Slip of the Pen

Last Saturday, our Dalmatian pet, nay, family member passed away in his sleep. His life was shortened by a brutal struggle with epilepsy, which continually battered his body and ruined his brain for the better part of his existence.

Named for the famous chess player, Fischer was the pride of our household — he drew stares and ooohs and aaahs just by sitting at the garden. Both children going to the nearby school and adults going home from Mass never ceased to flash a wide smile and point their fingers at Fischer.

Our dog was also very prolific, having sired dozens of half-Dalmatian puppies; I’m not exaggerating when I write that he might’ve produced more than fifty pups. Among Fischer’s children were the four we lost to Parvo two years ago.

The only consolation for our loss is the knowledge that other people might’ve given up on Fischer early on in his life. Take it from me — an epilectic dog the size of a Dalmatian causes havoc in the household, especially if the dog goes ‘insane’ later on.

Now, even with four dogs remaining, I find the empty space on the living room floor, in front of the TV, to be unsettling. Fischer was sleeping there just a few days ago. Before that, way way back when I was in high school, he used to sleep upstairs. Day in and day out, he’d climb atop my bed at 6 A.M. to wake me up for my class. Licking my face and ears and snuggling by my side would do the trick.

Goodbye, old chap. You will be missed.

We recently launched Komiks.ph, the new portal for Filipino comics and comic creators. By we, I mean yours truly, Ia, and Garro).

Yes, I’m a fan of comics, Pinoy and foreign. Though my fanaticism level might not be at par with most members of the Komiks community, it’s enough to sustain my rabid outbursts when my dad hectors me into selling my balikbayan box-sized comics collection to the junk shop. Collection age: more than a decade. In fifty more years, these comics will be classics, heh.

In the months ahead, Garro and I will be very busy creating our own comic book/s, considerable previews of which will appear in Komiks.ph. A graphic novel is also in the works; aside from Garro and Ia, the only person to know something about the story is Paolo Manalo. Ah, so the Corsarius is now becoming a comic book writer. Is there no limit to his insanity? I’m betting against myself that something (blogging, Filipino poetry, English prose, work) has gotta give. Hopefully not soon.

Before I forget — Komiks.ph offers free blog hosting and a cool subdomain for comic artists, writers, historians, producers, and so on. Also, we’ll be regularly featuring up-and-coming Komik creators (especially the indies), so pay us a visit if you wish to get exposed! Learn more in my related post on Crimson Crux.

Do visit Komiks.ph!

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.

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Ever since I became a work-from-home problogger and freelance writer, I’ve rarely endured weeks that totally sap the life-force out of my sickness-prone body. Those weeks were the fare in UP, where I was continually battered by exams, extra-curricular responsibilities, and part-time work (not to mention the arduous commute!).

Sadly, just one year after graduating from college, it seems I’ve lost my resistance to fatigue. As I write this, I’m recovering from five day’s worth of coughs, chills, wheezes, snot, and whatnot. You can thank the last week of March 2007 for those.

This blog post is my way of paying homage to that tortuous week.

The Essay Contest Prize

The first ‘activity’ of the week involved going to National Book Store’s headquarters at Mandaluyong to claim my prize for the If My Life Were a Book essay writing contest.

Located at Pioneer Street near EDSA, the giant bookstore chain’s HQ wasn’t a physically impressive structure from outside. I expected something grander, but heck, when I stepped in, I wasn’t also expecting to see one of the country’s most venerable figures — no other than Socorro Ramos, founder of NBS!

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When I do something good for myself, whether it’s phenomenal good or a bit good, whether it’s goodness recognized by a few people or by a whole institution, I always suffer from what I call the Post-Achievement Syndrome.

Don’t bother looking it up on medical books — it’s simple enough. My PAS is a period of depression — short and shallow if the achievement was small, long and deep if the achievement was great. Shortly after a personal achievement (such as getting published in the newspaper), I pat myself on the back and treat myself for the day. However, after a good night’s sleep, PAS swiftly kicks in.

That’s where “simple enough” ends and “what the f*ck” begins.

When PAS hits me, the feeling is that of a big lake being emptied of water overnight. How do you empty a big lake overnight? Unthinkable with current technology. How do you empty a rejoicing person of all pleasant thoughts overnight, seemingly without a trigger? Baffling with current human logic.

I’ve spent hours upon hours drilling into my psyche for the answer to this debilitating problem. Debilitating, because virtually all work and lit output grind to a halt. But of course, most of the Freudian psyche is hidden deep in the so-called Freudian iceberg, so no answers have come forth. (Maybe it’s time to get free help from my friend who’s a UP Psych graduate?)

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Nestlé Milo wasn’t being original when they first aired the “Great Things Come From Small Beginniiiings” TV ad here in the Philippines. But the phrase stuck, the image of kid athletes transforming into grown-up supermen stuck, the product stuck in the minds of the consumers. So, mission accomplished.

If you think about it, Sic parvis magna merely states the obvious…which is, “Men don’t know the obvious, and it takes some wise guy to concoct some wise line for them to be wisely reminded.”

“And preferably in Latin.”

With that in mind, I wanted to write something brutally terse for the first page of my new Moleskine. What I came up with on December 26 was far from a “lit piece”.

All the inaugural page declares is Phillip Kimpo / Ang Korsaryo, written in both Alibata and the Latin alphabet.

Was the European moleskine meant to dance with the Alibata script? No, and that made my “first page” all the more mystical memorable for me. (Of course, you know that this is just an excuse for such hasty work).

