by Philbert Ortiz Dy
posted on Wednesday, September 09, 2009 in Festivals, Movies in
http://www.clickthecity.com/movies/?p=5593
Saturday, September 12, 2009
Tuesday, September 08, 2009
the sick and the dying, the lonely and the broken-hearted
Dearest Amelia,
It is raining here again. Skies were overcast all day. News says that LPA (that’s low pressure area) has already become Signal No. 1, and they’re calling it some male name now. Classes have been called off, office workers are making their way through traffic, trying to beat the heavy gray clouds gathering in the distance, desperate to be home, before the heavy rainfall. I do not know why I start with a description of the weather. Well, in your mails, you always talk about the weather. And you do it so well, so engagingly. The weather! Imagine that. I guess talking about the weather, where you are, is a real, legit way to pass the time. Here, it can be absolutely inconsequential, unless it is of the type that brings about floods and famine. You know, weather in the extreme. One afternoon, for instance, on my way home from work, I just happened to glance at the sky, and saw how beautiful it was, the brightest blue and the deepest pink in a wonderful, graceful, elegant sweep. I mass-texted people, telling them to look up, look up now! Guess how many replied? One. And all he said was: “cool”. It wasn't cool. It was a bit warm, actually, even if there was a slight breeze. But, there, see, everyday weather here does not affect us much. Life goes on. In your case, however, I am amazed at how it always matters, sometimes terribly so. The winter especially, no? I really hope you have recovered from it – the leaking pipes, broken boilers… Sounds real disastrous. Sorry. But then you get beautiful breaks for autumn, and spring, and now summer, too. It must be really lovely at this time of the year. Do you still grow flowers in your little yard? Do the blue and yellow birds still come for the dew on the leaves and the seeds you scatter for them on the ground? I really loved my time there with you. Here, you just don’t do that. You don’t notice the changes in colors, the flowers blooming or dying. You don’t feed birds. That’s too… I don’t know, indulgent? It's as though you're not allowed to appreciate the lighter, brighter things in life, in nature, being in a place where there's too much darkness, too much heaviness. Or, maybe it is just me.
This is embarrassing. One time, I was doing some work, out in our tiny backyard. The weather this time was pretty mild. And there were a couple of birds, you know, those brown ones we see everywhere. I shook out the contents of my bag of chips to the ground for them and they all scampered away. I waited, kept still, but they wouldn’t budge, balancing themselves on the barbed wires, waiting, keeping still. Staring at me like I was some loony. I stood up, went inside our house, and watched the birds from the windows instead. But they still wouldn’t make the move for the crumbs. Apparently, even these birds here think it’s crazy to feed them like that, like they’re your pets, and to not expect anything in return. El caught me spying at the birds from the window, and he laughed so hard the row of birds fluttered away in surprise. El obviously shares the sentiments of the suspicious, arrogant birds. It just is not done here. People do not feed birds! So, yes, please, do send me some of those pictures please, from my visit there three years ago.
I can’t believe it’s been that long. I can’t believe you’re a mommy now and that soon you’ll be taking little Tommy to football or wherever it is European mommies take their kids to. Or to the park to feed the birds, maybe? Haha. But, yeah, wow. Who would have thought, Ames? El and I have been talking more frequently about having one ourselves. A baby, I mean. I keep changing my mind about it. I mean I do want it, even if I will never say it. Not to anyone, anyway. I have not seen the doctor. Hell, I haven’t been to a hospital since my mother died three years ago. But I really should go, you’re right. I keep having these darting pains in my abdomen more frequently, pains like the ones I used to have, just before El took me to the hospital for, you know, that incident last year. I have a very deep suspicion that it would never happen again, that we would never be able to have one again. Ever. There. Thank you. I just had to say it. And I would rather that I be the one to tell myself that, than it be handed to me, you know, in print, in stark medical language. Then it would be really official. And I am not sure how I am going to take that. I feel really bad for El though. I really, really do. I feel bad, sad, on my own, too. Sometimes, I feel more angry than sad.
So… How’s the weather? Oh, we’ve already covered that. Sorry. What else is there… Do you remember Manu, from the org? Tallish, fair, sharp chin? Nice haircut, as in consistently well-styled hair? He had asked me out once, to go to mass with him, remember? And you all found that pretty funny. I laughed too. Except that I did not find it that funny. I sort of did want to go to mass with him, just out of curiousity. But, obviously, that was not going to be very cool. And so… Anyway. This is so weird. I have just been thinking about him lately. I mean, there was nothing there, right? Nothing to think about, nothing to dwell on. Except for that one time, during a Christmas party in someone’s mansion, in New Manila. I don’t know if you remember. You were pretty absorbed, enrapt actually, with whatshisname, the tall jerk. Sorry, I know you used to really like him. I didn’t. I didn’t really care much for that group, even if you were very much into them. Or they into you. They were too cool. Haha. And, really, I just wasn’t cool enough. Or, I don’t know. Maybe I just didn’t like them enough to want to be like them. But, that Manu. He was different, wasn’t he? He was not cool, as you guys made it very apparent, in your treatment of him. His fault, too. He wanted to go to church with me! Haha. Remember when, at some point during the party, people were lying on the ground, puking into the pool, you and your boyfriend decided you wanted to drive to the south, to Tagaytay, and you practically, literally dragged me. Manu ran after us, and I pulled him into the car, and made him drive. You remember? And we drove. I mean, he drove, you and your boyfriend sat – made out!— in the backseat. Manu and I tried not to look, tried very hard to stare ahead. We were both glad to be out of that party, actually. So we just drove on, past Ortigas, and then C-5, until we reached the city limits, and that’s when we noticed that you and your boyfriend had gone silent. You had both passed out! What a sight you both were. I wish we had digicams or phonecams then.
