nameabledaysPage2

2009-04-11T19:45:00.000-07:00

Deep Purple

Balîgang

are black plums similar to the ovoid duhat but more rounded.

The Bikols have a special way of preparing and enjoying them.

In the Bikol summer

it was a coming together of colors music

light subdued laughter as the siesta hour settled

after the lavish noon meal of rice fish greens the mothers

aunts cousins prepared. Now they awaited the boys from their

sortie into the backyard jungle, bearing those deep purple pearls.

Either they climbed up the tree to pick the fat exquisite bunches, or

they shook down its branches and the black ants fell on their eyes

they had to run to the kitchen to wash off the sting. Now the women

had taken out two concave soup dishes we called them platters because

they were big and they clamped them together and O they’re shaking their

shoulders shaking the firm plums inside: jiggling rattling them in that

low deep drop drop drop drumming between the platters breaking

bleeding blending them tender with grains of white rock salt white

sugar the scarlet juice flowing staining the smooth china inside

now as they laid the platters open on the table we saw death’s

sweet color: we picked and bit and sucked and puckered and

snickered and smeared our fingers lips teeth tongue

heart as the radio played and the afternoon

deepened and the women swooned to the Platters.

Marne L. Kilates

(December 2, 2008)

Si Rio “sa Ingles” (pero ngayon sa orihinal na Filipino)

2009-03-24T17:02:00.000-07:00

At ilang tala ukol sa pagsasalin /

And some notes on translation

Tulad ng ipanangako, nasa pahinang ito ang tunay, o orihinal, na titik (salita o texto) ng mga tula ni Rio Alma na itinampok ko, sa anyong nakasalin sa Ingles, sa kabilang pahina. Maganda sanang gawing kakambal na posting o ulat ang pahinang ito, na parang imahen sa salamin, ngunit hindi ko na uulitin ang pambungad. Itutuloy ko na sana sa mga tula mismo, nang makita kong ang mga ito ay nangangailangan ng sariling pambungad o pagpapakilala, at iyan ay isusulat ko sa Ingles (kaya hindi ito tunay na mirror-image ng kabila). Ang dahilan, gusto ko man at may kahalagahang pulitikal ang pagsulat ko nito sa Filipino, pakiramdam ko'y kailangan kong bumalik sa wika ng blog na ito—Ingles. English. The language of this blog. No other earth-shaking reason. (In fact that is not sacred. I'm not averse to Taglish.)

This gives me the chance to make a few notes about translation. Rio quipped after my reading that my translations were "better than the original." Surely he meant this good-naturedly, and as a compliment (I've been his "unofficial translator" for maybe 2 decades). I've also heard this from other people, even writer friends who I know simply meant it as a compliment not just for my translation but for the extra time I devote to translation. And I know they know different. If they were other people, I would say their words were symptomatic of the bias we have against our own language. But most of them are actually writers in Filipino or its base language Tagalog. Now we don't have to discuss that bias at length. That has been taken up in countless forums. The more fruitful way would be to write in the language, or in my case, since I can't write my poetry in it unless with lots of bloodletting, I translate. That doesn't erase the bias in my case, but at least it makes the poetry available to non-speakers.

Now about the translation being better than the original. I dare say that could only come from, again, non-speakers (the Tagalog speakers who said it, I took pains to explain, were saying it partly in jest). That would be like us modern readers saying Homer is great but never having read the Greek. English is the only language we know in order to appreciate, for example, the ekphrasis of the shield of Achilles, and unless we are some Oxford don or venerable classicist, we could never even savor the original nuances of Aschaelus or Euripedes, or even Omar Khayyam even if Robert Fitzgerald took the most liberties with Rubaiyat and was editing his "translation" (which he later called "transmogrification") almost sixteen years after the first edition. What I'm saying is that if we don't read the original, we can never gauge the quality of a translation.

But even if we know the original, we can never, for any reason, say that the translation is superior to it (maybe open for debate but not for this translator). This is only because, in my experience and perhaps in the practice of translation in any literature, the translation cannot be any good if the reader/translator did not have any idea of the quality of the original. To be facile about it, the translation can only be as good as the original. (Or maybe the translators' familiarity with the "target language"—the translating language, English in my case—can only "color" his translation.) Conversely, if we saw a translation of a bad novel or poem (again relative values) and enjoyed the translation without knowing the original, or without knowing just how bad the original poem or the novel was, we will simply never know. That is why we non-readers of the original of any translation, from the classics to the comics, can only take translation on faith. We have no choice.

Now I'm putting here the original poems of Rio Alma because I believe many of his poems are examples of why he was honored with the Order of National Artist in Literature (a difficult honor to achieve, if I may say so myself). These are short poems, good for reading in public as I thought they were, and arbitrarily chosen by myself to be read in public. They are not the whole basis for that honor. They are, as I said, examples of his work. Filipinos will be able to compare the poems with the translations in the preceding page, non-speakers will have to take the preceding translations by faith.

Alamat ng Ulan

Metapisikong halik ng butiki sa lupa; saka
Trumpeta ng mga palaka:
Itinigil ng gagamba ang imbentaryo ng sapot,
Pumasok sa huklubang butas, at nagkumot;

May gumapang ng talibang ginaw sa sahig,
Nagtikatik ang telegrapikong sitsit ng kuliglig;
Nangalisag ang nagtatanod na poste't alambre,
Nag-alumpihit ang duklay at kawayang matapobre;

At dumating ang ulang watawat na kristal,
Nilusob ang maburak na bilangguan ng kanal,
Rumaragasang tinalaktak ang yero't kamino,
Nilagom ang uniporme ng mga dominanteng anino.

Ngayon, ginagamot niya ang antak ng bukid,
Pinaliliguan ang malilibag na sanga't pawid.
Asahang bukas: Pinilakan ang paraiso ng palay
At hitik sa halakhak ang mga inosenteng gulay.

6-10-84

Ang Bangkay

Iniluwa ng dagat ang bangkay
Pagkaraan ng dalawang araw na unos.
Isang katawang pumutla sa asin
At namamaga sa nilagok na alon;
Nababalot ang leeg ng lantang baging-dagat,
May sihang na talukab ang bunganga
At halos lumuwa ang nakatirik na mga mata.
Nang matagpuan sa dalampisigan,
Sinusuot na ng mapagsaliksik na alupihan
At talangkang-bato ang butas ng ilong at tainga
Bagama't walang mabakas na kasaysayan
Sa katawan ang mga nagsiyasat na tagabaryo.
Marahil, inabot ng sigwa sa laot
O naaksidente habang namamasyal
At tinangay ng matuling agos
O biktima ng karahasan at itinapon sa dagat.
Natagpuan itong nakasampay sa tuod
Ng isang anak ng mangingisda
At hindi rin matapos ang kanyang pagtataka
Kung paanong inagnas ng alat
Pati pangalan ng bangkay.

1-16-93

Adoracion Nocturna

Ang gabi'y paghuhugas ng katawan
Pagkaahon sa maghapong kirot at alikabok;
Paglalanggas sa subyang ng talampakan
At maragsang tibok ng pusong nakihamok.

Ang gabi'y paghuhugas ng pandamang
Napuwing, nasikil, nalinlang, nagpawis;
Paghahanda sa daratal na umaga
At paghimas sa tibay ng pananalig.

Ang gabi'y paghuhugas ng salita
Sa batik at libag ng poot at pangarap;
Kailangang masamyo't marikit ang dila
Pagharap sa naghintay na init at sumbat.

At pagdulog sa dambana ng paglalamay
Ang gabi'y paghuhugas din ng kamay.

4-9-91

Mariquita

Dahil sa kanya
Hindi mo malilimot ang sangnunal na isla
Sa kandungan ng luntian, payapang dagat.
mmmmmmmmmmmMariquita,
Mapagpaubaya at kayumangging alindog,
Kumukurap na samyo ng latik at anis.
May kulam marahil ang kanyang halik --
Naghahasik ng gunitang
Ayaw na sana nating naaantig
Kapag nakayupyop sa dayuhang dibdib.
Ang sabi mo'y musmos ka pa nang bulagin
Ng kanyang mahalas na pag-ibig
At siya rin ang nagtulak
Sa iyong walang-hanggang paglalagalag.
Ano pang damo ang iyong nakain
Sa kanyang madilim, mapanglaw na puson?
Kaibigan, para kang bata kapag nangulila
At tinatawag mo siyang tinubuang lupa.

2-17-77

These are the originals. Nothing else said. Happy birthday and godspeed, Rio, may you write more and do more.

