Even in his heart the Devil has to know the water level.

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。

Inventing a Hero: The Posthumous Re-Creation of Andres Bonifacio

Glenn Anthony May

             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.

Booklist 2006

1. Howl's Moving Castle
2. Shakespeare and Company
3. A Moveable Feast
4. Lockpick Pornography
5. 1 Dead in Attic
6. Why New Orleans Matters
7. Thank You For Smoking
8. Bringing UFOs Down to Earth
9. Bizarre Cases
10. Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Psuedoscience in Archaeology
11. A Streetcar Named Desire
12. I, Jedi
13. Young Jedi Knights #1: Heirs to the Force
14. The Giver
15. Naked Pictures of Famous People
16. Fahrenheit 451
17. 1984
18. Animal Farm
19. A Clockwork Orange
20. Brave New World
21. Telling Lies for Fun and Profit
22. Contact
23. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
24. Shatterpoint
25. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
26. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
27. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
28. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
29. The Martian Chronicles
30. An Alphabet of Manliness
31. Dispatches from the Edge
32. The Great Deluge
33. Lapdogs
34. The Cat's Pajamas
35. The Power of Myth
36. The Elephant Vanishes
37. Huckleberry Finn
38. A Nest in the Wind
39. Norwegian Wood
40. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
41. Quantum Leap: Knights of the Morningstar
42. The Social World of Batavia
43. Quantum Leap: Pulitzer
44. The Elements of Style
45. The Invisible Man
46. The Naked and the Dead

I'm currently reading Inventing a Hero and  Ghost Writer for the History of Modern SouthEast Asia and The Contemporary Novel, respectively. Hopefully, I'll have them done before midweek, when my responses are due for both classes.

I'm well on my way to hitting my goal of 52 books for the year.

I'm an online gamer and when I discovered beta testing was over for TokiMemo Online, I immediately felt compelled to play the game. I set up a Konami.jp account and began to enter my payment information when I realized that foreign credit cards were not accepted.

So I immediately went to webmoney in hopes of procuring a 3000 yen WebMoney card so my friend and I could try out the game. But again, they do not accept foreign credit cards.

So, I have a request for you Japanese Voxers out there. Would it be possible for you to pick up a 3000 yen WebMoney card for me at your local retailer? I can pay you back via PayPal.

Many thanks for your help.

I'm a poor college student. I'm a hand-to-mouth sort of girl. Any surplus cash I have goes straight to buying books, but lately, I haven't had the money to buy anything recreational. Nearly all of the money in my checking account went to paying for textbooks for this semester and though I ordered them all online and most of them were used, the total still added up to over $300.

I was looking to spend as little money as possible on textbooks, so I ordered from Powell's, from Amazon sellers, even from Half.com in hopes of saving a few bucks. And while all the books arrived weeks ago, my Half.com Biology text still has not made its appearance on my doorstep.

After the "estimated delivery date" came and passed, I contacted the seller; so far, there's been no response. Since I contacted them over the weekend, half.com requires that I wait two business days before filing claim. And even then, I have to wait until thirty days have passed since I made the order before there's a chance I will be reimbursed.

This was my first half.com order experience.

This Friday, I have an exam on the material in that textbook and I can't afford to purchase a new text without half.com's reimbursement and my grant check, which was only sent in the mail earlier this week.

Let's hope that my check comes in tomorrow, or save that--the biology text that I ordered. Because being an English major, Biology isn't exactly my forte...

Booklist 2006

1. Howl's Moving Castle
2. Shakespeare and Company
3. A Moveable Feast
4. Lockpick Pornography
5. 1 Dead in Attic
6. Why New Orleans Matters
7. Thank You For Smoking
8. Bringing UFOs Down to Earth
9. Bizarre Cases
10. Frauds, Myths, and Mysteries: Science and Psuedoscience in Archaeology
11. A Streetcar Named Desire
12. I, Jedi
13. Young Jedi Knights #1: Heirs to the Force
14. The Giver
15. Naked Pictures of Famous People
16. Fahrenheit 451
17. 1984
18. Animal Farm
19. A Clockwork Orange
20. Brave New World
21. Telling Lies for Fun and Profit
22. Contact
23. The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat
24. Shatterpoint
25. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
26. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
27. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
28. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
29. The Martian Chronicles
30. An Alphabet of Manliness
31. Dispatches from the Edge
32. The Great Deluge
33. Lapdogs
34. The Cat's Pajamas
35. The Power of Myth
36. The Elephant Vanishes
37. Huckleberry Finn
38. A Nest in the Wind
39. Norwegian Wood
40. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

I'm currently reading Issac Asimov's Nightfall and Ralph Ellison's The Invisible Man. Soon, I'll start reading Stephen King's Dark Tower series, Jean Taylor's The Social World of Batavia, and the Star Wars books Betrayal and Bloodlines.

