A student’s life would mean a lot of incapacities and time constraints as tasks rain cats and dogs. My summer-born love for visual arts was clear that it would end whether I like it or not.  But I want to fulfill this wish despite the immobility so I surfed the net for solutions. I gladly found Art Informal, an open and free space of exhibits that showcases artworks online. Though nothing can surpass an actual face-to face meeting with the piece itself, I still consider this as advancement and a continuity of my love for arts. I mean I have seen Da Vinci’s  Mona Lisa (a billion times) but it can’t parallel the feeling when I first saw Juan Luna’s Spolarium actually. Live is better than tapped.

            The first exhibit that struck me was Memory Escapes My Head like a Blur of Dave Lock. Memory has a lot to do with everyone. It even becomes an incognito foundation of us as human, imagine life without it - every five minutes you meet new friends you've met ten minutes ago. It’s crap. I call it incognito because a few people consider it, we always patronize the heart that does nothing but to pump blood. I don’t mean our hearts should be disposed in bins. But let us wake up to the fact that our memory takes the love we possess and not the heart. Our memory links us to a greater portion of the world and continually reminds us that we belong, whatever happens. From this, memory is thus a core faculty of life. Psychology teaches us that there are two classifications of memory – short term and long tern. Sadly, God doesn't provide permanent thoughts only lasting ones. Our memory is always at a brink of loss in the infinite space. The mind has no strength to be a container of unlimited memories and maybe by this we bear the capacity of fully forgiving those who hurt us. The when memory takes its own way, it becomes a chameleon to mist and remains unfound. And an abhorring fact to be grieved upon is that these memories are snippets of our creativity. Unlike those memories we induce to forget that doesn't quickly escapes.  Good thing Dave Lock willfully got a chance to retrieve and prevent these memories from running to the abyss.

There is a poem of Angela Manalang Gloria entitled Poems (1940) saying:

“But all of them, however perfect

In my mind’s retreat,

Appear bewildered when released

And oh, so incomplete.”

The poetess appears so distressed of incompatibility of the actual opus to its mental state as Fr. Miguel Bernad SJ calls it – inchoate. Memory Escapes My Head Like a Blur’s completion as a magnum opus and incompletion as inchoate heavily anchors on our judgement and on how we unravel the semantics of the works.

            One distinctive touch of Dave Lock’s works is his titling. He sublimely justifies the correlation of its nomenclature to the artworks. It seems to me that the marriage of his titles to the works can parallel the essence of an epic. It’s not like the parodied Mona Lisa of Marcel Duchamp entitled L.H.O.O.Q which embodies lone Dadaism. Lock attempts to give meaning from the bosom of the opus to its extremities therefore nothing is bypassed.

                Of the many colors that the world offers, Lock uses only two black and white – white as the space while back as consumer of space. The synchrony of black and white, matter and content, drives us closer to the gamut of the artist’s expression. Black and white tends to be dependent, mutually owing their existence from one another as white defines black and black defines white. Though monochrome in nature, his works offer a prism that introduces us to pastel interpretations in a spectrum. Its action as dualistic is converted to a purposive plurality relatively ranging from the imaginative to critical interpretations.

            From a pool of his works, I have selected ten (not in order). The basis of my selections is personal than conceptual. It’s the subjective relation that paints the details that match to what has been stored to our memory. For example, Leap of Faith appears to be an illusion of a faith moving forward but is visually dismal. The paradox it shares among an array of audience signifies the artist’s capability to reflect or deflect man. Siamese is dichotomy of the human personality torn between wraths. In the other hand, Coil gains our pity from a female interfered by her environment to be naturally dependent.

            Four Place at Once established an ancient concept of balance, order and tranquility much like the coexistence of earth, wind, fire and water. From the distinctions of its shades, we take a vivid picture of each detail simultaneously working to create an equal existence, relying from one another for creation and survival. Aloof from the balance that the aforementioned work offers, comes the opposition of matter versus natural order. Gravity is an Ugly Lover depicts the matter pushing itself away from its usual ground against natural order that pull matter back. The conflict gives rise to chaos and eminent death. Lock doesn't only paint death. Out of the decay of a Sarcophagus, he breathes life in it. That within a sarcophagus is a system that relies on the process of nature and that dying is somehow of life itself.