ILLUSTRATIONS: 1) Leaf on Water by Mark Schwab; Dreamfence and Sunspot by Australia-based artists Edd Aragon, from his Digitalla Prima blog.

Mav Rufino's art & Rio Alma's poetry blend in Romanza

2009-03-10T04:53:00.000-07:00

by Pablo Tariman

(This article first appeared in the Philippine Daily Inquirer, February 16, 2009)

Something unique and close to romance happens when Marivic Rufino mounts her 15th solo art exhibit at the Manila Peninsula on Monday, February 23.

The exhibit contains new works done in the last two years after an absence of four years in the Manila art scene. Moreover, the exhibit also has works done earlier which should give art connoisseurs an idea as to how she has evolved. It would show how her Dreamscapes evolved from the earlier classical and impressionist mold and on to the abstract.

Of her new works, Marivic said they were done over a “period of loss, pain and healing.”

Loss was when her loved one, husband former Central Bank Governor Rafael Buenaventura passed away after a bout with cancer. “The loss of Paeng (who was my most avid art supporter) affected my creative output,” she said. “I had an artist's block for a long, long time. But I had to transform this pain into something positive. I immersed myself in Red Cross work, and continued to help my two beneficiaries (St. Mary's House for Girls in Tagaytay and Serra's Center for Girls in Pasay). “I had to reach out and go beyond myself by saving lives (through Red Cross- Rizal Chapter and Makati branch) and helping the abused girls. It’s my way of giving back for all the blessings I have received.”

Midway into her healing phase, she forged an artistic collaboration with poet Rio Alma (also known as National Artist for Literature Virgilio Almario) in the book Romanza which celebrates the marriage of poetry and painting with evocative translation by award-winning poet Marne Kilates.

The launching of Romanza is one of the big highlights of her 15th art exhibit at the Manila Pen.

In his book introduction, curator Ruben D.F. Defeo defines the marriage of art of Marivic Rufino and the poetry of Rio Alma. “The works span the last 18 years of painting and eight years of writing. Each of the 76-38 poems and 38 painting – is empowered to conjure an image, reflect on nature, portray emotions, or, at its most audacious, to meander into the unknown, what Horace admits as “the equal right of painters and poets to liberty of imagination.”

By and large, the twin artistic offering offers glimpses of loss and pain this time distilled in Rio’s poetry and captured in Marivic’s Autumn Symphony in the haiku Ngayon (Now):

Maragsa kung bumuhus
Ang ulan ng talulot
At ang mga dahong tuyot
Na may samyo ng upos

Poignantly translated by Kilates thus:

The sound of rain is rough
When it is petals pouring
And dry leaves carry
The scent of ash

Equally evocative is Rio’s Sa Panahon ng Tagtuyot (In Dry Season) matched by Rufino’s Tuscan Dream 1:

Pagkabilog ng buwan,
Umuurong ang bundok;
Nagpipilat sa unan
Ang gunita ng hamog

Translated by Kilates thus:

As the moon waxes
The mountain wanes;
The pillow is scarred
By its memory of dew

The making of Romanza started in the regular meeting of the Nakpil Press Corps (friends and colleagues of writer-journalist Carmen Guerrero Nakpil) at the Havana Restaurant.

Recalls the Marivic: “Rio Alma asked to see my artworks. I was honored when he suggested that we collaborate on a book of poetry and art. Marne Kilates joined us and did the translations and editing. Prof Ruben D. F. Defeo, a mutual friend who has always curated my art exhibits, wrote the introduction. And our combined labor of love is Romanza, the book.”

The artistic partnership in Romanza came as a matter of course to her.

Says she: “I've always loved poetry, haiku in particular. I used to write poetry but got focused on painting. Of course it is plain to see that painting is visual poetry. I paint poems and write paintings too. That's what many of my friends say.”

Meanwhile, she is happy with the modest highlights of her artistic life such as the exhibitions held at the UNESCO House in Paris (one of her Chinese horse paintings is part of the arts collection), the exhibit in San Francisco (sponsored by the Sister Cities of Manila and SF with Mayor Fred Lim and then Mayor Jordan); the 15 large scale outdoor murals she painted for her late husband which took almost 3 years to complete and the 2005 exhibit at the Peninsula Manila in which her grandson Bryan (then 8 years old) interacted and painted with her.

How would she describe this particular phase of her life as it relates to her art?

Marivic replies: “ I am at that stage of unfolding and evolving as an individual and as an artist. I like to think I am becoming more spontaneous with my brushstrokes and my colors. On the other hand, I have simplified my life and my paintings are distillations of my romance with nature. It's a new life, my renaissance. After all the turmoil and grief, there is a new spring. Still, it is my passion for art that keeps me going.”

(The 15th solo art exhibit of Marivic Rufino on February 23, 6p.m. at the Manila Peninsula will run at the Nielsen’s Patio, ground floor 9 a.m. to 7 p.m. Guests of honor are National Artists Arturo Luz and Napoleon V. Abueva. Proceeds will go to the St. Mary’s House for Girls Tagaytay and Serra’s Center for Girls in Pasay City. For inquiries, please call tel. nos. 8179574 or 8184878 or email: romanzaexhibit@gmail.com)

PHOTOS: Romanza cover; Marivic Rufino & Marne Kilates reading from Romanza during its soft launch last year at Printemps des Poetes Festival, Alliance Francaise; Passion 2, one of Marivic's stunning watercolors featured in the book and the exhibit; National Artist Rio Alma (Virgilio Almario) by Nap Jamir.

2008-12-25T07:11:00.000-08:00

We're under repair. Thank you.

This is page 2 of Nameabledays 2009.

Mass Action on Madriñan! (Susan says Thank You to all who came and shared)

2008-07-09T04:48:00.001-07:00

"...Lagi, Susan"

(All photos by Gil Nartea)

(from top)
Joey Ayala; Susan & Malou de Guzman (the comedienne whose jazzy singing voice is a well-kept secret); a stray poster from the 60s (?); Bituin Escalante awaits her turn at the mike and meditates under the watchful eyes of the Fab Four (John Lennon cropped out); The Susan Fernandez; writer Charlson Ong and this blogger, star-struck at the famous (and secret) arrivals; the pic of the night, Susan and Friends.

"Apir!" by Ino Magno

For still more pictures (like the one above, and 84 of them!) of the fantastic night, go to Susan's son, Ino's site at Multiply.

Calling all Bikolano poets...

The Banggaan Letters (2), page 2

2008-05-14T21:19:00.000-07:00

...& more of the "reunion"

From Top: Edd A in a huddle with Krip Yuson and Tante Tagamolila before the opening of Digitalla Prima; Pamela Grace Bañez, Sylvia Mayuga, Heber Bartolome, Tante; Claro Cortes and Jimmy Flor Cruz, and part of the huge crowd for the rather diminutive Oarhouse; and punong abalá Anabelle Bosch, Wally Gonzales, Marne K, Ronnie Lazaro, Ben Razon;Glenn Bautista, EddA, Tante.

❞

Continuing the thread

Post No. 11: "Mahal ang pamasahe"

Wow, Junsy,

Great yung seminar mo. I bet those Whites, Blacks and Latinos were listening openmouthed to a Brown one from our own shores. Since I am an avid amateur, I would have liked to have been in the audience, kaya lang ang mahal ng pamasahe! Congratulations, Sir!

Marne

Post no.12: “Poets don't have friends either... but All You Need is Love!”

Ben,

Don't worry about photography or photographers having no friends. Poets don't have, either. But when we (photogs, poets, painters, musicians, digitalists, analogists) get together, aren't we easy to please? Viva San Miguel! At sana mabili mo na ang iMac mo! Ganda nung "Makati" picture mo. I will try to find a place for it in the ezine.

Tama ka, a good part of the nourishment of our art comes not from only from our fellow practitioners (although their insights, practice and anecdotes of their work are extremely important, I think, especially if they want to share them with us), from other arts and disciplines. I read as much philosophy, history (recent and ancient), and some economics (I'm trying hard to understand it), to feed my own way of looking at the world, so that I can competently talk about it. Or find meaning in it through my art.

But... when art occurs, it can even be in photography, even if, as you say, it is (originally at least) "simply a visual document produced by a person holding a machine." Remember, the easel-and-brush are as much machines as an architect's Pantograph, or your/our Nikons and Fujis. What matters is the creative process, which is present whether an image is being invented or copied from life, or reproduced, recomposed either as a chronicle or document, or as a comment on life. But all documents cannot always be "pure" ones (non-committal, indifferent). The process of composing them (which is selective) is already a comment on the ingredients and elements that the artist, photographer, or writer is putting together.

