Conversations: Luisa Igloria on Juan Luna

Self missed Luisa Igloria’s reading with Karen Llagas, Joi Barrios and Barbara Jane Reyes, Dec. 6 at the San Francisco Main Library. Luisa’s book, Juan Luna’s Revolver, has just been published by the the University of Notre Dame Press, and self was absolutely ecstatic to get her copy signed, by the author herself, the day before Luisa left the Bay Area.

So there we were, sitting together in self’s humble living room, and self was telling Luisa how much she adored her poetry, and how she loved the collection’s title poem, and Luisa told self that there was another Juan Luna, apparently a mass murderer in Texas who’d had his killing spree at a McDonald’s, and when you google “Juan Luna,” more than likely the hits you get are all about the murderer. Which information self found extremely fascinating. (And, just to show why self can never, ever be a reporter, Luisa Igloria sends self a gentle correction this evening: “The other Juan Luna was a guy in Palatine, IL, who went on a shooting rampage with his high school buddy in a Brown’s Chicken fast food place there – I think this was sometime in 1993 — !!!)

Juan Luna, bless his heart, was apparently so dismayed by reports of his wife’s purported infidelity because he never considered her attractive. So, to make up for this really unforgivable oversight, he killed both his wife and his mother-in-law, but apparently did not serve time in jail (how fortunate for him), but didn’t live long, either, afterwards.

And, self perusing the latest issue of Filipinas Magazine this morning, sees that — whoa! — a newly discovered painting by aforementioned painter/cad/murderer was unearthed and auctioned off by Christie’s Hong Kong (painting is entitled “Las Damas Romanas” and features two European ladies languidly posed on some marble/stone steps, while one of the ladies restrains two very thin, whippet-like dogs on a leash). And this work, which was signed and dated “Luna Roman 1883” fetched over a million US dollars.

Stay tuned, dear blog readers, stay tuned.

How Excellent! 17 Random Things About Self

Self’s been tagged!  By Fab Kathleen!

Shiver-me-timbers!  (Self, quit with the pirate talk already!)

Okey-dokey, purpose of this tag is for self to list 17 Random Things About Herself.  Since self believes in total, and that means total, absolute spontaneity, here goes, without so much as (self swears) a second of forethought:

1.  Self doesn’t feel her day is complete unless she has read several pages of a book.  Read for pleasure, that is.

2.  Self equates the holidays with watching movies.

3.  Hubby thinks self is impulsive (totally untrue).

4.  Self has butterflies in her stomach every time she remembers that she’s supposed to be going to Manila in three weeks.

5.  Self misses Manila.  Until she gets there.

6.  Self has some very good friends.  None of them know each other.

7.  Self spends most of her day in front of the computer.

8.  Self has a disabled parking placard.

9.  Self used to think she had nice legs (until she saw American girls’ legs —  ha ha ha ha!)

10.  Today was the first time in over a year that self got complimented on her skin (probably because classes are over and she isn’t perpetually frowning)

11.  Self’s Dearest Mum is famous.

12.  Self has a brother who has been in the newspapers.  A lot.

13.  Self liked New York when she lived there (early 80s).

14.  Self’s favorite thing about her house right now is the 6-foot Christmas tree.

15.  Self is currently watching “What Not to Wear.”  Another show she watches frequently is “The View.”

16.  Self has seen “The Matrix” four times.  (She’s seen “Princes Mononoke” five times.  She saw “The Painted Veil” three times, and then she finally bought the DVD)

17.  Self adores going to the Symphony with hubby.

And here are the 17 people self will tag:

1. Kathleen
2. Luisa (Have you tagged her already, Kathleen?)
3. Barb
4. Bob
5. Chancelucky
6. Frances
7. Grace
8. Jean
9. Lavalady
10. Maya
11. Penny
12. Rebecca
13. Stella
14. Tania
15. Tina
16. Ver
17. Vince

Self can’t believe she actually came up with 17 people to tag!  And it didn’t take her very long at all!

The Short Review: Issue 10

From the website:

Issue 10 has a truly international theme: three collections from Down Under, Chinese short-shorts in honour of the Olympics, stories of Filipino Americans. Also: two shots of science fiction, two authors with middle initials, a “bracing” anthology and a liberal sprinkling of fabulist fantasy.

In addition, the wonderful Tania Hershman, whose own story collection, The White Road, is just out from Salt Publishing, published an interview with self.

Please read and support this wonderful website, a real labor of love!