We could have turned the car back to the party, no? But we were on the South Luzon Express Way already. And it was quite nice, too – the quiet, steady drone of motor on highway tracks, the rush of the wind against our faces. The city and its noise, its buildings and its lights, all diminished the farther we went. Then we realized that we both didn’t know where Tagaytay was, exactly. Manu found a nice, safe spot, took the car to the side, and asked me if I wanted to step out and sit on the hood instead, cool ourselves before we head back. And so we did. We got out of the car, sat on the hood, and, you won’t believe this, we watched the stars. Did it ever occur to you, during your entire life in Manila, to look up to the night sky, to watch the stars? Manu was not as uncool as we all thought he was. Even if he was wearing a collared Bench shirt that night, tucked in his well-ironed slacks! While we were sitting on the hood, he untucked his shirt and kept smoothing the creases down. I don’t remember what we talked about exactly though. I vaguely recall him telling me about his father's home in the province, right in the middle of a field, where, apparently, they would take strolls, at night, and lie on their backs, look at the stars. How quaint, no? Or, maybe he didn't talk about that. Maybe we did not talk about anything at all. Maybe I am making it all up. But I remember him. You remember him, right? I do remember that night. I don’t think Manu and I ever talked to each other after that night though. Did he drop out of the org? He sort of disappeared, didn’t he? I bumped into him on campus, on a few more occasions, but he only ever nodded at me in slight acknowledgment and, always, there was this impenetrable look about him. I heard his name mentioned, a few years ago, in some forum. Apparently, he had moved back to his father’s province and started a rather progressive publication there. So many other things were said about him and his group. After that, though, I had not heard of him at all. Anyway… Why have I been thinking of Manu? I really don’t know. But, recently, every time there’s news of some organizer or reporter or social worker killed, it stifles my breath, clamps my heart shut for a second. And then, I have to stop whatever it is I am doing to scan the report for his name, for any wayward description that might identify him for me. When did I start to care so much? So, so strange, this. I really don’t know, Ames. Must be all these bad things happening around us...
A man was found dead in his apartment, just across from ours, did I tell you? Oh, Ames. Terrible. He had been dead for four days already, before the building maintenance guy here found him. I used to see this man every Saturday, watering his plants, sunning himself in his garden, with a dozen cats around him. I used to be so jealous at how the birds did not mind him. They would feed freely off crumbs of bread scattered on the table in front of him! And, he always said good morning. Nobody says good morning here in our apartment block. Nobody here feeds cats. Nobody here waters plants. Nobody here feeds birds! This man, he lived alone. He didn’t have family. No friends called on him, no lovers had breakfast with him. His plants died, too, Ames. His cats started loitering in other people’s apartments, spilling garbage cans over, stealing food from kitchens, screaming and scratching at each other, every single night, until they bleed. They have become unbearably violent, they have turned into such beasts, in their grief. Some started hanging out in our garage, pissing on our front steps, every single day, as if to tell us to deal with it, deal with US! The nice old man, whose name I never bothered to learn, who lived alone, who died alone, was responsible for the balance of things here in our little world!
I couldn't get up from bed all day yesterday. There were about twelve missed calls on my phone, demanding emails in my inboxes. I couldn't deal. Middle of the workweek, unconfirmed meetings, unsigned checks, unwritten reports, and there I was, worrying over what would happen to the dead man's books, the plants in his garden, the secret dvd collections, the very well-chosen clothes and shoes. Who's claimed his body from the crime lab? Who's going to light candles for him, hold vigil for him, say prayers for his soul? El said that we should light candles on his veranda, get his full name, offer him a mass, if that would make me happy. But that is a bit hypocritical, don't you think? We had all the chance in the world to get to know him and we didn't, and now he's dead. Since last week, I have been watching for movement in his apartment, waiting for anyone, someone, to come by, so I can talk to him or her, ask about the nice, strange, lonely man who lived and died there, all by himself. There are days when I am gripped with such a strong desire to know what's on his kitchen shelf, whose photographs he kept. What was the last satisfying meal he took? Whose number did he dial last? Other times, I feel extremely overprotective of his privacy. No one, not a single person has a right to know the insides of a house that has been well-lived in, alone, for many, many years.
Oh Ames, please come and visit me. Please let me visit you!
I think the typhoon just arrived. Signal No. 1 is here, intent on gaining force, turning into Signal No. 2. The streets will be littered with filth and mud, and canals will flood. Little houses will float, families will lose their homes. The displaced and the desperate will fill Baclaran, walk on their knees to implore the Mother of Perpetual help. A ferry will sink. Again. Some kid will try very hard to not let go of the hand of his brother, but the current will be very strong. Billboards will come falling on cars, killing their drivers. Or, maybe not. Maybe this is nothing. Maybe parents will be glad of the chance to leave work early, prepare steaming bowls of soup for the family. Kids will be happy making paper boats float on little streams. Lovers will be daring enough and will drive out of the city in the rain, to spend the night in some high altitude place overlooking a volcano's crater. Or, maybe they won't even make it there, getting only as far as the highway, far enough to say that they have left the city behind.
