7.06.06 kulturnatib

True not true
(First of two parts)

There are many things that I think to be so, even am sure to be so, but are not so at all. Very recently, I came upon another reminder of how some of these sure-to-be-so-it-has-to-be-so things latch on to my mind like some tenaciously sticky leech. Dislodging them not only feels like drawing some blood but also vacuuming some part of the soul, that part where certainties reside like some ancestral house. Still, heritage conservation aside, it is good to, once in a while, go through the old neighborhood and see which structures can withstand the scrutiny of time and the challenges of truth and just do away with those that do not. Simple.

One of the magazines I am and have been fortunate enough to get my hands on is Topic. Topic is a quarterly magazine published in New York but with a global reach in both circulation and contributions, though mostly to and from the English speaking parts of the globe. Many contributions, too, it should be pointed out, are translated into English from whatever language they were originally written in. It is the A4 version of the venerable UK published, paper back Granta magazine that also features translated works from all over.

For issue 10, its most recent, the topic of Topic is music. It was a good coincidence, when I started reading, I thought, because music is, for the most part, why I am here. When planning for this trip, the Montreal International Jazz Festival was a bright cloud that loomed large over the planning calendar. Brighter still, was the pre-festival, kick-off concert of legendary bluesman, BB King, who is celebrating his becoming an octogenarian with a world concert tour.

This concert was going to be an opportunity for me to find out in situ if BB King is really the legend that he is made out to be or, actually, if his music continues to be fresh when all the other musical legends are struggling against the inevitable entropy of their music or when more and more of them are simply giving in to making tired remakes of their old hits.
But, before I met BB King, I met Daisuke Inoue. The title of his article in Topic is 'Perfect Harmony,' The subtitle, in much bigger, more prominent copy reads, 'Daisuke Inoue Can't Read A Note of Music, But He Invented The Machine That Helped The World To Sing.' Guess which title hooked me?

I can't remember when this idea latched onto my head - this idea that a Filipino invented the karaoke machine. I vaguely remember though that it was around the early 80's when my sister was working in one of the Yupangco companies, the sole distributor for Yamaha musical instruments in the Philippines, that this idea took root. One of the instruments they were selling was the earliest versions of the 'Filipino-invented' karaoke.

My sister quit her job, I moved elsewhere, but the idea remained. It even survived a buffeting of doubt with an assertion -- from where, I don't know -- that a competing claim of non-Filipino provenance for the invention of the karaoke which was awarded a patent was a stolen claim, the common fate of Filipino genius.

Now comes Daisuke. His story starts with the invitation from the organizers of the Ig Noble Peace Prize presented annually by the respected cranks at Harvard University. Last year he was among the awardees of this prize for contributions to 'genuine peace' in the world as the inventor of the karaoke machine.

He then recalls the history of this invention starting from the family devastation from World War 2, his love for drumming, his father who, upon hearing his wish to become a drummer, simply telling him, contrary to what most Japanese fathers at that time (and even now) do, to go and good luck.

It is a good, engaging and endearing success story that is validated not only by the Ig Noble Award, but also an honor in 1999 by Time magazine to Daisuke as among the 20 most influential persons in the 20th century, and, of course, tons and tons of yen.

Now, where is my Filipino karaoke inventor? I don't know. What I know or acknowledge now, is that there is no truth in him or her. At the same time, I also know that, as a Filipino and in the Philippines, fiction can take on a life all its own, especially when its last name is Patriotism.