Reading for the Day: Excerpts from Rafael Zulueta y da Costa’s “Like the Molave”

Note: This is only a series of excerpts. Self inserted asterisks to indicate a jump.

VI.

My American friend says:

show me one great Filipino speech to make your

people listen through the centuries;

 show me one great Filipino song rich with the

soul of your seven thousand isles;

 show me one great Filipino dream, forever

 sword and shield —

Friend, our silences are long but we also have our
speeches.

Father, with my whole heart I forgive all.

 Believe me, your reverence.

Speeches short before the firing squad, and yet

of love.

VII.

My American friend continues:

you are a nation being played for a sucker;

poor fish swallowing hook, line, and sinker.

And I answer with parable of analogy:

brown brother and packed for home,
one adventured into port and called us brothers;
we fed him the milk and honey of the land;
he filled his pockets by the sweat of the little
taking with him but one song for souvenir:
O the monkeys have no tails in Zamboanga.

The little brown brother opens his eyes to the

magnitude;

created equal;

sea where dwell his strong brothers.

glorious
sound of the Star-Spangled;
dreams to the grand tune of the American dream;
is proud to be part of the sweeping American

*     *     *
sings the American epic of souls conceived in liberty;
quivers with longing for the brotherhood of men
envisions great visions of the land across the
And then the fact. The crushing fact of a world no

longer

deed.

shining through the exalted word;
the world where the deed is, the intolerable

*     *     *

The expatriate returns sullen and broken . . . We know

placards

Filipinos

Filipino Pickpockets; the loneliness, the

woman denied.

the story, the black looks, the scowls, the

in the restaurants saying: Neither Dogs nor

Allowed; the warning at the fair: Beware of

Yet what say you, repatriate? America is a great

land.

— Written 1940 by Rafael Zulueta y da Costa (1915- 1990)

Mother’s Day 2008: Wishes for Self

Last year, self wrote a post called “Belated Mother’s Day Wishes for Dearest Mum” (still very much viewed, even a year later!)

This year, having just put down the phone to Dearest Mum (and having just learned that self’s share from the family corporation, uncollected all these years, is more than double what she earned the past five years at Foothill Community College — ha ha ha ha!), self will draw up a list of Mother’s Day wishes, for herself.

But, first, self wants to talk about yesterday’s reading at the Redwood City Main Library. And then maybe she’ll talk a little about Dearest Mum’s visit to one of self’s favorite hang-outs in Tel Aviv (second favorite next to Bialik Street, that is), The Brunch on Gordon Street.

Yesterday’s reading was so fab. In the audience: smattering of Vangie Buell’s husband’s relatives. Also, a Redwood City mystery writer. Also, a co-teacher of Edwin Lozada’s at Woodside High School. Also, Roz Kutler, who works for the library and is the best-est, sweetest, most tireless event organizer self knows, who provided cookies and coffee and a display table for all of the assembled writers’ books.

And let’s not forget the presence of hubby, who was listening to self read for the first time in — well, maybe almost a decade. And who took lots of pictures of self while she was reading, which was one of the reasons self refused to look up.

And so, here’s who read, and in what order:

Oscar Peñaranda read his hilarious short story, “Prelude to a Gig.” Every time self hears this short story, she just wants to double over laughing, she can’t help it.

Penelope Flores, fab teacher at San Francisco State, read a hilarious story about her mother, called “Far Above Cayuga’s Waters.” There is a prelude to this story, and it has to do with one of Penelope’s sons being in Cornell, and singing that school’s “theme song” on one of his visits home, only to find that his Lola knew it as well, but with different words — words inserted by her American teacher, who was one of the first wave of American teachers to arrive on Philippine shores, shortly after the end of the Filipino-American War.

Next, Vangie Buell, who read “The Parol: A Bamboo Star of Hope,” which was just heartbreaking. Every time self listens to Vangie read, she wants to tear up, she can’t help it. Vangie had a horrendous childhood, but is alive and flourishing today, and self credits her remarkable fortitude and generosity of spirit for this feat.

Next, Jennifer Almiron, self’s amazing student at UCLA Extension, who read her (funny and acerbic) story about her Catholic school education, “I Am She.” Self had not known that Jen studied at Amherst. And, after listening to Jen read a poem called “Hartford,” self learned that those Amherst students with significant others usually went to Hartford on dates. Which is where Jen set the poem which was, ironically, about her break-up with her first boyfriend — ha ha ha!

Then, self read. A very short piece. Only five pages. Over in 10 minutes.

Then, last, Edwin Lozada, editor of Field of Mirrors, who has such a mellifluous reading voice, and whose poetry is so lush and lyrical.