In any case, once I got over the hump, the writings on the black notebook (sounds dramatic!) came like a deluge. Deluge, as in four works in the span of two weeks. Anyway, I’ll be posting some of my “Made on Moleskine” pieces here from time to time. I do hope that in my case, something great will actually sprout from the small!

Don’t forget to check out the new Moleskine page.

Two Fridays ago, I had the privilege of picking up my contributor’s copy of the Literary Apprentice Lite 2006 during UP’s Writers Night. In the folio’s pages was my first English poem published in print.

Though I don’t show it here, I prefer to write unabashed street-talk poems in Tagalog. In the same way that I can let loose some grandiloquent pieces in English, I’m fond of having my Tagalog pieces emanate some shock value with regard to the word choice and plot premise. In fact, I fancy myself as a writer who can challenge my readers’ sensibilities more effectively when using the strong words of my native tongue.

Needless to say, it was a great feeling to know that my English poetry is publication-worthy. The fact that the Lit Apprentice Lite is a good folio is a real morale-booster in times when I can’t write that much anymore due to work.

The folio, titled A Long Time Coming and a Long Time Gone, is quite the untraditional publication. Aside from the usual printed zine, it also comes with an audio CD and some mini-zines. Heck, it even has a paper boat, not to mention almost-pornographic images adorning some of the lit works. The UP Writer’s Club was really creative with this one, which leaves me pondering as to the form of the main Literary Apprentice, coming out next year.

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I’ve just noticed that my last six entries all end with a punctuation mark — We?, Wham!, Corsarius?, Order?, Anyone?, and of course, , (I’ve also just learned that placing a comma after a comma is an other-worldy experience).

Well well well, looky here…seems like we’ve got half of the family. The stepmotherly question mark, the fatherly exclamation mark, and the li’l sisterly comma. The stubborn period’s not around, along with several others, but who cares. No one holds a family reunion just to celebrate the delinquents’ (ingratos!) preposterousness.

More seriously though, this unconscious stream of punctuationary (stab me, English purists) titles leads me to think that they’re the manifestation of my subsconscious — subconscious hopes, subconscious fears, subsconscious everything-whatever-nothing.

Four out of six entries go to the question mark. This is the most nerve-wracking, and the most obvious. Anybody who’s been keeping tabs on this blog will sense the uncertainty creeping into the mind of your friend corsair. I’m not sure anybody will understand me on this, but the sight of these question marks have a slight psychological effect. Just a little effect, i mean bxmplsdwflfrrksadewr!! (I’m foaming at the mouth! Graaah!)

Uh, just kiddin. Hope I didn’t cause you to recoil in disgust. Does anybody know if insanity is a good cure to uncertainty?

Anyway, at least I’ve got one exclamation mark. There lies a sliver of the once-ruthless corsair. O tempora! O mores! O tinginingining ‘yan! At least there’s hope. The exclamation mark is hope. But let’s not forget one thing.

The comma looms large in the horizon.

This is going to be exciting.


(Which leads me think, what about your recent entries? Noticed a pattern, an omen, a revelation, anything? Hell, we can even start a meme on this one! Hmm.)

That was a fast two months. Suddenly, free time is a reality.

Never mind the computer-less weeks. A good whack on the machine (along with a clean reformat of the hard disk) solves the problem.

The near-failing marks this sem are but a hazy nightmare. Miraculous high grades in the end jolt you to the reality of your marvelous, wonderful, oh-so-beautiful world.

The same goes for the dreaded thesis project. When two companies fight over your baby, you know you’ve got a good one.

Of course, don’t forget the heartaches, those adorable little things we’re fond of collecting. A kiss blows ‘em away faster than pron.

Mid-life crisis setting in too soon? To work or to bum, that is the critical question. I guess marching might relieve some of the tension.

Finally, as for blogs effortlessly cast aside by their master, deus ex machina never fails to reverse the damage.

Hey, would you believe it?…I think I hear the corsair starting to unsheath his sword.

Aside from physical features, there are eight essential traits I look for in a woman.

Looking for

Female Homo sapiens sapiens

Ingredients

I. Intelligence

It’s Eisenhower!
“No, it’s Napoleon,” she says
But Aristotle…

II. Humor

“Haha that’s funny!”
Sure it is. How about me?
“No!” And we both laugh

III. Understanding of Caesar

A supplication
For when the Corsarius fumes
Teardrops when he falls

IV. Height

Holding hands is good
But arm over her shoulders
Is a blessing, too

V. Fondness for Babytalk

Pru pru chipop. Plitch?
Mou? Maw maw…mou. Byay! Kuku
Tseepap! Puu. Mou. Puyt.

VI. Apologetic

It takes more courage
To say one word instead of three
Egotists, sorry

VII. Constructive Critic

Scribbled in green ink:
“Hm. Wrong parallelism.”
Fifth revision, then!

VIII. Adulthood

Some things can’t be said
But know that when boy meets girl
Humans multiply


Tita Bing of Warmstone tagged me to do this. The haikus aren’t required, I just spiced up the meme. Now let’s see, can Jonas, Claudzki, Gari, Hera, Quel, Sunset Eyes, Vaninski, and Yayam answer the call?

The basic rules: The tagged victim has to come up with 8 different points of their perfect lover.Need to mention the sex of the target.Tag 8 victims to join this game & leave a comment on their comments saying they’ve been tagged.If tagged the 2nd time, there’s no need to post again. Example here.