September 19, 2019 at 4:40 am (Artists and Writers, Dearest Mum, Family, Filipino Writers, Great First Lines, Personal Bookshelf, Places, Recommended, Relatives, short story collections, Traveling, Weather, Women Writers)
Tags: humor, Manila, The Philippines
(Read all the way to the end; this post has many digressions)
Re-reading a fantastic short story, “Hothouse,” by Gilda Cordero-Fernando, a mimeographed copy of which self just pulled from a closet overflowing with old files.
Thank you, Jennie and Marie Kondo for inspiring self to organize! She had to drop everything and leave for Manila for two weeks, supposedly Dearest Mum Read the rest of this entry »
September 14, 2019 at 1:10 pm (Filipino Writers, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: history, writing process
It took his men ten months to make it through the Straits of Magellan. By the time they did, Loaisa was dead, one of his captains murdered, and twenty-five of his crew held for ransom by the Portuguese in Pernambuco.
September 14, 2019 at 9:55 am (Books, Dearest Mum, Filipino Writers, Food and Drink, Memoirs, Women Writers)
Tags: Doreen Fernandez, Filipino food, memoir, memories, The Philippines
from Doreen’s Introduction to Fruits of the Philippines (Bookmark, Inc.: Manila, 1997):
I remember gathering lemons in our farm: they were large and lumpy and not like the neat American lemons in supermarkets, but they were fragrant, and basketfuls of them made cooling lemonades. Right near these trees were aratiles, which we called seresa, low enough to climb, and almost exclusively for us children, since adults did not usually bother to gather the little berries, although they willingly ate what we shared with them.
During the Pacific war about ten families, all related, lived on the farm, and, guided by a young uncle, we children picked wild fruits called tino-tino and maria-maria, which I have not seen since then and cannot identify. The tino-tino looked like the cape gooseberry, except that it was usually not eaten raw, but sliced and fried like tomatoes. The maria-maria was delicately sweet, but where is it now? The farm never seemed to run out of guavas, which we ate green or ripe, or of nangka, also delicious both green and ripe (cooked into ginatan or eaten fresh).
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
September 5, 2019 at 12:35 am (destinations, Family, Filipino Writers, Flowers, Links, Relatives, Traveling, Weather)
Tags: Manila, seasons, The Philippines, transitions
To self, FALL means changing weather and fading summer flowers.
It is rainy season in Manila, which means grey skies:
Self loves the light:
As the weather turns, the hydrangeas on self’s front porch are starting to fade:
Hydrangeas on Front Porch, September 2019
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
August 21, 2019 at 1:06 am (Books, Conversations, Filipino Writers, Philippine History, short story collections, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: historical fiction, The Philippines, work-in-progress
“Father, here you go. You have your own room.”
There was a narrow platform which he presumed was his bed. Beneath the platform was a small cabinet.
“Your things here,” the boy said.
Later, he overheard the men talking about him: they called him cochino. Even though Matias was not fat, not even close to, he knew the most well-fed men in the villages were usually the friars. It was new to him, the contempt, the disrespect, because usually men of the cloth were treated with deference.
Another time, he heard the captain say, “sin experiencia del mundo” and assumed he was the one being referred to.
August 15, 2019 at 7:37 am (Artists and Writers, Books, Conversations, Dearest Mum, Filipino Writers, short story collections, Surprises, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: discoveries, The Lost Language, The Philippines
It always surprises her to learn that self’s got a following. Not here, IN THE PHILIPPINES. Which has thrived in her TOTAL ABSENCE. Like, go figure. In fact, she’s on the curriculum in the University of the Philippines.
She remembers giving a reading at a hotel in Cebu during International PEN, and all her books sold. Every last copy. Amazing, right? It sold out, even though the book was expensive by Philippine standards: 500 pesos per, almost $10 US. For a country like the Philippines, to have sold out at that price, for a writer who rarely goes home, is truly something.
She was at a dinner after her reading, and someone tapped her on her shoulder. She turned, and a woman self did not know said, “I just wanted you to know. I really loved The Lost Language.”
At the Cebu Airport the next day, a stranger came up, introduced himself, and said he flew from Cagayan de Oro to Cebu, JUST TO HEAR HER READ. Her hair was a sweaty mess, her clothes were rumpled. If she had known people would recognize her, she would have gone to a parlor.
Dearest Mum is always berating self for her lack of style. She looks, Dearest Mum said, like a slob. Because she has no compunction about wearing any old thing that happens to be clean.
