Miss Havisham Speaks

A Married State

Katherine Philips

A married state affords but little ease
The best of husbands are so hard to please.
This in wives’ careful faces you may spell
Though they dissemble their misfortunes well.
A virgin state is crowned with much content;
It’s always happy as it’s innocent.
No blustering husbands to create your fears;
No pangs of childbirth to extort your tears;
No children’s cries for to offend your ears;
Few worldly crosses to distract your prayers:
Thus are you freed from all the cares that do
Attend on matrimony and a husband too.
Therefore Madam, be advised by me
Turn, turn apostate to love’s levity,
Suppress wild nature if she dare rebel,
There’s no such thing as leading apes in hell[M1] .[i]


Every wedding I happen to attend strengthens my resolve never to marry. I believe that if the practice of wedding were totally abolished, there would infinitely be less waste and less expense in the world, and people would all be a great deal happier: people would no longer lie about their whereabouts or placate spouses with bribes, wives would no longer have to nag their lazy-ass husbands (who tease them about their figures, the potbellied bastards) to leave that frigging basketball game, children would quarrel less about whom their parents love more because, heck, they won’t know the identities of their parents. (How very Huxley.) People would be more independent because they would realize the impermanence and tenuousness of our relationships with other people.

I have never believed that marriage is a ceremony of lofty ideals and romantic, rosy dreams fulfilled. It is often a bloody business form start to finish. While I glory in bloodshed, I’d rather not parcel out my blood to the leeches. There's already enough trouble in the world, thank you very much.

Marriage is a delusion. It is not the peak people climb to arrive at happiness. It is not at all sacred; nothing but selfishness urges people to marry. People only marry for money, for companionship, for children. Though people may argue that this last is the object of selfless sacrifice, they are quite wrong. People want to have children so that they will not be left alone when they're old and decrepit. They have children so they can rest securely in the knowledge that the wealth they've accumulated won't go to strangers: ridiculous but true. People moralize and use their children's guilt to prevent being thrown out in the cold. However, I pity all those unfortunate parents, including my own. Raising children is a thankless job; it is a duty that holds no security, whose only sure return is pain and anger. It drains people's resources-- pecuniary, mental, and physical--and leaves them vulnerable to others who wish to destroy them. Marriage, and all its messy addenda and byproducts, I denounce for ever. Far better and happier fate it is to live in solitude, to be free to spend money in any way one wishes, to go anywhere one leads oneself, and to be untroubled by the fate of other souls yoked to yours. I may be a coward, but at least I am wise enough to know where I stand. Marriage will not solve problems, but increase them threefold; love is never enough, will never be enough. There is only so much to us, to our ceremonies, our fragile existence.The restless scrambling and searching, the endless self-immolation and self-laceration people commit in the name of finding love, are all meaningless. The only reprieve we will know from our common loneliness can only come from ourselves, by our own achievement, by our own realization, by our own redemption.


[i] This was allegedly the fate of spinsters.


[M1]

Orbiting

The title of this post is taken from a short story by Bharati Mukherjee. In it, the main character's lover, an Afghan immigrant to America, tells her family about "orbiting" various international airports after fleeing his country. I won't tell you how the story ends; read it for yourself. I decided to use the word because I thought it very apt. If you think about it, all we do in life is orbit around certain goals, certain beliefs, and certain people. We change our path of orbit every now and then, we have our personal equivalents of the sun and the moon, we experience "perihelion", "perigee", "aphelion", "apogee"; some of us "revolve" faster than others, and we all have a "dark side". (It is amusing to think that whatever we point to in nature has characteristics that can be attributed to us. So much for the debunking of myths and the anthropocentric theory. They still have some relevance. )

I came up with this theory of orbiting because I recently felt that I was at loose ends. I am orbiting right now between doubt and certainty, between reading my books and reading chem notes, between the past and the future. I do not know why things bother me this way. They just do on such a regular basis; my cycle of orbits are already so convoluted I am bewildered by every little thing. So much has happened since I last wrote, and I feel more than ever that I am a lonely sphere of rock floating away into space; not even a planet, I am dwarfed by the vast expanse of weightlessness, the imposing pull of others' gravitational fields. I am not depressed, but there is an indefinable thing that eludes me. What is it, and what is my life? To that, I know not the answer any more than you do.

A Play of Passion

As old Walter Raleigh said, our life is a play of passion. By "passion" he meant suffering, as in "a Passion play", a play that re-enacts the sufferings of Christ. Passion, if you consider its root "pathos", means suffering, and is not really the emotional and physical rapture we associate it with today. Perhaps it is true that life is really about suffering, and all other things are trivial compared to what we must suffer. Perhaps our successes are only marginal triumphs before the inevitable fact of death. To suffer is to live, and to live is to suffer. From the moment we are born, we are under the shadow of agony-- our mothers experience it through childbirth, and so do we. We cry out at the difficulty of having to go out into a new world, of having to leave the comfort of our mothers' wombs. Our mothers are pained by each new act of disobedience, of treachery, or else they leave us to ourselves in order to cope with their own private sorrows. There is really no such thing as absolute gratification in life. If so, one might question the need to achieve status, to accumulate wealth, to gain knowledge-- if all they do is increase our suffering with every loss. Indeed, to be wise is to suffer, to feel grief, as it is said in Ecclesiastes that the house of the wise is the house of mourning. And with each gain, with each loss, we become more aware of the inherent grief of our existence; death is not merely physical death, it is also made up of the small slow deaths that grip us while we are corporeally alive. Yet there is hope for us: in the Passion of Christ, he rises again after being crucified and entombed. We have hope in the word timshel, "Thou mayest", that we can defeat the clutches of death that so readily grasp us; we have hope in the salvation we gain by the sacrifice of Christ.

