenue towards the Coliseum, passing by the sign declaring that part of the road not passable. Shrugged, stopper lines and guards could be deployed, but people transgress signs; they need only converge and then disperse, like the crowds that troop to the Coliseum’s gates when there are events. People scamper for safety as individuals, people snake as a crowd (or a mob) in all paths for walking. I think about these things while noting the alternating blue, and then green, shirts of every college basketball team supporter running around the circular perimeter of Araneta Coliseum, walking the familiar concrete path, while putting at the back of my mind the improvement of the Coliseum’s new gate, how some establishments flanking the edge of this dome have closed down already, the unsatisfactory service (how bourgeois!) of a certain bar and restaurant I never came back to for a long time now, where I should buy a new internet broadband stick later, what time was the art event at Cubao Expo again? There are a few cars at the parking lot facing the Eurotel Building, why is that so, oh—

closed for the meantime.

Improving the parking lot

for your convenience

11:30 AM, Saturday, September 28, 2012 // Shopwise

From afar, the supermarket seems like it lost a portion of its identity—the metal wall bearing its name was punctured by a roofed walkway, which likewise intruded its box-shaped neighbour mall’s wall, subtracting letters from its name formerly laid out complete in large, red-and-blue letters. Gaze higher: from a distance, the sky is a grey map of shifting, dark moods; from a distance the herd of people seem oblivious of the atlas above their heads, a map disregarded by the uniformity of sidewalks and the static lines of the entire Araneta layout. The physical violence on the faces of the buildings seems like a stark contrast to the indifference to the sky of those on the ground—acts of separation, differentiation. But look closely: on punctured faces, a connection now exists. Look closely:

people follow paths

at possible diversions

like the clouds’ roadways

[GB]

INT. GOLD INNOVA. EXT. SM WALKWAY

POTANGINA!!!! NAHIMATAY YONG BABAE?! Ano nangyari sa kanya?! HINDI KO ALAM?! BIGLA NALANG SYANG NAHIMATAY. Hindi naman sya patay no? BAKIT WALANG TUMUTULONG SA KANILA?!

May one time

Naglalakad ako

Tapos may nakita akong babae

Na natapilok

At solid ‘yong pagkatapilok nya.

TANGINA BAKIT WALANG TUMUTULONG?! OK LANG BA SYA?! Dapat dahil sya sa ospital. Hindi na yata kaya ng clinic. Sino kaya mga kasama nya?  Estudyante kaya sya?

At noong natapilok sya

Walang tumutulong sa kanya

Kasi ganoon naman di ba

Kapag natapilok ka, inaasahan ng tao

Na tatayo ka agad.

Hindi sya tumayo.

BAKIT WALANG NAGDIDRIVE?! Sumakay na sila sa Police car ba yan?

Ayun,

Buti na lang nilapitan sya ng guard.

At tinulungan.

Sana ok sya…

Paano kaya kung nangyari sakin yon?

[GF]

The camera attracts the eyes of those it faces, perhaps they recognize the lens as an eye, perhaps a different eye, a passive eye. One walks toward a crowd and locks strangers in eye contact, one might say there is interaction; a camera, on the other hand, captures—the eye casts itself on its vision, faithfully recording it. Strangers, one sees from the camera, tuck hair behind ears, wipe sweat off the brows, perk up. Perhaps they have seen an eye; perhaps they desire their trace to be memorable.

[PGO]

11:00 AM, Saturday, September 28, 2012 // SM Cubao

A few hours awake now, the mall had all its bodies stretched fully, ready: legs fitted with the prescribed stockings and slacks, torsos dressed with well-pressed blazers (familiar grey with blue) and faces applied with make-up and required smiles, multitude of gentle, enticing voices stripped of signs of brittleness caused by a night of sleep; a three-day sale on its second day commences slowly—the stream of early mallers circling the perimeter of the mall, some only after the roofed pathways towards their destinations, some like vultures waiting for the plenty carcasses left by yesterday’s carnage of the shelves, racks, trays, baskets. Like jeepney barkers hawking seats the mall’s strategically-placed speakers outside blare adrenaline music to entice the people, their blasts mangling the usual noise of clip-clopping steps and mixing snatches of conversation and automobile rumbles, banging glass walls of other nearby establishments across, ringing steel railings and cables and ears;

inside closed, cold halls,

unfilled wallets wept, weary

of silent slaughter.

