Celebration: An Anthology to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop Sands and Coral, 2011-2013
Silliman University, 2013
Channel surfing to another station, Pinoy Big Brotherfinally approaches the sexual tension and kinkiness of foreign versions. Kinda. I never really got into the whole PBB thing, except for a minor and very brief liking for the original theme song. I thought: why would I watch a bunch of people sit around all day and night, gossiping about inane stuff, and doing nothing worthy of our secret mania for voyeurism? If you have seen the Brazilian or the British versions of the show, PBB is more or less the kindergarten version. No contest.
I was watching American Idol with Diana Ross last night, and I was horrified by the gay jokes, the flat notes, Paula's slow nervous breakdown, the excruciating arrangements, the unbelievable deafness of the judges (what was that praise for Jordin Sparks' horrid rendition of The Land Before Time theme?) and the bad hair. Mostly Sanjaya's bad hair. Yes, I like the two new divas in the show, but I can't seem to find anybody to root for in this batch. Nobody. I'm not sure I am watching American Idol again. Not with the same devotion I used to have at least. The show has jumped the shark ... with mediocrity. (Entertainment Weekly's Michael Slezak gives the rundown.)
We used to love this writer in high school and college. We read all her books and her columns in a now defunct newspaper, and laughed with her at the hopelessly inept (and sometimes stupid) world out there. When you're young and relatively well-schooled, that kind of superiority complex can be better than sex. We devoured her words: her style dripped with irony and sarcasm and ennui, which was the perfect language for my generation. The ones who wanted to be Holden Caulfield, you get the drift. But people grow up. Our sense of the world changes as we come into contact with it all the more intimately. Even our sense of humor changes. Reading her now, I am suddenly exasperated by the gross display of passive-aggressive arrogance, the self-importance, and most of all the extreme self-absorption that distorts important issues. Like the plight of women, for example. Just because you never felt "oppressed" does not mean you can denigrate the efforts of many to help the thousands of girls and women out there who are abused, just because of their gender. It's unforgivable when you care more for cats, than for people.
Bloggers who think and who have souls (here and here and everywhere) are taking note of Tim Yap's feckless comments about the devil-may-care party-going mindset of his (and unfortunately also my) generation:
There is this mind-set, which I think is so passe, that says: 'The country is in shambles and the country is having a hard time and you are out there partying.' But this generation is guiltless when it comes to that.
There's another word for the guiltless in an orgy of evil, Tim: a sociopath. Which suits you: you are sosyal and you are pathological. But if it's any consolation to everybody else, here's one poem by Amado Bajarias which I liked very much, and which was published in the pages of Philippines Free Press...
Bring Me the Head of Tim Yap Superstar Columnist! By Amado Bajarias
infecting the feckless world with their mi-droga tu-droga faux naif venom Manolo Blahnik et Prada et Miu-Mui as Weltanschaung chi-chi
these post-Weltschmerz, post-kitsch, post-irony, post-cynicism, post-posturing, post-superficiality, post-hype post-hubris, post-epater les bourgeois Nosferatu kindred with their Roppongi pallor cultivated in the ciggie-smoke miasma of buy-this-and-buy-that blather
I need to see them tortured, squealing like abattoir pigs
My God Marcos was right to ban them society pages with their pasty-white vampiric flash-bulb denizens sassing each another fawning fake-smiles for photo ops in the Grand Guignol style
I need to see them faute de mieux disembowelled slowly on a rotating spit
Marcos was right to shut them down a pity he stopped short of giving them a coup de grace to their oh-so-chic beaucoup heads
I do renounce Tim Yap and his ilk. He does not speak for me.
What I love about Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady's Jesus Camp -- which was nominated for Best Documentary in the latest Oscar Awards -- is the way it does not have an agenda. It is simply curious, and tries to capture its subjects (American evangelicals and their children as they prepare to become "warriors" in "God's army") in the most objective manner, documenting on film how the people really are like and shows what they do in their everyday lives, without comment, without bias. And with healthy respect for balance. This is not Michael Moore territory, whose documentaries, while riveting and provocative, can become a circus of subjectivity. Not Jesus Camp. (Click here for the Wikipedia entry on the movie.)