Another self

I invariably experience an uncanny feeling whenever I read my previous writings-- emails, journal entries, poems, and essays. I do not quite know how to define the odd feeling, much less explain it. Suffice it to say that the experience is akin to being haunted by ghosts-- in my case, the ghosts of memory, of childhood, of innocence, of perished emotions. And it too provokes a sense of regret, regret at what could have been and regret that what must be must be. At times there is amazement and even consternation ("I wrote this?! What bloody crap!") which is what I feel when I read the poems of my early adolescence; their rhymes that once seemed ingenious now seem inadequate and contrived; their veiled romanticism seems hollow. It seems plausible that I once believed those things which I wrote in my slightly unruly hand, but their author is now far removed from me. In a sense, I envy her, her ability to write, and her pride in her work. I remember that she had aspirations of winning awards. She was not entirely convinced of the failures of the writers she admired, not having any basis of failure nor any experience of utter rejection. Now, however, the possibility of failure is very real to me (Math 17) and I no longer have time to write, even though I still find time to read. I read, perhaps not only to escape the monotony of my life and the drudgery of academics and duties, but also to find out how writers write. I envy that other self, who wrote poems during class and hid her work whenever the teachers came near, who declaimed poems with vim and imperiousness (with character, she would say), who hid her contempt from her sanctimonious teachers, all the while nodding yes while a dagger glinted in the darkness of her rebellious heart. I miss that other self; I want her back. While I still pretend complicity in order to avoid conflict, I cannot deny that the most important thing-- the will to write-- is slowly ebbing from me. My consciousness is fatigued, my perspective jaded. I wish for that other self to return and refresh my identity. I am myself, but somehow I do not feel like myself. I rarely dream, and waking is hateful to me; I am plagued with doubts I cannot assuage nor resolve. I feel old. And although that other self was naive and too confident of herself, I wish her back. She still returns on occasion, but it would be better if she returned to share this shell with this other self, and yet many other selves, and many others to come. For in truth, there will always nag at the edge of consciousness other selves, of which you will always be uncertain. You cannot know too much about these other selves; their loves, their rages, their dreams will be different from yours. They will be part of you, and you part of them, yet in your separateness you will remain immiscible in one another. And each will take turns in arising from disuse or long sleep, and die when they have outlived their object to be. They are the dreams you relinquished, the children of your impulses, the product of your perceptions, the silent witnesses to your deceptions and victories. I wonder at these my other selves, and perhaps, that is why the feeling is so uncanny-- that of the past awakening, of memories unfolding, resurrecting themselves despite their death by my volition; that glimpse of another self, the life of another hour taking shape in another. I mourn my blight, I mourn myself through these, my other selves.

Ang mga dakilang sugarol

Nagsimula ang lahat noong isang linggo. Kami ni C-- ay nagkaroon ng pagnanasang maglaro ng baraha. Kulang na lang na magpunta kami sa National Bookstore para lang makahanap ng baraha. ADIK! Eh 'yun pala hindi lang kami, pati sina T--, M-- at A-- rin. Grabe. Halos kada libreng oras namin sa eskwelahan, maliban sa oras ng pagkain at pagbisita sa palikuran, eh ginugol namin sa paglalaro ng baraha. Ayaw naming magpaawat! Ewan ko ba kung anong espiritu ang sumapi sa amin... eh lalo na ngayong araw na ito, wala kaming Nat Sci at nagayos lang kami ng grado sa Histo. Nahilo na ako sa kakalaro. Pero masaya. At buti nama'y hindi ako laging talunan. Hehehe. Nangalawang na rin kasi ang kakayanan ko sa sugal, kung maaaring tawaging sugal ang ginagawa namin. Wala naman kaming ipinupustang pera. Kaya nga nagtaka ako nang sitahin kami sa aming paglalaro noong gwardyang sadyang mahaba ang mukha, mabilis manita ng estudyante, at pawang laging sinusundan ang klase namin sa pagroronda. 'Yung medyo kalbo ang pagkagupit sa buhok. Ngunit kami, ang mga dakilang sugarol, ay nagumpisa muli ng aming paglalaro ng pusoi dos nang tumalikod siya. Ang katwiran namin, totoo ngang labag sa patakaran ng pamantasan ang pagsugal. pero hindi nga namang mababansagang pagsugal ang ginagawa namin, tulad nga ng napaliwanag ko. At hindi naman si manong gwardya ang pinakamataas na maykapangyarihan upang kami'y pagbawalan. Eh mismong mga guro eh tumitingin lamang sa aming paglaro at hindi man lang umimik. Kaya nga mayroon na kaming bansag sa aming grupo na unti-unting lumalaki-- ang pamagat ng pahayag na ito--"Ang mga Dakilang Sugarol." Mantakin mo nga naman, sadyang nalulong na kami sa paglalaro. Balak ko na ngang hindi na dalhin ang mga baraha, ngunit ito ri'y pampalipas-oras. Nakatutulong sa pag-pawi ng pagkabagot. Pero naisip ko na rin na maiigi nang bawasan ang passamba sa diyos ng papel. Kung tutuusin kakatwa ang kapalaran ng tao: halos lahat ng mahahalagang karanasan o pangangailangan, may piraso ng papel na katumbas. Pera, classcard, diploma, baraha, libro-- lahat ng mga ito'y gawa lamang sa papel, walang halaga bagkus sa binigay na halaga ng gobyerno, ng paaralan, ng may-akda at kalakalan, at ng mismong tao na nakikinabang sa mga bagay na ito. Masyado tayong nakasalalay sa papel; at kahit ano pang sabihin ng nakararami, ang paggamit ng papel ay hindi agad mapapalitan ng makabagong teknolohiya ng computer. Magmula nang maimbento ang papel noong sinaunang panahon sa Tsina, samu't saring yari, kapal, kulay, at gamit ng papel ay natuklasan at sinusuri ng sangkatauhan. Akalain mong nanggagaling lamang ang papel sa kahoy na tinadtad ng pino, na galing sa mga puno ng mga kagubatang ating kinakalbo. Kung hindi tayo mag-iingat, marahil na kapag naglaon ay mawawalan tayo ng isa sa ating pinakamahalaga ngunit kalimita'y binabalewala na kagamitan... ang papel. At iyon na ang magbabadya ng panibagong kabanata sa kasaysayan ng sangkatauhan. At sa huli, ang maitatanong tungkol sa atin ng ating mga apo ay, "Ano nga bang ginawa ng mga tao nang malaman nila na ang papel, isa sa pinakamahalagang bahagi ng kanilang pamumuhay, ay tuluyang nawala?" Sana, hindi naman natin maikwento na sinubasta natin ang mga pira-pirasong papel na natira sa pagaari natin, o kaya'y nabaliw tayo't kumain ng papel, o kaya'y naluluong tayo sa pagsugal para sa perang nawala na sa kakilanlan. Sana'y makasagot tayo na ginawa natin ang tama, na nakahanap tayo ng mainam na kapalit para sa papel. Sana nga. Kung hindi pa tayo patay pagdating ng panahon na iyon.