05:00 PM, Saturday, September 29, 2012 // Ali Mall

Extending arms towards their enemies and giving close-mouthed kisses with each other, the structures of these business establishments could be seen as filthy, indecent, human-sharing organisms competing for the same kind of sustenance, baring out their baiting goods; a three-day sale is a three-day swarming of capital nourishment anyway. The people are caught in constant competition, thinking they are vultures swooping on meaty carcasses when in fact they are more like fishes lured into a narrow river, torn between baits lined up along the opposite banks agreed upon by the fishers. Of course I take note of this as I imagined eating a nice platter of java rice and fried cream dory with sauce at some fancy restaurant around here, while walking the skyway connecting one mall to another.

Fishes and fishers,

in malls and rivers always

fixate on the bait.

[GB]

Houses that were unfinished had pillars and wires left sticking out, just in case the owners could build more rooms.

   The streets allude to other places – places of prestige and “higher class”. I think the high towers gleaming are objects of our aspirations. We long to throw our selves high into the face of heaven. I should rather like to be an insect or a bird – ascribe my monstrosity to tenderness and quiet speech.

   I wonder if this new place is any kinder than the last, or any harsher to these anonymous bodies. Harried, walking on roads and pavements that seem to lead to somewhere.

   All my friends have gone someplace else. I last found myself here. 

[MD]

[MD]

[MD]

[CA]

[CA]

[CA]

[CA]

[CA]

[MD]

You are here.

   The concrete echoes the fugue of the city. It follows the peddlers, unfurling after them like the promise of rain: the humming of the trains, the talk on the sidewalks, the incessant honk. Ask for directions and instead you’re given a route.

   There is no starting point: anywhere you are, you are at square one. Go straight and you’ll find it at a distance. But you don’t, you turn right at a nameless street and walk straight on, forgetting what it is you are supposed to see.

   In my city, you start, but pause.

   There is no time for contrast either, only motion, only all together now.

   For instance, nearby, a store of curiosities: shelves of old books, tea sets, a collection of Coke glasses, vintage cameras and radios, a half-bodied mannequin covered in gems and a purple cloth. It doesn’t look at you, it looks yonder to the city or perhaps elsewhere, as you might have done if you were in its standpoint. Meanwhile outside, a round of beers on one corner and a security guard stumbling toward his next censure on another. A few blocks away: a row of houses, a couple gay bars, a maternity clinic.

   At the main highway, the heavy traffic, the buzz of skidding trains, the yelping of vendors. At the main highway, silence: a small cinema now showing one movie, at your own risk.

   Go straight on and you cross the street. Reach the train station and you find its corresponding mini-mall instead, reminiscent of a similar corner in another city. And despite the clamor and the current of faces and the imagined encounter with the snatcher, there is home here, or perhaps elsewhere. You are at square one.

[NM]

One gets lost in the city despite the signages. To be lost requires a destination; one looks at a sign for direction. These, as one finds out, and usually at a moment too late, talk to each other, sometimes contradicting themselves. They exist assuming one is already lost. When one reckons the city on foot, perhaps one would wonder how signages would be placed better; having no destination, one imagines branching paths with the appropriate signs, as if one already desires to be lost.

[PGO]

You need a framework to view a place politically, socially and culturally. There are languages that you use because some things cannot be explained in a language which has no words for it. There’s the textual, the visual and sometimes, people use social reality as a language.

   It’s an artistic discrepancy when you put the blur between the textual language and the social reality. Because sometimes you need more than one language to get a point. You can’t just lean on one to explain the other. Like how you can’t directly translate kilig.

   There must be a blur for the two to co-exist. And if you’re lucky enough, even in its natural language, the people will get what you want to say. I wanted a dialogue between the exterior and the interiors. I needed the blur.

   But I really don’t know what I’m doing most of the time.

   Sometimes you have to fake it to make it. But you’re not really faking. There’s a sense of intuition that you just can’t explain. How people just understand. So you actually know what you’re doing, you just don’t know what it is… yet.

   That’s always a good thing.

   Almost, always.

[GF]

Perhaps Cubao is a warzone: between the strange place and the strangers, both trying to introduce what is familiar, what is their own. Who is to win, who is to lose?

   With just 2 probabilities, a stake of one side is bound to be broken any time, at the next flip of the coin.

