This is the blog of Ian Rosales Casocot. Filipino writer. Sometime academic. Former backpacker. Twink bait. Hamster lover.
The Boy The Girl
The Rat The Rabbit
and the Last Magic Days
Chapbook, 2018
Republic of Carnage:
Three Horror Stories
For the Way We Live Now
Chapbook, 2018
Bamboo Girls:
Stories and Poems
From a Forgotten Life
Ateneo de Naga University Press, 2018
Don't Tell Anyone:
Literary Smut
With Shakira Andrea Sison
Pride Press / Anvil Publishing, 2017
Cupful of Anger,
Bottle Full of Smoke:
The Stories of
Jose V. Montebon Jr.
Silliman Writers Series, 2017
First Sight of Snow
and Other Stories
Encounters Chapbook Series
Et Al Books, 2014
Celebration: An Anthology to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop
Sands and Coral, 2011-2013
Silliman University, 2013
Handulantaw: Celebrating 50 Years of Culture and the Arts in Silliman
Tao Foundation and Silliman University Cultural Affairs Committee, 2013
Inday Goes About Her Day
Locsin Books, 2012
Beautiful Accidents: Stories
University of the Philippines Press, 2011
Heartbreak & Magic: Stories of Fantasy and Horror
Anvil, 2011
Old Movies and Other Stories
National Commission for Culture
and the Arts, 2006
FutureShock Prose: An Anthology of Young Writers and New Literatures
Sands and Coral, 2003
Nominated for Best Anthology
2004 National Book Awards
Dinah blogged:
When I was 15, I spent the summer at my American uncle’s beach house in a sleepy town called Baclayon in the island of Bohol. I’d run out of books to read at my parents’ house and, while all the perky girls at school had band lessons and ballet classes over the summer, I was spending far too many hours holed up in my room, talking to myself. A little bit of sun and sand would probably do me good, my uncle and aunt thought.
I loved their beach house. It had bamboo floors and wicker furniture, a balcony with swings and hammocks, huge shells for bathroom sinks, and an attic with a window that opened to an uncluttered view of the sky above coconut trees. Best of all was the beach we had all to ourselves. There are very few times in my life when I know real peace and one of them is when I’m face-down on the sand, punished by a white-hot sun. I didn’t grow up around kindness, but on moments when I’m watching crablets scuttle across my outstretched fingers I feel like I’d been given enough of it.
My uncle took me out to the open sea one evening on a rowboat. He took a route that had us cutting across a mangrove patch and, while he motioned at me to keep still, he shone his light across that tiny forest, upsetting a cloud of bats, but delighting me. For hours he sat on that tiny rowboat, so I could swim in the ink-black ocean. It felt wonderful: floating on darkness, looking up at a sky sprinkled with stars. I remember feeling like the whole world mattered, and yet didn’t. And for a brief moment I felt small and beautiful.
Then Ryan commented:
Whew!!!
Well, I am temporarily back.
The nature-trip you have so boasted in this post has no relation to reality. I have never felt any sympathy to "peace" visible and accessible in our natural surroundings, or what we may henceforth call the physical serenity, since this only constitutes a negligible fraction of infinitude. This is not genuine "peace"; otherwise, peace would be considered present in every bucolic parcel of earth, even if, in fact, smears of blood are therein traceable. In your literary construct, you implied that it is external serenity that causes or leads to internal tranquility.
This worldview is extremely defective and un-spiritual.
Peace is always spiritual. And real peace is always the one that originates from the inside and permeates the outside, no matter what the actual conditions of the physical vicinity are. This is the peace that Palestinians feel as they cling to their faith in the midst of bombs and chaos; the peace Christ epitomized on calvary. And yes, the peace that I immensely relished while some imbeciles persecuted me in their filthy blogs last month, remember?
One mark of a nonspiritual member of society is his penchant or even preoccupation with things and places that provide temporary peace through hideaways and entertainment. They are hedonists. It is my humble belief that if I were to attain peace within myself, I should start cleaning my own sphere of influence by purging it of hedonists, by squeezing the necks of these merchants of unrighteousness in a rowboat in the vast darkness of the Pacific Ocean with dazzling mermaids as faithful witnesses to my act of courage and sacrifice.
Dinah replies:
Oh dear. I feel utterly dirty now. I'm an evil, useless, worthless, shameless hedonist. Please, give me a bath, Ryan.
Tedo [I think] butts in:
If you allow me, an unworthy imbecile who owns a filthy blog to suck you off in order to totally cleanse you from any hedonistic influence, then I'd be very glad to do so. ;) I can do a mean sucking baby.
Dinah giggles:
And who might you be, "sucker"? :)
Ryan replies:
Teach to me to write kuno beh, or else I will not stop calling you evil. Saw your Mom. Nanambok, nagwapa. I also saw the Evil One. [God, I hope he means the divine Marian.]
Dinah guffaws:
Dude, I'll do something even better. I'll create an LJ account for you, with a temporary password you can change later on. Think of a good username you'd like.