Poetic Injustice

(The following account is quite vitriolic. But hey, isn't the blog entitled I Sound My Monstrous Yawp? I think it's only right for me to air my opinions, as the issue concerns me very much.)

If you ride on the Light Rail Transit, you will notice the "Berso sa Metro" posters. These posters have poems printed in the original Spanish and in Tagalog. On the other side of the aisle there is another poster, an advertisement from the Instituto Cervantes. It's more likely that people will pay more attention to the Instituto posters, because they're more conspicuous, and the font on the "Berso" posters are small enough that you have to squint to read the poems. I hate this ad campaign. For one thing, they only got the idea from the New York subway. Then, too, they're encouraging colonial mentality by ignoring our own poets. It would be somewhat justified were they to post the poems of, say, Lorca, or any of the great Spanish poets, but the only author of note featured is Pablo Neruda. And why Spanish? We've had enough of that language for three hundred-odd years. Why not German, so that Filipinos can read Schiller (translated into Tagalog) and think about things a little more profoundly? Why not Chinese, so that the Tang poets can gain a wider audience in the Philippines? Better yet, why not advocate our National Artists? Even in the tiniest details of our existence, the government shows just what a pack of cringing toadies it is. We are not yet free. If we were, there would be poems about nationalism, or some such theme relevant to us, instead of sentimental Spanish poetry about sampaguitas. I'm not against freedom of expression, nor am I against foreign poetry, which I avidly read; the monopoly of the Spanish Instituto, however, shows the pervasive disparity in our country, and makes us underrepresented on our own turf. When you consider the burden of oppression and its long existence, isn't it time to throw it off and sever all ties with it?

Random Ramblings

Well, it's uncanny the way intuition works. There are times when I feel I could make a living as a fortune-teller, or at least predict events in my life, or win at cards or dice just by this weird feeling; a mix of apprehension and elation, it vivifies the moments of life and lets you recover them when you need to. The end has come; The Poisonwood Bible is resting(both figuratively and literally) on my shelf at the moment. What do you know, Adah and I are more alike than I imagined at first. She became a doctor(!), decided not to marry(!) and learned to speak and walk normally. So it all went well for her in the end. Ruth May died, because she wouldn't take her malaria pills. Leah and Anatole got married and had children, with Leah leaving her father's shadow behind; Orleanna worked for a relief organization, and Rachel married thrice and finally set up a hotel at the border of Zaire. Oh, and Nathan went mad and got burned in a tower, as described in the last verse of the Apocrypha. (What an oddity, a right-wing Baptist preacher who advocated the Apocrypha. That's Life for you.) So the family saga ends. The thing is, "I do not want to discuss it" is the phrase that comes to mind, so I won't. (I recently disovered that I like a lot of the novels on the Oprah's Book Club List. Gave me quite a shock, when I viewed the list for the first time. I own six of the books and read two others that I've borrowed. I had no idea.)
***
I don't know if you've noticed that some of the most delicious food items and condiments are brown--or at least with a brownish tinge. Adobo, bagoong, chocolate, patis, dark vinegar, coffee, black(?) tea, beef, soy sauce, sesame oil, chico, cooking wine( sherry, xiao xing), spice mixes, natto, beans, kalamay, tamarinds, lechon, gula melaka, muscovado, etc. (My love of salty food will be the death of my kidneys someday; I can't help it though. I love patis,soy sauce, adobo and bagoong!) Brown is such a fabulous shade, even though that means it can camouflage any discrepancies in the food. But most of the brown ingredients bring out the best dimensions of food. For instance, just this night I made a paste out of tamarinds and paired that with the tilapia we were having for dinner. The result: yummy with double knobs. I usually don't like the fishy taste of tilapia, but the combination worked due to the refreshing sourness of the tamnarinds paired with the sweetness of the fish. And speaking of fish: just found the heartiest fish head stew in a small restaurant in Binondo. I just devoured half of the food set on the table.The waiters were probably a-gossiping, but they can stuff themselves for all I care. The bastards. I was hungry; Binondo usually makes people hungry and that's why it's chock-full of food establishments.

What I don't get is the scarcity of Filipino food in other countries, which contributes to Filipino homesickness; other cultures are so well-represented. It's a pity because Filipino culture is nothing if not 60% food. You give food to guests, you bring food from trips as pasalubong, you take home food from festivities, you make special food for birthdays and holidays. The food in our culture has such an influence on us: it shapes our memories and consciousness of our diversity. We should really be more proud of it instead of taking all this fandangled French way of cooking too seriously. Desosser, rechauffer, flambe-- all very well and good; you can cook for all these exacting palates, you are established as a chef, but what have you to show for your country? Another form of colonial triumph. I know that for Filipino food to succeed abroad it needs to be certified safe to eat so that you won't go out of business, because some people are so finicky and lily-livered when it comes to food. They'll eat escargot and raw oysters, but not kare-kare. Really, though, when it all unravels, overeating is what kills you, not the food. We should aim to minimize this effacement of our culture by keeping our food traditions intact. It's such a waste to relinquish so willingly a part of our culture so vital to us, so representative of us as Filipinos, so distinctive from any other kind of cuisine. Perhaps the way to our hearts is through our stomachs, after all.

Revelation

I've just begun reading The Poisonwood Bible by Barbara Kingsolver, one of my favourite authors, and I had this eureka moment as I read it. You might think it unnecessary, but I believe that one should find a literary character to relate to in the span of one's life. You see, by relating to that character and by listening to the character's "voice", you gain a new perspective on life. There results a reaffirmation of your identity as a person, which enables you to envisage your future self after being influenced by the character. Of course, you must expect changes, because you should never be static as a person. Your choices will invariably differ as another part of your life gives up the ghost.

