I can't.
Ask me again, when things are funny.
Or enough time has passed, I can make them funny.
You know that's how I tell my stories.
That's the crutch too. That there's always a next time.
That we never really get that desperate, urgent need for anything to happen now, now, now.
And that the poem below is actually an excuse to pretend I've said all I wanted to say.
It's sad and I'm sad. But I'll never admit it.
Sunday, December 09, 2007
Friday, December 07, 2007
Because I like the Ben Folds song.
Smoke
The way a cigarette calls forth
the wet from porcelain:
Heat draws its opposite.
The way I look to see you
blink, break that connection. My gaze
then downward slips
to ponder your lips a and how
difficult to begin
a kiss uninvited.
For now, there are other
exchanges. Stories told through
other people, the dance of look
and look away,
aaaaaaaaaaa this poem
drawing a nod, a smile, silence. Com
miseration--exactly what we want
least from each other.
A younger me once wrote
to another: Lives change, but
stories remain the same.
And I mean this too: a What
is it that you're trying to tell me?
for now our stories too, have changed.
As if this tiny table between us--
the hands on it occupied, the toes
under it almost touching--is an excuse
to pretend a longer history
between us: a love, commitment
perhaps, that I might find this long-
winding attempt
aaaaaaaaaaaa reasonable.
A wet spot now on the ashtray, droplets
gather round the smoldering tip.
Inappropriate responses like smoke
swirling, then
aaaaaaaaaa flowing out of our mouths.
The way a cigarette calls forth
the wet from porcelain:
Heat draws its opposite.
The way I look to see you
blink, break that connection. My gaze
then downward slips
to ponder your lips a and how
difficult to begin
a kiss uninvited.
For now, there are other
exchanges. Stories told through
other people, the dance of look
and look away,
aaaaaaaaaaa this poem
drawing a nod, a smile, silence. Com
miseration--exactly what we want
least from each other.
A younger me once wrote
to another: Lives change, but
stories remain the same.
And I mean this too: a What
is it that you're trying to tell me?
for now our stories too, have changed.
As if this tiny table between us--
the hands on it occupied, the toes
under it almost touching--is an excuse
to pretend a longer history
between us: a love, commitment
perhaps, that I might find this long-
winding attempt
aaaaaaaaaaaa reasonable.
A wet spot now on the ashtray, droplets
gather round the smoldering tip.
Inappropriate responses like smoke
swirling, then
aaaaaaaaaa flowing out of our mouths.
Wednesday, December 05, 2007
Green Papaya and other raw...
Is papaya a fruit or a vegetable?
Am hosting a poetry reading at Green Papaya later, December 5, at 8pm. Green Papaya is on Maginahawa Street, UP Village East, near the corner of Maginhawa and Malingap Streets.
Come as you are. With 2-3 poems, better.
Here are the readers:
1. Joel Toledo
2. Pancho Villanueva
3. Khavn dela Cruz
4. Mookie Katigbak
5. Mikael Co
6. Anina Abola
7. Marguerite de Leon
Open mic readers most welcome. See you later guys!
This is my first time to host by myself, and unlike many other firsts, I am determined that this be utterly painless. Bow.
Am hosting a poetry reading at Green Papaya later, December 5, at 8pm. Green Papaya is on Maginahawa Street, UP Village East, near the corner of Maginhawa and Malingap Streets.
Come as you are. With 2-3 poems, better.
Here are the readers:
1. Joel Toledo
2. Pancho Villanueva
3. Khavn dela Cruz
4. Mookie Katigbak
5. Mikael Co
6. Anina Abola
7. Marguerite de Leon
Open mic readers most welcome. See you later guys!
This is my first time to host by myself, and unlike many other firsts, I am determined that this be utterly painless. Bow.
Sunday, November 18, 2007
Choo... choo...
There's something about trains:
The Build Up
Kings of Convenience
The build up lasted for days
lasted for weeks, lasted too long
our hero withdrew, when there was two
he could not choose one, so there was none
worn into the vaguely announced
the spinning top made a sound like a train across the valley
fading, oh so quiet but constant 'til it passed
over the ridge into the distances
written on your ticket to remind you where to stop
and when to get off
*****
And because I've been repeating my stories lately, here's a new re-hash.
Love Poem
Where the word complete is a couple
fingers hooked on each other;
where science can be manipulated
not to contradict romance: Love
is exclusive territory. Where
magnets and opposite poles
and iron filings like a mob ready to
separate from sand and sway
in the right direction, to prove
a magnetic field of two halves.
Today at the train station, two
lovers said goodbye over their cell
phones across the rails. He was going south,
she north. And even for that moment when the train
ripped the air between them,
a connection as good as technology can provide
was had. The rest of us stepped aboard
where we stood, watching the windows
unmoved by the pull of
lights racing the other direction.
*****
There's something about a steam engine, too. Bow.
The Build Up
Kings of Convenience
The build up lasted for days
lasted for weeks, lasted too long
our hero withdrew, when there was two
he could not choose one, so there was none
worn into the vaguely announced
the spinning top made a sound like a train across the valley
fading, oh so quiet but constant 'til it passed
over the ridge into the distances
written on your ticket to remind you where to stop
and when to get off
*****
And because I've been repeating my stories lately, here's a new re-hash.
Love Poem
Where the word complete is a couple
fingers hooked on each other;
where science can be manipulated
not to contradict romance: Love
is exclusive territory. Where
magnets and opposite poles
and iron filings like a mob ready to
separate from sand and sway
in the right direction, to prove
a magnetic field of two halves.
Today at the train station, two
lovers said goodbye over their cell
phones across the rails. He was going south,
she north. And even for that moment when the train
ripped the air between them,
a connection as good as technology can provide
was had. The rest of us stepped aboard
where we stood, watching the windows
unmoved by the pull of
lights racing the other direction.
*****
There's something about a steam engine, too. Bow.
Friday, November 09, 2007
Angela who?
Sometime back, I asked L. for the name of his laundry service, since I heard they were cheaper by-the-kilo, and more than that, they pick up and deliver. I've been using their service for a couple of months now, and I have no complaints whatsoever.
What I do have is an alter-ego.
I came home from work one day to find a big black bag of fresh clothes outside my doorstep. Nothing unusual there, I had asked them to deliver it earlier in the day. The bag had a wide strip of masking tape attached to it, with the name Angela P. written in script with a green marker. I checked the bag: yes, it was mine. I checked the clothes inside: all of it was mine. Then, when I was sorting through the tops and the pants and the jackets, a slip of paper fell out. It was my receipt, and it went like this:
Name: Angela Peram
Address: Unit x0x, Sunset Slope 3+1, Yoyola Valley, QC
Service: Wash, dry, fold
Charge: P28 x 15kilos = P420.00
Laundry list...
etc, etc, etc.
Angela?! Do I look like a fucking Angela to you? I told my youngest sister, and she rolled all over the floor laughing.
Honestly, I don't mind the "Peram". Sounds like my surname, especially over the phone, I suppose. Also, also, it sounds too much like an Indian surname, which, forever to my dismay, is what people will first (mis)take me for. And (I think) I've resigned myself to that. But, Angela? I mean, seriously? It's too-fucking-much.
A couple of days ago, I had my laundry picked up again. It was my sister who was at home, and she took care of it. The conversation went like this:
Knock, knock.
Sister: Who's there?
Laundry: M. Laundry Service.
S: Yes? (Opens door.)
L: Hello. I've come to pick up...
S: Ah, yes. You're picking up Angela's laundry, right? (Snicker, snicker.)
L: Yes. Also, here's the dress she had dry-cleaned. (Hands my sister a small transparent bag with guess what written on a strip of masking tape in green marker.)
S: (Looks at the dress, and the name.) Yes, yes. This is Angela's. Will give it to her. (Snicker, snicker.) Thanks. (Snicker, snicker.)
L: (Gives my sister a worried look.) Um. Okay. Thanks.
Door closes. Loud laughter is heard off-screen.
See what I have to put up with?
*****
Anyway. Now, a poem-not-mine. Because, sometimes, the living need resurrecting more than the dead.
Havana Birth
Susan Mitchell
Off Havana, the ocean is green this morning
of my birth. The conchers clean their knives on leather
straps and watch the sky while three couples
who have been dancing on the deck of a ship
in the harbor, the old harbor of the fifties, kiss
each other's cheeks and call it a night.
On a green sofa five dresses wait
to be fitted. The seamstress kneeling at Mother's feet
has no idea I am about to be born. Mother
pats her stomach which is flat
as the lace mats on the dressmaker's table. She thinks
I'm playing in my room. But as usual, she's wrong
I'm about to be born in a park in Havana. Oh,
this is important, everything in the dressmaker's house
is furred like a cat. And Havana leans right up
against the windows. In the park, the air
is chocolate, the sweet breath of a man
smoking an expensive cigar. The grass
is drinkable, dazzling, white. In a moment
I'll get up from a bench, lured
by a flock of pigeons, lazily sipping
the same syrupy music through a straw.
Mother is so ignorant, she thinks
I'm rolled like a ball of yarn under the bed. What
does she know of how I got trapped in my life?
She thinks it's all behind her, the bloody
sheets, the mirror in the ceiling
where I opened such a sudden furious blue, her eyes
bruised shut like mine. The pigeon's eyes
are orange, unblinking, a doll's. Mother always said
I wanted to touch everything because
I was a child. But I was younger than that.
I was so young I thought whatever I
wanted, the world wanted too. Workers
in the fields wanted the glint of sun on their machetes.
Sugarcane came naturally sweet, you
had only to lick the earth where it grew.
The music I heard each night outside
my window lived in the mouth of a bird. I was so young
I thought it was easy as walking
into the ocean which always had room
for my body. So when I held out my hands
I expected the pigeon to float between them
like a blossom, dusting my fingers with the manna
of its wings. But the world is wily, and doesn't want
to be held for long, which is why
as my hands reached out, workers lay down
their machetes and left the fields, which is why
a prostitute in a little calle of Havana dreamed
the world was a peach and flicked
open a knife. And Mother, startled, shook
out a dress with big peonies splashed like dirt
across the front, as if she had fallen
chasing after me in the rain. But what could I do?
I was about to be born, I was about to have
my hair combed into the new music
everyone was singing. The dressmaker sang it, her mouth
filled with pins. The butcher sang it and wiped
blood on his apron. Mother sang it and thought her body
was leaving her body. And when I tried
I was so young the music beat right
through me, which is how the pigeon got away.
The song the world sings day after day
isn't made of feathers, and the song a bird pours
itself into is tough as a branch
growing with the singer and the singer's delight.
What I do have is an alter-ego.
I came home from work one day to find a big black bag of fresh clothes outside my doorstep. Nothing unusual there, I had asked them to deliver it earlier in the day. The bag had a wide strip of masking tape attached to it, with the name Angela P. written in script with a green marker. I checked the bag: yes, it was mine. I checked the clothes inside: all of it was mine. Then, when I was sorting through the tops and the pants and the jackets, a slip of paper fell out. It was my receipt, and it went like this:
Name: Angela Peram
Address: Unit x0x, Sunset Slope 3+1, Yoyola Valley, QC
Service: Wash, dry, fold
Charge: P28 x 15kilos = P420.00
Laundry list...
etc, etc, etc.
Angela?! Do I look like a fucking Angela to you? I told my youngest sister, and she rolled all over the floor laughing.
Honestly, I don't mind the "Peram". Sounds like my surname, especially over the phone, I suppose. Also, also, it sounds too much like an Indian surname, which, forever to my dismay, is what people will first (mis)take me for. And (I think) I've resigned myself to that. But, Angela? I mean, seriously? It's too-fucking-much.
A couple of days ago, I had my laundry picked up again. It was my sister who was at home, and she took care of it. The conversation went like this:
Knock, knock.
Sister: Who's there?
Laundry: M. Laundry Service.
S: Yes? (Opens door.)
L: Hello. I've come to pick up...
S: Ah, yes. You're picking up Angela's laundry, right? (Snicker, snicker.)
L: Yes. Also, here's the dress she had dry-cleaned. (Hands my sister a small transparent bag with guess what written on a strip of masking tape in green marker.)
S: (Looks at the dress, and the name.) Yes, yes. This is Angela's. Will give it to her. (Snicker, snicker.) Thanks. (Snicker, snicker.)
L: (Gives my sister a worried look.) Um. Okay. Thanks.
Door closes. Loud laughter is heard off-screen.
See what I have to put up with?
*****
Anyway. Now, a poem-not-mine. Because, sometimes, the living need resurrecting more than the dead.
Havana Birth
Susan Mitchell
Off Havana, the ocean is green this morning
of my birth. The conchers clean their knives on leather
straps and watch the sky while three couples
who have been dancing on the deck of a ship
in the harbor, the old harbor of the fifties, kiss
each other's cheeks and call it a night.
On a green sofa five dresses wait
to be fitted. The seamstress kneeling at Mother's feet
has no idea I am about to be born. Mother
pats her stomach which is flat
as the lace mats on the dressmaker's table. She thinks
I'm playing in my room. But as usual, she's wrong
I'm about to be born in a park in Havana. Oh,
this is important, everything in the dressmaker's house
is furred like a cat. And Havana leans right up
against the windows. In the park, the air
is chocolate, the sweet breath of a man
smoking an expensive cigar. The grass
is drinkable, dazzling, white. In a moment
I'll get up from a bench, lured
by a flock of pigeons, lazily sipping
the same syrupy music through a straw.
Mother is so ignorant, she thinks
I'm rolled like a ball of yarn under the bed. What
does she know of how I got trapped in my life?
She thinks it's all behind her, the bloody
sheets, the mirror in the ceiling
where I opened such a sudden furious blue, her eyes
bruised shut like mine. The pigeon's eyes
are orange, unblinking, a doll's. Mother always said
I wanted to touch everything because
I was a child. But I was younger than that.
I was so young I thought whatever I
wanted, the world wanted too. Workers
in the fields wanted the glint of sun on their machetes.
Sugarcane came naturally sweet, you
had only to lick the earth where it grew.
The music I heard each night outside
my window lived in the mouth of a bird. I was so young
I thought it was easy as walking
into the ocean which always had room
for my body. So when I held out my hands
I expected the pigeon to float between them
like a blossom, dusting my fingers with the manna
of its wings. But the world is wily, and doesn't want
to be held for long, which is why
as my hands reached out, workers lay down
their machetes and left the fields, which is why
a prostitute in a little calle of Havana dreamed
the world was a peach and flicked
open a knife. And Mother, startled, shook
out a dress with big peonies splashed like dirt
across the front, as if she had fallen
chasing after me in the rain. But what could I do?
I was about to be born, I was about to have
my hair combed into the new music
everyone was singing. The dressmaker sang it, her mouth
filled with pins. The butcher sang it and wiped
blood on his apron. Mother sang it and thought her body
was leaving her body. And when I tried
I was so young the music beat right
through me, which is how the pigeon got away.
The song the world sings day after day
isn't made of feathers, and the song a bird pours
itself into is tough as a branch
growing with the singer and the singer's delight.
Thursday, November 01, 2007
Autobiography: Studies in Stimulus-Response
1. Birth
Twelve signs of the zodiac. Seven animal symbols, four human; I had to be born under the one sign that had no life. Inanimate, dead.
2. Balancing Act
Libra is represented by the scales which figure balance. Or, equilibrium, to use a scientific term. Yes, what better way to pretend at life than by looking at it scientifically? As if everything were still, constant. Controlled.
3. Scientific Method
In science, a universe can be simplified into a system and its surroundings. In an experiment, a system can be studied by keeping certain variables constant or changing.
A simplification: Picture a woman, and let her be the system. Put something she desires in her immediate surroundings: food, books, a vacation. She will reach out to take it. Change the surroundings, and instead put in something she fears. She will cringe, her hand will recoil.
4. Theory
If something a woman desires is within her reach, she will hold out her hand to take it. If it is something she fears, she will recoil.
Is this true?
5. Null Hypothesis
If there is nothing in the woman's surroundings, she will look for two things: that which she desires, and that which she fears. She will pursue the first and avoid the second.
6. Experiment
aaa6.1 If she finds only that which she desires, will she be content? Or will she be forever looking over her shoulder?
aaa6.2 If she finds only that which she fears, she will run, yes. But toward which direction?
aaa6.3 What if something the woman equally desires and fears is put in front of her? How will she react? How am I to react?
7. Results
aaa7.1 The Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics
A simplification: A is in contact with B, and B is with C; but A is not in contact with C. If A is of a higher temperature than C, and B can conduct heat, then heat will travel from A to C through B, until all three are of the same temperature. Then the system (A, B, and C) is in thermal equilibrium.
aaa7.2 Rev 3:15-16
aaa7.3 I don't know. I am lost. There's a poem in here, somewhere.
(Figure copied from http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/thereq.html)
Twelve signs of the zodiac. Seven animal symbols, four human; I had to be born under the one sign that had no life. Inanimate, dead.
2. Balancing Act
Libra is represented by the scales which figure balance. Or, equilibrium, to use a scientific term. Yes, what better way to pretend at life than by looking at it scientifically? As if everything were still, constant. Controlled.
3. Scientific Method
In science, a universe can be simplified into a system and its surroundings. In an experiment, a system can be studied by keeping certain variables constant or changing.
A simplification: Picture a woman, and let her be the system. Put something she desires in her immediate surroundings: food, books, a vacation. She will reach out to take it. Change the surroundings, and instead put in something she fears. She will cringe, her hand will recoil.
4. Theory
If something a woman desires is within her reach, she will hold out her hand to take it. If it is something she fears, she will recoil.
Is this true?
5. Null Hypothesis
If there is nothing in the woman's surroundings, she will look for two things: that which she desires, and that which she fears. She will pursue the first and avoid the second.
6. Experiment
aaa6.1 If she finds only that which she desires, will she be content? Or will she be forever looking over her shoulder?
aaa6.2 If she finds only that which she fears, she will run, yes. But toward which direction?
aaa6.3 What if something the woman equally desires and fears is put in front of her? How will she react? How am I to react?
7. Results
aaa7.1 The Zeroth Law of Thermodynamics
A simplification: A is in contact with B, and B is with C; but A is not in contact with C. If A is of a higher temperature than C, and B can conduct heat, then heat will travel from A to C through B, until all three are of the same temperature. Then the system (A, B, and C) is in thermal equilibrium.
aaa7.2 Rev 3:15-16
"I know thy works, that thou art neither cold nor hot: I would thou wert cold or hot. So then because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spue thee out of my mouth."
aaa7.3 I don't know. I am lost. There's a poem in here, somewhere.
