Culture Vultures
Mike Banos
July 08, 2006
The free online resource Answers.com defines Culture Vulture as an “an individual with a consuming or excessive interest in the arts. For example, A relentless culture vulture, she dragged her children to every museum in town. This slangy term may have been originated by Ogden Nash, who wrote: “There is a vulture Who circles above The carcass of culture” (Free Wheeling, 1931). [1940s]
Well, Ogden, babeh, if you lived in Cagayan de Oro, you would have been three-quarters of a century ahead of your time. There are indeed vultures who circle above the carcass of culture, and you should see how high they fly in our city!
Last February, we wondered how culture and the arts seem to have been taken over by the academe. We marveled at how schools, colleges and universities often are the only institutions around in the boondocks with the size, facilities and most important, qualified personnel to mount cultural and artistic events for the appreciation and education of their faculty and student body in particular, and the community in general.
Alas, a little birdie told us one such production entailed a mandatory pay cut of P1,000 per faculty member whether they saw the play or not. Students for their part, earned or lost 10 percent of their grades in a particular subject, depending on their attendance of the matinee. Doting parents, of course, readily paid through the nose the price of admission since it was for a noble cause: not the culture or the arts, pendejo, but their children’s grades!
Lately, the city’s seen a slew of elaborate cultural and artistic presentations impressed upon its collective plebian face, with foreign talents, no less, to boot! Which is good, for it is written somewhere that the culture of a city rises no higher than its lowest common denominator. Ergo, bring in Pidro to the gymnasium if you please, mandatory pay cut for faculty and required attendance for students notwithstanding.
Well, that pesky little birdie is outside my window again with breaking news, no less. Entrez, mon ami! Whazzup, whazzup? Huh! Tres sientos pesos for a free show? Que barbaridad! Hijos de garapata! How did that happen?
Seems this enterprising young impresario is at it again. So resourceful, so far seeing, City Hall could sure use someone of his caliber. Not to run the City Treasurer’s office, Manuel, but to replace Garci in the next elections.
His travels far and wide brought him once to a city known for its culture and arts, which for illustration purposes, we shall call Himolugan. That’s the name of the original settlement of Cagayan de Oro which just missed the death of the Redeemer by a scant three centuries and whose remnants were bulldozed to kingdom come not so long ago to make way for Hizzoner’s bridge to nowhere land as my neighbor and good friend Ben Contreras so aptly calls it. But we digress. Padayon Piso-piso!
Enewi, this fine young creature who’d make a fine addition to the City Historical and Cultural Commission as its fourth Commissioner, saw this show at Himolugan and knew it just had to be shown to all those culture vultures back home!
Happily for this budding commissioner, whose fine work extends back to the administration of former mayor Ambing Magtajas, the same foreign funding agency which brought that show to Himolugan would only be too happy and willing to bring it to the City of Golden Friendship at their own expense!
So Mr Commissioner, atat na atat as I can imagine, heigh ho’s off to his native land and sets everything up for the unwitting donors. Matinee showtime comes and the beaming foreigners come sashaying down the aisle of the host school’s auditorium to the thunderous applause of two hundred students!
Ah, na, na, na, na, na! Mr. Commissioner! The shocked reps of donor agency gasp, why so many empty seats? I have no recollection of what the budding impresario replied, our little bird was so excited whispering in my ear all I got was this cacophony of chirps, whistles and grunts (not unlike R2D2 when he’s excited).
When I finally sorted out his mish-mash of morse code, international code, cape code and da vinci code, seems so many students stayed away because the show’s producers were collecting P300 from each of them!
Santisima, Mr. Commissioner! I pay for all the expenses of this entire show, and you charge the students for the gate! My blood runs cold for this little boy, no matter how bad his deed, the cannons of the Armada when ignited resound across the Mediterranean sea!
I imagine he got an ultimatum of sorts because eventually I gathered from the excited little bird that the gala presentation was a huge success, with the thousand person capacity auditorium ringing to the bravos and oles of its appreciative audience.
My heart goes out to those well-meaning public grade or high school teachers who have compelled their students to make mandatory contributions for events such as these not provided for in their pitiful budgets, including materials for stage props and tickets “considered-sold” just to at least give these students a feel of what Macbeth, King Lear or Othello is all about.
Sadly, many of them often have had to answer to their superiors or to bureaucrats in the Dept. of Education or Commission for Higher Education with suspensions and fines as a reward for their efforts and self-sacrifice while Mr. Commissioner and his ilk get away with the academic equivalent of murder and homicide.
Forewarned, donor agencies of foreign countries, especially for those well-heeled foundations of G-7 states, would do well to take a leaf from their local counterparts who know just how to deal with would-be impresarios like our fine young Commissioner: ask around; make a character investigation.
Or, better still, conduct a credit investigation. He’s not the first Commissioner who’s taken advantage of well meaning but guillible foreign funding agencies in the name of culture and the arts to line his pockets. A real vulture his breed is indeed, circling above the carcass of culture.
It’s admittedly a stretch but we may still be able to give the benefit of a doubt for schools who impose mandatory pay cuts on their faculty and staff payrolls for the sake of the muse, or forgive teachers for giving their students additional bonus points for certain subjects, provided they attend cultural shows and presentations of the school.
But we can never forgive those vultures who fleece the carcasses of grants and donations from donor countries intended to give students a free viewing of what classical theatre, song or dance as rendered by their highest exponents would be like.
We can still find humor in the way Robin Hood robbed the Sheriff of Nottingham to give to the poor. After all, the Sheriff always has more from where his gold comes from.
