Rogue Magazine Bacolod Issue Redux

February 14, 2012 at 7:47 am (Conversations, Dearest Mum, Family, Places, Recommended)
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Self is never going to lose the Bacolod issue of Rogue Magazine (Philippines)  Never, not in a million years.

She will never forget that Charles Tan Fed-exed a copy to her, either.

It gives her story after story –  and even though she knows her Bacolod cousins didn’t take to the articles too well, all of the pieces are interesting.

The big landowning families aren’t as rich as they used to be because of CARP (the Comprehensive Agrarian Reform Program), and everyone’s hanging on, just hanging on, to the vestiges of the past (either that or leave for Dubai), but she still remembers the time a cousin invited her to lunch at “21.”  Self happened to glance at the narrow street adjacent, and what she saw was this :  two lines of parked SUVs, most of them a gleaming black, and all of them with drivers patiently waiting.

Here’s an excerpt from an article by Rogue editor Jose Maria Ugarte, “At Play in the Fields of the Lords.”

From these closet liberals grew a dense forest of family trees in Negros, their branches wrangling and tangling together and their fruits bumping.  Some trees stood tall and with a quiet elegance, while others lurched with savage wildness, but they were all interconnected by sex and sugar and they were all disturbingly rich.

And self also remembers her cousin L saying:  “Heaven only knows where you came from.”  Because self is such an oddball and contrarian that she actually wants to retire in Bacolod, a poky small city, not very beautiful, with one great church (San Sebastian), a plaza, shopping malls, and family homes turned into museums.

She remembers Dearest Mum telling her this anecdote, a long time ago:

A Bacolod girl was complaining about the amount of homework assigned by her teacher.  Her father told her, “Hija” (My Dear) “if something will not enter your head, then why force it?”

With stories like the one above, self doesn’t know why the island of Negros isn’t just teeming with writers!  As she told a cousin way back December 2010:  “The Villanuevas may be crazy, but they’re my kind of crazy.”

Bacolod is the closest thing the Philippines has to New Orleans:  ” . . .  because if you play with the same test tubes for too long without washing them,” Ugarte writes,  “you’re going to end up with something weird.”

Ugarte himself has family in Bacolod.  That’s why he can write about it like that.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

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From Self’s Story “Picture” (in Her 2005 Collection, MAYOR OF THE ROSES)

November 18, 2011 at 4:58 pm (Books, Conversations, Dearest Mum, Family, Filipino Writers, short story collections, Women Writers)
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This is a story about self’s parents.  It was in Mayor of the Roses, her second collection, published by Miami University Press:

The woman leaning forward is self’s mother.

She’s leaning forward, as if to kiss him.  There’s a mark on his cheek; perhaps she’s done it already.  They are both smiling.

These were my parents in Manila, circa 1956.  They were happy:  they had always been happy.  The happiness of their marriage was like a reproach.

I didn’t think he looked that ugly, but I hear a voice saying, over and over, La unica problema es que no es guapo. It’s a woman speaking, her voice is thick with fury.  It was probably my grandmother.  This, at least, was what my mother led me to believe.

*     *     *     *     *

I am collecting old pictures now.  I don’t know what this tells me about this stage of my life.

Here’s a picture self drew when she was about five.  Who is that woman and why did self draw her wearing a green kimono?  Who knows.  Dearest Mum had the picture framed.

The 5-Year-Old Artist

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

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List # xxxx: Things Dearest Mum Thought It Would Be a Good Idea for Self to Learn to Cook

November 3, 2011 at 8:18 pm (Dearest Mum, Food and Drink, Lists)
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After two years of graduate school at Stanford, self can say with certainty that she could cook only four things well:  bacon, pan-fried steak, rice and scrambled eggs.  She was too busy writing papers!  Or perhaps she was simply too lazy.

Then self broke the news to her family that she was planning to get married.  Dearest Mum then had self enroll in a cooking class taught by Lorivi Reynoso (graduate of an actual French culinary school!).