For years I devoured books, smelled their pages new and musty, heard the crack of the spines, fingered peeling bindings, and hunted them all over the stores---yet this quest to find a kindred spirit in the world of books failed me. My early heroes were not like me. Anne Shirley, Jo March, Miss Havisham, Edmond Dantes, Jean Valjean-- these were characters whom I appreciated and admired, but I did not relate to them completely. There was, in our correlation as character and reader, a gap that was far too large for mending. We would perhaps be friends, but we would always be incongruous together; I never thought I would find that elusive personage. However, upon reading The Poisonwood Bible I finally found her. Adah, the twin who thought much but rarely spoke; the one who saw through her sisters and parents, who never fit in anywhere, who had a damaged brain but still functioned, who made palindromes her mantras, who rebelled against blind obedience to her father and the God who she felt had abandoned her. She is very much like me, although we are not exactly the same. She is equally the person I am, the person I want to become, and the person I want to leave behind. Never have I been so engrossed in a character. She compels me. We are shattered shards of the same mirror, and I feel that with little effort I can make her real. Because of her, I am pressed more than ever to know how the story ends; when that time comes I hope that I, too, will know how to deal with myself, how to conquer the demons, how to drag my right foot behind my left, how to shout without saying a word. After discovering her, the unbidden surprise in a book, I believe more than ever in the magic of books; and my faith in them is affirmed as it has been time and again.

Back from wall-clinging

I've just gotten back from wall-climbing with the FPF class, and I'm glad that my arms are loosening up. The whole thing was fun, though tiring, and there were mishaps--people dangling from ropes like rag dolls, my failed attempts, that sort of thing. Thankfully, we all got through in fairly good shape. The fake rocks reminded me of Salvador Dali. All the while I was wall-climbing I felt my incapacity very acutely, I felt my mortality. My feet were shaking so badly. I was so nervous I thought I'd fall there and then. They never tell you that your forearms will be the first to tire. Mine got so stiff they felt like a cadaver's. But I had a go again and I succeeded in reaching the top. I'm wary of the hype but even though you already know the way it works you still buy into it. At least I did. As soon as I was halfway down I was elated and telling anyone who would tolerate me that I had climbed up to the top. I felt positively euphoric. I guess some things are beyond reckoning. But it taught me a lot of things, and I would recommend it to people who want to feel a little more invincible than they do in everyday life.

Helluo librorum

I've just finished rearranging my books for the umpteenth time, and decided to count them. I found out that I had more than a hundred books. I really do the rearranging because my frequent reading invariably mixes up the books, and also because I am striving for some semblance of order in my life. (Naks naman!) Hmm. To tell you honestly though, I rarely spend more than half of my monthly allowance on books, because of Booksale. But I really am a sort of escapist when it comes to books. I actually have gone so far to make a hypothesis that I would have credited were I someone who believed in reincarnation: I may have been African in a past life. Why is this, you ask? Well, I enjoy reading the works of African-American or African authors, such as Chinua Achebe, Alice Walker, Gwendolyn Brooks, Lewis de Soto, Laurens van der Post, Wole Soyinka, etc. I only realized that now, and it's quite weird. I can't help it though, they are so much fun to read, so earthy, so realistic, so deep. But if I really want to wipe my head-slate clean I read something else. Hemingway's short stories are good. I used to borrow The First Forty-nine Stories all the time when I was in high school, and my favorite Hemingway novel among those I've read so far is The Sun Also Rises. I don't know what there is about reading Papa Ernest(Yes, I call him that in my head, because he was so handsome. Ay, nababading na ako!) that has a soothing effect on me. Hindi ba dapat nakakabangag siyang basahin dahil ang daming misterio sa mga kaugnayan sa kwento niya? But he tells stories simply, so you don't have to over-analyze. Pero pagdating sa nobela niya ibang kwento na yan. But for all his faults, magaling siya. Pero hindi siya ang paborito kong manunulat. Wala pa akong nahahanap na paborito. Pero siguro hindi na rin dapat maghanap ng paboritong manunulat, kung hindi magbasa na lamang at timbangin ang kanilang sinasabi sa timbangan ng puso at utak. Humahanga ako sa mga manunulat na hindi kumita ng maraming pera ngunit hindi tumigil sa paglikha ng kanilang sining. Sila ang mga tunay na dakila, na hindi nasilaw ng pilak at hindi natakot sa anumang sasabihin o gagawin laban sa kanila. Sila ang nagsikap na manatiling buhay ang ating kasaysayan at katauhan bilang mga Pilipino. Sana'y sila rin ay mabuhay sa ating mga isipan, sa ating pagbasa sa kanilang mga akda, at sa ating pagsulat ng ating mga karanasan.

Vignettes

Yesterday I was with my friends at the Rob, killing time before the Nat Sci exam. We were on our way back to U.P. and decided to take the lift to save time. When the lift went down to the second floor, a group of floozies came in. Mga tuta at yung amo nilang banyaga. The lift suddenly began to beep in overload agony. The foreign man refused to budge, even though he was obviously obese and the lift was obviously straining under the combined weight of their party. The fat man began to ask the fag among the floozies ( Sorry, couldn't resist. Nothing personal.) questions in a language I could not understand. It may have been French, it may have been Russian. Who knows. He obviously did not want to get separated from the floozies, although they seemed quite willing to leave him. The stupid man stood there like a goose until finally one of the floozies got off and told the others to do the same. When the lift closed, the lady standing beside me said, "Ano ba naman yun, ang laki-laki na nga eh ayaw pang umalis. Mamaya sasampalin yun ng kasama niya." I said in reply," Oo nga po eh, tumutunog na nga yung elevator ayaw pang bumaba. " When we got off, my friends and I could not help laughing, although N--- told me there was a floozy still left on the elevator. Oh well, that floozy can tattle all she wants, we'll probably never meet again, as C--- said.
*****
I enjoyed reading To Kill a Mockingbird, and I got curious about Mr. Blackstone, the geezer who wrote Commentaries. However, I was disillusioned as to this man's judiciousness when I saw one of his quotes on ThinkExist : "The husband and wife are one, and that one is the husband." The quote had a rating of three stars(!) which means that there are many masochists in this world still. It reminds me of the injustice of Flagrante Delicto, of the rule of thumb, of the many crimes committed against womanhood. It is even more unfortunate that even though we have been enlightened, we still stoop under the yoke of "tradition". If that is so I spit upon tradition, on the bondage it has imposed on everyone, its delusions, its fallacies. The mind must not be a sponge; it must be a sieve, to sift out what is irrelevant and to keep what is important. We Filipinas have experienced enough suffering through our docility, our compliance. It is time we defy this constriction imposed by dead nameless misogynists; we need to rise from our long sleep. We must rebel against submission merely because the one in authority has his superiority declared not in deeds, but in the mere fact of his being a man. There is really nothing new in this. In the same way that apartheid and segregation emphasized the schism of races within a race, so is discrimination against women. Women are part of the human race; without them it would have perished long ago. We are not inferiors but equals. Until prisons are demolished, until bridges are built to effect reparation, there will be no real hope for the race of men; for as long as these obstacles continue to exist in our minds, we will remain as we have always been-- always doubtful, always suspicious, always severed even though we should be one.