Dearest Amelia, how are you, really? You look happy in your pictures. You lost weight very quickly. But I am worried when you tell me that on your days off, instead of reaching for a book, or thinking of a poem to write, you just doze off instead, from fatigue. I was worried when, at the park, you cursed rather violently at a white man, and muttered, under your breath, that he deserved to be hungry and homeless. I am worried when you tell me that you shy away from other Filipinos who smile at you and approach you and want to talk to you at the park. Should I be worried? Maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I just am imagining all of these things. I cannot be relied on too much, these days. I am so utterly, terribly, embarrassingly maudlin. You wouldn't recognize me. But if you tell me you will come here for vacation, then I shall certainly be cheered, and I shall not bore you with my useless imaginings about the sick and the dying, the lonely and the broken-hearted, the poor and the unemployed, in a word, all who need your perpetual help… Amen. (I can’t believe I can still recite the Perpetual Help novena from memory!) Kidding aside, I promise not to bore you with issues at my work. And I promise not to drag you to one of El's hoity-toity art gallery events, either. And, I just might allow you to bring me to the doctor for that much-needed check up you've been bugging me about, or to drive to Tagaytay for a very sinful bowl of beef Bulalo. Which reminds me, I have to go and prepare dinner now, make myself useful around the house, close all the windows, shut the storm out.
Please, please you take care of yourself, Ames. Try to enjoy the brief summer respite. I miss you, miss you, miss you. Send my love to the little one, and his father, too.
Love, love,
J.
It is raining here again. Skies were overcast all day. News says that LPA (that’s low pressure area) has already become Signal No. 1, and they’re calling it some male name now. Classes have been called off, office workers are making their way through traffic, trying to beat the heavy gray clouds gathering in the distance, desperate to be home, before the heavy rainfall. I do not know why I start with a description of the weather. Well, in your mails, you always talk about the weather. And you do it so well, so engagingly. The weather! Imagine that. I guess talking about the weather, where you are, is a real, legit way to pass the time. Here, it can be absolutely inconsequential, unless it is of the type that brings about floods and famine. You know, weather in the extreme. One afternoon, for instance, on my way home from work, I just happened to glance at the sky, and saw how beautiful it was, the brightest blue and the deepest pink in a wonderful, graceful, elegant sweep. I mass-texted people, telling them to look up, look up now! Guess how many replied? One. And all he said was: “cool”. It wasn't cool. It was a bit warm, actually, even if there was a slight breeze. But, there, see, everyday weather here does not affect us much. Life goes on. In your case, however, I am amazed at how it always matters, sometimes terribly so. The winter especially, no? I really hope you have recovered from it – the leaking pipes, broken boilers… Sounds real disastrous. Sorry. But then you get beautiful breaks for autumn, and spring, and now summer, too. It must be really lovely at this time of the year. Do you still grow flowers in your little yard? Do the blue and yellow birds still come for the dew on the leaves and the seeds you scatter for them on the ground? I really loved my time there with you. Here, you just don’t do that. You don’t notice the changes in colors, the flowers blooming or dying. You don’t feed birds. That’s too… I don’t know, indulgent? It's as though you're not allowed to appreciate the lighter, brighter things in life, in nature, being in a place where there's too much darkness, too much heaviness. Or, maybe it is just me.
This is embarrassing. One time, I was doing some work, out in our tiny backyard. The weather this time was pretty mild. And there were a couple of birds, you know, those brown ones we see everywhere. I shook out the contents of my bag of chips to the ground for them and they all scampered away. I waited, kept still, but they wouldn’t budge, balancing themselves on the barbed wires, waiting, keeping still. Staring at me like I was some loony. I stood up, went inside our house, and watched the birds from the windows instead. But they still wouldn’t make the move for the crumbs. Apparently, even these birds here think it’s crazy to feed them like that, like they’re your pets, and to not expect anything in return. El caught me spying at the birds from the window, and he laughed so hard the row of birds fluttered away in surprise. El obviously shares the sentiments of the suspicious, arrogant birds. It just is not done here. People do not feed birds! So, yes, please, do send me some of those pictures please, from my visit there three years ago.
I can’t believe it’s been that long. I can’t believe you’re a mommy now and that soon you’ll be taking little Tommy to football or wherever it is European mommies take their kids to. Or to the park to feed the birds, maybe? Haha. But, yeah, wow. Who would have thought, Ames? El and I have been talking more frequently about having one ourselves. A baby, I mean. I keep changing my mind about it. I mean I do want it, even if I will never say it. Not to anyone, anyway. I have not seen the doctor. Hell, I haven’t been to a hospital since my mother died three years ago. But I really should go, you’re right. I keep having these darting pains in my abdomen more frequently, pains like the ones I used to have, just before El took me to the hospital for, you know, that incident last year. I have a very deep suspicion that it would never happen again, that we would never be able to have one again. Ever. There. Thank you. I just had to say it. And I would rather that I be the one to tell myself that, than it be handed to me, you know, in print, in stark medical language. Then it would be really official. And I am not sure how I am going to take that. I feel really bad for El though. I really, really do. I feel bad, sad, on my own, too. Sometimes, I feel more angry than sad.
So… How’s the weather? Oh, we’ve already covered that. Sorry. What else is there… Do you remember Manu, from the org? Tallish, fair, sharp chin? Nice haircut, as in consistently well-styled hair? He had asked me out once, to go to mass with him, remember? And you all found that pretty funny. I laughed too. Except that I did not find it that funny. I sort of did want to go to mass with him, just out of curiousity. But, obviously, that was not going to be very cool. And so… Anyway. This is so weird. I have just been thinking about him lately. I mean, there was nothing there, right? Nothing to think about, nothing to dwell on. Except for that one time, during a Christmas party in someone’s mansion, in New Manila. I don’t know if you remember. You were pretty absorbed, enrapt actually, with whatshisname, the tall jerk. Sorry, I know you used to really like him. I didn’t. I didn’t really care much for that group, even if you were very much into them. Or they into you. They were too cool. Haha. And, really, I just wasn’t cool enough. Or, I don’t know. Maybe I just didn’t like them enough to want to be like them. But, that Manu. He was different, wasn’t he? He was not cool, as you guys made it very apparent, in your treatment of him. His fault, too. He wanted to go to church with me! Haha. Remember when, at some point during the party, people were lying on the ground, puking into the pool, you and your boyfriend decided you wanted to drive to the south, to Tagaytay, and you practically, literally dragged me. Manu ran after us, and I pulled him into the car, and made him drive. You remember? And we drove. I mean, he drove, you and your boyfriend sat – made out!— in the backseat. Manu and I tried not to look, tried very hard to stare ahead. We were both glad to be out of that party, actually. So we just drove on, past Ortigas, and then C-5, until we reached the city limits, and that’s when we noticed that you and your boyfriend had gone silent. You had both passed out! What a sight you both were. I wish we had digicams or phonecams then.