            But between Life and Death, the artist gives stress to the dominance of death. In a clash between fire and flowers, life becomes submissive and transforms into ashes. Unlike the Phoenix that has an innate chance to rebirth, the flower has none. In the context of the society Lock’s equation is true. Try to measure to speed of the propagation of bad and good news, the results are amazing. Pass an examination, your family will celebrate. Fail it, prepared to be devoured and feasted by your neighbors.

            Memory Escapes My Head like a Blur builds a bias to what is happening in a mental realm especially dreams. Forgotten Dreams express a frustration from a break-out idea. And once you find it, you will discover that it is badly shaped and obscure in figure. Probably,  one of the greatest imperfections of humanity is to mentally recover its very own dreams exactly. Indeed, it is the epitome of a memory that escapes like a blur. Even worse is Dreamless 1 that having nothing at all is problematic. But we are relieved by Dream are Longer When You don’t Sleep because it assures us that we have an all day chance to find our slipping dreams, wide awake.

             The exhibit is toughly mental; it challenges our imaginations and the very knowledge of us. Take time to visit Art Informal at 277 Connecticut Street, Greenhills East, Mandaluyong City, Philippines. Gallery hours are 11:00 AM-7:00PM (Monday to Friday) while 10:00AM-6:00PM on Saturdays. The gallery is always closed on Sundays. For further details refer to these numbers: 63 (2) 725-8518 or 63 (918) 899 2698. Don’t wait until July 1, 2013

About the Artist

B. 1986. Dave lock is a non- art school undergraduate. He has had 6 solo shows to date, and a number of group shows around here in the Philippines and one recently in Singapore, where he also had his two week in-house artist residency. His latest exhibition is currently ongoing at the UP Vargas Museum. His method of painting and drawing are quite similar, as they are both done freehand and executed in an obsessive compulsion for detailed etchings. The habitual line drawings and repetitive patterns crawling among his eerie portraits describe his almost neurotic paranoia of existence, and its cyclical dominion over us.

Leap of Faith

pen and ink on paper
23.1 x 19.25 in / 58.7 x 48.9 cm
2013
Dave Lock
Catalog Id: 20130613-2050

Wildfires Spread Faster Than Flowers
ink and acrylic on paper
49 x 36.5 in / 4.1 x 3 ft
2013
Dave Lock
Catalog Id: 20130613-2061

Four Places at Once

pen and ink on paper
23.1 x 19.25 in / 58.7 x 48.9 cm
2013
Dave Lock
Catalog Id: 20130613-2048

Gravity is an Ugly Lover

pen and ink on paper
23.1 x 19.25 in / 58.7 x 48.9 cm
2013
Dave Lock
Catalog Id: 20130613-2049

Sarcophagus

pen and ink on paper
23.1 x 19.25 in / 58.7 x 48.9 cm
2013
Dave Lock
Catalog Id: 20130613-2055

Siamese

ink and acrylic on paper
49 x 39.5 in / 4.1 x 3.3 ft
2013
Dave Lock
Catalog Id: 20130613-2065

Dreamless (1)

pen and ink on paper
23.1 x 19.25 in / 58.7 x 48.9 cm
2013
Dave Lock
Catalog Id: 20130613-2043

Dreams are Longer When You Don't Sleep

pen and ink on paper
23.1 x 19.25 in / 58.7 x 48.9 cm
2013
Dave Lock
Catalog Id: 20130613-2045

Forgotten Dreams

pen and ink on paper
23.1 x 19.25 in / 58.7 x 48.9 cm
2013
Dave Lock
Catalog Id: 20130613-2047

Coil

pen and ink on paper
23.1 x 19.25 in / 58.7 x 48.9 cm
2013
Dave Lock
Catalog Id: 20130613-2042

 

PS. I do not own the images. They belong to Art Informal.

                

My friends and I were about to back out from watching the film mainly because it will consume a great portion of our time and considering that its Finals-Hell week. But our indignation to our past plans reaffirmed our willingness. I am not accustomed to telling the whole movie with its whole crap and goodies so please bear with my seemingly crazy thoughts.

