meko’s Neighborhood

Ahh, I couldn't have wasted a better gift.  Well, time to change.

As of right now, this will be my student work blog/creative dump.  I will be more punctual as I update my projects, and even try to flesh out concepts that I feel get stifled before being forgotten.

Also as of right now in schoolwork: working on storyboards for a PSA based around getting children to read; working on short motion demonstration in After Effects.

Concepts: business logo, video game idea (a game based on negotiation in action), and direct mailing campaign sketches.

Nothing up yet.  Will rectify this next week.

I got into my first accident today.

It wasn't a huge accident by any means. I took my eyes off the road for one moment to retrieve a stew bowl (covered only by a thin layer of aluminum foil) and hit a mailbox.

It was over in a minute. My mirror folded in, the glass popped out.

I pulled over down a side street, breathless and on the verge of tears. Stepped out of the car, Vanessa Mae still blaring her concerto popped the cracked mirror into its damaged holder.

I turned around and stopped at the mailbox. I only got paid Friday but used almost all of my pay on bills--I'm surviving off less than $100 until I get paid in another two Fridays. I was worried. I could barely afford to eat, let alone fix someone's mailbox. But nevertheless, I pulled into his driveway, stepped out, and greeted the owner, who was examining his damaged mailbox.

"I was the one who hit your mailbox," I said. "I pulled over down Marcia to pop my mirror back in and--I'll pay for your mailbox. I'm sorry."

"Don't worry about it," he reassures me. "I can fix it. Thank you for coming back."

"Are you sure. I live right down there," I gesture to the street. "And when I'm not at work, I'm parked out there. If you need anything, please let me know."

He shoos me off, telling me time and time again that he can fix it, and I head off to work to deliver food to a co-worker, still a little shaken.

When I return home, I check ebay for a replacement mirror. $20 to fix the mirror, including shipping.

I'll be eating ramen and leftover spaghetti for the next two weeks, but I don't mind.

I typically translate Japanese to English and not the other way around, but I've started to keep a Japanese blog over at mixi to practice my casual Japanese. After writing a paper on William Carlos Williams' cubist poetry, I felt compelled to share his poem with the Japanese who read my mixi. Unfortunately, being that there are no translations at all of Williams' poems (how could the Japanese overlook such a fantastic poet?!), I decided to translate his poetry myself!

Be warned--this is my first English to Japanese poem translation. If you can offer any suggestions to better the translation, please let me know. I'm really trying to retain both the rhythm and reading of the original poem--but I'm not entirely sure if I've succeeded.

To a Poor Old Woman

munching a plum on
the street a paper bag
of them in her hand

They taste good to her
They taste good
to her. They taste
good to her

You can see it by
the way she gives herself
to the one half
sucked out in her hand

Comforted
a solace of ripe plums
seeming to fill the air
They taste good to her

かわいそうな老婆へ

道で梅を
ぼりぼり食べる　手に
梅の紙袋である

彼女には美味しい
彼女には
美味しい。彼女に
は美味しい

手の中で吸い尽くされる
その梅の半分に
集中する事
で見える

慰める
いあんの成熟の梅を
空中へいっぱいするに見える
彼女には美味しい

Please do not reproduce without permission.
許可なく写しますことをご遠慮下さい。

             

             The historian writes and educates others about history, but he also has another obligation to the public: to retell the story of history as accurately as possible and to police others into upholding these same standards. In Inventing a Hero, Glenn May does exactly this; he is informing the public about a crime against history: the fabrication of the Filipino nationalist “hero”, Andres Bonifacio.

              In his book, May explains how Bonifacio is more than just a historical figure to the Filipinos: he represents Filipino nationalism itself. This was moreover due to the re-creation of his character by Manuel Artigas, Epifanio de los , and Jose P. Santos—historians who fabricated information and doctored documents about a man who was otherwise a blip on the Filipino War for nationalism; it is Aguinaldo and the other illustrados deserve more credit for their work in the Filipino nationalist movement.

              However, the story of the illustrados would be capable of capturing the hearts and minds of the Filipino people; the illustrados were typically wealthy, well-educated individuals; your average Filipino was not. May continues by relating the re-creation of Bonifacio to other historical figures, such as George Washington, Thomas Jeffersion, Buffalo Bill, Father , and others. These historical figures—though all a paragon of some ideal—be it truth, intelligence, perseverance, or nationalism—are creations that the average person can relate to; most came from middle- or low-class backgrounds and were forced to work for their wealth or education. Bonifacio was the poor son of a mestiza mother, who peddled fans to support his family—and unlike other Filipino historical figures, Bonifacio did not have wealthy family to bail him when he was in trouble, nor did he have an expensive formal education in a European nation to rely on. Furthermore, there were very few written records about Andrés Bonifacio, which made him the perfect candidate for posthumous recreation.

              The myth of Bonifacio was first propagated by the historians de los Santos and Artigas, both of whom clearly had a nationalist agenda; as May writes, their goal was to "...inform Filipinos about their glorious recent past, to promote national pride, and to do some of that by rescuing Andrés Bonifacio from obscurity" (34). Personal and political biases were what motivated Ricarte to piece together his own fabrications about the life of Bonifacio. No matter what the motivations, Bonifacio was crafted into their paragon of nationalism using the same methods: unreliable resources and badly doctored documents.

