Time
1254 hours
Location
Cubao home
Props/Supplements
a collage of mute videos of
Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA)
speaking to microphones
Fantasy/Intercourse
Bedroom, pre-dawn. Extended fellatio and pearl necklace/bukkake.
I sat on the edge of the bed as GMA squat-knelt on the carpeted floor
and proceeded to firmly suckle on my penis. Upon achieving erection,
subject proceeded to manually stroke penis trunk while keeping firm
sucking on penis head, with occasional manual manipulations of testicles.
Lost erection numerous times throughout fantasy, but regained through
repetition of initial scenario. Mind wandered to Ozawa/Grey fantasies,
helping keep erection firm (?) for the duration of the experiment. Erection
maintained until ejaculation.
Quality/Longevity of Erection
Semi-erect to limp / Approx 30 mins
Quality/Longevity/Amount of Ejaculation/Ejaculate
watery, clear / approx 3 secs / a few droplets
Remarks
Video supplement worthy of note. Flashed in and out of fantasy, basic
hetero fantasy (ie, non-GMA) intruding periodically, replenishing libido.
Also of note: pearl necklace/bukkake = humiliation/degradation of subject.
Next phase: GMA lookalike?
I've decided to note everything I eat and drink, and to do this daily, for a year, and call it poetry. This is week five.
One pork bistik. A handful of squidballs. A handful of chickenballs. Two fried chicken thighs. Six slices of bread. A plate of liempo. A stick of chicken barbecue. Some chicharon. Some spicy salsa. A bowl of fried chicken with beans. Four tuna nuggets. A bowl of kernel corn. Some California maki. Four slices of garlic bread. A few hotdog bits. One sizzling plate of liempo with assorted vegetables.
Three sausage & mayo sandwiches. Six tuna sandwiches.
A cup of bulalo soup. A bowl of curry carrot noodle soup.
A whole and a quarter of cheese omelette. One Mystery Midnight Meal.
Two bowls and a plate of palabok. A bowl of hotdog & tomatoes spaghetti. One bowl of tuna nuggets & mushroom carbonara. A bowl of batchoy noodles. A bowl of Jennifer Sevilla's Body. A bowl of dilis, tomato, & red eggs pasta. Six slices of Pizza Festiva.
Four and a half bowls of steamed rice.
Two bags of Oishi. A bag of cornflakes. Five chocolate chip & raisins pancakes with vanilla ice cream. A bag of Clover Chips. A bag of Mister Chips. Two plates of birthday cake. One ChocNut. Some fish & chips. Half a bag of pretzels.
Sixteen bottles and twenty-three glasses of water. Three glasses and a cup of Royal Tru Orange with lemon. Eleven glasses of Coke with lemon. A can of Oettinger. Five bottles and three glasses of Red Horse Beer. A bottle of Sparkle with calamansi.
Jennifer Sevilla's Body
a salad pasta
Scramble eggs in bowl. Core tomatoes and then julienne. Dice cheese. Dice mushrooms. Dice olives. Mix in bowl with scrambled eggs. Add milk. Season with salt, black ground pepper, and olive oil. Boil pasta in water with oil and salt to desired consistency. Drain pasta. Dice garlic then sautée in butter in pan. Pour bowl mix in pan. Add in desired meat, ideally precooked. Sautée for five minutes, or until cheese melts into mix. Put pasta and mix in one bowl and toss. Add in desired amount of salt, black ground pepper, extra cheese, sundried tomatoes, garlic, and/or onions. Serve with lemonade.
My friend Ken Ishikawa rockin the plastic electric
Last night with the Marikina Ishikawas, I played Guitar Hero for the first time ever, and I truly absolutely 100% dialed-up-to-11 loved it (I wish the guitars had effects pedals, though, that you'd need to activate for distortions or flangers or wah-wahs or whatever), but as fun and interesting as playing it was, I couldn't help but shed a poetic Injun's tear for Rushkoff and Haraway and Murray and Jenkins and Baudrillard and Dick - all the writers and theorists I've read who had/have devoted their literary lives on defining virtual reality - simulacra - as I realised how all their devotion culminated into this phenomenon that allowed this overweight ex-highschoolband lead vocalist and guitarist to heft a white plastic infrared imitation Les Paul in his friends' living room and pretend to be a rockstar yet again.
On 6 November 2009, Friday at 1940 hours, chunky Cubao curator Adam David
promises to gesture figure 1 at location figure 2 for approximately ten seconds
before continuing his cosy cinematic consumption. Feel free to document the event.
I've decided to note everything I eat and drink, and to do this daily, for a year, and call it poetry. This is month one.
Two bowls of pork paksiw. Four sausages. A plate and two bowls of red eggs & tomatoes. One tortang talong. One bowl of egg salad. Some siomai. Some steamed chicken. A bowl of egg tokwa. Three chicken hotdogs. Seventeen and a half hotdogs. A stick and a half of chicken barbecue with peanut sauce. A bowl of atsara. One grilled prawn. Half of a medium rare steak. Three lumpia. Six salami. A bowl of munggo. Half a tilapia with mayonnaise. A small dried fish. A plate of pork steak. A plate of blood pudding. A serving of french fries. A plate of fish fillet with lemon & butter sauce. A bowl of beef caldereta. A bowl of crispy pata. A bowl of chicken curry. A bowl of corned beef. Four bowls of chicken adobo. A bowl of pork-&-beans. A bowl of toge. A piece of pork katsudon. A bowl of pork sinigang. Two pieces of daing. Half a bowl of chili corned beef. Two slices of pastrami. Six cheesesticks. Four corned beef sticks. Four pieces of garlic longganisa. Half a torso of fried chicken. A dozen kikiam. Three fish patties. One beef pares. Two tinapa. Eight slices of eggplant crisps. A large and small bowl of pork stew. A plate of tokwa sisig. A bowl of broiled beef. Half a fist of kimchi. Six slices of Spam.
Half of a cheese steak sandwich. Four dinner rolls with cheese. One chicken fillet sandwich. One salami sandwich. Three tortillas. One quarter pounder with cheese. One chicken fajita burger. A sandwich grilled on a pan. A loaf and a half of bread. Two omelette sandwiches.
A bowl of kangkong soup. Two bowls of corn soup.
One garlic steak omelette. A plate and a half of a cheese mushroom omelette. Half a cheese omelette. A plate of two-cheese & tomato omelette. A third of a plain omelette. A quarter of a tuna omelette. A slice of quiche. Half a two-cheese & tomato omelette.
Four slices of pepperoni pizza. Half a beef & mushroom pizza. A bowl and a half of red eggs & tomatoes spaghetti. One bowl of canton with fish- & chickenballs. Seven bowls of chicken noodle soup. Two bowls of Jennifer Sevilla's Body. Two plates of lasagna. Half a bowl of tomato spaghetti. A plate of garlic & labuyo spaghetti. A spoonful of baked ziti with meat sauce. A bowl of tuna & tomato spaghetti. Half a Tupperware of spaghetti tinapa. Two packets of instant noodles. A bowl of lasagna. Half a bowl of sopas. A bowl of macaroni soup. A bowl of Thai rice noodles. A plate of tinapa pasta. A plate of spaghetti & meatballs. A plate and a bowl of spaghetti & tomatoes.
Thirty-one bowls and a cup of steamed rice. Two bowls of garlic rice. A bowl and a half of java rice. Two bowls of fried rice. Two bowls of poorman's nasi goreng. A bowl of chicken & vegetable paella.