I know these people in Jesus Camp. I was one of these kids growing up. My family "became Christians" when I was a small boy, and in the preceding years, I was a Sunday School kid who was part of Kid's Praise, who would write evangelical churches in Canada to send over "tracts" and other materials I could use to help evangelize and spread the Word. Somewhere along the way, I lost heart, saw too many things, and decided that worship was a personal matter between me and my God. Born Again Christians call this "backsliding." And they basically look down on many people who do. In prayer meetings and Bible studies, they would evoke these people's names in group prayers, hoping that these "backslid" Christians would see the light and return to the fold. Sometimes we in the know call it "prayer as gossip." But my mother -- bless her heart -- taught me well that that is okay: "Religion," she says, "is a man-made set of rituals to a deity. A relationship with God is something else." And it could prosper in the very privacy of my muttered prayers to God every single day. (I pray incessantly throughout the day -- something I don't advertise, and not a lot of people know about this.)
So, watching this movie, I was moved, because I saw my old self in these kids. But coming off from watching it, I was also angry, at the pastors and at the parents for the blatant (and shameless) indoctrination they do. And yet we also get that they are good, decent people who are much too caught up in the so-called culture wars. It's scary, because they believe so much in their "truths" that they are blinded by much else. Pastor Becky's denunciation of democracy during the debate with a moderate Christian radio disc jockey was scary. Pastor Ted Haggard's appearance (and comments) in the film was sinister and ominous because we know what happened to him months later. (Wikipedia even has an entry on him.)
Mark and I had a wonderful dinner with Jackie Veloso-Antonio and Annabelle Lee-Adriano last night at Boston Market. We had, among other things, roasted chicken, vegetable kebab, and garlic and cheese pizza, topped with a Brazilian drink the name of which I cannot seem to recall now (it begins with a "c"...), but it was something I wanted to have because I first had a taste of it in Antulang (Annabelle's wonderful resort down south in Siaton town), and loved it. Quddus's version though lacks the subtlety and sweetness (and the lychee) of Annabelle's, but it has more kick because it has more white rhum. Later, we had a nightcap (the three of them had San Mig Lite and I had iced coffee -- and all of us shared two slices of apple pie a la mode) over at Chicco's. We had dinner at 6:30, and everything ended at precisely midnight. Sometimes it amazes me how people could gather and talk, and talk, and time just slowly slides by, mostly unnoticed.
It was great conversation, covering all sorts of news and gossip, including tales of local murderers, party boys, jealous wives, old classmates, old boyfriends, gay men, nymphomaniacs, writers, strange artists, crazed mothers, and beauty queens.
You had to be there to understand what a night that was.
Still, it amazes me that I am friends with these two beautiful women whose friendship with us both amuses and surprises me because ... well, they're from another generation of Dumaguete kids (Ernst, Jackie's younger brother, was my high school classmate, and I was more or less a contemporary of Ian Lee, Annabelle's younger brother -- who used to be my high school crush, hehehe), a generation which mine emulated and, in a sense, worshipped because they seemed so adult, so sophisticated. Jacky, for one, was once Miss Negros Oriental, probably the most beautiful in the long line of Negrense beauty queens. When she was crowned, she was only in her early teens, and I was a grade school kid who dragged mother to the spot nearest the old stage in Freedom Park because it was something I had to watch. And Annabelle. Well, she was (and, of course, still is) a Lee, from a very prominent Negrense family.
And now, we're all eating pizza and roasted chicken together. Strange how time can annihilate the false borders of generations, and gather people together because, well, they can have interesting conversations.
Cecilia Manguerra Brainard just forwarded me a review of her latest collection of short stories, A la Carte: Food and Fiction (which she edited with Marily Ysip Orosa, and just published by Anvil).
As if choosing ingredients for a delicate dish, writer Cecilia Manguerra Brainard and publisher Marily Ysip Orosa went through a meticulous selection process for their short story collection.
They sent out press releases and invitations through the Internet, reaching Filipino writers abroad.
"We first selected 12 stories. We were surprised because they were very serious. I realized that food brings up memories about families and relations and sometimes these relations can be very complex," Ms. Brainard said in an interview.
When the first batch turned out to be serious stories coming mostly from female writers, Ms. Brainard said she encouranged more male writers to send their stories.
"I was really looking for stories with good, strong character development. And of course, they had to fit the theme. I have no compuctions about rejecting work that doesn’t fit. Name does not sway me. They know it’s not personal," Ms. Brainard said.