                A nunnery would be a concrete image of prim and proper, serene faith, stable conscience. The initial story gave us a peek on a secretive monastic life confined in the silent walls of the convent. It house women who devote themselves to complete and ultimate seclusion from the outside world which embodies all the chaos that the world possesses. Sandoval’s Aparisyon broke the both the stereotype and the archetype. The nunnery then becomes unstable, chaotic and somehow unfaithful. The story would bring an audience to a new paradigm of a cloistered life. Would the story deify nuns? It’s up to you, so watch the film (if you never had the chance).

                In a mythology class, especially to those who are taking Literature, the concept of a mythological center is thoroughly discussed to have a better lens on reading a text. This center is always applicable to every story from Greek dramas to Chick flick films. The center is a place of serene and psychical balance, perfection and Gods reveal themselves in this place. A better image would be the Garden of Eden for the Book of Genesis or Olympus for Greek Mythology. Having this in mind, we also have a concept of the center’s reversibility. The balance and perfection is altered in a more unwanted appearance. For the Garden of Eden, this would be Adam and Eve’s betrayal of God’s trust. While for Greek mythology, this could be the Gods’ invasion of the human realm to solicit aesthetic satisfaction. Aparisyon takes the convent as a center and therefore presenting its reversibility to a more enhanced plot. The convent like the Garden of Eden and Olympus is twisted to an unexpected angle.

                Nuns despite their unshackled faith became uncertainty as to which they should act according to a sound and heavenly judgment. Their serenity was dismantled from their psyche causing them to be like any other person, circumscribe in a society. They were life any other desaparacidos, by their loss is aligned to a loss of faith, reason and wisdom.

                Aparisyon takes very whetting style of foreshadowing. Mylene Dizon’s opened radio speak about a clearer context from the story will revolve. Jodi Sta. Maria’s detection of animals who were actually rapists behaving as nonetheless an animal. The old nun’s changing distinction of the Mother superior paints the difference of our schema towards the mentioned character.

                The film was set in the pre Martial law period where a chaotic Philippines was presented in forms of Radio and newspaper therefore solidifying the fact that nuns indeed cloistered from the outer world sounding like hermitically sealed for purity in God’s name. This period serves as stimuli for reversibility of the notions of the convent. Man’s politics’ therefore has direct effects to a person as whole. It disestablishes even spiritual balance that completes a nun’s vocation. They deviate from the standards that ecclesiastical thumbs ratify. If nuns are susceptible to a diminished faith, how much more are we?

            There are two fundamental types of sin – omission and commission. Sin of omission is incurred when one doesn’t do what he must do. While sin of commission happens when one does what he must not do. The prevalent infraction in the film was omission. The Mother superior Ruth with her companion failed to protect the raped novitiate. While Sister Remy (Mylene Dizon), left Sister Lourdes (Jodi Sta. Maria) to escape from the troubles of being a second rape victim. Ironically, it was Sister Remy who caused Sister Lourdes to return late night and suffer such consequence.

               Mother Ruth’s washing of her blood stained hands signifies her open repentance over her sin of omission. But a bride of Christ she takes it to a different way, unlike Pontius Pilates’ cleansing. She left her hands on the running water as if no manual effort was taken. Her blood stained hands still remains until she retreats to the Adoration chapel. This pictures her unforgiven soul burdened by an unrest conscience.

             

   The story employs an arrival-departure technique. The story starts as Sister Lourdes travels by foot to the monastery. I see her like Jesus walking his way to Mt. Calvary where she dies. She rests like Jesus who paused due to exhaustion. Initially, I thought of Sister Remy’s decision to go to Manila, amid the turmoil, as the departure that completes the literary motif. But it was actually Sister Lourdes’ death upon giving birth. She departs from the world to meet the Divine Master face to face.

                For me, Aparisyon gives a misleading catharsis. Sister Remy who defies the amorphati psyche of the whole monastery, is tangled in a web of consequences. It appears to me that it was more of a signaling to go away from unconventionalism and to disengage from political activism. Why? Because one may have to suffer from these wraths. The story then demystifies political engagement and free reason as a risky act.

                As the film rolled it credits, I immediately asked myself what or where the apparition is. For me the apparition was narrated allegorically by nuns’ vulnerability to instability and therefore reversibility. The convent was not isolated but is treated as a part of the Philippine landscape. As a corollary, if something bad happens in the nation, the same goes to the convent or any other institution circumscribed in the nation.