Here are the items Chef Lorivi taught self to prepare:

  • Waldorf Salad (Very easy!  You only need four apples, 1 stick of celery, 1/2 cup of walnuts . . . )
  • Crepes Suzette (Very easy!  You only need to prepare the crepe batter, then make the orange batter . . . )
  • Pears in Red Wine (Very easy!  You only need 2 Tbsps. of apple jelly, 1/2 cup red wine, 4 pears . . . )
  • Blue Cheese Canapé Spread (Very easy!  You only need blue or roquefort cheese and 1/2 cup cream cheese . . . )
  • Chicken Liver Paté (Very easy!  You only need chicken livers, 1 Tbsp. brandy, a dash of thyme, 2/3 cup butter . . . )
  • Smoked Tanguingue in Dill Sauce (Very easy!  Until self wondered what store in California would sell tanguingue . . . )
  • Mussels Mariniere (Very easy!  One only needs 1 kilo mussels, sprigs of parsley, 1 cup white wine, 1/3 cup cream . . . )
  • Banana Flambee (Very easy!  One only needs 8 large bananas, 1/3 cup granulated sugar, 1 cup rum . . . )  NOTE:  Self used to adore bananas, until the day she was chatting with a fellow artist in the Virginia Center for the Creative Arts, and learned that bananas were the most fattening fruit in the entire world.  Then self banished bananas from her sight, forever.  Dear blog readers might wonder why two artists supposedly engaged in strenuous creative work would even care about what they weighed, but just because you are crazy doesn’t mean you can’t be vain!

Wow, self never entertained and unfortunately these were not the type of comestibles one could pass off as dinner . . .

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

Waldorf Salad

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The Balay Daku, July 2011

July 14, 2011 at 4:27 am (Conversations, Dearest Mum, Places, Relatives)
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Self spent summers here as a girl . . .

View From the Main Lobby, Balay Daku

The Balay Daku was the first all-concrete house built in Bacolod City.  It had a working elevator that went up to the fourth floor.

Now it’s been converted into an office.  There are four floors of Villanueva secretaries –  oh my!  On Wednesdays, a man comes from Iloilo to practice “healing reflexology” on the employees.

The secretaries come from towns like Murcia and Magallon (now re-named “Moises Padilla”)

One of the delights of self’s childhood summers was being allowed to choose baye-baye, empanada, fresh lumpia, pinasugbu, suman, and other delights from the woven bilao of a vendor who came walking slowly down the main driveway, every day.

Self thought she was dreaming when, mid-morning, she saw a young man walking down the driveway with a bilao full of food.  Let me see, she ordered him.  He put down his bilao and this is what self saw inside:

The only thing new from the time when she was a child was the siomai.

Self bought a third of the bilao and distributed food to the secretaries.  Total:  160 pesos ($2.63).  The vendor (whose name was Nestor) was very abashed at having to relieve self of so much money.

Jerry is the Father of Ida, Dear Bros' Passionate Adherent

Self spent some time interviewing a man called Jerry, who started working for the Villanuevas in 1952, when he was 32 years old.  He is now 81 and still goes to work in the Balay Daku every day.  He remembers a time when self’s Dear Departed Dad had an hacienda near Mambucal, named after Dearest Mum:  Hacienda Nena.

“Your father was always soft-spoken,” he told self.

“I look like my Dad, don’t I?” self asked him.

“Yes,” he said.

And now, self is off to meet another cousin.

Today is her birthday.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

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Lily Bart, Insomniac

July 8, 2011 at 7:31 am (Books, Dearest Mum, Insomnia)
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Almost to the end of The House of Mirth.  What a novel it has turned out to be!  If only Wharton’s writing hadn’t been so florid.  In certain passages, the sentences are as full of cornucopia as a baroque cathedral.

Still, self loves the characters.  And Lily Bart’s gradual degradation is very moving.

Towards the end, Lily’s love for Selden has such clarity.  It is the only clear thing in a life filled with confusing messages and rationalizations.