We could have turned the car back to the party, no? But we were on the South Luzon Express Way already. And it was quite nice, too – the quiet, steady drone of motor on highway tracks, the rush of the wind against our faces. The city and its noise, its buildings and its lights, all diminished the farther we went. Then we realized that we both didn’t know where Tagaytay was, exactly. Manu found a nice, safe spot, took the car to the side, and asked me if I wanted to step out and sit on the hood instead, cool ourselves before we head back. And so we did. We got out of the car, sat on the hood, and, you won’t believe this, we watched the stars. Did it ever occur to you, during your entire life in Manila, to look up to the night sky, to watch the stars? Manu was not as uncool as we all thought he was. Even if he was wearing a collared Bench shirt that night, tucked in his well-ironed slacks! While we were sitting on the hood, he untucked his shirt and kept smoothing the creases down. I don’t remember what we talked about exactly though. I vaguely recall him telling me about his father's home in the province, right in the middle of a field, where, apparently, they would take strolls, at night, and lie on their backs, look at the stars. How quaint, no? Or, maybe he didn't talk about that. Maybe we did not talk about anything at all. Maybe I am making it all up. But I remember him. You remember him, right? I do remember that night. I don’t think Manu and I ever talked to each other after that night though. Did he drop out of the org? He sort of disappeared, didn’t he? I bumped into him on campus, on a few more occasions, but he only ever nodded at me in slight acknowledgment and, always, there was this impenetrable look about him. I heard his name mentioned, a few years ago, in some forum. Apparently, he had moved back to his father’s province and started a rather progressive publication there. So many other things were said about him and his group. After that, though, I had not heard of him at all. Anyway… Why have I been thinking of Manu? I really don’t know. But, recently, every time there’s news of some organizer or reporter or social worker killed, it stifles my breath, clamps my heart shut for a second. And then, I have to stop whatever it is I am doing to scan the report for his name, for any wayward description that might identify him for me. When did I start to care so much? So, so strange, this. I really don’t know, Ames. Must be all these bad things happening around us...
A man was found dead in his apartment, just across from ours, did I tell you? Oh, Ames. Terrible. He had been dead for four days already, before the building maintenance guy here found him. I used to see this man every Saturday, watering his plants, sunning himself in his garden, with a dozen cats around him. I used to be so jealous at how the birds did not mind him. They would feed freely off crumbs of bread scattered on the table in front of him! And, he always said good morning. Nobody says good morning here in our apartment block. Nobody here feeds cats. Nobody here waters plants. Nobody here feeds birds! This man, he lived alone. He didn’t have family. No friends called on him, no lovers had breakfast with him. His plants died, too, Ames. His cats started loitering in other people’s apartments, spilling garbage cans over, stealing food from kitchens, screaming and scratching at each other, every single night, until they bleed. They have become unbearably violent, they have turned into such beasts, in their grief. Some started hanging out in our garage, pissing on our front steps, every single day, as if to tell us to deal with it, deal with US! The nice old man, whose name I never bothered to learn, who lived alone, who died alone, was responsible for the balance of things here in our little world!
I couldn't get up from bed all day yesterday. There were about twelve missed calls on my phone, demanding emails in my inboxes. I couldn't deal. Middle of the workweek, unconfirmed meetings, unsigned checks, unwritten reports, and there I was, worrying over what would happen to the dead man's books, the plants in his garden, the secret dvd collections, the very well-chosen clothes and shoes. Who's claimed his body from the crime lab? Who's going to light candles for him, hold vigil for him, say prayers for his soul? El said that we should light candles on his veranda, get his full name, offer him a mass, if that would make me happy. But that is a bit hypocritical, don't you think? We had all the chance in the world to get to know him and we didn't, and now he's dead. Since last week, I have been watching for movement in his apartment, waiting for anyone, someone, to come by, so I can talk to him or her, ask about the nice, strange, lonely man who lived and died there, all by himself. There are days when I am gripped with such a strong desire to know what's on his kitchen shelf, whose photographs he kept. What was the last satisfying meal he took? Whose number did he dial last? Other times, I feel extremely overprotective of his privacy. No one, not a single person has a right to know the insides of a house that has been well-lived in, alone, for many, many years.
Oh Ames, please come and visit me. Please let me visit you!
I think the typhoon just arrived. Signal No. 1 is here, intent on gaining force, turning into Signal No. 2. The streets will be littered with filth and mud, and canals will flood. Little houses will float, families will lose their homes. The displaced and the desperate will fill Baclaran, walk on their knees to implore the Mother of Perpetual help. A ferry will sink. Again. Some kid will try very hard to not let go of the hand of his brother, but the current will be very strong. Billboards will come falling on cars, killing their drivers. Or, maybe not. Maybe this is nothing. Maybe parents will be glad of the chance to leave work early, prepare steaming bowls of soup for the family. Kids will be happy making paper boats float on little streams. Lovers will be daring enough and will drive out of the city in the rain, to spend the night in some high altitude place overlooking a volcano's crater. Or, maybe they won't even make it there, getting only as far as the highway, far enough to say that they have left the city behind.