Anyhoo, it was a very good afternoon. And now this post is getting too long, so perhaps self will reserve the Tel Aviv story for another time.

Early this morning, self called Dearest Mum and woke her up (Self, after all these years, why are you unable to remember that Manila is 15 hours ahead of California ???). When self inquired how Dearest Mum had spent her Mother’s Day, Dearest Mum was quite happy to tell self that one of her closest friends had thrown her a dinner, complete with huge, fat lobsters “flown in from Maine.”

Whereupon self shared with Dearest Mum the news that hubby was taking her to Redwood City’s Lobster Shack for dinner.

And then self

The 1904 World’s Fair: The Filipino Experience

TITLE: 1904 World’s Fair: The Filipino Experience
AUTHOR: Jose D. Fermin
University of the Philippines Press
219 pages
historical nonfiction

Book Review by Allen Gaborro (published in the Philippine News, September 5-11, 2007 issue)

The 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Missouri, also known as the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, was bathed in as much dispute and indignance as it was praised for its variety and dimension. A phenomenal piece of celebratory pomp and showmanship, internationalism and technology, the fair’s paying customers witnessed an array of grand architecture, newfangled cuisines, and miscellaneous carnival festivities. However, the affair was also a veiled exercise in colonial misrepresentation as white audiences betrayed a mixture of astonishment and insatiable curiosity at the fair’s gallery of Filipino historical and cultural exhibits.

The spectacle of the Filipino exhibits at the 1904 World’s Fair notoriously sketched Filipinos in exotic yet uncivilized manifestations. As is mentioned in his book “1904 World’s Fair: The Filipino Experience,” Jose D. Fermin once wrote that the fair could not have been more detrimental to the image ascribed to Filipinos just after the turn of the century: “Filipino tribes, passed on as representatives of the whole Filipino people, were exhibited as savages, headhunters, and dog eaters, a name that has stuck even today.”

The 1904 fair, which was up to that point the largest ever held anywhere else on the planet, took place at a time in history when the United States was beginning to throw its weight around as a world power, a power that had recently acquired several overseas territories, including the Philippine archipelago. The fair was the vehicle through which the United States flaunted its political and economic strength to the rest of the world.

A driving force behind the 1904 fair, as well as with other major U.S. expositions during this approximate period, was America’s belief in the racial superiority of whites over darker peoples. By publicizing the supposed backwardness of nonwhite races for all the world to see, the 1904 fair organizers were able to translate the United States’s national and global accomplishments into grounds for acknowledging the transcendance of Caucasian races over their “colored” counterparts. Fermin writes in his book that “In measuring their technological achievements and national progress against those of other nations, Americans laced the fairs with racism.” Hence, they “considered themselves above the nonwhite peoples of the world and regarded them with a negative and demeaning attitude.”

The Philippine Exposition Board, whose membership was primarily American, was formed for the purpose of putting together an exhibit at the 1904 fair that would convey to American audiences an ostensibly dispassionate and positivistic picture of what Filipino society and culture was really like. But Fermin writes that this was to conceal a “hidden agenda” that involved using the exposition as a propaganda instrument that would testify to the salutary importance of American colonial power, particularly as it was employed in the Philippines.

Kapitan Tiago

Short, light-skinned, round of body and face thanks to an abundance of fat, which according to his admirers comes from heaven and according to his enemies from the blood of the poor, Captain Tiago appeared younger than he actually was; one would have thought he was about thirty or thirty-five years old. At the time this story unfolds, the expression on his face was usually beatific. His head was round, small, and covered with hair as black as ebony, cut long in the front and short in the back. There were many things going on inside that head, people used to say. He had small eyes– but not Chinese-shaped— whose expression never changed. His nose was thin but not flat, and if his mouth had not been disfigured by an abuse of tobacco and buyo, a plug of which stuffed into the side of a man’s mouth can alter the symmetry of his features, one would have to admit that he had done a good job in believing himself to be– and presenting himself as– handsome. Despite that abuse, he kept his own teeth white, as well as the two his dentist had loaned him, at twelve duros a tooth.

He was thought to be one of the richest property owners in Binondo, and one of the most important planters in Pampanga and in Laguna de Bay, because of the land he owned there, particularly in the village of San Diego, whose value and rents rose every year. San Diego was his favorite place because of its pleasant spas, well-known cockfighting, and the memories it held for him. He spent at least two months there every year.

— from the Penguin 2006 translation of the Noli Me Tangere, by Harold Augenbraum