That a beautiful woman should be forced to earn her own keep is a travesty (or, it was in Wharton’s time.  No, perhaps in an earlier generation’s time as well.  Self remembers Dearest Mum saying, more than once, that self’s grandmother didn’t think Dearest Mum’s younger sister needed to go to college because she was so beautiful, she was sure to marry well.  That it turned out all tragically wrong for self’s aunt is further proof that Wharton’s steely unsentimentality about a woman’s place in society is still resonant today).

Here is poor Lily Bart, forced to make a living by working at a hat-making factory:

She began to rip the spangles from the frame, listening absently to the buzz of talk which rose and fell with the coming and going of Miss Haines’ active figure.  The air was closer than usual, because Miss Haines, who had a cold, had not allowed a window to be opened even during the noon recess; and Lily’s head was so heavy with the weight of a sleepless night that the chatter of her companions had the incoherence of a dream.

Self, searching around for a suitable image to illustrate Ms. Bart’s deepening insomnia, found this photograph of window shades:

Window Shades, Bacolod, One Afternoon in July

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

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Believe It or Not, Self IS Working

June 8, 2011 at 4:41 pm (Calls, Dearest Mum, Flowers, Food and Drink)
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In spite of the heady arrival of summer (Sun!  For the second day in a row!  Now self has to start hauling around the old green watering bucket!), self’s writing continues at a brisk pace.

Which is not to say all is sweetness and light. Yesterday she received two (or was it three?) rejections.  One of them was from the “fastest responder” in the literary journal universe, anderbo.com.  Dear Anderbo Editors, self wants Read the rest of this entry »

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Hello, Hello, Hello Dearest Mother of Self

May 23, 2011 at 1:32 am (Calls, Conversations, Dearest Mum, Family, Places, Relatives, Sundays)
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Dearest Mum went with brother on his boat and they docked at Bacolod and issued a dinner invitation to all the relatives. The invitation was to 21 Restaurant on Lacson Street which, as all dear blog readers from Bacolod know, is rather “high end.”

Then they sailed to Guimaras.

Then to Isla Naburot.

Dearest Mum went, Remember that place you told me about, in Isla Naburot?

Self wouldn’t know. She’s never been to Isla Naburot. She’s never been to Guimaras, either. What happened was, she told Dearest Mum about Isla Naburot because she learned about it from a book.

Dearest Mum suggests that self tell mother-in-law to sell her property in Boracay, it will make her really rich.

And then?

And then you can live in Boracay! Dearest Mum replies.

Why would self want to live in Boracay? Besides, she can’t tell mother-in-law what to do. That’s her own business, what her family wants to do with their land.

(Does self have some kind of speech impediment? Because she seems to be having real difficulty getting her family to understand her. It seems she’s been over this ground, countless times in the past six months):

Boracay is Make-Out Central. People go there to get laid. In D’Mall, you will see many old foreign men snogging with skinny young Filipinas. The last time self was in Boracay, son was nearly mobbed by a band of secretaries on holiday. Seriously, these women were nuts! They walked right through self as if she were invisible and made for her nephew (at that time, just 16) and son, standing immediately behind her! It was almost like being stampeded by a horde of elephants! After that, the only way self could relax was to down The Blue Boracay! Self’s face got really red, redder than it’s ever been, and nephew and son claimed self was drunk. Which self wasn’t. She was just — exploding. What was IN that thing? Top shelf tequila and what else? Now self thinks: More Blue Boracay! More! That is the only sure-fire way to ensure that self remains calm while conversing with Dearest Mum!

Dearest Mum says she is sending self some T-shirts.

T-shirts? I’m fat now, self says (especially after that corned beef hash in “Country Kitchen” yesterday. That one meal is the reason why there is now an extra inch of fat adorning self’s waist).

Well, then, would you like some pastillas? I’m sending your Uncle the extra-special kind, the tostada kind.

(What the hell are tostada pastillas?) But, in lieu of stating what is really on her mind, self sweetly answers: Oh, yes, Dearest Mum! I looove pastillas! Hubby is just crrrraazy about pastillas! Make sure you send three boxes! Remember, I WANT THREE.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.

