Et tu, Boracay?
This is the weeding process. In high school, for a period of three years, I did gardening, weeding, bramble removing, irrigation line placing mulching, composting, and lawn mowing on a daily basis. I was really learning the lay of the land in Montclair, with an aim of what––I don’t know. But I sure learned a lot about gardening and the way that development was starting to lay its heavy mitt on even the idyllic. In typical Taoist (some would say simple autodidact) fashion I gained deep-set ideas, as I explored the natural world.*
I have devoted a lot of time to thinking about spacial uses and what makes land and people right. And how that connects with a happy and relaxed natural world, that can also go about its business. When you hear birds and you see lizards, small rodents, deer, you know you are in a safe haven.
What this is leading to is that I am winnowing out the readers by not posting much in the way of photos. How many people read my stuff for the text? Can I keep them coming, when I launch a real project. A narrative ‘fabric’ nonfiction that follows my attempt to make the fabric idea ignite and become something.
I have mentioned the idea of a series of articles to International Boulevard, which two friends I admire independently contribute to or follow. Here is the first article pitch:
Article One - Paraw Research - The Anahaw Conundrum
Starting at the Anthropology Dep’t at Silliman University in Dumaguete, learning a little about traditional boats in the Visayas. Can the native sail fronds (anahaw) required be sustainably sourced, without cutting down the trees. They need to be replaced a few times a year, this is part of the fabric.
Are there old growth anahaw with big enough fronds still in the Visayas or do we need to go to Mindanao? Are there sustainable eco-forestry projects in the Philippines or is it time for a nascent one to emerge? My preference is that the anahaw is sourced from somewhere in the linguistic region of Boracay, which would be Aklan, Romblon, or Negros Occidental.
In addition, there is the quest to find the traditional boat builder. I had one local point me to a specific beach near Malay on the mainland, where he said Ati make traditional boats. Another to a city just north of Iloilo, where there is a major banca and paraw boat-building industry. A couple to family members who, coincidentally, fish and make boats.
Rather than make a quick decision, I am more drawn to the idea of taking the long coastal way back from Dumaguete, along several islands, and exploring boat-making traditions a bit. So I can make an informed choice. If the people are listening to the project idea with some kind of shared feeling of purpose, then it really suits.
That is Article One, which underlines the level of research that fabric will take to be meaningful. The project is to have a traditional boat built for the owner of a garden and nipa hut hostel on (quickly-being-overbuilt) Station One, Boracay. Huge condotel complexes, with not a single tree planted on the property and “path widening” threaten the remaining trees and sense of old Boracay, up to the property line. The surrounding acre was a purposefully neglected and degraded, yet charming, seasonal frog pond two years ago.
As I write these articles about the first project, which will launch a fabric logo'ed traditional Visayan paraw on White Beach, Boracay, I plan to fill in the shades of fabric and what the idea entails on the platform level. The idea is no less profound than to create a new app, Lonely Planet-esque digital guide, geolocated (or not, it's left as an option for the individual user to decide) transactional platform, Wikipedia-like site, and TripAdvisor sharing concept that transfers 80 percent of profits earned back to the local fabric. In the form of recycling, tree and bush planting, and trash-bin setting up activities, initially. If an NGO-like base of partners can be set up to accept incoming money.
What fabric proposes is no less than taking the cloud infrastructure, developed at great cost and shareholder equity, and free it to accomplish what no politician, even a Bernie Sanders, can. Capitalism-driven, gross national happiness-focused sustainability. Beta Boracay: “they call it paradise”
And then there is the whole project when I get back to Tulum, where according to Jack Brown of International Boulevard, large-scale appropriation of yoga shalas and nature friendly communes occurred courtesy of the outgoing mayor's development buddies.
As an aside, the next section of the cloud novel Arisugawa Park is coming soon. 1.27 - Roppongi Blues - Hayao finds memories shaken, not stirred. In the last section 1.26 - Deep in a Dream - David sobered up enough at the hostess club to ask Lise about Eve.
