Stealing–I mean, coveting books

I am very glad to see that I am not the only one who wants to steal Powerbooks (not ‘from,’ note). I’m a bit picky about which Powerbooks, however–I think the selection in the Megamall branch is indifferent, at best. Glorietta occasionally offers terrific finds by way of trendy retro-Asian fiction. Greenbelt is comprehensive by necessity. My favorite branches are the Alabang Town Center one because of the travel book catalog and the newly opened branch in Trinoma because of its selection of Filipino books.

Of course there are a few other book stores to choose (to steal) from. If you’re thinking about a certain five-story bookstore which must be the closest thing to a Las Vegas for bibliophiles in the Philippines, you read my mind, Comrade. I’ll get back to this later.

I found that statistical report about book theft in the US (my newsgroups = LOVE). The Bible indeed tops the list, followed by The Joy of Sex. Almost 80% of Americans ranked the Bible as the most influential book in history (second, incidentally, was Dr. Spock’s Baby & Child Care, selected by only 4.7% of the respondents). Bookstore shoppers spend an estimated $400 million a year on Bibles. And when the devout are not paying for them, they are apparently stealing them.

Of course, when you think about it, stealing the Bible might seem to defeat the purpose of wanting it in the first place: salvation. It probably helps that Bibles in the US are practically begging to be stolen. According to the study, they’re considered housekeeping items in American hotels, like soap and towels. You steal them the same way you lift an extra packet of Dove’s Moisturizing Soap. I think it’s the same in international hotels all over the world, though when I stayed in the Meridian Hotel in Singapore they also had The Teaching of Buddha (a bilingual Japanese & English edition) lying temptingly on top of my dresser. Along with a Gideon Bible. I took The Teaching of Buddha out of politeness because it had a note attached explicitly inviting me to steal it and one couldn’t really refuse without feeling like a churlish boor. As for the Gideons, I’m guessing that their omniscient presence in unwitting hotel rooms within reach of budding Christians and baby felons is also a beautifully organized entrapment scheme (one wonders how they fare in Communist countries).

Re: The Joy of Sex — I suppose buying one must be the equivalent of buying a condom? You’re a little ashamed. “This isn’t for me, this is for a friend ahahahaha!” And of course no one believes you. The only convenient solution then is to steal the book.

The Encyclopedia Britannica also figures in the list. It is grossly overpriced and unpleasant to buy as anyone who has ever dealt with its pushy sales force knows, wherever you may happen to live. Like Bibles in hotel rooms, pimping the Encyclopedia Britannica is a worldwide phenomenon. Lots of average people–and criminal middlemen who cater to them–seem to want to avoid the annoyances that come with buying encyclopedias and steal them instead, as well as other pricey reference books. I wonder how a random person out for a stroll in the library could even think of stealing Audobon’s The Birds of America, though, since it weighs tons. You shove it under your skirt and clutch it between your legs as you waddle out of the front door or something?

Incidentally (not), #5 in the list is Abbie Hoffman’s Steal This Book, the most-stolen of anti-establishment books, which by definition invite theft. Beat writers–Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, William Burroughs, Charles Bukowski–are heavily in demand by non-paying customers and/or angry young men, as personal experience would also attest.

Hoffman had to publish his book himself because publishers refused to even touch it (publishing it would probably have been akin to Osama bin Laden putting out a How To Find Me Especially If You’re In The US Military map, with a topographical index for the less involved). It ended up as a best-seller in the NY Times list (which embarrassed Hoffman to no end) and eventually as a collector’s item. It seems that you can find the book right now in the web because Hoffman gave a copy of it to a friend before he died for that very purpose. Here it is: http://tenant.net/Community/steal/index.html.

All this sounds very flippant, but when you think about it, what is the difference between stealing a car and stealing a book? Is it that the primordial urge to pilfer books originates in a different part of the brain than does the inclination to swipe a television? Or is it because books are traditionally perceived to deal in ideas, and ideas are supposed to be free? No one in their right minds would ask for a free burger over the counter, but people are perpetually asking writers and publishers for free books. One of my classmates in university once told me that she wheedled two copies of our professor’s latest book (which he wanted us to buy as part of our course reading) from the publisher on the pretense that she was a reviewer. (Posing as a reviewer is a common book theft ploy done through the mail. It’s essential if one is already in prison and can’t drop by the local bookstore or book fair for a little stealing. Academics are known to commit this with impunity. You only have to stay in the faculty room long enough to get a fairly clear idea on How To Set Up A Fake Academic Journal 101 segueing into Advanced Theory: Which Publishers Do You Ask For Books To ‘Review.’ I haven’t exactly done this, though we have found that if you write a foreign professor sobbing and sighing about how books are so hard to find in the Philippines being so far removed from civilization & human-seeming life, but we poor valiant Third World students try our very best in our unflagging search for wisdom and enough references to finish this term paper… sometimes they even send postcards and pictures along with the books too!)

Disclaimer: This is all very theoretical. I have never stolen a book in my life. I just hide them so that nobody would ever touch the preciousss. I remember, in band camp–I mean, back in university, I had this nasty habit of latching onto books which I love but didn’t love enough to commit larceny for. So I settled for the next best thing and acted like a B-movie villain: If I can’t have them, no one can! Para rin sigurong aso. You know how they hide their favorite bones in the most improbable places? I think that librarians in the Social Sciences and General References section would be unearthing books about Egyptian mummification techniques in shelves where ah one would least expect to find them.

