Encoding the Roll

Excitement, yes. Much more, a conviction that it is necessary. So I doubly have excitement, and I caress it like a bird's torn wing, knowing exactly how angry the feathers are. Today is a day set and reset for heroes. Yet, even with the mythic in both my thesis and pedagogy, I see no compelling reason to dwell on heroes. Rather, I reread Lorca's "En Balcon" because it was trying to say something earlier. But I ignored it in favor of my semestral routine of converting the photocopied class lists into tenable grading sheets.

If I die,
leave the balcony open.

Early afternoon yesterday, I finished encoding the lists for both attendance and grades. I stuck with the printed out grids and the weekly update of the soft copy. Earlier, morning, I asked my mother if she had an unused set of record books. There was an impulse to try something new, or, technically, old. Most of my colleagues still use the standard issue record books. I wouldn't dare dismiss the practice as quaint (though I believe those crazy small columns has contributed to the weakness of my mother's eyes). Nevertheless, I decided not to change horses. Not now. Not even when I'm well beyond midstream.

The little boy is eating oranges.
(From my balcony I can see him.)

God, those names and student numbers took much time! But not nearly enough space. I never knew that the emptiness of the grids - the yet numberless boxes - could fill me with dread. But they did. Yes, excitement. Four months! Literature! Mythology! All the kicking and screaming world and now this chance for me and my students to poke its very belly button with questions. All the rapes of subics and nations, the broken dishes, the morsels of dead and living flesh, loves and sacrifices, all the redeemers and asses, and mass upon mass with chains of fishes and loaves and pockets. Plus - and always plus - so much hope to work with, so much work to hope for. Four months!

The reaper is harvesting the wheat
(from the balcony I can hear him.)

Yet all those empty boxes, how they haunted the moment, how tight they were together. How they stared back at me as with complete cataracts! For her practice, my mother leaves a blank space between students so that she doesn't go wrong when she puts in the grades. To achieve the same effect, my grid just allows bigger boxes and thus, bigger names and numbers. Then the easy sweep of mouse-click calculations. Maybe my own sheet design generated my sudden fear. At the end of the months, these sheets will be riddled with corrections and signatures, various tints of whatever pens within reach. At the end: a hieroglyphic! Maybe some highlights? I looked at all those cellular tabula rasas. I saw them all filled up. I knew it: I would allow no spaces.

If I die,
leave the balcony open!

Scribbling the Effeminate

I do think the mighty stir made about scribbling and scribes, by themselves and others - a sign of effeminacy, degeneracy, and weakness. Who would write, who had any thing better to do?

Lord Byron
November 24, 1813


I do think on the mighty stir about effeminacy and effeminates, how this has become so much a sign of weakness and degeneracy. Ang macho ni Lord no? Lord Byron.

Tesis ni Leonard Shlain sa kanyang mabigat na aklat, The Alphabet and the Goddess, na may korelasyon ang pag-angat ng "male values" tulad ng logic, abstract reasoning, linearity, at lahat ng karumaldumalan ng patriyarkiya sa pagsibol ng alpbeto at kulturang imprenta. Nang maitakda ang batas mula pa sa panahon ni Hammurabi, babae agad ang sinikil. Bago nito, namamayani ang diyosa, intuwisyon, emosyon, pagiging sirkular, at lahat ng nurturing values ng babae.

Kakalabanin ito tiyak ng inihain ni Judith Pintar sa kanyang The Halved Soul kung saan sinagasaan niya ang mitikal na paghahati ng babae at lalaki, kahit pa iyong mabuti naman ang intensyon tulad nitong kay Shlain, na nagpapalaganap lang din ng problema. Kung gayon, hindi solusyon sa masculinity ang femininity, kahit pa anong sabihin ni Jung tungkol sa animus at anima. Pagtakas ito dahil inihahagis ng lalake ang kanyang problema sa babae o kawalan ng babae at ng babae sa lalake o kawalan ng lalake. Walang mabuting kahihinatnan ang eksternalisasyong ito. Harapin ng babae ang problema niya, ang lalake ang problema niya, tapos iwasang masaktan ang kabilang panig.

Marami pa sanang masasabi tungkol dito. Sa susunod na lang, papasok muna ako.

Pirma at Praktis

Ayan na, pangalawang linggo na ng klase. May kaibigan akong nag-aral para sa lisensya niyang mag-doktor. Ngayong pumasa siya at nakabalik na sa kanyang praktis, napansin niyang hindi na siya kampante sa kanyang pakikihalubilo sa mga pasyente.