When you say, "Unless it's clear that what I see in photographs are a person's vision or their stamp..." then, art has already happened.

It is natural that we have to undergo a transition from one mode of operating, recording or perceiving (or the creation of art) to another, like what's happening now between analog and digital. There will always be pain and anguish. But there will always be different modes and discourses, defenses and differences.

Here's my take: the analogue mode is perhaps the ultimate stage of the Industrial Revolution, when all machines imitated the human body. Machines (say, the Letterpress) replicated the human limbs and joints and elbows; or all the knobs and cranks were fitted to the shape of hands and fingers; mobility and transportation technology imitated the human walk, then the sprint, then the flight of birds. Technology in this stage of development, had to be "organic," imitative of the human organs. Even thinking was converted into hands (like the clock so we can reckon or "conquer" time), or the technology for mobility was imitative of the feet (like the wheel so we can conquer distance), or the airplane wing for the bird wing, etc. Or, the analog camera, which is imitative of the eyes (the camera lenses for the eye's retina and single lens, the shutter for the irises, the aperture for the pupil--or the other way around, you have to correct me).

Now, digital (or electronic, etc.) technology I think is simply the next step. It doesn't even surpass, but includes, or improves upon, analog technology. The main difference? It is no longer just imitative of the human body, it is imitative of the human mind (where everything is virtual). The "real" is flesh, bone, and stones, while the "virtual" is the impression, the ghost image, of all these. The typewriter imitates the writing hands, but the computer (keyboard and CPU) imitate the brain. The writer thinks and types at the typewriter, but the computer "thinks" (processes) together with the writer. The typewriter and the Letterpress (and Offset) imprints on paper what the writer has thought through, or the photographer has caught and composed in his camera, the computer and imaging machines "catch" the inputs and process them and output impressions (images). When they put IC chips in the camera, it also started to "think." It could process and store virtual images (sure, the analog stored on film, light burned or altered the emulsion on film to create the image made of dots or grains, while digital "computed" with ones and zeros to create pixels). Analog also processes, but at the speed of hands, but digital processes almost at the speed of mind (or light). Or put another way, analog is mechanical and chemical (physical force and chemical reactions), while digital is electronic, as in electronic impulses.

Again, after all this, what counts is the result (or in the "impersonal" terminology of computers, the output). Art can be created in both, if the result creates both meaning and meaningfulness. Eventually, it will not be as impersonal as we might nostalgically think. Because, the brain which the computer imitates, is also a human organ. Humans are always "processing" the world in the act of deriving meaning from it (because in the daily simultaneity of events and experience, the world appears chaotic, meaningless and contradictory—good and evil, life and death, exist side by side without rhyme or reason). When we "process," with the implements of reasoning, we are trying to organize a chaotic world, we are trying to put sense into it. This has always been the human, existential, dilemma, to try to live meaningfully in an apparently meaningless world. Our implements and machines are important only inasmuch as they help us in creating meaning and meaningfulness. Death, because of its mystery and fearsomeness, negates the meaning of life. But Life is even as mysterious as death. All our art, in the end, is towards the uncovering of this mystery. When we "understand" death as well as life (one in the same in most religions), we affirm and insist on our life and meaningfulness.

And the governing motive of our search for meaning, which is also our means for conquering chaos and meaninglessness, is, as the Beatles said, love. All you need is love... Beauty, joy, meaning, order out of chaos, the integration of diversity, the creation of art, springs from Love, the coming together of all human faith and hope. And art, the creation of beauty, is Love's original and ultimate expression. Love is all you need.

Happy Valentine!

Marne

Ermita by Ben Razon

One more photo, and a few lines

[Ben posts one more photo and I banggâ it with a poem, and here pauses the continuing thread of the Banggaan letters...]

Ermitang Halumigmig

Dumidikit ang lamig
sa pitsel at mga baso,
isang manipis na tela
ng halumigmig
sa gitna ng mainit
na hininga ng Ermita,
na naghihintay na lamang
ng dampi ng labi
ng mga lasenggo
at kung minsa'y mapulang
lipstik ng kaharap
na kagandahan, kung
multo man ito
ng mga buntong-hininga
ng lumipas, o kislap lang
ng ilaw ng bar
na matagal nang
nilisan ng pag-ibig.

Liquid Ermita

The cold clings
to the pitcher and glasses,
a thin gauze
of moisture
in Ermita’s hot
breath, awaiting
tipplers’ lips,
or perhaps the red
lipstick of the pretty
shadow across the table,
be she the ghost
of sighs past,
or just a sparkle
of bar lights
long abandoned
by love.

(MLK)

The Banggaan Letters (page 2)

2008-05-06T04:21:00.000-07:00

Post No. 5: Confesssional (Napasubò)

Dear Ben, Gelo, Minnie, Uncle Edgar, Edward, all of us...

My personal take on this thing we call art

I always thought I'd be an artist--a painter--until I was waylaid by poetry and literature. I "knew" what an artist was since I was always watching my eldest brother draw for the comics, paint on canvas, carve me a figure from soap or a toy gun from wood, or cut out an airplane from cardboard, just as I was always seeing my mother reading "pocketbooks" (Perry Mason, etc., but also Hemingway, Taylor Caldwell, and the bestselling authors of the time). Like all children, I learned to draw before I could write, but by fourth year high school, I was taught to read, as well as illustrate, Florante at Laura. I had a friend since the elementary grades with whom I would compete drawing komiks from our own stories imitating Prince Valiant or the Knights Templar or Flash Gordon and the fascinating reaches of outer space and the space ships that traversed the dark distances. In the talk balloons were my first attempts to write in English.

The world of literature (by the time I was in college) was a greater challenge for me as I literally taught myself poetry, trying to understand Robert Frost, William Carlos Williams, and later T.S. Eliot and Wallace Stevens (and all the authors and poets I later discovered for myself). Except for (or because of ) two great English teachers in high school (Divine Word College in Legazpi City), Mrs. Navea for grammar, Miss Reyes for literature and poetry, and Mr. Llamas who enjoyed reading my answers for the essay-type exams in college in the same institution, I never had a strict and formal training in poetry. (I never went to a Manila university although I passed all the entrance exams but both mother's overprotectiveness for a youngest son and our short finances for a Manila education kept me in the province. I'm both complaining and bragging...).

(My favorites, among many: the irrepressible Henry Miller; Knut Hamsun who wrote Growth of the Soil; and the poets Charles Baudelaire, William Butler Yeats, W.H. Auden, T.S. Eliot)

I built my own reading list with authors name-dropped by other authors (the most notorious name-dropper was Henry Miller, who lead me to Baudelaire and the French impressionists, the Norwegian Knut Hamsun, Sir James George Frazier, name-dropped by Eliot as well, etc., etc.).

The more I went into literature, both by reading and by my attempts at creating my own poetry, the more I found that the other arts are as important, or that they fed into each other like rivers. In the meantime, I was reading philosophy by attending the classes of the theology majors, the secular would-be priests who studied in our school. I was reading history, Filipino and Philippine studies and literature, while cultivating my own love for music—appreciating the classics while always looking for the music that was seldom heard on radio—from Bach to the Beatles and Dylan and Sinatra and Miles Davis and Buencamino and Lucio San Pedro, and everyone in between, while studiously avoiding disco. I was trying to avoid being dictated to by the music industry. Still, all this lead to that main river called Art, or the life of the mind, and as I developed my tastes, whether it was in literature, music, the movies, etc., I kept looking for that something or someone who could teach or educate me further. The author that stimulated me, I looked for more of his books; the director, singer or even the photographer who interested me, I would track down as much as possible their works. Why are they good? was the question. What makes them better than the others? If I didn't understand them at first encounter, that didn't stop me from a second attempt at understanding or appreciating their works, which invariably lead me to wonders as yet undiscovered by myself.

Perhaps this entailed some boldness or courage on my part. The urge or instinct to discover and not to fear the unfamiliar inevitably leads one to discover that the good or better work of art is always different from the ordinary (that's why they are extraordinary). It is different not because it simply wants to be different (or is accidentally different) but because it is the result of a constant passion to be better than itself, or to be better than what it intended to be at the start. Thus, too, good art is never indifferent. The fine work of art, whether it is a poem or a photograph is always itself a discovery, not the result of discovery but itself the process of discovery. In a sense, the better poem or photographic image is always discovering itself, thus taking the reader or the viewer along the process. If it is good enough, there is always something new that the reader or viewer finds every time he reads or looks at it. The better story or song surprises even its author or composer—where it led which he probably never saw at the start.