September 29, 2007 | Filed Under Books | 5 Comments

Okay

Iz pretty:

Bling

And wow, Lisa Mantchev. God is good. And so is Clarkesworld — thanks for accepting that story. Thanks also to Banzai Cat for the nice words.

In the meantime I think I’ll have to hide somewhere on October 1 as the story itself is… Haha.

And now for the more important things: Congratulations to RoD member Pam Punzalan whose work will be published in the upcoming flash fiction anthology edited by Vince Groyon and published by Milflores Publishing. Mad props, Pammeth!

I know of two other people whose works will be published in the next two? months but am not sure if I can divulge identities as the information might be classified. Congratulations, in any case, you know who you guys are.

Also: Just finished reading Conrado de Quiros’ “Tongues of Fire” which I’m pretty sure I should not have touched as I’ve a pile of books which need to be reviewed, but it’s just really interesting. Review later.

I attended the book launch with Mia and when we were about to have our copies signed I made the usual kapal-ng-mukha introductions plus some fast-paced hustling about sort of you know maybe he could write column about THE IMPORTANCE OF BOOKS AND LIBRARIES AND SUPPORT FOR LITERATURE WITH SPECIFIC REFERENCE TO ACTUAL FUNDING spelled out just so because a lot of our countrymen are kind of obtuse about such things and you sort of have to get in their face and be all like hey punk I’m looking at you and he’s an expert at that and oh yeah we have a book club maybe he’d like to join. He signed my copy: “Dear Kristin, This book is for you! I like you!” Thus rendering me fluttery and giggly all evening (Khursten, I know how you feel now! We are being victimized one by one by these Inquirer columnists!) But anyway:

Sir! I like you too! NEVER SHUT UP! Keep that (metaphorical) tongue going!

September 28, 2007 | Filed Under Latest, Read or Die | 4 Comments

Read Or Die September 2007 Meeting

As announced earlier, Read Or Die will be hosting its September 2007 meeting at Bestsellers Bookstore (5F, Robinson’s Galleria, Ortigas). Meeting starts at 2PM and ends at 3:30 PM.

Note on memberships: M, Marianne and Karen have completely overhauled the membership database. If you have not received an email about the status of your membership by now and your membership ID, please contact them at readordie.memberships@gmail.com.

They’re cleaning house, after a fashion, and quite thoroughly too. Please forward all membership inquiries to the membership committee as they hold the club roll (now in the form of a very beautiful spread sheet). The turnover is more or less complete. I breathe a sigh of relief.

Hopefully we should also finalize nagging questions about institutional and uh honorary memberships (by which we mean people whom we’ve put through some very great inconvenience for our benefit) as well as the constitution of a certain board by the next business meeting of the secretariat.

There are also significant changes with regard to the Members Area.

Khursten is compiling the October 2007 Reading List so the club meeting next month should be pretty interesting as a Special Person seems likely to attend as our guest.

We did not invite an author this month since the launch of Dean Alfar’s “Kite Of Stars and Other Stories” will take place after the meeting and that should qualify as an Event (our meeting and the book launch are really separate–Anvil and NBS were just kind enough to invite and accommodate RoD in the function area. Dean’s book launch is the main course!).

See you tomorrow~

September 28, 2007 | Filed Under Latest | Leave a Comment

Shroud Of Turin Exhibit

I ought to have written about this days ago but the recent discussion about–what was that again? Something about spec…specks… Whatever.

I visited the Shroud of Turin exhibt at SM Mall Of Asia last Saturday. Primetrade Asia–the company behind the exhibit–was very kind to invite me (thanks again, mesdames) though I would have gone sooner or later since I really look forward to informative exhibits and shows like this and I wish that more people would mount them and on a variety of subjects. Not necessarily of the academic or esoteric sort, and not something like World Of Knowledge (which was, to put it delicately, insipid) either. Preferably a mixture of the Victorian crackpot mania for endless novelty and cross-referencing and measured scientific inquiry. Plus some multimedia bling wouldn’t hurt either.

I’m glad that Primetrade has started down the road of not just importing, but re-conceptualizing topical exhibits which fall somewhere between ‘of academic interest’ and ‘for popular edification.’

The structure of the exhibit is composed of something like a religious tour (there are prayer rooms and the Passion of Christ is enacted through dioramas in order perhaps to deepen the spiritual impact of viewing the Shroud on the part of the devout) and a crash course on early Christian history, Biblical archeology, and the evolution of Church dogma and doctrine with respect to miracles and iconography.

What really absorbed me was the nicely detailed and organized photo gallery. All photos were captioned at length and, while I frankly view the entire issue of the Shroud with a lot of skepticism, the complex, sometimes arcane lines of inquiry which it had generated throughout the centuries, and especially in the late 1970’s and early 1990’s, are worth exploring, even vicariously.