The stories came in not just from Manila but also from Dumaguete, Cebu, Davao, Chicago, Singapore, Hawaii, and San Francisco.
Hence, the book, A La Carte: Food and Fiction, is a feast of Filipino tales coming from different perspectives.
Like a full menu, A La Carte first offers breads, appetizers and salad, followed by soup, rice and main dishes. Stories inspired by desserts come in last.
The stories kick off with an easy read, a short autobiographical account by Edna Weisser who serves classic Pinoy snacks with the German flair in "Merienda Alemania."
Like warm and rich soup served on a cold and rainy day, Susan Evangelista’s "Pumpkin Soup" and Nadine Sarreal’s "No Salt" offer heart-warming tales revolving on love, grief, comfort and understanding.
Carlos Cortes tells about his fondness for puso in his story "Hanging Rice" and his first trip to Manila where the handy packet of rice wrapped in woven coconut leaves does not exist.
The collection also includes a cute romantic tale of a man who falls in love with the waitress who serves his chicken inasal in Ian Rosales Casocot’s "Pedro and the Chickens."
With food and family being associated most of the time, A La Carte also has stories that involve abuses within members of the family, as found in "Two Drifters" by Veronica Montes, "The Fish" by Reine Arcache Melvin and "Kitchen Secrets" by Shirlie Mae Mamaril Choe.
Getting inspiration from Laura Esquivel’s Like Water for Chocolate, A La Carte has included recipes to go hand-in-hand with the stories in the collection.
This is a nice value-added touch for lovers of literature and culinary arts. After all, one might just be inspired to make traditional Filipino favorites like pork adobo after reading Dean Francis Alfar’s "Sabados Con Fray Villalobos" or lumpia after Jose Dalisay Jr.’s "Wok Man."
Busy, busy, busy. It's the final week of school, and I'm spending it trying to tie up loose ends and beating thousands of deadlines. And yet, and yet... I'm exuding an aura of calm. I have no idea why. But it must be the coffee, the new diet, the relaxing music blaring out of my CD player, the Happiness Project I have, and the inner inspiration I've wrested a week ago straight out of thin air.
But I'll be blogging still, because I can't help it.
In the meantime, here is a glimpse of the literary magazine I just laid out for my former students who are part of the staff of The Weekly Sillimanian, many of whom are LitCritters Dumaguete members.
You might even say that this magazine, which we named Dark Blue Southern Seas, is kind of a LitCritters project. The literary supplement is coming out in a week or so, and we may be able to distribute PDF copies online (if the staff grants that idea). It contains some juvenile stories, essays, and poems, nothing hardcore -- but I'm proud of this effort by my students. It may be the first (or second?) step to recovery, writing-wise, in Silliman University.
And why Dark Blue Southern Seas? Well, it's the next (appropriate) line in the "Silliman Song," isn't it? For those who know, they will certainly get the point, which is so tongue-in-cheek it's priceless. Hehe.
This is a clip from Arthur Hiller's Making Love (1982), the groundbreaking gay movie that preceded Brokeback Mountain by 25 years. A controversial movie when it was first released, it died a quick death at the box office, but is now regarded as a queer classic, the first Hollywood studio movie to tackle a gay theme -- and shockingly, a tender love scene between two men. How groundbreaking is that? In the early 1980s, somewhere in the heart of the Reagan years, gay characters in Hollywood movies were either cardboard cut-out best friends, or people who had to "off themselves at the end of the picture." (Usually the latter. The quote is from Mart Crowley's equally pathbreaking play and movie The Boys in the Band.) Says Barry Sandler, its screenwriter: "Liz Smith summed it up ... in the New York Daily News, as fine a movie as Brokeback Mountain is, Making Love is a more positive and encouraging movie. But it didn't make any money, and she suggested that maybe that was the reason why." (The full interview can be found here in AfterElton.)
In this scene, Zack (Michael Ontkean), a young and married doctor, succumbs to the charms of novelist Bart (Harry Hamlin), who becomes his catalyst of discovery and coming out. Bart, however, seems content to keep Zack -- or any man for that matter -- at arm's length.
Zack knocks persistently. Bart stands up from writing to open the door.
Zack:(Entering in a rush.) I have a question to ask. I’m only asking you once. Are you ready?
Bart: Shoot.
Zack: Do you walk in your sleep?
Bart:(Confused.) What?