Ano kaya ang nagbago? Dahil kaya nakapagpahinga siya at nawala sa sirkulasyon sa pagitan ng pagiging intern noon at residente ngayon? Dahil kaya may lisensya na, may kaakibat na pananagutan ang anumang kilos, tama man o mali?

Ganito rin kaya sa pagiging guro? Oo, may panahon na hindi pa matantya ang sarili sa harap ng dati-rati'y pamilyar na lugar sa harap ng mga estudyante. Pagkabakasyon, may pangangapa sa tamang tono ng boses, tindig, "pakikipaglaro" sa mga estudyante (sang-ayon sa dinamiko ng "game" nina Wittgenstein at Gadamer). Ngunit may pagkakaiba kaya sa kontrata? Mas malaki ba ang social sanction sa isang instructor at professor, ng master at doktor? Bagamat mas tama kung ang analohiya ay sa pagitan ng nagpapraktikum at isang lisensyadong guro, ang tinutunton naman talaga ay ito: posible kaya ang intelektuwal na malpractice? Posible ito, maraming kaso. Ngunit posible bang masukat ito na may katulad na ramdam at dating ng malpratice sa katawan? Paano gayong utak at puso mismo ang hinuhubog sa pagiging guro? Ang panukat mismo ay nakasalang sa maraming tanong (at tanong tungkol sa mga tanong).

Kailangan kong mapatunayan sa sarili ko na may sukat at may pananagutan. Kung hindi man mula sa sistema o doktrina, mula sa sarili.

Isa pa. Kakakasal lamang ni Kabesang Tales noong Sabado, kasama ko siya sa palihan sa Bacolod. Kasama ko sina Vladimeiri, Jason, at Ava. Hindi ko nagustuhan ang pagdadala ng pari. Iba't iba ang sensibilidad naming apat, radikal at konserbatibo sa magkakaibang aspeto, ngunit nagkasundo kami: hindi maayos ang pagdadala ng pari sa araw na hindi kanya. Sarili niya ang ibinabalandra, pangit ang satsat sa altar, puro cliche ang payo, at kahit ang halik ng aking kaibigan, binilangan (isa, dalawa, dalawa't kalahati...). Espiritwal na malpractice?

Huli. Paano naman pagkakaiba ng "praktis" sa pagitan ng kasintahan at mag-asawa? Sa pagitan ng mga sumpaang pabulong at lagdaang pampubliko? At kung magkamali, sino at ano ang sukatan? Hanggang saan ang tamang antas ng sakit, pagtitiyaga, pagkamanhid, at tapang? Marital na malpractice?

Hanggang ngayon, interesante pa rin sa akin ang mga relasyong ito, doktor-pasyente, guro-estudyante, pari/pastor-parokyano, at magkasintahan/mag-asawa. Malamang sa hindi, wala sa loob ng buhay ko ang pagtunaw sa mga ugnayang ito. Magkakaroon ng pagbabago, sigurado, ngunit hindi ko na siguro maabutan ang substansyal na pagbawas sa pagkasolido ng mga institusyonal na relasyong ito. Ano kaya ang hitsura ng daigdig na wala ang mga ugnayang ito? Kapag hindi na kailangan ang doktor, guro, pari, at asawa, kumusta kaya? Kapag lahat, pagkaluwal na pagkaluwal pa lang, dalubhasang doktor, guro, pari, at asawa ng lahat, kumusta kaya?

Napapaloob pa rin ako sa panahon ng pirma, ng toka-tokang praktis at relasyon. Gusto kong ukitin mulaa sa mukha ng daigdig ang munting "trabaho" ng pagtatanong at imahinasyon. Saan ako pipirma upang managinip?

Against Involution

There was
what we call "words,"
a lot of language,
syllables,
each syllable made of air.

Then there was
s i l e n c e,
no talk at all,
no more syllables
shaped by living tongues
out of wandering air.

Thus all tongues
slowly talk themsleves
into s i l e n c e.

"Speech"
Carl Sandburg


Last night, Akdang_Bayan (A_B) held its first sA_Bat, that is, the first in a series of discussions that aim to equip its members with the basics. These fundamentals cover an introduction to issues and opportunities in literature and language; the critical triad: class, gender, and race; globalization; the tri-media: film, radio, and print; the new media: digital arts and internet; the marketing of literary products; and other cultural venues.