A short if thorough documentary featuring the history of the Shroud in its various incarnations also accompanied the exhibit. It is not conclusive, that is, the question of whether or not the Shroud of Turin absorbed not just the figure but the face of the dead Christ and therefore can be considered a divine revelation is still left to the audience. “Where reason ends, faith begins” is the aphoristic tag line.

The exhibit has been attended by parish, corporate and educational groups as well as whole families. While the Shroud on display in MoA is only a replica of the original Shroud (which in turn can only be exhibited for public view once every twenty-five years; it was last displayed in the year 2000 in Turin to celebrate the Catholic Church’s jubilee year), the entire Manila exhibit is crafted so that the viewer may to a certain extent have an idea of the ‘Shroud experience.’ It doesn’t pretend to be Turin; significant elements of the exhibit–like the Passion of Christ, which was arranged somewhat like the Stations of the Cross–have been localized so that Filipino audiences may more easily grasp them. Nothing beats seeing the real thing, of course, but then you’ll have to wait till 2025, and by that time, who knows how much air fare will cost?

I think that the exhibit is of special interest to schools and educators, if only for the sake of exposing schoolchildren to a different sort of field trip as compared to the usual science fairs and natural history tours. I don’t dare make recommendations to the devout though I should mention that the exhibit has been endorsed by the Church hierarchy in the Philippines. Which means that one need not fear of being invited to a religious experience posing as a product sampling. You be the judge, in the end.

The Shroud of Turin exhibit will run at the Mall of Asia (South Wing, Entertainment Mall) until December 9. It’s open daily from 10AM to 9PM. Tours are conducted on a group basis. Individuals can drop by any time, though actual organizations are encouraged to sign up for the group tours which have a special pricing scheme. For ticket inquiries and viewing schedules please call Primetrade at 896-0682, 895-1706, 895-2966, 556-0656, 896-0661 and fax number 896-0695.

September 28, 2007 | Filed Under Latest, Events | 2 Comments

Biglang Kambyo–Poetry Time!

I’ve been writing down a review of Love Gather’s All an anthology I bought during Read or Die’s July Meeting. But, um, got distracted. So I decided to make a poetry post instead. I was inspired by what Mia
has been doing.

Pablo Medina isn’t in Love Gathers All, though. I got this from an awesome poetry community in LiveJournal called Breathe Poetry. They post one poem a day there, with an emphasis on contemporary poets. Their archives reach back to 2004 so there a ton of poems there to dig through. I like to go back from time to time, and am always able to find a gem. Go have a look. ^_^ This is from Burnt Sugar, a collection of contemporary Cuban poetry. I like this one especially, even if the Philippines is currently having a different kind of precipitation.

A Poem for the Epiphany
by Pablo Medina
for Ellen Jacko

It snows because the door to heaven is open,
because God is tired of working
and the day needs to be left alone.
It snows because there is a widow hiding
under her mother’s bed,
because the birds are resting their throats
and three wise men are offering gifts.
Because the clouds are singing
and trees have a right to exist,
because the horses of the past are returning.
They are gray and trot gently into the barn
never touching the ground.

It snows because the wind wants
to be water, because water
wants to be powder and powder wants
to seduce the eye. Because once in his life
the philosopher has to admit
to the poverty of thought.
Because the rich man cannot buy snow
and the poor man has to wear it on his eyebrows.
Because it makes the old dog think
his life has just begun. He runs
back and forth across the parking lot.
He rolls on the snow. He laps it up.

It snows because light and dark
are making love in a field where old age
has no meaning, where colors blur,
silence covers sound, sleep covers sorrow,
everything is death, everything is joy.

Give a link of a recently discovered poem, a favorite, or anything you want to share.

September 27, 2007 | Filed Under Miscellany | 3 Comments

Kthx

Can’t really top Mia’s or Kristel’s entries. Tamang-tama na ang lasa!

I think that it’s gone full circle, so to speak, with Mia’s entry, so this is my own last word on the matter. I’m glad that we participated in the discussion. I’m glad that this subject was brought to the fore. I’m glad that Kenneth actually emailed us asking what we thought, not because we are friends, but because I think he believed that we might have something extra to bring to the discussion (and no, it wasn’t our charm of manner and grace of wit). We’ll get to that in a bit.

This entire situation might have aroused undue antagonism in a lot of heaving, mostly manly breasts but I feel that all that spiking blood pressure is worth the vigor of the exchange. Kenneth was worried that flame wars would erupt. Kyu, you should really visit Fandom Wank some time. This is nothing.

But for real now: In the end, it wasn’t really a question of defining speculative fiction, was it? For the record I don’t think that any one of us in this blog made any prescriptions about what speculative fiction ought to be. The itemizations were carried on elsewhere. What we were doing, to clarify things once and for all, was making demands of writers. We didn’t talk about it, at least not in concert, but we are a group of readers, with a dedicated advocacy, trying to fight a way through for a greater profile for Filipino literature and Filipino writers in our society, and so we tend to take things like these rather seriously.

So–even though as I told Kenneth we ran the risk of being branded tiresome reactionaries–we kept harping back to the issue of what it means to be Filipino and what you, writers of this new literature which we have so much hope for, think about what it means to be a Filipino writer. I personally wasn’t asking for a straightforward answer. I just wanted writers to meet the question head-on and to fight with it and to throw it back in our faces, if it comes to that. What I appreciated about Bhex’s post was that she drew the battle lines quite nicely. You gotta hand it to the woman. She’s got guts.