Zack:(Angry.) Walk in your sleep! Do you sleepwalk? Does anybody know—does anybody get a chance to find out?
Bart: Hey, wait a—wait a minute. What do you want from me anyway? Do you know that there are forty million guys out there, and they’re all just waiting for you?
Zack: Oh, that’s it, huh? One night per person—and those are the rules.
Bart: That’s right. Those are the rules.
Zack:(Sarcastic.) Well, those are the words of a well-traveled visionary. You don’t get points by playing by the rules.
Bart: Oh boy, talk about visionaries... You want to see something badly, you will see it, whether it’s there or not. (Pause.) You were probably shattered to find out that the tooth fairy was really your mother.
Zack:(Takes his time.) Yes, as a matter of fact, I was.
8:38 PM |
The Mysterious Case of the Perpetual Internet Layout
Here's a minor mystery. Why is it that when you go to the Sunday Inquirer Magazinewebsite, you still find the same cover picture of Nina gracing its pages? And still the same poem by Mikael? It's been months since this picture and this poem came out on print. May crush ba ang webmaster kay Nina, or kay Kael? Or natutulog lang? Or super-busy? Yun lang.* Now, I'm off to get a foot spa.
UPDATE:That wasn't a foot spa. That was a f-----g foot massage. I wanted my calluses gone. They're still there, only softer. Gad.
*Then again, whatever happened to the print SIM layout? The new style looks terribly tacky, don't know why. And a lot of other people say so as well. Maybe we can ask Alya.
Richard Rodgers and Lorenz Hart's classic "My Funny Valentine" has been covered by many artists (in the embedded recording above, it is Michael Feinstein) -- and most singers, including Linda Ronstadt, Carly Simon, Frank Sinatra, Elvis Costello, Michael Buble, Chet Baker, Harry Connick Jr., Matt Damon (yes), Billie Holiday, and Sinead O'Connor, have brought their own brand of lovely, funny sadness to the song. I like Ms. Ronstadt's rendition particularly: it starts with the opening verse, which not a lot of the versions play, and segues beautifully -- with such clarity and sadness -- into the meat of the song. Ms. O'Connor does that, too, and Mr. Feinstein. I don't know why I feel like posting this song today. It goes with my chosen lighthearted mode for my current days, I guess. See, I want to stop feeling perpetually defeated and gloomy and sad and unhappy. I want to be happy. This song makes me happy. And I hope it strikes a chord or two in you as well.
(What a sap. Ehe.)
But here's the lyrics anyway:
My funny valentine Sweet comic valentine You make me smile with my heart Your looks are laughable, unphotographable Yet you're my favorite work of art
Is your figure less than greek Is your mouth a little bit weak When you open it to speak, are you smart
Don't, baby don't Don't change you hair for me Not if you care for me Stay little valentine stay Each day is valentine's Each day is valentine's day
Stay little valentine stay, stay, stay Each day is valentine's Each day is valentine's day Valentine's day
The things I loved growing up seem to be disappearing one by one. Early this week, it was Tower Records going down bankruptcy road. Now, Premiere Magazine will release its last print issue this April, and will migrate to the Internet as an online magazine. (It's not exactly dead then, but still...) I remember picking up my first Premiere copy in high school. I was in the line with my mother to pay for groceries in FortuneMart, this ancient grocery store in Dumaguete. A magazine with Sean Connery and Wesley Snipes on the cover somehow caught my attention, and I was hooked. I loved its huge size, to approximate "the size of a cinema screen" supposedly. Then it shrinked to regular size for the company to save money, but I kept buying. I was a budding cinephile, and this was my bible. I would go to Cebu every other month to get my copies, with savings I culled from my weekly allowance. I used to clip the glossy movie ads from its pages and paste them in my "poster scrapbook." (Yes, I was a movie nerd. Still am.) Then there was Libby Gelman-Wexler. The screenwriter Paul Rudnick (Addams Family Values, In & Out, The Stepford Wives, and Jeffrey) in real life, "she" was a Jewish princess socialite whose famous and award-winning film criticism in Premiere was biting, always funny, and tipped with Manolo Blahniks. Perfect.
There are things in my life right now undergoing such silent but overwhelming changes. If I talk about them, I'll only take away their magic. I don't want that to happen. Let's just say they have given me new life. A new way of looking at and coping with things. A new chance to evaluate myself, and to move to higher ground. It begins with a twinkling, and ends with quiet amusement. It makes me finally know what I want, and by God I will get it.
