LagosZine Issue 1-2: Pensees II

We’ve been unfortunately strained by our respective activities and so the release of the second issue would be a little late. We hope to upload the thing by weekend. Expect a more decent and thought up format for this issue as we decided not to relegate it to being just a mere scratch book. Also, we’ve been thinking of been calling up friends to throw in their creations and works once we have come up with a particular theme next month.

Two works for the month’s issue appear here. Indulge!

+team mates for this issue +
pransisem.emralino + jesse.essej.cervantes

Flew (LagosZine Issue 1-2)

Manifestation of Simple Dreams and their Deterioration
by Jesse Cervantes
(appears on ‘LakeSayers’ section)

I was walking through the streets of San Pablo, down the lane of Balagtas Avenue when I saw this cute little shop that cater different party needs. A sudden curiosity rushed to me about a simple toy that every one of us knows. I’m a bit sure every one of us had held one of them once in our lives. It is one of the simplest toys there is. We dreamt of having them displayed at our seventh birthday once. I think you know what I am talking about. It’s that round, shiny, cute, and simple balloon. Bartolomeu de Gusmão, a Brazilian-born Portuguese priest, was 45 years old when he invented the first balloon and showed that air was something more than nothing. This balloon was exhibited to the Portuguese Court on August 8, 1709. Meanwhile, the rubber balloon was invented by Michael Faraday in 1824.

The purpose of Faraday to create such balloon is to investigate the gas hydrogen. It is amazing to see how this tool for experimentation became a common toy that was started to be sold for a penny in parks and circuses in America. The most common latex balloons were said to have been manufactured in London by J.G. Ingram. The mass production of balloons emerged during the late 1930s. Today, there are about one billion balloons produced a year in the whole world and about 97% of these balloons are used for birthday parties and common gatherings.

Balloons are classified according to their uses - for protest rallies, medium of art, publicity tactics, flying machine. The most common of all is for party use. Party balloons are mostly made of natural latex from rubber trees and are filled with air, water, helium or other suitable gas or liquid. They are the ones we as children dreamt of having in our birthday party someday.

The Issue
There had been a lot of questions from the people of San Pablo if the city is really growing as a community. The city had been exclaiming to the world that it is the “Coconut City” (if I may term it like that) but the numbers showed a great dispense in the production of coconut and other related products. I have once talk to a supervisor of Franklin Bakers Company when I was in high school and he said that before, they can get their raw materials solely in San Pablo but today they are now getting their sources from other places like Quezon, Batangas and other provinces. And at the end of 2008, almost 1,300 of the workers feared of losing their jobs because of the said company’s closing. What does this indicate? Are we really growing as a community?

Overlooking the Fact
I have been joking once that an urban community will never be deprived with "rugby boys" and the like. I know that was not a funny joke…it was not even a joke at all. I said before that one of the requirements for a place to be called a city is that you have to see street children roaming down the street and disturbing some passengers waiting for their rides home.

I am amused by this fact before…but not anymore. Whenever I see some boys fighting over a bottle of rugby, I can’t help but be sad for them. I can’t imagine the kind of future those boys will have. Do these scenarios really have to be present in an urban community? I wonder if those kids had their own birthday parties. But I am quite sure they have dreamed of having one before. Have they ever held a balloon before? I’m sure they wanted to but just like any other dream they had, I think it faded along with their supposed to be innocence. As I have been noticing for these past few years, there had been very seldom events wherein a birthday celebration would constitute party balloons. Can this indirectly indicate how the people of San Pablo barely survive their daily lives? I know it’s a bit far fetched to conclude based on only these facts but when you see the faces of these children on the streets, how can you be sure that the city will progress further? With these kinds of scenarios, how can we be sure that our children will hold on the simple, shiny, cute and cuddly balloon? How can we be sure that they would hold strongly to their dreams, when they know that just like that shiny red balloon, they might fly away and never return again? Let’s try to ponder on these simple things and try to act now before it’s too late.

References
Robertson, Patrick. The Book of Firsts, Bramhall House, NY, 1978;"Balloon History". BalloonsIT. Retrieved 2007-04-29;
“Franklin Baker Closing?” Retrieved: September 30, 2009.

Thrust (LagosZine Issue 1-2)

(appears on the ‘AS We Begin’ section)

The first steps were necessarily faulty.

For if we did not push through with the first issue, all the plans would go down just like all other brainchild we had in the past.

And it was obvious that until last month (and as the confession have attested to it), we were still on a hazy stage of marking in particular the thrust of Lagos. San Pablo was the starting point; it has always been that. But it was necessary to hold now a coherent identity of our collective works.

The inspiration came from the hospital in a nearby city in which I was compelled to spend a few days. Placed amongst patients of different illnesses and needs, I saw in them the real situation of the people of that city, concealed unfortunately behind the brightly painted hospital walls. The pervading anguish and the tiredness are strong enough that it is unavoidable to notice the sad state of their living.

And thus the seed that was acquired from that brief experience magnifies itself now, giving us the finer thrust of aiming Lagos towards a thorough travel through our city and know and understand its soul. It is a much exciting prospect I believe for it goes well beyond the dressed up public parks giving brief recreation and relaxation to our city dwellers, beyond the attractive lights of the city’s establishments and stores scattered around. The soul of our city is not confined to what is typically known by the public and devoured by tourists.

We shall travel even to the length of the rusting railways in the city; eat with the laborers of the day; share the streets with the vendors and beggars; breathe in the dirt of the roads and highways; share the choleric tap drunk in common by our tired breadwinners, among other. For in the bare experience of the city we shall experience and feel the Soul. But of course, it is our desire not to confine ourselves with such an activity. For it is out belief that there are commonalities of the different places in our country, and there is a collective anguished soul that we must endeavor to characterize.

Lagos shall be our transcribing board.