The process is also one of selection that develops its own logic as it goes along, like the point of view or the photographic frame. Each artist has his own viewfinder in looking at the world. And when the reader or viewer finds himself in the point of view or frame of the artist, there occurs the felicitous confluence of two or more individual mind-eyes or heart-minds sharing a view of the world. Because it entails elements of persuasion, instruction and pleasure (after the painful creative struggle and the pain of going out of oneself to view the world from a point that is initially not one's own), it is both an esthetic and ethical experience. Dulce et utile, so Aristotle said. Delightful and useful... But delight (joy, pleasure, happiness), is its own usefulness. That is what art gives us. That is why we make art, whatever the medium or implement—words, images, shapes, tunes, pens, brushes, computers, cameras, Putosyap.

This, in a sense, is what we all do. Like the singular moment we caught the light streaming down the orange (or peach?) wall of a wash area, with the other shapes, shadows, colors, textures and surfaces framing the moment, or my own attempt at "framing" with lines and surfaces Edward A's mood without, inadvertently, showing his face (I hope he likes it), which are all perhaps informed by that encounter (our banggaan) between spontaneity and deliberateness which we like to call inspiration. When we inspire or are inspired, we breathe the air and rhythm of the universe. We glimpse, for one brief shining moment, why we are in it.

Thank you for going through this rambling monologue, which in any case is part of Banggaan's rambling conversation. It's a still life watercolor / Of a now late afternoon... (thank you, too, Paul Simon, for being, like us, still crazy after all these years.)

Marne

Post No.6: How about 'offensive' art?

ganda ng kwento mo marne. onga laging discovery ang nangyayari at minsan nga yun mismong author ay nagugulat sa kanyang nadiskubre.

tanong ko lang tungkol dito...

“But delight (joy, pleasure, happiness), is its own usefulness. That is what art gives us.”

kailangan bang laging delight and joy ang binibigay ng art? kung nakaka-offend ba ang piyesa, art pa rin ba yan?

Gelo

Post No.7: Meat, poison, napalm

Gelo,

Delight and joy (I think) should be the ultimate results of the esthetic experience.

Let me hazard a guess about "offensiveness" in art. The offensive or the pleasant is defined from the physical to the biological to the spiritual spheres of life, meaning from chemical, to cultural, to anyone's notion of the Spirit (sex, ecology, and spirituality, according to Wilber). So offensiveness or pleasure or other valuations and categorizations can vary from the individual (chemistry, sex, biology), to the ecological (the ecologies of gender, family, society and the environment), to the realm of the Spirit (cosmic, the Deity, the God of all moralities and cultures, transcendental experience). Sorry, pasensya na, I have to explain myself...

Each and all of these are included in or included by one or the other, the biological included in the ecological, the ecological included in the Spiritual, and so forth. Everything is part of everything in a chain of growing complexity. If you remove the most basic hierarchy (the wholes in wholes), according to the theorists and advocates of evolutionary consciousness, the hierarchy above it collapses. E.g., the molecule cannot exist without the atom, the rock cannot exist without the molecule, etc. But atoms exist even if there are no molecules or rocks. Or, the "evolved consciousness" of the rock exists within or is still "lower" than the "more evolved" consciousness of the ahas which hides among rocks. But, both are parts of the physical (atoms, molecules, chemicals) realm, while only the snake is part of the biological (sex, reproduction, predation, survival), although, again, the physical realm is within the snake (atoms, molecules, venom or poison). So even in the "lower" realms, "offensiveness" is relative: atoms can collide (violent and "offensive," but which probably started the Big Bang), the snakebite kills rodents and people (the survival of the species of poisonous snakes may be threatened if they did not have their special chemical; and rats might threaten the harvest of crops if there were no snakes, and so forth.)

So offensiveness, or the experience of displeasure, or pain, "evolves" in complexity or definition according to the level of existence, like the saying "one man's meat is another man's poison." Although, one's own (conscious) level of evolution should tell him the difference between poison and meat, but with the wisdom to know that meat (nourishment from animals one kills in order to survive) co-exist with poison (death to us but survival to the snake). Is this getting sooo far away from art? Maybe not. More patience and indulgence please...

So. Perhaps. What is initially offensive (not pleasurable, may even be painful) in art may actually be a doorstep to some realization (delight). Such that, Picasso's Guernica, for example, is so violent that it can actually scare children, but it also reminds us how violent war is and in the end protests the violence of all wars. Can men or states exist without wars? Despite the history of "civilization" (conquests, subjugation, colonization, racial and cultural plunder and annihilations, from the Persians to the Romans to the Americans), indicating that nations must prosper and survive only at the expense of other weaker nations, men can still perhaps exist or survive without wars. Because no one man or state has ever tried it.

Still, art does not "function" like a surgical tool (it cannot excise infected tissue in order to cure). It is a spiritual and evolutionary process. That's why no amount of the goriest or saddest photographs of children being napalmed in Vietnam could not stop LBJ from the "escalation" in the 1970s, and the daily bloodshed on TV cannot stop Bush or the military industry from sending more soldiers and equipment to Iraq. Even if, the images on film, video, photography and war reports have been brought to the level of art.

Okay. One more niggling question from Art History and Philosophy 101 (indulge me still, please, para hindi makalimutan, at para mapag-usapan ulit). How about pornography and nudity? Again, relative values from relative cultures, points-of-view, etc. Kung minsan, pagsinabing sina Boticelli and Michelangelo, etc. were always showing breasts and uncircumcised penises in their paintings and statues, and that the human body is a thing of beauty, it can become an excuse. Still, it is ultimately the truth. When Duchamp "vandalized" the Mona Lisa, was it offensive? Or maybe he was "making a statement" that in the end confirmed what we already knew but were afraid to ask. That perhaps perhaps values change (or don't change) when we look at them, that maybe irrationally, ugliness can exist side by side with beauty...

Perhaps (because again it is relative), the only pornographic or evil thing about nudity and explicit sex on film or art is how much exploitation is involved for someone else's profit or advantage, and at the expense of another. Are FHM or Penthouse (meron pa ba nito?) more exploitative of women than Playboy?

Or put another way, when the dominant economies of the world (U.S. and the WTO) exploit the lesser economies--via lopsided trade agreements and policies on mining and exploitation of natural resources, and the breaking down of the small countries' last barriers of protection for economic survival—isn't this as pornographic as any smut magazine? Are the stories and pictures of children dying of famine, or of small farmers and manufacturers losing their livelihoods because of globalization, offensive? They will be only if we think that they intrude into our TV dinners.

But if they lead us to think about and question the world economic structure (or any other structure in the world) that results in global hunger and the plunder of weaker economies, that wars are mounted not so much for defense or the preservation of democracy but to impose systems and to preserve or gain economic power (precisely the negation of democracy)... then the realization, the knowledge that something has to be done to stop this unfairness in the world is still some kind of "ethical pleasure." Because this leads to choices and decisions, whether in the esthetic and contemplative realm of our art, or in our practical day-to-day actions.

Ay, sori, napadaldal na naman ako. Kasi, I have a little time to contemplate between two hanapbuhay projects. Hehe. Pasensiya na mga 'igan. If I start boring you, give me an electronic kick in the... derriere.

Marne

(to be continued)

Sid Gomez Hildawa (1962-2008)

2008-04-02T22:40:00.000-07:00

In Absentia

The sadness within these walls is the quiet  
sadness of space itself; invisible, inescapable.  
And hollow, like a forgotten well I'd like to fill up  
with flood waters, lava, or quick-drying cement.  
Departures are never as swift as the flick of a light  
switch, or as definitive as the collapse into dust  
cloud and rubble of a tall building under engineered  
blasts of planted dynamite. You walk out in particles,

leaving granulated good-byes like very fine sand. I'm  
sure some remnant of your reflection is still around,  
bouncing off yet another conniving surface. Like once,

stepping out of the shower towel-drying my hair,  
I caught the elongated image of your tanned body  
mirrored by the metal door frame's shiny handle. So  
you're still within these walls, zipping in perpetual  
motion, an amorphous mass of energized atoms in some  
theoretical physics equation where the effect of
 friction is suspended. You're still here, though  
not as I would have it: seated on the bed, your back  
against last night's pillows, your arm outstretched,  
pointing the remote control at a flickering screen.  
You're here in fragments. I gather your presence  
with each sweeping of the floor, the way a poem  
remembers its former drafts, collecting dead skin  
cells of former selves.

