CRITIQUE ON THE PERSONAL VOODOO CONTEXT OF ONE HUNDRED YEARS OF SOLITUDE
By Iris P. Concepcion
Gabriel Garcia Marquez' book One Hundred Years Of Solitude had as fictional landscape the early Argentinian political history of authoritarianism and familial dynasty. It caught my fancy as a reader primarily because of one thing: one of its human characters was born with a pig tail. The authoritarian governance as themed in this work of art has the grip of military fantasies in the psyche of political dominion. A reviewer had likened the setting of this novel to the central American countries that had been ruled by dictatorships in the past like the Philippines and Chile. With the massive and explorative political ideas spread all over the novel, it was that one feature, the human born with a pig tail, that had stuck lingerly on my mind for its veritical foray into what Garcia Marquez had mastered: magical realism.
This aspect contains voodoism references which may be rife in countries deeply entrenched in political chaos and uncertainty. There is an implication that guarding the most fundamental institutions of the land do not require mere branding of armory and fleets of war chest but dimensions of spirituality to protect itself from intrusions of the most secular and inane gossip of revolutionary threats. Our own President, then Cory Aquino, was often the target of gossip fodder on her fatalistic views as she summons God in the major political decisions of her life. Powerpoint may not have a place in the executive branch with the Creator calling the shots to move the plebeians and mass, the pyramidal and fattest portion of our political heirarchy.
I had often wondered if Presidents may be armed with telepathic powers to ward off irritants to their executive power. If Superman can zap off a villain, surely, the President can introduce some herbal medicine or ointments to heal the needy concerns of societal waywards using the premise that he had used telepathy to silence the noisy stumbling blocks to his platforms to progress.
Recalling my visit to Wat Chang Hai here in Thailand where I found a goat skull floating in a black pool of water meant to deflect bullets, Garcia Marquez may have had his share of these visits to various New Orleans-like witchcraft in his own Argentinian land. His epiphanies to weave his tale that is replete with skeletons of rulers coming out of the closet by leaps and bounds had therefore rung truer than say, Richard Burton's sideway onscreen-kiss with Elizabeth Taylor.
There was not much elongation on what the pig-tailed human had evolved into. I wonder if she had grown weary of this rather curious appendage and cut it out of spite. It may be turned into a Pampango sisig, if the author were a Filipino.
This brings me to several postulations. Shall I change my views about a particular political belief if I had been thrown the Trump Tower on my head since the President found it unsalacious for well-heeled women to be tweeting about his crumpled polo barong? What if he throws me the hollow blocks as well? Supposing he has acquired a doll with pins to inflict pain on the enemies of the land, shall we eventually see the creations of parks and ranges and wildlife roaming for citizens to get their just social due?
I shall wish these things for President Noynoy Aquino, him who does not know much about information technology but possesses a succinct development platform for his country. He had been hounded for his lovelife concerns that makes for front page news and could use some telepathy to green the forests, fill the dam with water, create electrical posts, improve land terrains and trees.
If I were possessed with this little craft, I would twist the hair of senseless citizens of the republic who spread out lies like crazy to derail my concept of progress. I shall twist them into pig tails, pull them till Alaska (strings coming from Hanoi) and see if their scalps fall off as a consequence.
That could hurt but at least I had made my park shiny, speck and clean with children in tied balloons catching the fruits of the forests freely, courtesy of the authoritarian ruler.
On another note, I had stumbled upon wondrous articles on studies from the Stanford University website. The photographs are specially engaging and the words, a visual scouring of the imagination. Here are lines worth quoting:
Stanford Report, October 10, 2011
Dancer arrives at Stanford's Jasper Ridge Biological Preserve
In collaboration with the biological preserve, the choreographer plans a set of historical tableaux for this winter.
"Carlson's definition of dance goes far. She refers to herself as a movement-based artist and maintains that "all conscious movement is dance." In the past, her projects have included performances in unusual locations such as trains and barns, with choreographed encounters between non-dancers – lawyers, security officers, custodial staff – and live animals, including goldfish and fainting goats.
The work has garnered her a collection of high-profile awards, including fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Last year, Carlson was named a visiting artist at the Stanford Drama Department, where she continued her site-specific work with the campus-wide "Still Life with Decoy."