Father's day

Father with one of our dogs, from way back when...

3:19 a.m.
"Song is the ultimate structuring device for language." This quote is lifted from Moonwalking with Einstein: the Art and Science of Remembering Everything, one of three ebooks recently purchased by Leena. I flipped through the first page out of curiosity, drawn by the incongruous title, and by early evening I found myself halfway on page 187. I would have gone on had the battery of the darn iPad not given up. Anyway, the author, Joshua Foer, also clarified that language is the foundation of memory. This is  about memory.

Good book!

3:41
In the beginning of Foer's fascinating book about memory -- how it works, its power and effect, its history and future -- he assigns a card, the king of hearts, to Michael Jackson, and Einstein is equivalent to the three of diamonds. I think the flippant title does not do justice to the erudition of the writer, harbinger of unexpected wealth of information and ideas that can and should change the way we think and live. Why? It took Foer more than 300 pages to explain; I can't do it for less. Buy the book.

3:53
I'm a Jurassic -- or, to be accurate, Pleistocene -- a creature plagued by dreams that wake me by the dawn's early light. These dreams are made of memories, however disjointed and warped the settings and time frames.

4:00
I dream of parents and dear friends departed. I dream of former newspaper colleagues and high school classmates dead and alive. I grieve for the dead because they died so young (young meaning they did not even get to live 50 years in this crazy planet), suddenly taken away either by cancer or heart attacks. 


When classmates I have not seen for more than three decades visit by dream, I think, as if in a reunion, how well they did in life, and that I did not fare so badly in comparison: they have more money, in exchange for the staid lifestyle of businesspeople; I, on the other hand, was made to hurdle unconventional loops, at least far from the standard of a Chinese living as a Filipino. I have been leading an outcast's life.

4:28
What gets me at this stage is the matter of age. In a reunion I attended about four or five years ago, we bandied the Alzheimer word a lot -- when we failed to recognize each other, when we could not relate to some past incidents, when we forgot old acquaintance and days of auld lang syne. Discussion tended to drift toward betablockers and other preventive medication, healthy diets, poor eyesight, high anxiety, low energy. Nevertheless I left in a magical daze, unexpectedly seeing those good people after so long!

4:41
So I wake up in shattered mid-dream again. Again I realize I'm still here, after more than half a century. I feel like a mastodon, out of sync because my mind carries the illusion of youth, gone but not forgotten.

4:47
I have already learned to cope with my inescapable age. I used to get distressed when I realize that I'm really old, no kidding. Now I'm comforted by the fact that all my classmates are also not immune to this biological affliction. Some are even older than I am. I miss those who had treated me kindly.

5:03
I remember a morning many years ago when at breakfast my father suddenly exclaimed (in Chinese), "I have a white hair in my head; I'm getting old!" We just laughed, my grandmother and my 12-year-old self: my father was just about 40 then, or even younger. He died at age 67 in 1995. Since then he visits me in my dream. In my dreams, dear friends and loved ones meet, and they are always welcome. 

Today is Father's Day. I think of my father -- gone but not forgotten, far but not away. 

Diskurso

3:21 a.m.
Actually ilang minuto na akong gising: di ko lang maimulat itong may muta ko pang mga mata kahit matagal nang nagdidiskurso itong kapitbahay naming matandang lalaki at mga bingi niyang mga bisita. Palagay ko malakas ang kunsiderasyon nitong kapitbahay naming ito, dahil napakalakas ng boses niya kung magkuwento o mag-eksplika, para siguro marinig ng mga bisita niyang barado ang tenga.

3:41
Nagbibiyaya din kaming kapitbahay sa napakatining na boses na sumasalpok sa aming bintana at sumesemplang sa aming dilat na dilat nang diwa. Sigurado din akong nagbibigay-daan din ang alaga niyang tuko, na tahimik ding nakikinig sa napakahalagang topic na di maipagpaliban at kailangang ihayag agad kahit madilim pa ang mundo at di pa tapos ang kunsiyerto ng mga kuliglig. 

Magaspang ang boses nitong kapitbahay, parang may dahong is-is ang vocal cord kayo paos -- pero malakas! -- ang birit na mga kade-kadenang mga opinyon, thesis, synthesis, tsismis. Sa walo-siyam na taon kong paninirahan dito sa kabilang-bakod, di pa ako pinalad ng masulyapan ang mukha nitong love-thy-neighbor na ito. Kung ibabase sa halinghing ng boses niya, huhulaan kong mukhang kabayo ito; pero ayon sa volume ng boses, malamang mas malapit sa tigbalang ang hilatsa nito. Wala naman silang punong baleteng nakatanim sa malawak nilang hardin. Matamis ang bunga ng kanilang punong mangga, santol at chico, na pinipitas nina Melay at Neneng tuwing hapon. Minsan, pag sumusungkit sina Melay ng kamyas, may lalabas na matandang babae at hihingi ng konti sa bunga ng kanyang puno. Mabait itong ale at di ko naririning ang boses sa madaling araw: inubos na siguro ng asawa niya ang lahat ng topic.