But to rob the poor of gifts from others freely given just to share with them a taste, or glimpse or moment of the sublime, is despicable and deserve our wholehearted endorsement to El Santo Papa y La Presidente Gloria of their exclusion from capital punishment, preferably well done over a slow fire.
INDJC-
Well, Ogden, babeh, if you lived in Cagayan de Oro, you would have been three-quarters of a century ahead of your time. There are indeed vultures who circle above the carcass of culture, and you should see how high they fly in our city!
Last February, we wondered how culture and the arts seem to have been taken over by the academe. We marveled at how schools, colleges and universities often are the only institutions around in the boondocks with the size, facilities and most important, qualified personnel to mount cultural and artistic events for the appreciation and education of their faculty and student body in particular, and the community in general.
Alas, a little birdie told us one such production entailed a mandatory pay cut of P1,000 per faculty member whether they saw the play or not. Students for their part, earned or lost 10 percent of their grades in a particular subject, depending on their attendance of the matinee. Doting parents, of course, readily paid through the nose the price of admission since it was for a noble cause: not the culture or the arts, pendejo, but their children’s grades!
Lately, the city’s seen a slew of elaborate cultural and artistic presentations impressed upon its collective plebian face, with foreign talents, no less, to boot! Which is good, for it is written somewhere that the culture of a city rises no higher than its lowest common denominator. Ergo, bring in Pidro to the gymnasium if you please, mandatory pay cut for faculty and required attendance for students notwithstanding.
Well, that pesky little birdie is outside my window again with breaking news, no less. Entrez, mon ami! Whazzup, whazzup? Huh! Tres sientos pesos for a free show? Que barbaridad! Hijos de garapata! How did that happen?
Seems this enterprising young impresario is at it again. So resourceful, so far seeing, City Hall could sure use someone of his caliber. Not to run the City Treasurer’s office, Manuel, but to replace Garci in the next elections.
His travels far and wide brought him once to a city known for its culture and arts, which for illustration purposes, we shall call Himolugan. That’s the name of the original settlement of Cagayan de Oro which just missed the death of the Redeemer by a scant three centuries and whose remnants were bulldozed to kingdom come not so long ago to make way for Hizzoner’s bridge to nowhere land as my neighbor and good friend Ben Contreras so aptly calls it. But we digress. Padayon Piso-piso!
Enewi, this fine young creature who’d make a fine addition to the City Historical and Cultural Commission as its fourth Commissioner, saw this show at Himolugan and knew it just had to be shown to all those culture vultures back home!
Happily for this budding commissioner, whose fine work extends back to the administration of former mayor Ambing Magtajas, the same foreign funding agency which brought that show to Himolugan would only be too happy and willing to bring it to the City of Golden Friendship at their own expense!
So Mr Commissioner, atat na atat as I can imagine, heigh ho’s off to his native land and sets everything up for the unwitting donors. Matinee showtime comes and the beaming foreigners come sashaying down the aisle of the host school’s auditorium to the thunderous applause of two hundred students!
Ah, na, na, na, na, na! Mr. Commissioner! The shocked reps of donor agency gasp, why so many empty seats? I have no recollection of what the budding impresario replied, our little bird was so excited whispering in my ear all I got was this cacophony of chirps, whistles and grunts (not unlike R2D2 when he’s excited).
When I finally sorted out his mish-mash of morse code, international code, cape code and da vinci code, seems so many students stayed away because the show’s producers were collecting P300 from each of them!
Santisima, Mr. Commissioner! I pay for all the expenses of this entire show, and you charge the students for the gate! My blood runs cold for this little boy, no matter how bad his deed, the cannons of the Armada when ignited resound across the Mediterranean sea!
I imagine he got an ultimatum of sorts because eventually I gathered from the excited little bird that the gala presentation was a huge success, with the thousand person capacity auditorium ringing to the bravos and oles of its appreciative audience.
My heart goes out to those well-meaning public grade or high school teachers who have compelled their students to make mandatory contributions for events such as these not provided for in their pitiful budgets, including materials for stage props and tickets “considered-sold” just to at least give these students a feel of what Macbeth, King Lear or Othello is all about.
Sadly, many of them often have had to answer to their superiors or to bureaucrats in the Dept. of Education or Commission for Higher Education with suspensions and fines as a reward for their efforts and self-sacrifice while Mr. Commissioner and his ilk get away with the academic equivalent of murder and homicide.
Forewarned, donor agencies of foreign countries, especially for those well-heeled foundations of G-7 states, would do well to take a leaf from their local counterparts who know just how to deal with would-be impresarios like our fine young Commissioner: ask around; make a character investigation.
Or, better still, conduct a credit investigation. He’s not the first Commissioner who’s taken advantage of well meaning but guillible foreign funding agencies in the name of culture and the arts to line his pockets. A real vulture his breed is indeed, circling above the carcass of culture.
It’s admittedly a stretch but we may still be able to give the benefit of a doubt for schools who impose mandatory pay cuts on their faculty and staff payrolls for the sake of the muse, or forgive teachers for giving their students additional bonus points for certain subjects, provided they attend cultural shows and presentations of the school.
But we can never forgive those vultures who fleece the carcasses of grants and donations from donor countries intended to give students a free viewing of what classical theatre, song or dance as rendered by their highest exponents would be like.
We can still find humor in the way Robin Hood robbed the Sheriff of Nottingham to give to the poor. After all, the Sheriff always has more from where his gold comes from.
But to rob the poor of gifts from others freely given just to share with them a taste, or glimpse or moment of the sublime, is despicable and deserve our wholehearted endorsement to El Santo Papa y La Presidente Gloria of their exclusion from capital punishment, preferably well done over a slow fire.
INDJC-
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