Thursday, March 27, 2008

Like I never needed love before


Yawning, stretching, grasping my nth mug of coffee. Pressing Ctrl + S, then Alt + F4, grinning hugely. “Damn, I sound so smart,” I say out loud, to no one in particular. “It must be inherent.”

The man off to my side grunts.

“What? Aren’t you glad? I can talk about Francis Ponge and the duality of poetry, about literatures of the Non-Western World, about Estrella Alfon, about Nolledo and his Maria Alma. Quiz me on Dobyns and the crisis of language and the poetry of the city, and I can prattle on, sleep-deprived, wanting of a bath and a proper meal, surviving on sheer stubbornness, caffeine and nicotine. Aren’t you glad?

Another grunt.

“Well, I’m a magnificent conversationalist.” My voice has taken on an English accent, culled from years of reading Victorian romances out loud. “I happen to know a lot about mandrakes, sweetness. Yes, mandrakes, and not the Hogwarts version. Mandrakes, mandrakes. What eighteen-year-old in a five-mile radius can claim to know about that?”

“You need sleep.”

My laugh sounds shrill, even to my delusional ears.

*

Weeks ago, I watched as she stood on her tiptoes to kiss the boy who had ignored her for three years. Wow, I thought, we’re in for it now.

“That’s for ignoring me freshman year,” she told him, sure to keep her voice more impassioned, certainly louder, than a whisper.

I walked beside her then as she sashayed away, an unmistakable new sway to her hips, a smile of pure, gloating satisfaction playing on her face.

“I can see everything through your skirt,” I told her.

“I bet he could too,” she said.

*

One more time, he told her, impatient for the slap of her moans against his neck, of the near-desperate clasp of her hands against his back. You can have me one more time, he told his Maria, this new mythos found on yet another port – who, in time he was sure, would succumb to the gray that wrought all his memories of whores in places far-flung, humid and too-bright with sunlight. But for now she was still real, the color apricots from home, the scent of the moon when he was traveling – pale, timid, keeping an unrealized power that ensnared many a sailor to walk to the edge of the ship and simply walk farther, hands held high in hopes for a touch of the cool surface. But, oh, his Maria: the heat, the openness, the unabashed wanting making them both moist with a glance, near-erupting with an accidental grazing of sun-kissed skin. One more, he repeated, already hardening where he still nestled inside her, willing her eyes to open, her grip on him to tighten. One more time, Maria my darling, he implored. I leave on the rooster’s first crow.

*

Last night, I dreamt I shared a hopia with F. Sionil Jose.

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Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Strawberry dreams


1
I'm practically done with junior year. Imagine that. (I reiterate practically because, well, technically, I haven't exactly finished with requirements. There is still the matter of submitting the essays on Stephen Dobyns and Federico Licsi Espina. And then that blasted paper on Francis Ponge. And then another essay about oppression, freedom, and the notion of beauty in the literatures of the Non-Western World. [No, no name-dropping here. No, oh look at me, I'm so smart, reading up on such smart-sounding people, and all those relevant subjects! Pfft. I'm swamped, damn it, in over my head and I know it.])

2
I finished that story I told you was brewing in my head the other day. It's called "Quick, the Tomatoes" and I'm quite pleased with myself, thank you very much. :) Maybe it's the influx of domesticity in the literature I encounter lately -- in academe, in leisure --but "Tomatoes" could very well be a variation on the theme tackled by "Digressions" and "The Twenty-first Month." But then, almost none of you have any idea what I'm talking about now, do you? Oh well.

3
For the life of me, I can't find the page in But for the Lovers that says, "Garlanded thus, the world was tolerable." (Beats me why this is a matter of such significance that I gleefully tossed my first draft of the Ponge paper to scour to Nolledo's novel.) And I don't even know if "tolerable" is the correct word. So, PLE classmates, a little help here?

4
This is for all the bitter old people who (to paraphrase My Chemical Romance) have the shit scared out of 'em by us adolescents:

"When adults say, 'Teenagers think they are invincible' with that sly, stupid smile on their faces, they don't know how right they are. We need never be hopeless, becuase we can never be irreparably broken. We think that we are invincible becuase we are. We cannot be born, and we cannot die. Like all energy, we can only change shapes and sizes and manifestations. They forget that when they get old. They get scared of losing and failing. But that part of us greater than the sum of our parts cannot begin and cannot end, and so it cannot fail."
- from Looking for Alaska by John Green

HAHAHA, peace and love, people. :)

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Wednesday, March 19, 2008

Standing right in front of me


What happens now? For four days, the pious sit huddled in make-shift chapels in the middle of asphalt streets, chanting the Pasyon to the tune of whatever latest song caught their attention. Jesus Christ, yeah, dude died on the cross, yo. Until Sunday, the trains shall be motionless. Birds will delight on hearing their feet tick and tack against the steel roofs. Brothers will most probably lounging in hammocks while chickens scuttle beneath them. Green mangoes shall be peeled.