                The film, cinematography wise, is commendable since it rivals the mainstream film. It was a detailed definition of sight while giving ample justice for the story per se. A classmate of mine noted that it deviated from the simple perspectives of the indie film convention. But for me it conveyed a very brilliant story, regardless of cinematic technicalities. The plot of Aparisyon seems to be audience selective, it chooses thinking and patient audiences who are ready to seat and be discombobulated.

                I commend everyone’s artistry from Direk V. Sandoval down the line. Two thumbs up! I wish for more Filipino films that embodies instruction and delight. 

Rate 8/10

How would life be like when a man is tossed in the Pacific? Or better say – how can a man, tossed in the Pacific, survive with an adult Bengal Tiger?

Either ways, life with such damage provides no chance of survival.  I, for one, would call it ‘quit’.

The story starts in extremas res where, Piscine Molitor, the protagonist reminisces his past experience to a novelist. As kid he undergoes mockery from his name as others associate it with piss rather than the elite swimming pool in France where it is derived. In his youth, he faces a labyrinth of belief with plenty of rooms such as Hinduism, Christianity, Islam and doubt. But his bigger challenge when Piscine is stranded in the ocean with a stripped beast.

Life of Pi gives us a spectrum of man’s survival that results into a web of conflicts. Initially, the protagonist is faced with a name dilemma. His finds a way out by changing his nickname Pi with a mathematical association from π. Pi also anchored faith in different angles which is unrealistically probable. But, as human as possible, he finds a way to reconcile these beliefs even with repeating disapproval from an extensively rational father. His father believes that faith has no stall in a modern enterprise; one that they are currently facing even resembled it to darkness and uncertainty unlike rationalism and western science.

Pi’s childhood is tangled, like most of us, with curiosity. His inquisitiveness makes him trust a tiger named Richard Parker. His father adamantly disapproved this act. In effect, he lets Pi witness a goat’s fate in a Parker’s paws. The scene aligns with Ricky Lee’s “maliit na tao concept” (small person). This suggest that our childish imagination has unlimited spaces but is eventually caged in conventions as parents debunk our manner of thought. The conflict of realism and unconventionalism therefore rises. What is perceived by the intellectual society becomes the convention by which we are subjected to conform with.

As India changes its landscape, Pi’s family zoo is threatened to be shut down. His father resorts to selling the animals in Canada and venture in the same place. Pi waves is disagreement but ends to nothing as he is a son to father. In a ship bound to their ‘soon to be’ new home, the ship is knocked down by a sea storm. The protagonist manages to escape with a life boat.

The story appears to be a story of placements and changes. It baits you to an expecation that in the end is not right much like Pi’s selection of faith that constantly changes through time, experience and circumstance. To wrap it all up the author takes a lot of U-Turns like any others life that branches unexpectedly.

We expect that they find refuge in Canada.

No, his family perished in the ocean only Pi survives.

We expect he lives with a Zebra.

No, an Orangutan sails to accompany him. The Orangutan and he Zebra are murdered by a laughing Hyena.

Pi is accompanied by a Hyena.

No, the Hyena is killed by a Tiger.

Like any other National Geographic coverage, Pi will be eaten by a blood thirsty Parker.

No, they will be friends. And believe me, they will be best friends.

They find refuge on an island.

No, Pi found out the island was a nature trap. Even plants eat human. They leave and end up in a Mexican coast.

Martel brings us to a lot of broken expectation not as twists but as literary twirls – minute surprises that reverses expectation.

But with the story wrapped in twirls, we find a Pi greater that a number and a man not lesser than us. He is a man who has an expansive imagination that transcends rationality. He reconciles water and oil. He has a life that serves as an exemplar to everyman. Despite the heavy conflict, he finds hope to survive, even against natural order and convention.

I am an avid critic of senseless and effortless titles. For example, heading “About Eve” for Eve’s short biography. Or Tale of Adam the Brain crusher as simply Adam and Brain crushing. Life of Pi was not exempted to this. I was partly dismayed by the seemingly effortless title. Yeah, I know. It comes from a story of a man named Pi. But indeed, Life of Pi is a story of twirls that breaks expectations. The title builds its gravity from the story itself unlike films who feed us only from the title or trailer.

Rate: 8/10

Like the Filipino architectural omen corresponding to Gold, Silver and Death, the Peque Gallaga directed and Jose Javier Reyes written Oro, Plata, Mata (1982) takes a triple dimensional story. The film depicted a filial exodus around the gold, silver and death.