Two foods of the gods. Half a bag and a handful of cocoa cereal. A bowl of feta cheese & apples. A handful of Tortillas. A handful of Green Oishi Ridges. A handful of peanuts. A box of chocolate pretzels. Nine slivers of Orange Swits. One Chocolate Mallow. A bag of galletas. A bowl of banana saba. One large bucket of white cheddar popcorn. A pack and a half of Cheese Ring. Four mocca sponge cakes. Three chocolate chip pancakes with vanilla ice cream. Three bites of sambos. A slice of butter rum cake. Some biscuits. A glass of mais con hielo. Three chocolate chip cookies. Eight pieces of nachos. A bag of puto & kutsinta. Six pieces of ChocNut. Two bowls of banana, nuts & raisins yogurt. A glass of vanilla ice cream & chocolate cereal. Two spoons of corn with butter & cheese. One tuna empanada. One chicken empanada. One sweet cheese empanada. Two spoons of homemade ube. Five fried banana slices. Seventeen pieces of a variety of pastries. Four oatmeal cookies. A packet of pretzels. Half a pack of Tempura. Two raisin cinnamon pancakes. A handful of fried pears. A cup of blueberry yogurt. Two pancakes with vanilla ice cream.
One hundred-and-two bottles and forty-two glasses and five cups of water. A glass of Lacutus. A glass of Merlot. Two glasses of Cabernet Sauvignon. A cup of brewed coffee. Four cups of brewed coffee with vanilla ice cream & cinnamon. A glass of Red Blend iced tea. Two glasses of Coke with vanilla float. Two cups of hot chocolate. One Strawberry Zagu Grande. A glass of iced Milo. Half a liter of Royal Tru Orange. Two glasses of white grape iced tea. A liter and a half and six glasses of Coke. A glass of raspberry iced tea. Two glasses of Eight O'Clock. Eight bottles of beer. A bottle of C2 Apple. A glass of iced coffee. A glass of tropical fruitshake. A glass of lemonade. A small bottle of Sparkle. A small bottle of orange Tropicana. A glass of red lemonade.
CAMERA LUCIDA
Scabs and scars and freckles and pimples and moles and pores. Birthmarks and stretchmarks.
BLACKMAIL
A photograph is a fulfillment of a promise to the unregarded self. A promise recognises a possibility of failure. Or an attempt to success. Promises are meant to be broken.
So I'm about to get my hands on a copy of that Routledge book I geeked out on a few weeks ago, and finally I'll get to see which Pinoy fictionists the two editors saw fit to mention in the book, which got me to wondering: if I were asked to name, say, five contemporary Pinoy fictionists off the top of my head whom I think deserve mentioning - and why - who exactly would I pick?
I somewhat regrettably settled on three names, and it's really a regrettable thing seeing as I can only really come up with three names for the list. I rationalised the selection via various criteria, some of those being 1) one has to have released at least one book in the last ten years or so, and 2) ought to still be writing today.
And so:
Sarge Lacuesta
Primarily for his debut collection Life Before X, a solid example of postBrilliantes/postPulotan artisanship. Unapologetic and precise and very wholly original. When one mentions in conversation even the barest elements of one story (autopsy, tattoo, sex), you get nods of remembering and confirmation all around ("Tattoo," page 25). His other books, one of which I utterly despise, fail to compare. His most recent collection, Flames (about half of which I've already read published in various places), reads as if striving towards the perfection of Life Before X, but only reading as if b-side versions of the earlier collection. Lacuesta's Life Before X is indispensable contemporary Pinoy reading.
Dean Alfar
Primarily for championing Pinoy Speculative Fiction. I've dealt hours and hours of braintime on problematising the label - and it's still very problematic to me - but we're just really fooling ourselves if we don't recognise that the current Pinoy fiction production wouldn't be this plentiful and promising and exciting without Alfar and the various PSF anthos he's been churning out almost annually, always self-published, and always - at the very least - interesting. If there'll be one fiction writer that will be remembered from the Naughty Naughts, I really honestly say that it will most probably be Alfar. If that's a good thing or a bad thing wholly depends on your politics.
Vlad Gonzales
I wrote a review on his debut book here - my second post ever - and I invoke all the things I said there as my rationale. I really find it an insult to Gonzales's writing that his present day mileage is from his nonfiction books, which are merely the filtered remains of what his writing is truly capable of. I hope a mainstream publisher picks up on that fact and decides to republish his first book. Maybe our generation's Bataille.
And so the comments section is now open: who'd you pick as the best contemporary Pinoy fictionists, and why?
It came across quite successfully as a horror movie as a horror movie ought to be postBuffy. For seven years, Buffy thoroughly ran through each and every possible iteration of the teenage horror narrative - from film, TV, and literature - and repeatedly successfully revised and undermined and rehashed and improved and went beyond the cliches and tropes and turns of phrase and came up with a very workable and original setup, and it did those things for seven years straight. What else is there for teenage horror narratives after Buffy? Watch this movie.
ARTIFICE
The interest is in the subject, not in the art.
AGE
The true sadness is the realisation that that look, once uncompromising, is now compromised, undeniable, inevitable, nonreturnable.
On 28 October 2009, Wednesday at 0430 PM, chunky Cubao curator Adam David
promises to gesture figure 1 at location figure 2 for approximately ten seconds
before returning to his battered bookish bedsit. Feel free to document the event.
Time
1634 hours
Location
Cubao home
Props/Supplements
none
Fantasy/Intercourse
Bedroom, pre-dawn. Brief fellatio and attempt at vaginal
intercourse underlit by PC monitor. I sat on the edge of the bed
as Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo (GMA) squat-knelt on the carpeted
floor and proceeded to firmly suckle on my penis. Upon achieving
erection, subject proceeded to sit on penis, allowing vaginal
insertion from posterior. Numerous tries achieved no desirable
results. Erection lost after approx. 8 secs. Efforts to regain
erection orally merely led to failure and shame.
Quality/Longevity of Erection
Semi-erect to limp / Approx 2 mins
Quality/Longevity/Amount of Ejaculation/Ejaculate
N/A
Remarks
Traditional scenario ineffective at first try. Introduce
variation tomorrow: supplement with audio/video?
A plate of two-cheese & tomato omelette. Seven and a half hotdogs. Three lumpia. One salami sandwich. Six salami. A bowl of munggo. Half a tilapia with mayonnaise. One small dried fish. A plate of pork steak. A plate of blood pudding. Two tortillas. One quarter pounder with cheese. One serving of french fries. One plate of fish fillet with lemon & butter sauce. A bowl of beef caldereta. A bowl of crispy pata. A bowl of chicken curry. A third of an omelette.
Two plates of lasagna. Half a bowl of tomato spaghetti. A plate of garlic & labuyo spaghetti. A spoonful of baked ziti with meat sauce. A bowl of tuna & tomato spaghetti.
Six and a half bowls of steamed rice. A bowl of fried rice. Two bowls of poorman's nasi goreng. A bowl of chicken & vegetable paella.
Three bites of sambos. One slice of butter rum cake. Some biscuits. Four slivers of Orange Swits. One glass of mais con hielo. Two bowls of banana, nuts & raisins yogurt. A glass of vanilla ice cream & chocolate cereal. Two spoons of corn with butter & cheese. One tuna empanada. One chicken empanada. One sweet cheese empanada.
Thirty-four bottles and sixteen glasses of water. One glass of Coke. One glass of raspberry iced tea. Two cups of brewed coffee with vanilla ice cream & cinnamon. Two glasses of Eight O'Clock. Two bottles of beer. One bottle of C2 Apple.
This was week two.
