All things – plus the sun and me – must go away

Summer is here, and so is April Fool’s – time to let out the inner trickster and let go of material excess.

"All Things – Plus the Sun and Me – Must Go Away" is a young consumer’s swan song to his/her junkyard, garage or closet. How does Me leave an identity? Can Me be identified by the goods that it purchases, or by the cell phone texts it substitutes for ako? What is it like for Me to travel light to other I Lands, armed only with toiletries, a dematerialized body and an open mind? Can Me take a summer break from material consumption and excess mental baggage?

It is not enough for things to go, seems like a cop-out/ a sell-out. Things and selves must go, away. Long distance travel takes purpose and the thing’s furious disappearance becomes all the more powerful and valuable. To go away is to Leave as To make Away is to Fight. A garage sale is about bidding farewell to a little bit of that which is "all about me," and encountering new flavors in yet unknown territories. Art too is potentially about "making away," producing visions, tensions and resistances that can confound the neighborhood in odd and interesting ways.

Garage sales can be done anywhere. At home is the best, or in some dingy place. Skip bazaars – they are not garage sales. The wares on display there are new, and reveal nothing much about the seller’s personality, except that s/he’s a die hard capitalist devoid of nostalgia and filth. Garage sales, meanwhile, are a lot more intimate and down-to-earth – a peak into the soiled world of a humbled sharer. Atop a wooden table the sharer’s used things don’t become detrimental and gross; the value of usage actually transforms such consumerist memorabilia into tiny treasures. These possessions are not just purchased. They are passed on, like sand castles taken by the sea to share with the sun.

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I for an Eye. Most visions happen in broad, harsh daylight, probably during summer, or a serious drought (food, ideas, fun). Rimbaud screamed, "I want the sun!" Take away the sun and you have Bataille, and slit the eye and you have Bunuel – a triad of evil prophets debating "the economy of goods." Visual art depends on the eye, as does shoplifting. Steal the eye and Me is blind. No visual capacity to choose which more "merons" to covet and slice up or purchase and make up your mind!

Who am I kidding? Abandon garage sale dialectics and the politics of consumer identity. Maybe you just want to get rid of some old stuff and earn a few pesos. Or maybe – like this one rather timid ukay-ukay seller in Baguio who transforms into a radiant speed queen the super slow mo moment she closes shop and leaves her sellers in hushed disarray – you’re feeling a tad generous and would like to share a bit of your self and your closets to others, via the baskets and blankets you carry and the predilections inside them.

Or maybe you simply want a simple and fun activity to get together with the sun, reacquaint with your belongings before letting them go, and meet new people on the way out of your old self.

What to do after everything has gone and you’re the only one left?

Take heed of Azenith Briones’ wisdom: "Walang pagkain. Walang tubig. Eh, di magsayaw na lang tayo."

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Tanghalang Pilipino’s Zsa Zsa Zaturnah Ze Muzikal dances to a similar beat – to the tune of How to Leave an Identity, as well as fortitude despite adversity. By now many people have heard of the popular comic book and are most likely acquainted with the colorful characters that inhabit the black and white illustrations: Ada, Didi, Dodong, Zsa Zsa Zaturnah, Queen Femina, the Amazonistas and a giant frog. The plot is not new: a stone from god-knows-where falls into the supple hands of gay beautician Ada, granting her the power to transform into a superhero (in Paul Thomas Anderson’s brilliant mess Magnolia, real frogs and not some mysterious stone fall from the heavens, bearing no superna-tural gifts).

Make that a female superhero. To a woman wannabe dying to get under the knife and earn a new vagina and a set of mammary glands, having super-powers simply comes as a bonus. To echo Didi: "Girl ka na, Ada!" This is not to dispel Ada’s innate kindhear-tedness of course. But in the age of media savvy prov-incial towns, bleaching creams and nip tucks just won’t do. In order to leave an identity and save the world at the same time, a nice pair of threads and flowing red locks give heroism a beauty entitlement, artificial and shallow nevertheless.

Would frog-stricken townsfolk run to Odette Khan, Leni Santos or Bella Flores for help?

I sure hope so. I’d trust them anytime over Nanette Medved or Anjanette Abayari.

Zsa Zsa Zaturnah is obviously inspired by the stone-swallowing Darna (how hilarious if Ada did shabu instead – another form of bato – to transform into the heroine; maybe all heroics are hallucinations?). Ada is Narda. Zsa Zsa is Darna. Didi, the queer boy Ding. Roderick Paulate or Allan K should have played Dodong, but Agot Isidro was perfectly vile as Queen Femina. The sidekick, as always, is more interesting than the lead. Ricci Chan’s Didi is Niño Muhlach’s Ding a decade later, less repressed but still a charming little motor mouth.

Zsa Zsa Zaturnah may appear like a Darna/Woman left over, but behind the superhero curves and post-op Ada is the real thing. He is a boy and his real identity is his super power.

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WAKE-UP CALL: Due to a sudden and unforeseen change in schedule, the April 1 Garage Sale at Future Prospects, Cubao Expo is postponed to June – my sincerest apologies. In the meantime, PETA Theater Center is currently offering summer workshops in children’s theater, teen theater, creative musical theater, basic acting and theater-in-education. Please call 721-8604 and 725-6244 for details. The CCP is also conducting a variety of classes in visual arts, dance, creative writing, theater, production design and media arts. For inquiries, please call 832-3681 or visit their website @ www.culturalcenter.gov.ph.