So you’re asking: Who the hell do you think you are anyway? Sino kayo sa tingin niyo? Read more.

September 25, 2007 | Filed Under Latest | 1 Comment

Eating the sinigang of words

Let us put aside all questions of national and personal identity for a while and talk about food. Yesterday I was having lunch at a restaurant when the idea of literature as food came to me. It might have been the cheese or the wine, but for a while I sat dumbfounded by the simplicity of it all. Fiction for eating. Why didn’t I think about that before?

Given this crazy starting point there are several parallels I can draw. I am sustained both by eating and by reading. Food nourishes the body and literature nourishes the brain. I prefer writing that is rich and imaginative and undaunted by boundaries, the same way I adore very dark chocolate rolled in chili powder. I also try to read works that mean something, though I will occasionally dip into pulp fiction just for fun; for food I have ‘regular’ food, rice and viands and vegetables, and — of course — junk food.

So if literature is food what are writers? Why, chefs. And again it is interesting to look at the comparisons.

Personally, I am as much a chef as a writer, meaning that while I cook often it is mostly for family and friends; I’m not a professional restaurant-trained chef, nor someone who bakes and sells brownies for a living. When it comes to writing I enjoy the pleasure inherent in working with words and playing with sound and meaning, I believe in writing for something, but I am not a professional and probably never will be. Just as I am someone who eats everyday, often surprising people with the quantity and range of my gastronomic adventures, I read a lot when I read, devouring statistical mechanics texts and autobiographical tragicomedies with equal gusto (if not speed). I love food. I love literature! It must be destiny.

There’s another thing. When I eat I prefer food with flavor. The same thing applies to what I read. Oh, and guess what? I like Filipino food and Filipino fiction.

Which brings us to recent discussions on Filipino speculative fiction. I for one don’t believe Italian dishes prepared by a Japanese chef are in any way Japanese, unless of course the chef changes the recipe or his way of cooking it to turn it into a fusion of both cuisines: changing the herbs used, for example, or maybe switching to blowfish instead of meat. By that same logic Ukrainian chefs can prepare Peking duck without having a drop of Chinese blood in them and the Azeri detectives so often mentioned in various blogs these past few days are perfectly free to roll all the sushi they want, Japanese purists be damned. They may not do it well but then that possibility applies to just about anything anyone cooks. Or writes.

So — no, being a Filipino does not automatically gift you the privilege of appending “Filipino” to anything you write, whether it’s quantum mechanics horror or a series of biographies of obscure seventeenth-century crackpots or futuristic plant porn. What about writing in Filipino? Well, that’s debatable. You might write in Tagalog or Hiligaynon about nymphomaniac lovers in Siberia trying to discover tabletop cold fusion, but that doesn’t guarantee its being Filipino. However, you will I hope grant me the point that language is a factor and in terms of a story being written in Filipino, it does have a positive correlation with whether the story feels Filipino or not. And feel, or flavor, or whatever you choose to call it, is very important. Dare I say it is a major determinant when it comes to Filipino speculative fiction as opposed to American or Indian speculative fiction? Oh, I do.

Some may protest that this is a terribly ambiguous pronouncement, but I’m sorry to say ambiguity is a fact not only of life but of art as well. Bear with my vagueness a little while longer so we can examine what flavor is made of. The ingredients, of course; the order in which they are cooked; the method of cooking; the chef. Yes, the chef. Not only taste preferences but also the personality and heart of the cook affect the whole process, and I’m not saying that just because of Ratatouille. Whenever you do something you are naturally involved in that action, and there is a piece of you (large or small, unconscious or deliberate) in every meal you cook, every story you write.

It is therefore somewhat strange to speak of writing “as a Filipino,” especially in the context of being limited as a writer, when there is little one can do but write as oneself; if I’m a Filipino, then I write and eat and live and die as a Filipino, don’t I? –Unless I attempt to shed my being Filipino and turn my back on this country and everything it represents (or maybe everything representing it), in which case whether I write as a Filipino or not is definitely not what I should be worried about. I don’t think we should spend much time worrying about whether we’re writing as Filipinos or as global citizens, whether we eat as gourmets or gourmands. We are who we are, and trying to write as someone else would be a denial of identity. The question is whether we have identities in the first place.

Another question: do writers have a responsibility to their readers? I should hope cooks feel obligated not to poison their customers, and they probably want to make the food as good as it can be — so yes, writers are obligated to write as well as they can, to the best of their knowledge, about their chosen subject. (Let us leave propaganda writers and fast food chains out of this.) Of course if you are cooking for people you love you will use the best ingredients you can, cook food that’s as healthy and delicious as possible, and try not to burn the house down. And if you are representing the country at an international cooking competition, if you are a chef for a restaurant serving Filipino food, I hope you will not cook baklava or sukiyaki or pizza unless you do it in such a markedly Filipino way (mango and kasoy baklava! pizza with dilis and carabao cheese!) that the judges and your customers will be impressed not only by your skill but by the richness and diversity of your culture.