Before Artigas, de los Santos, and Ricarte began their fabrication of history, there was little written about the hero Bonifacio, and as a result, little for them to work from. A great deal of the information these historians documented were never cited. Those few details that had been were from questionable sources. Valenzuela, who de los cited, was "notoriously unreliable about details" and often changed "his story from one telling to the next" (33). Letters were forged and transcriptions were doctored to make them appear more legitimate.

Furthermore, historians cited one another, both spreading and legitimizing misinformation propagated by the historians that came before them. Ileto sourced an article allegedly written by Bonifacio via ’ biography of the man; no copy of the magazine the article was published in has ever been found and it was never explained where or how he acquired the text.

              Though all of May’s allegations are highly substantiated, Bonifacio had already been established as a hero within the Filipino community. Many Filipinos were reluctant to accept that their hero had been almost completely fabricated by the historians who wrote about him; Bonifacio scholars refused to accept that they might have been studying from fraudulent documents. Many were highly suspicious of May’s motivations. Many believed that Inventing a Hero was an attack on Bonifacio and Filipino history.

Inventing a Hero was anything but; in his text, May attempted to promote a more accurate understanding of Bonifacio and Filipino history. He is doing his job as a historian by policing other historians and upholding them to the level of scrutiny as any other historian. May’s own willingness to use beloved American historical figures (such as Buffalo Bill, George Washington, etc.) as examples of instances of re-creation clearly shows that his motivations are anything but nefarious.

But even years after this book’s publication, things remain the same in the ; despite evidence to the contrary, the Filipino people still revere Bonifacio as a hero; the damage has already been done. We can only hope that with the publication of other books written by Bonifacio scholars like May, all Filipino people will in time come to embrace their heroes for what they are—and not for what they have been invented to be.

Hong Kong Phooey, number one super guy.
In search of Earth, flying in to the night.
He's the boss, he's a pip, he's the championship.
I never spend much time in school but I taught ladies plenty.
One for all and all for one, it's a pretty story.
Howwww! Nab him, jab him, tab him, grab him, stop that pigeon now.
Ulysses, Ulysses - Soaring through all the galaxies.
80 days around the world, we'll find a pot of gold just sitting where the rainbow's ending.
Ten years ago a crack commando unit was sent to prison by a military court for a crime they didn't commit.
I take care of both of them, which ain't easy, 'cause when they met it was MURDER!
Thunder, thunder, thundercats, Ho! Thundercats are on the move, Thundercats are loose.
If you have a problem and no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire the A-team.
Hong Kong Phooey, number one super guy.
Thunder, thunder, thundercats, Ho! Thundercats are on the move, Thundercats are loose.
Can't stay for long, just turn around and I'm gone again.
Top Cat! The most

So strange...

Not that I'm even registered in my current district, but it doesn't really bother me anyway.

...voting is futile. It would be a mathematical miracle if our vote actually decided the result of an election. And aren't we all told, when we contemplate voting for a Libertarian or a Nader, that doing so is "wasting our vote" because the third party candidate "can't win"? This means causing a victory is the only way not to waste your vote.

But the result of any national election will be the same regardless of whether, or how, any individual votes. For your vote to be decisive, you would have to be a single deciding vote in the single state whose electoral votes decide the election—so unlikely it's barely worth contemplating.

As the 2000 election showed, it's not only effectively mathematically impossible that one vote could matter: it is politically impossible as well. Imagine the recounts, margins of error, and eventual Supreme Court decision if by some miracle the presidency hung on one vote.
-Brian Doherty

Here's an actual economist talking, with a more in-depth analysis.

The odds that your vote will actually affect the outcome of a given election are very, very, very slim. This was documented by the economists Casey Mulligan and Charles Hunter, who analyzed more than 56,000 Congressional and state-legislative elections since 1898. For all the attention paid in the media to close elections, it turns out that they are exceedingly rare. The median margin of victory in the Congressional elections was 22 percent; in the state-legislature elections, it was 25 percent. Even in the closest elections, it is almost never the case that a single vote is pivotal. Of the more than 40,000 elections for state legislator that Mulligan and Hunter analyzed, comprising nearly 1 billion votes, only 7 elections were decided by a single vote, with 2 others tied. Of the more than 16,000 Congressional elections, in which many more people vote, only one election in the past 100 years - a 1910 race in Buffalo - was decided by a single vote.
-Stephen J. Dubner and Steven D. Levitt

If you are dead set on voting, I encourage you to vote no on everything and do what Cicero of To the People suggests:

Literally. Write in "Somebody Else" for as many races as possible. Do it. You know you want to. If you do, you will be able to say "don't blame me, I voted for somebody else".
-Cicero

Long after the thrill of livin' is gone.
After a great weekend after the specter of calamity, I have returned to my usual blah emotional state. That's not to say I'm either happy or sad; I'm just back on the gray path (). I think I've gotten the self-destruction out of my system after the smoking and the drinking and the impulse purchasing. The next time this happens, I wonder if I will exhibit a new symptom of addiction?

Oh, and I can now play Guitar Hero 2 now in good conscience, as I managed to pass Bark at the Moon finally on Friday. That was so satisfying, especially after losing so badly earlier.

To me, coming from you, friend is a four letter word.
"End" is the only part of the word that i heard.
Call me morbid or absurd, but to me, coming from you, friend is a four letter word.

When I go fishing for the words I am wishing you would say to me, I'm really only praying that the words you'll soon be saying might betray the way you feel about me.

But to me, coming from you, friend is a four letter word.

-John McRae, Cake, "Friend is a Four Letter Word", Fashion Nugget