PEN Pineapple Apple Pen (PPAP) is still trending and so I’m getting on the pen-pineapple bandwagon. I have noticed that it has become an unofficial game, so I now call it the PPAP Game. For this column, it’s the applied sense, or how we can use it to depict real life.
Someone proposed that the novelty song is a coded message, or even an example of a gematria (assigning numerical values to letters). Maybe it’s putting too much meaning on a song that was composed on the dinner table.
The song is credited to Pikotaro, a fictional singer-songwriter created and portrayed by Japanese comedian Daimaou Kosaka. Some people call the song gibberish, but don’t look now. It debuted in the US “Billboard Hot 100 at 77, and became the shortest song in its charting history at 45 seconds in length,” according to wikipedia.
It’s so popular that ABS-CBN and GMA 7 spoofed the song, using different words to create new words, but what I remember the most is the first parody on GMA 7’s Bubble Gang, performed by Japanese actor Jackie Woo. An example: “I have a bee, I have a saya (skirt)—Bisaya.” Michael V. had his version recently also.
PPAP can also be likened to the concept of the haiku, a traditional form of Japanese poetry. It presents disparate images that defy the idea that you can’t compare essentially different objects, or concepts.
Since I like combining recipes to create new disparate ideas and images, I’m now playing the Applied Version of PPAP. By the way, Martial Law officially ended on Jan. 17, 1981 with Proclamation No. 2045. Then dictator president Ferdinand Marcos, however, kept decree-making powers for himself. But on Feb. 25, 1986, the Edsa Revolution discharged him and the country was totally free. So let the game begin with my friend Illustracio and my family in it.
“We had a library; we had a ration—liberation,” Illustracio opened the game.
“That’s clever. How about, ‘I have a library; I have a bungan (banana with red skin)—libingan (cemetery). A belated blessed All Souls Day to you all,” my niece Ellen said.
“Here’s something really hot. I have justice; I have rest in peace—justice of the peace,” said Peetong, my cousin Dona’s husband.
“Uncle Peetong, what’s a justice of the peace?” my nephew Pannon asked.
“He is a judicial officer, of a lower or puisne court, to keep the peace. He can perform a marriage.”
“Why is peace attached to the term if some marriages aren’t peaceful?”
“Suffice it to say that in the olden days, there was a guy in charge of keeping peace. They called him a commissioner of the peace, which has the same value as justice of the peace.”
“What’s a pui...pui...puisne?”
“The word denotes a judge of a superior court inferior in rank to chief justices.”
“Oh, he’s not much of a guy then.”
“Well, he still has to have long years studying the law and taking the bar.”
“Is there a justice of the noisy or justice of the dead?”
“Justice is ideally for all—dead or alive, rich or poor.”
“It’s hard understanding adults, Uncle Peets, and why they do the things they do, but I have a PPAP for you: I have some juice; I have some teas—justice!” Pannon said.
“That’s very good. Hmm, how about I have bayabas (guava); I have an ani (a harvest)—bayani (hero). Juan Tamad is famous for keeping his mouth open, his brain shut and just waiting for the fruit to ripen and drop in his big mouth,” Uncle Gustave said.