4:13
Tahimik na. Tumalab na siguro ang beer at paralisado na ang dila ni lolo. Low-bat na si neighbor, nagrere-charge para sa susunod na kabanata ng lecture series niya. Meanwhile, greet ko muna si Lyrica at Rivotril na magko-concert para patulugin ako. Research ko bukas kung ika-ilang commandment yung Love thy neighbor at kung supplanted ito ng sixth commandment, at kung puwedeng i-repeal itong huli para naman mapalipad ko ang de-kalibre kong opinyon sa direkyon ng kapitbahay ko -- loud and clear din, 18 rounds, 9 mm.

Cordell's music

First editions lahat: Books, Cordell, ako. Yung mga Lyrica, hindi pala: revised nightly siya.

3:33 a.m.

Ano ito, half Omen? And the name of the baby beastie boy is 333, yea! Naalala ko yung full Omen: Asar na asar ako sa ending, yung sasaksakin na lang ni Gregory Peck ang sugo ng dilim nang barilin siya ng pulis. Ayun, nagkaroon tuloy ng dalawa pang sequel! For life na ba itong memory ko: Slow-motion na balang palaki nang palaki sa screen hanggang tumama sa likod ni Peck? Saka anong ginagawa ni Peck sa isang horror film? Kumita nga sa takilya, pero si Peck ng Roman Holiday --romantic film niya with Audrey Hepburn -- nasa Omen? Namannnnnnn...

3:55

Natatandaan ko ang role ni Peck bilang abogadong si Atticus Finch sa To kill a Mockingbird, adapted mula sa libro ni Harper Lee, na kaibigan pala at kababata sa Alabama ni Truman Capote. One and only book ni Lee ang Mockingbird, pero kasya na ang kita niya mula sa book at film rights para magbakasyon habambuhay. Nakita ko pa lang sa TV lately itong si Lee, parang binabati siya ni Obama sa White House sa 50th anniversary ng Mockingbird. Matanda na si Lee, uugod-ugod na at bukot ang likod. May umaalalay sa kanyang tumayo habang kinakamayan siya ng ni Barack. Ang pumasok agad sa isip ko nang makita ang napaka-touching na eksena eh, Buhay pa pala siya. Ayan, sabi ko sa sarili, ganyan talaga ang andar ng utak mo -- sacrilegious, blasphemous, ominous...

4:21

Nalaman ko ang link nina Harper Lee at Capote nang mapanood ko sa pirated DVD angIn Cold Blood, bagong adaptation mula sa breakthrough novel nitong si Truman. Ang nobelang ito ata ang nagpasimula ng New Journalism, yun bang true story na inihayag sa pormang nobela. Diyan sumunod ng style sina Norman Mailer, Joan Didion, P. J. O'Rourke, Gay Talese, Hunter S. Thompson at sangkatutak pang gaya-gaya. Common na ngayon itong genre, pero nung unang pumutok ito noong early 1960s, Wow!

4:38

Pinag-aralan ko ang writing style ni Truman noong nagsimula akong magsulat sa 1980s. Nakalap ko ang lahat ng libro niya, early and late -- Other Voices, Other Rooms, The Grass Harp, Breakfast at Tiffany's, Answered Prayers, Children on Their Birthdays, A Christmas Memory -- pero nawala ang buong library ko pagkatapos ng pagsabog ng Pinatubo nung 1991. Sa ngayon nabawi ko na ang ilang piyesa niya, puwera yung Music For Chameleons, na hanggang ngayon eh di ko makita sa National, Book Sale, Fully Booked, Powerbook. Ganyan kabusabos itong Pilipinas: sangkatutak ang Jollibee kahit saan, McDo, Chow King, KFC, etc., para bundatin ang tiyan mo, pero kung hahanapan mo ng pagkain ang utak mo, suwerte mo na lang kung di ka maging malnourished dito sa Pinas. Di ako nagtataka at naging Presidente yang si Noynoy. Susmarya, kahit ata komiks di nagbabasa yan.

4:54

It's annoying, this Noynoying. Makatulog na nga. Good dawn, Lyrica my lovely, gudam...

***

Note: Bakit Cordel's music ang title nitong Insomnia series no. 05072012? Mga 3:30 kaninang umaga, biglang bumukas yung radio sa ibaba, full volume, at binulabog ng Rock music ang buong bahay. Agad bumaba si Leena at Melay para silipin kung bagong episode ito ng Poltergeist. Si Cordell big cat pala, lumundag sa mesa at natabig yung "On" button ng radio at nag-Rock 'n' Roll ang tulog naming lahat. Relax lang si Cordell sa mesa, parang gusto pang sumayaw. Nang tingnan ko ang oras, tiyempo pala sa insomnia appointment ko. Ayan, nakabuo na naman ako ng blog.

Hilaw

2:33 a.m.

Ano ito, bubot na insomnia? Sobrang aga naman, pati mga kuliglig eh inaantok pa. Binuksan ko kung sa'n ko huling naiwan ang You Can't Go Home Again, ang nobela ni Thomas Wolfe na di ko matapos-tapos. Pa'no super-analytical siya: huminga ka lang nang malalim, ilang paragraphs na ang observation niya tungkol diyan. Pag nangulangot ka pa -- nakuh! -- ididiskurso ang chemical composition nito, texture, historical and ethical significance, kung dapat mga ba bilugin muna bago pitikin o ialok muna sa sweetheart mo as keepsake. Masarap pasadahan yung mga kuro-kuro niya, pero nakaka-drain yung overload. Kung na-discover ko sana si Wolfe nung bata pa ako, three sitting lang tapos na ito. FYI: 576 pages ito, P95 kong nabili sa Book Sale, may mga kagat ng pusa sa gilid. Ok lang, cute naman at naglalambing lang ang mga baby ni Mau.