(Fifth Prize Meritage Press Awards 2003)

Sid’s Note at Meritage site:

My poem, "In Absentia," is a product of many personal concerns as both poet and architect. Among them are, "How is one's perception of space affected by the physical absence of the beloved?," and, " What does it really mean to be present in the physical world, for oneself and for someone else?" The writing of this poem led me to meta-physical possiblities, with links to the nature of writing itself.

Pictura Poiesis Poems

On Juan Luna’s Tampuhan (1895)

It is a yellow afternoon that slides open
the capiz-shell windows,
that makes the mahogany floor
like a pond shimmer with silhouettes
of the ventanilla’s squinting fingers.
“My dear, you’re missing the procession
below.” He leans out, as if wanting
to join the shuffle of dusty feet.
She looks in, anchored to wooden things.
the yellow light passes without a sound
between them.

Sick Leave
(On Luna’s Parisian Life)

Like a patch of skin spared
from sunburn by a shield
of cloth or sun block lotion,
there’s a rectangle on the wall
lighter than the wall itself,
where a painting used to hang.
Now that the artwork is gone,
visitors ask, “What used to be there?,”
and “What was it about?,”
as if they hadn’t seen the piece before,
or maybe not carefully enough.

‘Wasn’t there a woman seated
in a café?, Didn’t she have a glass
of wine, or some company?,”
The damp ground, eavesdropping,
almost shifts, holding up the house
whose wall holds up a rusty nail
in its perpetual upturned pose,
holding up no answer.

On my fourth day in hospital
with dextrose feeding me twenty
drips a minute, I picture in my mind
a space I may have left behind,
not entirely empty, but of air
made thinner by my absence,
or of lighter tissue,
so that people pause, inquire,
and imagine what used to be there.

“So where’s the painting now?

Undertow

There is no smell of chlorine 
to pierce the nose. In this river 
water enfolds me clear 
and flowing, currents without waves. 
My legs are flourescent pale 
underneath, where small fishes 
mingle with the bathers, unperturbed, 
except by the occasional dives.  

I see you coming out 
of the waterfall, your body 
cutting through the white curtain 
whose long hair parts only for the enchanted.  
And the enchanting.  

Better than misty air 
there is liquid bridge between us now 
and if my enduring wish were electricity 
I would have touched you, 
and warmed this river for you. 
But fear of intrusion engulfs me 
and the undertow of possible rejection 
pulls me down, down
to drown with the stones 
petrified, the algae,  
the dead leaves decaying. 

Ticket

What I keep in my wallet is evidence 
of another time: as I unfold this small piece 
of paper, its creases transform into furrows, 
then forks in a road more tentative 
than a typhoon’s turns. You’re seated 
beside me again, stringing stories with songs 
like multi-colored beads as the window world 
becomes a blur of buildings, trees, and electric poles 
that could be the ones running outside 
while our bus stayed in place. It didn’t matter then. 
We had left everything behind that day for a lunch 
three hours away and five hours back; 
grilled freshwater fish with coconut milk 
by the banks of a lake so calm its ripples
resembled rings 0f a tree trunk centuries old, 
so that while the afternoon sun was busy 
untying its shoes, one could count the age of the water. 
It was not too long ago when I stopped 
at twenty-seven and said to myself this is the year 
I would like to relive over and over again, 
come back to like an earmarked page when, 
coming to the last few chapters of a novel, 
one can already sense how it would probably end: 
the lake concealing its lines, the sun disrobing, 
dipping into the pool, the bus heading back to the city.  

A passenger looking out the window, 
with a return ticket in his wallet. 

The Space of Today

today doesn't occupy space; 
today is the space. 
today doesn't consume time; 
today is the time. 
i am the occupant, 
i am the consumer. 
i am in today like a bullfrog in its mudhole 
croaking the minutes of eternal night, 
the rain pouring from the sky-pitcher 
to the basin of earth; water soaking 
everything, every thing.

Sid, certainly like every younger artist, though he had won his own awards and had made a name for himself, was happy to be in the company of the greats, here with three national artists and one historian: Mom Edith Tiempo and historian and columnist Ambet Ocampo, the kindly Dr. Bien Lumbera, and Rio Alma at the Pictura Poiesis poetry night at MagNet in November last year

Morion Picture Book 3: Atonements & Tourist Moments

2008-03-23T17:44:00.001-07:00

Though typical enough of a Philippine town, with its church, seat of government and market place facing each other at the town park or open area, Boac, Marinduque is more like Vigan. It’s one unique feature, however, apart from the Festival, is the Boac Cathedral, with its separate bell tower, perched atop a hill, very much like the Daraga Church in my hometown. It probably gives the penitent soul more chances of forgiveness in terms of physical atonement. Boac has kept much of its probably centuries-old houses intact, the slow pace and more or less friendly residents who, because of their famous festival, are never xenophobic. Which, on the other hand, makes it easier for Smart, Globe, Jollibee, Chowking and San Miguel Gin and San Miguel Beer to vie for their attentions during Moriones week. Jollibee and Chowking, for instance, sister companies though they maybe, either ferry their portable kitchens or haul in a huge portion of their commissaries. SM, the shopping giant not yet present on the island, banner its sales schedules, wooing people to go to Lucena City, where its malls are. The Holy Week pilgrim or penitent fulfilling a panata (sacred promise) is probably an island native, more or less comfortable with or simply unmindful of strangers—the tourists from Luzon, the Visayas or even far-off Mindanao, or stragners like us who come in with some non-pious, non-penitential agenda. Some of these pictures (the “symbolic” or “representative” kind) will be appearing in a new major poetic work of epic length, featuring Philippine historical places and landmarks, by National Artist Rio Alma, my main sponsor for this trip (together with the National Commission for Culture and the Arts or NCCA). But Moriones, with all its color and pageantry, affects more than the Catholic part of ourselves. The heat of Holy Week, the "penitential frenzy" of the Festival (part of our schizoid culture), the epic travel to Marinduque island, touch part of us that is far more sacred than religion.

poets'picturebook No. 12 posted!

A Morion Picture Book

2008-03-21T00:05:00.000-07:00

"Being a morion is an amulet against fear itself..."
(Raul Quizada)

A most expressive figure, perhaps only a bit player in pageant but could well be the Mater Dolorosa (cropped from the photo in the home page and improved with a little Photoshop)

In full regalia

Contests of viciousness

The apparent stars of the pageant

The grieving women of Jerusalem

JC Superstar actually manhandled

Anti-Morions?

Morion generations

A morion named Raul & two exalted centurions

It seemed like an endless cavalcade of costumed dolls and apparitions from our Catholic past, our ambivalent Hispanic heritage, a pilgrimage into our imposed memory that has nevertheless become part of us. There were morions and morions—classic, elaborated, improvised, Baroque. There was a female morion whose tan faux-leather costume and quaint headdress made her look like she came from the Mongol horde. There was a morion with a vest of puka shells or woven water-reeds. There was an updated morion straight the current movie then, "300." There were father-and-son, grandfather-and-granddaughter morions, fulfilling perhaps a lifetime panata. There was a gas-masked morion that seemed to have come out of the mustard fog of World War I, or the post-nuclear landscape, except that he had on a black mohair tunic. But all that made it a pageant after all, a Lenten ritual about the death of the Son of God that is always on the brink of celebrating His resurrection, somberness on the brink of laughter.

Moriones is a festival of faces that hides the faces of the pious, the repentant, the supplicant, the curious. We, both tourists and pilgrims to the sites that serve as landmarks on the way to knowing this thing called being Filipino, were privileged not just to participate in the ritual but have some personal glimpses into the faces behind the masks. Raul Quizada cautiously told us a bit about himself. Being a morion, he said, is an amulet against fear itself: when you're in the engine room of some ocean-going vessel and the waves are bigger than houses, you tell yourself you're a morion and you know you can survive "the devil himself." We had a few words with the privileged Longhino, whose mask bore the blind eye but whose name I failed to get. He was a public official, an engineer, I seem to recall, and also hermano mayor, the headman of celebrations. We shook his hand. But the chariot-riding centurion, with his authentic-looking costume and finery that said he was a devotee from the big city, stayed aloof and distant. Or he just wanted to play his part to the hilt.

Happy Easter!