(Figure copied from http://hyperphysics.phy-astr.gsu.edu/hbase/thermo/thereq.html)
Friday, October 26, 2007
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
A-Z: or, The Complete Guide
Right. As if.
Yay! Survey!
A - Available
Uhm... Yes? Yes! (Wink, wink.)
B - Best Friend
Alej. And we've sworn to become lesbians (and marry each other) if we aren't married by 40. So by 39 and 3/4, I think she plans to become one of those mail-order brides, while I'll probably jump off that 7th floor balcony of my old building.
C - Crush
Nonoy Baclao. Oh yeah.
D - Dad's Name
Antonio. Or Tony. Or "Sir"--Hehe, my dad's a teacher, so.
E - Easiest Person To Talk To
Strangers? because I'm really skilled at small talk even though I hate it.
F - Favorite Band
Now: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
G - Gummy Bears Or Worms
Bears. Gummy or otherwise.
H - Hometown
Ilo-ilo. Where people say everything twice, to emphasize.
I - Instrument
An iPod? I actually have a harmonica which I don't know how to play. See Q.
J - Job
Extortion. Yes, I get paid to ask money from people.
K - Kids
None. No thanks. Not now. Not yet. (Sorry, Mom and Dad.)
L - Longest Car Ride
From Iloilo City to Boracay. 6 ass-numbing hours.
M - Milk Flavor
Full Cream. Fuck the fat content. Or strawberry milk-shake!
N - Number Of Siblings
2. Used to be 3.
O - One Wish
Two conditions?
P - Phobia
Arachno-. I swear, give me a snake over a spider any day.
Q - Favorite Quote
"You know how to whistle, don't you Steve?"
R - Reason To Smile
When someone's taking your pcture?
S - Song You Last Heard
Summer wind--Sinatra. Wow both start with S too.
T - Time You Woke Up
From 6:30 to 7:30 AM today, my alarm clock was on snooze. Got up (finally!) at 7:45.
U - Unknown Fact About Me
You tell me.
V - Vegetable
Brocolli.
W - Worst Habits
Smoking. Drinking. Procrastination. Pick one.
X - X-Rays You've Had
Chest and teeth. I've never broken a bone in my body. Knock-on-wood.
Y - Your Favorite Food
Spanish--I've been craving callos lately.
Z - Zodiac Sign
Libra. It's all about balance, dude.
Yay! Survey!
A - Available
Uhm... Yes? Yes! (Wink, wink.)
B - Best Friend
Alej. And we've sworn to become lesbians (and marry each other) if we aren't married by 40. So by 39 and 3/4, I think she plans to become one of those mail-order brides, while I'll probably jump off that 7th floor balcony of my old building.
C - Crush
Nonoy Baclao. Oh yeah.
D - Dad's Name
Antonio. Or Tony. Or "Sir"--Hehe, my dad's a teacher, so.
E - Easiest Person To Talk To
Strangers? because I'm really skilled at small talk even though I hate it.
F - Favorite Band
Now: Bruce Springsteen and the E Street Band.
G - Gummy Bears Or Worms
Bears. Gummy or otherwise.
H - Hometown
Ilo-ilo. Where people say everything twice, to emphasize.
I - Instrument
An iPod? I actually have a harmonica which I don't know how to play. See Q.
J - Job
Extortion. Yes, I get paid to ask money from people.
K - Kids
None. No thanks. Not now. Not yet. (Sorry, Mom and Dad.)
L - Longest Car Ride
From Iloilo City to Boracay. 6 ass-numbing hours.
M - Milk Flavor
Full Cream. Fuck the fat content. Or strawberry milk-shake!
N - Number Of Siblings
2. Used to be 3.
O - One Wish
Two conditions?
P - Phobia
Arachno-. I swear, give me a snake over a spider any day.
Q - Favorite Quote
"You know how to whistle, don't you Steve?"
R - Reason To Smile
When someone's taking your pcture?
S - Song You Last Heard
Summer wind--Sinatra. Wow both start with S too.
T - Time You Woke Up
From 6:30 to 7:30 AM today, my alarm clock was on snooze. Got up (finally!) at 7:45.
U - Unknown Fact About Me
You tell me.
V - Vegetable
Brocolli.
W - Worst Habits
Smoking. Drinking. Procrastination. Pick one.
X - X-Rays You've Had
Chest and teeth. I've never broken a bone in my body. Knock-on-wood.
Y - Your Favorite Food
Spanish--I've been craving callos lately.
Z - Zodiac Sign
Libra. It's all about balance, dude.
Wednesday, October 10, 2007
Addressed to herself, sort of.
First. A new poem.
To A., when she turns 27
aaa1
You should not have lied.
The fact is you worshiped your father
and when he told you the space
between moon and earth was so vast
you understood infinity
was a symbol for what you could not hold
a loop that had you going in circles.
Content with the earth and its physics.
aaa2
You forgot
you thought the moon
followed you everywhere. Yes
the shortest distance between any two
points is a straight line—
But by then you understood how diameter
kept two points on a circle separate
how it kept that distance
constant. The moon moves
around the earth, yes.
The distance between them 384,403 kilometers.
aaa3
At times I watch the moon on the water
rippling an invitation.
It is always the same wish
that I had insisted it followed
stamped my foot and yelled it
followed a followed a would always follow.
But is that enough?
The echoed voice, this borrowed—
Daylight, and it is forgotten.
Or else it fades.
*****
Second. May kwento ako. Pero teka, parang di ko yata kaya.
Ahem, tilawan ta estilo ni M. bi:
Sang-una sa Iloilo may drama sa radyo nga ang titulo, "Sin-o ang may sala?" Pamatyag ko, daw pwede ni tani ang akon nga istorya sa programa nga to. Pamati-i bala.
May chismis nga naglapta mga anom ka bulan na ang naglipas. May isa ni kuno ka laki nga naluyag sa isa ka babayi. Kung pahambalon mo mga abyan ni babayi (nga mga nakakilala man kay lalaki; si bayi kag si laki mismo indi amigo-hay), bagay guid kuno sila nga duha, buto guid ang ila nga mga abyan sa ila duha, etc, etc. Indi man guid kilal-anay si bayi kag si laki: asta lang bala sa hi-hello, asta lang sa "diutay nga hambalanay," kung sa ingles pa, kada sila magkit-anay. Pero, kung sundun ta guid ya ang dalagan sang mga nagkalatabo, wala guid sang may makahambal nga gusto ni laki si bayi. Mahuluya-on abi si laki, amo na nga daw wala guid sinyas nga tuod ang ini nga sugid-sugid. Si bayi man ya, matinalak-on, kag daw waay guid man labot.
Ugaling, pagkalipas sang pila pa ka bulan, galapit nga lapit (indi si bayi) ang kaadlawan ni bayi. Ahay, ti ano abi kay daw sa pamatyagan ni bayi naga-tigulang na siya, kag daw kadugay na guid nga wala siya nobyo. Gani man, sang guin pilit si bayi sang iya mga amiga nga siya na lang ang mag-hagad kay laki mag-gwa (dumdumon ta, mahuluya-on si laki), wala man guid siya angal.
Ti natabo nga mga duha ka adlaw pagkatapos sang pagpilit kay bayi nga hagaron si laki, may tukar ang paborito nga banda ni bayi, ang grupo nga "Likod-labaha" (labahita?). Guin panumdum ni bayi nga i-text kag hagaron si laki sa tukar nga to. Amo ni ang dalagan sang huna-huna ni bayi ay:
Bayi sa lawas niya: Ti, hambal nila gusto niya man bala ako.
Bayi sa lawas niya gihapon: Galing, basi indi bala mag-sabat haw. Kahuluya.
Siya/Sila man gihapon: Ah, bay-i da ah. Kung upod, ti upod eh. Kung indi, ti wala.
Pagkatapos sadto nga kalip-ot nga bina-isay, nagtext guid man si bayi kay laki. Guin hagad niya sa tukar sang banda, nagdugang pa nga kung indi lang masako si laki, eh. Sabat ni laki, "Ay nami tani mag-tanaw galing may kadto-an man ko. Kinahanglan nga ara ko sa "Sidlangan-kahoy" (kuha niyo?) subong nga gab-i."
Ahay, kalu-oy man kay babayi. Nagpadala abi sa istorya sang iban nga tawo. Ti ano natabo dayon?
Sang mga tini-on nga gina text ni bayi si laki, ara siya sa isa ka ilimnan nga lapit lang sa balay niya, ang "Batobalani." (Enkaso nga indi magsabat/mag-upod si laki, wala sang may makasiling nga nagmuk-mok si bayi sa balay, hulat sang sabat ni laki, indi bala?) Pagkabaton niya sang text, nagdesidir si bayi nga mapa-uli na lang siya. Mintras nagalakat siya, nagtupa ang puwerte katudo nga ulan. (Daw drama sa radyo, no?) Kay indi niya gusto mabasa, nagpasilong si bayi higad-dalan. Tuyo niya nga hulaton maghulaw ang ulan kag magpadayon lakat pauli. Nati-onan galing nga may taxi nga nagdulog sa atubangan guid sang higad-dalan nga ginatindugan niya. Guin pinsar ni bayi nga isa ini ka sinyales. Guin palapitan niya ang nagahulat nga salakyan.
Bayi: Manong, sa "SaHulag*" tani lihog. Katul-tol ka magkadto sa kalye "Hulag" sa "Makatol"?
Tsuper: Tul-tulon eh. Wala na ya problema ah. Sakay lang.
Bayi: Ayus!
Ti amo na ang istorya kung paano nakalab-ot si bayi sa "SaHulag" nga siya lang isa. Ang lain pa, puno ang lugar, kag tanan nga tawo didto may upod. Si bayi ya, ato, nag-isa-isa. Pinakamala-in sa tanan, bisan paborito ni bayi ang banda nga nagatukar, wala guid siya nawili. Ano abi kay sa pila na katuig nga lantaw sang banda nga to, halos amo man gihapon. Waay may nagbag-o. (Ukon basi tuod guid man nga nagatigulang na si bayi.)
Man gani, mga ija kag ijo, indi guid mag pati sa chismis. Wala pulos ang mamati sa kutso-kutso sang iban. Si bayi o, tan-awa, napagasto sang wala sa oras, wala man guid nalingaw.
Ti, sin-o ang may sala? Si bayi bala? Si laki bala? Basi ang tsuper sang taxi? Ang banda? Ano guid bala haw? Basi ang ulan.
Amo lang na ang aton tiempo subong diri sa aton nga programa, "Sin-o ang may sala?"
-----------
Hahahaha. Ay, karadlawan lang. Di End. Ukon, kung ang amay ko pa pahambalon, "Solb!"
*****
Third. "The Partial Explanation."
Kahilidlaw gali mag Hiligaynon. Utoy-utoy ko kadlaw sa tinaga nga "kutso-kutso." Daw gina itik ako. Hehehehehehe.
Ahem. Translation: I miss talking in Hiligaynon, or even just listening to it. I am tickled by the word "kutso-kutso" which means rumor, or even opinion, but I think is Hiligaynon-onomatopoeia for whispering sounds made (by girls, esp.) during gossip sessions. Sure, I talk to my sisters everyday, but always in a mixture of Ilonggo and English and Tagalog. I miss the radio programs, and I miss having to ask my parents what certain words mean.
Case in point: My dad used to get mad (naga-ugtas) at me and my siblings when we ask what something means using, "Ano na-min sini?" How was I supposed to know that "na-min" is bastardized Hiligaynon for "gina-" (a present-tense prefix, not unlike -ing) and "mean" (mispronounced with the short i sound). Literally that question becomes "What is this mean-ing?" when the proper way to ask is "Ano ambot silingon sini?" Which sounds weird/perfect in English--"What does this want to say?"--as if the words actually want to tell you, out loud, their meanings/translation, except that, well, they can't.
Like this: "What does this word, 'panganud' want to say?" "It wants to say 'cloud'."
Anyway.
*****
Last. Post script kuno.
*Kung indi niyo pa gets kung diin nga lugar na tabo ang tukar-tukar, panumduma niyo lang ang isa pa ka tinaga para sa "hulag." Amo na siya ang ngalan sang kalye, kag kung angutan mo sang "Sa-" sa umpisa, mahimo nga ngalan sang lugar-ilimnan.
Amo lang na. Sige, magpakabuot ha!
To A., when she turns 27
aaa1
You should not have lied.
The fact is you worshiped your father
and when he told you the space
between moon and earth was so vast
you understood infinity
was a symbol for what you could not hold
a loop that had you going in circles.
Content with the earth and its physics.
aaa2
You forgot
you thought the moon
followed you everywhere. Yes
the shortest distance between any two
points is a straight line—
But by then you understood how diameter
kept two points on a circle separate
how it kept that distance
constant. The moon moves
around the earth, yes.
The distance between them 384,403 kilometers.
aaa3
At times I watch the moon on the water
rippling an invitation.
It is always the same wish
that I had insisted it followed
stamped my foot and yelled it
followed a followed a would always follow.
But is that enough?
The echoed voice, this borrowed—
Daylight, and it is forgotten.
Or else it fades.
*****
Second. May kwento ako. Pero teka, parang di ko yata kaya.
Ahem, tilawan ta estilo ni M. bi:
Sang-una sa Iloilo may drama sa radyo nga ang titulo, "Sin-o ang may sala?" Pamatyag ko, daw pwede ni tani ang akon nga istorya sa programa nga to. Pamati-i bala.
May chismis nga naglapta mga anom ka bulan na ang naglipas. May isa ni kuno ka laki nga naluyag sa isa ka babayi. Kung pahambalon mo mga abyan ni babayi (nga mga nakakilala man kay lalaki; si bayi kag si laki mismo indi amigo-hay), bagay guid kuno sila nga duha, buto guid ang ila nga mga abyan sa ila duha, etc, etc. Indi man guid kilal-anay si bayi kag si laki: asta lang bala sa hi-hello, asta lang sa "diutay nga hambalanay," kung sa ingles pa, kada sila magkit-anay. Pero, kung sundun ta guid ya ang dalagan sang mga nagkalatabo, wala guid sang may makahambal nga gusto ni laki si bayi. Mahuluya-on abi si laki, amo na nga daw wala guid sinyas nga tuod ang ini nga sugid-sugid. Si bayi man ya, matinalak-on, kag daw waay guid man labot.
Ugaling, pagkalipas sang pila pa ka bulan, galapit nga lapit (indi si bayi) ang kaadlawan ni bayi. Ahay, ti ano abi kay daw sa pamatyagan ni bayi naga-tigulang na siya, kag daw kadugay na guid nga wala siya nobyo. Gani man, sang guin pilit si bayi sang iya mga amiga nga siya na lang ang mag-hagad kay laki mag-gwa (dumdumon ta, mahuluya-on si laki), wala man guid siya angal.
Ti natabo nga mga duha ka adlaw pagkatapos sang pagpilit kay bayi nga hagaron si laki, may tukar ang paborito nga banda ni bayi, ang grupo nga "Likod-labaha" (labahita?). Guin panumdum ni bayi nga i-text kag hagaron si laki sa tukar nga to. Amo ni ang dalagan sang huna-huna ni bayi ay:
Bayi sa lawas niya: Ti, hambal nila gusto niya man bala ako.
Bayi sa lawas niya gihapon: Galing, basi indi bala mag-sabat haw. Kahuluya.
Siya/Sila man gihapon: Ah, bay-i da ah. Kung upod, ti upod eh. Kung indi, ti wala.
Pagkatapos sadto nga kalip-ot nga bina-isay, nagtext guid man si bayi kay laki. Guin hagad niya sa tukar sang banda, nagdugang pa nga kung indi lang masako si laki, eh. Sabat ni laki, "Ay nami tani mag-tanaw galing may kadto-an man ko. Kinahanglan nga ara ko sa "Sidlangan-kahoy" (kuha niyo?) subong nga gab-i."
Ahay, kalu-oy man kay babayi. Nagpadala abi sa istorya sang iban nga tawo. Ti ano natabo dayon?
Sang mga tini-on nga gina text ni bayi si laki, ara siya sa isa ka ilimnan nga lapit lang sa balay niya, ang "Batobalani." (Enkaso nga indi magsabat/mag-upod si laki, wala sang may makasiling nga nagmuk-mok si bayi sa balay, hulat sang sabat ni laki, indi bala?) Pagkabaton niya sang text, nagdesidir si bayi nga mapa-uli na lang siya. Mintras nagalakat siya, nagtupa ang puwerte katudo nga ulan. (Daw drama sa radyo, no?) Kay indi niya gusto mabasa, nagpasilong si bayi higad-dalan. Tuyo niya nga hulaton maghulaw ang ulan kag magpadayon lakat pauli. Nati-onan galing nga may taxi nga nagdulog sa atubangan guid sang higad-dalan nga ginatindugan niya. Guin pinsar ni bayi nga isa ini ka sinyales. Guin palapitan niya ang nagahulat nga salakyan.
Bayi: Manong, sa "SaHulag*" tani lihog. Katul-tol ka magkadto sa kalye "Hulag" sa "Makatol"?
Tsuper: Tul-tulon eh. Wala na ya problema ah. Sakay lang.
Bayi: Ayus!
Ti amo na ang istorya kung paano nakalab-ot si bayi sa "SaHulag" nga siya lang isa. Ang lain pa, puno ang lugar, kag tanan nga tawo didto may upod. Si bayi ya, ato, nag-isa-isa. Pinakamala-in sa tanan, bisan paborito ni bayi ang banda nga nagatukar, wala guid siya nawili. Ano abi kay sa pila na katuig nga lantaw sang banda nga to, halos amo man gihapon. Waay may nagbag-o. (Ukon basi tuod guid man nga nagatigulang na si bayi.)
Man gani, mga ija kag ijo, indi guid mag pati sa chismis. Wala pulos ang mamati sa kutso-kutso sang iban. Si bayi o, tan-awa, napagasto sang wala sa oras, wala man guid nalingaw.
Ti, sin-o ang may sala? Si bayi bala? Si laki bala? Basi ang tsuper sang taxi? Ang banda? Ano guid bala haw? Basi ang ulan.
Amo lang na ang aton tiempo subong diri sa aton nga programa, "Sin-o ang may sala?"
-----------
Hahahaha. Ay, karadlawan lang. Di End. Ukon, kung ang amay ko pa pahambalon, "Solb!"
*****
Third. "The Partial Explanation."