When you're a rabid cineast who has the gift of knowing the title of any movie from watching just one brief shot (even of movies I have not watched before), not being able to remember the title of a film you once watched (and still remembered) when you were a kid is the equivalent of a memory rash. My brother Rocky and his then college girlfriend (now wife) Efeb used to take me with them every time they watched a movie. I'm not sure why (because if I were part of a dating couple, I'd never bring my bratty baby brother with me -- I want romantic aloneness with my significant other no!). But they did take me out a lot, and we watched so many things. This one movie I remembered intensely because it was very colorful, very zany, and I remembered a lot of little people (dwarves) in it.
For years, I could not remember the title. It ate at me.
This is the movie of my childhood. That it is considered one of the worst movies ever made gives me a chuckle, because I remember really liking this movie. It stuck to my memories like a barnacle. I remember scenes from this movie the way I don't with real life.
This just goes to show that something does get lost in our evolution from carefree child to demanding adult critic. I've learned two things: (1) that it takes childlike abandon to appreciate some things, which can never happen when one is constricted by too much adult jadedness and formalism; and (2) many people today like bad movies or books (e.g., Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code) and stay away from good ones (Half Nelson) because their level of comprehension is stuck at that of a six-year-old. Take your pick.
When I was in college, I was rake-thin, and had a waistline of 23 inches. I was always thin my whole life before that. I was too thin in fact that when the wind blew, I'd actually get blown away. I decided to eat a lot of bread to gain what I thought was much-needed weight. Here was my daily regimen: every five o'clock after school, I'd go to the nearest bakery, in this case Gold Label Bakeshoppe, and buy three to six cheese de sal, which was then my favorite. I devoured them. Several weeks later, I ballooned. People would stop me and say, "Hey, you look good." Honestly, I did look good: I was in that magical state when you are young, and is neither too big nor too small. (I was also a gym bunny by then. I was the original metrosexual in those days, and was known around campus as "the guy with the great butt.") When I went to Tokyo in 1997, I lost the weight I gained because: (1) everything was too expensive, and (2) that's what you get for eating mostly protein (chicken and sushi) the whole year. Didn't quite notice that though, because everybody else in Tokyo was as rake-thin as me, especially the boys. (And long-haired as well: in my case, however, I only got two haircuts that year, because it was just goddamn expensive.) You never see fat people in Japan. When I came back to Dumaguete, the first things people said were: "You need a haircut" and "You're too refugee-thin." Ouch.
I've eaten a lot since then.
Regrettably.
I want to be thin again. Sex is absolutely better when you don't have a gut. Ehehe. I'll be turning 32 this August. I want to lose 32 pounds by then. Here's wishing me luck.
It's been a while since I've gone to Frank Warren's PostSecret -- one of my favorite websites in the world. Most of the time, I choose not to visit because: (1) I know I'll spend hours on end contemplating each submission, and who has the time these days anymore? (2) the postcards make me alternately sad, suicidal, and amused, and who can handle that kind of mood changes these days? On those many occasions, I'd just tell myself: I think I'd rather buy the book. (I never do.)
PostSecret is a powerful avenue for our current confessional culture. While we browse through a sludge of so much despair, fear, madness, and sadness (but also a lot of unrequited happiness), the whole project somehow gives off a very positive vibe, because it makes you think: Whoa. I am not alone in this. It makes us realize our shared humanity.
The first time I heard or read about the whole nursing board exam fiasco, I felt angry. I thought it had greater moral imperatives not a lot of the people involved could see, blinded as they were by their particular circumstances. The only way out of that mess, I thought, was a retake. But of course the nursing graduates themselves and their parents (and no less than the PRC itself) howled in protest upon that recommendation, citing among other things, the finances involved in retaking the exam. The whole tone of their argument then was this grating consideration that these graduates had plans to go abroad already. (If you don't believe me, read my old post for the actual quote.) The government did not help by flipflopping too much on the issue. And now, we have this. Makaulaw to the max, given that nang-hangyo jud ta kaayo given the shady aspects of the whole controversy. But really, who cares anymore about people who does not see the merit of embarking on a way to redeem themselves? I say let them go to Ethiopia. There is no CGFNS there.
3:28 PM |
Struck
