This is an updated, extended, and more,
say, indulgent version (with shameful-shameless plugs as parenthetical remarks)
of my year-ender
column article for Materials, for Preposterity published last 28 December 2017. More
details about some sort of milestones, with hyperlinks. -TA
The
series of “previews” (part translation, part summary, part review as noted in
the last three column articles) shall end with Bomen Guillermo’s “Kawayan”
(2007/2017) and Emiliana Kampilan’s Dead
Balagtas: Mga Sayaw ng Lupa at Dagat (2017). Incidentally, the first two
previews were fueled by fire and air: text’s
terrorism and author’s
sentimentalism, flickers that can either be blown by the wind into puffs of
smoke blending with the atmosphere or into flames of arson causing alarm; while
the last two were weaved by earth and water: peasants’
komiks and scholars’
scripts.
Before putting my feet back on earth allow me to hover a
bit. Pardon my indulgence, as the next paragraphs serve as my brief entry to
the infamous essay-writing contest that shall crowd newsfeeds come the end of
the year of the fire rooster:
A rooster may be condemned to damnation if it loses in
sabong (cockfight). The fowl, familiar not just to Filipinos but perhaps
throughout Southeast Asia, is neither a phoenix that rises from its ashes nor a
minokawa that devours suns, so it ends up as fried chicken after going through
hellfire. In trying, it tries to escape the grill and build a legacy. Against
whom, and for whom, one can only speculate (Maybe, Gerry Alanguilan’s eponymous
comic book character, Elmer, knows).
Making sense of the previous year reminds me of gambling,
but somehow a calculated one: I somehow took a shot at precarity by shifting to
another profession, tried to finish my graduate studies, tiptoed outside of the
country for the first time to present a portion of the thesis-in-progress, and
started my column with an introduction to the fentanihilism
of our father, who art in Malacanang.
Doors and windows opened, when I took the leap of faith, in
humanity/ies and education and matters concerning the heart and the mind. Acclimatization,
ongoing for an intsructormentor.
The most challenging, Rizal course. The most rewarding, a General Education
course that introduces Philippine literature. The most *some text missing*, malikhaing
pagsulat (creative writing). Had the chance to test what I am writing about,
through classes, conferences, a congress. Navigated Kyoto (thanks to helpful
Japanese strangers) and Yogyakarta (thanks to good Filipino friends), even
though both places don’t have English subtitles.
Wrote about babies, uni/verses,
echo
chambers, circle of lives,
rallies,
ahrt,
PUVs,
films,
dissonances,
Arguilla,
apostasy,
and the small
press (shameful-shameless plug of this year’s zines: Terorismo / Sentimentalismo [with Arlo Mendoza], Defecationary [with Dennis Aguinaldo], Tagpo [with CTCSM lumad students] and Apo sa ika-22 Siglo [listed
as one of 2017’s best books at CNNPH]). Had problems in negotiation processes
among other email exchanges regarding my pieces, hence the consideration of
also publishing column articles here at the carcosite.
***
Of course, my troubles and wagers are miniscule, even less
(probably nothing), compared to the celebrated October Revolution of 1917 and
the possibilities the Soviets opened. Likewise, the national minorities and the
basic sectors, with their allies in the capital, raged against the dying of the
light. They ignited the flames of resistance against imperialism, feudalism and
bureaucrat capitalism. They dare to struggle and dare to win, despite the crisis-stricken
state of Philippine society and the consequent lack of resources to defend
against the offensives of class enemies.
Pessimism of the mind, optimism of the will. Moral forces
and material forces are two key components of achieving a collective goal, as
demonstrated by Guillermo in the article “Moral Forces, Philosophy of History,
and War in Jose Rizal” (2012) and the novel Makina
ni Mang Turing (2013).
Such forces can affect the past and the future. Walter
Benjamin’s Thesis IX portrays the “angel of history” looking at the past, as a
powerful storm called “progress” pushes him into the future to which his back
is turned. Guillermo’s Filipino translation, Hinggil sa Konsepto ng Kasaysayan (2013), notes Bolivar
Echeverria’s presumption for consideration: that though Benjamin cites Paul
Klee’s painting “Angelus Novus” (1920), the illustration “L’histoire,” from
Gravelot & Cochin’s Iconologie
(1791), could most probably be the basis of Thesis IX.
