Slip of the Pen

With a dose of Trinoma thrown in, just for the fun of it.

I’m nearly halfway through the two-month “main course” of the LIRA poetry workshop, which began last June 2. Three corrections to my first LIRA post are in order:

1) Thirty fellows, not fourteen. I got the fourteen from the number of email recipients. Thirty…well, at least in the first day. By the third week, our ranks had thinned to…fourteen. Premonition?

2) The workshop will last for six months, not two. The first two is when the brutal, full-weekend manhandling of our works (and our preconceptions and misconceptions of Filipino literature) take place; the final four months are set aside for (hopefully) less demanding activities with no schedule yet.

3) “I’m not sure if [National Artist Virgilio Almario] will conduct more lectures after [the first talk].” Oh boy, was I dead wrong. Sir Rio has been a very doting (if a bit frank) professor to us fellows. He’s always there for every workshop (palihan in Filipino), and I’ve been humbled quite a few times by his words. What’s the feeling of having such a legendary figure teach you, admonish you, guide you, and casually converse with you? Very surreal.

Now, the LIRA experience would be a tad better if I weren’t splitting my body among three lives — the problogger and freelance writer who publishes 200+ blog posts a month (no kidding), the web projects (hey, we just soft-launched a new site, a definite biggie!) slash Netpreneurial spirit, and the literary Corsarius (hey, who’s this jerk?). With these three juggling for attention, the one week in between workshops is not enough to create poems worthy of Sir Rio’s praise.

To summarize, I’ve been learning and re-learning things as quickly as Manila’s streets flood during this rainy season, so fast that everything spills over and disrupts the ‘other lives’ (schizo!), causing much disorientation. The past three weeks were marred by low work productivity and numerous days’ worth of feeling physically sick, no doubt unleashed by fully-booked weekends and [insert other excuses here, so I can avoid admitting how sickly I am]. Oops.

But of course, that’s the bad way of looking at it. The good way of looking at it is that I’m improving upon myself and my art, as well as willing my body to outlast physical duress the same way my mind can run circles around mental duress. (How my ‘heart’ deals wih emotional duress is something best left unsaid.) More positive things:

• The hefty UP Diksiyonaryong Filipino is now my best friend. A Filipino who knows his language knows his nation’s true history, as imprinted upon our minds by Sir Rio. The Filipino vocabulary is filled with words that tell the stories of our ancestors as they lived it, not as interpreted by Pigafetta and other foreigners. For example, there were native words for gold-refining and elephants even before the Spaniards came. Heck, bulaklak didn’t even pertain to “flower” back in the old times.




• Speaking of the dictionary, it still has room for improvement, as it’s still in its first edition. One nitpick: the common word “rebulto” is nowhere to be found…and it’s also absent in other dictionaries, including Spanish! I reported the oversight to Sir Rio, who is the chief editor of the book. So now I have made the littlest contribution to the Filipino language: the formal inclusion of “rebulto” into the language’s definitive resource book. Uh-huh. Once the second edition rolls out, I’ll donate my current copy to the UP Library, buy the new dictionary, and kindly ask for Sir Rio’s signature…on the page where “rebulto” will be found, hehe.




• New friends galore, from UP Los Baños, Ateneo, UST, DLSU, UA&P, San Beda, and so on. (As far as I know, we’re three UP Diliman alumni/students in the group.) Interacting with fellow young people from different schools and professions greatly expands one’s perspective, as always. And the magical (ooh, is that word cheesy) thing about it is that we all have the desire to learn more about what is Filipino, and the most beautiful manner by which we can tell other people about this (through rhyme/meter/metaphors/idealogies), even though we’re all busy and desperately in need of more time.




• My moleskine notebook is rapidly ingesting and digesting more words, words, words, and ideas, ideas, ideas! Six full days of lectures, workshops, and homeworks have padded my moleskine’s used section by 40 pages, and I’ve now breached the 100 page barrier. Ah, before I forget, I have already properly named my moleskine. Gone is the pa-kyut “Mol-eh-skin-ah”; my black notebook is now called “Karimlan”. It’s the Filipino word for “darkness”, and half the title of my ‘flagship’ high school-era short story written in Filipino, which I’ll retool (or rewrite) for next year’s Palanca Awards.




• It was quite a shock to realize that writing in free verse is a great travesty if one hasn’t even mastered or at least appreciated the art of the rhyme and meter. As mentioned by Sir Mike Coroza (whom I revere for his classic poem, “Putol“), to write masterful free verse is harder than to write masterful rhyming poetry. Now, I’m quite happy to have learned (and practised with) the Filipino poetry forms tanaga, dalit, and awit. Our current assignment includes writing an ambahan (a form with Mangyan origins and with seven syllables per line).




• Last, but not the least: I’m now back in the Diliman Republic’s cradle, in time for UP’s 99th anniversary. I hope I’ll still be in UP for the centennial! (So does this mean I’ll be taking a second course? A degree in History is the most appealing to me right now.)

June 2 also saw me pseudo-treating Ia, Garro, Geo, and Pepoy to dinner in the spanking-new Trinoma mall, a mish-mash of concrete, marble, plants, water, and human flesh sprawled in front of SM North Edsa in Quezon City’s North Triangle. (I think I just described it in Frankenstein-esque terms; rest assured, it’s an impressive, wonderful sight from the outside.) Trinoma stands for “Triangle North of Makati/Manila”, and yes, the name sounds awful.

The mall’s interior was just okay, with not-far-from-dingy floor tiles and hordes of people (an understatement!). Don’t expect high-class — Trinoma seems to be marketed for the middle sector and will be going head-to-head with its SM neighbor. The Powerbooks store was a great haven, though, and the fountains a.k.a. reverse waterfalls (waterclimbs?) will soothe the weary nerves.

An interesting event happened while we were lounging near the mall’s central activity center. Amidst the shrieks of people going agog over the band Hale (well, mostly Champ), the ceiling collapsed and water leaking presumably from the malls’ plumbing system gushed forth onto the floor (and may I add, with such force and violence!), scattering the crowd and exciting the security guards who were probably tired of keeping the fans out of Champ’s chest and now had some breathing room and some true-blue action scene. (Ah, how I love long and slightly exaggerated sentences.)

A week later, I was surprised to learn that the “Gumuho ang Trinoma!” scene had already entered the consciousness of the metropolis. How? Because our LIRA lecturer used the analogy of a rushed mall to a rushed poem, and I was the one who gleefully raised my hand to elaborate upon the event. Whee, breathless witnesses to history!

Anyway, after that momentous event, the five of us ate at some steakhouse (I think it was Le Maison), where my wallet went kaput (it always does that! Stupid wallet). I found the food delectable, if a bit imposing in size. Exhibit A:

Hungry? These set me back some serious bucks.

No Exhibit B. Photo by Ia (all photos in this post are hers, including the drama shot in the beginning). We managed to gobble up both dishes (Hoy antatakaw ninyo! Ay, ako pala.), after which we burned the calories by going on a hour-long or so stroll…and another hour-long or so impromptu photo session at Trinoma’s rooftop parking.

As you can see, the lights were glorious. I believe one can hold an impromptu play with such lighting. As they say, “All the mall is a stage, and all the mall-hoppers are merely players…” Uh, wrong.

From L to R: Garro, Geo, Me, Pepoy. Ia’s taking the photo.

I began my post with a dramatic shot, and I will end this post with a dramatic shot. (Now, that’s dramatic.) I’ve got more things to blog — new books, the new ‘big’ site I mentioned earlier, and two new blogs I’ll be opening soon. Stay tuned in the next weeks. I’ll say goodbye to June with a bang.