2:51

Isa sa mga heavyweight writers si Wolfe. Parang mas sikat yung una niyang obra, yungLook Homeward, Angel (na iniwan ko somewhere sa gitna). As usual, kung magaling ka at marami pang iaalay sa planetang ito, patay kang bata ka. 37 lang siya nung 1938 nang tinamaan ng miliary tuberculosis yung utak niya. Tsugi.

Itutuloy next insomnia...

Rex: 2001-2012

Rex when we were both healthy. He always had more hair.

Rex, belonging to that big and gentle Chow Chow breed, was capable of harming a fly, though not intentionally, and he was probably not aware of the nature of his deed. One afternoon years ago I looked out the door at the open garage, and just in time I saw Rex chomp down on a pesky fly that had been buzzing around his head for hours; the remains of the fly, cut in half, made crazy spirals down to the cement floor. That's one of the main memories that comes to mind when I think of Rex, who this morning passed away at the vererable age of 11.

We don't know if it's the debilitatingly hot weather or if it's Rex's deteriorating health that caused him to succumb to a heat stroke Thursday night. When Leena arrived home at about 9 p.m. Thursday, she found Rex lying on his side on the cement floor of the garage. Several ice packs were hurriedly placed all over his body to lower his temperature and to steady his labored breathing. When it seemed Rex was out of immediate danger, Leena placed an emergency call to Russell, who has been a reliable and capable vet to our five Chows and 20-plus cats.

After assessing Rex's condition, Russell gave him an injection to lower his body temperature to less than 39.4, which he said was dangerously critical. Earlier, I went cold when I noticed that Rex had involuntarily emptied the content of his stomach by vomiting and voiding: signs that the defensive system of his body had gone on full alert, abandoning the digestive system to sustain Rex's faltering cardiovascular system. When Rex's breathing returned to normal level, we kept a watchful eye on him while Leena discussed with Russell the medicines required. It was almost midnight when Russsell left, dropping off Melay and Marilyn to the Mercury branch near Munoz Market to buy the medicines.

Leena hardly slept that night, going to the garage to keep watch over Rex. Early Friday morning Leena decided to take Rex to Animal House, the pet hospital in Cubao. Blood tests, ECG, X-rays, and other tests were performed on Rex. Old age caught up with our old pet, who through the years had unobtrusively led a quiet existence at the garage, enjoying a treat of chicken once in a while, greeting Leena when she arrived home from office. That Thursday night he was not able to approach her.

So life went on at home on Friday, although we were aware that one mainstay of our lives was missing, fighting for a life made feeble by age and illness. But we dared not dwell on the fact that hope was not an option in this case. If it was just a matter of time, then time could flow on along its stoical way as we gather fortitude for when reality descends. It descended this morning. And it's Leena's birthday today. If it should be considered a gift that Rex's suffering was mercifully ended, so be it.

It's a terrible thing to learn late in life that death, like life, can be a gift.

 Leena with Rex through puppyhood and cuddlyhood.

***
The following is Leena's message to wellwishers on her birthday:

To my friends, fellow cat and animal lovers who remembered me today, A VERY BIG THANK YOU! I am sorry that it took time before I could respond. I had to bring our beloved Rex home from the hospital and arrange a small, solemn funeral. Perhaps Rex wanted me to remember him whenever I celebrate my birthday, that's why he chose this day to say goodbye. I was hoping that he could still spend some moreyears with us, but as the vet said, he is already a super senior Chow. He is only 11 years old, and now that he's gone I ask myself where did the years go? It seems only yesterday when he was an adorable, huggable puppy. Time does fly. To the most handsome chow in the world, until we play again. We will miss you Rex.

Mr. Moonlight, Spock, Beatles atbp

3:00 a.m.

Spock: Sleep long and proper

Ang galing. Saktong alas tres ka ngayon, Mr. Moonlight. Biblical ito. (Namputsang ba't di nung Holy Week ako ginising sa ganitong topak, este, topic? Anyway, whatever. Insomnia na nga, nagrereklamo pa.)

Anong oras namatay si Kristo? Siyempre ang response agad diyan eh alas tres.

Umaga o hapon? Konting kamot ng ulo, tapos makikita mo sa ngiti ng biktimang intervewee ang pagsindi ng lightbulb sa itaas ng ulo niya -- Ting! 

Hapon!

Are you sure? 

Oo naman, kaya alas tres inililibing ang mga tao ngayon, di ba?

3:15

Sabi ni Matthew sa New Testament, mga alas nuebe na nang gabi nang   marinig ang pagsamo ni Jesus mula sa krus: "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" Ibig sabihin nito sa English: "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" At ilang saglit pa at pumanaw na si Jesus.

Ayan, kung gusto niyong sumunod, 9 p.m. kayo magpalibing -- sa dilim. Awooooh!

3:40

Imaginary conversation (Ganyan talaga sa insomnia, hahagilap ka sa hangin ng kausap):

"Ano ang lengguwahe ni Jesus? Yung "Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?" -- anong salita yon?"