Kahilidlaw gali mag Hiligaynon. Utoy-utoy ko kadlaw sa tinaga nga "kutso-kutso." Daw gina itik ako. Hehehehehehe.
Ahem. Translation: I miss talking in Hiligaynon, or even just listening to it. I am tickled by the word "kutso-kutso" which means rumor, or even opinion, but I think is Hiligaynon-onomatopoeia for whispering sounds made (by girls, esp.) during gossip sessions. Sure, I talk to my sisters everyday, but always in a mixture of Ilonggo and English and Tagalog. I miss the radio programs, and I miss having to ask my parents what certain words mean.
Case in point: My dad used to get mad (naga-ugtas) at me and my siblings when we ask what something means using, "Ano na-min sini?" How was I supposed to know that "na-min" is bastardized Hiligaynon for "gina-" (a present-tense prefix, not unlike -ing) and "mean" (mispronounced with the short i sound). Literally that question becomes "What is this mean-ing?" when the proper way to ask is "Ano ambot silingon sini?" Which sounds weird/perfect in English--"What does this want to say?"--as if the words actually want to tell you, out loud, their meanings/translation, except that, well, they can't.
Like this: "What does this word, 'panganud' want to say?" "It wants to say 'cloud'."
Anyway.
*****
Last. Post script kuno.
*Kung indi niyo pa gets kung diin nga lugar na tabo ang tukar-tukar, panumduma niyo lang ang isa pa ka tinaga para sa "hulag." Amo na siya ang ngalan sang kalye, kag kung angutan mo sang "Sa-" sa umpisa, mahimo nga ngalan sang lugar-ilimnan.
Amo lang na. Sige, magpakabuot ha!
Wednesday, October 03, 2007
Bring on the waterworks.
First.
I've been trying to post in this blog more often than once-a-month, but that didn't happen in September. My biggest excuse is that it was college basketball season, and I didn't want to post any basketball stuff--it gets me into trouble. A smaller excuse is that I have nothing to tell; there are no new stories, there are no new poems.
Which make it sound as if September has been another boring month. Not at all. Between lining up for tickets to games; looking for scalpers for tickets and looking like scalpers to get rid of tickets; cheering my throat sore and screaming at referees; and sneaking out of work to watch the games, well, it's been National Basketball Month. And that's never boring (for me, at least). But, I could be getting sick of it. Note, could be. Check back November. N. B. A. Okay, enough.
Second.
I think the older a woman gets, the less prone she is to tears. That's a new theory of mine. Wait, maybe I should qualify: The older I get, the less prone I am to tears. It kinda makes sense, since you start to realize they accomplish nothing, and worse, you look like shit afterwards. (No offense to the woman who knows how to use tears to get the advantage. Different strokes for different folks and all that. And let me just add, You go girl!)
A couple of weeks ago, I met up with some friends at D.'s house. I had just come from a basketball game then, I think, and people were asking me if I'd watched it. Of course, I say. We won, right? L. asked. Uh huh. Did you cry, too? Because M. cried, he reported. Why would I cry? I said, There's one more game to go. So, if we win the next game, would you? he persisted. I wouldn't cry if we lost, why would I cry because we won? I was perplexed. L. just nodded his head, considering-like.
But it got me thinking. What would bring me to tears nowadays. Well, there are the movies and the books, but the kinds are getting farther and farther apart.
(Aside.
I remember once in college I watched Saving Private Ryan and I was crying at almost every frame. And it pissed me off because I could imagine Spielberg directing it just so: "Ooooh, let's shoot this scene from behind. Once they hand her the letter, she reaches for it, hands trembling. She reads it then falls to her knees. No need for dialogue. I can almost see it people! Bring on the waterworks!" Boy, that really pissed me off, I stopped watching movies for a couple of years after that. If it weren't for his brilliant Catch Me If You Can, I'd never watch him again.)
Anyway, it made think. What makes me cry nowadays? I thought about it, and I thought about it and I thought, What a fucking waste of time. So I grabbed the book I was reading then, Dava Sobel's Longitude: The True Story of the Lone Genius who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, and went back to it.
Nothing to make you cry in that title, right? Wrong. Oh boy. Here's the formula: Take one history of science book, where the protagonist is an ex-carpenter who is self-educated, and pit him against the whole Royal Astronomy Society (or whatever) of the whole of Britain. Mention that the search for the answer to this "Greatest Scientific Problem" led to the discovery of other things--the refinement of the gravitational relationship between planet and satellite, the discovery of the moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn, the calculation of the speed of light, and peripherally, how sauerkraut defeated scurvy--to taste. Add a loyal son who fought for his father's invention, and a rival/evil-astronomer named Nevil. Plus millions and millions in prize money. Et Voila! I've got tears running down my cheeks.
Not just that: Ask me to tell you about it, then watch my eyes. I swear they'd be bright, like a grandmother's recalling her youth. Oh boy.
It isn't even brilliant writing (Sorry, Ms. Sobel). I mean it's not lyric, it's not poignant. (It put me off too, that Diane Ackerman had good things to say about it, and to see later on that she's Ms. Sobel's "good friend". Ugh.) It's matter of fact and basic, just like a science text should read. But we're talking about the invention of the chronometer here. (Chronometer. Isn't the name enough to give you goosebumps?) And I like how she starts it, her own curiosity over those "invisible lines", and how she ends it, at the prime meridian, seeing another fascinated girl, at literal zero hour. It's beautiful.
Ask me, I'll lend it to you.
Third.
My new favorite poem.
Addressed to Himself
Cirilo F. Bautista
How hard I have made life for you, Cirilo
Who wrestle with words to free my mind;
Your various battles, you do not know,
Pose at me the same buckle, the same wind
That eagle in anger hotly ride on.
Yet like buckles you never break, though blind
At times you pine and pine for beauty gone--
Ah, never take the same courage, mon ami,
Wisdom and the past are never one.
But learn to distrust language that we
In constant dreams deem the only fact
Kill it in seduction or heraldry
So eagle-like you may invent your act;
Then think you walk in a world of thrall
Where Beauty walks too but does not look back,
Crossing the foggy fjords of the skull.
Fourth.
A poem to make me cry? Nope. They make me envious and they make me swear. They make me want to write, or want to stop writing. But they don't make me cry. It's science more than anything, that wrenches the tearducts open. Conduct an experiment if you want proof.
Fifth.
That's it. Just wanted a nice finished number to end this with. Bow.
I've been trying to post in this blog more often than once-a-month, but that didn't happen in September. My biggest excuse is that it was college basketball season, and I didn't want to post any basketball stuff--it gets me into trouble. A smaller excuse is that I have nothing to tell; there are no new stories, there are no new poems.
Which make it sound as if September has been another boring month. Not at all. Between lining up for tickets to games; looking for scalpers for tickets and looking like scalpers to get rid of tickets; cheering my throat sore and screaming at referees; and sneaking out of work to watch the games, well, it's been National Basketball Month. And that's never boring (for me, at least). But, I could be getting sick of it. Note, could be. Check back November. N. B. A. Okay, enough.
Second.
I think the older a woman gets, the less prone she is to tears. That's a new theory of mine. Wait, maybe I should qualify: The older I get, the less prone I am to tears. It kinda makes sense, since you start to realize they accomplish nothing, and worse, you look like shit afterwards. (No offense to the woman who knows how to use tears to get the advantage. Different strokes for different folks and all that. And let me just add, You go girl!)
A couple of weeks ago, I met up with some friends at D.'s house. I had just come from a basketball game then, I think, and people were asking me if I'd watched it. Of course, I say. We won, right? L. asked. Uh huh. Did you cry, too? Because M. cried, he reported. Why would I cry? I said, There's one more game to go. So, if we win the next game, would you? he persisted. I wouldn't cry if we lost, why would I cry because we won? I was perplexed. L. just nodded his head, considering-like.
But it got me thinking. What would bring me to tears nowadays. Well, there are the movies and the books, but the kinds are getting farther and farther apart.
(Aside.
I remember once in college I watched Saving Private Ryan and I was crying at almost every frame. And it pissed me off because I could imagine Spielberg directing it just so: "Ooooh, let's shoot this scene from behind. Once they hand her the letter, she reaches for it, hands trembling. She reads it then falls to her knees. No need for dialogue. I can almost see it people! Bring on the waterworks!" Boy, that really pissed me off, I stopped watching movies for a couple of years after that. If it weren't for his brilliant Catch Me If You Can, I'd never watch him again.)
Anyway, it made think. What makes me cry nowadays? I thought about it, and I thought about it and I thought, What a fucking waste of time. So I grabbed the book I was reading then, Dava Sobel's Longitude: The True Story of the Lone Genius who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time, and went back to it.
Nothing to make you cry in that title, right? Wrong. Oh boy. Here's the formula: Take one history of science book, where the protagonist is an ex-carpenter who is self-educated, and pit him against the whole Royal Astronomy Society (or whatever) of the whole of Britain. Mention that the search for the answer to this "Greatest Scientific Problem" led to the discovery of other things--the refinement of the gravitational relationship between planet and satellite, the discovery of the moons of Jupiter and the rings of Saturn, the calculation of the speed of light, and peripherally, how sauerkraut defeated scurvy--to taste. Add a loyal son who fought for his father's invention, and a rival/evil-astronomer named Nevil. Plus millions and millions in prize money. Et Voila! I've got tears running down my cheeks.
Not just that: Ask me to tell you about it, then watch my eyes. I swear they'd be bright, like a grandmother's recalling her youth. Oh boy.
It isn't even brilliant writing (Sorry, Ms. Sobel). I mean it's not lyric, it's not poignant. (It put me off too, that Diane Ackerman had good things to say about it, and to see later on that she's Ms. Sobel's "good friend". Ugh.) It's matter of fact and basic, just like a science text should read. But we're talking about the invention of the chronometer here. (Chronometer. Isn't the name enough to give you goosebumps?) And I like how she starts it, her own curiosity over those "invisible lines", and how she ends it, at the prime meridian, seeing another fascinated girl, at literal zero hour. It's beautiful.
Ask me, I'll lend it to you.
Third.
My new favorite poem.
Addressed to Himself
Cirilo F. Bautista
How hard I have made life for you, Cirilo
Who wrestle with words to free my mind;
Your various battles, you do not know,
Pose at me the same buckle, the same wind
That eagle in anger hotly ride on.
Yet like buckles you never break, though blind
At times you pine and pine for beauty gone--
Ah, never take the same courage, mon ami,
Wisdom and the past are never one.
But learn to distrust language that we
In constant dreams deem the only fact
Kill it in seduction or heraldry
So eagle-like you may invent your act;
Then think you walk in a world of thrall
Where Beauty walks too but does not look back,
Crossing the foggy fjords of the skull.
Fourth.
A poem to make me cry? Nope. They make me envious and they make me swear. They make me want to write, or want to stop writing. But they don't make me cry. It's science more than anything, that wrenches the tearducts open. Conduct an experiment if you want proof.
Fifth.
That's it. Just wanted a nice finished number to end this with. Bow.
Thursday, September 06, 2007
This is how I eat my words.
1 Let me tell you a secret:
In the first-ever writers workshop I attended, panelists extolled the virtues of imagist poetry. One even told us to write down ten images everyday. Most of us, most of the time, take the world in visually, yes. But this exercise was not only to help us actively capture these visual feeds, but to reproduce them in words, and in words that will repaint these images for the reader.
Very sound advice, I think. But I worried that my brain doesn't work this way. I think in concepts, then look for images to represent them. Insecure, I asked one writer what if. What if I do it this way? She looks at me(was it pity I saw in her eyes?): Then maybe poetry is not for you, she announced.
Well, Fuck that shit is my very concise and very image-riddled answer to that one. If for nothing else, I will make a great adobo of these seven words--sprinkled with some of my poems to taste--and feed them to her.
2 But. This is how I eat my words:
That I can just pluck past experiences and use them in my poems now like so much fodder. And still not enough.
Is this a writer's life? That moments beautiful, bizarre, heart-breaking later on serve to tell a story, to execute an effective line? How pathetic. To look back and cull from past images to serve a present need. An ever-present need to write.
I have never owned a camera, never needed it. Events in my life have gone undocumented this way. I always thought pictures diminished experiences to the whats, whos, whens, and I have always gone for the hows and whys. But if these pictures in my head find themselves in my poetry, and without their true context--those whats whos and whens--won't I, in a different way, be losing them too?
I imagine myself old and wrinkled, rifling through a box of yellowed poems. Will I wish for photographs instead?
3 Enough. Two poems:
Gretel in Love/Lost
As if words were crumbs leaving a trail to my emotions
I have retraced my steps, picked every surface clean.
You were the one with
Words for everything:
Tobi, you said, tracing circles
The flight of some bird with your finger.
Later, my own fingers traced through words
In search for meaning:
Tobi. A bird of prey--
And that was how it was
With me circling and circling
Words like so many crumbs
Hints to a road I cannot follow.
Or won't.
If these should lead to a house
I have lived that story.
Once.
Reflection
aaaaWager then without hesitation that He is.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa--Blaise Pascal
Forgive me my love
I have turned my back on you.
Fidelity was all you required. And waiting
I spent my time looking at mirrors.
In my bedroom in the glass
Men have come and gone behind me.
Like clouds over a lake pass shift dissolve
With every drop
Their features shattered rippled into your face
As if heaven and earth finally met.
I began to believe they were you
That you were everywhere.
Or I refused to look closer.
In the mirror my eyes dark and brown
Like coins in still waters.
4 Poet vs. Scientist:
A poem by (a certain) Jacques Prevert, "Les paris stupides:" goes:
"Stupid wagers:
One Blaise Pascal
etc... etc..."
Is Pascal in heaven? And what if Prevert is there too? Are they friends? Did God make them shake hands and kiss each other on both cheeks after introducing them? Was Prevert embarrassed? Did God have to admonish Pascal for feeling a bit smug? Or was he generous and waved Prevert's apologies aside?
What if they were both in hell? Is Prevert still razzing Pascal? Is Pascal feeding Prevert infinite number of pages with "Les paris stupides" printed on them?
You see how in both cases it's the poet who eats his words? Food for thought.
a
In the first-ever writers workshop I attended, panelists extolled the virtues of imagist poetry. One even told us to write down ten images everyday. Most of us, most of the time, take the world in visually, yes. But this exercise was not only to help us actively capture these visual feeds, but to reproduce them in words, and in words that will repaint these images for the reader.
Very sound advice, I think. But I worried that my brain doesn't work this way. I think in concepts, then look for images to represent them. Insecure, I asked one writer what if. What if I do it this way? She looks at me(was it pity I saw in her eyes?): Then maybe poetry is not for you, she announced.
Well, Fuck that shit is my very concise and very image-riddled answer to that one. If for nothing else, I will make a great adobo of these seven words--sprinkled with some of my poems to taste--and feed them to her.
2 But. This is how I eat my words:
That I can just pluck past experiences and use them in my poems now like so much fodder. And still not enough.
Is this a writer's life? That moments beautiful, bizarre, heart-breaking later on serve to tell a story, to execute an effective line? How pathetic. To look back and cull from past images to serve a present need. An ever-present need to write.
I have never owned a camera, never needed it. Events in my life have gone undocumented this way. I always thought pictures diminished experiences to the whats, whos, whens, and I have always gone for the hows and whys. But if these pictures in my head find themselves in my poetry, and without their true context--those whats whos and whens--won't I, in a different way, be losing them too?
I imagine myself old and wrinkled, rifling through a box of yellowed poems. Will I wish for photographs instead?
3 Enough. Two poems:
Gretel in Love/Lost
As if words were crumbs leaving a trail to my emotions
I have retraced my steps, picked every surface clean.
You were the one with
Words for everything:
Tobi, you said, tracing circles
The flight of some bird with your finger.
Later, my own fingers traced through words
In search for meaning:
Tobi. A bird of prey--
And that was how it was
With me circling and circling
Words like so many crumbs
Hints to a road I cannot follow.
Or won't.
If these should lead to a house
I have lived that story.
Once.
Reflection
aaaaWager then without hesitation that He is.
aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa--Blaise Pascal
Forgive me my love
I have turned my back on you.
Fidelity was all you required. And waiting
I spent my time looking at mirrors.
In my bedroom in the glass
Men have come and gone behind me.
Like clouds over a lake pass shift dissolve
With every drop
Their features shattered rippled into your face
As if heaven and earth finally met.
I began to believe they were you
That you were everywhere.
Or I refused to look closer.
In the mirror my eyes dark and brown
Like coins in still waters.
4 Poet vs. Scientist:
A poem by (a certain) Jacques Prevert, "Les paris stupides:" goes:
"Stupid wagers:
One Blaise Pascal
etc... etc..."
Is Pascal in heaven? And what if Prevert is there too? Are they friends? Did God make them shake hands and kiss each other on both cheeks after introducing them? Was Prevert embarrassed? Did God have to admonish Pascal for feeling a bit smug? Or was he generous and waved Prevert's apologies aside?
What if they were both in hell? Is Prevert still razzing Pascal? Is Pascal feeding Prevert infinite number of pages with "Les paris stupides" printed on them?
You see how in both cases it's the poet who eats his words? Food for thought.
a
Friday, August 31, 2007
shorts
I'll borrow a page from my friend M's blog and (No, no, I will not post in Ilonggo.) post key words/phrases for expansion on a later day, when I feel like writing and updating. Today sucks.
1. Got a granny-style japanese bike from a friend for the price of lunch! Woohoo!
G. gave me a bike-with-basket, which having owned only mountain bikes before, I automatically categorize as a granny-bike. Went to his house a couple of weeks ago to get it and we went out to lunch, for which I gallantly offered to pay. It all came to about P150, with tip. Double woohoo!
2. Fear of death while crossing Katipunan with said bike--I had a dream/foretelling about this: "Corinne Baily Rae video turns bloody" is my anticipated headline.
For a week before I got the bike, I would have this dream of riding it to school, braving Katipunan Avenue and its weird U-turn slots. The dream always started out like that Corinne Bailey Rae video--a group of girls in skirts riding girly bikes, with me leading the pack, wind ruffling our hair and hems. Then I'd give the snappy little bell a flick, anticipating its krring-krring sound. Instead, the pee-in-your-pants whoosh of an air brake sounds from behind me, and when I turn around, the girls had been replaced by an 18-wheeler.
So until now, I haven't yet taken that bike to school. I'm not ready to cross Katipunan, and that thin line between brave and foolhardy--fool being the operative word.