And, less than a week after I file a complaint with the BBB, their reply:

Dear Trudy,

I sincerely apologize for not replying to you sooner.  Our policy is, once we have received the defective product from you, we will ship out the replacement product.

However, since I have not responded to you with instructions or within the 7 days window, I will gladly ship the replacement discs (Vol. 1-8) to you FedEx, next day, so that you guaranteed the copies early next week.

At your earliest convenience, please send back your copy of the defective Escaflowne (discs only, no packaging), standard mail, to the following address:

Bandai Entertainment
Attn: Customer Service
5551 Katella Ave.
Cypress, CA 90630

Once again, I apologize for any inconveniences this may have caused.

 

Regards,
support@bandai-ent.com

It only took them almost a month to respond to my numerous e-mails and phone calls. It would have been nice if they contacted me with this information, about, oh, say, three weeks ago? How long does it take to copy and paste an address in an e-mail and hit the send button?

Apparently, too long for Bandai Entertainment. I'll ship the DVDs out tomorrow and report back when the replacements finally manage to find their way back here.

After numerous attempts to contact Bandai since my last blog entry, I have filed a Better Business Bureau report against them. Hopefully, this will be enough to incite them to take action.

But I'm not going to hold my breath waiting.

On August 4th, I bought the Bandai AnimeLegends Escaflowne set at my local Best Buy.

On August 7th, I realize that most of the disks have flaws in them. I write Bandai's Customer Service with the following response:

To Whom It May Concern:

I recently purchased the "Anime Legends" DVD edition of the Escaflowne series. Years ago, I had originally purchased the series in clamshell VHS sets, but because I still enjoyed the series so many years later, I decided that it was imperative that I purchase the "Anime Legends" copies of the DVDs, which were highly affordable--even on my limited budget.

I was surprised to discover that the numerous flaws in these DVDs. Episodes would play in almost twice their speed; some episodes simply wouldn't play at all. As affordable as this product was, I would not pay $35 dollars for DVDs of this caliber; these flaws made it difficult, if not impossible to enjoy the series the way I did when I watched them on VHS, all those years ago.

As a result of the flaws on these DVDs, I will no longer be purchasing any Bandai products. I hope that in the future, you work to produce a product that is both affordable AND high-quality.

Sincerely,
[My Name Here]

On August 9th, they reply with the following message:

Dear Customer,

I’m sorry to hear that you have purchased a defective product…

Would you like a replacement for the Escaflowne Anime Legends discs?

Regards,

support@bandai-ent.com

By then, I discovered that Bandai knew about the defective disks, but for some reason, they were still sitting on shelves. I craft the following reply and send it to Bandai only a few minutes later, on August 9th:

To Whom It May Concern:

 

Yes, I would like a replacement set.

 

My phone number is XXX.XXX.XXX.

 

My address is:

[My Name Here]

[My Address Here]

 

Please let me know if you require any further information.

 

Regards,

[My Name Here]

Yesterday, August 23rd, I had not heard from Bandai since; my DVDs did not come in the mail, and the customer service representatives did not bother gracing me with a reply. So, I call customer service. I get their voice mail. I call them again. I get their voice mail. I call again, I get the voice mail. And after about a half dozen times calling customer service during their office hours at various different times, I give up and leave a message with my contact information and my problem.

They didn't bother returning my call.

I'm going to call them again tomorrow, but I find Bandai's entire charade absolutely outrageous. They knowingly provide a product that is defective, then instead of recalling the defective product, make it an absolute pain in the neck to have it replaced.

When I purchased the AnimeLegends Escaflowne Set, I was also pondering purchasing the Earth Girl Arjuna DVD set. But after all this hassle,  I doubt that I'm ever going to buy Bandai DVDs again.