It should go without saying that writing always has a purpose and writers are always responsible for what they write. If people hate a certain writer for her inaccurate and misinformed portrayal of the martial law years, don’t say it’s not her fault, don’t excuse her because she’s Filipino-American. She wrote what she did and readers responded. If you must call your writing Filipino horror or Filipino fantasy then be ready to stand by it when people are criticizing you on all fronts and attacking your yuki-onnas. Also, know your purpose. If you want to write crack fic go ahead, if you want to write rural American fiction, sure, go you. But if you’re trying to help establish speculative fiction as a branch of Filipino literature, you have a responsibility to your readers and to Filipino literature to think carefully about what you’re trying to do and decide how to use your writing to describe, narrate, or further the Filipino experience. Show us our faces.

This is getting a little oracular, so let’s go back to food. We all agree, I hope, that food has flavor. Well, sometimes we identify that flavor with a certain culture — I for one will never be able to eat fragrant basmati rice or lamb stewed in pomegranates without thinking of Persia — and that is what I would like to see in speculative fiction that calls itself Filipino. It doesn’t have to be set in the Philippines, it doesn’t have to be about streetchildren or the oppressed masses or OFWs, it doesn’t have to have Filipino characters. But when I read it I want to taste my country as I eat its words, I want to feel the Philippines sliding in sentences down my throat. Filipino fiction doesn’t have to be pure in the sense of being without other cultural influence: look at our food, we have made pansit our own, we have adopted menudo and turon. And changed them, altering them according to our tastes, so that they become unique to us and our cuisine.

The problem of cooking that kind of literature, I leave to the people in the kitchen.

–

Note: The title has been inspired by Robert Bly’s Eating the Honey of Words. Delicious book.

September 24, 2007 | Filed Under Latest, Miscellany, Reading | 6 Comments

Sounding off on Philippine Fiction

I was going to write about the Philippine Specfic issue, thanks to the links provided by Kenneth Yu and Bhex, but it careened into something entirely different. Sorry guys, suffer my verbiage for a while. Also, the “you” I talk about here is always, always a generic “you” unless otherwise indicated.

*drawsbreath*

Okay, the first part, addressing the issue. As a long-time reader of fanfiction, of course I believe that people have the right to write whatever the hell they want. That is why I occupy myself with reading stories about anorexic Japanese boybands (many months before, that time was spent on reading stories about a cantankerous Diagnostics doctor and his love for the Department of Oncology head). But this isn’t exactly the kind of fiction we are talking about, is it? Azerbaijani detectives and yuki-onnas in Neptune are all well and good, but are you really going to write something like it and declare it Filipino? Really, really? If I write, say, Naruto fanfiction, I wouldn’t do it with the intention of declaring it as Philippine Fanfiction. If ever get the urge, I’d probably choose a fandom closer to home. Like, you know, Encantadia. Or Noli Me Tangere.

This might sound Machiavellian but you do have to tailor your means to whatever end you envision. If your intention is only for lolz, that’s great, be sure to send the fiction my way. I am of the school that believes in LOLZ as the ultimate source of subversion. But if your great over-arching project is the creation of a benchmark in Philippine Speculative Fiction, you’ve got to invest some braincells into determining its nature and parameters. And you should be willing to take on the responsibility for it.

That’s not to say that fiction, to be distinctive of that nation, should be serious or even earnest. And by all means, plunder all the cultures you can think of to achieve it. Case in point: Gankutsuou. It’s basically a futuristic retelling of “The Count of Monte Cristo” with mecha robots and inappropriate boy-touching. The characters all speak in Japanese, though it is set in Paris, with occasional trips to outer space. I love this anime, particularly because they turn the original Dumas novel on its head. They impose their own paradigms, their own mores, on the original text and come up with an entirely different animal. A hybrid, so to speak.

If you go with Charles’ interpretation of Bhex’s post, something like Gankutsuou would be anathema. Or at least, it shouldn’t be labeled as Japanese. But it isn’t like that at all. The whole series reeks of the creator’s culture. And it’s not just the mecha that makes it Japanese, it’s the way they re-fashioned the plot which included the special brand of wackiness only the Japanese can create. From where I’m sitting, Bhex did not give a fundamentalist declaration of “what Philippine Spec Fic OUGHT to be.” She simply recognizes that appending those two words, “Philippine” and “Speculative” limits the field in a finite way, and goes on to posit her own boundaries. If you’re going to append those two words in the crap you write, then accept its ramifications. And shit, what’s wrong with asking for Tagalog science fiction? Of course, if it ever exists, it should be evaluated by its quality and not by the fact that it’s science fiction and written in Tagalog. But wouldn’t it be awesome if there was something like that?

I have no ready answers for the definition of “Philippine Spec Fic” but I do demand something substantial from the writers who are attempting it. There are a lot of books in the world, no need to waste my time with something insipid. This of course, comes from the point of view of a reader and an officious one at that. But I will say this: I want you, Writer, to write stories that strip away layers of myself and expose them to the light. Everything about me–culture, nationality, gender, religion–I want it all spilled on a page. I don’t care what conceit you use (or cosmetics, as Dean Alfar called it), but you do it, preferably with imagery that slays.