3. Was put on a spot the last poetry reading--"a victim of circumstance" I said then, but I should've bet on the lottery that day, see if all that strange "luck" applied.
Well, that Monday started out weird enough. Went to a Starbucks near my house and when I got to the cashier, they perkily informed me that I was the lucky 100-something-th customer and that I get a free next-drink after I pay for my first drink, simply by visiting blah-blah-blahdotstarbucksdotsomething and encoding some 10-character code then answering a survey which will give me the code which I have to write down... (Pretty smart, offering one a free drink for answering a service survey. Goodwill to us and free coffee for all!) Anyway, never being one to win anything, I felt I hit the jackpot--which made me think of buying a lottery ticket. I mean luck works like credit card rewards right? The more you use it the more you get?
But. That Monday night proved weirder--This guy J. shows a short-film-cum-poem whose title was similar to my name. Which! which! nobody would've noticed except that the host calls me to read right after because! because! the film was named such-and-such. Which! which! of course lead to teasing hoots and speculative looks and inane questions (like, "Who were you in the film?" "Didn't the girl there look Japanese/Korean?" I mean, do the math, will you?). Thus, the victim-of-circumstance comment. And if that isn't enough, the poem I read then was a new one I wrote after I remembered Pascal's Wager (another post for another day...)!
(I mean look at this: future free coffee, almost-my-name-titled film, wager poem--all in one day! What does it all mean?)
Aside. When I was 17 or so, I got this eye infection from contacts which, my doctor told me, happened to one in every one million contact lens user. When my dad heard this, he immediately asked me for six numbers between 1 and 42. Apparently, he didn't share my luck-as-credit-card-rewards definition. Perhaps he thought it was catching, like an infection.
4. Saw pictures of Batanes' boulder beach, rolling hills, kitschy lighthouse and weird cattle. I want to go, I want to go.
I want to go.
5. Books, jeans, hair color. Oh my!
Last week, my dad gave me around P2,000 to buy whatever I want. Since it wasn't my birthday nor his, this was like christmas mid-year--or christmas when I still got presents from my parents, anyway. I thought of buying a nice pair of jeans. Then I thought of a trip to the salon. Then I learned that this weekend is the last two days of the international bookfair. I am going to have to make do with my torn jeans and the fact that my hair is now two-toned. And I'm going to need another shelf soon.
6. The past few weeks I was a slave in front of the computer at work. So I decided to paint my nails royal purple. Makes sense, no?
What else can I say?
7. Met with a cousin I haven't seen in years--no, decades--last Sunday. He's been all over the world because he shipped out, literally, when he was 18 or something. Asked him if there where any females in the tanker where he worked--Except for the wives of some officers, no. Sexist, yes? I gotta find me a sailor.
Aherm. Did I say that?
8. This is the same cousin who fell in love and married his first cousin on his father's side. (He's my cousin on his mom's.) My aunt told me how he'd gone home--on his knees, crying, to beg her forgiveness--and how happy she was that their priest finally gave in and married them. What bothers me about all this was how proud she seemed about the "kneeling and crying" bit. If this is religion-induced guilt and pride, I think, I'm glad my parents never imposed religion on us.
Don't tell my Tia M. about this. She'll be hurt and bewildered and convinced that my family and I are doomed, doooooomed! "And all that rock music. The work of the devil, I tell you. The de-vil."
9. This is the goddamn truth: Heart's version of Led Zep's "Battle of Evermore" is way, way better than the original. I'm sorry, but it is. And yes, Heart of "Alone" "Barracuda" and "All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You" fame.
Speak of the de-vil. Funny, the same week I came to this conclusion, I met D. who's also a Led Zep fan and shared my sentiments exactly. His wife B. used to sing great Heart in karaoke during our Japan days.
10. Who needs a drink?
Who doesn't? To misquote The Boss, "You can't start a fire without spark"--If I learned anything from my chemistry days, alcohol is generally flammable.
1. Got a granny-style japanese bike from a friend for the price of lunch! Woohoo!
G. gave me a bike-with-basket, which having owned only mountain bikes before, I automatically categorize as a granny-bike. Went to his house a couple of weeks ago to get it and we went out to lunch, for which I gallantly offered to pay. It all came to about P150, with tip. Double woohoo!
2. Fear of death while crossing Katipunan with said bike--I had a dream/foretelling about this: "Corinne Baily Rae video turns bloody" is my anticipated headline.
For a week before I got the bike, I would have this dream of riding it to school, braving Katipunan Avenue and its weird U-turn slots. The dream always started out like that Corinne Bailey Rae video--a group of girls in skirts riding girly bikes, with me leading the pack, wind ruffling our hair and hems. Then I'd give the snappy little bell a flick, anticipating its krring-krring sound. Instead, the pee-in-your-pants whoosh of an air brake sounds from behind me, and when I turn around, the girls had been replaced by an 18-wheeler.
So until now, I haven't yet taken that bike to school. I'm not ready to cross Katipunan, and that thin line between brave and foolhardy--fool being the operative word.
3. Was put on a spot the last poetry reading--"a victim of circumstance" I said then, but I should've bet on the lottery that day, see if all that strange "luck" applied.
Well, that Monday started out weird enough. Went to a Starbucks near my house and when I got to the cashier, they perkily informed me that I was the lucky 100-something-th customer and that I get a free next-drink after I pay for my first drink, simply by visiting blah-blah-blahdotstarbucksdotsomething and encoding some 10-character code then answering a survey which will give me the code which I have to write down... (Pretty smart, offering one a free drink for answering a service survey. Goodwill to us and free coffee for all!) Anyway, never being one to win anything, I felt I hit the jackpot--which made me think of buying a lottery ticket. I mean luck works like credit card rewards right? The more you use it the more you get?
But. That Monday night proved weirder--This guy J. shows a short-film-cum-poem whose title was similar to my name. Which! which! nobody would've noticed except that the host calls me to read right after because! because! the film was named such-and-such. Which! which! of course lead to teasing hoots and speculative looks and inane questions (like, "Who were you in the film?" "Didn't the girl there look Japanese/Korean?" I mean, do the math, will you?). Thus, the victim-of-circumstance comment. And if that isn't enough, the poem I read then was a new one I wrote after I remembered Pascal's Wager (another post for another day...)!
(I mean look at this: future free coffee, almost-my-name-titled film, wager poem--all in one day! What does it all mean?)
Aside. When I was 17 or so, I got this eye infection from contacts which, my doctor told me, happened to one in every one million contact lens user. When my dad heard this, he immediately asked me for six numbers between 1 and 42. Apparently, he didn't share my luck-as-credit-card-rewards definition. Perhaps he thought it was catching, like an infection.
4. Saw pictures of Batanes' boulder beach, rolling hills, kitschy lighthouse and weird cattle. I want to go, I want to go.
I want to go.
5. Books, jeans, hair color. Oh my!
Last week, my dad gave me around P2,000 to buy whatever I want. Since it wasn't my birthday nor his, this was like christmas mid-year--or christmas when I still got presents from my parents, anyway. I thought of buying a nice pair of jeans. Then I thought of a trip to the salon. Then I learned that this weekend is the last two days of the international bookfair. I am going to have to make do with my torn jeans and the fact that my hair is now two-toned. And I'm going to need another shelf soon.
6. The past few weeks I was a slave in front of the computer at work. So I decided to paint my nails royal purple. Makes sense, no?
What else can I say?
7. Met with a cousin I haven't seen in years--no, decades--last Sunday. He's been all over the world because he shipped out, literally, when he was 18 or something. Asked him if there where any females in the tanker where he worked--Except for the wives of some officers, no. Sexist, yes? I gotta find me a sailor.
Aherm. Did I say that?
8. This is the same cousin who fell in love and married his first cousin on his father's side. (He's my cousin on his mom's.) My aunt told me how he'd gone home--on his knees, crying, to beg her forgiveness--and how happy she was that their priest finally gave in and married them. What bothers me about all this was how proud she seemed about the "kneeling and crying" bit. If this is religion-induced guilt and pride, I think, I'm glad my parents never imposed religion on us.
Don't tell my Tia M. about this. She'll be hurt and bewildered and convinced that my family and I are doomed, doooooomed! "And all that rock music. The work of the devil, I tell you. The de-vil."
9. This is the goddamn truth: Heart's version of Led Zep's "Battle of Evermore" is way, way better than the original. I'm sorry, but it is. And yes, Heart of "Alone" "Barracuda" and "All I Wanna Do is Make Love to You" fame.
Speak of the de-vil. Funny, the same week I came to this conclusion, I met D. who's also a Led Zep fan and shared my sentiments exactly. His wife B. used to sing great Heart in karaoke during our Japan days.
10. Who needs a drink?
Who doesn't? To misquote The Boss, "You can't start a fire without spark"--If I learned anything from my chemistry days, alcohol is generally flammable.
Friday, August 03, 2007
August and Everything After
Yeah, that was a great album by the Counting Crows.
But for now, it's just a literal statement. It's August already, and everything after that will just be more (or, actually, less-than-half) of 2007 racing by like whipping typhoon winds, while I stand and... wait for the typhoons to come.
Living in an archipelago that expects an average of twenty typhoons yearly between May and November, and still expecting the first one in August is a bit like waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Yeah, yeah. If I go by the weather bureau's alphabetical naming system (or lived in Samar) , I'm sure we've had at least two venture into our territory. But let me ask you this: Have you woken up to rain at 6 o'clock in the morning recently, and snuggled under the blankets wishing you didn't have work or class? Have you experienced an all-day rain lately, and resigned yourself to cold, wrinkled, fish-white feet when you take off your socks at the end of the day? Have you walked with an umbrella and have the wind shift directions so quick your umbrella becomes a funnel, and what-used-to-be-your-dry-side is slapped by a sheet of rain-pellets? No? Think back to June, May even. Still no?
Yes, we've had rain, and everyday too. But in case you don't know it yet, it's still artificial-to-offset-drought rain, a project of the agriculture department or the energy corporation. Hmmm. Are our waterfalls drying up too? And why in Metro Manila when it's the Northern Luzon rice fields that are really suffering? I mean, sure wind direction (and cloud positioning, I suppose) might be hard to anticipate, but if you're project has induced daily downpours at roughly the same time for weeks now, then you must be doing something right. Right? You just need a site transfer.
Besides I haven't seen a single rice field (or waterfall) within Metro Manila for the past 10 years I've been here. The only thing here I've seen grow and gush with the rain is traffic volume, and floodwaters.
So, no. Which makes me want to scream, What the hell is going on?
The reason I'm anxious might be purely selfish--I don't want typhoons (super or otherwise) for Christmas; I like knowing when it should be cheap to go to the beach; and most selfish of all--I don't want typhoons suddenly coming from the west, since I come from Iloilo (I'm just being honest--but this is meteorologically impossible, I think.)
To every season a reason is a cliché because that's the general idea. Otherwise, there's be no such words as acclimatize, or mothballs, and weder-weder lang 'yan would be a world-known expression. Call me boring but I do appreciate routine--If I wake up in the middle of the day and have my first meal at noon, I still call it breakfast. I hate Monday mornings regularly, and Friday nights I make it a point to be out of the house. I'm less likely to complain if I'm sweating like a pig in April. And I like my class/work-suspension-due-to-inclement-weather to fall during the first semester. Is that too much to ask?
And before you slap me down for being self-centered ass, Yes, climate change exists and is a great deal more urgent and wide-spanning problem than how I've presented it here. I also know that for every signal-number-three storm that cancels my classes or work, some family loses a makeshift house or have to temporarily relocate from under the bridge. And droughts in rainy season and typhoons during Christmas time are scary rather than inconvenient.
It's just that, honestly, I simply miss sheets of rainwater rolling off a wide glass window, or being caught willingly in a downpour (despite the odd looks), or that after-rain picture where the traffic's just starting to thin, the streets and sidewalks brown-puddled for miles, and the city looks grey and defeated--but for the green. Darker, bolder, greener. As if the world could really be clean again.
But for now, it's just a literal statement. It's August already, and everything after that will just be more (or, actually, less-than-half) of 2007 racing by like whipping typhoon winds, while I stand and... wait for the typhoons to come.
Living in an archipelago that expects an average of twenty typhoons yearly between May and November, and still expecting the first one in August is a bit like waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Yeah, yeah. If I go by the weather bureau's alphabetical naming system (or lived in Samar) , I'm sure we've had at least two venture into our territory. But let me ask you this: Have you woken up to rain at 6 o'clock in the morning recently, and snuggled under the blankets wishing you didn't have work or class? Have you experienced an all-day rain lately, and resigned yourself to cold, wrinkled, fish-white feet when you take off your socks at the end of the day? Have you walked with an umbrella and have the wind shift directions so quick your umbrella becomes a funnel, and what-used-to-be-your-dry-side is slapped by a sheet of rain-pellets? No? Think back to June, May even. Still no?
Yes, we've had rain, and everyday too. But in case you don't know it yet, it's still artificial-to-offset-drought rain, a project of the agriculture department or the energy corporation. Hmmm. Are our waterfalls drying up too? And why in Metro Manila when it's the Northern Luzon rice fields that are really suffering? I mean, sure wind direction (and cloud positioning, I suppose) might be hard to anticipate, but if you're project has induced daily downpours at roughly the same time for weeks now, then you must be doing something right. Right? You just need a site transfer.
Besides I haven't seen a single rice field (or waterfall) within Metro Manila for the past 10 years I've been here. The only thing here I've seen grow and gush with the rain is traffic volume, and floodwaters.
So, no. Which makes me want to scream, What the hell is going on?
The reason I'm anxious might be purely selfish--I don't want typhoons (super or otherwise) for Christmas; I like knowing when it should be cheap to go to the beach; and most selfish of all--I don't want typhoons suddenly coming from the west, since I come from Iloilo (I'm just being honest--but this is meteorologically impossible, I think.)
To every season a reason is a cliché because that's the general idea. Otherwise, there's be no such words as acclimatize, or mothballs, and weder-weder lang 'yan would be a world-known expression. Call me boring but I do appreciate routine--If I wake up in the middle of the day and have my first meal at noon, I still call it breakfast. I hate Monday mornings regularly, and Friday nights I make it a point to be out of the house. I'm less likely to complain if I'm sweating like a pig in April. And I like my class/work-suspension-due-to-inclement-weather to fall during the first semester. Is that too much to ask?
And before you slap me down for being self-centered ass, Yes, climate change exists and is a great deal more urgent and wide-spanning problem than how I've presented it here. I also know that for every signal-number-three storm that cancels my classes or work, some family loses a makeshift house or have to temporarily relocate from under the bridge. And droughts in rainy season and typhoons during Christmas time are scary rather than inconvenient.
It's just that, honestly, I simply miss sheets of rainwater rolling off a wide glass window, or being caught willingly in a downpour (despite the odd looks), or that after-rain picture where the traffic's just starting to thin, the streets and sidewalks brown-puddled for miles, and the city looks grey and defeated--but for the green. Darker, bolder, greener. As if the world could really be clean again.
Wednesday, July 25, 2007
Three poems
Because for once, there are no stories to tell, or there is nothing I want to talk about--not that everything is great, lah-di-dah. I just can't seem to make things funny, which, as you might have noticed, is how I confess. So here are three poems/confessions:
1.
Birth Order
Because I was guilty
not being a good sister
I worked on homework
I must have done ten years ago.
She stayed up late
with me: Guilty too, perhaps
of always asking for help
and always getting it.
So we spent the night going over
formulas, patterns
over and over
feeling holes, filling blanks.
As if this were all
of life--hollows to be filled
with what fits for the moment,
why we practiced
on shape-sorter toys:
Trials and errors we live through
to get it right. Years later,
we get it: Square peg, square hole.
As if it were fit that bound us--
not love, not blood
but birth order: Guilt
relative to one another.
2.
Letter to a John
aaaaaaa(or, Elderly Woman Behind a Counter in a Small Town... aaaaaaaaaTalking to Herself)
I love you.
Or I loved you--
Time, memory
I've learned not to trust them.
See, if I told you a story:
Two strangers meeting
In a country not their own
Falling in love, living together, lah-di-dah--
Say it ends with them
Returned to lives that used to be
Stories they'd tell one another--
Story, truth
These words interchangeable
Like foreign local house home.
Say it ends with them
Telling this story
Differently, and to different people--
How can I tell
What I feel versus
How I remember
You and I in ----?
No, we don't live there anymore.
aaaaaaa(With apologies to Pearl Jam.)
3.
This Story
You have heard me
or heard of me
telling this story or that--
How, for example, I left
science for poetry--
and you admire me.
Passion, you say, how brave!
This is what I want you to say.
But now, listen:
This is me naked in front of you
and I am hideous.
You are looking at me
and you do not want me.
There is honesty here.
I am the woman who forgets
to check the mirror. In fact
there is no mirror.
I forget to look
the way I forget to answer the phone--
The way my fingers shake
because they have something to say
and I have refused to open my mouth
or let go of the pen
or let it move.
There might be nothing
here: White paper like flat glass
without silver backing.
Yun lang po. Bow.
1.
Birth Order
Because I was guilty
not being a good sister
I worked on homework
I must have done ten years ago.
She stayed up late
with me: Guilty too, perhaps
of always asking for help
and always getting it.
So we spent the night going over
formulas, patterns
over and over
feeling holes, filling blanks.
As if this were all
of life--hollows to be filled
with what fits for the moment,
why we practiced
on shape-sorter toys:
Trials and errors we live through
to get it right. Years later,
we get it: Square peg, square hole.
As if it were fit that bound us--
not love, not blood
but birth order: Guilt
relative to one another.
2.
Letter to a John
aaaaaaa(or, Elderly Woman Behind a Counter in a Small Town... aaaaaaaaaTalking to Herself)
I love you.
Or I loved you--
Time, memory
I've learned not to trust them.
See, if I told you a story:
Two strangers meeting
In a country not their own
Falling in love, living together, lah-di-dah--
Say it ends with them
Returned to lives that used to be
Stories they'd tell one another--
Story, truth
These words interchangeable
Like foreign local house home.
Say it ends with them
Telling this story
Differently, and to different people--
How can I tell
What I feel versus
How I remember
You and I in ----?
No, we don't live there anymore.
aaaaaaa(With apologies to Pearl Jam.)
3.
This Story
You have heard me
or heard of me
telling this story or that--
How, for example, I left
science for poetry--
and you admire me.
Passion, you say, how brave!
This is what I want you to say.
But now, listen:
This is me naked in front of you
and I am hideous.
You are looking at me
and you do not want me.
There is honesty here.