On 24 October 2009, Saturday at 0730 AM, chunky Cubao curator Adam David
promises to gesture figure 1 at location figure 2 for approximately ten seconds
before returning to his solemn solitary slumber. Feel free to document the event.
Landslide
a pudding
Crush cocoa cornflakes to desired finery. Put cornflakes in bowl and stir with eggs and
condensed milk til thick. Submerge wedges of refrigerated chocolate into batter. Nuts,
berries, and dried fruits are optional. Steam in a stove top steamer. Refrigerate after
steaming. While cooling pudding, slice a few apples. Immerse slices in water mixed with
sugar for a few minutes. Fry some slices in butter til brown or until fluids caramelise.
Boil some slices in sugar water til it comes to a syrup. Pour desired amount over pudding,
and top pudding with fried apple slices. Set aside some syrup in fridge for later use.
I've decided to note everything I eat and drink, and to do this daily, for a year, and call it poetry. This is week two.
One bowl of corned beef. Two bowls of chicken adobo. A bowl of pork-&-beans. A bowl of toge. A quarter of a tuna omelette. Half a pizza. One piece of pork katsudon. A cup of red eggs and tomatoes. A bowl of pork sinigang. A bowl of corn soup. Two pieces of daing. A bowl of kangkong soup. Half a cheese-mushroom omelette. Four hotdogs. Half a chicken adobo. Half a bowl of chili corned beef. A slice of quiche. Half a two-cheese & tomato omelette. Two slices of pastrami. One chicken fajita burger.
Half a Tupperware of spaghetti tinapa. A cup of noodles. Half a bowl of red eggs & tomatoes spaghetti. A bowl of lasagna.
Eight and a half bowls of steamed rice.
Two spoons of homemade ube. Five fried banana slices. Seventeen pieces of a variety of pastries. Two oatmeal cookies. A handful of cocoa cereal. A packet of pretzels. Half a pack of Cheese Rings. Half a pack of Tempura. Two raisin cinnamon pancakes. A handful of fried pears. A tortilla. One cup of blueberry yogurt.
Eighteen bottles and eight glasses of water. One glass of iced coffee. One glass of tropical fruitshake. Half a liter of Coke. One glass of lemonade.
This was week one.
I first saw this seven years ago, as part of a DVD magazine DVD freebie. It took me up until now to finally get the idea to look this up in YouTube. I dedicate this to Vlad, who claims he doesn't remember watching this with me, with whom I've been wanting to do something like this; and Gelo, whose more brilliant bits in DISSONANT UMBRELLAS reminded me of this, and also someone who maybe wants to do something like this.
I suppose it's merely coincidence that the nominees in Poetry are all in various degrees associated with PLAC, and that the prescreening committee for Poetry is also PLAC. Also merely coincidence that of the four nominees, three were critically reviewed here, here, and here, one review written by the author of the one major book of 2008 that has generated and is still generating much critical and creative thought, that one major book relegated to Design, where every book passed to the NBA is, apparently, automatically nominated. All merely coincidence.
I suppose in this situation, it's far far far better to be nominated for the unintentional effect, compared to what could have been - what already is - quite a joke.
for Gelo
I've decided to note everything I eat and drink, and to do this daily, for a year, and call it poetry. This is week one.
One sandwich grilled on a pan. Six cheesesticks. Four corned beef sticks. Four pieces of garlic longganisa. Half a loaf of dried bread. Half a torso of fried chicken. Six hotdogs. One dozen kikiam. Three fish patties. One beef pares. Two tinapa. Eight slices of eggplant crisps. A large and small bowl of pork stew. Two omelette sandwiches. Two pancakes with vanilla ice cream. One sausage. A plate of tokwa sisig. A bowl of broiled beef. Half a fist of kimchi. Six slices of Spam. One loaf of bread.
A packet of instant noodles. Half a bowl of sopas. A bowl of macaroni soup. A bowl of Thai rice noodles. A plate of tinapa pasta. A plate of spaghetti & meatballs. A plate and a bowl of spaghetti & tomatoes.
Nine bowls and a cup of steamed rice. A bowl of fried rice.
Three chocolate chip cookies. Eight pieces of nachos. Eight french fries. Two oatmeal cookies. A bag of puto & kutsinta. Six pieces of ChocNut. A handful of peanuts.
One small bottle of Sparkle. One small bottle of orange Tropicana. One cup of hot chocolate. One glass of red lemonade. Half a liter and five glasses of Coke. Six bottles of beer. Twenty-one bottles, eight glasses, and three cups of water.
Language - the art of arranging language - insists on thinking, writing, and above all, publishing. Books are assembled. Books are arranged. It hardly matters. What counts is that it is nothing more than its sign. A benign tyranny, for want of any referent. This seems to me significant.
The term signifies a way, that is, the right way par excellance, brooking no further argument, however ephemeral, originating in the fancies of an often corrupt taste that seeks to satisfy vanity and caprices, institutions, ideas, customs of an unfailingly stable kind, superficial, admired almost universally, which turn into a form of suffering, or even torment. Let us take this problem frontally.
The possibility of new systems in writing spurs continual development. Giving words power beyond that of signifiers signified imbues language with poetry that offers no actual meaning, deliberate objects on the page or in the landscape. Name, shape, style, history, form/design, mystical significance as a whole is understood to be a representation of resurgent systems of metaphors, analogues, associations - a methodology of interpretation.
Calculus, Geometry - Analysis - is a very long story that essentially bears out Reason's hegemony whose influence not only survived but also reached new heights with Church-like doctrine/dogma, and part of the dismissal of an abstract view, of things not actually proved, an infinity of points.
Once we're up and about and using our words, it's almost impossible to think about what they really mean.
Granted, this response is, strictly speaking, philosophical rather than mathematical. This analysis dodges representation, continuity, class, or something close to that. Once we're up and about and using our words, it's almost impossible to think about what they mean. Observe, please, that this is really incoherent, composed of instants under which interpretation can be solved with a simple formula, grandly breathtakingly wrong.
Grammatical text and syntax generate works whose language ultimately contain all-too-recognisable poetic lyric procedure, traditional models of oral performance. What other possibilities might one envision for work with language emerging out of poetry, alongside other forms - sculpture, video, architecture - with language as performance, of poetry as art?
Do absolute nonsense poetry - absolute nonsense, non-words, invented words, ersatz words - that make music out of language, the poetic palpability of words themselves, as things palpable, tactile, that we feel when we speak, when we write, when we hear and read them ... that is the real subject of poetry. When there are words printed on bricks, turn them into the floor. Words are different from sentences. To write poetry, the sentence is not the dominant form. The word is the dominant form.
The craftsman distinguishes superior quality at the risk of being taxed with elitism. The crucial words aren't "Do you like it?" but "You must," as in "It's a must."
Craft follows art. Conduct an experiment: investigate how the work would change with varying degrees of freedom. Exciting? Challenging? Naive? Purposely avoid direct reflection, straightforwardness, a closed system requiring no mental participation. Meaning might not be easily recognised - in general, ambiguous - and, much more importantly, it might be more romantic in French, it might be more touching in song, but it should be achievable, as an outcome of this thinking, with the blurring borders between art and the restrictive confrontation of art. Look around. Decide what to do. Create. Art follows craft.
Try to define what comes to mind. The inscribed image formed shall never be that image exactly.
Never repeat a formula/system/manner developed earlier. "Versatility" more than "Trademark." Be arbitrary and nuanced, free from hardly any structure, albeit only symbolically, that define the four horizons of work - the world, history, language, and fiction - work in abstract terms.
Produce work. Discovery proves sometimes reassuring, sometimes uncomfortable, unfinished, unsayable. Follow a tentative itinerary point by point, the "why," the "how."