Events whirl even after Arts Month

2008-03-14T00:54:00.000-07:00

2. Tres Kantos
Three Exhibits in Manila by Sydney-based Filipino Artist Edd Aragon

Edd Aragon, artist and famous Filipino cartoonist of the Sydney Morning Herald (and my e-group mate at Banggaan Artists Group), writes in his blog:

“Can't wait to come home to Manila this April, very excited to see family and friends. Will be there for the whole month and hope to visit Baguio, Iloilo and Boracay with friends from Manila and North American chapter of Banggaan Art Group. Heber Bartolome, Filipino musician / painter and Ben Razon, Filipino photographer helped me a lot in organising the shows, putting me in touch with gallery owners. Thanks guys! Will bring you some bonza rippa Aussie red wine!”

Here are the “three corners” of his homecoming exhbit.

Digitalla Prima
Aragon's digitally-manipulated photographs and scanned images.
(Two Venues)

"Pixels as paint!” Ed enthuses. “I'm now addicted to this wonderful, electronic canvas.
I avoid gimmicky plugged-in effects. A simple paint program like Photoshop
offers simple yet powerful tools; much like an ordinary lead pencil effectively
used to sketch a pretty portrait in the analog world."

Venue & Opening: 3 pm, Sunday, April 6, The Oarhouse, 1803 A. Mabini St,
Malate, Manila tel.(+632 4508301)

Mulat!
Aragon's ultra-violet light-reactive (inivisible) paintings on canvas of legendary
Filipino and western rock & blues musicians, nudes and allegorical images.

"I can't help but think analytically when using u.v. reactive materials,” Edd explains. “The process is tricky, e.g.using white paint to appear as black under u.v. light, and develop the painting as I go; brushwork is almost second nature; but the theme is my real palette, like bridging the old and modern day heroes using musical and visual allusions in an alternative light. It's almost like exploring the dark side of the moon. Truth is hard to perceive in the blinding day-to-day life and light. Beneath the prismatic chaos reside the ultra-violet rays of rapture for things unseen."

Venue & Opening: 5 pm, Saturday, April 12, Banyuhay ni Heber Arts & Music Center, 170 Banlat Rd, Tandang Sora, Quezon City

Op Edd!

A collection of Aragon's opinion editorial (op-ed) cartoons and caricatures published in The Sydney Morning Herald, including prints of his political cartoons currently in exhibition at the National Museum of Australia, Canberra.

"Newspaper culture is universal; artists and journalists working together but each in his own world and constantly aware of events and deadlines,” Edd tells us. “My experience in Manila as newspaper cartoonist brought me confidence and tenacity to work in Australian newspapers since 1980. I've always injected the element of human form in my editorial drawings; and enjoy using manual airbrush to draw, scanned and brought to a paint program and rebirthed."

Venue & Opening: 6 pm, Saturday, April 19, Maestro, Masterpiece Art Depot, 2nd flr. rm 207, Seneca Bldg,1152 E.Rodriguez Ave, Quezon City, tel (+632) 396 5488

The artist at work on his Tandang Sora (Melchora Aquino, "Mother of the Philippine Revolution") UV painting)

The Filipino Artist as Invisible Man

(excerpt)

By Alfredo Roces

…The Filipino artist is also part of Australian culture whether this is recognized or not. Perhaps our artistic role of expressing the state of Australian culture today lies in our very invisibility. It says something, doesn't it? We came to Australia to be free, and if the price of freedom is anonymity, so be it.

Edd's current work [of UV-reactive art] speaks to me about visibility and invisibility. Under ordinary light his new canvases are white and empty–invisible paintings. But under ultra violet light, or what is known as blacklighting in the billboard advertising game, strange images appear.

It seems to me, the new migrant to Australia is like these “aragonite” paintings—blank and invisible to those who only see from a certain cultural framework, those who apply only one special code for recognition within a closed exclusively English speaking mode.

But place him under a different light, his own light, a light equally valid and equally luminous, and we might uncover perhaps unique noble traits and virtues. We may encounter basic humanity behind that anonymous facade.

Painting is not merely an image on canvas hanging on a wall. The viewer is asked to confront that image. The result of this confrontation decides what happens to the work of art. You have the artist-creator, you have his work, and you have the viewer. The three must interact and come together to produce the beauty and magic of art.

3. Printemps des poètes

The Alliance Francaise de Manille fete of spoken poetry & good wine
is slated for April 2
L'ELOGE DE L'AUTRE, CARREFOURS, CROISEMENTS, METISSAGES
“In praise of the other: crossroads, crossings, crossbreedings”

The French, as represented by its local cultural center, Alliance Francaise, is most friendly to poets apparently around the world, as the event is observed in French cultural centers all over. Alliance deputy director Christophe Farges and board director Deanna Ongpin-Recto host the yearly event. Judging from pervious editions, Printemps is a most gracious literary event, well-attended by an appreciative audience, poet-readers, musicians and performers, and well-provided with tables of fine victuals and generous servings of French viticulture. Overall a heady literary treat for lovers of the word.

4. Romanza Book Launch

To be soft-launched at Printemps des poètes at Alliance is painter/watercolorist Marivic Rufino's bilingual art-and-poetry book Romanza. In a volume lovingly designed by Eva Peñamora and published by Tahanan Books of Reni Roxas, Mav's paintings are paired with National Artist Rio Alma's poems in the traditional Filipino short forms of the Tanaga, Diyona & Dalít. Romanza is edited with translations by Marne L. Kilates, and an introduction by the art critic Ruben Defeo.

Here are samples of the Marivic Rufino paintings, with the Rio Alma poems and my translations.

Sagot sa Lutrina

Nagbabalik ang ulan
Para magbayad-utang
At ang hampas ng hangin
Para muling maningil.

Answered Prayers

The rain comes back
To pay debts
And the wind
To collect payments.

Dahas

Ano nga ba ang dahas?
Isang bisig ng poot,
Kapanalig ng lakas,
At kabiyak ng lungkot.

Violence

And what, indeed, is violence?
An arm of rage,
A co-believer of force,
A spouse of sorrow.

Selos

Ang gabi’y lumalalim
Kahit hindi hukayin.
Ang mata mong malambing,
May sampung libong tabing.

Jealousy

The night deepens
Though no one’s digging it.
Your sweet eyes hide
Behind thousand veils.

❜

Visit our online magazine.
poets'picturebook Issue 11 posted

The Russia I saw...

2008-02-23T17:53:00.000-08:00

II. Leningrad

Under marble slabs the Tsars sleep
Their dank and mildewed sleep
In a cathedral in Leningrad.
In the glow of goldleaf wrapped
On the twisting columns of iconostases,
Old women light the votive candles
Of their resilient faith, as the young
In their secular ambivalence
Ponder the tomb of Peter the Great.
Books tell of the swamps and their
Pestilential breath that sired
This rival of old Muscovy,
Of conscript peasant, nobleman and serf,
The horde of infantry fed to the cold
Of the marsh and the crash of artillery—
Tributes to the Tsar’s grasp
Of the southern steppes in the war
Against the Swedes. It is from their
Namelessness a new Russia arose.
Here, now, named after a hero of another
War, is St. Petersburg: A late summer
Of colonnades and corniced windows,
Pink Italian facades staring down
The flood of morning traffic
On the endless stretch of Nevsky Prospekt,
As obese women and milk-skinned girls
Savor the last of the sun on the grass
Along the banks of the Neva—
Now almost still like lapis lazuli,
Veined here and there only by ripples
Stirred by geese, a child’s paper boat,
Cellophane wrapper, windblown birch leaf.
From the Lavra chapel under the lindens
Whose shadows dapple Dostoyevsky’s grave,
Newlyweds march to Alexander Square,
Pose beneath Karl Marx’s bust,
And affix their signature
To the posterity of a photograph.
Behind the colonnade on another square,
An older passion pulsates: lovers
Concealed behind pine and poplar swaying
In the beige skies of the tapestries
At the Hermitage. Faces, viewed and viewing,
Are transfixed on the Rembrandts
And the Murillos, the red dancers
Of Matisse, the blue girls of Picasso,
Van Gogh’s swirling impastos.
These hurried journeys through time
Root me down as I stand in the marble hall
That is the throne room of Peter the Great:
With all but a tourist’s awe, I am granted
This moment of true Russian drunkenness,
To revel in the terrible beauty
That survives all its human cost.

