#critical to hermes character and especially how hermes cares for animals being shoved to the wayside

[abimee]

wrote up a huge sappy post about tock and my time playing xiv so far and endwalker but then i fell asleep after eating bad fast food and now im embarassed to post all of that so just know i think endwalker was the greatest video game story ive ever played and hermes and meteion are going to stick in my head forever and tock is my most important oc. thats the basics

#venat was cool i guess but hermes deserves more than her #i realize too i never do my insane ramblings over here. about hermes. about how i hate people humanizing meteion when her being nonhuman is #critical to hermes character and especially how hermes cares for animals being shoved to the wayside #instead so people can just focus on him being autistic or depressed and ignore that he cares deeply and intensely for #all animals. the wasps the maggots the birds the sharks the turtles the mollusks. how he is the one consumed with the love for what #other deems lesser or below them the animals other cry couldnt possibly exhibit emotions! #i saw a tweet yesterday of someone acting horrified or absolutely astonished that spiders can recognize themselves/other spiders #and make art and it made me lose my mind because why COULDNT spiders do this? why be so surprised? why act so horrified? #they are animals that exhibit understanding. many animals have been proven to show they can recognize themselves #and even then if an animal cannot why do we see them as lesser for it. why do we argue about if animals can feel pain or not #and think that nothing deserves to be tortured by purely existing #why do we kill bugs when they are simply looking for warmth and why do we attempt to justify the merciless othering of #animals based on their capacity for emotion and humanization. when all animals should be given the choice to be as they are #wasps deserve to live spiders and tarantulas and cockroaches and maggots and pigeons and seagulls #to kill them or taunt them or degrade them for how he made them is beyond cruel. consider #anyway. i think hermes would LOVE halloween hissing cockroaches

[humeresque]

Les Pinois: Trying-Hard French

(Being Filipino means trying hard to be French.)

You kneaux, in Maurice Arcache's "Cosmo Manille" and even among those on the other side of the railroad tracks, so many people are trying so hard to be French that trying so hard to be French has become an entire industry. We don't notice how much it's been thriving for years, but it's out there.

I guess everything started when the French Baker set up shop and introduced the masses to such panaderya alternatives as baguette and croissant. Le French Baker, owned by Filipino-Chinese Johnlu Koa, is still alive and well today despite strong competition from Le Couer de France and Delifrance. Le trick seems to be to insert "France" or "French" in the establishment's name, and ooh-la-la, the essence of cafe au lait and macaroni au gratin is captured in the tropical heat and humidity of La Manille.

Of course, years before French Baker, we were already fairly familiar with French parfums like Estee Lauder eau de cologne pour homme, French wines (Pinot Noirs, Merlots, and whatnot), and other things French and prefixed with French (bouillabaise, French braid, French kiss, French fries). There too was the popular TV animation character Pepe La Pew, who exuded those notable twin French excesses: romanticism and narcissism. Many of us instantly fell in love with his cursed self. But it was when the pan de sal in our lowly breakfast tables was replaced with garlic toast made from baguette that our French citizenship was confirmed, stamped with mainstream approval.

Next came the invasion of the French films. Le inventeurs of film-making -- descendants of the Lumieres -- treated us for free to watch le classics, from the snooty Cocteaus, Godards, and Truffauts, to the Luc Bessons starring Jean Reno.

Soon, full-blown French bistros and fine-dining restos became too numerous to name, starting from Au Bon Vivant to Le Souffle to any establishment you could name that is suffixed with -ette, -eau, -eaus, -eaux, and -oix and -ois. (Famed expat chef Billy King is now with Le French Corner in Alabang.) Of course, Pinois (enunciated with a flourish as /pin-wah'/) have to out-French the French, no?

Foreign language students next began flocking to Alliance Francaise to enroll in French classes to complete their false identity. I know of many friends and acquaintances who were not ashamed to proclaim they wanted to be French, or at least take up French lessons. There was Rica, who made me aware that Alliance Francaise used to be a stone's throw away from our office near Buendia cor. Pasong Tamo in Makati. There's Cathy who taught me how to pronounce "croissant" right but ended up French-kissing a true-to-life Frenchman instead. There's JJ who, getting tired of Spanish, is now switching to this other Romance lingo that sounds like he has a cleft palate and le UFO got lodged somewhere in his nostrils. I am also reminded of Net, who prefers to spell 'omelet' 'omelette' and pronounce it as /o-me-lay/, with much Gallic flourish.