"Ayoko ko nga! Trick question na naman yan. Hindi pala alas tres namatay, di na lang sabihin agad. Dami pa namang inililibing nang alas tres hanggang ngayon. Hmmmp! Bumili ka ng kausap."

"Aysus, kasalanan ko ba kung dispalinghado ang hunghang na species natin - mali na lagi habang nabubuhay, mali pa rin hanggang huling hantungan. O sige na, anong language ni Jesus? Ibili kita ng ice cream pag nakuha mo ang sagot c'',) "

"E di Latin. Di ba nakasalin sa Latin ang mga Bible noon? Ayan! Double Dutch bilhin mo ha?"

"Pa'no yung mga Bible na Hebrew? Di ba Hebrew kung magbalitaktakan sina Moses at ang mga matitigas na ulong kasama niyang naligaw ng landas sa disyerto?"

"Oo nga, hehe. Hebrew! Yan ang sagot ko. Hebrew! Final answer!"

"Actually, parang Aramaic ang salita sa Nazareth. You know, Jesus of Nazareth. Aramaic ang salita sa Barangay Nazareno."

"Basta! Di ka pupunta sa langit."

4:22

Ah, langit, the Final Frontier, to boldly go where no man has gone before, this is the starship Enterprise... Buti pa ang mga santo, may promo ticket to Heaven agad, non-transferable (dahil baka ibenta? O makasalanang diwa! Magtika, magtika!)

Pag-akyat mo sa Stairway to Heaven sasalubungin ka ni St. Peter, yung may tandang. (Di kaya may Freudian association dito? Peter. Cock. Bad thought, erase! Erase!)

St. Peter: "Yes? May I help you?"

Spock: "Gatekeeper, any Klingon in there?"

St. Peter (tingin sa ledger): "Wala, meyn, puro santo lang nasa VIP lounge today, meyn. You know any santo?"

Spock: "I know a St. Paul..."

St. Peter: "Puwede. Merong St. Paul's Cathedral. Meron ding St. Paul College na puno ng magagandang college chix..."

Spock: "Then there's St. John..."

St. Peter: "Hmm... John the Baptist, check. Kakosang John of the Gospel, aprub. John and Marsha?!"

Spock: "St. George..."

St. Peter: "Let me see... Kasama ba rito yun? Dragonslayer... princess saver..."

Spock: "And St. Ringo?"

St. Peter: "Ay, anak ka ng Vulcan ka, matulog ka na nga!"

4:57

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

St. Paul, St. Ringo?!

Project Insomnia

3:46 a.m.
Mainit, pero hindi ako pinagpapawisan dahil nasasapinan ng konting lamig ang dilim. Sabi ni Leena maginaw sa labas, ang sarap nga at nararamdaman niya mula sa bintana. Nagkumot pa. Ako naman parang gusto kong paikutin yung electric fan para dagdagan pa ng konting timpla ang lamig. Ganyan kami: Pag pinagpapawisan siya at binubuksan ang electric fan, ako ay nakabalot na ng kumot para di magyelo ang mga paa. Ang sagwa naman kung ma-frostbite ako dito sa polluted na sulok ng Project 8.

4:15
Walang Project 9. Di rin alam ni Leena kung bakit walang Project 1 saka Project 5. Alam kong may Project 6 -- doon kami galing; lumipat kami dito sa Project 8 mga pitong taon na. Ang ganda ng pangalan ng barangay namin: Bahay Toro. May Tandang Sora sa ibang parte ng QC, Holy Spirit, Libis, Imelda, pero dito kami sa Bahay Toro. Yey. Project 7 yung malapit sa SM North EDSA at Trinoma. Project 3 kina Elvie; sa paskel ng mga jeep may Proj. 2 at Proj. 4. Kinurakot siguro yung dalawang Project nang walang nakabantay na auditor. Ala namang umaangal, kaya ok lang.

4:40
Tahimik na ang mga kuliglig sa ganitong oras. Palagay ko nakahanap na sila ng partner at nag-o-orgy na sa maliit na sulok nilang Sodom at Gomorrah sa hardin ng kapitbahay. Yung tuko nila, ilang araw nang di naririnig yung nakatutuwang birit na "TUK-o!" "TUK-o!" Status symbol na ang tuko magmula nang kinikidnap sila ng mga smuggler para ibenta ng libo-libong dollar sa mga dayuhan. Aphrodisiac daw ito, para makatayo ang lampang bayang magiliw ng mga maniac na hindi na makasali sa sex festival ng mga makasalanang kuliglig. Biro mo, ang kikitaing dollars ng isang tuko ay mahigit pa sa ilang taong kayod ng isang caregiver o teacher-naging-housemaid abroad. Iba talaga ang kita pag may Project Sex.

5:14
Nagiging corny na ako. Makatulog na nga. Thank you, Lyrica. Bless you, Ribotril. Antay ka lang Thyrax, maya ka pa. Tritase, Thrombosil, pagkatapos ng almusal pa kayo, kayong mga personal kong perlas ng silanganan. Yeah, ang mamatay nang dahil sa inyo, baby. Gud morning, Liwayway, bumuka ka na.

Zzzzzzzz...

Bulabog

The moon is lunatic,

Sending beams to break my sleep.