This modification proved that certain works had no authors, or else had several authors, uniformly bound, classified neither too deep or too far apart, the trace of the road travelled - it lies beyond writing, a "why" to which I can only reply by writing. When I cease from writing, the image becomes visible, inexorably complete. The inscribed image formed shall never be that image exactly.
All words are resultant erasures of various texts: David Foster Wallace's Everything and More, Georges Perec's Species of Spaces and Other Pieces, Stefan Sagmeister's Things I Have Learned In My Life So Far, and the latest volume of Roland.
Luis Katigbak eMailed, reminding me of "Renegade Eyeballs," the first story in his debut collection Happy Endings, suggesting a reason why Ser Butch kept misremembering this story as Katigbak's, as "Eyeballs" features a scenario similar to the scenario in my own story, further compounded by the fact that "Eyeballs" is the story that got Katigbak into his first Baguio workshop when he was eighteen years old. Virtually the same scenario all around.
Another detail I forgot to mention in the earlier post: my story was written during my initial phase of writing - within my first six months, this story being one of my first ten (and part of a triptych, even) - what in my head I call "My Luis Katigbak Phase." As the link above suggests, Katigbak's book is a towering influence to any young campus writer seeking a literary voice to write with, and I was still within spitting distance of Happy Endings when I wrote that story.
I was passing through multiple writing phases around that time, the "Luis Katigbak Phase" being the first. Two more phases around my first year were "My Stuart David Phase" that dictated the writing of "Fifteen Photographs," (among other things [my major writing influences seem to be primarily Scots: Eddie Campbell, Stuart David, and Stuart Murdoch]) and "My Yasunari Kawabata Phase," whose gravitas helped shape what turned into "My Richard Brautigan Phase," which dictated the next few years of my writing. Most of these stories can be read in this book. I'd like to think that my current writing output is not only miles away from these initial phases but also a sum total of all these phases and also now very much my own. That's all I can ever ask for.
Thanks to Luis for eMailing. This blog's comments section is inexplicably still problematic even after my repeated efforts to repair it. For now, any and all comments should be sent via eMail.
What follows is one of the two stories that got me into my first Baguio workshop back when I was nineteen years old. I wrote it in thirty minutes, back when I could still do that sort of thing and call the end result a story. It got me into my first workshop where it was received rather well, although my other story got the better comments. This one earned a mal mot from Carlos Aureus which went "This is the reason why a lot of kids today don't read books." The two stories earned me a lot of friendships still relevant today.
Ser Butch Dalisay has always misremembered this story as written by Luis Katigbak, which I only found out during a breakfast on my second Baguio workshop - five years after my first - where one of the Filipino-language fellows asked Ser Butch about the potentials of flash fiction, the de/compression of time in narrative, etc etc, and Ser Butch then proceeded to talk about a story he said was Katigbak's, and went on to summarise the story you are now about to read. After the summary, I told Ser Butch that that was actually one of my stories, and he replied with "Ah, sa'yo pala yun."
This story also had the pleasure of having its title sung by Ser Ricky De Ungria when it became apparent that only two people among the assembled knew what the title meant, and where it was from. Ma'am Jing Hidalgo - whose marginal comments pepper my copy of the manuscript - called this story "speculative fiction," because of the quite literally speculative nature of the piece. Ser Butch called my other story - "Fifteen Photographs" - as an example of what he called the New Biography, ie "creative nonfiction." And Vlad reminded me: Ser Jimmy Abad complained about the story's lack of carnal detail, saying "I want to see them faacking!!!" and then quickly embarassedly apologising to Ma'am Jing for being so uncharacteristically vulgar. Such is the power of Story.
I thought I had lost this manuscript to the storm. I found it bunched up with all my friends' bound theses I helped out on. Rereading it, I felt this rush of hopefulness I remember I used to feel way back then whenever I sat down and typed out and finished stuff in less than an hour. That youthful optimism has turned into youthful assurance. Lord knows what that will turn into in three years' time.
I typed this story out in my brother's PC, and with that PC being my brother's, it enjoyed frequent reformattings every time a new OS or update of said OS would come along - which would be every other week - so this story was promptly lost as quickly as I typed it out, and has just now been retyped for your enjoyment. It felt funny retyping something I hadn't read in more than half a decade. Funny, stumbling and falling on my old patter and rhythm. It's all very uneven, very chunky and apologetic and self-conscious (and self-consciously pa-cool). It's all very very young. The urge to correct and shorten and rephrase was very hard to suppress, but it does us well to leave our naked baby photos unflatteringly unPhotoshopped, if only for comparison of penis size's sake. Look at my mole! See how I've grown.
o0o
In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida, Honey
Ever since I was old enough to commute alone, I’ve been having this fantasy play out in my head every time I ride a jeepney. It doesn’t matter if there’re only three of us inside the jeep, or if there’re twenty of us. As long as there’s a female among the passengers, my mind would automatically go into fantasy mode.
The fantasy mostly plays out during the day, as I can see the female passengers better when the sun is up. The thing about my fantasy, I need a female Partner to make it work. So, the first thing I do is look for a suitable (and unsuspecting) Partner among the passengers inside the jeep. Not the sort of Partner that you need several bottles of beer in you before you even look at her. By suitable, I mean good-looking. I have high standards, you see. That’s how my fantasy starts. More often than not, though, I don’t get to see the ending, as usually, the jeep gets to my street before the fantasy plays itself out.
The event in my fantasy almost always happens when we’re speeding through P Tuazon. Sometimes (only sometimes), it happens when we’re crawling about the place when there’s a traffic jam in front of the Araneta Center. Wherever we might be, whatever speed we might be doing, the fantasy’ll always be the same.
It’s a B-movie type, post-apocalyptic scenario fantasy: I’d see the flash-effect through the gaps between the passengers’ heads, and our jeep would do several tumbles across the ground. Sometimes the sonic boom would toss the vehicle up in the air, like an empty paper bag. We’d fly about and hit other vehicles (JolliBlu delivery vans, Antipolo jeeps, Indians in scooters), and then we’d suddenly drop out of the sky. Our jeep would end up lying on its side (mostly, it’ll be lying on my side of the jeep). I’d end up with some scratches here and there, the knees of my jeans torn. My Partner would be in my arms (as she was tossed towards me as the jeep tumbled), unconscious, but pretty much unharmed. I’d look around the jeep, at the other passengers, even check the pulses of the ones near me, but they’d all be dead.
I’d crawl out of the jeep and would be greeted by a dead Cubao. Sometimes Cubao would be a barren, desolate place, like the recent photos of the Titanic, all algae-covered and corroding. Sometimes (and this is the creepier version, I think), Cubao would still be there, looking very much as it did before the event, but it’d be as bloody quiet as an orgy of mimes. I’d be shouting out for people, see if there were other survivors, but my voice would just echo off unanswered. I’d go back to our jeep and wake up my Partner, and then I’d explain to her what had happened, where we were, and what we’d need to do.
The years would go by: I would drag out all the dead bodies from our jeep (and from the neighbouring vehicles and buildings, too) and stack them all up at the Edsa underpass in front of Farmer’s Plaza. My Partner would go to the nearest Rustan’s supermarket and fill up dozens of shopping carts with grocery (mostly food and cleaning products). Our clothes would be a varied selection of New Age brouhaha from EarthLife in COD, commercial-branded stuff from SM, and house clothes from the bangketa strip beside the National Bookstore SuperBranch. We would make homely places out of Ali Mall and ShoeMart, furnish them with living room and bedroom sets from Ideal Home and SOGO, pick out carpets from SM’s fifth floor selection, and finally get that Sony Vega and Philips DVD entertainment combo I’ve always wanted from the appliance stores.