Dearest Amelia, how are you, really? You look happy in your pictures. You lost weight very quickly. But I am worried when you tell me that on your days off, instead of reaching for a book, or thinking of a poem to write, you just doze off instead, from fatigue. I was worried when, at the park, you cursed rather violently at a white man, and muttered, under your breath, that he deserved to be hungry and homeless. I am worried when you tell me that you shy away from other Filipinos who smile at you and approach you and want to talk to you at the park. Should I be worried? Maybe I shouldn't. Maybe I just am imagining all of these things. I cannot be relied on too much, these days. I am so utterly, terribly, embarrassingly maudlin. You wouldn't recognize me. But if you tell me you will come here for vacation, then I shall certainly be cheered, and I shall not bore you with my useless imaginings about the sick and the dying, the lonely and the broken-hearted, the poor and the unemployed, in a word, all who need your perpetual help… Amen. (I can’t believe I can still recite the Perpetual Help novena from memory!) Kidding aside, I promise not to bore you with issues at my work. And I promise not to drag you to one of El's hoity-toity art gallery events, either. And, I just might allow you to bring me to the doctor for that much-needed check up you've been bugging me about, or to drive to Tagaytay for a very sinful bowl of beef Bulalo. Which reminds me, I have to go and prepare dinner now, make myself useful around the house, close all the windows, shut the storm out.
Please, please you take care of yourself, Ames. Try to enjoy the brief summer respite. I miss you, miss you, miss you. Send my love to the little one, and his father, too.
Love, love,
J.
Thursday, August 06, 2009
whose culture reigns?
I've been conversing with FB friends on the whole national artist awards controversy, and i am not fully comfortable with how the messages are being shaped. i am attending the 'pagluluksa' tomorrow, but i cannot say that i am wholly in agreement with the movement's call. i think there is a need to inquire into the motive behind the act first. what does the president have to gain by doing what she did? i have a strong suspicion that this issue was created precisely to divide us, to expose the biases of the academic elite. and we are leading ourselves right into the cracks.
i don't think it was right, or even necessary, for the film critic Tioseco to say that the number of caparas films and wowowee viewers cannot ever be a barometer of culture. why not? why can't viewership ever be a gauge? maybe not according to established practice, or existing award criteria. but, who has a say on what defines culture, what doesn't? whose culture are we talking about anyway?
there was a very good opportunity to discuss various and varying notions of 'culture' during the ANC show; instead, only one prevailing notion surfaced: high culture.
the message in this campaign should be clear: there were clear, established processes, procedures, and parameters. and the president disregarded them. we protect the system, we uphold the standards; because these are what lend prestige to the award; these ensure that our money, our admiration, our approval for the use of the title 'national artist', go where they rightfully should.
i don't think it was right, or even necessary, for the film critic Tioseco to say that the number of caparas films and wowowee viewers cannot ever be a barometer of culture. why not? why can't viewership ever be a gauge? maybe not according to established practice, or existing award criteria. but, who has a say on what defines culture, what doesn't? whose culture are we talking about anyway?
there was a very good opportunity to discuss various and varying notions of 'culture' during the ANC show; instead, only one prevailing notion surfaced: high culture.
the message in this campaign should be clear: there were clear, established processes, procedures, and parameters. and the president disregarded them. we protect the system, we uphold the standards; because these are what lend prestige to the award; these ensure that our money, our admiration, our approval for the use of the title 'national artist', go where they rightfully should.
Monday, August 03, 2009
flash creative non fiction
"conversations, no. 2"
(random studies, from ten years ago!)
It is 6:39 P.M. when we enter my dingy apartment. The darkness in the living room breaks our conversation, and, for a moment, silence hovers, until female snores swell from the floor. We quietly step over my roommates, wrapped like blankets to/around each other. It is too late for embarrassments. In the shadows, their totally shameless shapes and figures are unmistakable.
Slowly we make our way to a corner, where a wooden foldable table stands for the day’s crumbs and scraps, which still cling onto the tabletop, along with some plates left unwashed for the next day or the next meal, if there will be any. What kind of life is this that you lead, I can almost hear my mother’s voice even as I am straining to hear what he’s thinking.
We grope for the three-legged bar stools, we smile at each other in conspiracy, our teeth bared, candid, in the dark. One takes out a lighter, the other whips up a candle. Soon, a willowy smoke and a tiny wavering flame, sufficiently disturb the concentration of black in our little corner.
In the miniscule light, the clarity of his eyes is a shock. I stare at the two tiny dancing pyres, one in each bespectacled black ball. I am hypnotized by the spectacle.
Oh, you were saying, we were talking about my wanting to go away to this small city in the Visayas, to live alone, and write, my ultimate wish. And he is quieted by this. Have we never talked this out before? We never really talk anything out, between the two of us. Why we got to talking at all, we never talk about that, too. I am emboldened to ask, while there are glowing wicks in his eyes flickering and swaying, animating his eyes like mad.
And what about you? You're not sure? You still don't know what you can do, what you want to do? I press on: You must want something fiercely, passionately; to be out of the ordinary. You know, you should forget for a while --
He doesn’t take his eyes away from my face. I know only because I cannot stop staring at them. He answers by asking: Can you forget for a while that your father’s back is exposed to the sun all day? That your mother is in a makeshift kitchen, blowing air into a pipe to keep the firewood burning for food to cook in time, for supper suffered in silence?
Once he said: We have become too poor to even afford decent conversation.
How do I tell him that wishes are free, that, sure, we have not even gotten to the discussion of our college thesis, that we might not even graduate and become decent members of the workforce, be the society’s saviors, the way we have been trained for! All that will be taken care of later. If I were a man, it would have been so easy for me to leave all this -- I gesture with my arms, to the sheaf of papers, the clutter on the table, the books scattered around the two entwined bodies on the floor.