I am the woman who forgets
to check the mirror. In fact
there is no mirror.
I forget to look
the way I forget to answer the phone--
The way my fingers shake
because they have something to say
and I have refused to open my mouth
or let go of the pen
or let it move.
There might be nothing
here: White paper like flat glass
without silver backing.
Yun lang po. Bow.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Lunes na naman!
Featured poets for the Happy Mondays Poetry Nights in magnet katipunan this coming Monday are:
1. Gémino H. Abad
Poet and literary critic Dr. Jimmy Abad obtained his B.A. in English from the University of the Philippines in 1964 and his Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Chicago in 1970. Since then he has fulfilled a number of functions at .P., particularly as Secretary of the University, Secretary of the Board of Regents, Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Director of the U.P. Creative Writing Center, now an institute. He continues to contribute to the growth of the Institute of Creative Writing as an active member of its Board of Advisers. At present, he is Emeritus University Professor at the College of Arts and Letters in U.P. Diliman.
He co-founded the Philippine Literary Arts Council (PLAC).
2. Marne L. Kilates
Sir Marne has published two books of poetry, Children of the Snarl (Aklat Peskador, 1987) and Poems en Route (UST Publishing House, 1998), both of which have won the Manila Critics Circle National Book Awards. He was educated in the province, at the Divine Word College in Legazpi City, and has attended the Silliman and U.P. writers' workshops. His third collection, Mostly in Monsoon Weather, will be published by the University of the Philippines Press.
Apart from writing his own poetry, Sir Marne is also a translator of Tagalog poetry. His most recent translation is that of National Artist Rio Alma's, Sonetos Postumos (UP Press, 2006). He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (UMPIL) and is an Associate Fellow of the Philippine Literary Arts Council (PLAC). He has also won several Palanca Awards and the 1998 SEA (Southeast Asia) WRITE Award given by the Thai royalty.
3. Glenn Vincent Atanacio
Glenn obtained his AB Journalism from the University of Santo Tomas in 2005. One of the most promising poets of his generation, he has honed his craft on the streets of Manila as much as in the conference halls of workshops and seminars. He has been a writing fellow to the UP, Ateneo and IYAS National Writers Workshops and has received due recognition, including the award Thomasian Poet of the Year 2003-2004. Glenn has served as associate editor and literary editor of UST's The Flame journals and the organization's head literary folio, Dapitan, which was awarded Best Student Literary Folio by the Catholic Mass Media Awards.
4. Enuh Iglesias
is a law graduate, an instructor in the University of the Philippines, Diliman, and a banned show dog trainer. She is interested in events-organizing, blogging, podding, and troubleshooting her ibook. She is one of the prime-movers of BANNED Movies.
5. Andrea Liamzon
Deep in her heart, Andrea desires to be a professional birdwatcher and/or amateur iconoclast. In her spare time, she likes diagramming the confusion in her head. She will be leaving for St. Petersburg this August to continue her studies in Russian Literature.
6. Alexander Barrios Agena, Jr.
Alex is a budding and published poet from the University of the Philippines, Diliman.
His poems have appeared in various literary journals and magazines, including Caracoa 2006. He currently works as a technical account executive in Makati. He is a member of the U.P. Quill, the web-based Peaks, Pinoypoets, and Guni-Guni. He was a fellow of the 3rd UST National Writers Workshop.
7. Nash Benitez
is an interior designer, part-time writer, and part-time host. She is interested in architecture, art, design, travel, reading, football, extreme sports. She says she is passionate about life and her country. She believes that to whom much is given, much is expected. She loves the latin phrase, Carpe Diem.
8. Arkaye Kierulf
is a chemistry senior at the Ateneo de Manila University. His works have been published in various literary journals and nationwide magazines, including the Sunday Inquirer Magazine, The Philippines Free Press, the and Ateneo Heights Journal. In 2005, he won the San Francisco-based Meritage Press Poetry Prize.
9. Ramil Digal Gulle
Ramil is a two-time Palanca-winning poet and the author of several books of Poetry, the most recent of which is Textual Relations, published by the UP Press in 2006.
10. Kris Lanot Lacaba
Kris "El Pinoy Matador" Lacaba is a well-published poet, performer, and filmmaker. His works have appeared in various literary magazines. He was a fellow of the U.P. and Dumaguete National Writers Workshops. He recently finished his M.A. degree in Creative Writing form the University of the Philippines, Diliman. He now works for the Manila Bulletin.
11. Kash Avena
is "magnet" incarnate. A senior student of Miriam College, Kash is finishing her degree in Comm Arts and is keen on working in an advertising agency soon, or becoming a full-time poet. She gets enough credit for her passion for poetry and distinct poetic voice. She was the literary editor of Miriam's literary folio, Fragments, last year.
12. Corin Arenas
is a junior Comm Arts student in Miriam College. She is into visual arts, poetry, music, and theater. She is a co-founder of PINAY, a theater group in Miriam.
13. Drey Teran
will host the reading with Joel Toledo.
14. Mikael De Lara Co
Kael graduated with a BS degree in Environmental Science from the Ateneo de Manila, where he is currently pursuing his masters in Panitikang Pilipino-Malikhaing Pagsulat. He was a fellow for poetry in the Ateneo, UST, IYAS, and Dumaguete National Writers Workshop. He is the lead guitarist of the band Los Chupacabras.
15. Angelo V. Suárez
Gelo is an MA Communication student at the University of Santo Tomas, is the author of two books of poetry: The Nymph of MTV and else it was purely girls. He has won prizes from the Carlos Palanca and Maningning Miclat Foundations, and the National Book Award from the Manila Critics Circle and the first Bridges of Struga International Poetry Prize from UNESCO and the Republic of Macedonia for Nymph. He is currently working in close collaboration with visual artists on his new book, Dissonant Umbrellas: Notes Toward a Gesamtkunstwerk.
16. Lope Cui, Jr.
is the deathbringing, harmonica-toting singer of the art-goth-snore-core band, Tabloid Lite and an up and coming poet and Mall of Asian. He holds an MBA degree from UP Diliman and is a business professor at Miriam College.
17. Lourd Ernest De Veyra
is a multiple Palanca-winning poet and essayist, music critic, musician, and chef to friends. He was a fellow of the U.P. Advanced Writers Workshop in 2006 and the Dumaguete National Writers Workshop. He is the frontman and lyricist of the acclaimed band, Radioactive Sago Project.
18. Joel M. Toledo
will host the reading along with Drey Teran.
19. Israfel Fagela
Easy was a fellow for poetry in the UP and Dumaguete National Writers Workshops. He is a practicing lawyer, and the lead singer, composer, and instigator of the band Los Chupacabras.
20. Rock Drilon
is a much-acclaimed and recognized prime-mover and figure in the realm of the visual arts. He graduated with a degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Philippines, Diliman. He owns the Magnet chain of galleries, cafes, and bookshops.
21. Michael Balili
Mike is a member of the U.P. Quill, winner of the Amelia Lapenia-Bonifacio award for Poetry, and a published poet.
22. Bianca Consunji
works for the 2BeU section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. A graduate of U.P. Diliman, she is a former winner of the Ramon Magsaysay awards for the essay.
23. Ken Ishikawa
is the co-editor of the upcoming anthology of new Philippine Poetry with PLAC founder Cirilo Bautista. He is a former fellow of the Dumaguete National Writers Workshop, a published poet, and the proud father of daughter, Yuuki.
24. Adam David
is the random fandom fellow of the recent U.P. Advanced Writers Workshop in Baguio. He experiments and innovates with his fiction and poetry. His works have appeared in the UP Writers Club folio, The Literary Apprentice and the Caracoa 2006.
25. Khavn de la Cruz
is a filmmaker, writer, and musician, and two-time Palanca winner. Since 2002, he has been the festival director of the .MOV International Digital Film Festival. With his independent film company Filmless Films, he has produced ten digital features and more than forty short films, several of which have won prizes in the Philippines, Tokyo, Spain and Italy. He has served as a juror in the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival (France) and Jeonju International Film Festival (Korea). He has been invited twice to the Berlinale Talent Campus, and has received the Hubert Bals Fund grant thrice. He is the lead singer of the bands, The Brockas and delakrus.
Reading runs from 7 to 930pm. The prog-stomping, nearly experimental, almost famous, and semi-obscure band Shinjuku Lager Club plays in between the reading.
and after, the wasakan continues as Wahijuara and Radioactive Sago Project rock the house!!!
1. Gémino H. Abad
Poet and literary critic Dr. Jimmy Abad obtained his B.A. in English from the University of the Philippines in 1964 and his Ph.D. in English Literature from the University of Chicago in 1970. Since then he has fulfilled a number of functions at .P., particularly as Secretary of the University, Secretary of the Board of Regents, Vice President for Academic Affairs, and Director of the U.P. Creative Writing Center, now an institute. He continues to contribute to the growth of the Institute of Creative Writing as an active member of its Board of Advisers. At present, he is Emeritus University Professor at the College of Arts and Letters in U.P. Diliman.
He co-founded the Philippine Literary Arts Council (PLAC).
2. Marne L. Kilates
Sir Marne has published two books of poetry, Children of the Snarl (Aklat Peskador, 1987) and Poems en Route (UST Publishing House, 1998), both of which have won the Manila Critics Circle National Book Awards. He was educated in the province, at the Divine Word College in Legazpi City, and has attended the Silliman and U.P. writers' workshops. His third collection, Mostly in Monsoon Weather, will be published by the University of the Philippines Press.
Apart from writing his own poetry, Sir Marne is also a translator of Tagalog poetry. His most recent translation is that of National Artist Rio Alma's, Sonetos Postumos (UP Press, 2006). He is a member of the Board of Directors of the Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (UMPIL) and is an Associate Fellow of the Philippine Literary Arts Council (PLAC). He has also won several Palanca Awards and the 1998 SEA (Southeast Asia) WRITE Award given by the Thai royalty.
3. Glenn Vincent Atanacio
Glenn obtained his AB Journalism from the University of Santo Tomas in 2005. One of the most promising poets of his generation, he has honed his craft on the streets of Manila as much as in the conference halls of workshops and seminars. He has been a writing fellow to the UP, Ateneo and IYAS National Writers Workshops and has received due recognition, including the award Thomasian Poet of the Year 2003-2004. Glenn has served as associate editor and literary editor of UST's The Flame journals and the organization's head literary folio, Dapitan, which was awarded Best Student Literary Folio by the Catholic Mass Media Awards.
4. Enuh Iglesias
is a law graduate, an instructor in the University of the Philippines, Diliman, and a banned show dog trainer. She is interested in events-organizing, blogging, podding, and troubleshooting her ibook. She is one of the prime-movers of BANNED Movies.
5. Andrea Liamzon
Deep in her heart, Andrea desires to be a professional birdwatcher and/or amateur iconoclast. In her spare time, she likes diagramming the confusion in her head. She will be leaving for St. Petersburg this August to continue her studies in Russian Literature.
6. Alexander Barrios Agena, Jr.
Alex is a budding and published poet from the University of the Philippines, Diliman.
His poems have appeared in various literary journals and magazines, including Caracoa 2006. He currently works as a technical account executive in Makati. He is a member of the U.P. Quill, the web-based Peaks, Pinoypoets, and Guni-Guni. He was a fellow of the 3rd UST National Writers Workshop.
7. Nash Benitez
is an interior designer, part-time writer, and part-time host. She is interested in architecture, art, design, travel, reading, football, extreme sports. She says she is passionate about life and her country. She believes that to whom much is given, much is expected. She loves the latin phrase, Carpe Diem.
8. Arkaye Kierulf
is a chemistry senior at the Ateneo de Manila University. His works have been published in various literary journals and nationwide magazines, including the Sunday Inquirer Magazine, The Philippines Free Press, the and Ateneo Heights Journal. In 2005, he won the San Francisco-based Meritage Press Poetry Prize.
9. Ramil Digal Gulle
Ramil is a two-time Palanca-winning poet and the author of several books of Poetry, the most recent of which is Textual Relations, published by the UP Press in 2006.
10. Kris Lanot Lacaba
Kris "El Pinoy Matador" Lacaba is a well-published poet, performer, and filmmaker. His works have appeared in various literary magazines. He was a fellow of the U.P. and Dumaguete National Writers Workshops. He recently finished his M.A. degree in Creative Writing form the University of the Philippines, Diliman. He now works for the Manila Bulletin.
11. Kash Avena
is "magnet" incarnate. A senior student of Miriam College, Kash is finishing her degree in Comm Arts and is keen on working in an advertising agency soon, or becoming a full-time poet. She gets enough credit for her passion for poetry and distinct poetic voice. She was the literary editor of Miriam's literary folio, Fragments, last year.
12. Corin Arenas
is a junior Comm Arts student in Miriam College. She is into visual arts, poetry, music, and theater. She is a co-founder of PINAY, a theater group in Miriam.
13. Drey Teran
will host the reading with Joel Toledo.
14. Mikael De Lara Co
Kael graduated with a BS degree in Environmental Science from the Ateneo de Manila, where he is currently pursuing his masters in Panitikang Pilipino-Malikhaing Pagsulat. He was a fellow for poetry in the Ateneo, UST, IYAS, and Dumaguete National Writers Workshop. He is the lead guitarist of the band Los Chupacabras.
15. Angelo V. Suárez
Gelo is an MA Communication student at the University of Santo Tomas, is the author of two books of poetry: The Nymph of MTV and else it was purely girls. He has won prizes from the Carlos Palanca and Maningning Miclat Foundations, and the National Book Award from the Manila Critics Circle and the first Bridges of Struga International Poetry Prize from UNESCO and the Republic of Macedonia for Nymph. He is currently working in close collaboration with visual artists on his new book, Dissonant Umbrellas: Notes Toward a Gesamtkunstwerk.
16. Lope Cui, Jr.
is the deathbringing, harmonica-toting singer of the art-goth-snore-core band, Tabloid Lite and an up and coming poet and Mall of Asian. He holds an MBA degree from UP Diliman and is a business professor at Miriam College.
17. Lourd Ernest De Veyra
is a multiple Palanca-winning poet and essayist, music critic, musician, and chef to friends. He was a fellow of the U.P. Advanced Writers Workshop in 2006 and the Dumaguete National Writers Workshop. He is the frontman and lyricist of the acclaimed band, Radioactive Sago Project.
18. Joel M. Toledo
will host the reading along with Drey Teran.
19. Israfel Fagela
Easy was a fellow for poetry in the UP and Dumaguete National Writers Workshops. He is a practicing lawyer, and the lead singer, composer, and instigator of the band Los Chupacabras.
20. Rock Drilon
is a much-acclaimed and recognized prime-mover and figure in the realm of the visual arts. He graduated with a degree in Fine Arts from the University of the Philippines, Diliman. He owns the Magnet chain of galleries, cafes, and bookshops.
21. Michael Balili
Mike is a member of the U.P. Quill, winner of the Amelia Lapenia-Bonifacio award for Poetry, and a published poet.
22. Bianca Consunji
works for the 2BeU section of the Philippine Daily Inquirer. A graduate of U.P. Diliman, she is a former winner of the Ramon Magsaysay awards for the essay.
23. Ken Ishikawa
is the co-editor of the upcoming anthology of new Philippine Poetry with PLAC founder Cirilo Bautista. He is a former fellow of the Dumaguete National Writers Workshop, a published poet, and the proud father of daughter, Yuuki.
24. Adam David
is the random fandom fellow of the recent U.P. Advanced Writers Workshop in Baguio. He experiments and innovates with his fiction and poetry. His works have appeared in the UP Writers Club folio, The Literary Apprentice and the Caracoa 2006.
25. Khavn de la Cruz
is a filmmaker, writer, and musician, and two-time Palanca winner. Since 2002, he has been the festival director of the .MOV International Digital Film Festival. With his independent film company Filmless Films, he has produced ten digital features and more than forty short films, several of which have won prizes in the Philippines, Tokyo, Spain and Italy. He has served as a juror in the Clermont-Ferrand International Short Film Festival (France) and Jeonju International Film Festival (Korea). He has been invited twice to the Berlinale Talent Campus, and has received the Hubert Bals Fund grant thrice. He is the lead singer of the bands, The Brockas and delakrus.
Reading runs from 7 to 930pm. The prog-stomping, nearly experimental, almost famous, and semi-obscure band Shinjuku Lager Club plays in between the reading.
and after, the wasakan continues as Wahijuara and Radioactive Sago Project rock the house!!!
Thursday, June 28, 2007
Yes, I also happen to be...
An emo boy. Obviously, I am a girl with many faces. Not necessarily a girl's face, too!
Great. So the list, yes, the Drey-is/Drey-is-not list keeps on growing. Here's what we have so far:
Great. So the list, yes, the Drey-is/Drey-is-not list keeps on growing. Here's what we have so far:
- Drey is not Filipino-at-all;
- Drey is a tomboy;
- Drey is not a lesbian;
- Drey could be a convincing lesbian; and the latest...
- Drey is an emo boy.
Yup, you heard me right. Drey is NOT an emo girl. She is an emo boy. It started out with a conversation that went like this:
Me: K. has two [my sister's name here]s in her class and she thought the more groovy one was my sister--because of how I dress! Haha! Aren't I a shirt-and-jeans kinda gal?
Her: Well, you do dress a certain way, Drey. Actually, you dress like an emo boy.
Yahoo. Of course, a few days later, I was out for midnight smokes with L. and D. (at the 7Eleven, of all places) and another conversation went like this:
Me: I wish I weren't me today! (Face burried in hands in mock tears.)
L: That is such an emo boy thing to say!
Me: If I could draw, you know what I'd do? I'd make comic strip of this whole incident!
D: Yeah, that would be fun! Have somebody draw it for you!
L: Yeah, but the last panel's got to be that emo-boy moment: "I wish I weren't me today!" with your face in your hands.
(Laughter. Even I had to laugh. Even the guy eavesdropping to that conversation had to laugh.)
Yup, I guess the verdict is in. And guess what? I found this on the net. Knock yourself out.
*****
I was down with vertigo twice (yes, twice!) the last week. Another thing to add to my useless-vertigo-knowledge: Never trust a mild attack. A more vicious one is just around the corner.
Weirder thing about it, though, was this: Last night, just before drifting off, I started singing in my head this Yuzu song "Itsuka" which was the one song (except for the Voltes V theme, of course) I could sing in Japanese, and sing well in karaoke. Perhaps coupled with vertigo, this somehow triggered some part of my subconscious, because I ended up dreaming a long train ride with my Japanese professor, and we were speaking in Japanese the whole time! I never knew I could speak Japanese like that! I mean, I was conscious of using words like hypertext (God, what were we talking about?!) but I was saying it like "haipaatekisto" which is how they'd say it. It was unbelievable!