(Please the reader or die, ahaha.)

Personally, I think the key to the creation of Philippine Speculative Fiction is re-appropriation. I effing love that word. Our colonizers appropriated us first, molding us into an image that they felt comfortable with. We were the passive, indolent indios who weren’t smart enough to read social contracts and therefore not worthy of so noble a thing as freedom. Then we became those sorry savages who needed to be “benevolently assimilated.” It’s now our turn to appropriate, grab back the missing pieces of ourselves. Steal the histories denied of us, and if there is nothing left of it, take whatever that we find. Attack, plunder, and sail off with the spoils. (Forgive me, Talk Like a Pirate Day had lingering effects.) We may not be able to do that with physical artifacts, but through creative re-imagination, through writing ourselves, we can invent our past and our future into something distinctively ours.

Now for the matter of language. Jesus Christ on a cornfield.

Let me just say this, once and for all: Being unable to write in Filipino is not a virtue, stop treating it like one. If you don’t want to apologize for it, that’s fine, I don’t think you should. But the inability to string a decent Tagalog sentence on paper does not mean you are automatically a great writer in English.

It’s hardly fair to compare the change in Filipino language with that of English. The English language might be evolving quickly, but it’s not atrophying due to it’s people’s apathy, the way I sometimes feel it is with our languages. Because we don’t use them, certain words disappear. How many languages in different Philippine regions are lost to oblivion, either because people did not write it down or the document were destroyed by hostile aggressors? Benedict Anderson has said that ones language is the cornerstone of a nation. What does that say about us, with our collective amnesia?

Our history has always been a story of loss. Ambeth Ocampo has written an article about “unwritten Filipino books” in his opinion column and it’s staggering, how many narratives we can never retrieve. Do you know that aside from documents and letters, there are only three memorabilia from Andres Bonifacio’s early life that still survives? According to Adrian Cristobal’s “Tragedy of the Revolution,” a great fire swept Tondo in 1896 and burned all of Andres and Gregoria’s possessions. The only evidences Bonifacio’s life that were left were a telegram from an English company Fressel and Co., an unfinished baston that Andres himself crafted, and a dessert plate they lent to an aunt. Knowing this makes me want to weep. Language is even more ephemeral, especially if it’s not set on paper.

Going about it like things like these things don’t matter–it’s an attitude that I frankly find disdainful. As if the loss of a language (or one’s proficiency with it) is trifling and incidental. As if the erasure of words, narratives, and myths is something to be taken lightly. I am a much better writer in English than in Filipino, and you know what? I mourn that. The (bad) poetry I’ve written in Filipino fills me with despair because it feels borrowed, artificial. Isn’t that a kind of mockery, perceiving as strange something that should have been a part of you? Our history is characterized by waves of violence, including the history of our language. Reading people so cavalier about it–let’s just say it just leaves a bitter taste in my mouth.

Bienvenido Lumbera said in a RoD interview that identity is not clothing that you can take off and put back on, depending on convenience. It’s something that you continuously search and invent, so you might as well do it in your fiction. Write about your country and what you feel about it, whether it’s love, apathy or revulsion. And stop tiptoeing around the issue in the guise of “internationalism” or “open-mindedness.” What kind of a writer are you, if you choose not to be conflicted? I like to read because literature gives me painful questions that cannot be answered by pithy one-liners and I appreciate a writer who does not shirk from that. Fiction has no room for emotional cowards.

September 24, 2007 | Filed Under Latest, Miscellany, Reading | 5 Comments

Say what?

Charles Tan on ‘Filipino’ speculative fiction.

Not to knock on Charles specifically since I think his entry represents a certain er strand of thought re: this issue — I thought the goal of this entire discussion is to bring people to some sort of rapproachment about what might constitute Filipino speculative fiction, contentious though it might be, and not to continuously evoke some utopian description of the wonders and beauty of spec fic. What Bhex might have suggested was ‘extreme’ but it’s infinitely more preferable than these weird evasions and even weirder (by which I mean completely off-base) locutions about the national language (which I’ll get to later). What alternative would one recommend without having to resort to the usual platitudes about speculative fiction between liberating? Of course it’s liberating. And so? Writing porn is also liberating.

If the only conclusion we can come up with here is that Filipino speculative fiction = literary free-for-all, then why try to define it in the first place? Why the agonizing? The clunky metaphysics and literary criticism? Let’s just all soak a paper bag in rugby and plonk it over our heads, wait twenty minutes, and then start pounding on the keyboard, and we can accomplish so much more. No, seriously.

I don’t know, I have my own ax to grind. I look at spec fic as viable and intelligent alternative to the prevailing mode of Filipino literary fiction (which itself is undergoing change), and people are… worried that being conscious about being Filipino while writing a story will erect boundaries? Are you saying in effect that your identity as a Filipino is a stumbling block to your creativity? O RLY? That’s new. I would have thought that it’s this grocery list approach to writing speculative fiction which is more limiting: 1) make sure that the story is not too-fluffy and not too-philosophical; 2) throw in a dash of unreality which is really a metaphor for a particular reality; 3) don’t forget to floss.