Ay, buwan, tinimbang ka ngunit kulang,

Di mo ba alam, insomniac ako, hunghang!

-- William the Henry

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz...

3:04 a.m.
Gising na naman ako. Inaantok pa ako, pero alas tres at ilang baryang minuto na ng umaga, kaya ano pa -- sige nga! -- gising na ako. Ngayon, ano naman ang gagawin ko? Magbasa? Pumipikit pa ang mga mata ko, ayaw lang akong patuluging muli.

3:11
Lagi na lang ganito araw-araw: Pagpatak ng ilang minuto lampas alas tres ng madilim pang umaga ay babasagin na ang tulog ko, ke may panaginip, ke puyat na nga, bubulabugin pa rin ako para (1) Makita ang dilim? (Para maisip kong oxymoronic ang sabihing makita ang hindi naman makikita? Makikipagtalo ba ako sa sarili ko? Aysus!) (2) Marinig ang malilibog na mga kuliglig na sumasabay sa ingay ng ikot ng electric fan? (3) Ala lang, trip-trip lang?!

3:34
Ayaw pa ring tumalab ang Lyrica. Sabayan ko na kaya ng katapyas na Ribotril? Pero sabi nung doctor medyo bawas-bawasan ko na itong Ribotril dahil kumapit na ito sa sistema ko. Kaya nga strictly prescriptive, nakaka-addict kasi. Kalahati na nga lang ang iniinom ko, tatawagin pa akong addict. Nakakaasar. Eh si Ampatuan -- yung mas bata, yung mukhang unggoy na berdugo -- siguro kung umupak ng Ribotril ay parang mani lang. Ba't naman di makatulog ang hinayupaks na diablong yun? Ala namang kunsiyensiya. Saka paanong naging mayor yun? Ay tanga! Kung si unanong Gloria at Zubiri eh naibraso yung mga boto, ang sarili pa kaya? Matulog ka na nga!

4:03
Zzzzzzzzzzzzz...

Cute pets: bottomless appetite, thick hides. P500/pair.

Cats & Books

Cats & Books

By Leena Calso Chua

The picture shows cats playing atop some books -- cats on books, literally speaking.

But that's not what I mean. This is about cats and the books they like. It's common knowledge among dynamic pet breeders that cats adore books and start to read as early as two weeks old, when they open their eyes. In their kittengarten stage they start with kiddie fare like Dr. Seuss's A Cat in the Hat, then move on to Saki's Tobermory, though not one of them likes what happened to the only member of their species that had gained the ability to talk.

It is not unusual to find some of the more sedate kitties preferring T.S. Eliot's juvenile Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats, from which the smash Broadway play, Cats, was adapted. I have even seen kittens, in private moments, humming the theme song, Memory. One of them even extended his reading to Eliot's The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock. This poem has nothing to do with anything feline, but cats do like the somber sway and tenor of the poem.

What student of Literature doesn't know Gray's Elegy? But cats sneer at the student's ignorance of Gray's lament over his beloved Selina, Ode on the Death of a Favourite Cat, Drowned in a Tub of Gold Fishes. Anyway, that's ok, since kittens realize early in life that the luminosity of the human mind is uncannily equivalent to that of a dim bulb.

Kittens have a deep fondness for specialized magazines about them: Cat's World, Kittens, Cat Fancy, and occasional articles in National Geographic about their favorite country in this planet, Egypt. They venerate their ancient ancestors who lived in luxurious palaces with pharaohs who really knew how to give cats their rightful place -- way up in the pantheon of nobility.

Mau's baby Persians may root for Batman, but they purr at the Dark Knight's romantic link with their green-eyed heroine, Selina Kyle, a.k.a. Catwoman. They also lapped up Vonnegut's Cat Cradle, but were miffed after they found out the novel is not even remotely about cats at all. Rightly, they settled for Golden Age copies of Felix the Cat.

One of Hemingway's early short story, Cat in the Rain, is a kitty favorite. Another oldie-but-goldie is Capote's Breakfast at Tiffany's, where, in the film version, an orange tabby plays a crucial role (also in the rain) to bring the angst-ridden Audrey Hepburn to the arms of budding-writer-cat-sympathizer George Peppard. Yes, cats swing to the slow tune of Moonriver.

Would you believe songs by Cat Stevens are still extremely disliked by erudite and musical cats? They hiss at Morning Has Broken, yowls greet Wild World, tuffs of fur are tossed against the composer of Father and Son. Kittens and old cats have on record the sin of the erstwhile-adored Cat Stevens, talented singer turned idiotic Islamic convert, who with great cacophony supported the crazy Ayatollah Khomeini's fatwa against prolific writer Salman Rushdie. For writing The Satanic Verses, Rushdie had been sentenced to death by whatever means in the hands of any Muslim who succeeds in making Rushdie shake hands with his creator, asap.

Of course, they dote on the late James Herriot series of books about his growth and fame as a veterinarian who loved, saved and took care of big farm animals and the smaller pets like dogs and -- ahem! -- cute kittens. The title of four of Herriot's books were the first stanza of Hymns For Little Children, an 1848 poem by Cecil F. Alexander: All Things Bright and Beautiful, All Creatures Great and Small, All Things Wise and Wonderful, The Lord God Made Them All.

