ONE UNFORGETTABLE DINNER

The standard had been set in many judgments, etched in many stones: Your friends are who you are. The statement is sweeping, vulnerable and inaccurate. It calls for other, more specified yardsticks, ranging in this wise: Tell me what you read and I will find your place in the political spectrum, or, Your music is your attitude.

I make my own measure. You are what you dream. All of life is not our own choosing and many times we are forced to make do with what's around, whichever is available. But in our dreams, we build up ourselves, we build up our ideals, we make our call, we make what's available. What comes out of us is the real us because that is what we dream us to be.

Let's continue with this dream to create the dream measure. We will host our respective dinners with seven people in our guest lists. As specified yardstick, We are who we invite for dinner. So here's my dreamlist and I will dream on:

1.) William Shakespeare - the saviour of language, the curator of letters. Harold Bloom states the extreme, WS is the inventor of the human, and so he tops this list. I will put him at the head of the table and, since dinner is the avenue for interaction, I will ask for him him to break the ice, on whatever issue: Hamlet or King Lear? Tragedy or comedy? Are thee for Tolstoy, sayeth naught? He can do a Polonius to Laertes, to our hearts delight, as we wait for our soup: Give every man thine ear, but few thy voice, Take each man's censure, but reserve thy judgment;

2.) Fernando Pessoa - Forming one half of the soul of my literature, he is to me what Shakespeare is to Bloom. This Portuguese poet of the heteronymous world will bring the needed melancholia to this meal, probably saying to my stunned self, My acceptance to your invitation is my cowardice, and thereafter engage William Shakespeare to the great debate of the Faith;

3.) Mark Twain - He will be there to remind us, us seven as well as you outside of the seven, that we are all by his vision, Tom Sawyers and Huck Finns of this world;

4.) Apolinario Mabini - My favorite Filipino, he will be there to remind them great people that greatness does not lie in the strength of one's knees, or the absence of wheels in one's chair. I will wait for him to ask, on everyone's bated breath, the question of the night, Hey guys, have you ever planned a revolution?;

5.) Jose Saramago - The other half of my literature's soul, forming a 1-2 Portuguese punch with my Master Fernando. Senhor Jose, the greatest living writer in my mind, will have to come to eat my food and autograph my books;

6.) Molly Giles - She will be there not to establish the balance between the dead and the living nor to represent the female gender, such insult. She will be there because she deserves it, and to show us men that with the sensibility of paper and sensitivity of the pen, she too can be a masculine and the rest of us can be feminine;

7.) Bono - For some music, for some poetry, for some politics, for some vision. I will ask, Excuse me sirs and madam, this is a little difficult, but what is your favorite U2 song? And then I'll suggest, Will you please, Mr. Bono, while we're served with coffee and parfait, do my favorite U2 song...

"Sweet the sin
Bitter taste in my mouth
I see seven towers
But I only see one way out
You got to cry without weeping
Talk without speaking
Scream without raising your voice..."

And then we'll retire to the receiving room, to talk, to have fun, to bid our goodbyes.

I can keep a secret. Who are on your guestlist?

RESPONSA KAY r.k./ODA KAY p.j.

Malapit na 'atang sumikat ang araw kanina, gising pa 'ko. Mahirap talagang makipagtunggali sa prosa ni Jose Saramago, kayang ubusin ang mumunting panahong nakalaan sa pagtulog. All The Names , 'yun ang pangalan ng nobela; 'yun ang pangalan ng mang-aagaw ng tulog. Pati nga 'yung Lost Steps at Explosion In A Cathedral ni Alejo Carpentier e inunahan pa man din sa mga nakatalagang babasahin. (Pasensya na po bos Dennis Agui, lamang sa listahan ko si Manong Jose).