Olympics and ordure

I've been watching the Olympics recently( who hasn't?), and though I missed the opening ceremonies for the most part, I know for a fact that the Chinese delivered (they always do, because of the issue of "losing face"). And I am proud of their accomplishments as a nation, for all the upward mobility, the evolution of their state into a capitalist economy, the way they have pulled everything off so well. And of course there is the China-Tibet controversy. While I admit that there is a whole bloody lot of discrepancies to be sorted out, especially those regarding China's human-rights violations (which, by the way, have existed as part of their civilization throughout the millenia), I also think that other countries (the powers that be, or so they think) have been full of duplicity in their dealings, as well. We, the innocent masses, have no real, absolute idea of their under-handed negotiations, and the United States is a fine example of the oppressed becoming oppressors, and of absolute power corrupting absolutely. But I have digressed, I have rambled. So do let me start over again.

Well, as I've said, I've been watching the Olympics and the athletes are really hungry for success. Some have been playing dirty, such as Angola and Germany, and others have played fairly, such as the female weightlifters (no steroids). However, all this grand display of wits, brawn, strength, camaraderie, calumny, and drama come from one enterprising Baron (or Count, I forget which title he claimed), whose name I have forgotten. If you subscribe to Reader's Digest, try to look into the issue with the article about the myths of the Olympics. Anyway, I agree with the ideology of the Olympics and disagree with its reality. It is really nothing more than a chance to show off, to be famous, to earn recognition so you can turn heads and make commercials. Every time there is an Olympic celebration, boodles of moolah are spent to beautify the damn city where it's to be held. So THE WORLD has seen your capital in all its synthetic glory. What then is to be done to ameliorate the present conditions? How can you find more moolah to replace what you've just spent in a vain effort to cater to the needs of foreigners who don't give a damn for the country anyway? Does the spirit of being "One world, One dream" present itself as reality? Or is it a dream deferred?

For instance, there was great rejoicing during the Berlin Olympics during the Nazi occupation. ("Heil, Hitler!") The whole who's who of Europe came to see the event. However, athletes who were of Negro or Native American ancestry were ignored by the Aryan-loving Fuhrer, who was himself an AUSTRIAN JEW. It may then be concluded that the heroism (?) of athletes, the sacrifices made by the welcoming committee, the untold hours spent by laborers in building edifices, belie the inherent hypocrisy and selfish nature of the Olympics. It is quite humorous that the human race is too cowardly to openly acknowledge that everything is a stunt, and that it needs a sporting event every four years to generate income, to unite people under the delusion of unity. We keep this farce up until the last of the banners has been taken down. We remember for a while, then we forget. We are the people, the mob, the crowd, the mass. We are the Iks, who defecate on others' doorsteps. Let us accept this fact. Only then can we say that we are one world working toward one dream.

Acrostics!

Since no one ever reads this blog, I'm sure no one will mind my saying that I used to hate acrostics: sappy, campy, cheap, what have you-- I didn't want anything to do with them. Perhaps this was due to the use of acrostics by former teachers to create things truly horrendous and grade school. I can't remember any of them now, but the trauma remains. However, after scanning a book in the library about poetry, I realized they are quite fun after all, when written in a whimsical, satirical, or creative fashion. For instance, the author/compiler of the book, a Mr. Ron Padget, used the letters of his name to create a poem with humor like that of Caroll's "Jabberwocky". I can't remember the poem exactly, but it spoke of a "delicious God" and provisions for the termites. I thought that it was just so much fun, too good to pass up. If you're ever bored with nothing to do think of any word or phrase, like "Tantalus", or "Xanthosis", or let's say "Fourth Avenue Cafe". Make that into an acrostic poem and you'll have something to laugh at. I found that it's better to finish an acrostic poem in less than 3 minutes, because the spontaneity with which you wrote it makes it ring truer. Of course it depends on how long the acrostic is. Earlier, while waiting, I found time to write a few acrostic poems. I'll show you some.(Then again, there's no one to show this to. Oh, well. Let me be. >=)) )

Kalashnikov*

Kites
Alight on branches,
Laughingly
Alert,
Scanning the
Horizon
Nearby
In
Kite hopes
Of
Victuals

(*A kalashnikov was a kind of gun used by the Russians.)

In Honor of Ron Padget

Ripopee* of
Obnoxious
Naughty
Perverse
Animalistic
Delightful
Gorgeous
Endearing
Tots

(*Ripopee is a Cajun word for a "gang of obnoxious children", according to Rebecca Wells in The Divine Secrets of the Ya-ya Sisterhood. See? You get to use words you normally wouldn't use in normal life! What a mind-opener acrostics can be!)

On Bella Akhmadulina

Your
Eve
Vacated that
Garden of
Eden,
Now
Your desolate
Your silent
Emporium of
Vast wonders
Teasingly
Ubiquitous
Sinfully
Hellish--
Eden
Now looks like
Kiev
On death row.

(This poem is referring to Yevgeny Yevtushenko, one of my favorite poets, and the poetess Bella Akhmadulina, his first wife. Thank providence I was able to think of Kiev, or I would have been stuck. As it is, it fits in very nicely.)

Hey, Daddy...

I've often noticed this schism in society, that just because you're a girl, there are immediate assumptions about you. There is always an underlying pretension that you have to put up with in public, even though you condemn it in private. Below is Sylvia Plath's poem "Daddy", one of my favorite poems because it is personal while being a poem that celebrates the freedom of women from patriachal bonds. It is an odd mix of droll melancholy and wild vengeance which culminates in the last line, a succinct utterance of separation: "Daddy, Daddy, you bastard, I'm through."

Daddy
by: Sylvia Plath

You do not do, you do not do
Any more, black shoe
In which I have lived like a foot
For thirty years, poor and white,
Barely daring to breathe or Achoo.

Daddy, I have had to kill you.
You died before I had time--
Marble-heavy, a bag full of God,
Ghastly statue with one gray toe
Big as a Frisco seal

And a head in the freakish Atlantic
Where it pours bean green over blue
In the waters off beautiful Nauset.
I used to pray to recover you.
Ach, du.