I am drawn to life on the road, for some reason. If I were good enough with the guitars I’d be like Joplin, play in the streets –
Over this, he shakes his head and break into a lazy, lopsided smile - that endearing imperfection — then he takes off his glasses and exhales heavily onto them, creating fogs on the lenses that he briskly wipes off with the edge of his frayed collar. I am, all of a sudden, gripped with a terrible certainty: Things will change, irrevocably. You will not remember this.
I try to stop him from getting up to switch the lights on, from waking the two brazen mummies on the floor, from revealing the rest of the apartment in its full shabby glory.
It is not even 8:00 P.M. when the little white candle melts, and the dancing optic flames altogether disappear.
(random studies, from ten years ago!)
It is 6:39 P.M. when we enter my dingy apartment. The darkness in the living room breaks our conversation, and, for a moment, silence hovers, until female snores swell from the floor. We quietly step over my roommates, wrapped like blankets to/around each other. It is too late for embarrassments. In the shadows, their totally shameless shapes and figures are unmistakable.
Slowly we make our way to a corner, where a wooden foldable table stands for the day’s crumbs and scraps, which still cling onto the tabletop, along with some plates left unwashed for the next day or the next meal, if there will be any. What kind of life is this that you lead, I can almost hear my mother’s voice even as I am straining to hear what he’s thinking.
We grope for the three-legged bar stools, we smile at each other in conspiracy, our teeth bared, candid, in the dark. One takes out a lighter, the other whips up a candle. Soon, a willowy smoke and a tiny wavering flame, sufficiently disturb the concentration of black in our little corner.
In the miniscule light, the clarity of his eyes is a shock. I stare at the two tiny dancing pyres, one in each bespectacled black ball. I am hypnotized by the spectacle.
Oh, you were saying, we were talking about my wanting to go away to this small city in the Visayas, to live alone, and write, my ultimate wish. And he is quieted by this. Have we never talked this out before? We never really talk anything out, between the two of us. Why we got to talking at all, we never talk about that, too. I am emboldened to ask, while there are glowing wicks in his eyes flickering and swaying, animating his eyes like mad.
And what about you? You're not sure? You still don't know what you can do, what you want to do? I press on: You must want something fiercely, passionately; to be out of the ordinary. You know, you should forget for a while --
He doesn’t take his eyes away from my face. I know only because I cannot stop staring at them. He answers by asking: Can you forget for a while that your father’s back is exposed to the sun all day? That your mother is in a makeshift kitchen, blowing air into a pipe to keep the firewood burning for food to cook in time, for supper suffered in silence?
Once he said: We have become too poor to even afford decent conversation.
How do I tell him that wishes are free, that, sure, we have not even gotten to the discussion of our college thesis, that we might not even graduate and become decent members of the workforce, be the society’s saviors, the way we have been trained for! All that will be taken care of later. If I were a man, it would have been so easy for me to leave all this -- I gesture with my arms, to the sheaf of papers, the clutter on the table, the books scattered around the two entwined bodies on the floor.
I am drawn to life on the road, for some reason. If I were good enough with the guitars I’d be like Joplin, play in the streets –
Over this, he shakes his head and break into a lazy, lopsided smile - that endearing imperfection — then he takes off his glasses and exhales heavily onto them, creating fogs on the lenses that he briskly wipes off with the edge of his frayed collar. I am, all of a sudden, gripped with a terrible certainty: Things will change, irrevocably. You will not remember this.
I try to stop him from getting up to switch the lights on, from waking the two brazen mummies on the floor, from revealing the rest of the apartment in its full shabby glory.
It is not even 8:00 P.M. when the little white candle melts, and the dancing optic flames altogether disappear.
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
harry potter or mano pater?
there's absolutely no comparison! mano pater is a living, breathing sorcerer. he types up my father's pleadings and memos on an old trusty olympia typewriter. he is very handy with ribbons and printwheels. he has all legal forms down pat. he doesn't need to consult any manual. he knows everyone who matters in the bulwagan ng katarungan. he has my father's back all the time. my dad is a 77 year-old provincial, pro-bono abogado. mano pater, who is probably older than my father, is his super senior-citizen secretario. (mp gets a kick out of being called that.) my dad's not doing too bad himself.
this is a very random post. i just wanted to weigh in on the whole harry potter buzz. may anyone who googles harry potter be misdirected to my post about mano pater.
this is a very random post. i just wanted to weigh in on the whole harry potter buzz. may anyone who googles harry potter be misdirected to my post about mano pater.
Thursday, June 04, 2009
MY SINCEREST SORRY
for flooding your inboxes. i was merely trying to cross-post one item from my blogspot, the next thing i know, all 3 years' worth of posts are transferred to my multiply account. sorry, sorry, sorry.
daryll�
Wednesday, June 03, 2009
summer with scouts, pirates, and pregnant rats
(an excerpt. story came out in FP's may 23 issue)
There would be this glint, this tiny wavering light, in Don’s eyes every time he talked about computers. It was a bizarre and unforgettable kind of glimmer, one that made me uncomfortable, and that made him look vulnerable, and then also uncomfortable.
Don was very tall, and this was another thing that he was clearly uncomfortable with. He stood at about 6 feet in height, but he was all flab. He did not look the least bit athletic. He really did look like the proverbial geek with sallow skin, in need of some fresh air and real sunlight. His front teeth were small and sort of pointy, which sometimes made him look malicious. But he wasn’t at all malicious. He loved Coldplay, was always borrowing my CDs, and he knew, with a fragile and desperate certainty, that he was destined for greater things than monitoring machines and pleasing foreigner bosses who couldn’t speak English, violated labor standards, and knew twit about computers.