(1990)

Matisse's Dance,

and Picasso's Absinthe Drinker at the Hermitage

III. Moscow

1. Epilogue 1990

Since I saw Moscow, it’s been more
Than half a year. Or half a lifetime
Even, I do not know, for half the world
Had changed—by terror or by temblor,
By the heaving of hearts or continents,
By the machinations of meretricious
Circumstance. Like dominoes, dictators
And dictatorships had fallen one by one,
From the Warsaw Pact to the American
Isthmus, relinquished by the powers
That sustained them—the native
Or the foreign hand. (Ours, long a client
Of one, had vanished at last, after
Lingering in banishment, leaving wounds
In our souls that wouldn’t heal.)
At the Eastern Bloc the Berlin Wall
Was crumbling into souvenirs
(Gorbachev’s face had been carved
Into the pages of Time), a playwright
Sits at the head of the Czech Parliament,
The Poles have voted their favorite
Unionman president. And the people, long
At the throes of their sordid heritage,
Are plunged into the Free World’s
Shoreless seduction: What economics
Or ideologies could save them now?

2. On the Overnight Express from Leningrad

Pine, fir, birch, in permanent expanse,
Escorted us across the dawn
Into the rotting outskirts of Moscow.
Leningrad left us sated and mortified
With the opulence of art at the Hermitage,
Loot and heritage of tsars and commissars
From world tours and world wars.
On the overnight express its memory
Had become a residual flatulence
Relieved by the quaintness of samovar
Dispensing the train attendant’s morning tea.
In the golden gray light Moscow awoke
With its frayed elegance of tenements
And factory smoke, as its million intent
Faces preened and slid into streetcars
And the smooth bowels of the Metro.
(Half in jest our guide observed: Here
People seldom smile, in this center
Of State the ambitious of Russia thrive...)
From afar, above the signs of Comecon,
Tungsram, Abloy, Cubafrutas, we glimpsed
Stalin’s spires transfixing the sky
With their sun-gilt five-pointed stars.

3. Arbat

Here converge the newly reborn
Zanies of Glasnost: Quaint Arbat,
A stretch of turn-of-the-century facades,
Lining the street like so many Potemkin props:
Victorian lampposts with their wrought-iron
Stems blossoming into globes of glass,
Bricked pavements preserved by law
From motor fumes. Pass by Arbat. Everyone
Meets everybody on ‘Perestroika Street’:
Beatniks time-warped, the truly hungry
And the truly lost, history’s gypsies,
Jongleurs of fate, flouters of convention,
Flaunters of indifference, preachers,
Visionaries, circus midgets, punks.
Bob Dylan’s doppelganger sings in a corner
For kopeks; two painted ladies smile at us
In the common language of the races:
We smile back—our Asian curiosity
In exchange for their Slavic secrets.
From behind a crimson door an Italian
Harlequin mimes us a surprise. At the next
Corner a miniature artist offers us his
Updated version of Hieronymus Bosch’s
Apocalypse: Purple and orange mezzotint
Of the final fireball that will engulf us all,
Signed by him, take note, who has
Exhibited in Paris. Listen. Here, perhaps,
Do the dimensions of empire teeter in equipoise:
Where four Lithuanian nuns still light candles
For their brethren slain by Stalin,
As the chattering provincials are disgorged
At an intersection by an Intourist bus...
While somewhere else in the city,
Beyond this liberalism’s Disneyland,
Crowds queue up at the state-owned shops
For precious beef and tomatoes, limp greens,
Rancid cheese, battered fruit and potatoes;
And over at the Armory, both the fashionable
And the tawdry line up for a precious view
Of the gem-encrusted eggs of Faberge.

4. Red Square

That morning in Moscow I will never
Forget: As far as the dappled birches
Bowing in the sun by the Kremlin Wall,
Over asphalt and cobblestone,
Into the great patio under the cupolas
Of St. Basil’s that presided like
Turbaned caliphs over Red Square,
And under the lone spire of Spassky Gate
That kept watch with its stern
Military stare, the lines of devotees
Stretched from the doorstep of Lenin’s
Mausoleum, from the sunlight into
A crypt of red marble. At a signal from
The guards (‘Fix your ties, button up, please,’
Said the public address), a hush fell
Upon the crowd, the soul preened
Before crossing the threshold.
There lay what was left of a man
Who shone one October, heir to the yoke
Of peasant and serf crushed under
The wheels of the Industrial Revolution.
What vision he saw he seems to have
Taken with him under the glass
That shields him now from the world’s
Contagion, as he rests embalmed,
Preserved in the taxidermist’s perfection.
In this shrine of the Other Orthodoxy,
We, pilgrims from other conformities
Pay homage to him who did not conform.

5. White Night from the Hotel Rossiya

From the tall windows of the Hotel Rossiya
I gazed at the luminescent July night
And thought of the Russia my heart chose to see:
Mike’s demure Uzbeki, Zulia, eavesdropping
On our English as we marveled at the exhibit
Of Tolstoy’s memorabilia: Cravats and cobbler’s
Tools (he made his own boots), black
Tandem bike, the ubiquitous quill and ink well...
Or Sveta, the evening’s in-charge
Of the hotel desk, whom we wooed with poems
And cigarettes (the latter for her boyfriend,
We teased), but she just smiled.
Or Dmitri, our able guide, the smiling Muscovite,
Lover of Davao bananas safely tucked
In his attaché case among the tourist brochures,
Whose favorite American movie
Was Australian: ‘Dundee Crocodile’!
Or the omnipresent Matrioshka doll
In her deceiving simplicity: multiplying
Yet diminishing herself as if to infinity,
Smiling her lacquered smile at us
From the Berioska shelves.
But who could forget the plaintive
Chorus of bekerchiefed babushkas
In the Orthodox dusk at Zagorsk?
Or our ardent debates and vows of friendship
With the inebriated nationalist in Kiev?
Or Peredelkino, Moscow’s rural outskirt,
Where a spring purled in the quiet of Pasternak’s grave?
Ah, to know Russia, indeed. Or never at all.
I watched museum workers dig for artifacts
In an ancient corner of the Red Square,
And saw bricks crumble under the Kremlin Wall.
I fancied seeing the ghost of the Past
Haunt the Victorian malls of Gum,
Haunt the halls beyond this damp hotel room,
From where I, in my stranger’s conceit
Presumed to know what my heart could choose,
As if by gazing alone, one could peel,
Skin by skin, the onion domes of St. Basil’s.

Marne L. Kilates
(1993)

NOTES:

Plinfa. Gray-colored brick.
Leningrad. The city’s name has since reverted to St. Petersburg
Berioska. The Russian silver birch. The name adopted for the state-owned duty-free shops.
Gum. An acronym for something that escapes me now. Moscow’s version of the megamall.

PHOTOS from top: Facade of Winter Palace or Hermitage (the biggest museum in the world; it would take maybe a week to see all its galleries. Mike Bigornia, Dmitri & I went running & skipping through the galleries in one afternoon); two of the famous paintings in the museum; Conversation in Rain by Maxim Popykin; Arbat Street; the Lenin Mausuleum at Red Square at the Kremlin; Novospassky Monastery onion domes; and, bottom, the Kremlin at night, with the Russian Parliament to the left, the GUM supermarket outlined in bright lights in the middle, and St. Basil's Cathedral to the right.

PHOTO CREDITS: Except for Winter Palace facade (above) and Arbat Street, all photographs by Maxim Popykin. Maxim is a web programmer for a cellular company. He hobbies include water sports, snowboarding, listening to techno music and traveling, especially to Italy and Greece. His dream is to travel to Norway, Venezuela, Canada and India but would never think of leaving home without a camera. He feels photography is an essential part of any trip. He current camera of choice is the Canon 300D. He was born and still lives in Moscow, Russia. See more of his stunning photographs at http://www.pbase.com/maximzar.

Arbat Street by Ana Sayfa; Paintings and others from the Hermitage and other academic websites

DATES: Parts I & II, composed in 1990; 2 to 4, 1991; 5, 1993

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Bilingual Statement of the Nation's Artists for Truth

IBALIK ANG TOTOO!
Statement of Artists and Workers in Culture and the Media
on the Sorry State of the Filipino Nation's Leadership

The role of the artistic community in any society is to mirror life through artful expression of our heritage, vision, and soul. It does so by reflecting the truth as experienced, witnessed and lived in people's everyday lives. To alter or manipulate the reflection of the truth in an artistic work renders the artistic expression void of resonance and meaning. On a larger scale, falsehood also mis-shapes our core values and misrepresents our identities as a people.