Sa gitna ng pagbabasa, binuksan ko ang site; 'dun ko nakita 'tong komento ni r.k. sa baba na marahil e nakadagdag sa di pagkatulog. Inuga-uga mo, r.k., ang pag-iisip ko dun sa sinabi mong magtatalaga ka ng "clear book" at pupunuin ng mga katagang galing dito, sabay hamong punuin na rin pati ang kaluluwa mo. Abanakupow, ang kaya ko lang sigurong ipuno sa libro n'yo e mga kahunghangan, at sa kaluluwa nyo e kawalang-laman. I'll fill it up with emptiness, anya, pero sa totoo lang, di ko nga sana babanggitin ang komento mo at sa halip e magtatago na lang ako sa ilalim ng kama upang doon magpadyahi. Shy po ako, sabi nga nila, shy walangya, pero sa totoo lang, pinaikot, pinatalon, pinagsayaw ako ng saliw ng komento mo.

Pasensya na po kung di nyo naiintindihan ang mga sinasabi ko dito; for all I know, baka kayo si robert kennedy. Naisip ko lang na kung nakikita nyo ang inyong sarili sa mga entrada, 'di kaya ibig sabihin e ganito ka rin mag-isip, ganito ka rin magsulat. Para na ring sa kapatid, 'di ba nakikita mo rin ang sarili mo sa kanila, minsan nga, pareho din kayong mag-isip, pareho din kayong magsulat. Anuman, salamat sa papuri, pati sa hamon, maaring nagpapawari na kaya ko pala ang kumonekta ng isip sa isip, tinta sa tinta, kataga sa kataga.

Tuloy, dun sa clear book mo, naalala ko yung most prized possession ko maraming taon na ang nakakaraan. Si p.j., yung poetry journal ko na nawala, lagi kong kasama na parang si Bantay, binabantayan nya siguro ang ungas-makatang pag-iisip ko. Nakapaskil doon ang lahat ng tula kong nalathala, walo lahat, mula 3rd year high hanggang 4th year coll, puro sa campus journals lang kaya 'di syento por syento ang silbi. Ang sayang lang, di ko na magawang balik-balikang parang litrato ang itsura ng pag-iisip ko noon. Gaya nga nung interbyu kay Alanis sa NPR, masarap daw balik-balikan ang mga lumang kanta nya dahil doon nya nakikita ang ebolusyon ng kanyang pag-iisip na parang nagbabasa ng mga lumang diaries. Ganoon din kay p.j., sa pagkawala nya e di ko na makita ang ebolusyon ko ng panahon na yun, mula sa kakornihang panunula hanggang sa kakornihang panunula.

Kay r.k., salamat. Sa umampon kay p.j., magpaka-korni ka na lang.

A FISH TALE

At a fisherman's wharf, a fish vendor enjoyed the sign he just put up by the door of his stall: FRESH FISH FOR SALE HERE. Then he begun to think, Of course the fish is sold here, not in the next stall, not out in the sea. So he changed the sign and afterwards admired it as revised: FRESH FISH FOR SALE. He went to think again, Of course the fish is for sale, Why did I have to set up a fish stall if fish were to be given away for free? Thus, the sign went down a second, and up a third, time: FRESH FISH. He went to think once more, Of course the fish is fresh, Why will I sell rotten fish? (paging fish vendors, why, really? - cbs) And so the miserable sign went down and up for, I lost count, the nth time: FISH. The fish vendor found his genius for one moment, only to lose it on the next, Of course it is fish I sell, not flowers, not books, this is a fisherman's wharf, dammit! And so the sign went down, edifyingly, for a final, emotionally draining time, never to be put up again.

There is a lesson to be learned here. More than a few times, an absent message is a complete, consummating message.

Lesson learned.

Here is my entry:

III. A P O L O G I A

1. Loneliness is persuading, pervading. If you perceived the essence of sadness in certain entries, they were meant to make me happy, not to make you sad. Such sucker, I am loneliness' most consenting beneficiary;

2. In its method of debauched ramblings like the standard personal essay, this blog, like most blogs, will not resist the magnetic pull of the strong "I" perspective. It is difficult to speak of others; in here, the strength of the "I" is simply a matter of form, a rhetoric. If in the course of my ramblings I may feel carried away by undefinable conceit, I will know how to preempt: like E.B. White I will wrap myself in the mantle of Montaigne, or as I always do my entire life, I will shut up in quietude until my silence hurts and language is found guilty beyond reasonable doubt;