I would win my Partner’s heart with flowers from Farmer’s Market, munchkins from Dunkin Donuts, and teddy bears from the Blue Magic outlet in Ali Mall. I’d ask for her hand in marriage, and she’d say “Yes!”, probably more out of her survival instincts than my wooing. We would get married in the in-door chapel beside the videogame arcade in Ali Mall, and have out honeymoon inside the Araneta Coliseum, live-out our exhibitionist fantasies by doing it in the middle of the arena and pretending it was Standing Room Only inside the Coliseum.
We’d have six kids: three boys (Bethelehem, Nidum, and Simon) and three girls (Babylon, Michael, and Milou). We’d raise them with a steady diet of Happy Meals , root beer floats, stuffed-crust pizzas, and go-kart races in Fiesta Carnival. And way up in the fourth floor of National Bookstore’s SuperBranch, we would educate them on the World and on Life, on the concept of God, and on the highs and lows of Love according to Victoria Holt and the SVH twins. I’d read (and re-read) them the entire Tintin collection, and when I’m finished with that, they’d say “More, Father, more, please!!” and then I’d laugh and say “Tomorrow, children. The night has already spread its dark wings over Cubao. Come, I’ll walk you to SM, as it’s time to sleep…”
And time would pass, and the children would grow into adults. “With adulthood comes independence,” I would tell them. “Yeah, I remember when I was your age, I was already making a suitable home for your Mother and I … it’s about time you did the same.” And I would give them detailed maps of Metro Manila. In the maps, I would point out several possible cradles of survivors (if there are any), and the possible perils they might find: “Two kilometres from here, there is a place called Ortigas Center. It is a large place, easily three times larger than Cubao,” I would say. “You will first encounter a building with a big red R on its side. Take care when you pass by this place, especially if you decide to camp in it for a night or two, for in my childhood, I remember rumours of a carnivorous snakeman living in the bowels of that building…” They would nod and kiss the back of my hand and I would give them my blessings. “Go forth and multiply,” I would tell them. And with that, they would go seek their fortunes in lands elsewhere.
And time would pass again, my Wife and I would grow old and grey and crooked. We’d both be in our deathbed, staring up at the Ali Mall skylight, and she’d ask me “Our life in Cubao … was it good? Was it rich? Was it everything you imagined?”
I would turn to her and say “Yes, my Love. Everything I had imagined.” And I would be the only one to get the joke, and die a happy man.
I still have this fantasy in my head, everytime I commute in jeeps. The names of the children change from time to time, but all in all, it’s pretty much the same thing.
I was out when the water went up.
Saw our street and it was a frothing river with whitewater rapids with waves up to my chest. The double-parked cars lining the sidewalks only churned the waters more violently, making waves that met in the middle of the street that then made even higher waves. I was in a neighbour's elevated driveway with the water up to my calves.
Stood there for a few hours waiting for the rain to stop, or the flood to settle a bit. I went to a neighbour and stayed there for the night.
Funny as I can't seem to find the Berrigan original on the internetz.
I suppose this version is more apt for the news as one more of my idols dies,
almost exactly a year to the day of the death of yet another idol.
Rest in peace, Catholic Boy.
Teddy sniffing glue he was 12 years old
Fell from the roof on East Two-nine
Cathy was 11 when she pulled the plug
On 26 reds and a bottle of wine
Bobby got leukemia, 14 years old
He looked like 65 when he died
He was a friend of mine
Refrain
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
Those are people who died, died
They were all my friends, and they died
G-berg and Georgie let their gimmicks go rotten
So they died of hepatitis in upper Manhattan
Sly in Vietnam took a bullet in the head
Bobby OD'd on Drano on the night that he was wed
They were two more friends of mine
Two more friends that died / I miss 'em--they died
Repeat Refrain
Mary took a dry dive from a hotel room
Bobby hung himself from a cell in the tombs
Judy jumped in front of a subway train
Eddie got slit in the jugular vein
And Eddie, I miss you more than all the others,
And I salute you brother/ This song is for you my brother
Repeat Refrain
Herbie pushed Tony from the Boys' Club roof
Tony thought that his rage was just some goof
But Herbie sure gave Tony some bitchen proof
Hey, Herbie said, Tony, can you fly?
But Tony couldn't fly . . . Tony died
Repeat Refrain
Brian got busted on a narco rap
He beat the rap by rattin' on some bikers
He said, hey, I know it's dangerous,
but it sure beats Riker's
But the next day he got offed
by the very same bikers
Repeat Refrain; repeat song to Eddie
1980,
Jim Carroll
It's been a monster couple of weeks. Yesterday was DFW's first death anniv. "Mercury Retrograde" seems to have escaped Mom's kitchen and invaded the Memeplex. BT launches first local scifi/fantasy/generic/specfic hub Rocket Kapre, for which I answered a brief questionnaire. Enjoying some new books that came out recently. Sent some to Longdong via Vincenzo. Bought a Tomine poster. Work is sort of wearing me down as work does, so I'm trying to spin it. Had plans to write about the tyranny of the written language and the potential of the essay to liberate thought and restore the status of the writer as intellectual and poetry as one of the last frontiers of anticapitalist art efforts and the purpose of poetry in a popomo context, but it's been a fucked-up stretch of afternoon so I just can't be fucking bothered right now. But I have plans for it. Maybe next Sunday'll be better.
Oi, Alexis!
Thanks for the eMail. It's really funny how much reaction the essays are still generating even a few months after the fact, and it's funnier how the reactions are widely more aggressively supportive now than when the shittitz hit the fannitz, so to speak, as if they were these stink bombs of insight that only opened just now, apparently in a time delay fuse.
And it's actually even funnier how I actually miss sharing critical space with you in the Free Press - yes, even after everything that went on (maybe one of these days I could work on mending the few bridges that need mending, ano?) - as however which way you cut it, this lack of critical assessment - however bland, however ranty - continues to be a missed opportunity in such venues of public writing, and only really contributes to the wholesale snowballing Degeneration of the Arts. It's true that we could do lots more with whatever Interweb forum our hands are actively idly fiddling, but something has to be said about having words printed on paper for all to read and dis/agree with, even if in the final analysis, all of these things just stack up as heaps of fish-wrapping paper (if we're lucky) and really just killing more trees for our mere entertainment.
Yeah, we haven't met, yet, even after us sharing Free Press space and minor editorial work for Gaba's Space Philippines, but I can honestly say I've read your essays on Pinoy Cinema, or at least some of them that were available to me through the FPs, and I really found myself always agreeing with your assessments, based off of my semi-regular film viewings from a while back, back when Pinoy Cinema seemed to have an urgency for/in me, but I mainly know you and admire you from that letter piece you wrote for Rogue, and especially because of the anaphoric addendum. I love this bit: "The first impulse of any good film critic, and to this I think you would agree, must be of love." And really, how could it be not? Criticism always starts with Love (or in your case, Lav [haha]). How can it not be driven by Love?
And it's this really very creepy kind of Possessive Love, the this-is-mine-how-dare-you-sully-it sort of Love, the sort of Love that'll get you beat up by the baranggay tanod if its focus was a cutie in your neighbourhood. Maybe from the initial Love you get to Hate, or Even More Love, or oftenly in my case, to Immensely Heart-Shattering Balls-To-The-Floor Debilitating Disappointment, but it's still all primarily driven by Love. How can it not be Love? You take this lummox that really can go on about its business without you and you selfishly/selflessly decide to make yourself relevant to it by sincerely just merely talking about/to it in a way not much people do (ie, smartly) keeping an eye in making this lummox be more relevant to other people, make this lummox as relevant to others - as loved by others - as how it's relevant to - and loved by - you.