Cats read for leisure, not for career: they'd rather take catnaps, sniff catnips, and stay cute all their life. After all, that's what pets are for.

Miriam

Galit sa mundo?

In the late 1980s up to June 15, 1991, there were about five bookstalls at the Dau Supermart, which was known among shoppers from Manila for its PX goods. The supermart still stands; it was rebuilt after heavy ashes from the Mt. Pinatubo eruption crumpled the structure, but the bookstores did not return, their existence swept out with the fine ashes from Pinatubo. One of them, mine, holds a memory of Miriam, through his young son, who will remain young forever.

Before the volcano went ballistic, Miriam was a suki of Dau, going there about every weekend. She even had her hair cut in a small saloon owned by Linda. Back then, hair was still an option with me, so I also went to Linda, who extolled the virtue of her famous client, how Miriam went about just with her husband, her son and the yaya, and no bodyguards! While Miriam was having her hair trimmed and groomed, her son, who was about 10 years old then, strolled around the corridors with his yaya.

I can recall the last time Miriam's youngest son went to my bookstall, a prototype of Book Sale, which sold used and new pocketbooks, magazines, and comics. The comics were placed in a box, and the boy rummaged there. "O ano, gusto mo iyan?" the yaya asked the boy, who had chosen just one. "Pumili ka pa," she said. This woman apparently loved her young ward, who I noticed was painfully shy.


The boy approached my desk and asked, "Magkano po?" In my store, books and comics are not moneymakers like the magazines, so I tended to sell such slow stuff at cost. "P10 na lang," I said. "P8?" he offered. I liked the boy, unspoiled by the power, popularity and wealth of his mother, and I was tempted to sell the comics at a loss, but at P10 it was a bargain. "Mura na iyan," I told him, expecting concurrence. To my surprise the boy turned his back and returned the comics to the box. Then he went to his yaya, who was standing beside my desk, and looked up at her. "Ba't di mo pa bilhin?" she asked the boy. "Di ba gusto mo yun?" He just shook his head and walked out, the yaya following him, shaking her head.

***

In 2003 I was assistant editor at People's Tonight, having left Pampanga and the book business after Pinatubo restructured my life. On November 20 a report reached my desk: Miriam's son, 22, had shot himself in the head that afternoon. I asked the reporter to get more details. The boy had been under a lot of pressure, the reporter told me later, he was reportedly depressed about not being admitted at the UP College of Law after failing in Constitutional Law, a subject on which his mother is renowned as an expert.

At her son's funeral mass three days later, Miriam recounted: "[He] graduated Bachelor of Arts in Political Science, and decided to go into Law. He passed the written admission tests for both UP and Ateneo. Ominously, the faculty panel in UP that conducted what should have been routine interview cut him to the quick. Questions like: 'What is your reaction to the charge that your mother is insane?' and 'How much does your father bet in cockfights.?' He answered politely that it is in the nature of Philippine Politics today to deliberately inflict falsehood; and that he never knew how much his father bet, becasue as a stress- reducing hobby, it is not considered important enough for discussion in our family."

In an interview with media people during the wake, Miriam would recall the happy days with his son. He and I would hold hands, even in public, she said. "He was never embarrassed. People at the market or the mall envied us. We were like a love team, they teased us, because I would hug and kiss him in front of many people."

Reading the news reports, my mind reached back to Dau. Was the dead son the young boy in my store 13 years ago? I did some mental calculation, and the years seemed to add up to the young man's age when he committed suicide. It could not have been his brother Archie, who was 10 years older.

At the time of the tragedy, Miriam had been out of the limelight for some years, having left politics after being discredited for her staunch support of President Estrada during his impeachment trial. She, along with Enrile, Tito Sotto and other Erap allies, kept her silence after People Power II erupted in 2001. Later that year her term as Senator ended. She ran for reelection and lost. She spent the last two and a half years with her family.

In 2004 she decided to run for senator again, setting aside her promise to her deceased son not to enter politics again. Her son, she explained, did not like politics because it made thingd difficult and it changed her. "He believed people should see the real me, my natural personality -- my Ilongga side which is malambing."

Miriam won. In late 2006, according to Wikipedia, a group of young lawyers nominated her for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court. But she reportedly gave way to the senior associate justice, saying that she was too young for the post. In 2010 she was reelected, and now she is in the heat of another impeachment trial. When I saw her on TV a few days ago, haranguing the prosecutors, even quarreling with one of the lawyers, I wondered if the inner burden of a dead child in her heart weighed so heavily that she would let her temper erupt so violently, like the volcano that transformed me from a bookseller to a newsman.

***

Note: I've extracted some information from the following article, which I reprint in full so readers will get a fuller idea of what Miriam had gone through:

Ex-senator Miriam Santiago: 
I'm done with politics

Posted:0:14 AM (Manila Time) | Nov. 23, 2003
By Tina Santos and Juliet L. Javellana
Inquirer News Service

"I AM removing myself from politics to fulfill my promise to him."

Former senator Miriam Defensor-Santiago told reporters Friday night that this was the wish of her son Alexander Robert.

Speaking at "AR's" wake at the Christ the King chapel in Greenmeadows subdivision, Quezon City, Santiago said her "baby" had consistently objected to her political career because it gave people "the impression that I'm bad, since I'm always indulging my sense of humor."