In the German tongue, in the Polish town
Scraped flat by the roller
Of wars, wars, wars.
But the name of the town is common.
My Polack friend

Says there are a dozen or two.
So I never could tell where you
Put your foot, your root,
I never could talk to you.
The tongue stuck in my jaw.

It stuck in a barb wire snare.
Ich, ich, ich, ich,
I could hardly speak.
I thought every German was you.
And the language obscene

An engine, an engine
Chuffing me off like a Jew.
A Jew to Dachau, Auschwitz, Belsen.
I began to talk like a Jew.
I think I may well be a Jew.

The snows of the Tyrol, the clear beer of Vienna
Are not very pure or true.
With my gipsy ancestress and my weird luck
And my Taroc pack and my Taroc pack
I may be a bit of a Jew.

I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo.
And your neat mustache
And your Aryan eye, bright blue.
Panzer-man, panzer-man, O You--

Not God but a swastika
So black no sky could squeak through.
Every woman adores a Fascist,
The boot in the face, the brute
Brute heart of a brute like you.

You stand at the blackboard, daddy,
In the picture I have of you,
A cleft in your chin instead of your foot
But no less a devil for that,no not
Any less the black man who

Bit my pretty red heart in two.
I was ten when they buried you.
At twenty I tried to die
And get back, back, back to you.
I thought even the bones would do.

But they pulled me out of the sack,
And they stuck me together with glue.
And then I knew what to do.
I made a model of you,
A man in black with a Meinkampf look

And a love of the rack and the screw.
And I said I do, I do.
So daddy, I'm finally through.
The black telephone's off at the root,
The voices just can't worm through.

If I've killed one man, I've killed two--
The vampire who said he was you
And drank my blood for a year,
Seven years, if you want to know.
Daddy, you can lie back now.

There's a stake in your fat black heart
And the villagers never liked you.
They are dancing and stamping on you.
They always knew it was you.
Daddy, daddy, you bastard, I'm through.

Collage

I needed to make a collage for the screening of THE ORG. That done, I showed it to some people, who, friends though they were, could not seem to believe that it. was. my. work. What is up with that? Though I never stood out as the artiste, I have enough gumption to appreciate (and, I hope, create) art. Should I show it here? Later on, maybe. If someone really wants to see it. As with many things, the scanned version looks quite better than the original. I don't know why that is. Well, I just thought I'd provide you kids with a collage of a different kind, one you would style by yourselves. I saw all the following this morning:

1) The squatters' area by the rails completely demolished, a desolate sea of concrete, old wood, and scrap metal, with some men and children milling about.
2) Men carting off wood and metal to be sold to junkyards.
3) Children being walked to school by fussy grandmothers and harrassed mothers.
4) An old man selling candies, the veins in his thin legs standing out against the skin.

And this is what I heard:

1) The rail people were leaving because they could no longer make a living. They'd sold heaps of scrap to the junkyards before their evictions,thus making the junkyard owners short of cash; unsurprisingly, the Chinese junkyard owner was the only one who didn't get any of the scrap. Slow business. Eh kesyo daw barat.
2) A Japanese fighter plane and another airplane collided, due to the lack of radar on the fighter plane.

Well, can you picture that? A little slice of the Philippines for anyone who wants it. We only live, after all, in these little moments of clarity, these little slivers of consciousness.

Buried alive in books

Looking around at my room yesterday, it dawned on me just how compulsive I am when it comes to buying books. When I went to the MOA branch of Booksale, I went gaga over a nearly pristine copy of The Lost World, now reserved for Barney. I also found--can you believe my luck?-- a copy of Cold Sassy Tree and Leaving Cold Sassy, 40 pesos and 35 pesos respectively. When you consider that the copy of Leaving Cold Sassy for sale at the RP Booksale branch is 140 pesos, that's cheap. Two for half the price of one. Tapos nakahanap pa ako ng libro ni David Davidar, The House of Blue Mangoes. (As usual, meron na namang comment dun si Abraham Verghese. Bakit ba ang dami na niyang mga comment sa libro? Sikat na kasi dahil sa My Own Country. Grabe ang ganda ng libro na yun. Ayoko yung kasunod, yung The Tennis Partner. Dull. Kaya ko kinuha si David Davidar kasi nakakatuwa yung pangalan niya, parang si William Carlos Williams. At saka nakita ko yung pangalan niya dun sa article tungkol kay Shobha De. At saka 45 pesos lang yung libro, parang brand new. Dalawa pa yung dust jacket.)

Anyway, nung nalagay ko na yung mga libro sa kwarto ko, naisip ko lang na nabuhay na ako sa librong galing sa Booksale. Kasi naman yung mga nakikita mo sa National Bookstore nakakasuya, yung mga sinulat ni Paolo Coelho pinuno na yung mga shelf, o kaya yung mga nobelang ginawang pelikula, o kaya yung mga libro ni Nicholas Sparks na sobrang senti napaulit-ulit lang ang tema, o kaya yung mga libro ni Stephenie Meyer,o kaya yung mga chick lit na ewan mo ba kung paano napalathala. Ang binibili ko lang sa National yung mga classic. Sa Booksale naman, ang kailangan mo pasensya, tiyaga at saka tibay ng tuhod at mata. May sikreto dun kung paano mo makukuha yung mga libro na limang piso lang ang presyo. Syempre kailangan rin alam mo na kung ano yung klase ng libro na hinahanap mo. Ako ang gusto ko yung mga vintage, yung mga mahirap hanapin sa ibang bookstore. Maigi kasi yun kasi pag nakabili ka nun at mura pa, unique yung library mo. Sa totoo lang, mura na yung mahal na libro sa Booksale (ie. 100 pesos pataas) kasi 1/3 lang ng presyo sa National. Pero yung mga kaibigan ko, maaarte rin sila sa libro kaya wala silang librong biling-Booksale. Eh sa akin naman, kung luma na talaga yung libro wala ka nang magagawa doon. Mas importante pa rin yung nilalaman nun kaysa sa pabalat kaya ingatan mo na lang. Kailangan lang talaga matalas ang mata mo. Tulad nung Biyernes, nakakita ako ng apat na kopya ng The Divine Secrets of the Ya-ya Sisterhood. Iba-iba yung presyo. May isa 40 pesos, yung isa 140 pesos. Kamusta naman.