I'll be here, in Katipunan, no witness to that, kept company by Francine Prose, Gala Dali, Francis Ponge and Aime Cesaire. This is not a well-intentioned sacrifice of a well-meaning schoolgirl. This is plain absent-minded stupidity coupled with inherent laziness. Ai-yah. And me gots less than five hundred bucks to my name.

I should have gone at the first fade of sunlight, with nothing but Blue Angel and a change of underwear in my bag.

*

The girl next door, they say she looks like me. Except, of course, she has breasts. Comparatively, they simply exist.

She has long brown hair, curling from the shadows above her ears. Her lips are thin. When she smiles, a semi-colon deepens in the corner of her mouth.

Maybe some time before Easter, I could knock on her door, holding a mug of Swiss Miss in one hand. I might say, "Hello there. Have you heard me through the wall?"

*

A part of me wants to sit on the steps of that (obscenely arrogant) church in Varsity Hills, gnawing on Chickencow barbecue. Hm, Chickencow. I wonder if they're open today? Oh, sadness: a girl, alone on Lent, chatting up the waiters and waitresses, sipping RumCoke. Yes, why not?

I also want some Cherry Coke. (Do they still make those? Had I been the only one who liked its curling sweetness?) And some Cappuccino Mudslide. Would it be in bad taste to head on over to Rustan's and get myself some liquor? Yes, I think so -- even I know that much.

*

The flower shop across the street is closed. No one, apparently, wants to buy flowers during Lent. Why, though? They're on full-swing Valentine's and November 1st. Why not Lent? Love and death (in the pages of some tattered leather-bound book) -- potent combination, big sales? Or is it because you can't have a cup of coffee afterwards with Jesus? Because he has no tombstone to lay daisies on?

*

Holy fuck the palaspas, it's only Wednesday night.

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Sunday, March 16, 2008

Samson went back to bed


Sasha is doing a paper on thingie-poet (haha) Francis Ponge, as well as Estrella Alfon and ohmygodiloveyou Lakambini Sitoy. And a story about a nekkid Satan and something called "Hasten the Tomatoes" or "Quick, the Potatoes" whatever is brewing in my head.

That was a completely unrelated introduction to this:

Previously on Happy Mondays...

It was on the second of April last year, the first monday of the month, that the Happy Mondays Poetry Nights was successfully launched @ Mag:net Cafe in Katipunan. Tomorrow, March 17, marks the 24th installment of the bi-monthly reading -- a rare feat in consistency and the completion of a year-round series of Poetry Reading that featured veteran and multi-awarded pillars of the Philippine poetry scene, as well as some of the brightest and most promising young poets in the country today.

The idea of having a regular poetry reading in the cafe was conceived by Mag:Net owner Rock Drilon and young poet from the Ateneo Andrea "Drey" Teran sometime in March of last year. The goal was to establish the cafe as a regular venue for reading poems. The project was commendable since public readings of this type are hard to come by; the opportunity to read literary works is often dependent on (and limited to) literary festivals and workshops.

The Happy Mondays Poetry Nights project has brought on stage some of the most revered and respected young and established poets in the country: from Marc Gaba, Angelo Suarez, Mookie Katigbak, and Conchitina Cruz to Marne Kilates, Marjorie Evasco, Krip Yuson, and Gemino Abad. Frontrunners in Poetry in Filipino like Benilda Santos, Mike Coroza, Egay Samar, Jospeh Saguid, and Caloy Piocos have also graced the readings.

Visiting Fil-am poets Patrick Rosal and Joseph Legaspi have joined the celebration of the word and have read from their acclaimed collections. Rising poets like Mikael De Lara Co, Arkaye Kierulf, Allan Pastrana, and Emong De Borja have become regular Happy Monday readers, alongside upcoming and talented younger voices from nearby colleges and universities who are now part of the Happy Mondays reading family.

And the family is still increasing, twenty-four happy mondays after, a testament to the power of the written and spoken word, and the sublime negotiations in between.