In the morning/noon, I was puttering around my sister's apartment (raiding her fridge, actually), when I saw some yakisoba and chopsticks, and wham! To misquote Celine Dion, It All Came Back To Me Then. I told my sisters, but they didn't seem to appreciate its significance. I mean, listen to this:
Me: (Gasp! as I was opening the fridge) I dreamt about Hor-sensei last night! Oh my God! It was so weird. We were on a train, and we were talking in Japanese the whole time! It was crazy!
Sister: Who's Hori-sensei?
Hori-sensei, hontou ni gomen!!! m(_ _)m
*****
Monday, June 18, 2007
Happy Mondays at Mag:net Katipunan
I'm currently trancscribing and editing this interview with an author for an online journal--and I just remembered he said something like this:
"Performance poetry is having a great time because it has immediate effects and... it's partying, really."
Right on. So see you tonight at Mag:net Katipunan, you guys. Let's eat, drink and read poetry. For tomorrow... is Tuesday. And c'mon, there's no gate for this one.
*****
The following poets will read their works!
1. Ramil Digal Gulle
A two-time Palanca-winning poet, Ramil is the author of Textual Relations, recently published by UP Press.
2. Jamie Wilson
Jamie is a professional actor in theater and indie films, nominated for numerous Aliw Awards as well as for best actor in last year's Urian Awards for the Cinemalaya film, Bigtime. He has been doing spoken word poetry since the mid '90s in Old, Bohemian Malate.
3. Ingrid Reynolds
Is an Australian poet currently in the the country for hectic work, sublime art, and meditative Yoga classes.
4. Johanna Fernandez
Started writing poetry back when she was in 3rd year high school at St. Paul's, Pasig. She is currently a sophomore in the Ateneo and has sung with the Nictynasty band gigs in Magnet.
5. Yanna Verbo Acosta
Works as a performance poet with the collaborative group Project Ganymede, and has performed with several musicians such as Punnu Wasu of Sing India, Oz Arcilla (violin), Silverfilter (electronica), and percussion group Sruvaleh. She is part of the Electric Underground Collective which regularly performs at Cesare Syjuco’s exhibit openings.
6. Mikael De Lara Co
Kael is an M.A. Literature in Filipino student in the Ateneo and a published poet who's been to various National Writers Workshops in the country. He also plays the mean lead guitars for Los Chupacabras.
7. Keith Cortez
Was a recipient of the UST Ustetika awards for his poetry and co-edited the most recent issue of Dapitan.
8. Yol Jamendang
Yol is a bayaw teacher in the Ateneo's Filipino Department as well as a former fellow of the Ateneo Writers Workshop.
9. Angelo Suarez
Is a two-time Palanca-winning wasak poet with two books of poetry and a third one close to publication. His book, The Nymph of MTV, won for him the National Book Award.
10. Arkaye Kierulf
Is one of the youngest and most promising poets in the country. He was the winner of the 2005 Meritage Poetry Prize and his poems have appeared in various literary publications.
Other expected readers include Ken Ishikawa, Cos Zicarelli, Kash Avena, Corin Arenas, Lope Cui, Jr., Khavn Dela Cruz, Kenneth Magadia, Pancho Villanueva, and John Torres. Rising indie band Tabloid Lite jams in between.
*****
"..." said the fish underwater.
*****
Oh, and I can't believe I forgot. But this is the last one, I promise--until next season, anyway. Bring out LeBroom--it was a sweep!
UAAP next. Hahaha. Go Ateneo!
"Performance poetry is having a great time because it has immediate effects and... it's partying, really."
Right on. So see you tonight at Mag:net Katipunan, you guys. Let's eat, drink and read poetry. For tomorrow... is Tuesday. And c'mon, there's no gate for this one.
*****
The following poets will read their works!
1. Ramil Digal Gulle
A two-time Palanca-winning poet, Ramil is the author of Textual Relations, recently published by UP Press.
2. Jamie Wilson
Jamie is a professional actor in theater and indie films, nominated for numerous Aliw Awards as well as for best actor in last year's Urian Awards for the Cinemalaya film, Bigtime. He has been doing spoken word poetry since the mid '90s in Old, Bohemian Malate.
3. Ingrid Reynolds
Is an Australian poet currently in the the country for hectic work, sublime art, and meditative Yoga classes.
4. Johanna Fernandez
Started writing poetry back when she was in 3rd year high school at St. Paul's, Pasig. She is currently a sophomore in the Ateneo and has sung with the Nictynasty band gigs in Magnet.
5. Yanna Verbo Acosta
Works as a performance poet with the collaborative group Project Ganymede, and has performed with several musicians such as Punnu Wasu of Sing India, Oz Arcilla (violin), Silverfilter (electronica), and percussion group Sruvaleh. She is part of the Electric Underground Collective which regularly performs at Cesare Syjuco’s exhibit openings.
6. Mikael De Lara Co
Kael is an M.A. Literature in Filipino student in the Ateneo and a published poet who's been to various National Writers Workshops in the country. He also plays the mean lead guitars for Los Chupacabras.
7. Keith Cortez
Was a recipient of the UST Ustetika awards for his poetry and co-edited the most recent issue of Dapitan.
8. Yol Jamendang
Yol is a bayaw teacher in the Ateneo's Filipino Department as well as a former fellow of the Ateneo Writers Workshop.
9. Angelo Suarez
Is a two-time Palanca-winning wasak poet with two books of poetry and a third one close to publication. His book, The Nymph of MTV, won for him the National Book Award.
10. Arkaye Kierulf
Is one of the youngest and most promising poets in the country. He was the winner of the 2005 Meritage Poetry Prize and his poems have appeared in various literary publications.
Other expected readers include Ken Ishikawa, Cos Zicarelli, Kash Avena, Corin Arenas, Lope Cui, Jr., Khavn Dela Cruz, Kenneth Magadia, Pancho Villanueva, and John Torres. Rising indie band Tabloid Lite jams in between.
*****
"..." said the fish underwater.
*****
Oh, and I can't believe I forgot. But this is the last one, I promise--until next season, anyway. Bring out LeBroom--it was a sweep!
UAAP next. Hahaha. Go Ateneo!
Saturday, June 02, 2007
A Plumb-Crazy Story
(From Sunset Slope Realty Corporation File No. 2007-JO3739)
Trancript of complaint filed by Andorea Tehran (Tenant 205-X) of Unit 205, Sunset Slope Homes 3+1, A. Ebada Street, Yoyola Valley, Quezon City regarding a leaking sink (and other matters).
SUMMARY
On 31 May 2007, Andorea Tehran (from here on referred to as the Tenant) filed a Job Order (see attached copy JO3739A) with the Management of Sunset Slope Homes (from here on the Management) to have her sink fixed and a deadbolt installed on her front door.
The Management assigned plumber Jhaysohn Kuku (Contractual Employee # CE502, from here on CE502) for said job.
Fixing of the sink and installation of deadbolt began on 01 June 2007 (3:00 PM to 7:00PM) and finished 02 June 2007 (10:30 AM to 2:00 PM).
CHARGES
(1) Sink
Cost of fixing the sink was charged to the Management to be taken from previous occupant's deposit. (JO3739A falls under Article V Section 2 of contract, Regarding Job Orders Filed within 2 Months of Moving In.)
(2)Miscellaneous
aaa(a) Deadbolt--provided by Tenant.
aaa(b) Installation--Php 150.00
(3) Total
Charge to Tenant-- Php 150.00
REMARKS/COMPLICATIONS
(1) Sink
Pipes were fine, but sink had to be re-tiled and re-grouted.
(2) Deadbolt
N/A--"Very satisfactory."
(3) Others
On 02 June 2007, the Tenant complained to the Management (see attached complaint form # CF2326A) that CE502 used information found on the Job Order (JO3739A), specifically the Tenant's cellular phone number, and used it to harrass her the night of 01 June 2007. The tenant claims that "five minutes after he was out the door" CE502 started sending her somewhere around ten text messages, ranging from popular forwards, chain-text, jokes--"even picture messages!"--to the usual "polite" messages (e.g., "Ingat U", "TY", "Gudnyt", etc.). When the Tenant did not reply to the aforementioned texts, CE502 sent her load worth Php 30.00 (SMARM Economy Autoload), "even apologizing that it was all he could afford". Tenant says she felt "a bit guilty" after that, so she sent one message in reply, only to say that CE502 "shouldn't have done that but thank you". Tenant admits that she herself "shouldn't have" replied at all, but insisted that she felt "guilty". She further claims that her reply was never meant to be in any way interpreted as a form of encouragement--she was simply "very polite to the point of stupidity".
CE502 "obviously did not share this opinion" as he continued to send her messages until late at night, and even called her five times in succession. She never answered any of his calls, and claims she was very embarrassed by all this, as she had put her celphone in her pants' back pocket, and she felt she was "walking around Kupitanan Avenue with [her] ass ringing". Furthermore, since the job wasn't finished on the same night, she worried about how to deal with CE502 the next day. She insisted that her fear was "very valid" as she believes CE502 is "very familiar around lead pipes".
The Management later on called CE502 to the Main Office at the Sunset Slope Homes 3+0 Building, and met with him regarding the complaint. When asked about the Tenant's accusations, CE502 said he "couldn't understand what her problem was." He admitted to copying her celphone number with the express purpose of texting her, but firmly stated that he was just trying to be friendly since she lived alone, and was "pretty, and seemed to be nice". He added that the Tenant "even gave [him] a cigarette when [he] asked for one". He reiterated that he meant no harm, and that the tenant was just "lucky" as he had just availed of the SMARM Unilimited Text promo, and only decided to text her as "she just happened to be a SMARM user as well". CE502 also asserted that this whole incident wouldn't have occurred--"nor this meeting"--if the Tenant had been "say, a GLOB user instead". When asked about the SMARM load he had sent her, he shrugged and said that he bought the load with the tip she gave him, "so it was her money, really". When the meeting was wrapping up, CE502 added that "on second thought, [the Tenant] wasn't that pretty" and that she was a "boring textmate, anyway".
RESOLUTION
On 02 June 2007, the Management reprimanded CE502 for bothering the Tenant. The Management also apologized to the Tenant for CE502's behavior. The Tenant decided not to pursue the complaint further, as she was very satisfied with her "very new, very shiny deadbolt.. and oh yeah, the sink, too".
NOTES
A few days later, CE502 was hired again to fill out another job order for another occupant (Tenant 313-B, see copy of file 2007-JO3845) in a different building and there were no problems.
(Incidentally, Tenant 313-B is a STAR Cellular user.)
Trancript of complaint filed by Andorea Tehran (Tenant 205-X) of Unit 205, Sunset Slope Homes 3+1, A. Ebada Street, Yoyola Valley, Quezon City regarding a leaking sink (and other matters).
===Start of Transcription===
SUMMARY
On 31 May 2007, Andorea Tehran (from here on referred to as the Tenant) filed a Job Order (see attached copy JO3739A) with the Management of Sunset Slope Homes (from here on the Management) to have her sink fixed and a deadbolt installed on her front door.
The Management assigned plumber Jhaysohn Kuku (Contractual Employee # CE502, from here on CE502) for said job.
Fixing of the sink and installation of deadbolt began on 01 June 2007 (3:00 PM to 7:00PM) and finished 02 June 2007 (10:30 AM to 2:00 PM).
CHARGES
(1) Sink
Cost of fixing the sink was charged to the Management to be taken from previous occupant's deposit. (JO3739A falls under Article V Section 2 of contract, Regarding Job Orders Filed within 2 Months of Moving In.)
(2)Miscellaneous
aaa(a) Deadbolt--provided by Tenant.
aaa(b) Installation--Php 150.00
(3) Total
Charge to Tenant-- Php 150.00
REMARKS/COMPLICATIONS
(1) Sink
Pipes were fine, but sink had to be re-tiled and re-grouted.
(2) Deadbolt
N/A--"Very satisfactory."
(3) Others
On 02 June 2007, the Tenant complained to the Management (see attached complaint form # CF2326A) that CE502 used information found on the Job Order (JO3739A), specifically the Tenant's cellular phone number, and used it to harrass her the night of 01 June 2007. The tenant claims that "five minutes after he was out the door" CE502 started sending her somewhere around ten text messages, ranging from popular forwards, chain-text, jokes--"even picture messages!"--to the usual "polite" messages (e.g., "Ingat U", "TY", "Gudnyt", etc.). When the Tenant did not reply to the aforementioned texts, CE502 sent her load worth Php 30.00 (SMARM Economy Autoload), "even apologizing that it was all he could afford". Tenant says she felt "a bit guilty" after that, so she sent one message in reply, only to say that CE502 "shouldn't have done that but thank you". Tenant admits that she herself "shouldn't have" replied at all, but insisted that she felt "guilty". She further claims that her reply was never meant to be in any way interpreted as a form of encouragement--she was simply "very polite to the point of stupidity".
CE502 "obviously did not share this opinion" as he continued to send her messages until late at night, and even called her five times in succession. She never answered any of his calls, and claims she was very embarrassed by all this, as she had put her celphone in her pants' back pocket, and she felt she was "walking around Kupitanan Avenue with [her] ass ringing". Furthermore, since the job wasn't finished on the same night, she worried about how to deal with CE502 the next day. She insisted that her fear was "very valid" as she believes CE502 is "very familiar around lead pipes".
The Management later on called CE502 to the Main Office at the Sunset Slope Homes 3+0 Building, and met with him regarding the complaint. When asked about the Tenant's accusations, CE502 said he "couldn't understand what her problem was." He admitted to copying her celphone number with the express purpose of texting her, but firmly stated that he was just trying to be friendly since she lived alone, and was "pretty, and seemed to be nice". He added that the Tenant "even gave [him] a cigarette when [he] asked for one". He reiterated that he meant no harm, and that the tenant was just "lucky" as he had just availed of the SMARM Unilimited Text promo, and only decided to text her as "she just happened to be a SMARM user as well". CE502 also asserted that this whole incident wouldn't have occurred--"nor this meeting"--if the Tenant had been "say, a GLOB user instead". When asked about the SMARM load he had sent her, he shrugged and said that he bought the load with the tip she gave him, "so it was her money, really". When the meeting was wrapping up, CE502 added that "on second thought, [the Tenant] wasn't that pretty" and that she was a "boring textmate, anyway".
RESOLUTION
On 02 June 2007, the Management reprimanded CE502 for bothering the Tenant. The Management also apologized to the Tenant for CE502's behavior. The Tenant decided not to pursue the complaint further, as she was very satisfied with her "very new, very shiny deadbolt.. and oh yeah, the sink, too".
NOTES
A few days later, CE502 was hired again to fill out another job order for another occupant (Tenant 313-B, see copy of file 2007-JO3845) in a different building and there were no problems.
(Incidentally, Tenant 313-B is a STAR Cellular user.)
===nothing follows===
===End of Transcript===
===End of Transcript===
Thursday, May 31, 2007
Say it loud.
Go Spurs! Go!
Woohoo.
This is what I like about the Spurs. They're so dependable, so "boring", you don't even need to cheer for them anymore. You know what they should do, they know what they should do, and they just do it. No fuss, no flash. They had a chance to close Utah out at home, and they did. Simple as that.
Their starting five didn't even have to play in the fourth quarter.
That's how dependable they are. That "boring".
*****
This is what I don't like about the Spurs. They're so dependable, so "boring", nobody wants to bet against me anymore.
My poor friends who were loyal to the Suns in the 2nd round bet against me. Because of their (misplaced) loyalty, I was able to collect--actually some of you guys still owe me. Don't think I've forgotten!--enough money to have my nails done and got two whiskeys out of the deal as well. Now that no one wants to bet against me and my dependable, "boring" Spurs, I have to pay for my own mani-pedi. Dammit.
But. We are going to the NBA Finals. Sue-weet.
*****
Speaking of friends, I just remebered this from the comments to my post a few weeks back:
mikael said...
the spurs over the suns? mas mabilis ba ang slo-mo kaysa fast-forward? kumain ka na ba? naka-drugs ka ba?
eight beers on this one. or eighty. putcha, dalawang daliri. matalo magpapakalbo. spurs over suns? kurt "secret weeeeeeeeeh-pon" thomas will make duncan a non-factor. marion on ginobili. and, uh, rex chapman on parker. have you seen chapman lately? he can go 5 miles per hour and can lift, like, forty-seven pounds.
this'll be over faster than you can say "poetry reading sa mag:net sa lunes." itaga mo sa bato.
Ahem. Kael, kelan ka magpapakalbo? Since I've yet to collect my eight (or eighty) beers, puwede ba buhok mo na lang? Let's just say that could be my version of the finals trophy. Hahahahahaha.
I'm only half-kidding.
*****
God, am I mean? No, don't answer that. I prefer cocky. Arrogant. Hell, even "heartless bitch" works for me. Sometimes.
*****
Here's a poem I wrote a few years back and saw again recently. I didn't know I used to sound like this. Or could write like this. Now I feel my poetry is just too short, too angry, too held-in. I don't know. Here it is:
Anticipation
I sidestep sleep with the help
of coffee and cigarettes.
The latter rationed to last
until exhaustion overtakes caffeine--
or snow falls
come the wee hours of the morning.
The sky is an uninterrupted grey
of dense clouds--a convex, bulging
surface of unimaginable weight
which I pray it will release soon.
The night is silent--
Pregnant.
Expecting.
And I, ever impatient, look
to the window periodically, continually--
wiping mist-turned-droplets
off the glass pane,
hoping to see
a sprinkle of white flakes--
not quite solid, not quite liquid--
or a mountain-head mantled in white.
Though all I see is darkness and stillness,
a quiet like a cat crouching--
muscles tensed and hackles raised;
though the smattering of fluorescent
lights through my window
mock me with snowflake patterns
as streetlights expand in the mist,
I pray that it comes.
In stingy spurts that won’t settle
or a heavy blanket that will stifle
everything except the morning sun.
*****
This was written in Japan, anticipating my first snow-fall. Which with my luck, was falsely reported by the weather bureau and didn't come until, like, 2 weeks later.
Woohoo.
This is what I like about the Spurs. They're so dependable, so "boring", you don't even need to cheer for them anymore. You know what they should do, they know what they should do, and they just do it. No fuss, no flash. They had a chance to close Utah out at home, and they did. Simple as that.