Oro                                                                       

       

     At this dimension the setting is at the city where harmony exists. It was an imagery mainly drawn from a usual elite society. The place was filled with merriment, as if bad luck takes no space for the characters’ time. But the golden time is broken when a ship sinks at Corregidor, Bataan.

Plata

          

  Gold becomes demoted to silver when they retreated to a hacienda. The stellar of the urban life is converted to a more rustic comfort. At this moment, even the elite’s options become limited. They are reduced to foreign circumstances which were not present in the city.     

Mata

       

     As the Japanese stretched powers over the country, the Lorenzo and Odeja clans resort to plain bucolic house in the mountains for refuge. For both clans descending from a high economic stature, such living is a bad luck. It appears to be more of a curse as they are cloistered in a dystopian society. They turn to be a self sustaining manor but it was reversed when some of their servants plotted against them. Conflicts further surfaced. Characters transformed into more unknown and unexpected psyches.

            This Oro-Plata-Mata pattern appears to be cyclical in nature since the ending depicted a restored setting. But the restoration doesn’t parallel the former Oro state. The characters apparently preserved a postwar stigma which is psychologically inevitable.

            Though the story is rooted in the Japanese occupation, the war that reached the characters is a fragmented placebo effect. It was Filipino versus Filipino. Where does the conflict breakout? Their social classes. Some of the servants became bandits by force of circumstance and epiphany. These bandits became defiant to their masters to an extent of overcoming them. The elite family at this moment becomes crippled lamely depending on their bare hands. Hands which were meant to play mahjong and other recreations, not household work. This film becomes a caveat for the ruling class that their posts are reversible in any point of time.

            War is a social equalizer. The top and bottom are scattered in different posts. The Shakespearean notion that love is transcendental seems to fade out in the plot. Love in this dystopian living is an unavailable commodity. The initial love pairs are tossed to different partners.

            A classmate of mine posed a question, “What if we lived during that time?” Fathoming that I have no guts to survive in such conditions, I replied a blank face. The question until now consumes me. To witness actual bloodbath is something traumatic what more if I were the one being bathed in blood. For me the film I not an isolated case, it is a rampant occurrence happening not only in the Philippines. Anne Frank’s diary would tell a European struggle at World War 2. CS Lewis’s Narnia documented the children’s retreat to the British countrysides. Auschwitz witnessed the inhumane part of man during this epoch. World War Two is something that leaves an etch to everyman’s thought. This is too punitive that until now it becomes the content of granny stories.

            Star Cinema should further widen the avenue of restoring the classic Filipino movies. This is a divisive tool to build a more multifaceted culture among the youth. I commend them for initiating a ‘could be’ Oro-period on our local classics. It is my fervent wish that Philippines would be introduced to more creative movies not only capable of making the audience laugh but arousing them think and act. 

Needs Thingking Skills. Archaic. Epistaxis.

                Have you ever been reluctant reading Shakespeare? I for one would volunteer to say yes. His sonnets and plays seem to be an undeciphered hieroglyph or even a riddle from the Middle Ages. But Philippine Educational Theatre Association (PETA) breaks down the Shakespearean stereotype. In their 45^th Theatre Season, Rody Vera offers a deconstructed Twelfth Night entitled D’Wonder Twins of Boac.

                Set on the 1960’s, the story circles around Viola’s effort to meet her twin Sebastian, after being tossed to the seas from a shipwreck. It also portrays film cinema crisis and how it becomes tempestuous and helpful to twin’s reunion.

                Vera’s deconstructive approach paints a more Philippine color of Shakespeare’s comedy. It even opens a different angle of the country’s Cinema industry which the camera lenses fail to convey. Viola’s attempt to find her lost twin digs not only Sebastian but a labyrinth world behind the film screens. It mirrors a societal hierarchy. The first estate is composed the Film Company executives who decide what films to produce. The second estate is occupied by scriptwriters and directors who plot the film stories. While the third estate belong to the masses who views the films produced by the first and second estate.

                “And the telenovelas, how utterly asinine, bizarre, foolish, insipid moronic and mephitic they are! And there are so many talented writers in our vernaculars and in English as the Palanca Awards show every year — why aren’t they harnessed for TV? Those TV moguls have a stock answer — the ratings of these shows are very high. Popularity not quality is their final arbiter.”