Yeah, my mom is still pretty, no? People mistake her for my younger sister. AAARRRGGGHHH. Not that I mind, actually. I rather enjoy it.
So did you break into his bedroom in the dead of the night and read him Bible passages in that little boy voice of yours? :D
Ryan replies:
Wow, an LJ account for me? But I am presently a farmer! Hahahaha. Since there are no landline phones in Ayungon, we don't have access to the Internet. I have to go to Bais to read you. Can you imagine what physical cost I have to pay just to read you? Nada, you are not cheap. I have also been busy taking care of my Mom. It is difficult to treat a loved one. She always over-rules my exercise prescriptions. Anyway, I will consider your proposal seriously. Give me two months. Is this for free? If ever this pushes through, I want try to stop moralizing and write about the finer things in life, like what you are doing. Reading you has made me loved to appreciate writing again.
I was in the car when I saw your Mom cross Hibbard Avenue last Wednesday night. Her hair is longer and her looks younger she could have passed herself off as your elder sister. I wanted to squeeze her hand and say hi, but I was afraid she won't be able to remember me. Nagwapo man gud ko. Everybody has been telling me. It's disgusting. Their idea of nobility is so skin-deep. It's so bad I never had the chance to sit in any of your Mom's classes way back. I heard she was a good teacher. (There was really a time I wanted to shift to History or Masscom. I never did well in PT school.) [He wanted to follow me from PT to Masscom? Such devotion!]
With regard to Ian, I didn't dare approach him. (We were both invited to Severino and Jackie's wedding--one of the reasons why I didn't go.) [Which is just so bad. We could have upstaged the groom and the bride!] He's a nice man, yes, but we just had never been chummy. [I tremble kasi when I see you.] I really hate it when he says he's conservative. We all know it's a big lie. It's a big lie. [My nose is growing!] He is richly self-deluded. No, I didn't break into his house in the dead of night to read him Bible verses. [Oh, I wish you did. In the middle of the night! To spout Bible verses! Oh, heaven!] He knows about the Bible more than I do. And that is exactly what's wrong with him: his approach to theology is too intellectual, too academic. The Bible is a book of faith. [God gave me a brain, and told me that he also coined the word "Why?" It will be disrespectful to disobey him.]
Btw, have you had breast augmentation? You are violating His will for you.
To which Dinah replied:
... I think you have a crush on Ian. Seriously. I can feel the love, brother. Hehehe. And, no, I have not had my boobies done, thank you very much. That's the real deal, sir. 35B, pure and unadulterated. Yes, they shall torment you forever.
Ryan replies:
Btw, this Ted friend of yours must fix his sense of humor. He's not funny. He said something very silly somewhere. It was abominable.
Dinah:
Wait...was it silly OR abominable? Be very specific.
And sadly, I can't view his and a few other blogs for now. I keep getting some stupid software error message. I might have to change my O/S again. Fuck!
What did he say? And do you have a secret crush on him? Heehee.
Ryan:
Ted's joke was conceived in the privacy of his toilet. I never thought he was capable of such obtuse remarks. His "secret" was abominable AND silly.
A crush on those two gentlemen? I will die laughing: Hahahaha!
Well, since the issue is being reduced now to whether I am gay or not, let me not defend myself by declaring, like a criminal pleading:" I am not guilty. I am not a thief."
In fact, if we drag the issue from the confines of subterfuge into the glare of biblical morality, the ultimate sexual question for each one of us is not what sex or gender we are, but what kind of purity we have in the deepest recesses of our hearts and minds. The question in question is not, "Are you male or female of gay?", but,"Are you sexually qualified to stand before God on Judgment Day?"
Personally, I would have to be immodest to answer this question: I am. I may be spiritually arrogant, but I am pure in heart.
I do not know whether my critics can make a similar boast about themselves. Judging by their blogs, they certainly cannot, and probably never will.
The altruist in me has been deeply bothered about what fate awaits by blog-keeping friends in the next life since all they care about is sexuality rather than purity. This is an ordeal that I grapple with as I view the setting sun each day in the placidness of our house by the sea.
Dinah:
Gee, thanks. I can now sleep with the very comforting thought that I shall suffer eternal damnation for enjoying my own body. I swear, I will never feel the same way about orgasms again, thanks to you. In fact, I will probably vomit right before I feel that delicious shiver run up and down my spine, and I shall run to the nearest lavatory to cleanse myself of all impure bodily juices. I shall now cultivate an intense distaste for The Penis, and I will regard men with nothing but a wary eye, because they are the purveyors of everything evil.
I foresee a very rich and fulfilling life ahead of me.
Ted jumps in:
Ryan, it was not meant to be a joke, the statement that I had a crush on you. I really had a crush on you and mind you, I didn't force myself to feel that way. It just happened. So naturally. I just felt that you were the ultimate nice, smart guy with cute face to boot. Perfect boyfriend material. But in my effort to keep myself "sexually qualified to stand before God on Judgment Day," I really didn't act on it. So I just kept it to myself.