At around 8 p.m. on Thursday, AR, who turned 22 on Oct. 2, was found with a gunshot wound in the head inside his room at the family's new home in the posh La Vista subdivision in Quezon City.

Family and friends have flocked to the wake since Friday. And though not exactly AR's favorite people, politicians have come, too, among the first being President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and Quezon City Mayor Feliciano Belmonte.

AR didn't like the way politics made things "difficult" and constantly "changed" her, Santiago said. "He believed people should see the real me, my natural personality -- my Ilongga side which is malambing (affectionate)."

The last two and a half years that she'd been out of the public eye -- after her Senate term ended in 2001 and she lost a reelection bid -- brought her closer to her family, especially AR, Santiago said, and for this she was "very grateful."

It has also made it easier for her to accept AR's suicide, she said.

AR is the younger of the ex-senator's two sons by husband Narciso Santiago Jr., former interior undersecretary.

Archie, who is older than AR by 10 years, has been devastated by the incident, according to their mother. "They were very close," she said.

At the wake, Santiago also talked with AR's classmates at the Ateneo de Manila University, where he was a law freshman, describing him as "a perfect son any mother would wish to have."

AR was an "illimitable source of comfort" especially when she underwent "the usual grind of black propaganda and name-calling," she said. "If I were asked to manufacture a child according to my specifications, the result would have been AR. We were really joined at the hip."

'Hot Babe'

She had only happy times with AR, she said, up till the end: "Every night when he came home from school, he would enter my room, and give me a snappy greeting like, 'Yo, woman!' or 'How's my hot babe?' We would talk about his day in school, his classmates ... he would kiss and hug me, he was so malambing."

Even in public, she said, they would hold hands. "He was never embarrassed. People at the market or the mall envied us. We were like a love team, they teased us, because I would hug and kiss him in front of many people."

Like any young man, AR dated, his mother recalled. He once consulted her about making a choice between a girl who lived nearby and another whom he had to make a long detour to fetch.

"I told him it depends, if her value exceeds the amount of gasoline," she laughed.

Santiago was sure he had placed her "above everything else." He would drop everything when she needed company, even to go shopping, Miriam said.

Best of all, she said, they talked. "Oh, how he loved discussion. So he was a child after my own heart. Not everyone wants to discuss philosophy, or Marx versus Hagel ... but he enjoyed that kind of thing. My husband would sometimes complain at the dinner table, saying, 'Go ahead, just talk between the two of you since you ... don't care whether other people understand you or not."'

Among her last discussions with AR, Santiago said, was about turning over her law firm to him when she retired.

Goodbye, mom

The grief that the feisty lawyer and former public official almost succeeded in hiding surfaced when she recounted AR's last few days and their last encounter.

The night before her son took his own life, she recalled, he came into her room looking as if he wanted to say something.

"He did not say it, but I could see it in his eyes," she said. "I saw that he was very tired and I tried to raise his spirits. Instead of kissing me goodnight, he asked me to sit up. I did, and he gave me a very, very tight hug and then said, 'Goodbye mom.' I let that slip ... and that's the last I saw of him."

The following morning, there wasn't the usual sign on his door asking her to wake him up. "He would stick it up on his door with a piece of gum," she recalled, unable to resist a chuckle. And then in the afternoon, at 4 o'clock apparently, he got his father's gun and shot himself in the head."

Because workers had been drilling iron bars onto her windows, she said, the maids did not hear the gunshot. "My husband and I came home after five. We assumed our son was in school and the maids did not tell us (that he never left the house). At 7 p.m., the maids went to call him to dinner. That's when they found him."

Hope never dies

When her husband insisted that she "stay away," Santiago said, she knew it was bad. So she forced herself through AR's door. "He was lying face down in a pool of his own blood and his face was gray. I knew my son was dead, but still I hoped ... hope never dies in a mother's breast."

Archie carried his brother while their father took the wheel and sped off to the East Avenue Medical Center. Santiago was left at home. When her husband called later, he instructed her to "fortify" herself.

In denial

She recounted: "I asked, 'Is AR dead?' He said, 'We'll continue to try to revive him.' But I knew it was more of a wish. The whole night I couldn't cry at all. I was in denial, I couldn't accept that he was dead. In the morning, that was when I started to cry." When she finally saw AR inside a coffin on Friday morning, she broke down altogether.

Santiago was certain that AR killed himself because he had received a failing mark in constitutional law. "He took it hard because of me," she said, eyes misting over. She is an acknowledged expert on the subject.

But the young man's anxiety could also have built up from the time that he was denied admission to the University of the Philippines College of Law prior to his enrollment in Ateneo, his mother said.

AR had passed the UP entrance test but failed the oral exam, during which Santiago said her son was asked "cruel" questions.

"He was asked what he thought about the charge of her mother's insanity and how much his father bet on cockfights," she said, shaking her head. "Apparently they (panel interviewers) were no fans of mine."

AR lost confidence in himself and the system as a result, Santiago said. "He had that in his heart, like a big heavy rock."

In his first semester at Ateneo, AR failed the subject of persons and family relations. Santiago said they protested this, but "did not even get the courtesy of a reply." Soon after, he told her he was worried about his grade in constitutional law. "He was afraid that if he had two flunking grades, he might be kicked out. Dean (Joaquin) Bernas (said that) was not the case. But for a person who had been on the dean's list and passed two written exams, I think AR found it unacceptable to flunk twice in a row."