The man who spoke to her at the airport in Cebu turned out to be a writer himself. He gave her a copy of his book. He writes plays. His book was published IN DIALECT which is so totally earth-shattering and amazing. No English translation, and self doesn’t know the dialect. But. Still. Self really believes in regional literature. Because literature from the margins is MORE powerful.
The writer’s name was Carlos A. Aréjola.
Here are the production notes, setting, cast of characters etc. from his play Unang Yugto:
Tagpuan (Setting): Cottage sa isang resort (A cottage in a resort)
Panahon (Time): Kasalukuyan (The Present)
CHARACTERS:
Edwin – matangkad, guapo (tall, handsome)
Toledo – mestisuhin (mestizo), 18 taong gulang (18 years old)
Dagul – 21, moreno (dark-skinned), medyo pandak (somewhat short), may body piercings.
Falcon – mestisuhin (mestizo), ayos na ayos ang buhok (Hair fussed over; sorry, that’s the best she can come up with)
Dalawang Dalaga (2 girls): college girls, magaganda (beautiful), mapuputi (white-skinned)
Mga Pasahero Sa Airport (Passengers in the Airport)
Cagayan de Oro isn’t exactly unknown, it’s a very populous province. But she’s never set foot in Cagayan de Oro, never given a reading there, doesn’t know a single person from Cagayan de Oro. Somehow, over there, in her home country, her book (with no marketing at all), has trickled from the urban centers to the provinces. Which means her work is embraced as a vital part of Philippine culture. The knowledge is so humbling.
(Here, there’s a 40 Filipino Writers You Must Read List, which is published every December from San Francisco. She’s never on that list)
A few days ago, on Facebook, she met the owner of a shop called The Pearl Shop. Self accepted his friend request and then he told her that they sell her book. She said, Hey, I could send you some autographed copies if you like!
He was happy at the news.
The store is in Manila, and they are a purveyor of PEARLS (not a bookstore, in other words).
Heart Eyes, Pearl Shop.
To the end of time.
August 11, 2019 at 9:09 pm (Explorers, Filipino Writers, Sundays, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: fantasy, horror, short story, work-in-progress
— The Rorqual, p. 5
August 11, 2019 at 6:15 pm (Artists and Writers, Filipino Writers, Sundays, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: fantasy, fiction, horror, short story, work-in-progress
Excerpt, work-in-progress
Genre: Fantasy/Horror
Status: 52 pp.
Working Title: The Rorqual
It began with the discovery of a ship, sailing languidly along the ice-clotted harbor. It seemed meandering, yet sure of purpose. It drifted toward shore, riding high in the water.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
August 9, 2019 at 4:44 am (Artists and Writers, Books, destinations, Filipino Writers, Lists, Places, Traveling, Weather, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: Annaghmakerrig, horror, Ireland, Tyrone Guthrie Centre, work-in-progress, writing process
from the Dictionary of Birds (1985):
from Birds of the Western Palearctic (Unforgivable, in self’s view, that Dee fails to provide a date of publication):
Self’s horror story The Rorqual (currently 51 pages — self is so out of control!) uses exactly these kinds of dictionary definitions (in self’s case, pages long) to describe her ‘pagos’ and her ‘longnecks’ and her other what-not. She birthed this horror in Tyrone Guthrie. She can’t seem to write any of it until she returns to Annaghmakerrig. California is just too dry, too intensely hot, too savagely suburban.
Stay tuned.
July 24, 2019 at 8:31 pm (Artists and Writers, Books, Conversations, Family, Filipino Writers, Personal Bookshelf, short story collections)
Tags: Carlos Bulosan, humor, short story, The Philippines
Make no mistake, this father of the narrator’s, to whom Bulosan dedicates 25 (memoir-ish) short stories, would be no one’s idea of a good father. He drinks, he gambles, he sleeps with the neighbor’s wife, he gives the family home to a Mexican beauty he has a crush on. But here we are.
Bulosan treats all his father’s foibles with such affection and humor. HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE, BULOSAN MUST BE A SAINT.
From The Son of My Father:
“You are a tragedy, Simeon!” they said.
It was true. Father was a tragedy. My brother Osong was not his spitting image at all. Osong was tall and fair of complexion. His bones were sharp and the hair on his legs was thick and long. He spoke several languages and dialects. He did not drink anything that had alcohol. He smoked American cigars and cigarettes.
Father was small and dark. His bones were soft and the only hair he had was on his head. And it was nothing to brag about, either. He could not read or write.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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