Their starting five didn't even have to play in the fourth quarter.
That's how dependable they are. That "boring".
*****
This is what I don't like about the Spurs. They're so dependable, so "boring", nobody wants to bet against me anymore.
My poor friends who were loyal to the Suns in the 2nd round bet against me. Because of their (misplaced) loyalty, I was able to collect--actually some of you guys still owe me. Don't think I've forgotten!--enough money to have my nails done and got two whiskeys out of the deal as well. Now that no one wants to bet against me and my dependable, "boring" Spurs, I have to pay for my own mani-pedi. Dammit.
But. We are going to the NBA Finals. Sue-weet.
*****
Speaking of friends, I just remebered this from the comments to my post a few weeks back:
mikael said...
the spurs over the suns? mas mabilis ba ang slo-mo kaysa fast-forward? kumain ka na ba? naka-drugs ka ba?
eight beers on this one. or eighty. putcha, dalawang daliri. matalo magpapakalbo. spurs over suns? kurt "secret weeeeeeeeeh-pon" thomas will make duncan a non-factor. marion on ginobili. and, uh, rex chapman on parker. have you seen chapman lately? he can go 5 miles per hour and can lift, like, forty-seven pounds.
this'll be over faster than you can say "poetry reading sa mag:net sa lunes." itaga mo sa bato.
Ahem. Kael, kelan ka magpapakalbo? Since I've yet to collect my eight (or eighty) beers, puwede ba buhok mo na lang? Let's just say that could be my version of the finals trophy. Hahahahahaha.
I'm only half-kidding.
*****
God, am I mean? No, don't answer that. I prefer cocky. Arrogant. Hell, even "heartless bitch" works for me. Sometimes.
*****
Here's a poem I wrote a few years back and saw again recently. I didn't know I used to sound like this. Or could write like this. Now I feel my poetry is just too short, too angry, too held-in. I don't know. Here it is:
Anticipation
I sidestep sleep with the help
of coffee and cigarettes.
The latter rationed to last
until exhaustion overtakes caffeine--
or snow falls
come the wee hours of the morning.
The sky is an uninterrupted grey
of dense clouds--a convex, bulging
surface of unimaginable weight
which I pray it will release soon.
The night is silent--
Pregnant.
Expecting.
And I, ever impatient, look
to the window periodically, continually--
wiping mist-turned-droplets
off the glass pane,
hoping to see
a sprinkle of white flakes--
not quite solid, not quite liquid--
or a mountain-head mantled in white.
Though all I see is darkness and stillness,
a quiet like a cat crouching--
muscles tensed and hackles raised;
though the smattering of fluorescent
lights through my window
mock me with snowflake patterns
as streetlights expand in the mist,
I pray that it comes.
In stingy spurts that won’t settle
or a heavy blanket that will stifle
everything except the morning sun.
*****
This was written in Japan, anticipating my first snow-fall. Which with my luck, was falsely reported by the weather bureau and didn't come until, like, 2 weeks later.
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
Sex sells. Sex kills. Sex change.
And this is the part of the story where we discover something big, and I mean big, about the author:
Drey is a tomboy.
No, I don't mean lesbian. I mean tomboy. But we'll get to the lesbian part sooner or later.
So here's what happened.
I got a text from a friend today. Here's the conversation:
Him: Who won Miss Universe?
Me: God, I don't know. But the Spurs won 91-79...
And it hits me. Am I supposed to know these things because I'm a girl? I had to text a gay friend to ask who won the pageant, as I found myself embarrassed not knowing.
I remember another gay friend's criteria for finding out if a guy is gay or not, and believe me, it is quite fool-proof:
1. Must know Miss Universe winners, current and until maybe 10 years back.
2. Must know Oscar winners in major categories, current and maybe until 5 years back.
3. I forget--but definitely nothing about knowing who won the NBA finals, current and maybe until 10 years back.
And I start to remember all sorts of things:
1. My Turnabout poem mentioned basketball, rock music and bicycles. You remember that really cheesy song a few years back about a Dad-daughter moment with something like butterfly kisses on her hair or something? Boy, that was totally alien to me.
2. I was talking to another guy once about boxing. Out of nowhere, he goes: "How do you know all these things? I feel like I'm talking to a guy here." What do you answer to that?
3. Doesn't help too that my nickname is Drey, which many people think is a guy's name. Not that Andrea is an improvement, especially if I finally get to go to Europe. Oh, and when I was applying to that scholarship in Japan, my professor kept addressing his correspondence to a Mr. A. Teran. That's my dad, man!
4. Oh yeah! In college, I had really short hair. Every time I'd enter the MacDonald's in Katipunan, shouts of Good Afternoon, Sir! would greet me. I turn around, nobody but moi.
5. Once I watched a Red Bull-San Miguel game at Araneta Center. I was rooting for San Miguel, but happened to sit near a bunch of Red Bull fans--98 percent male. Anyway, San Mig gets a bad call from the ref, and I scream--Tangina, ref, bulag ka ba?! All the guys were looking at me and everyone on that side was quiet--I think it was a deer-in-the-crosshairs moment there for a minute. Until one old guy shouts--Ref, patingin mo daw mata mo, sabi nya! I breathe the biggest sigh of relief ever.
So what now?
Conclusion: Drea isn't only not-Filipino-at-all. She's not even a girl!!! Wow, talk about a major crisis.
*****
Now for the interesting part.
***
(Note: For those of you who have read J.D. Salinger's For Esme--with Love and Squalor, you remember the "squalor" part of the story, where the initial narrator changes or is changed into somebody totally alien, unrecognizable, and from an I to a third person? Well, assume that shift before reading the story below.
And just to be sure, can a piece of creative non fiction be used as evidence in court? Lawyer friends, get back to me on this.)
***
Before my best friend left me for Japan, we went to gigs together. Whenever we meet anybody at a bar, first question they ask is, "Are you sisters?" When we answer no, they follow up immediately with, "Lovers, then?"
Once we were crazy enough to answer yes, and pretended to flirt with each other. Boy, was that a hit. This guy was almost drooling, asking if we could kiss in front of him. My best friend answers, "You can't afford it." He just kept begging most of the night.
Just before we were about to leave, he tells me to hold out my hand. I do, and he places something in it before closing my hand into a fist. I ask him what it is, he answers, "Look later."
So I get into the cab after my best friend, and I open my palm. For being fake lesbians who will never, ever kiss--in front of guys or not, or for any amount of money (Wait... Hmmm.)--we were quite convincing, apparently. I was holding a fistful of pot.
Sweet.
Drey is a tomboy.
No, I don't mean lesbian. I mean tomboy. But we'll get to the lesbian part sooner or later.
So here's what happened.
I got a text from a friend today. Here's the conversation:
Him: Who won Miss Universe?
Me: God, I don't know. But the Spurs won 91-79...
And it hits me. Am I supposed to know these things because I'm a girl? I had to text a gay friend to ask who won the pageant, as I found myself embarrassed not knowing.
I remember another gay friend's criteria for finding out if a guy is gay or not, and believe me, it is quite fool-proof:
1. Must know Miss Universe winners, current and until maybe 10 years back.
2. Must know Oscar winners in major categories, current and maybe until 5 years back.
3. I forget--but definitely nothing about knowing who won the NBA finals, current and maybe until 10 years back.
And I start to remember all sorts of things:
1. My Turnabout poem mentioned basketball, rock music and bicycles. You remember that really cheesy song a few years back about a Dad-daughter moment with something like butterfly kisses on her hair or something? Boy, that was totally alien to me.
2. I was talking to another guy once about boxing. Out of nowhere, he goes: "How do you know all these things? I feel like I'm talking to a guy here." What do you answer to that?
3. Doesn't help too that my nickname is Drey, which many people think is a guy's name. Not that Andrea is an improvement, especially if I finally get to go to Europe. Oh, and when I was applying to that scholarship in Japan, my professor kept addressing his correspondence to a Mr. A. Teran. That's my dad, man!
4. Oh yeah! In college, I had really short hair. Every time I'd enter the MacDonald's in Katipunan, shouts of Good Afternoon, Sir! would greet me. I turn around, nobody but moi.
5. Once I watched a Red Bull-San Miguel game at Araneta Center. I was rooting for San Miguel, but happened to sit near a bunch of Red Bull fans--98 percent male. Anyway, San Mig gets a bad call from the ref, and I scream--Tangina, ref, bulag ka ba?! All the guys were looking at me and everyone on that side was quiet--I think it was a deer-in-the-crosshairs moment there for a minute. Until one old guy shouts--Ref, patingin mo daw mata mo, sabi nya! I breathe the biggest sigh of relief ever.
So what now?
Conclusion: Drea isn't only not-Filipino-at-all. She's not even a girl!!! Wow, talk about a major crisis.
*****
Now for the interesting part.
***
(Note: For those of you who have read J.D. Salinger's For Esme--with Love and Squalor, you remember the "squalor" part of the story, where the initial narrator changes or is changed into somebody totally alien, unrecognizable, and from an I to a third person? Well, assume that shift before reading the story below.
And just to be sure, can a piece of creative non fiction be used as evidence in court? Lawyer friends, get back to me on this.)
***
Before my best friend left me for Japan, we went to gigs together. Whenever we meet anybody at a bar, first question they ask is, "Are you sisters?" When we answer no, they follow up immediately with, "Lovers, then?"
Once we were crazy enough to answer yes, and pretended to flirt with each other. Boy, was that a hit. This guy was almost drooling, asking if we could kiss in front of him. My best friend answers, "You can't afford it." He just kept begging most of the night.
Just before we were about to leave, he tells me to hold out my hand. I do, and he places something in it before closing my hand into a fist. I ask him what it is, he answers, "Look later."
So I get into the cab after my best friend, and I open my palm. For being fake lesbians who will never, ever kiss--in front of guys or not, or for any amount of money (Wait... Hmmm.)--we were quite convincing, apparently. I was holding a fistful of pot.
Sweet.
Monday, May 28, 2007
Four Haiku: Summer
aaa1
Shimmering, a mirage
Over my path ahead,
The heat relentless.
Warm wet air alone
Embraces me at night.
It is almost cold.
Here, waters refuse
To turn to ice.
Fluid like memory of pain.
Suddenly, a crack
Sky opens with rain.
Shivering, I remember.
*****
Well, maybe it isn't completely free of the "relationship" tinge--what can you do, eh?
Shimmering, a mirage
Over my path ahead,
The heat relentless.
Warm wet air alone
Embraces me at night.
It is almost cold.
Here, waters refuse
To turn to ice.
Fluid like memory of pain.
Suddenly, a crack
Sky opens with rain.
Shivering, I remember.
*****
Well, maybe it isn't completely free of the "relationship" tinge--what can you do, eh?
Sunday, May 27, 2007
When it rains, it pours.
Dear colleagues,
Today I stand in front of you, honored to be invited to speak in front of so many I respect and admire, to present my new theory.
As we all know, the scientific method is simply a step-by-step procedure in answering questions. We gather data by observing the world around us, perhaps by noticing patterns or cause-and-effect relationships. Then we formulate hypotheses from these observations and then work on experiments to prove or disprove them.
This proposal I present today, however, is a product of observation alone--no experiments have been done yet--but its occurrence has been so consistent in the past few years, that I was actually quite perplexed to find that this theory has not been proposed before. I suppose, I would like to to ask for your help as well in verifying these observations. Ladies in the audience, I appeal to you specifically.
The paper I am presenting today is on a theory I like to call "Theory of Multiple Portions". Yes, yes--I have anticipated your objections--ladies and gentlemen, please hear me out. I know it sounds too much like The Law of Multiple Proportions or Dalton's Law as we like to call it, and it is for this reason alone that I have refused to even consider calling it "Dr. Drey's Theory" --although I have to admit, I wish to be remembered as its proponent. To top it all, it has something to do with chemistry as well--physical chemistry, as a matter of fact.
Now, let us get back to the topic at hand. This theory states simply that:
The only thing a girl needs to get laid, is to be already getting laid.
Gentlemen, please! Ladies, I see that I have your full attention. Now, ladies, I am sure you have noticed that unless we have steady partners, people expect us to be chaste--and chased I might add--and when we do choose to have some casual, recreational intercourse, the men expect us--with a certain dread of course, but expect us nonetheless--to act like some version of Glenn Close in that movie, Fatal Attraction.
(Just a side note: I have written a rather extensive paper on how that movie, Fatal Attraction, has fatally reduced women's chances of getting equal treatment as players in the field of sexual intercourse. This has been published in the 16 December 2006 issue of Nature Volume 666 Number 5243, should you like to read on it some more.)
This expectation of women to act like raging lunatics after one night of sex has always fascinated men, and although I grant that they don't look forward to its realization in their own lives, there is a certain fantasizing that it happens at least once--a kind of validation, if you will.
How is this related to my theory? As women have evolved over the years after that movie, we have taken two options in response to it: (1) have sex only when we are in a monogamous relationship; (2) have sex like a man, i.e., one-night stands, fuck buddies, etc.
However, having "sex like a man" is not as easy for women as it sounds, especially in this country--am I right, ladies? Sadly, we have learned that, simply because a woman is open-minded about sex, it doesn't necessarily mean that the men are open-minded about these open-minded women. There is no direct proportionality to this relationship.
Therefore, women have come to understand that even though the choice of sex is up to them, it doesn't necessarily mean bed partners left and right of the equation. Thus, such common observations as, "When it rains, it pours" for the lucky ones, and the comfort of a book on the bedside for those who aren't--studies show that Liwayway Arceo's "Uhaw ang Tigang na Lupa" is a favorite among the unlucky group.
I suppose given this disparity--multiple portions or nothing at all--the next step should be to test hormonal reactions of women in the two groups. Questions like, "Does the lucky group give off more pheromones than the other?" arise. Of course since we are studying two groups which can be designated as ones and zeroes (strictly in terms of haves/have-nots, I mean), there would have to be two control groups as well to properly ascertain significant differences in the result. For these, I propose virgins as control for the zeroes and pros for the ones.
Of course, I am getting ahead of myself here. I understand that my purpose here today is simply to present this theory, and ultimately to ask for help in formulating an experimental method to test it.
Ladies and gentlemen--where have the men gone?--anyway, ladies, thank you for your kind attention.
*****
The text above is a transcript of Dr. Drey's speech and proposal presented to the Physical Chemistry: Modern Problems conference, 24 - 26 May 2007, in various venues in Quezon City, Philippines.
Today I stand in front of you, honored to be invited to speak in front of so many I respect and admire, to present my new theory.
As we all know, the scientific method is simply a step-by-step procedure in answering questions. We gather data by observing the world around us, perhaps by noticing patterns or cause-and-effect relationships. Then we formulate hypotheses from these observations and then work on experiments to prove or disprove them.
This proposal I present today, however, is a product of observation alone--no experiments have been done yet--but its occurrence has been so consistent in the past few years, that I was actually quite perplexed to find that this theory has not been proposed before. I suppose, I would like to to ask for your help as well in verifying these observations. Ladies in the audience, I appeal to you specifically.
The paper I am presenting today is on a theory I like to call "Theory of Multiple Portions". Yes, yes--I have anticipated your objections--ladies and gentlemen, please hear me out. I know it sounds too much like The Law of Multiple Proportions or Dalton's Law as we like to call it, and it is for this reason alone that I have refused to even consider calling it "Dr. Drey's Theory" --although I have to admit, I wish to be remembered as its proponent. To top it all, it has something to do with chemistry as well--physical chemistry, as a matter of fact.
Now, let us get back to the topic at hand. This theory states simply that:
The only thing a girl needs to get laid, is to be already getting laid.
Gentlemen, please! Ladies, I see that I have your full attention. Now, ladies, I am sure you have noticed that unless we have steady partners, people expect us to be chaste--and chased I might add--and when we do choose to have some casual, recreational intercourse, the men expect us--with a certain dread of course, but expect us nonetheless--to act like some version of Glenn Close in that movie, Fatal Attraction.
(Just a side note: I have written a rather extensive paper on how that movie, Fatal Attraction, has fatally reduced women's chances of getting equal treatment as players in the field of sexual intercourse. This has been published in the 16 December 2006 issue of Nature Volume 666 Number 5243, should you like to read on it some more.)
This expectation of women to act like raging lunatics after one night of sex has always fascinated men, and although I grant that they don't look forward to its realization in their own lives, there is a certain fantasizing that it happens at least once--a kind of validation, if you will.
How is this related to my theory? As women have evolved over the years after that movie, we have taken two options in response to it: (1) have sex only when we are in a monogamous relationship; (2) have sex like a man, i.e., one-night stands, fuck buddies, etc.
However, having "sex like a man" is not as easy for women as it sounds, especially in this country--am I right, ladies? Sadly, we have learned that, simply because a woman is open-minded about sex, it doesn't necessarily mean that the men are open-minded about these open-minded women. There is no direct proportionality to this relationship.
Therefore, women have come to understand that even though the choice of sex is up to them, it doesn't necessarily mean bed partners left and right of the equation. Thus, such common observations as, "When it rains, it pours" for the lucky ones, and the comfort of a book on the bedside for those who aren't--studies show that Liwayway Arceo's "Uhaw ang Tigang na Lupa" is a favorite among the unlucky group.
I suppose given this disparity--multiple portions or nothing at all--the next step should be to test hormonal reactions of women in the two groups. Questions like, "Does the lucky group give off more pheromones than the other?" arise. Of course since we are studying two groups which can be designated as ones and zeroes (strictly in terms of haves/have-nots, I mean), there would have to be two control groups as well to properly ascertain significant differences in the result. For these, I propose virgins as control for the zeroes and pros for the ones.
Of course, I am getting ahead of myself here. I understand that my purpose here today is simply to present this theory, and ultimately to ask for help in formulating an experimental method to test it.
Ladies and gentlemen--where have the men gone?--anyway, ladies, thank you for your kind attention.
*****
The text above is a transcript of Dr. Drey's speech and proposal presented to the Physical Chemistry: Modern Problems conference, 24 - 26 May 2007, in various venues in Quezon City, Philippines.
Monday, May 21, 2007
Happy Mondays never get me down.
Happy Mondays Poetry Nights in Mag:net Katipunan
Please come! No entrance fee, reading is from 7 to 930pm. Featured Readers are:
1. Khavn dela Cruz
Khavn is a two-time Palanca-winner, celebrated filmmaker, frontman of the bands Delakrus and The Brockas.