[VS]

04:30 PM, Saturday, September 29, 2012 // Cubao Expo

A horseshoe-shaped shoe store center, which now also houses, aside from shoes: art spaces, restaurants of different sorts of specialties (food and presentation), shops of furniture, antique, and second-hand things like vinyl records, postcards from more than fifty years ago, pictures from more than sixty years ago, dog-eared magazines updated with the latest trends more than ten years ago, golf clubs from not-sure-what-number-of years ago but still, battered and old-looking, figurines, notebooks, tapes, etcetera, etcetera—defined by these things, the old place retains a dusty character already lost by its comrades, the old building beside it, some of which were already dusted completely, some condemned, merely waiting for their turn to be reduced to rubble. A corner away, along the eastward side of Aurora Boulevard near apartelles and girly clubs, a contemporary survives—a building housing an old cinema of sleazy films bearing reminders about indecent acts, while just across General Romulo Avenue the Superstore Arcade looks on like a corpse staring at an old man, warning of the huge cranes and construction of new buildings just a few meters away.

Arms raised, architects

marvel with developers:

look at the future.

[GB]

How Things Seem: in Cubao

[DS]

Nakapila ang mga kahel na tricycle. Masarap ang mga gotohan. Puro na lang motel. Sa kaliwa, sa kanan. Pero hindi pa la sila pangkantutan. Nakalimutan ko na terminal pa la ng mga sasakyan ang Cubao. Naging lugar na lang ng kantutan dahil ang dami ngang mga motel na p’wedeng 3 hours, 6 hours, 12 hours. Kulang na lang 30 minutes ok na. Mura pa! Ang bilis mo naman kuya. Baka hindi sulit ang bayad mo nyan. Oo nga pa la, may laman o itlog. Ako, gusto ko wala pareho. Goto lang.

   Naaalala ko pa ng hinawakan mo kamay ko at niyakap mo ko dahil ang lamig ng hangin. Hindi natin namalayan na alas-kwatro na pa la ng umaga. Kulang na lang sumikat ang araw. Pero hindi kasi natin nakikita ang araw. Lagi na lang tayong tulog tuwing umaga. Masyado na yata nating tinanggap sa ating sarili na baliktad na talaga ang oras natin. Kailangan na yatang magbago.

   Gusto ko naman makita ang sikat ng araw.

[GF]

[CA]

Breathe in & breathe out, bag of guts. You are a slick slideshow, warm abdomen & all. Hair & its weight on your arm. Your left foot as it touches the ground. Knee & knee. The man on the corner would like fuck you if he could. There are 3-day sales across the land. Look at that lady’s dress & how she carries herself, & how her skin-pulse holds everything together, & how the Earth spinning can allow her to exist. In that shop across the enclave you find many old, decrepit things as one man gathers a fuckload of blankets. This is how you define the city. Count things between w/c you can see sky. (1) Antenna & corner of old house. (2) Crane & spires of building-to-be. (3) Crook of elbow & pelvis as she walks to the ice cream cart. (4) Green wire of Christmas lights & edge of ceiling of building under w/c you are standing. (5) Small leaves like moss, on rocks, at a creek where you once lived. (6) Top of cargo truck & fringe of banner. (7) Telephone lines, sleek & black. (8) Between bus signs nos. 22 & 23. Must buy doughnuts. Cheese-flavored chips. In that same station you sit at the center & feel your fever. Several degrees higher & counting. Luggage is ponderous. The stalls are empty & loom overhead just so. An artist thinks about pulling someone's hair back. When the air becomes too much, stand. Exit. Move about. Count things on w/c you can see sky: (1) glass doors & (2) glass windows & (3) shop fronts. (4) Shiny doorknobs. (5) Shiny signage. (6) Headlights. (7) Windshields. (8) Clear plastic. (9) Coffee in a white cardboard mug. (10) Coffee in a white cardboard mug discarded. (11) Toyota sigil on a car & (12) one metal pen. (13) Ray-bans at every corner. (14) Nickel on the ground. (15) Then spit on the ground. (16) Puddles. This is how you define the city. Better than sacks of salty blood. That couple bought something untoward. One too many plastic bags & shirt & cuff & wristwatch hairy arm. Instead, sky. Age-old flowers in thick glass bottles filled w/ liquid. The stores sell nostalgia & a set of Encyclopaedia Britannica. Cheap mountains. Haze & the Earth’s crust, glaciers & how they melt. Stare at teacups until you sweat. If uncertain of place, look for a single crude bee. Graffiti. Soot on knuckle or pink on lip. Just one. The sole of sandal on mud. A leaf by the side of the road like orange juice on taste buds. How fabulous that friction should keep us all in place. The basketball game has just ended & someone high-fives you on the way home.

[TCM]

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