-F. Sionil Jose (Why Are We Shallow, 2011) 

When popularity becomes the final arbiter, it is therefore capital that serves as an absolute ruler. Sadly, art is not an exemption of the neo-dictator. Art which is naturally quantitative bends to quantity. So, most Philippine films lack catharsis. Why? They make the audience numb from the reality that they are facing such as poverty and other domestic problems. The masses then are directed by the first two estates to be escapists, providing only delight and a false hope.  It should always be a reminder to everyone that art has two functions: first is to entertain, and the other is to instruct. If one function is absent, it doesn’t really mean that it is not art. It is more of a lame art that doesn’t serve a greater purpose.

William Shakespeare knits every play from overlapping to blank and tangled to untangled. But it boils down to a critical interconnectedness- order out of chaos. This is highly manifested in Midsummer Night’s Dream and Twelfth Night.  He was able to insinuate his unconventional thoughts and anti-Elizabethan sentiments incognito. At the same time he revives the classic Greco-roman ideals (as a part of a conceptual-applied movement of Renaissance) with an English angle.

While in the play, I could hear murmurs of the play as a parody. I beg to disagree. The play presents a modern adaptation in a Filipino context not a parody.  It unravels a local industry where we could easily understand implications of the play. The setting of a recognizable context with Shakespearean identity justly extends a larger realm of audience.

Should I say Rody Vera is the New Shakespeare? Yes, but certainly he is not alone. There are a lot of shakespearses who remind us of the plight and reality we face. It is my fervent wish that there be more writers like Vera who alarms us from the notion of shallowness (As F. Sionil Jose and Letticia Shahani emphasized).

Such plays would bring Shakespeare to the modern world. He would conventionally be unconventional (pardon the oxymoron). To wrap up, PETA shares a senile artistry in a modern medium. Seldom does any play extend to such innovative feat.  

The Queen of Erickson Avila depicts man’s wheeling fate – unpredictable and unexpected.

It encompasses a twist from obtaining goods until the persona ends up with a narrowed sovereign in a coffin. Too narrow that it makes the reckoning soul lament. The poem attempts to narrate life’s uncertainty.  There are two portions of the piece. The first part portrays the persona’s ownership of the limelight while the second part is the The Queen’s  abdication.

Man’s fate cannot be pin pointed accurately. There is no assurance of what may come next. Being an accolade magnate gives nothing but temporary possessions that may even mislead a person. In the end of our lives we will still be jailed in a coffin – lifeless. No matter how much we gain, The Queen will still be abdicated from her throne.

The poem’s ending portrays an unaccepted death, no triumph of any sort. Death maybe symbolic in many ways as far as one’s legacy is concerned. But to draw an image of a coffin for one’s death emphasizes the mourning and defiance over death. It as if a dead is a prisoner. And that parole is of no possibility.

The Queen is an exemplar of an evolved poetry since it adapts to the fast changing world. By structure and length, it consumes less time to read. Its linguistic command doesn't select audiences. It approaches the reader as rapid as possible and as simple as comprehensible. This technique easily exposes the message, unlike other poetries that tends to be proverbial or riddle type therefore blurring the imagery to be perceived by the reader. Avila also seems to parallel the surprising elements the Flash fiction by employing it in the poem. Flash fiction tends broaden itself to adjust to the short tempered readers of our common period. Ergo, the poet calibrates his words to the audience of his time.       

Did the question ever struck your thought on what will happen to the future of humanity. Given the complexities of this common period, are we yet to evolve?

 Evolution in a plain sense means continuous process changing form simple to complex or simply turning to a better sate. Man’s evolutionary trace is founded on the idea that humans descend from apes. Then this ape turns to a man through various external changes in the course of time. This process, as what Charles Darwin coins, is Natural Selection. The one who fits with the nature is the one who is most likely to survive the next generation. Therefore, it is humans who adopt the order of nature. By adaptation, we change biologically to cope with the natural standard. Until now evolution does not cease to end its job. It is still a living machine that is meant to changes us.