2. Edgar Samar
Egay is the recipient of the 2006 NCCA Writers Prize grant for the novel. A winner of Palanca awards, Egay has a book of poetry, Pag-aabang sa Kundiman, published by theateneo ORP.
3. Gabriela Lee
Gabby is a published poet and fictionist. She ispursuing her masters in the National University of Singapore (NUS). Her first collection of poems, Disturbing the Universe, was published through the NCCA's UBOD new authors' series.
4. Raymond John de Borja
A member of Pinoy Poets, Emong was the youngest fellow in the 45th U.P. National Writers Workshop. His works have appeared in various literary publications, including Caracoa 2006.
5. Niccolo Vitug
Nikko was a fellow of the 44th National WritersWorkshop in Dumaguete, a former literature teacher in Silliman University, and was a former member of the Ateneo's Heights.
6. Mike Coroza
Isang batikang makata sa Filipino si Prof. Mike Coroza. He has won many awards in various categories of the Palanca. He hosts a radio show, Harana ng Puso, every sunday over at DWBR 104.3 FM.
7. Alex Gregorio
Alex is a member of High Chair and has published collection entitled, The Rosegun. He was a fellow of the Dumaguete National Writers Workshop.
8. Mookie Katigbak
Mookie won the first prize in the recent Philippines Free Press Literary Awards. She's won a Palanca for her poetry as well, and is a widely published author both here and abroad. She has an MFA from the New School University in NY.
9. JR Moll
JR is a science course graduate of the ateneo, an adopted member of the Thomasian Writers' Guild, and one of themost underrated poets in the country.
10. Lope Cui, Jr.
Lope is an up and coming poet who holds an MBA degree from the UP and a professor of Miriam College. He is the vocalist of rising new indie, slow-core band,Tabloid Lite.
11. Angelo Suárez
Gelo is a two-time Palanca winner for poetry, already with two collections from the UST press: The Nymph of MTV and else it was purely girls. He was a winner of the National Book Award and is currently working on his third book, Dissonant Umbrellas.
*****
Former featured readers who'll read include Mikael De Lara Co, Peachy Paderna, Jonar Sabilano, Arkaye Kierulf, and Rafael San Diego. Hosting the reading will be Joel Toledo and myself. Please come and support us. If you feel like reading for the open mic, bring 1 to 2 poems.
*****
And calling too, the people who owe me liquor money for not rooting for the Spurs! Hahaha! I'm collecting tonight. Thanks in advance for buying me drinks, you guys.
Please come! No entrance fee, reading is from 7 to 930pm. Featured Readers are:
1. Khavn dela Cruz
Khavn is a two-time Palanca-winner, celebrated filmmaker, frontman of the bands Delakrus and The Brockas.
2. Edgar Samar
Egay is the recipient of the 2006 NCCA Writers Prize grant for the novel. A winner of Palanca awards, Egay has a book of poetry, Pag-aabang sa Kundiman, published by theateneo ORP.
3. Gabriela Lee
Gabby is a published poet and fictionist. She ispursuing her masters in the National University of Singapore (NUS). Her first collection of poems, Disturbing the Universe, was published through the NCCA's UBOD new authors' series.
4. Raymond John de Borja
A member of Pinoy Poets, Emong was the youngest fellow in the 45th U.P. National Writers Workshop. His works have appeared in various literary publications, including Caracoa 2006.
5. Niccolo Vitug
Nikko was a fellow of the 44th National WritersWorkshop in Dumaguete, a former literature teacher in Silliman University, and was a former member of the Ateneo's Heights.
6. Mike Coroza
Isang batikang makata sa Filipino si Prof. Mike Coroza. He has won many awards in various categories of the Palanca. He hosts a radio show, Harana ng Puso, every sunday over at DWBR 104.3 FM.
7. Alex Gregorio
Alex is a member of High Chair and has published collection entitled, The Rosegun. He was a fellow of the Dumaguete National Writers Workshop.
8. Mookie Katigbak
Mookie won the first prize in the recent Philippines Free Press Literary Awards. She's won a Palanca for her poetry as well, and is a widely published author both here and abroad. She has an MFA from the New School University in NY.
9. JR Moll
JR is a science course graduate of the ateneo, an adopted member of the Thomasian Writers' Guild, and one of themost underrated poets in the country.
10. Lope Cui, Jr.
Lope is an up and coming poet who holds an MBA degree from the UP and a professor of Miriam College. He is the vocalist of rising new indie, slow-core band,Tabloid Lite.
11. Angelo Suárez
Gelo is a two-time Palanca winner for poetry, already with two collections from the UST press: The Nymph of MTV and else it was purely girls. He was a winner of the National Book Award and is currently working on his third book, Dissonant Umbrellas.
*****
Former featured readers who'll read include Mikael De Lara Co, Peachy Paderna, Jonar Sabilano, Arkaye Kierulf, and Rafael San Diego. Hosting the reading will be Joel Toledo and myself. Please come and support us. If you feel like reading for the open mic, bring 1 to 2 poems.
*****
And calling too, the people who owe me liquor money for not rooting for the Spurs! Hahaha! I'm collecting tonight. Thanks in advance for buying me drinks, you guys.
Sunday, May 13, 2007
Who could resist?
Duncan is wildly underrated
By Bill Simmons
Page 2
Editor's note: This column appears in the May 18 issue of ESPN The Magazine.
My father visited me last weekend for two reasons: He wanted to see his granddaughter, and he wanted to finalize his will in case he drops in a heap after David Stern says these words: "The third pick of the 2007 draft goes to ... the Boston Celtics." At one point during Dad's visit, I was discussing possible column topics for the issue you're currently reading. Tim Duncan's name came up.
"Would you read a column about how underrated Tim Duncan is?" I asked.
Dad made a face. He played with his hair. He seemed confused. "A whole column on Tim Duncan?"
"You wouldn't read it?" I continued.
"I don't think so. I'd see the headline, skim the first two paragraphs and flip to the next article."
"Seriously? He's the best player of the past 10 years!"
"Nahhhhhhh," Dad maintained. "Nobody wants to read about Tim Duncan. He's not that interesting."
Duncan's prowess has been a sore subject with my dad and me since the 1997 lottery, when our beloved Celtics had a 36% chance to land the No. 1 pick, and San Antonio plucked it away. Helplessly, we've watched him carry the Spurs to three titles, a number that could have been five if not for Derek Fisher's miracle shot in 2004 and Manu Ginobili's stupid foul of Dirk Nowitzki last season. No Celtics fan can assess Duncan's career for more than .21 seconds without remembering he could have been ours. With the franchise facing another make-or-break Ping-Pong moment on May 22, it's safe to say that not getting Duncan set the Celtics back 10 years.
But what did we really miss besides a slew of 58-win seasons and a few titles? Well, the chance to follow the most consistent superstar in recent NBA history, for starters. Duncan's averages from his first year (21.1 ppg, 11.9 rpg, 2.7 apg, 2.5 bpg, 55% shooting, 39.1 mpg, 2,967,840 USD*) are nearly identical to those of his just completed 10th (20.0 ppg, 10.6 rpg, 3.4 apg, 2.4 bpg, 55% shooting, 34.1 mpg, 17,429,672 USD* ). His placid demeanor hasn't changed even a little; he looks exactly the same. His trademark 15-foot banker off the glass hasn't changed. Nearly 900 regular-season and playoff games have worn down his legs a little but not much, and he's made up for the erosion with an ever-expanding hoops IQ. If there's a major difference between the 1998 Duncan and the 2007 Duncan, it's his defense. He's gotten better and better as the years have passed, not just as a help defender but as an overall communicator.
Whenever I watch the Spurs in person, that's the first thing I notice: how well they talk on defense. It's a friendly, competitive chatter, like five buddies maintaining a running dialogue at a blackjack table as they try to figure out ways to bust the dealer. Duncan is the hub of it all, the oversize big brother who looks out for everyone else. During breaks in the action, you can always count on him to throw an arm around a teammate before dispensing advice or to wave everyone over for an impromptu pep talk. He's their defensive anchor, smartest player, emotional leader, crunch-time scorer and most competitive gamer, one of those rare superstars who simply can't be measured by statistics alone. Fifty years from now, some stat geek will crunch numbers from Duncan's era and come to the conclusion that Kevin Garnett was just as good. And he'll be wrong. No NBA team that featured a healthy Duncan would have missed the playoffs for three straight years. It's an impossibility.
Now ...
I'm not a fan of the whole overrated/underrated thing. With so many TV and radio shows, columnists, bloggers and educated sports fans around, it's nearly impossible for anything to be rated improperly anymore. Everyone is constantly searching for fresh topics to dissect, so could anything slip under the radar at this point? Think back to when Duncan entered the league: The web was still rounding into shape, sportswriters weren't screaming at each other on TV, radio hosts were confined to talking about their local teams and everyone read their local columnists. That's it. Ten years later, a hyperactive sports world means that, if anything, underrated players (like Ben Wallace, for instance) quickly become overrated because everyone spends so much time discussing how underrated they are. Well, I say Tim Duncan is underrated. You know what else? He's wildly underrated.
Assuming the Spurs win the 2007 title and Duncan captures his fourth Finals MVP award (both decent bets), his first professional decade will have concluded with four rings, two regular-season MVP awards and nine first-team All-NBA nods. His best teammates have been David Robinson (who turned 33 in Duncan's rookie year), Manu Ginobili (never a top-15 player) and Tony Parker (ditto). In fact, Duncan has never played for a dominant team; the Spurs have never had quite enough talent to roll through the league. Trapped at the top of the standings, they've been forced to rely on others' failed lottery picks, foreign rookies, journeymen and head cases with baggage. Zoom through San Antonio's past 10 rosters on basketball-reference.com some time. You'll be shocked. Tim Duncan has never played on a great basketball team. Not once.
So how can he remain underrated? For one thing, he's always had a little too much Pete Sampras in him. Even last month, when Joey Crawford tossed Duncan for laughing on the bench, everyone seemed most shocked that Duncan was the guy involved. It was like watching an AP history teacher flip out on an honors student who never speaks in class. Duncan certainly doesn't have Shaq's sense of humor, Kobe's singular intensity, KG's menacing demeanor, LeBron's jaw-dropping athleticism, Wade's knack for self-promotion, Nash's fan-friendly skills or even Dirk's fist pump. If there's a defining Duncan quality, it's the way he bulges his eyes in disbelief after every call that goes against him, a grating habit that was old about five years ago. The other "problem" has been his steadfast consistency. If you keep banging out great seasons with none standing out more than any other, who's going to notice?
There's a precedent for this: Once upon a time, Harrison Ford pumped out monster hits for 15 solid years before everyone suddenly noticed, "Wait a second, Harrison Ford is unquestionably the biggest movie star of his generation!" From 1977 to 1992, Ford starred in three Star Wars movies, three Indiana Jones movies, Blade Runner, Working Girl, Witness, Presumed Innocent and Patriot Games ... but it wasn't until he carried The Fugitive that everyone realized he was more bankable than Stallone, Reynolds, Eastwood, Cruise, Costner, Schwarzenegger and every other competitor from that time. As with Duncan, we didn't know much about Ford outside of his work. As with Duncan, there wasn't anything inherently interesting about him. But Ford always delivered the goods and, eventually, we appreciated him for it.
I think we'll say the same about Duncan someday. Over the past 10 years, he's been overshadowed by Kobe and Shaq, LeBron and Wade, Nash and Kidd, Nowitzki and KG, even C-Webb and Iverson ... and yet, Tim Duncan was better than all of them.
Just wait, he'll have his Fugitive moment. It's coming. Maybe even next month.
*****
*PS. Salary data my own input. Obviously, not everything is identical, or underrated. From basketball-reference.com. Hehe.
*****
2-1 Spurs. Game 4 in San Antonio. See you Tuesday. As Tim Duncan said, some "comments" were said between games, but, we'll talk about that some other time.
*****
Yun lang po. Bow.
By Bill Simmons
Page 2
Editor's note: This column appears in the May 18 issue of ESPN The Magazine.
My father visited me last weekend for two reasons: He wanted to see his granddaughter, and he wanted to finalize his will in case he drops in a heap after David Stern says these words: "The third pick of the 2007 draft goes to ... the Boston Celtics." At one point during Dad's visit, I was discussing possible column topics for the issue you're currently reading. Tim Duncan's name came up.
"Would you read a column about how underrated Tim Duncan is?" I asked.
Dad made a face. He played with his hair. He seemed confused. "A whole column on Tim Duncan?"
"You wouldn't read it?" I continued.
"I don't think so. I'd see the headline, skim the first two paragraphs and flip to the next article."
"Seriously? He's the best player of the past 10 years!"
"Nahhhhhhh," Dad maintained. "Nobody wants to read about Tim Duncan. He's not that interesting."
Duncan's prowess has been a sore subject with my dad and me since the 1997 lottery, when our beloved Celtics had a 36% chance to land the No. 1 pick, and San Antonio plucked it away. Helplessly, we've watched him carry the Spurs to three titles, a number that could have been five if not for Derek Fisher's miracle shot in 2004 and Manu Ginobili's stupid foul of Dirk Nowitzki last season. No Celtics fan can assess Duncan's career for more than .21 seconds without remembering he could have been ours. With the franchise facing another make-or-break Ping-Pong moment on May 22, it's safe to say that not getting Duncan set the Celtics back 10 years.
But what did we really miss besides a slew of 58-win seasons and a few titles? Well, the chance to follow the most consistent superstar in recent NBA history, for starters. Duncan's averages from his first year (21.1 ppg, 11.9 rpg, 2.7 apg, 2.5 bpg, 55% shooting, 39.1 mpg, 2,967,840 USD*) are nearly identical to those of his just completed 10th (20.0 ppg, 10.6 rpg, 3.4 apg, 2.4 bpg, 55% shooting, 34.1 mpg, 17,429,672 USD* ). His placid demeanor hasn't changed even a little; he looks exactly the same. His trademark 15-foot banker off the glass hasn't changed. Nearly 900 regular-season and playoff games have worn down his legs a little but not much, and he's made up for the erosion with an ever-expanding hoops IQ. If there's a major difference between the 1998 Duncan and the 2007 Duncan, it's his defense. He's gotten better and better as the years have passed, not just as a help defender but as an overall communicator.
Whenever I watch the Spurs in person, that's the first thing I notice: how well they talk on defense. It's a friendly, competitive chatter, like five buddies maintaining a running dialogue at a blackjack table as they try to figure out ways to bust the dealer. Duncan is the hub of it all, the oversize big brother who looks out for everyone else. During breaks in the action, you can always count on him to throw an arm around a teammate before dispensing advice or to wave everyone over for an impromptu pep talk. He's their defensive anchor, smartest player, emotional leader, crunch-time scorer and most competitive gamer, one of those rare superstars who simply can't be measured by statistics alone. Fifty years from now, some stat geek will crunch numbers from Duncan's era and come to the conclusion that Kevin Garnett was just as good. And he'll be wrong. No NBA team that featured a healthy Duncan would have missed the playoffs for three straight years. It's an impossibility.
Now ...
I'm not a fan of the whole overrated/underrated thing. With so many TV and radio shows, columnists, bloggers and educated sports fans around, it's nearly impossible for anything to be rated improperly anymore. Everyone is constantly searching for fresh topics to dissect, so could anything slip under the radar at this point? Think back to when Duncan entered the league: The web was still rounding into shape, sportswriters weren't screaming at each other on TV, radio hosts were confined to talking about their local teams and everyone read their local columnists. That's it. Ten years later, a hyperactive sports world means that, if anything, underrated players (like Ben Wallace, for instance) quickly become overrated because everyone spends so much time discussing how underrated they are. Well, I say Tim Duncan is underrated. You know what else? He's wildly underrated.
Assuming the Spurs win the 2007 title and Duncan captures his fourth Finals MVP award (both decent bets), his first professional decade will have concluded with four rings, two regular-season MVP awards and nine first-team All-NBA nods. His best teammates have been David Robinson (who turned 33 in Duncan's rookie year), Manu Ginobili (never a top-15 player) and Tony Parker (ditto). In fact, Duncan has never played for a dominant team; the Spurs have never had quite enough talent to roll through the league. Trapped at the top of the standings, they've been forced to rely on others' failed lottery picks, foreign rookies, journeymen and head cases with baggage. Zoom through San Antonio's past 10 rosters on basketball-reference.com some time. You'll be shocked. Tim Duncan has never played on a great basketball team. Not once.
So how can he remain underrated? For one thing, he's always had a little too much Pete Sampras in him. Even last month, when Joey Crawford tossed Duncan for laughing on the bench, everyone seemed most shocked that Duncan was the guy involved. It was like watching an AP history teacher flip out on an honors student who never speaks in class. Duncan certainly doesn't have Shaq's sense of humor, Kobe's singular intensity, KG's menacing demeanor, LeBron's jaw-dropping athleticism, Wade's knack for self-promotion, Nash's fan-friendly skills or even Dirk's fist pump. If there's a defining Duncan quality, it's the way he bulges his eyes in disbelief after every call that goes against him, a grating habit that was old about five years ago. The other "problem" has been his steadfast consistency. If you keep banging out great seasons with none standing out more than any other, who's going to notice?
There's a precedent for this: Once upon a time, Harrison Ford pumped out monster hits for 15 solid years before everyone suddenly noticed, "Wait a second, Harrison Ford is unquestionably the biggest movie star of his generation!" From 1977 to 1992, Ford starred in three Star Wars movies, three Indiana Jones movies, Blade Runner, Working Girl, Witness, Presumed Innocent and Patriot Games ... but it wasn't until he carried The Fugitive that everyone realized he was more bankable than Stallone, Reynolds, Eastwood, Cruise, Costner, Schwarzenegger and every other competitor from that time. As with Duncan, we didn't know much about Ford outside of his work. As with Duncan, there wasn't anything inherently interesting about him. But Ford always delivered the goods and, eventually, we appreciated him for it.
I think we'll say the same about Duncan someday. Over the past 10 years, he's been overshadowed by Kobe and Shaq, LeBron and Wade, Nash and Kidd, Nowitzki and KG, even C-Webb and Iverson ... and yet, Tim Duncan was better than all of them.
Just wait, he'll have his Fugitive moment. It's coming. Maybe even next month.
*****
*PS. Salary data my own input. Obviously, not everything is identical, or underrated. From basketball-reference.com. Hehe.
*****
2-1 Spurs. Game 4 in San Antonio. See you Tuesday. As Tim Duncan said, some "comments" were said between games, but, we'll talk about that some other time.
*****
Yun lang po. Bow.
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