It began at quarter to four in the Tree House of UP Diliman. Our resource person was Arnold Azurin, a political anthropologist. He wrote Reinventing The Filipino's Sense of Being and Becoming. We discussed the matter of language and its role in nation-building. Several roadblocks were identified. Primary of these was the Tagalog self-conceit that held the national language through the policies that perpetuate and mobilize. The scholarship and literature of the Tagalog writers of Azurin's generation did not have the breadth to encompass the nation. Instead of envisioning the nation through its interregional linkages, the nation was seen only in the wake of the Tagalog's struggle with the colonizers. Now, even freed of the foreign proponents of the Hispanizing drive that built UST and the Americanizng drive that built UP, the educational system still weaves a nation based on an assumption of inferiority of the Filipino vis-a-vis white scholarship and the rest of other Filipino thought-systems and literature to the Tagalog scholarship that studied and expressed only itself as the basis of the nation.

What is the challenge to the writer engaged in nation-building? Write what you know. But move beyond the Tagalog-based linguistic horizon. Know beyond the comfort zones!

There were many points raised. With these, many names were bashed (guess who's on top of the list). We have not yet collated the feedback, but I personally consider it a success. The assumptions A_B members regarding language and its dynamic with literature were provoked sufficiently to raise a number of questions and challenges.

We have long identified this inward spiral that now sucks in the national resources to a coterie promoting their Tagalog. I believe a new attitude and action is rising, the old elements of freethought, yes, but mixed and moving in a different course. The openness is promising. My fear? That this same involution shall infect us. The fact that these machinations have been recognized and vilified at the outset assuages me.

Bienvenido Lumbera is set for a survey of Philippine Literature on the first week of December. My dear hope is that I can get some of my Los Banos students to attend this one.

After the Stars

'Says I to myself' should be the motto of my journal.
It is fatal to the writer to be too much possessed by his thought. Things must lie a little remote to be described.

Henry David Thoreau
November 11, 1851
Diary entry


The student is the teacher after all, having broken the back of his elder. Or, showing it was not a whole spine in the first place, only a high voice and a mastery of radical rhetoric that kept towering appearances. All were grew the double-height and insubstantial, like shadows.

Yesterday, they talked of stars and navigation. Tomorrow, one takes the land route, the other takes the sea. Who will walk the stars? Who has breath and sorrow enough for all the darkness in between? Who has thicker ribs to cage the secrets?

Certainly, the one who left behind his children will regain them. A father will be restored to decide anew if the hunger of his young can nurture him, drive his
spirit on. Or will he need to leave again? These will be his questions, this one who must heal. His surplus of tears will not serve to cleanse him.

The one to who kept his promise shall have the will and wherewithal to lay down a new table. He shall break bread with the few among his adopted, those few he found to have the greater breadth and a longer road within them than their father ever had. Then he shall entrust the table to them, to their father.

He shall not be keeper of the children any longer. He shall not be student of a broken man.

One will retain soil and roots, let this be known. The other shall stretch his legs out to sea.

An Empty Lot Before the Curve

The swath of light climbs up the skyscraper
Around the corners of white prisms and spikes.
The inside torso stands up in a plug of gun-metal.
The shadow struggles to get loose from the light.
Shall I say I'm through and it's no use?
Or have I got another good fight in me?

"Evening Questions"
Carl Sandburg


November eight or nine. A row of resorts will pass, some road, then a funeral parlor, buko pie stands here and there, then come the boiled egg yellow facade of Olivarez. The bus will stop in front of this mall, a gas station where wait the jeeps that will take the curve: UP GATE.

But before this mall, some small buildings before the station, the bus will pass by a vacant lot the size of a classroom. The viridian grass marks a time that I did not even experience, nevertheless it is known to me: the greener days of Los Banos. This lot is the green shadow of rising cement. Off-center, I'll find a tree, short like one of those sidewalk trees, but lush, well-fed by a steady stream of gray carbon. A sign on the tree, and I will read it.

Sometimes it says glass-cutters. Other times, crude advertisements for vulcanizing shops. Once or twice, it spoke of keys and duplications. When I pass, this next time, this first time after five semesters of first times, will I bother to read it? Or will I sleep thirty seconds more and believe that it reads NO VACANCY?

There will be miles in that step from the bus. Too few of them will belong to the coming gate.