The anniversary reading tomorrow will run from 7 to 10pm and will feature the following poets:

1. Rebecca Anonuevo
2. Teo Antonio
3. Gemino Abad
4. Edgar Samar
5. Alfred Yuson
6. Marne Kilates
7. Victor Penaranda
8. Lourd De Veyra
9. Angelo Suarez
10. Mike Coroza
11. Kris Lanot Lacaba
12. Joseph Saguid
13. Mikael Co
14. Eric Melendrez
15. Karen Kapco
16. Pocholo Goitia
17. Adam David
18. Keith Cortez
19. Khavn Dela Cruz
20. Sasha Martinez
21. Celine Martelino
22. Pancho Villanueva
23. Ria Torrente
24. Kash Avena
25. John Torres
26. Mia Tijam
27. Kristian Abe Dalao
28. Carlos Piocos
29. Ken Ishikawa
30. Corin Arenas

plus other readers still to confirm. Admission is free. Genuine Moleskine Notebooks will be raffled off, courtesy of Avalon.ph. Kitakits at makiwasak!


So, children, let's go. Lia and I (plus hot random blockmates) are heading over right after Sir Krip's fiction class. Come on. :)

(If you cringe at the thought of me further butchering poetry by reading onstage, you could always go to the bathroom. Or go downstairs and mingle with the street children, hehe.)

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They keep each other amused


Have any of you seen my life scurry past? Last seen with A Disgustingly Thorough History of French Literature stuck in its scraggly hair.

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Thursday, March 06, 2008

Followed by a moonshadow


Since I'm moving (I still don't know where exactly, but hey) I need to get rid of some of my lovely, lovely books. The first list can be found here. Like, go.

Oh, and in conjunction with that essay/poem I wrote, "I stopped reading romance novels", I am now selling, er, romance novels. I've got Fabio on my bookshelf, and I'll give it to you for a hundred or whatever.

Hay.

I'd go to Quezon Ave. for some moolah, but as everyone in the FA Room knows, that is most likely to be bleak.

UPDATE: Added to list is J. Robert Lennon's The Light of Fallen Stars and Alice Hoffman's At Risk. And will be uploading pictures of my babies this weekend in my LJ.

Help this soon-to-be-homeless chick out. :)

And thanks, Tricia! :p

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The sweetest goodbye


Dear kids: In a couple of weeks, I shall be homeless. Again. (I'm just getting poorer and poorer by the damned second.) I need a new place to live in.

Wala lang. Send out them pigeons. Else I'll camp on the doorstep of everyone I know.

I talk to cats.

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Monday, March 03, 2008

The Bible didn't mention us


Miss me?

1
I have not been abducted by aliens and put alongside cows and dolphins. No antiseptic capsule was constructed with me in mind, no silver jumpsuit was sewn from fibers found only on a moon in a galaxy named Sardo. No swashbuckling pirate, no down-on-his-luck cowboy, no bored multimillionaire decided to kidnap me. No one threw me over his ship, his horse, his Benz. Not even a tricycle. I wasn't thrown, gagged, my hair all a-tangle, in a ditch in Marinduque, with the remains of a popsicle in my bound hands. Any tacky impersonator of Jame Gumb did not strip the skin off me, because frankly, I doubt anyone would fit in to it the way it looks now. I have led a completely boring weekend life of DVD marathons (ohmygod, laglag ang panty ko kay Jean Reno sa Leon!) and hopia mongo, chronic oversleeping, and uncharged mobile phones.

2
I have been reading Ann Beattie's Secrets and Surprises, at Sir Larry's suggestion. I have been suffering from Literary Booger Complex. I have never had this strong an urge to hurl a book across the room for its vomitociously galing literary merit.

3
I have a copy of Roland Barthes' A Lover's Discourse on my bookshelf. My grandfather, fresh from the hospital, got it for me -- they all told me it was the only copy they found, after scouring bookstores upon bookstores. At Borders, there it was, sitting lone and alone, flanked by Barthes' books on Mythologies and Signs, seemingly waiting for that one person who would stride through the door with its name reverberating in his mind. Oh, thank you, everyone.

4
We've been productive, haven't we? I started working on them ideas germinating in my widdle mind, and got "The Evident Muse" (don't hassle me because it's a freakin' cheesy title, orayt?), "Sunday Morning", 90% of "The Eye Maker", and another one very tentatively titled "Nacho Libre" because I have no idea what to name it... Yeah-huh, I gots my short story mojo back.

Oh, and I think I wrote two poems. I think, I think.

This might suffice as an explanation why I look and sound and read out of sorts. Me back from dead, ug ug.

5
No way to measure time / when you cannot see the sky --

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