Since the issue of international reception and fears of cultural obscurity have also arisen in connection with this issue: Let me say, in relation to that story which is being published in Clarkesworld, that it’s teeming with cultural references and malicious in-jokes that only Filipinos might appreciate (or sneer at). I was surprised when Nick Mamatas accepted it because I would have thought that the text is a bit too mired in particularities. I’m not being disingenuous.

Nick sent me the galleys a couple of weeks ago and off-hand I asked him whether I should write footnotes to explain the more obscure references (like SM Shoemart). Even the title might need some background information. And he said, “Nah. The smart readers will go out and hunt the information down on their own. Besides, speculative fiction is about learning new things.”

So I guess that Filipino speculative fiction writers should be less worried about being global. In fact, I think all these concerns about boundaries and limitations and literary constraints might be more relevant to the reader of speculative fiction, but that’s a different post altogether.

I can’t recommend my grocery list for writing speculative fiction; I’m probably overstepping certain boundaries already. I’m just standing by what I said in my earlier post, that–in the event that if Filipino speculative fiction is to come on its own–writers should be conscious of what they write and not just drift off on a cloud of untempered and boundary-less inspiration (because spec fic has no boundaries!), should take a long, hard look at what they want to say in their stories, or what their stories are saying to them, and not take it for granted that the tale is its own telling. If your, I dunno, prognostications lead you down the path of those eponymous elves, then by all means, write what comes out of it.

Don’t forget that paper bag!

September 24, 2007 | Filed Under Latest | 1 Comment

Speculating about Filipino speculative fiction

Kenneth has the relevant posts linked here. I wasn’t going to comment but then Kyu emailed me. So here’s my very cranky ten cents (I’ve been through a very tough week):

I agree with Bhex’s post. As a friend (who I’m sure will share her thoughts in due time) notes, her take on the matter isn’t as ‘extreme’ as Charles Tan puts it. Of course I’m reading my own nuances into what Bhex is saying (or what I believe Bhex is saying), so feel free to rebut me as you will.

For me this is what Bhex’s entry amounts to: Filipino speculative fiction writers should be responsible for what we write, or at least we should start thinking very hard about our agenda, whether it’s about interstellar hermeneutics or folk tale retellings. Say what you will about those goddamn social realists, I appreciate the time and effort they have taken in crafting a discourse–wrong-headed or not–with the society they live in.

Speculative fiction writers–and I’m speaking in the abstract here–can’t go around asking for the same sort of legitimacy that is vested in recognized ‘mainstream’ fiction in a place like the Philippines without taking on its responsibilities as well. And if you come up and tell me, “Whyyy should I have to be ‘responsible?’ Can’t I just write about my hopefully soon-to-be-internationally-recognized story about gay elves?” I’ll punch you in the face.

Elves are fine and dandy. I have no problem with elves! But as Bhex is saying, if you’re one of those writers who claim to be serious about advancing speculative fiction as a valid genre of Filipino literature, which is to say literature that is representative of the Filipino experience, which speaks first and foremost to the Filipino reader, then you had better consider your position very carefully. Again, says Bhex, you’re a spokesperson. Be conscionable! O kahit conscientious man lang.

But, you counter, fantasy is supposed to be escapist! And stuffs! And if the Japanese can write about kawaii British librarians, why can’t I? Well, sure, go ahead. Write your own story about kawaii British librarians. I’ll be over here writing about hentai French priests. I have my own literary fetishes as well. But then again, if we descend into particularities, we’ll have to resort to overwrought diagrams, as Kyu did in order to demonstrate the ridiculous extremes to which this line of reasoning can be taken. What if a Filipino moved to Azerbaijan and wrote about Azerbaijani harpies getting it on? What sort of speculative fiction writer is he? Answer: A crack-filled one, obviously, and more power to him. Must be the water in the Caucasus.

I think it’s counter-productive, in the same way that defending the right of English-speaking Filipino writers to write in English is kind of, I dunno, stupid and beside the point. I had a long talk with Dean Alfar a few months ago where we discussed how Filipino fantasy fans who transition into writing fantasy fiction can’t seem to let go of elves, knights and talking swords. I’m not sure if Dean remembers this conversation, or if I’m remembering it entirely correctly, but I came away from it thinking that while there is nothing wrong or haha unpatriotic about writing about sexy elves (getting it on), surely there are other cornerstones upon which one can build a tradition or–oh dreaded word–paradigm of Filipino speculative fiction. Our mythology, for one. Our history, for another. Other established literary traditions, in particular. I asked Dean straight out: “What’s your purpose for promoting speculative fiction? Is it simply to enable an entire generation of Filipino writers to write guilt-free and occasionally perverted fiction about elves and knights and dragons or is it to utilize this literature as a powerful and imaginative way of–how did those academic critics put it?–narrating the Filipino nation?”

“Uh, yes,” said Dean.