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The Man in the Post Office/ “The Pacific”, Disc 2/ Jacob Pitt (A Very Digressive Post)

March 19, 2011 at 8:44 pm (Conversations, Dearest Mum, television, Traveling, Weather)
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This morning, self braved the hail, the gusty winds, the rain etc etc and went to the Main Post Office on Broadway in Redwood City to mail a copy of The Lost Language to Reena Peña (friend of a friend, who self met in Bacolod in January).

Dearest Mum suggested a restaurant for our first meeting:  Baybay, which Dearest Mum said was somewhere in the Bacolod Reclamation Area.  So Reena came to fetch self at L’Fisher Chalet, and she had her driver take us all over the Reclamation Area while we looked for this restaurant, and it was nowhere to be found.  Later, Reena asked around and found out that the restaurant had closed –  years and years ago. “So I guess,” Reena told self, “Baybay went Bye Bye!” :-)

Anyhoo, self mailed her book to Rina today.  There was a long line at the post office.  That was OK, self loves to let her mind wander when she is standing in line.  Plus it was raining so hard outside.  Self was in no hurry to leave the post office.

The problem was that a man came in, and it was non-stop explosive sneezing.  Self looked at the man:  a middle-aged Chinese gent, with a very red face, obviously sick.  Self put a scarf up to her nose.  ACHOO!  ACHOO!  ACHOO! went the man, about 20 times.

When self reached the clerk, she practically threw her money at her and didn’t wait for the receipt.  “I have to go.  Oh my God,” self burst out.  “I just have to get out of here.”

The clerk looked at self with the most bewildered expression and asked, “Why?”

The explosively sneezing man walked right up to the clerk and self took off, practically running.

Granted, a cold virus is not as bad as nuclear radiation (unless, of course, it is SARS).  In fact, it’s a very very mild irritant, just one more inescapable facet of daily, tedious life.  But self still remembers how, flying Delta out of Narita in February, half the people who got on in Tokyo donned surgical masks as soon as they were seated in the plane cabin.  (Are those sensitive souls still in Tokyo, self wonders?  Given the current levels of radiation in vicinity?)

And she also remembers how, her first three weeks back in California, she had the most awful cough.  It kept her up every night.

No, she would not like to have that experience repeated.

When self arrived home, she discovered that UCLA and Florida were in a very tight game, and UCLA was trailing.

##@@!!!

To calm herself, self began roaming the web, and saw something that made her think she wanted to add the Kate Winslet movie “Revolutionary Road” to her Netflix queue.  But upon logging on to Netflix, she found that she had exceeded the number of movies she can rent for the duration.

She’s been watching “The Pacific” with hubby.  There are six discs in total.  Yesterday, self found out that Disc 2 is extremely, extremely slow (at least, compared to the heroics on Disc 1, which focused on Guadalcanal).  The soldiers are on furlough in Melbourne.  There are many scenes of hooking up with comely Australian lasses.  And one of the main characters gets sent to another island for treatment of a mysterious ailment called “eneuresis”  which seems to involve much bedwetting.  But there are hardly any of those rousing scenes of battle that self was led to expect from Disc 1.  (“Why are there no Asian American soldiers?” self found herself whining to hubby.  Hubby’s immediate response:  “They were all assigned to Europe.  They wouldn’t send them to the Pacific Theater:  they might get mistaken for the Japanese!”  Oh.)

There are more scenes, however, involving Jacob Pitt, who, though far from being one of the main characters, is simply magnetic –  especially the more haggard and scrawny he gets.  This actor first came to self’s attention on “Justified,” where he impressed self with his sardonic delivery.  On “Justified” Season 2, he is becoming –  seriously –  hot.

And since self has started on the subject of “Justified,” let’s just say she loves that there is less emphasis on Raylan shooting people (During Season 1, he just about killed one man per episode), but there are some very dark characters emerging.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers.  Stay tuned.

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Calling Borders (University Avenue, Downtown Palo Alto)

February 19, 2011 at 6:26 am (Books, Calls, Dearest Mum, Lists, Pianos, Surprises)
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Late last night, self placed a call to Borders, the one on University Avenue in downtown Palo Alto.