Sometimes the glimmer in Don’s eyes wavered with sadness, sometimes with great hope, especially when he talked about finally taking that special two-level licensure exam online, or about presenting his new inventions and software to Steve Jobs at the Apple Convention, some day, some day very, very soon. All of these things he was saving his money and himself up for.
Like a pregnant rat, Gerry would say, a pregnant rat scrounging for bits and pieces of food and warm fabric for her lair. Gerry liked to kid Don about his miserly ways. I never got the pregnant rat parallel, until I almost saw one, that summer. They said that a rat had bore a hole into one of the corner posts of our old apartment. The boys had found the hole without the rat in it. Gerry and my brother proceeded to break up the burrow, fishing out all sorts of unrecognizable graffiti-like bits and pieces of once-whole things. With sticks and rods, they scratched and scraped the walls of the rat hole. And then, for good measure, my brother, with a strange mix of anger and playfulness in his actions, poured muriatic acid into it. Don and I had looked on, cringing at the thought of the rat, bloated with a litter of little black fetuses, smoked up in acid.
I never really saw the rat. But that did not stop me from dreaming of it for nights on end. I knew my boyfriend was getting exasperated with me stopping all of a sudden, in the middle of sex, because I was convinced that I saw the pregnant rat as big as a cat with a tail as thick as the body of a snake, darting from one corner of our room to another, or scampering under our bed.
One day, he just left – the rat, my boyfriend. He did not return for a week. I dreamt less of the rat, I noticed. When he came back, he had a stuffed toy mouse with him, a gift and a remedy, to satisfy my fascination and to stymie my fear. Ayan, para matigil ka na, he said. It drew a lot of laughter but was no good for much else. I was still bothered by the pressure our lovemaking was creating on the spring bed. I resumed dreaming of the rat trapped under the bed, stuck in the bed frame, its bloated stomach bursting, its head flattened, its thick wet tail flapping heavily, pounding the wooden floor.
I slowly learned to participate more actively in the sex, despite the nightmares, only because I had missed my boyfriend, and he was, well, very vigorous in his attempts and thrusts to make me not think of the rat. He became more and more creative in his ways to accommodate my irrational rodent fears and fascinations. I think it was during that summer when I started to truly love him.
***
The apartment was located in the not-so-glamorous part of the Scout Area. Sometimes, there was no water in the taps. Sometimes, there was flood in the bathroom floor. But it had three big bedrooms with huge wood-framed windows, a two-car garage with not a single car, lots of stray cats, no rats – none in sight anyway – and, in front of the apartment stood an old branchy tree that bore no fruits and hardly had any leaves.
That summer, when we moved into the apartment, was one of the country’s hottest. In the countryside, the fields had cracked open, waiting for a single rainwater to drop; the unnourished crops had shriveled up in desperation; animals dropped dead or wandered like ghosts in abandoned towns. All of these according to the papers, as sensationalized and dramatized to me by my silly boyfriend.
In an old apartment in Scout Tobias, corner Scout Santiago, he continued in his reportorial voice, people have shed off all manners of clothing, have been drained of all strength by the heat, and have barely enough energy left to… procreate. This is the beginning of the end, he said. We were in our room. The curtains were drawn. We could see the gnarly branches of the old tree outside. Everything was still. There was absolutely no breeze. But our bodies were entwined, sweating profusely, very much alive in the oppressive heat.
One payday, as my brother promised, he blew all his salary on a rather big air-conditioning unit, and had the thing installed in the living room, of all places. Before that, I had just bought a small television set with my scholarship allowance, and from then on that room was where we ended up congregating, after a long day’s work. I started broaching the idea of having cables installed, the very possibility of which excited us all. We would linger in the living room talking about what shows we would watch if we had cable TV, and what shows we used to watch all the time at home where we did have cable TV.
Although the summer ended with no cables being installed, with that same TV set literally exploding into pieces, the living room became the cooling and the coolest center of sorts in that scorching hot, old apartment. Eventually, it became a communal bedroom, dining room, and study room, too.
But we would only drink out in the garage, where we could freely smoke. This was the only house rule we created and actually followed. Besides, those summer nights were quite beautiful, even if humid. The skies were always clear, the stars vivid. Don liked to come out of his room at night. He liked the night stars, but not the sun. He liked to sit out and talk to us, but he hardly drank.
Gerry was the hard drinker and liked to play the guitar, sing Dylan, Beatles, Simon and Garfunkel, Freddie Aguilar, and then some Nirvana, too, for some strange reason. His thick muscled neck would turn red, the veins almost popping out, when he sang, always in earnest, but sometimes out of tune.
Gerry also liked to roll a joint every now and then, even at his age. Gerry was old. The oldest jologs in the world, we called him. He was old enough to be a grandfather, which he was; a fact that he was in denial of.
Gerry turned fifty that summer. I only remember this because that was the only Saturday he did not drink with us. We never really knew where he went that night, dressed in a white button-down shirt, black slacks, and shiny patent leather shoes. But he came back the next day, sober, dry-eyed. Strange. My boyfriend said that Gerry probably went to church, went to confession and did his penance; that was his secret life. My boyfriend was convinced that Gerry was just pretending to be astig, to be tough, when he was actually a saint with tattoos. Or, a secret agent of the intelligence bureau.
Once, I caught a glimpse of a photo of a young man and two boys in Gerry’s wallet. The young man in the picture looked exactly like Gerry, and that was how I knew that Gerry was certainly not, as my brother suspected, a pedophile, that those kids were not his preys. They were his son and grandsons. Well, you never really know these days, do you, my brother would often say. You could be standing right next to one in the toilet, in the bar counter, in the train, or you could be sharing a room with them, isn’t that right, Gerry? My brother joked. Don just raised his eyebrows and exaggerated a yawn. Haay, here we go again.