3. I am honest, honest enough to admit that I lie. If at anytime between now and then you consider my fact brazenly fictitious, either take it with a grain of salt or refuse it with a pound of sugar. You may ask for my source and I may give you my most reliable: my good 'ole imagination;

4. I am a writer not only because I write but because I say so. With a generous amount of worry and wariness in what I write and how I do it, I, despite myself, am prone to mistakes - grammatical or logical. Of grammar, I will let my pen's pride go unscathed and undream of my composition's spick and span. I don't care. I listen to Fernando Pessoa's words "Let grammar rule the man who doesn't know how to think what he feels" and I am absolved. But of logic, let us have this meeting of the minds: wake me up when it constricts; sing me a lullaby when it spins off;

5. Time is my favorite subject. Wherefore if it is something you abhor, fulfill the irony and acknowledge the pun: do not waste your time. If, on the other hand, you posses St. Thomas' Aquinas' philosophy or Isaac Newton's math (or simply introspect at time well beyond its fourth dimension), then time is of the essence: be my friend;

6. Despite the books I will recommend and authors I will consider as masters, I will set the record straight and strong: I believe in God;

7. But despite this day and age, what I don't believe in is copyright. If there is anything in this entry you wanted (but why?) that purely came from me, be my guest. You don't need my permission. Copyright negates freedom which this blog promotes liberally. Besides, judas ask for permissions anyway?

8. Last and certainly the least, my name is cbs, lowercase, lower class, an old man, yes ma'am, a grownup, no ma'am. And as I say thank you for coming, enjoy if you must, I will declare, too: let the bloggings begin.


Let me not advertise myself
In various things I do -
but let my deeds fit your desire,
that your will may come through.
O for your true peace is my longing,
and your dear image's belonging.
Within my heart of lotus petal
may your shield be found.
Yield up my arrogance to tears.
Let all my pride be drowned.

- Rabindranath Tagore
Gitanjali

II. P R O b L O G U E

"It's a rule of life that we can, and should, learn from everyone. There are solemn and serious things we can learn from quacks and crooks, there are philosophies taught us by fools, there are lessons in faithfulness and justice brought to us by chance and by those we chance to meet. Everything is in everything."

- Fernando Pessoa
(as Bernardo Soares)
The Book of Disquiet
Text 357

______________________________


Here's a little story: In a park specked by thousands of mangrove islands, a park ranger was lecturing about an example of nature's cycle. Holding aloft a tiny seedling, he said, This is a mangrove seed, In time this seed will give birth to a mangrove tree, And in time, the mangrove trees will give birth to a mangrove island, Each of those islands you see now was, in the beginning, like this one tiny seedling.

Some parallelisms resonate louder than others. Like my parallel cycle. As I started doing the blog-rounds in the Internet, I possessed a seed of curiosity. When I signed those bloggers' guestbooks, my seed, albeit slowly, gave birth to a tree of friendship. Communication is a great fertilizer of friendships; in time, the tree of friendship gave birth to an island. This blog is my island, sharing the warm waters with thousands of other blog islands.

I am new to the blogging game. Computers had never been my forte and the spirit of technology brings a whiff of diziness in my head, in my soul, but I endure. A little knowledge learned makes one better than before and so I try to keep up with the slowest of the Net Joneses. Sure enough, my patience pays off, my friend Belle's patience pays off, and this blog is my pay dirt, never hopefully my paycheck. I am now ready to offer my most unrefined thoughts, my most unprepared language, and so please bear with me. This is a mission and I wish I could fulfill positively. In this regard, I will set up my standards, create some rules of thumb, conjure the essence of this blog, disport the soliloquy of my self, expose the contriteness of my heart. If you care, spring in. Share and bleed.

I. P R O L O G U E

" - Larry, can I ask you a favor?
- It depends.
- Tell me what you see when you close your eyes and pretend you're terribly afraid. Maybe I could try to see the same things when fear overcomes me.
- You want to know my defences?
- I want to know your enemies; close your eyes and tell me what they're like. They seem almost tame."




I was at this bookstore last night, slouching on a couch, acting out a potato, quietly perusing George Steiner's No Passion Felt and wondering at the glamour of his language coefficient with his job as a literary critic. He was, at the outset, analyzing the 18th century French Master Jean Baptiste Simeon Chardin's painting Le Philosophe lisant while aiming to determine the profile of The Uncommon Reader.