Well, I’m doing a little imaginative retrospecting here myself. At that point we were actually talking about how Filipino academics are starting to be more conscious about the potentialities inherent in speculative fiction, and how in American and European literature the lines between literary fiction, postmodernist fiction, and speculative fiction have begun to intersect more and more often, and even occasionally to blur. In a recent lecture on contemporary Filipino novels in English, the critic Christina Pantoja-Hidalgo notes that they share a collective quality of ‘hybridity,’ and that stylistically they favor both the ‘burlesque’ and ‘carnivalesque.’ They integrate themes from popular culture and are unapologetic about their fabulist leanings. This is not surprising since when I ask writers like Charlson Ong about their literary influences, they almost always cite Vikram Seth and Salman Rushdie. Seth and Rushdie are cosmopolitan, multi-cultural writers, and Charlson Ong, who is a Filipino-Chinese writer writing in English, would naturally identify with the aesthetics and ethical themes of Rushdie’s novels. It’s a very conscious stylization, though, and not mere mimicry. You can’t transpose the contours of Rushdie’s hallucinatory Bombay into Manila’s own squirming boundaries, and Ong and Vince Groyon et al don’t try to do that. Instead they create their own specially customized hallucinations.

Filipino speculative fiction is not a precious snowflake and it’s not the sole antidote to the supposed provincialism of modern Filipino literary fiction, which seems to be doing fine detaching its head from its navel (albeit slowly) by itself, thanks very much. Having said that, I think that speculative fiction has a lot going for it, and if it is to stake its own place in the emergent landscape of Filipino literature now, then it should be very conscious of what it’s about. And writers, of course, should be even more preternaturally self-aware. Kasi kung hindi rin lang, what’s the use? Filipino fangirls–like me– would go on writing about kinky dragons and ghei elves, with or without establishment support, for years to come, but I think–from what I see of efforts by people like Dean, the Lit Critters, Kenneth, Bhex–that what we ought to strive for is not so much a peaceful co-existence with other literary forms, but a distinct–not just alternative, not just new, but distinct as in singular– canon of Filipino literature. Why not? Choconut?

And this is why I think that, extreme or not, Bhex’s entry is the most insightful yet of any discussion on Filipino speculative fiction that I’ve come across. It’s not so much what she says, but the questions she poses, implicitly or otherwise. There are no pat and facetious assumptions along the lines of “If you’re a Filipino, then whatever you write, your being Filipino would come out. ” Sorry, what? Are we supposed to rely on our telepathic connection with your subconscious to deduce what is Filipino about your story? Or: “Filipino speculative fiction is global in scope and shouldn’t restrict itself to local notions of culture and history.” See above: You are not global, least of all unique, because you write about Martians. It’s just a lot of flummery and people end up fretting over irrelevant stuff like whether or not writing about transgendered rabbits policing the solar system would disqualify them from Filipino citizenship. The permutations are endless. We can of course occupy our time coming up with an entire catalog of stories and decide on a case-to-case basis whether this story is Filipino, or not-quite Filipino, or sort-of-Filipino, or pwede-na.

Or we can go the way of Bhex, who is making some pretty hard-core claims–which we may or may not agree with–about what Filipino speculative fiction can and should do in terms of, say, articulating the concerns of Filipinos of our generation and be unapologetic about it. I don’t get why we–in the abstract!–have to be all defiantly unbending about our right to write about transgendered rabbits and pretty elves and then make endless qualifications whenever the issue of addressing our own society and what it means to be Filipino in our perspective, as fabulists, as fantasists, as fangirls (and fanboys), comes up. Taking into account Mia’s entry re: the recent LitCritters talk at the Manila Book Fair, about speculative fiction as an ‘agent for change and transformation,’ about the ‘imaginative ways’ that it can interrogate the world we live in, I think that Filipino speculative fiction writers must always keep in mind this question: “What the hell am I doing?” If your answer is “Writing about Azerbaijani harpies getting it on because I didn’t get any today” then I’m voting you out of the tribe.

Seriously, I believe that there’s no right or wrong answer, there’s only an attitude to take, and perhaps a commitment to make. I repeat: If it’s only a question of Filipinos’ right to write fantasy and science fiction, or in English or Filipino, then… there should be no question at all, actually. But if what we want is to build a presence for Filipino speculative fiction, not just internationally, but in terms of finding a significant place for it in our literature and our society, then we have to grapple with ideological issues that won’t resolve themselves into speculating about fictional scenarios involving different kinds of fiction and technical how-tos about writing dialogue etc. Bhex offers a cogent way of grappling.

More questions: How would you position yourself, as a writer of speculative fiction? What attitude do you take, as a writer, to your world in general and to your society in particular? Stop defending your right to write about spaceships, goddammit. Why are you writing the way you are?

While I don’t believe I’m cut out to be a writer (so I probably shouldn’t pontificate, but then I’m doing this upon request), I have started to think more closely about the stories that I do write. I don’t consciously cast Filipino policemen as corrupt elves–I’m not that dumb or reactionary and anyway when I write about elves I go straight to fanfiction.net and not, say, the Philippine Free Press–but I do question the choices I make in a story, specifically in light of being Filipino and living in the Philippines. People might say that making prescriptions and definitions is a critic’s job, as if writers sleepwalk their way through their stories, and as if speculative fiction writers, especially, are exempt from the responsibilities of writing literature because they claim to simply be ‘telling stories’ (excuse me).

Naku, hahaba pa ito. Awat na. *goes back to watching Russian soap operas*

September 23, 2007 | Filed Under Miscellany | 2 Comments

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