Le thinkers or intellectuals among these Pinois are especially notorious in wanting to be Frenchified. Most of them have memorized the libretto to the musical play version of Victor Hugo's Les Miserables. (JJ corrects me superciliously, "It should be Le Misera'-bl, not Le Miserab'.") These Francophiles know their Renoirs, Monets, and Matisses (impressionist painters), Jacques Derrida (deconstructivist philosopher), Roland Barthes (literary theorist), Voltaire (satirical novelist), Camus (absurdist, existentialist), Michel Foucault (structuralist, postructuralist, postmodernist philosopher), Jacques Lacan (psychiatrist, psychoanalyst, philosopher), and Jean Baudrillard (sociologist, philosopher, cultural theorist, political commentator, photographer). They would also be not embarrassed to admit they know Alexandre Dumas (of Le Musketeers un le Menage a Trois fame), if push comes to shove.

Ask Pinoi tourists which place they want to visit the most, and they'll most likely say neither Holy Land nor New York, but "Gay Paree!," rattling off in a beat the sites they want to see: Eiffel Tower, Champs-Elysee, Arc du Triompe, and Louvre Museum for a view of le Mona Lisa...

Today, even building names and addresses are given the de-luxe spa treatment. I know a condo in Pasig called Parc Chateau. Parc Chateau? Am I in Nice or what? However, that one along EDSA near Guadalupe, called Parc Haus Suites, looks confused. Is Parc really the French version of Park, as in Marc as the French version of Mark, or should it be Parque? I dunno, but I'm pretty sure "Haus" is German, not French.

Curiously, we've long had, in fact, an entire booklet of lowbrow Pinoy French jokes meant to poke pun at this Filipino fondness for the French. I have heard people point out that "le quod" is French for "likod" ("back"), "le bag" is French for "libag" ("skin grime"), and "icé beau coup pour salé" is French Tagalog for "ice buko for sale." Of course, we know when to command the use of certain diacritical marks (the graves, the acutes, and the tildes) for this purpose. "Icé" is pronounced /ee-say'/ and "salé" is pronounced /sa-lay'/, and who cares what the real French people think?

The French being predominantly Catholic like le Pinois, it's small wonder that devotions to Thérèse of Lisieux, Lourdes, and the Miraculous Medal are commonplace too. Never mind that most of us still tend to say /Lur'-des/ instead of /Lurds/. A vestige of our Spanish trauma, surely.

Lately, our familiarity with the French beyond Jacques Costeau and Marie Antoinette and the guillotine is such that we have become intimately familiar with the finer points of French cuisine. We know what ratatouille is, we know that Alain Ducasse and Emeril Lagasse are celebrity chefs, we welcome Anthony Bourdain into our kichen with open arms and anxiously await his Guide Michelin stars. To demonstrate je ne sais quois or insouciance, we like to be served aperitifs, crepes, creme brullees, canapes, hors d'ouevres, nicoise salad, macarons, mousse, eclair, amuse bouche, pain and poisson, quiche, fondue, cakes with fondant and ganache, souffle, and lapu-lapu Meuniere, with bottled Evian or Perrier on the side. (After some time, it can get so tiresome putting in all the correct diacritical marks, don't you think?)

It has come to a point where we can't tell anymore whether Le Froge jeans, Le Tigre shirts, and Penshoppe tees are already Pinoi or as French as, say, Lacoste, Pierre Cardin, Coco Chanel, Christian Dior, Hermes, Jean-Paul Gaultier, Louis Vuitton, Yves Saint Laurent, and Francois Marithe Girbaud. And, yeah, I almost forgot Ungaro, the sine qua non of haute couture or something!