Hence, as further studies continue, different forces can
change the past, and in effect, alter the perceived future, depending on the
presumed truth of decisive forces at the present. Truth is never relative but
they may change through time, depending on the subject and his interaction with
the objects or materials at hand, as shown in “Bamboo.” Here’s a rough draft of
my translation of Guillermo’s poem:
I tightly clenched
a piece of bamboo.
On its skin, I etched scripts
of my home so I would not forget.
This is the past’s wound
here along my path.
I firmly pressed
the sharp bamboo
and in return it etched on my palm
the red scripts of my next stop
so I would not lose track.
This is the future’s wound
here along the path.
First published by Highchair a decade ago and this year by UP
press in the book 3 Baybayin Studies,
“Kawayan” is a poem with themes that include uncertainties, time-space and
forces (moral, material, subjective, objective) that interact to determine the
past and the future through the “now.” In the present, the persona functions
like the angel of history that keeps the past in its view or memory, while the
bamboo, like the storm, guides him into the future. Though scars of scripts
that the bamboo left may later serve as gentle reminders unlike the damages
from what might be a cosmic disturbance, both natural interventions move the
subjects toward certain directions.
***
Taking risks propels history. Kampilan’s book reads like a
tapestry of selves, worlds and universes undergoing changes within and without.
All of existence is in a stasis of moving inwards and outwards, with our wills
going with and against the flow to create and recreate ourselves through our
worlds and our universes. We exist somewhere in the pages as we gaze through
the pages. As we read the past right here in the now, we project our visions
into the future suggested by the book: one with peace, love, understanding,
nourished by the shifting choreographed geography of earth and water.
Of course, the journey is not a walk in the park, as there
shall be fissures and frictions. Oftentimes, transformation or transcendence
threatens life and existence. Dead
Balagtas: Mga Sayaw ng Lupa at Dagat takes the reader out of his physical
body and into the universe within and without him, and back into the world
where the Philippines remains clutched by oppressive forces from which it must
liberate itself (shameful-shameless plug of short fiction: Corporealidad,
where little girl Concha goes into her innerspace through rat-pet-friend
Castor). Kampilan’s poignant work captures the complexity of contemporary
struggles in the information age further complicated by neoliberalism. At a
time when the search for identity is identified with individualist and
isolationist solutions, Dead Balagtas
reminds us that, whether we like it or not, people throughout time-space are
linked together and we shall learn to collectively alter the course of the
history that is hostaged by the privileged few.
Through Kampilan’s work, Adelina Gurrea’s “La leyenda del
cama-cama” (Legend of the Cama-cama) comes to mind (a
not-so-subtle-shameful-shameless plug of my first published full-length journal
article): the story tells of a girl who tells the story her yaya Juana told her:
of how a Bisaya boy-prince, Ino-Dactu, loved a sentient heron, Mahamut, whose
children became the cama-cama: mischievous but not malevolent dwarves that are
half-human, half-heron. The story tells of the violent forging of nationalism
through colonialism, as I have elaborated in “Larawan
ng Cama-cama Bilang Filipino: Ang Imahen ng Nacion ni Adelina Gurrea”
(Portrait of the Cama-cama as Filipino: Adelina Gurrea’s Image of Nacion). With
great wings come great responsibilities, like the fire rooster, the hybrid
cama-cama and the angel of history. With new technologies and perspectives come
new tactics and strategies for potential radical changes and revolutions: axial
or orbital or spiral, where the impetus of the storm leads.
A suggested soundtrack companion to Kampilan’s
Earth-and-Water Dance is Tool’s Lateralus. Let me end with the song’s parting
words to ponder for the darker days ahead: And following our will and wind / We
may just go where no one’s been. / We’ll ride the spiral to the end / And may
just go where no one’s been. / Spiral out. Keep going…
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