And Film Criticism Jesus Fucken Christ is the biggest lummox of them all, bigger than LitCrit as it's dictated by stronger forces than mere ego, ie money, thus more resistant to reform or revolution (unless it's shown to them first by Hollywood or Eiga Sai or Cinemalaya or somesuch institution, and even then ... and of course, you know this more than I do), and Pinoy Cinema as focus Jesus Fucken Christ! But again, how could it be not Pinoy Cinema? It's where we eat and shit and loiter and sleep. What else should it be about? It's quite the brave thing to choose to write about that and expecting something to happen. Or maybe it should be "deluded?" We're only a year apart, still under thirty, with girls smarter than us by thousands of leagues. We have tons of delusions. They love our delusions. Our delusions do us good.
It often feels like Sisyphus up and down his mountain or at worst Prometheus in the Caucasus and I'm half-tempted to say that it's really its own reward but as you well know it's not, it's a thankless rewardless creditless job this Criticism Business of the Arts, as well it should be, as well it ought to be, as some things - and there ought to be more of these things - should be dictated by stuff other than gratitude or money or fame, if only just so our entry point of discussion is and always will be nothing short of Love.
And yeah, we could go on and on and on about it, and hopefully, we will. Dude. I look forward to reading more of your work.
Yours in solidarity Jesus Fucken Christ
(wormfood and rumour all these two thousand years),
Adam!
A Week of Kindness
David ~ Suarez ~ Javier ~ Goitia ~ Saguid ~ Ishikawa ~ Gonzales
an online anthology * seven works from seven writers written
in seven days revolving around seven images/elements/themes
chosen pre-writing * also: one work is falsely credited
Brief Lives
fourteen 120-character memoirs
Crows and Rages
one hundred and fifty-seven poems * it is very likely to
find at least two poems you'll find agreeable to your tastes
the El Bimbo Variations
the first two lines of the Eraserheads song rewritten 99 times
the Long Weekend
a four-day comic book
Texticles
a half-decade's worth of dagli
Instructions for the Inclined
an ironic creative writing manual for the post-ironic creative writer
Perverbs
fifty-five perverted proverbs
Crumbs!!!
the greatest thing before unlitxt40
Mykel Andrada's "Paolo Matalo"
a komix adaptation of a story from the most underrated writer ever
Franz Arcellana's "the Yellow Shawl"
a komix adaptation of a story from the most overrated writer ever
Note: you'll need this program to read "Matalo" and "Shawl."
from Abecediarya
part one of a pornographic novel
Reliable Disappointments
reliably disappointing
~
Not books, but free and good reads nonetheless!
This. This. This. This. And this.
~
And by Friday.
What is it?
Is it finished?
Is it continuous?
Is it only starting?
It is Saturday.
 |
| saturday.pdf |
| Hosted by eSnips |
What is it?
Is it a hunger?
Is it a thirst?
Is it an itch?
It is Friday.
|
| friday.pdf |
| Hosted by eSnips |
This is the sixth.
What is it?
Is it a shady lane?
Is it a passat dream?
Is it a father with a sister of thought?
It is Thursday.
|
| thursday.pdf |
| Hosted by eSnips |
What is it?
A quarter pounder?
A double brother?
A black angus?
It is Wednesday.
|
| wednesday.pdf |
| Hosted by eSnips |
This is the fourth.
What is it?
It is this.
It is almost halfway there.
It is Tuesday.
|
| tuesday.pdf |
| Hosted by eSnips |
What is it?
Courtesy of SexInfo101.com.
Is it the usual?
Courtesy of SexInfo101.com.
Is it the forbidden fruit?
Courtesy of SexInfo101.com.
Is it more of the usual?
Courtesy of SexInfo101.com.
It is Monday.
|
| monday.pdf |
| Hosted by eSnips |
This is the second.
What is it?
A time-out with friends?
A jiggety-jig?
Music to your ears?
It is Sunday.
|
| sunday.pdf |
| Hosted by eSnips |
This is the first.
My workblog is here, featuring utter crappy dreck copywriting disguised as a personal blog written a la a narrator I first used back when I was nineteen years old and just started trying out this writing thing. I suppose this is my version of fluff writing, and bits of it went into this little project (personal flarf? I generate the spam I then use for more literary pursuits?) that's soon seeing physical publication in this year's the Literary Apprentice, out by 1 October 2009 via the UP Writers Club and Vibal Publishing. No idea if it'll be made available in bookstores, though. I hope so. I'll blog about it some more when I have more details to tell.
I forgot to include one other memoirist, as his entry went
straight to my SPAM folder. I'm really very sorry, dude.
I edited it into the PDF, and made one major change.
And here it is.
And you can download it here.
|
| 001 - BRIEF LIVES ... |
| Hosted by eSnips |
And the new owner of Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean's MIRRORMASK
is the last memoirist in the PDF.
Download and read and enjoy!
Congratulations to everyone!
And next month: another "contest" ... with more books at stake ... !!!
Watch this space for more information ... soon-ish.
a new project
coming soon
So now that we've seen the ANC show and read the majority of the blogposts and newsbits and open letters, et al, just exactly where are we in the 2009 National Artists Scandal? Reading the reactions - and I suspect I've read almost all of the pertinent (read: informed) interweb effluvia about it so I can very confidently say I have an idea what people are thinking about the issue - I can't help but think that 1) we haven't been too honest about what we really think about the issue, and 2) because of the dishonesty/hypocrisy, a lot of more important/lasting/artful/societal questions are being ignored.
And let me preempt anyone thinking I'm loving the Scandal - I'm not. My opinion: in a legal (read: as per the rules) standpoint, all FOUR ought to be disqualified, and so, apologies to Moreno and Manosa, both of whom are, even for me (ie, person outside of their respective art communities), familiar names along the lines of "people in their art scenes say generally good stuff about them, and the 'ordinary people' are also somewhat familiar with the two of them," and it's unfortunate that to discount the first two - Guidote and Caparas - we'd have to discount the other two as well.
My other opinion: it can be argued that the two main Scandalisers actually deserve the National Artist Award, seeing as to how (briefly) Guidote seems to have been at the forefront of that one major nationalistic leap and bound of Philippine Theater, PETA, and that Caparas actually has made a lot of contributions towards enriching Pinoy Culture and the Arts through his komix writing, not even counting the many TV and movie permutations of works that he worked on when he was working on them in collaboration with other people. And really, let's admit it: it's the TV and movie permutations that actually have much more legs than their original komix form, and it's what's giving Caparas mileage, not his komix work. I mean, honestly: barring the meager dozens of slop that came out of Sterling a few years ago, how many of us voicing out our anger about Caparas' nomination have actually read and remembered a Caparas komix, read it and remember it clearly and critically enough to make a valued judgment about the aesthetic value of his work as we debate about its level of artfulness? I, for one, do not remember ever reading a Caparas komix. I may have, as I read tons and tons and tons of wet market komix during the 80s, and it's possible that I may have read, at the very least, one (1) of his what seems like a helluva lotta stuff.
