Wow! Self LOVES the quote from Agnes Martin that inspired this week’s Lens-Artists Photo Challenge!
She had a lot of fun going through her archives to identify her sources of inspiration.
Which are MANY. Here are a few:
Front Yard, May
Ocean Beach, Carmel
The Jesuits in the Philippines, by Horacio de la Costa, S. J. (Harvard University Press)
Self is so glad she can share her inspirations with dear blog readers.
A royal decree dated 12 May 1579 ordered the construction of a church in Manila, the first ever church in the Philippines (to be followed by dozens). The governor general in Manila “raised the money from the natives.” (La Casa de Dios, the Legacy of Hispanic Churches in the Philippines, by Fr. Rene B. Javellana, S.J.)
Wait, what? So the natives paid for the church? And all the subsequent dozens of churches around the Philippines? But weren’t they — poor? Not to mention, they weren’t even Catholic?
The first Bishop of Manila, Domingo Salazar, arrived in the Philippines over two years later, in September 1581. When Salazar’s ship set out from Spain, it had carried 30 Dominicans and members of the secular clergy. By the time his ship landed, on the coast of Bicol, 29 of the Dominicans had died, mostly from disease.
Stay safe, dear blog readers. Stay safe.
Week 179 of the Tuesday Photo Challenge is STONE (“Turn to something a bit more permanent.”)
Self went searching among her recent photos for examples of stone.
First, the fire pit at Manggapuri Villas, Purok Pagdanon, Don Salvador Benedicto, in the Philippine province of Negros Occidental (Dear Departed Dad’s home province). Just beyond, shrouded in mist, the still-active Canlaon Volcano. Don Salvador Benedicto is about an hour-and-a-half drive from Bacolod City:
Next, a photo of Courthouse Square, just prior to the Annual Redwood City Salsa Festival:
Finally, a statue of General Douglas MacArthur on the Philippine island of Corregidor (That’s self standing with son and his cousin Georgina, 20 years ago. She found the photo when she was cleaning out the closets recently):
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Like the Molave was a long poem in eight parts, published 1940:
The little brown brother opens his eyes to the glaring sound of
the Star Spangled;
dreams to the grand tune of the American dream;
is proud to be part of the sweeping American magnitude;
strains his neck upon the rising skyscraper of American
ideals, and on it hinges faith, hope, aspiration;
sings the American epic of souls conceived in liberty;
quivers with longing brotherhood of men created equal;
envisions great visions of the land across the sea where
dwell his strong brothers.
Self’s story was first published in J Journal, 2012. She just decided it will be the title of the new collection she’s completing. Thanks to the editors at J Journal, who published it and nominated it for a Pushcart.
Read the excerpt below:
And if our Lord and the Virgin Mother had not aided us by giving good weather to refresh ourselves with provisions and other things we had died in this very great sea. And I believe that nevermore will any man undertake to make such a voyage.
— Antonio Pigafetta, Chronicler of the Magellan Expedition
The crew encountered the giant during the winter, after months of battling the water just south of Brasilia. He was described by the sailors as being twelve or thirteen palmos tall, which is to say, over eight feet.
Stay tuned, dear blog reader. Stay tuned.
Self has decided to post an excerpt from Don Alfredo & Jose Rizal, published in Sou’wester, 2007.
Much thanks to Valerie Vogrin for publishing the story. It’s still one of self’s favorites, one of those stories that come in a rush, one of those stories that need to stay inside for a long time while you search for either the courage or the recklessness to set the words down:
When I started to do research for the story, there were things I discovered about my great-grandfather that bothered me. For instance, I discovered that he had more than one wife, the youngest a girl of 14. And he was uncommonly cruel. He tried his best to hide the fact that there was a strain of indio blood in his family, and he would beat his darker-colored servants mercilessly. He died mysteriously, perhaps a victim of poisoning.
You see, my cousin said, we are related to the National Hero of the Philippines, Jose Rizal. The one who was shot by a firing squad, at Luneta Park, in 1896.
As Jose Rizal stood before the Spanish firing squad, accused of being a renegade and an underground solidarity worker, George Dewey was entering Manila Bay.
Like what you’ve just read? Go to Sou’wester!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Self decided to post a little more of self’s Yamashita/ World War II story, “The Seeker of Buried Treasure.” (She repeats a few paragraphs from the last post. Then adds two more paragraphs)
Tell me why Yamashita was happy when he received the orders to go to Luzon. Go! Go! He was ordered. Go lead the Imperial Army, salvage its honor, do not retreat, confront that marauding bear, the United States. Wipe from memory the soldiers singing White Christmas. How those people love Ol’ Blue Eyes. The Packard is the only car the rich will drive. And the chauffeurs wear white gloves even in the heat.
Ladies’ Home Journal and Life and Redbook are the most popular magazines. American hot dog can be had on a stick or on a bun. You choose.
The young ladies wear bobby socks and pleated balloon skirts. Some women are dark but they are still beautiful. Flashing eyebrows, thin like scars, wrists thin as stalks of bamboo.
And their laughter trills among the plants, winds around your brain, Yamashita. You receive MacArthur’s letter saying Desist, there shall be no rape or pillage. Or, MacArthur writes, I will make you pay. Make no mistake, I am coming.
Yamashita, did your mind go blank like a sheet of new paper?
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
Self happened upon Mila D. Aguilar’s first-person account in the September 2009 issue of Filipinas Magazine. (Self is proud to say: she’s been subscribing to the magazine since the very first issue):
My President has been laid to rest. Now I can break my silence. For the one who presently sits on her manufactured throne is not my president. She never was.
My President is she who freed me from a Marcos prison in 1986. I know that she alone is not responsible for 1986, for the (more…)
On one of Dearest Mum’s visits, she brought along a book written by one of self’s uncles. It was a beautiful book, a story of Dearest Mum’s side of the family. No expense was spared in the binding, or in the paper. Years later, in fact this very morning, self decided to begin reading it. And here are a few things she discovered about her mother’s side of the family:
Self is also continuing to read Modesto P. Sa-Onoy’s History of Negros Occidental. Here’s what she reads on p. 19:
The early Negrosanon were fond of waiting for the last minute to perform their work. Fr. Ignacio Alzina, another Jesuit missionary who spent forty-five years in the Visayas, wrote about this mañana habit of the people, saying that “out of one hundred Indians (Filipinos were then called Indians by the Spaniards), ten will not be found, not even five, that will anticipate their tribute beforehand but they will let it go to the last moment. When they find themselves pressed and they are about to be arrested for lack of it, the men usually go off to the forest to look for the beeswax” which they used to pay for their tribute.
It must have been like doing homework, or writing a paper, dear blog readers. At least, that’s what the above passage sounds like, to self. Stay tuned.
Kanlaon 