But it was Gerry who made the nastiest gay jokes. That’s why I first thought that Gerry might just be overcompensating, that he might be, in addition to being a saint and a secret agent, also gay. He never brought a girl home, nor went out with one; and he did share a room with Don. Gerry was also especially mean about Don’s rather soft ways, always making insinuations about Don’s being gay, which Don might have been, if he weren’t too preoccupied with his software dreams. He could have easily taken advantage of the rooming situation with Gerry.
Gerry did have a rather remarkable twenty-year old laborer’s body, I told my boyfriend once. And my boyfriend said I was the one who was being mean, this time. But it was true. Gerry had the unhealthiest habits, had no notion of exercise or diet, but had the hardest abs, the firmest forearms, and the tightest buns. I swear to God. I never really bothered to find out where he came from and all. But his body, usually clad in ridiculously tight and short denim cut-offs, spelled it out for me. This was a man who had labored long and hard, not in the gym, but in cargo ships, maybe, or in factories.
Gerry looked freakish, actually. His face was as old as a World War II veteran’s, bearing all the coarse lines and deep marks of battle. But his body seemed ageless, perfected by the forces of nature. And of poverty, my boyfriend always added.
***
Don surprised us with a visit one night, just last year. Yes, exactly a year ago this month. My boyfriend and I were already living in the subdivision close to the campus, so far away it seemed, in atmosphere though not in distance, from the Scout Area. Our little house was carefully furnished – everything in it was relatively new and bespoke our current states. We had stripped it off of any trace of its previous occupants. Each of the original concrete tiles had been plucked out and replaced with wooden floorboards. The off-white walls were repainted in ochre and tan. A floor-to-ceiling, wall-to-wall bookshelf was installed in the area where a television set obviously used to stand.
It was a Friday night, I remember. We were entertaining guests, colleagues from the University. It was a particularly cool and windy summer night. The doorbell had rung, just once, and I ran to get it, thinking it was the pizza delivery.
From the doorframe I saw only the silhouette of a tall, fat man, standing awkwardly by the gate, shifting his heavy weight from one foot to the other. Pizza Hut? I called out. It’s Don, he replied, in a level tone, devoid of all inflection and emotion, that I almost missed it. What? Who? It’s Don, he said in an even lower voice. Oh my god. I ran to the gate to open it, to let him in. Come in, come in, Don! He didn’t want to come in. We had guests, he noted. And he couldn’t stay long anyway.
We sat out in the veranda, looking at what few stars we could see instead. He had just come straight from the airport. He was going to be in Manila for only two days and then he was flying to Taiwan.
Taiwan?! Wow. Are you going to study there? Did you get a scholarship? I asked him. Why Taiwan?
To work, not to study. In an electronics factory. Production line. The factory supplies hardware. Minor parts. To Apple Computers. He said, reciting the information in a robotic litany.
That’s good, that’s good, I said. After that you can take that exam you’ve always wanted to take.
It’s been so long, Don, what else have you been up to? I asked, attempting to break the silence.
Tried to… hang myself. In my mother’s old house. He said, looking down at his hands, resting on his lap.
What? Don! Why?
Brought the entire ceiling. Down. With me. Too heavy. Mother was so mad. He said, smiling briefly, looking away.
What? Oh, Don. I clutched at his hand. But he pulled it away, and stood up to go.
When he bent down to kiss my cheek, I caught his eyes. They were clear, and dry, and kind of dead.
Take care, Don, I somehow managed.
In bed with my boyfriend, I sometimes think of Don’s lifeless eyes, of Gerry’s dead body, my brother’s inert anger at himself, and the crazy pregnant rat that had remained a phantom that whole summer of 2002. The summer of our discontent, as my boyfriend now jokingly refers to it.
I do not know what to make of it. I was certainly happy before and during certain parts of that summer. But, what happened since? How did it end so tragically? How did it all go wrong like that? Why did we survive and they didn’t? I ask my boyfriend these, every now and then.
What the hell was I thinking? Why did I leave home, nga ba? I had become a liar. I had either become too happy or too bored. I had either been in denial or had become a prophet. I clearly knew, but pretended not to see, what was before me.
I stop again in the middle of sex. I jump from bed, catching my boyfriend by surprise. Oh fuck, oh man, he says.
I pace from one corner of the room to another, naked, while he lies there in his discomfort, in his discontent, watching me.
It was true happiness! That was what it was! We had family then, and dogs, a car, a real home, with real rats! We had mountains and fields for a bedroom view, three minutes to the beach, small coffee shops, real conversations, with real friends, drinking at night along Magsaysay, passing out in the amphitheater, diving naked into the sea! All those out of town trips, the endless laughter, the guitar music, the loud singing! And I said no to all of it?! What the hell was I thinking?!
I realize that I am shouting like a crazy woman, so I lower my voice.
Why did we leave? Why did we come back here?
He does not answer.
I stop pacing. I stand by the window. There is a rare summer breeze. It blows the curtains to one side, but from our window there is not enough view of the night sky. I see billboards instead, the pale light of a street lamp casting strange shapeless shadows on the wall.
We were not ready for paradise just yet? He offers.
And they were ready but did not deserve it? Is that what you mean?! Fuck you! And, and how could you have witnessed it all and remain like that?
Like what, love?
Like that! Whole!
He shakes his head. I know he is trying to understand, but he doesn’t. Maybe I don’t, either.
He gets up from bed. Let’s go home, let’s get married, he says.
He stands behind me, pulls me softly into the hollow of his chest. And then does his earnest to make me forget. But I know that the pregnant rat is still there, trapped under our bed.
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