#endwriter
I have devoted a lot of time to thinking about spacial uses and what makes land and people right. And how that connects with a happy and relaxed natural world, that can also go about its business. When you hear birds and you see lizards, small rodents, deer, you know you are in a safe haven.
What this is leading to is that I am winnowing out the readers by not posting much in the way of photos. How many people read my stuff for the text? Can I keep them coming, when I launch a real project. A narrative ‘fabric’ nonfiction that follows my attempt to make the fabric idea ignite and become something.
I have mentioned the idea of a series of articles to International Boulevard, which two friends I admire independently contribute to or follow. Here is the first article pitch:
Article One - Paraw Research - The Anahaw Conundrum
Starting at the Anthropology Dep’t at Silliman University in Dumaguete, learning a little about traditional boats in the Visayas. Can the native sail fronds (anahaw) required be sustainably sourced, without cutting down the trees. They need to be replaced a few times a year, this is part of the fabric.
Are there old growth anahaw with big enough fronds still in the Visayas or do we need to go to Mindanao? Are there sustainable eco-forestry projects in the Philippines or is it time for a nascent one to emerge? My preference is that the anahaw is sourced from somewhere in the linguistic region of Boracay, which would be Aklan, Romblon, or Negros Occidental.
In addition, there is the quest to find the traditional boat builder. I had one local point me to a specific beach near Malay on the mainland, where he said Ati make traditional boats. Another to a city just north of Iloilo, where there is a major banca and paraw boat-building industry. A couple to family members who, coincidentally, fish and make boats.
Rather than make a quick decision, I am more drawn to the idea of taking the long coastal way back from Dumaguete, along several islands, and exploring boat-making traditions a bit. So I can make an informed choice. If the people are listening to the project idea with some kind of shared feeling of purpose, then it really suits.
That is Article One, which underlines the level of research that fabric will take to be meaningful. The project is to have a traditional boat built for the owner of a garden and nipa hut hostel on (quickly-being-overbuilt) Station One, Boracay. Huge condotel complexes, with not a single tree planted on the property and “path widening” threaten the remaining trees and sense of old Boracay, up to the property line. The surrounding acre was a purposefully neglected and degraded, yet charming, seasonal frog pond two years ago.
As I write these articles about the first project, which will launch a fabric logo'ed traditional Visayan paraw on White Beach, Boracay, I plan to fill in the shades of fabric and what the idea entails on the platform level. The idea is no less profound than to create a new app, Lonely Planet-esque digital guide, geolocated (or not, it's left as an option for the individual user to decide) transactional platform, Wikipedia-like site, and TripAdvisor sharing concept that transfers 80 percent of profits earned back to the local fabric. In the form of recycling, tree and bush planting, and trash-bin setting up activities, initially. If an NGO-like base of partners can be set up to accept incoming money.
What fabric proposes is no less than taking the cloud infrastructure, developed at great cost and shareholder equity, and free it to accomplish what no politician, even a Bernie Sanders, can. Capitalism-driven, gross national happiness-focused sustainability. Beta Boracay: “they call it paradise”
And then there is the whole project when I get back to Tulum, where according to Jack Brown of International Boulevard, large-scale appropriation of yoga shalas and nature friendly communes occurred courtesy of the outgoing mayor's development buddies.
As an aside, the next section of the cloud novel Arisugawa Park is coming soon. 1.27 - Roppongi Blues - Hayao finds memories shaken, not stirred. In the last section 1.26 - Deep in a Dream - David sobered up enough at the hostess club to ask Lise about Eve.
#endwriter
* How did I have time for such philosophizing and daydreaming (I remember finishing War & Peace on the way to one hillside workplace, over the course of a summer). Simple, I charged $6 which, even by the standards of the early 1990s, was not much.
#fabric #AriPark
#fabric #AriPark
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