I have observed, furthermore, that the Ilocanos, for one, are really French behind their facade of burnt skin and tobacco smoke. Why? Simply because of this incontrovertible proof: the French word "quoi" (French for ‘what’) is no different from the usual Ilocano sound of hesitation, "cua." "Awan ti cua…" and "Anya ti cua…" suspiciously sound too much like "je ne sais quoi," oui? We do know too that the French people are passionate about their food to the point of being extreme. Being a gourmet to them means being able to slurp with relish such exotic concoctions as escargot -- much like the frog-inhaling and cricket-snorting Pampangos do. What other cultures regard as vile -- animal kidney, liver, entrails, perhaps even lungs and pancreas, the Ilocanos, not to mention the Pampangos, sautee with such pride and esprit de corps. Some French fine-diners like to feast on a certain bird in the wild called ortolan bunting, and the dish has to be eaten up with a blanket covering the diner’s entire head to savor the delicate flavor most fully. Most likely it’s an aliquot of subtle gamey flavor they’re trying to trap with surgical care and precision. That bizzarezerie -- a formal dinner among cloaked ghouls -- may be a turnoff to other people, but certainly not to confirmed epicures like certain Pinois.

If you think about it, the Pinois' fascination for the French dates back to how many centuries ago. Remember how the menu for the feast during the first inauguration of Philippine Independence in Barasoain Church, Malolos, Bulacan, was in French? Les menu, according to history professor of the day Monsieur Ambeth Ocampo (in his column in Le Philippine Daily Inquirer) comprised of: “Hors d’Oeuvre: Huitres, Crevettes roses; beurre radis; olives; Saucisson de Lyon; Sardines aux tomates; Saumon Hollandaise. [Entrees] Coquille de crabes; Vol auvent a la financiere; Abatis de poulet a la Tagale; Cotelettes de mouton a la papillote, pommes de terre paille; Dinde truffee a la Manilloise; Filet a la Chateubriand, haricots verts; jambon froid-asperges en branche. Dessert:Fromages; Fruits; Confitures; gele de Fraises; Glaces. Vins: Bordeaux, Sauterne, Xeres; Champagne. Liquers: Chartreuse; Cognac. Café, The.”

Ocampo further notes: “Hidden underneath the fancy French names are familiar Filipino dishes: Coquille de crabes was possibly torta de cangrejo a.k.a rellenong alimasag. Tagalog-style chicken giblets listed as Poulet abatis a la Tagale was chicken adobo.”

Turns out French was the lingua franca at the time, neither Spanish nor English. Unthinkable, right? But the antecedent Pinois didn't have a problem with that as neither us, latter-day Pinois, will have any problem with a French Renaissance any moment.

Food critic Doreen Fernandez, in her essay "Beyond Sans Rival: Exploring the French Influence on Philippine Gastronomy" (from the author's 1994 book Tikim: Essays on Philippine Food and Culture), also notes that a French cookbook was published in 1919 in Manila. Elaborately titled, as expected, the cookbook, Fernandez writes, has a cover page that "features a tall mounted French piece like those in traditional classic French cookbooks, captioned: Croquemboucheng caranuian. The word croquembouche (croque-en-bouche) designates 'all kinds of patisserie which crunches and crumbles in the mouth,' like chestnuts, oranges or cream puffs glazed with sugar cooked to the crack stage. The (illustrated) recipe instructs one in the assembling of croquignoles (egg whites and icing sugar baked in various shapes, similar to meringues), and is called 'caranuian' or ordinary, in contrast to Croquembouche a la Reina, which includes 'sweet almonds ground very fine.'"

Croquemboucheng caranuian? That's hilarious! Isn't that, wait, Hispanized-Tagalized French? Only the Pinoi can be trusted to do that.

Why do Pinois love the French so much that they are ready to trade passports any minute? My own answer is: they are apparently after the panache, the joie de vivre, the European sophistication and the fine taste and the high-mindedness of it all, a drastic move away from the native hickery and Hollywood vulgarity. But we already have the Spanish with us, so what do the French have that the Spaniards don't? They are both lustful for life, for sure, but maybe there's something charming about using consonants you don't plan to pronounce or vowels that mislead.

Does everything have to be explained away anyway? Let us just call the X-factor "Le French mystique" then, a big 'mistake' for which we are more than willing to be recolonized.

#philippines #satire