Sa Booksale mo na rin mahahasa ang tinatawag na "gut feeling". Tulad nga nung Cold Sassy Tree at Leaving Cold Sassy. May libro kasi na laging lilitaw at lilitaw sa Booksale, kagaya ng Yaya Sisterhood. Pero yung mga academic books, at yung mga anthology, kailangan bilhin na kaagad, kasi mahirap mahanap ulit. Ganun lang talaga ang pagbili ng libro. Sa lahat ng bookstore, yung Booksale ang paborito ko. Sa dami ng libro kong nabili doon, dapat may Loyalty Award na ako. Pero hindi ko kailangan ng discount card, kasi meron pa ring libro na limang piso ang presyo. Nabubuhayan ako ng loob tuwing nakakakita ng librong ganun kamura. Ganun lang dapat ang libro-- abot kamay ng tao, hindi sobrang mahal na manghihinayang ka at hindi puro papel na mahal ang binayaran mo at alaws na pagdating mo sa kwento. Recycling na rin yun, para sa kalikasan. Walang binatbat yung Books for Less. May nabili akong libro sa Booksale na 85 pesos, doon ang halaga 225 pesos. Mas maganda pa yung kalagayan nung libro na mula sa Booksale. Kaya saludo ako sa Booksale. Kahit na mas mura pa yung libro sa 100 pesos nung binili mo, pwede yun maging 100,000 pesos kapag namatay ka na. Ang mga libro ko ang pamana ko pag namatay ako. O kaya kung wala akong mapagbibigyan, ilalagay ko sa archive. Mabuhay ka magpakailanman, Booksale, at magpatuloy ka sa iyong pagbenta ng murang libro.

Cat got your tongue?

Charlie and I seem to have a slight disagreement when it comes to education. I don't know whether it was drowsiness, or old age, but she said something that didn't make sense, which is surprising because she usually makes sense of things. Did that make sense?

It began when we started talking about education. She said she would reinforce the use of English as a medium of instruction. I said, no, Filipino should be reinstated. She asked what for. Well, look at me, I said. Look at my friends. We hardly know what the Tagalog term is for this or that English term. My friends have a hard time using Filipino prefixes and suffixes. Most of the tme they don't get it right. Still, she said that was because we don't have enough knowledge of English; that was why we had a hard time. That really got my goat. Aren't we supposed to learn Filipino well before learning English? I mean, a thorough knowledge of it should at least be established before going on to another language, so you can have a basis. (And all this time I thought she supported my stand on this. I wrote an editorial about that and she said I was right. Ah, the forgetfulness of parents. But she did support me when our insipid, doddering supervisor refused to have it published, claiming that it contradicted school policy. Of course the editorial is worth nothing now; the statistics are already old, and an editorial has to be timely. But Charlie's a good sort, and there are things about parents that you have to forgive every now and then.) Anyway, back to the marrow: I finally said that since the Philippines is already lagging behind other countries, maybe we should teach children Chinese. Mandarin, that is.

The idea is much more practical than it is improbable. People might say that it would be costly, difficult, that children would not tolerate it. Yet it is actually feasible in the Philippines, due to the number of overseas Chinese living here. It would also be profitable for us and would contribute to the commercial and diplomatic relations between our country and China. It would also increase the IQ of schoolchildren, not only because Chinese is one of the most difficult languages to learn but also because it is also one of the richest and most distinguished. Perhaps in the possible controversy(akin to that of the ZTE scandal?) that would ensue people would stop arguing about sex education and how it should be taught in schools.

The problem that pervades this issue is that it would lead to a blurring of class distinctions. The Chinese would not support this idea. Why is that? Three words: Language is power. The Chinese want to keep an edge over Filipinos ( this is a product of history, the discrimination against the Chinese and their retaliation); they are also jealously protective of their traditions. The fact that the Filipinos are not entirely respectful of an ancient culture is one reason. The Chinese have always been mocked in Philippine entertainment and literature. ( For those among you who would like to refute this, read El Filibusterismo and Noli Me Tangere, or try to remember those Shaolin Kid movies. ) Now, however, they have Filipinos at their mercy after prospering in businesses and other ventures. The reality is, people will not let go of what they feel is rightfully theirs; this tendency will be clearer and stronger in the case of the Chinese; it is their power, their sense of superiority, that they will not be able to relinquish. This exclusivity varies from person to person, but generally, the Chinese look down on Filipinos; some people have even been disowned because they married Filipinos and disregarded purity of blood. As one who has studied some part of Chinese language and culture and mingled with the Filipino-Chinese and Filipinos, this concerns me. I for one have witnessed the supercilious treatment of the Chinese towards Filipinos (and vice versa) and the kindness of Chinsese and Filipinos towards each other. As a person of mixed blood and heritage, I feel the tension of the conflict acutely. There are some things that are unspeakable, and some things are needlessly said, but unless we start saying what needs to be said we cannot hope to ease the bitterness.We are the product of history and society, but we can change what we have been made to become. When one considers all the time that the Chinese and Filipinos have spent together in the span of centuries, it seems that it is hight time that we try to coexist without discrimination and see people as they are before judging them by the mere fact of their race.

Lecture ni Lola

You might call me an old-fashioned woss after reading this, but that's fine by me. Kahit nga nanay ko sinasabi manang ako eh, kayo pa kaya. Kung iisipin mo totoo naman. Favorite character ko sa Great Expectations si Miss Havisham, ang mga binabasa kong libro yung tipong iniiwasan ng mga kaibigan ko, nagiging hyper ako pag yapak ko sa Booksale, etc. etc. Nahihiya pa nga ako para sa mga pregnant teenager kahit na sila hindi nahihiya sa kalagayan nila. Call me medieval, but I believe their condition warrants a sense of shame. If not for infidelity( to their parents? to themselves?), for being so stupid enough to make a slip. I mean, if you go gallivanting about with a guy, you have to acknowledge the possibility of getting pregnant, don't you? Tinuring pang mas matalino ang babae, pero pag nabola lang ng lalake at nabilog na ang ulo, papayag na. Bakit ba ang babae, kahit "liberated", nagpapaalila pa rin? Para saan pa yung edukasyon?