His nomination leaves a bad taste in the mouth as Caparas is primarily AN ASSHOLE OF THE ELEPHANTINE KIND and his filmography is NOT EXACTLY WHAT YOU'D WANT TO SEE BE LABELED AS ART - and I agree with those strands of questioning, but these two things are just really side issues when assessing the value of Culture and the Arts. If we won't allow assholes be National Artists, we'll need to delete quite a few names that are already in the list. And just what exactly do we want to see labeled as "Art?" I wholly disagree with the notion that POPULAR PATRONAGE is not a measure of ARTISTIC ACHIEVEMENT, which is how some people are spinning it. It can be a measure, without us abandoning THE MAINTENANCE OF HIGH ARTISTIC STANDARDS, which is where all the debate is really spiraling towards.
But of course, it should also be made clear that as deserving as she may be, Guidote very clearly walked over the line in the sand in the legal level as the rules clearly postulate that she is automatically disqualified as a candidate for any of these things, unless we see the presidential prerog as deus ex machina lifting her up from the stage to the parapets, when it's really noXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
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XXXXXXXXXXXXBXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXing in mind that most of what we see as legit inquisitions focus on the legality of the action. With that in mind, again, my question remains to be answered: what if GMA actually prerogged Francisco Coching instead of Carlo Caparas? What if GMA bent the rules - even downright ignored them - for someone whom we regard as universally acceptable and deserving of such prestige? Will our cries be as loud as they are right now? Will we even whimper about it?
But not really a contest. Merely a writing activity that has a prize in store for the more motivated writers, if, say, the idea of getting a near mint copy of Neil Gaiman & Dave McKean's MIRRORMASK hardcover is motivation enough for you to write stuff.
Yeah, MIRRORMASK, that book I've been wanting to get rid of since forever but actually want something good to come off of its leaving my shelves. It's not that I don't like it. It's just that it's something I can live without and maybe something someone out there can't, thus me trying to sell it off (people were interested, but not interested enough to follow through the purchase). So, here: I only read it once, been sitting on my shelf for two or three years, now, and it's still hardcover, still with its dustjacket, still looking gorgeously gothic.
And it can be yours for FREE!!!
... but only if you choose to join Brief Lives, August's latest writing contest as sponsored by the always enterprising frequently frugal foundation Youth & Beauty Brigade (i.e, me)!!!
The rules are few and pretty simple:
1) send us your autobiography/memoir/life essay written using only 120 characters - spaces, periods, dashes, letters, numbers all in -
2) and it ought to be set in a room - the office, the bedroom, the bathroom, wherever -
3) and it ought to be written in the 2nd or 3rd person POV - no 1st person POVs please!!!
You can send them via eMail to juncruznaligas(at)gmail(dot)com or via Twitter as direct message to my account (type in d juncruznaligas before the entry) or even via SMS, if you're so inclined, to (0927)9439836 with the prefix BRIEFLIVES (yeah, all caps) before the story proper.
The "contest" is open until 11 August 2009, with the new MIRRORMASK owner announced 12 August. Unfortunately, the book-giving is only valid for Metro Manila people. That doesn't mean people from, say, Texas (yeah, for some reason, I have a regular reader from Texas, although I suspect it's only a call centre IP address from Ortigas) can't send in their stuff. By all means! Just don't expect me sending the book out to you. Do it for Art, then?
So there: and I still have a few more books to give away, doncha know, so, yeah, we'll probably do this again this time next month. Maybe we'll even have some new books in the bargain by then! We'll see! Nothing's set in stone, yet! It does us good to have such lofty flimsy wishy-washy plans in life!
Mia Tijam and I are in the August 2009 issue of a magazine called Playboy Philippines, the exact issue out on the stands right now. Read our filthy words! Go get a copy and feel dirty about it! Mia wrote about sexxin' exes, while I wrote about filthy people doin' joyfully exuberantly reprehensible things like masturbatin' and cummin' on a nun's shoulder while starin' at her nude sore welted chapped galis-aso ass, etc etc et al et al!
Plus: the magazine supposedly has photos in it! Of loose women in provocative poses and situations, innuendoin' stuff best left in the bedroom! WTF?!?!!? All that, for 200Php??!!?!?? Best buy whichever way you cut it in these terrible trying tumultuous times of cyclical cultural corruption!
Buy Playboy: buy Pinoy!
And: there is also this, from the Heights Workshop. Hopefully, more to come soon!
Note: the majority of this post was serialised in Twitter. I'm putting it up here seeing as Paolo Cruz (@paolojcruz in Twitter) pointed out that maybe a blogpost would be a better form for it.
I don't really know what's more disappointing: the Caparas Appointment, or the collective surprise by people to it. The surprise is disappointing as it shows most people are naive in general, or actually believe in the system. The NA appointments are the least of what GMA has done and will do to us, and yet the artist reaction to it is greater than artist reaction to assasinations of reporters, the disappearances of student activist and labor leaders, even the February 1017.
The lack of initial cynicism towards NCCA is disappointing, too. Wade in deep enough in any NCCA project, you'll find it's just like any old Pinoy gov't system: it is corrupt and run by half-wits. Not to mention how some Nat'l Artists abuse the NCCA benefits outright and use the commission as a piggy bank for pet projects.
So the latest appointments shouldn't come as too much of a surprise. To mangle a metaphor, it's just another brick in the wall. This is how the gov't works. This is how the art scene works. These things are rarely about artistic worth. It has always been driven by palakasan and IOUs. Efforts are never rewarded here. What is rewarded is glad-handing. What is rewarded is being complicit.
That isn't to say we shouldn't react to it with much violence. We should. But we should do so with much awareness and education. This happened because we have been for the most part complicit and laconic and reacting only when we are offended. I think we should always regard everything with an ample amount of critical skepticism. There are atrocities happening everywhere. Why react to this one in particular in this way? Where were the artists' vehemence when the ZTE deal went down? Where were the cartoon jibes during the 1017 march to Makati? Human Rights are regularly violated by the gov't all year round, and yet where is the artist response? For all our nationalist pride in pushing our art beyond our shores, we barely invoke it when it really matters, where it really matters.
And I feel lousy pointing this out, but I suppose I have to: I am also part of the people who have gone complicit to these things. I do try to do my share of the heavy lifting every once in a while, but yes, I must confess that for the most part, I have gone complicit about a lot of things, so these questions are targeted pretty much square on my chest, too.
I'm not begrudging people reacting to the Caparas, et al, appointments, as like I said, we should react to this with much vehemence and violence we can muster, and then some. What I'm begrudging is the impression that people only seem to react to this sort of thing when it only approaches towards encroaching on personal world views - when we find such things as personal insults - as if all the other things - ZTE, 1017, political killings - aren't, or even worse, other people's problems. We have been buying into the notion that us and our art is insignificant in the greater scheme of things, ie Life, Politics, Society, that we all generally see such things - art activism - as something someone else ought to be doing, something someone else ought to be worrying about, someone other than you.
The problem with that is everyone else is thinking the same brain wave, and so we have this largely apolitical art scene where you can't even ask pointed questions aimed at everyone and not be labeled as a "renegade" or a "rebel" or "raconteur," when it's pretty clear when talking about Noli Me Tangere or Spoliarium or Joe Sacco's Safe Area Gorazde that asking questions is one of the main functions of art in society. Why be exclusive to those things only - to certain type of people and certain type of work - as being capable of exploring such things as Political Commentary? Do we really honestly want that the things we do be considered as art? Cause if we do, it bears reminding that art is much much more than mere beauty or soundness or symmetry of form. It is as much about those things as it is about society and entertainment and education.
So yeah, react all we want, and react with resounding voices, but please, please not just with this. We're giving Caparas - and the NCCA, and the Nat'l Artists appointments - way way way too much credit.