Experts have been dealing with this Darwinian thought. A lot of theories came in to define the dilemma surrounding man’s evolution. But between and among these theories comes the Charles Darwin of our age – Chip Walter. He filled the words in AllThingsHuman.net and www.chipwalter.com. He also writes for Slate, Wall Street Journal, and Scientific American. His latest book “Last Ape Standing: The Seven-Million-Year Story Of How and Why We Survived,” shares simple but astonishing views on the evolution next door. The book was available last February 29, 2013.

One of the book’s arguments is that Natural Selection will mutate man as it mutated the previous living things. And that it doesn’t end. Humans, as the last apes standing, are not exempt from biological alterations. But adaptation will not be initiated by nature. In this contemporary era, technology shares the role of mutating humans. It begins form the very food we eat to the gadgets we use.

“In ourselves we may finally have me our match: an evolutionary force to which even we cannot adapt.”

-       Chip Walter

Man, as rational animals, are highly creative most especially on their needs and wants. We are holistic animals with formidable mental faculties, innate emotions and compact physique. We have been busy changing the earth. But every action equates to different consequences. Man’s creations cause many consequences including the very end of our human existence.

Aside from the technology that will stirs the alteration of human. Stress comes in as a psychological factor which may change the biological structure of humans gradually.

Gradual change to due to technology will commence. Man will change artificially change due to genetic engineering. These new forms of man are called transhumanists. They will transcend the boundaries that we have now including our current biological constraints. They are the next versions of human. Their capacities go beyond the normal speed, strength and other human qualities. Walter also underscored that blood especially its hemoglobin may be commercialized and be set as a commodity needed for survival. The male and female species will be passé. Man’s reproductive identity will be futile; meaning our capacity to produce offspring will be less possible. The creation of humans will be on genetic centers. 

Asteroid collision and global cataclysms will not only be the threat to humanity but even our very own creations. It is in these future events that we are changed and an artificial natural selection is established. This clearly modifies the order of natural selection by which man has been used to adopt with. Vividly, it is man’s invention gives birth to consequences that threaten the humanity’s existence. 

The book provides an innovative approach to continue the perspectives of Darwin. It draws a modern essence on man’s future evolution.       

The story of Ada dumped in an unusual family business - a business which you may need to call them aswang or tiktik for hire.

Hado effect reminds me of Jose Garcia Villa’s, a National Artist in Literature, “Footnote to Youth” where the Dodong’s family tree suffers a repetitive cycle of men drawn to puppy love, early marriage and heavy marital obligation. The point comparison is angled at the family tree cycle.

Excerpt:

“My grandmother summoned my two older brothers (who were spared in inheriting the family business).”

 Unlike Villa, Gulin took a feminine touch on the major characters since women bear the deviant familial business of abortion. I cannot fully arrive at a conclusion of the intertextuality between Gulin and Villa’s texts. One thing may be certain, the text are in a domestic color. The primary reason of which we belong to a family is to survive biologically and then sociological needs such as belongingness follows (see Maslow’s Pyramid of Human Needs). As we live with a family, we are trained to conform to societal conventions – that of which makes us civil than savage. It is therefore in family that we primarily derive civilization and humane acts. Ironically, Hado effect breaks this notion, since Ada learns to kill unborn humans through her family. One could even say that it does not only break this notion but a concept of a societal norm.

Sadly, Gulin’s fiction mirrors a real world of abortionists scattered over the globe. Some would be literally professionals of abortions and even work in hospitals. We are now reminded that we are gradually deviating to the human that we should be. Early humans of the past would have no historical accounts for such.

But why do we do we commit to such industry? The blameworthy of this inhuman act is Capitalism. We are skewed to act differently to accord not to society but to consumerism. Extreme capitalism and consumerism stifles the people that they surrender to unusual modes of livelihood. Priority, now, is angled to economic needs than life itself. Here, whatever means one takes as long as it justifies the end, becomes accepted. As Cirilo F. Bautista said in his poem (A man falls to his death), “Blood is nothing. Space is all. Is.”

Our society is geared to making money out of death. It is uneasy to think that the death itself becomes a commodity much like the things we buy in 7/11. Crap, life becomes a 9/11.

Did we see Ada attempt to jam the family’s system? No, since she was molded by her grandmother and mother to an extent of that in her very mind lies an assassin of the unborn. There was even no evident realizing of a self error. Ada, in fact, corrects herself by aligning to darkness.