True or False Paradise
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Mark Tandoyog
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Artist-punk-poet/ Small-town local. Philosophizing the golden age of merchandise madness. He bears witness to the inflation of traditional highland beliefs. Yet this hybrid artist of the Cordilleras also stands fist-strong with the mundane observed statements he throws back at us at point blank range.
He walks through the shady back streets of Baguio’s markets where he gathers and experiences bizarre stories, a trail far off the beaten path of Baguio’s increasingly gentrified go-to tourist destinations.
Mark Tandoyog, a Baguio local who finds himself in the crack between hardcore punk culture and his old-school Chinese/Kankanaey family, devours good art and a good laugh, and is also a fitness nut who takes a good run seriously; way up 5,000 feet up in the mountains of the Cordilleras, where he along with his tattooed body sips on a beer while listening to spiritual philosophy and inhaling the fresh diesel air that comes free with the deluge that surrounds him.
In False Paradise, Mark continues his long journey of text-based works. Puns, statements, and internal arguments that reflect his own struggles and latest insights, all collected from the gut of being “Mark Tandoyog.” It’s all a celebration of himself and his self-destructive “anti-self” along with his poetics and his mastery of his existential aesthetics.
Everyone who knows Mark also knows his baritone voice, well suited for Tibetan throat singing. So as you read these juxtaposed texts try to hear it from its anarchist monk creator who attempts to cut through the madness of our times. The Buddhists would say: Crazy Wisdom. Or in this case: Crazy Mark Wisdom.
Kawayan de Guia