When you go to the mall, try counting the number of pregnant women you see in two hours. Thursday we went to the Rob, Charlie, Charlie, Bibbs and Libby, the loony gang reunited. I think I saw about 10?12? preganant women that day. Maraming babaeng nagpapaloko. Tulad nung mga dancer sa Wowowee... Dati na palang may Pocahontas dancers sa Pinas, nung 70's pa. Napanood ko sa pelikula ni Walter Navarro at Hilda Koronel. Kamusta naman yun??? Kaya hindi na tayo umuunlad. Hay nako. Sa tingin ko may pinagaralan yung iba doon, pero nagpapaka-bimbo na lang para may ikabuhay. Kawawa rin.

Tapos ang daming babae na pumapayag maging quirida at panakip-butas. Yung iba nagtapos pa ng college yan. Come on! Kaya nga kayo nagaral at pinag-aral para naman magkaroon kayo ng pagpapahalaga sa sarili. Kung gusto ninyong maging doormat eh di sana hindi na kayo nag-abalang mag-aral kung iyon din ang kahihinatnan ninyo. Tulad nga ng sabi ni George Bernard Shaw sa dulang Pygmalion, maghanap ka ng lalaking may makapal na labi para halikan ka at makapal na bota para sipain ka. Eh di solb ka na dun, battered ka na nga, priprituhain ka pa sa sarili mong mantika. Sagot mo pa lagi yung bill.

Ang sa akin lang, sana magisip ng maigi ang mga kababaihan diyan. MAGISIP kahit saglit,dahil kapag nagawa mo na yung mga ayaw mong gawin, malamang mapapasubo ka na gawin ulit. Kasi naman nahalo na sa systema ng Pilipino yung mga telenobela; yung mga tauhan doon tinutularan. Si Jose Mariano, Diego, Salvador, Marimar, Rubi, Daniella-- sila ang mga nasubaybayan ng mga tao tuwing hapon. Kapag nakita mo naman kung paano maglampungan, hay nako! Kahit na sinasabing "Parental Guidance is recommended", may sumusunod ba? Yung mga nanay, tiyahin, ate, at yaya , hindi man lang ginagabayan yung kasamang bata. Yung bata lumalaki na may paniniwalang tama yung mga nakikita kasi engganyong-engganyo ang mga kasama niya. Sa tingin ko isa na ang telenobela sa dahilan kung bakit mahinhindutin ang mga Pinay at mahihilig ang mga Pinoy. May "other factors" pa pero malaki na rin ang pinsalang dulot ng lecheng telenobela. Kaya kasalanan na rin ng mga nanay na nagrereklamo tungkol sa mga teenager nilang buntis. Pangongonsinte lang naman talaga yan eh, at saka yung nasagap ng bata mula sa telenobela, at sa mga nakakasuyang pelikula na laging kumikita ng malaki sa takilya pero nagbabawas ng karunungan.

Kung ganun talagang lokong-loko na tayo. May karapatan tayong manood ng pelikula na may katuturan, hindi yung mga rom-com na alam na nating kung paano magtatapos. Sayang ang perang pinaghirapan mo. Dati hindi naman tayo ganito. Ngayon madalang na may nagbabasa ng gawa nina Genoveva Edroza-Matute, Nick Joaquin, Amado V. Hernandez, Lualhati Bautista, F.Sionil Jose, at iba pang mga mahuhusay na manunulat na nagpapakita sa kanilang mga akda ng buhay ng mga Pilipino, sa Pilipinas man o sa ibang bansa. Sama-sama yung mga mahihirap,yung mayayaman, yung middle class-- hindi tulad sa mga popular na nobelang romansa na mga may kaya ang mga tauhan at nagliliwaliw ang mga ito sa kawalan ng direksyon sa buhay. Tuwing nakikita ko ang mga tinatangkilik ng Pinoy ngayon, nanghihinayang ako, sapagkat pinapahiwatig nito na unti-unting nagiging bobo( paumanhin na lang pero totoo, sorry na rin, Bob Ong) ang mga Pinoy. Sana naman hindi magpatuloy ang ating pagiwas sa isyu at ang ating pagtanggap sa mga programmang ihinahain sa atin ng mga network. Ang telebisyon, ang dyaryo, ang magazine, ang mga billboard ay may malaking epekto rin sa sambayanan. Sana naman ay isipin natin kung ang ating napapanood, nababasa, at nakikita sa araw-araw ay nananalamin sa atin. Wala ring saysay ang paggawa ng mga organisasyon para sa ikauunlad ng tao kung hindi simulan sa ugat. Magtanong. Magpahayag. Magboycott ng show. Hindi na dapat dumami ang kamangmangan ng Pinoy at ang luho ng mga executives. Sa labanan, ang utak ang unang tinatamaan. Huwag hayaang pasukin ang utak mo. Huwag kang magpaloko.

Review: Silence of the Lambs

I know that some people can't bear the unbelievable goriness of the Hannibal Lecter movies, but I have to say I totally loved watching this one. Anthony Hopkins is really superb, and so is Jodie Foster. But Hopkins really knows the ropes, he can play almost anyone, I think. It's interesting that they showed the contrast between Dr. Chilton and Hannibal; Hannibal, the allegedly "insane" doctor, is far more astute than the pompous Dr. Chilton, the little attention-grabbing SOB. And Jodie Foster had reason to be famous after that movie-- she did the whole cop-with a relationship with a psycho-really well. The only thing I didn't like about the movie was the props-- obviously fake and they really took some of the scare away. And the blood looked like cranberry syrup, not like red wine reduction. Potassium thiacyanide and ferric nitrate!!! The blood was bright red, not burgundy. My favorite scene was the elevator scene, where all the cops are running around like fools only to find out Hannibal's escaped. This is a killer movie. If you haven't watched it yet, you should. Rating: 4 stars (because of the props and the blood.)

The fear of flying roaches

I know that people are leery of having roaches next to them, and with good reason. Diseases aside, I have an adverse reaction to any crawling roach I see, and that makes me want to kill it. However, flying roaches have the higher rating on my creep chart. The trouble with them is that you never know what they'll do next. Worse still, you'd hardly be able to control the direction of their flight, and they just might decide to land on you. It's really difficult to turn your head all over the place when a roach is on the ceiling, ready to fall onto your foamy hair. I've never had a peaceful time in the loo with a roach around-- especially an active one. The worst situation, though, would be one wherein a roach is roaming round the room and you've fallen asleep with a bag of food nearby. The result would be a painful sore or a swollen eye, useful for meriting taunts, jeers, and concerned inquiries. Whatever purpose they were intended for, coackroaches are agents of evil, embarrassment, and illness; but an elusive , freely locomoting roach is the worst specimen.