Sadly today, our people are experiencing an orchestrated obstruction and manipulation of the truth. As artists and workers in culture and the media, we are appalled by the blatant disregard of our rights of access to the truth and the contemptuous attempt to mislead us from the truth. As the issues of legitimacy, massive corruption, charges of human rights violations and social injustice plaguing the Arroyo government are being unraveled, we are witnessing the unprecedented viciousness in manipulating the truth to subvert the public good.

We view this development with increasing alarm as it threatens the very fiber of our national survival. As agents of truth, we assert that our role as artists is inextricably linked with our people's struggle for freedom, justice, and democracy. Genuine national unity and progress can never be achieved without thorough understanding of our culture and identities, a respect for the diverse ways we express them and an appreciation of what is true of ourselves, our society and the world we live in. Now, more than ever, we must acknowledge and lend unequivocal support to the arts and culture sector as it plays an even more significant role in catalyzing our sense of nationhood.

As we seek an end to the culture of corruption in all facets of our national life, we demand the full accountability of all state instrumentalities and personalities involved in recent scams that assault the basic moral fiber of our people and deprive us of our basic rights...freedom of expression; relief from mass poverty; access to education, health care and livelihood opportunities; equitable application of justice; assurance of safety and security from unlawful arrests; and many other entitlements due us but have been deprived us as citizens of a democratic society. Not only must the Arroyo administration account for its breaches of governance; it must be purged of corrupt elements primarily responsible for its own destabilization.

We urge all Filipinos to act NOW before it is too late. Let us exercise vigilance in ensuring the accountability of our officialdom for their decisions and actions; diligence in pursuing exposure of the truth; and active and willful participation in defending the truth. We stand committed with the rest of the nation in demanding a new moral governance that will provide our country with a legitimate and morally upright leadership we can all be proud of.

Ang tunay na Filipino, nagsasabi ng totoo. Naglilingkod ng totoo, ipinaglalaban ang totoo. Sigaw ng bayan, ipagtanggol ang totoo!

ARTISTA NG BAYAN PARA SA KATOTOHANAN
February 26, 2008

IBALIK ANG TOTOO!
Pahayag ng mga Alagad ng Sining at Mangagagawa sa Kultura at Midya sa Malungkot na Lagay ng Liderato ng Bansang Filipino

Ang tungkulin ng mga alagad ng sining sa alinmang lipunan ay maging salamin ng buhay sa pamamagitan ng malikhaing pagpapahayag ng pamana, bisyon, at kaluluwa ng lahi. Naisasakatuparan ito sa pamamagitan ng pagpapakita ng katotohanan tulad ng dinaranas, nasasaksihan at isinasabuhay sa araw-araw ng taumbayan. Dahil sa pagbago o pagbaluktot sa pagtatanghal ng katotohanan sa isang akdang pansining, nawawalan ng kabuluhan at kahulugan ang pahayag na makasining. Sa higit na malawak na pagtuturing, nililinlang ng kabulaanan ang ating mga batayang halagahan at nagpapanggap na kinakatawan ng ating lahi.

Nakalulungkot na sa kasalukuyan, sumasailalim ang sambayanan sa sabwatang pagbaluktot at paghadlang sa katotohanan. Bilang mga artista at manggagawa sa kultura at sa midya, nasisindak kami sa walang pakundangang pagsasaisantabi ng ating karapatang mabatid ang katotohanan at sa karumal-dumal na pagtatangkang iligaw tayo palayo sa katotohanan. Habang nailalantad ang usapin ng pagiging lehitimo, malawakang katiwalian, paglabag sa karapatang pantao at kawalan ng katarungang panlipunan na umuusig sa administrasyong Arroyo, nagiging saksi tayo sa walang habas na pagbaluktot sa katotohanan upang yurakan ang kapakanan ng bayan.

Lubha kaming nababahala sa mga pangyayaring ito dahil nagbabanta ito sa ating pambansang kaligtasan. Bilang mga alagad ng katotohanan, iginigiit namin na ang tungkulin ng mga alagad ng sining ay mahigpit na kaugnay ng patuloy na pakikibaka ng sambayanan para sa kalayaan, katarungan, at demokrasya. Hindi matatamo ang tunay na pambansang pagkakaisa at pag-unlad nang walang ganap na pagkaunawa sa ating kultura at mga katangian, paggalang sa iba't ibang paraan ng pagpapahayag sa mga ito, at pagpapahalaga sa totoo sa ating mga sarili, sa ating lipunan, at sa mundong ating tahanan. Ngayon, higit kailanman, kailangan nating kilalanin at mataos na ipagsanggalang ang sektor ng mga sining at kultura, lalo ngayong may napakahalaga itong gampanin sa pagpanday at paghubog ng ating pagkabansa.

Sa hangaring maiwaksi ang nakamihasnang katiwalian sa lahat ng sangay ng ating pamumuhay bilang isang bansa, hinihingi naming lubos na managot ang lahat ng ahensiya ng estado at mga personalidad na may kinalaman sa mga panlilinlang kamakailan na lumalapastangan sa batayang paninindigan ng bayan at nagkakait ng ating mga batayang karapatan tulad ng: malayang pamamahayag; lunas sa kahirapan; pagkakamit ng edukasyon, pangangalagang pangkalusugan, at mga oportunidad na pangkabuhayan; patas na paggagawad ng katarungan; garantiya sa kaligtasan at seguridad laban sa lahat ng labag sa batas na pagdakip; at marami pang naipagkakait sa atin bilang mga mamamayan ng isang demokratikong lipunan. Hindi lamang dapat managot ang administrasyong Arroyo sa mga pagkukulang nito sa pamamahala; dapat ding mawala rito ang mga elemento ng katiwaliang pangunahing sanhi ng sarili nitong pagbagsak.

Hinihimok namin ang lahat ng Filipino na kumilos na ngayon bago mahuli ang lahat. Magsikhay tayo sa pagbabantay at pagtiyak na mapanagutan ng ating mga opisyal ang kanilang mga pasiya at gawain; pagsikapan nating maibunyag ang katotohanan; at masigasig at buong-loob na ipagtanggol natin ang katotohanan. Naninindigan kami kasama ang buong bansa sa paghahangad ng bago at may dangal na pamamahala na may lehitimo at makatwirang pamumuno na tunay na ikararangal ng bayan.

Ang tunay na Filipino, nagsasabi ng totoo. Naglilingkod sa totoo, ipinaglalaban ang totoo. Sigaw ng bayan, ipagtanggol ang totoo!

ARTISTA NG BAYAN PARA SA KATOTOHANAN
26 Pebrero 2008

✑

What do you do if you’re living in a box?

Two women artists enter the world of informal settlers, which is not too far from home.

Photographer Romina A. Diaz, who is half-Filipino and half-Italian, is able to step into the world of Loring Street in Pasay City because she lives there. Across from her family’s home and art gallery (Galleria Duemila), up to one end of the street, a large community of informal settlers have been living for decades.

Socially oriented artist Ann Wizer, a half-Norwegian/half-Lebanese American, collaborates with Romina on a creative project involving the girls from the community. Both have lived in Pasay, and both call themselves global nomads.

Their passions and social consciousness come together as they work with the young girls, aged nine to 16. For ten weeks, Romina worked with them in an intensive photography workshop.

The results are glimpses and images of their lives, mainly from their own eyes, with the help of the creative device of photography. The girls of Loring Street have also made ‘dollhouses’ out of LBC’s balikbayan boxes, which are representations of their lives, their homes, and their dreams.

Society often ignores girls like them: girls living in squalor, denied decent shelter, basic education, and proper healthcare, forced to become full-time mothers to their younger siblings, trying to survive in the huddled mass of shanties they call home.

One result of the project is “Living on Loring, Art For Social Change.” It is the collaborative exhibit by Romina, Wizer and the girls of Loring who call themselves Wild Cats Girls.

Angel Velasco Shaw, a film/video artist, writer, cultural activist, curator, and educator curates the show.

An artist with extensive experience in cultural exhange and activism, Velasco Shaw is the co-editor of the award-winning anthology, Vestiges of War: The Philippine-American War and the Aftermath of an Imperial Dream: 1899-1999 (New York University Press, 2002), among other notable works.

Velasco Shaw is currently working on a multi-year series of cultural exchange projects called ‘Trade Routes: Converging Cultures — Southeast Asia and Asia America.” “Living on Loring/ Who’s Sita?” is the flagship project of this series.

“Living on Loring, Art For Social Change,” an exhibition by  Romina A. Diaz, Ann Wizer, and The Wild Cats Girls, is presented by Galleria Duemila from March 8-31, 2008.

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