Well, she's fashionably lean
And she's fashionably late
She'll never wreck a scene
She'll never break a date
She's the queen of cool
And she's the lady who waits
Since her mind left school
It never hesitates
She won't waste time
On elementary talk
Got the world locked up
Inside a plastic box
No ruined years, no clocks
IV. Ill
I had become fascinated by women obeying esoteric knowing fingertips and wrists,
despite the threat of kitsch. In another life, Love billowed overhead, warm, awakening,
slightly hoping. Might as well have been.
The ladies keep up a constant patter, repeated slowly each n every word, tried to
stretch hips fluidly. I desperately showed the ladies how to make inside-outside, to
spring forth and begin slow, one simple combination, then instructed them to take up
with a new partner. This innocent maneuver had come without a downside. I soon
found myself smiling. I glanced down at massive naked frivolous clump and stooped
to squeeze with adequate success and minimal trampling.
The lesson progressed increasingly, more contortions which involved partners
simultaneously releasing. By the end of the hour, I learned with some concern
the maneuver. Many men and women come in sex. The flirtation never goes: the
caress of a hip, the brief stroke, shoulder to the floor. I realised to come enough
to smell another man's, to saturate women more amply, felt right at home.
Asked one partner for a twirl. I came and I was enthused. I had sore balls.
It felt fabulous. It was sublime. I felt suave, sleek, lived only for the next
song. Very addicting. I would be hooked for life.
V. Flashin Man
Pulling down pants and displaying genitals, I was lost, searching for a breast,
the edge displayed, distended, bobbing, within arm's length. I react.
"Good morning. How are you doing?"
I wore a wide grin and a very tight pair of shorts. The lewd tableau jiggled,
libertine, seeking to escape the noonday heat, the shade provided by palms.
I glimpsed frantically delicate consecrated ground. Sticky-handed and reeking,
hot and heavy, I sauntered, smiling, itchy, horny as usual, astounded.
Not long after, Love bares buttocks, colliding, brazen, aggressive, wide, my
personal favorite. Squirting within seconds, all over jeans.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
PREFACE
This is difficult. However, in deference to the wish, I have tried.
I wish merely to warn readers to take with a grain of salt what
I will claim in the work, for reasons explained here.
- the author
I. CONFESSIONS OF A MAN
I'm the guy every time. So far, I've been saying it's funny, like a rush
orgasm. It's morally reprehensible, evil, old, and stupid. She confronted
me about my indiscretions, reminded me of wife/girlfriend/mistress routine.
"Why?" she asked. An empty bottle hit my head. "Why?"
"Why? I shot back. "How can you be so mad after a lovely evening?" I excused
myself and left her alone. Needed the moment to process the incident: drinks,
down and dirty, saying yes, saying no, belittling love, good, bad, in bed a replacement.
These aren't a big deal. Conscience clear. Truly sad my girl never understood that.
II. O STREAM
My first whole memory: a woman damp, idle, washing clothes. My first wishful
thought: I wanted women. Years later, I stirred, desperate, my voice heavy,
faded. Everything changed. Identified, the mystique died. The horned beast
of love registered between Aphrodite in flesh, bone-strong, inescapable,
hopelessly captured by it, but stuck on one: one channel, one slot.
Anna, Julie, Leni, the Bitch years later, all memorable; Marissa,
Janice, and Lorraine Anne, fuzz readily ripped, the organ used;
Jaclyn, Marsha, chicks; chicks Nova, Carmi; Maria Teresa, to me
the best, sure to delight, for short.
Wasn't our life sometimes a string of humor and frown?
The best stayed determined and went, like Jeanne - who stayed and suffered,
the drama low-stakes cliffhangers, cried and laughed and sucked cheap, disgusting,
yet so delicious, a prescribed pattern - and Julie, untimely letters promising cheer
with sheer, weep with mind-boggling force that hurts deep.
When faithful, lying wounds.
III. 101
There are occasions when the best way to deal with a problem is to
pretend ex is someone you loathe. Proceed with your plan. Demonstrate,
in some way, malicious pain.
You will give satisfaction. Play games. Two hours, countless times,
good and right, spread someone with you. Your foul behavior you
cannot deny. Deny everything to coming.
TO BE CONTINUED ...
from transition
Tired of the spectacle of short stories, novels, poems, and plays still under the hegemony
of the banal word, monotonous syntax, static psychology, descriptive naturalism,
and desirous of crystallising a viewpoint ...
We hereby declare that:
1. THE REVOLUTION IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE IS AN ACCOMPLISHED FACT.
2. THE IMAGINATION IN SEARCH OF A FABULOUS WORLD
IS AUTONOMOUS AND UNCONFINED.
(Prudence is a rich, ugly old maid courted by Incapacity ... Blake)
3. PURE POETRY IS A LYRICAL ABSOLUTE THAT SEEKS
AN A PRIORI REALITY WITHIN OURSELVES ALONE.
(Bring out number, weight and measure in a year of dearth ... Blake)
4. NARRATIVE IS NOT MERE ANECDOTE, BUT THE PROJECTION
OF A METAMORPHOSIS OF REALITY.
(Enough! Or too much! ... Blake)
5. THE EXPRESSION OF THESE CONCEPTS CAN BE ACHIEVED
ONLY THROUGH THE RHYTHMIC "HALLUCINATION OF THE WORD."
(Rimbaud)
6. THE LITERARY CREATOR HAS THE RIGHT TO DISINTEGRATE
THE PRIMAL MATTER OF WORDS IMPOSED ON HIM
BY TEXTBOOKS AND DICTIONARIES.
(The road to excess leads to the palace of Wisdom ... Blake)
7. HE HAS THE RIGHT TO USE WORDS OF HIS OWN FASHIONING
AND TO DISREGARD EXISTING GRAMMATICAL
AND SYNTACTICAL LAWS.
(The tigers of wrath are wiser than the horses of destruction ... Blake)
8. THE "LITANY OF WORDS" IS ADMITTED
AS AN INDEPENDENT UNIT.
9. WE ARE NOT CONCERNED WITH THE PROPAGATION
OF SOCIOLOGICAL IDEAS, EXCEPT TO EMANCIPATE
THE CREATIVE ELEMENTS FROM THE PRESENT IDEOLOGY.
10. TIME IS A TYRANNY TO BE ABOLISHED.
11. THE WRITER EXPRESSES. HE DOES NOT COMMUNICATE.
12. THE PLAIN READER BE DAMNED.
(Damn braces! Bless relaxes! ... Blake)
there are poems in here
for you * always something
for someone somewhere
eight years after the fact
and it's still the only pinoy hypertext
of this level of complexity
(and it's so old, you need to use Microsoft Internet Explorer to enjoy it fully)
a collection of one hundred and fifty-seven poems
|
| adam david - crows... |
| Hosted by eSnips |
Finally complete.
Click the link to either
view it or download it.
Send eMail to
juncruznaligas(at)gmail(dot)com
if you feel like getting in touch.
~
Other downloadable PDFs
Click the link to either
view it or download it.
Send eMail to
juncruznaligas(at)gmail(dot)com
if you feel like getting in touch.
~
Other downloadable PDFs
|
| adam david - the e... |
| Hosted by eSnips |
the El Bimbo Variations
a collection of ninety-nine permutations
of the first two lines from the classic Eraserheads song
|
| TLWcomplete.pdf |
| Hosted by eSnips |
the Long Weekend
a 24-hour comic book
|
| adam david - texti... |
| Hosted by eSnips |
Texticles
a collection of dagli
~
Other online texts
Instructions for the Inclined
a hip creative writing manual
Perverbs
a collection of proverbs
Crumbs!!!
a set of hypertexts circa 2001
You can't remember where it was.
Had this dream stopped?
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