Steiner was struck by the garb of the painting's subject - a man reading a book - which he considered to be very formal and ceremonious, and saw the man as "dressed for the occasion". The occasion, obviously, was the reading of a book; this must have been utterly ritualistic during that period (the painting was finished in 1734) that it prompted Steiner to describe his furred bonnet as suggestive of a scholar "when he seeks the flame of the spirit in the momentary fixity of the letter", and the furred robe as implying his indulgence in a "ceremony of intellect, of the mind's apprehension of meaning."

Whether it was in the real world or the realm of art, the disparity left me with a bitter taste in the mouth. There I was, a 21st century plebeian-reader in tattered jeans, crumpled shirt, and faded El Tucano Costa Rica cap, construing the sensibility of 18th century bourgeoisie towards reading as a venerated but ostentatious pursuit. The disparity, mind you, could not have been as confounding if it were solely based on our, and their, manner of appreciating the art of reading per se. Surely, leafing through Shakespeare's Hamlet was highpoint in daily cultural existence, in whatever time and milieu, and if one generation pursued the passion in solitude and the other in pomposity, the end would have justified the means. But under 18th century consideration viewed by my 21st century plebeian sensibility, reading was exclusively aristocratic.

So I shook myself out of that sag, welcoming the possibility of being classified by Steiner as The Average Reader. I stood up and headed towards the bookshelves in search of another book, this time to fulfill my other passion, writing, even if my ability on that one was also average. I had been toying with this game, you see, as my toast to intellectual imposition, my roast to literary conceit.

Through a long row of bookshelves, teeming with books, empty of readers, I walked with eyes closed and arms outstretched. On both sides the tip of my fingers touched the smooth texture of the books' covers, fulfilling my need to connect to the right book as I slowly and calculatedly navigated in darkness. Despite that pseudo-disabled posture, my aura was of plain sternness to impress everyone that for a brief moment the entire row was mine. At a certain point I faced the left shelf, ran my open palms over books within my arms' radius, plucked a book from somewhere, dug a fingernail to open that book to whatever page, ran my forefinger over the face of the opened book, then stopped. I opened my eyes to see the title of the book and read the paragraph where my forefinger rested.

The book I happened to pick was entitled Eternal Curse On The Reader Of These Pages, written by the Argentinean Manuel Puig (Kiss Of The Spiderwoman), and the paragraph where my finger stopped was the dialogue quoted above. The main objective of my game was to put the randomly selected quote from the randomly selected book as teaser for this initial blog entry and, as ponderous literary challenge, to create an entry spawning from that quote.

I did not read the book save for the quote and had no inclination what the story was about except that the conversation was between protagonists Larry and Mr. Ramirez as they roam Washington Square. My game fulfilled its purpose of throwing a challenge, and as I retired in bed going over and over the quote with no creative thought coming out, I concluded that I was neither The Average Reader nor The Average Writer. The game had to end due to a literary fallout.

Until these notions came from nowhere and hit me swift and hit me hard.

First - I realized the coincidence that my game, and Mr. Ramirez' request to Larry, involved the closing of the eyes;

Second - I realized the coincidence that the title of Puig's book and Steiner's subject have something to do with the reader; the former was directly referring to me as the reader, the latter was an analysis of somebody that was directly opposite me, The Uncommon Reader;

Third - I realized the coincidences that I had this co-worker named Larry; that there was a time when I was dubbed Mr. Ramirez by my high school classmates (for sharing the same first name with a popular figure in the community); and, hold your breath - this is true - that Larry and I once had this conversation that closely resembled the one quoted above. Over bottles of beer, I tried to uncoil him from the past that haunted him, his enemy.

From that point I had been in search for something more far-reaching that George Steiner's Uncommon Reader. I needed to know if I were indeed cursed for reading Puig's pages, and if yes, what the curse was all about. The curse could probably be the act of blogging all my life, and for which you may also be cursed into following my blogs all your lives. Remember that, technically, you have read part of Puig's book, too.