The King of Nothing to Do

Yet another assortment of images and text with which to distract yourself from the crushing hopelessness of day to day living. Enjoy!

These posts are the result of record-breaking feats of procrastination. You may reach me at thekingofnothingtodo at yahoo dot com.
Alodia, in the Moment BETWEEN FANTASY AND REALITY, BEYOND HYPE AND HATE: ESQUIRE SPENDS AN AFTERNOON (OR TWO) WITH THE GIRL OF MANY COSTUMES By Luis Katigbak This is not where you would normally be; these are not the people you would normally be with. It is a Saturday afternoon in the electronics zone of a Marikina mall. You are surrounded by black mages and masked riders, by super heroes and Final Fantasists: earnest young people transformed into their favorite characters from pop culture (in most cases, Japanese comics and animation), through the painstaking process of cutting and shaping cloth and colorful rubber, the repurposing of PVC pipes and cardboard. This is a cosplay event, and cosplay, as the term indicates, combines costumes with role-playing. It is a competition, the pre-screening event for an even bigger cosplay event to take place near the end of October. A couple of hundred people, maybe more, have gathered to watch the cosplayers strike poses, recite lines, mock-fight, and enact scenes in character. The best of them will be participants in the big show. The program proper is about to start: the judges start filing out of a cordoned-off room. There is polite applause for the first judge, and more enthusiastic applause for the second. When the third judge emerges, in full costume—winged headdress, elfin ears and all—that’s when the screaming starts. I LOVE YOU ALODIA, a howling fan wants the world to know. [Read the article in the December 2011 issue of Esquire Philippines, out now.]

Alodia, in the Moment

BETWEEN FANTASY AND REALITY, BEYOND HYPE AND HATE: ESQUIRE SPENDS AN AFTERNOON (OR TWO) WITH THE GIRL OF MANY COSTUMES

By Luis Katigbak

This is not where you would normally be; these are not the people you would normally be with.

It is a Saturday afternoon in the electronics zone of a Marikina mall. You are surrounded by black mages and masked riders, by super heroes and Final Fantasists: earnest young people transformed into their favorite characters from pop culture (in most cases, Japanese comics and animation), through the painstaking process of cutting and shaping cloth and colorful rubber, the repurposing of PVC pipes and cardboard. This is a cosplay event, and cosplay, as the term indicates, combines costumes with role-playing.

It is a competition, the pre-screening event for an even bigger cosplay event to take place near the end of October. A couple of hundred people, maybe more, have gathered to watch the cosplayers strike poses, recite lines, mock-fight, and enact scenes in character. The best of them will be participants in the big show.

The program proper is about to start: the judges start filing out of a cordoned-off room. There is polite applause for the first judge, and more enthusiastic applause for the second. When the third judge emerges, in full costume—winged headdress, elfin ears and all—that’s when the screaming starts.

I LOVE YOU ALODIA, a howling fan wants the world to know.

[Read the article in the December 2011 issue of Esquire Philippines, out now.]

  1. thekingofnothingtodo posted this