Tuesday, July 18, 2017

REMEMBERING OUR NICK JOAQUIN

     In her remarks for the opening program of Far Eastern University’s toast to Nick Joaquin on May 25, billed as “Remembering Our Nick,” FEU vice-president for academic affairs Dr. Maria Teresa Tinio expressed what may be the most significant initiative taken by the university with regards the late National Artist’s works.
     She announced that as new curricula and new syllabi are being crafted for the start of university education for students who had completed 12 years of basic schooling, “FEU will take this opportunity to infuse its general education curriculum with the works of Nick Joaquin.”
     In classes such as Study and Thinking Skills and Purposive Communication, Joaquin’s essays on Manila will be used as specific models of writing, even as FEU aims to build a common cultural experience for students through a canon of readings.
     “Nick Joaquin’s works will play an important part of that canon and part of that culture; no student will graduate from FEU without having had experienced Nick.”
As Nick himself would have said: Terrific! Other universities could well consider replicating this commendable initiative.
     FEU’s director of the University Research Center, Dennis Pulido, also plans to start building a Nick Joaquin resource center — “an electronic hub that will hold copies of studies about Nick Joaquin and other resources such as interviews, letters, photographs, that will help researchers come to more understanding of Nick’s works, genres, life, and times.”
     As a university that has enjoyed special ties with the most prominent Filipino writer, FEU is prepared to commit substantial resources for this undertaking.
It was Nick who wrote the lyrics of the FEU Hymn, on the prodding of his sister-in-law Sarah Kabigting Joaquin, an outstanding Speech and Drama student, for whom then university president Dr. Nicanor Reyes had the FEU Auditorium built. As current FEU president Dr. Michael Alba recalls, that auditorium became the staging ground of Portrait of the Artist as Filipino, as well as the venue of inspirational talks Joaquin gave to FEU college students.
     Nick’s translation into English of The Complete Poems and Plays of Jose Rizal was commissioned and published by FEU Publications in 1976. And on the centenary of the university’s founder, Dr. Nicanor Reyes, Sr., current chair emeritus Dr. Lourdes Reyes Montinola commissioned Nick for the biography, Mr. FEU: The Culture Hero, which was launched in February 1995.
     The morning program had UP professor emeritus Dr. GĂ©mino H. Abad delivering the Memorial Lecture, on “Nick Joaquin the Poet,” following which the Nick Joaquin Special Collections Room on the 3rd floor of the university library, Nicanor Reyes Hall, was relaunched.
     New items added since it was opened two years ago include a bust of the writer donated by sculptor Julie Lluch, a fresh copy of Zena s Dvoma Pupkami, the Czech translation of The Woman Who Had Two Navels, donated by the Czech Ambassador Jaroslov Osla, Jr., and a copy of Pop Stories for Groovy Kids, donated by Ramon Magsaysay awardee Ligaya Amilbangsa.
Nick’s nieces, Cecile Joaquin Yasay and Charo Joaquin Villegas, led in the relaunch of the collections room, the renovation of which received sponsorship from San Miguel Corporation, as well as the relaunch at the ground floor lobby of Joaquin’s translation of Rizal’s works. On display at the same lobby was the FEU students’ art exhibit, titled “Revisioning Dona Jeronima.”
     Forthcoming activities for the continuing celebration of Nick Joaquin’s centennial include special film screenings at FEU Makati of Sari Dalena’s Dahling Nick and National Artist Lamberto Avellana’s Portrait of An Artist as Filipino, at 3 p.m. and 6 p.m., respectively, on Sept. 20; and on Oct. 6, the staging at FEU Auditorium of a new adaptation of “May Day Eve” by Galleon Theatre MNL.
     For that day that launched FEU’s yearlong commemoration of a truly beloved writer, it was poet-critic Jimmy Abad who provided inimitable entertainment with his recitations from memory of Nick’s poems.
     Some lines from his lecture also resonate, as when he quoted Nick telling his sister-in-law Sarah about his considered heartland that was Intramuros: “There is so much history and culture in this small place ... this breath of the past tells us who we are and where we have come from.”
The same may be said of Far Eastern University’s well-preserved campus in Manila, with its art deco buildings now joined by a modern hall that houses the great writer’s books, papers, and other precious memorabilia.

Friday, July 14, 2017

WHAT THE IPHONE DISPLACED

     For 53 years, Jan Swain sold maps. World atlases, guide books, globes and plain old foldable paper maps of cities, states and countries. He ran The Map Store, a Milwaukee institution started by his father as Milwaukee Map Service in 1937.
      In April, the 79-year-old closed the store for good. It was something Swain said he saw coming for two decades, but it was hastened by the release of the iPhone in 2007. Map websites were already common then. You could load tiny maps on some cell phones, and GPS units were popping up in cars. But Apple's (AAPL, Tech30) larger screen and built-in Google Maps app instantly changed how people navigated.
      "You can carry the entire world with you if you want to with an iPhone," said Swain. "There's no need for these pieces of paper that people used to use. The only ones who ever buy those are age 40 and over."
      Over its ten year lifespan, the iPhone has altered many industries, for better and worse. A powerful computer you could slip into your back pocket, the iPhone chipped away at paper maps, point-and-shoot cameras, voice recorders, watches, hand-held game consoles and MP3 players like Apple's own iPod line.
       Looking back, the iPhone can seem like a revolutionary product that is entirely the result of Steve Jobs' genius. But the device was a well-timed, smartly executed culmination of multiple trends already happening in the industry.
      "The thing that Apple did super well, and I would argue better than anyone else, is they figured out the user interface for this small form factor," said Gartner analyst Tuong Nguyen.
Existing phones were already adding tiny, terrible cameras. The first iPhone shot grainy still photos with a 2-megapixel camera. People started switching from point-and-shoot cameras to smartphones even though the quality wasn't as good (yet).
      The idea that the best camera was the one already with you, popularized by Seattle photographer Chase Jarvis, meant smartphone owners were taking tons of photos with the devices. Apps like Hipstamatic and Instagram threw on "vintage" looking filters to compensate for the low resolution.
"Images aren't about megapixels and size and all those things camera companies want you to believe," said Jarvis, who is the founder and CEO of CreativeLive, which offers online photography classes. "They are about stories and moments and whether you capture them or you don't."
Last year, 24.2 million cameras were sold around the world, according to the Camera & Imaging Products Association. That's a devastating dive from 100.4 million the year the iPhone launched. Cameras with interchangeable lenses are still popular with professionals and enthusiasts, but pocket cameras have been decimated.
       And then there are the things Apple killed just with an app. Its voice recorder, while far from perfect, was convenient enough to replace tape and digital voice recorders for many. Once the App Store launched in 2008, its slew of games made pocket gaming gadgets less popular (though they're still hanging on).
      Just by putting the time on its home screen, Apple convinced some people to leave their wristwatches behind. The market stayed steady, however -- more than 1.2 billion watches are still sold every year. Apple hopes its own wrist computer, the Apple Watch, will peel off customers from companies like Rolex, Fossil and Omega.
      The company is not done. Now the iPhone is trying to replace your wallet. Apple Pay, launched in 2015, lets people pay for goods and services with their phone instead of a physical credit card or cash. Adoption is trickier, and requires major technological updates across the entire payments landscape.
      Some industries have adapted. Sanborn, once the largest paper map maker in the U.S., has switched its focus to LiDAR and digital mapping. But small companies like Swain's have had to shut down.
      "That's the way life goes. There's an awful lot of industries that have come and gone," said Swain. "People who made buggies and horse whips went out of business when the car came along."