She learned Wednesday, from a special edition of Publisher’s Lunch, that Borders had declared bankruptcy.  There was also a list, somewhere in the same missive, of Borders creditors.

Right after self read the news, she called Borders.  It was almost midnight, so of course self didn’t expect anyone to pick up.  She was wondering if she’d get a message machine with some kind of announcement, but the phone rang endlessly and self could just picture the sound in that cavernous space …

This morning, around 7:30 a.m., she tried again, and lo and behold, a man answered.

“Ahh, ahhh,” self said.  “Was just wondering what time you open today?”

“9 a.m.,” the man said.

So, around 9:20 a.m., self called again, and a friendly staff member helped her locate a book by James Barron, something she’d been looking for, for a long time:  Piano:  The Making of a Steinway Concert Grand.

Why this particular book?

Because self grew up with two Steinways in her house in Manila, that’s why!

Because Dearest Mum is a classically trained pianist!

Because self always knew that anything less than a Steinway was simply not to be taken seriously!

(Well, maybe a Bosendorfer is acceptable)

Certainly not anything as pedestrian as a Kawai!

This is just information she knew from about the age of 3!

And even though she should not be all that concerned about the fate of Borders (not as concerned, anyway, as she should be about the news that Powell’s has been laying off staff), she knows she will actually grieve if the Borders in downtown Palo Alto closes.  Because this is her idea of a perfect afternoon:

  • movie at Aquarius (an indie movie, something like the Argentine weepie “The Secret in Their Eyes” or British weepie “Never Let Me Go”.  OK, let’s just put it this way:  anything that will make her eyes swell to the size of golf balls, that will give her tear ducts a truly cathartic cleansing and ensure that everything is still in good working order)
  • an enormous serving of green tea and lychee gelato from Gelato Classico, across the street from Aquarius
  • strolling down University Avenue to Borders, there to lose herself in the fiction stacks for an hour or so

Anyhoo, it looks like self will not have to revise this picture of a perfect Palo Alto afternoon.  Not in the immediate future, at any rate.

Stay tuned.

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Gratitude/ Silence

February 11, 2011 at 7:57 pm (Dearest Mum, Insomnia, Surprises)
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This is new, the silence.  New, that is, when compared to the at-least-three-calls-a-day she used to get from Dearest Mum when she was in L’Fisher in Bacolod.

Out of sight, out of . . .

Self, what are you going on about?  The sun is shining!  Buck up!

A lump has been discovered in her aunt’s lung.  This aunt is already suffering from emphysema.

Self still coughs her lungs out, so she is not fit to be paying visits.

By her bed this morning, two empty wrappers of Virgie’s Mango Tarts.

Yesterday morning, guava jelly from Salcedo Market left lying open on the counter, next to an opened box of crackers.

Oh, insomnia.  Oh, sleepwalking.  Oh, thoughts so dark and deep.

Yesterday evening, hubby took self to the San Carlos Pet Hospital, to which self owes undying gratitude for saving Gracie’s life.  On the bulletin board, a display:  PET OF THE MONTH.  And three pictures of Gracie.  With, shock of self’s life, a letter from Gracie’s “Dad,” printed on bright fuschia paper, extolling the virtues of the li’l crit.

Will wonders never cease?

A nurse recognizes self and stops to chat.  It’s the tall, pretty one, with the reddish hair and the trés-chic eyeliner.  Self can only stammer her inadequate thank-yous.

Actually, she had tried to call from Bacolod, several times.  But it was always night-time in California, and the nurse on duty did not pick up.

So lame, self.  So lame.

Thanks are in order.  Gratitude is in order.

Two days ago, self caught Episode 1 of Season 2 of “Justified” (Oh TO, oh white Stetson, but why oh why did they bring ex-wife aka the bitch Winona back to warm Raylan’s bed –  ?  Though self did take note of the fact that actress Natalie Zea has an extremely attractive back –  that is, tapered and not too bony.  Perhaps there is even a bit more chemistry between her and TO than there was between TO and Joelle Carter.  But, this is heresy.  Self will always prefer Ava to Winona!)

Stay tuned.

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