Layers of humiliation

She learned later from AR's classmates that the grades were released in the afternoon of that day she last saw him. They also told her that among those who failed, he took it the hardest. "It was actually layer upon layer of frustration and humiliation that reached an inevitable peak," she said of her son's extreme reaction.

The Santiagos also have adopted twin daughters, Megan and Molly. Without AR, whom she had also called "Toto" or "Hunk," the ex-senator said, the family will never be the same, and the coming holidays "would definitely be a lot different."

She did not feel guilty about AR's suicide, Santiago said. "But for a moment, I had a very strong sense of self-hate. I have an accomplished student record, and maybe my children (thought) they were expected to match this -- if not by me, then by society. Sometimes I also look at my professional career as a curse on my children."

Right now, she said, she was thankful to God for having brought her "so much love" through AR: "There will be a lot of pain because it will take maybe 10, 20 years before I see my son again. But at his level of existence, there is a certain philosophical view that he will not suffer even if we are separated because at that level, time moves at a different pace and his expectation will be that I will be there in a minute, I'm just turning the corner."

Until then, she will take it slow. "I used to have fire in my belly," she sighed. "But now I am numb."

Angeles HD

Angeles City, October 1964

The Moving Finger writes; and, having writ,
Moves on: nor all thy Piety nor Wit
Shall lure it back to cancel half a Line,
Nor all thy Tears wash out a Word of it.

--   The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyam, translated by Edward Fitzgerald, 1859 

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I saw this photo posted by Taga Angeles Ku on Facebook, and memories beyond the scope of this two-dimensional digital image rushed in. 


Back in the '60s, the Esso gas station sign was one of the first things I saw from my window in my waking hours. My room is on the second floor of a house just about across that gas station. Early at night I heard the occasional jeeps passing by; there were not many then, so the calesas, pulled by skinny horses, were not obstructions at all. Even in the mornings and afternoons of those quiet years, traffic was always light and, as can be seen in the picture, the view was not obscured by pollution.

At ground level of the house we rented was the junk shop my father managed. I was in grade school then, taking up English courses from 7 a.m. to 12 noon, and a Chinese course from 1-5 p.m. I made good grades, but, thinking about that now, I realize I was kind of dumb then. For example, I was not aware that my family lacked in many aspects, such as a house of our own, not exposed to the hustles of Henson Street. Maybe it's because Grade School leveled our status -- poor and lower middle-class kids mixed with rich kids whose family owned a hotel near Crossing, a big grocery store downtown, or a drug store just beyond that Esso sign.

So up and down the junk shop my family thrived. On weekends I was asked to stay at the shop: that meant help my father while he weighed the corrugated boards, sheets of folded tins, rusty iron metals and nuts and bolts, and stacks of old newspapers. In mid-afternoon, as the sun highlighted the road outside the store, I would sift through the bundle of newspapers, separating all the cartoon pages, especially from the Stars & Stripes. Sometimes I got lucky and found a portion of a Peanuts book or -- heaven on Earth! -- an entire comic book, or a letter envelope with a stamp still stuck on it. At night I would pore through my finds, not knowing that the black-and-white strips, the Batman adventures, and my growing stamp collection were influences that would stick for life.

I don't remember the year we moved to Henson St., but the junk shop with second-floor living space was certainly many notch above the rectangular one-room tenement we had left behind in an alley leading to the Apo Church. That church is located in Lourdes Sur East, where, my mother told me, I was born around noon of a Wednesday in 1955. "Yes," my grandmother would add later on, "there was an eclipse, the sky turned dark in the middle of the afternoon, the dogs howled, and all the chickens, after cackling their protest, went to sleep."

Google spat out the only significant event that occurred the day I was born: Ngo Din Diem declared South Vietnam a republic and became its first president. He would be assassinated in early 1963. A few days later, 1963 Nov. 22, President John F. Kennedy would be assassinated too. I remember my mother waking me very early on the morning of November 23 -- it's still dark outside -- and showing me the front page of a special edition of the Manila Times. The front-page photo showed a dotted line starting from a top window of a building, leading to a spot in a car below -- the trajectory of the bullet that blew open a side of Kennedy's head. "The president of America was killed," my mother said. "Uh-huh," I said, my mind more on the unusual fact that someone in our house had bought a new newspaper, not a used one to be priced by weight. Strange day. The smell of fresh ink on clean paper would stay with me forevermore, when I buy a new book, when I add a new Batman comics to my collection, when I get fresh bills from the bank. A month and a year later after the Kennedy assassination, the picture above of Henson Street would be taken.

We slept early at night on Henson Street, unlike those crazy chickens in Lourdes Sur East. I remember the fading roar of cars leaving the city, the clop-clops of the hooves of a horse pulling its load to home and a well-deserved rest. I see through my window the high structure across the street and I wonder what kind of people live in such a place, so big and not made of wood. Sometimes I hear a jukebox somewhere, making the night soft with guitar music: Faithful Love, I Miss You So, Sleepwalk. The titles of those songs I would learn when I grew up. Through the years, in High School, in College, I would try to perform the tunes on a succession of guitars bought and broken, with no success. And one song by the Beatles remains magical in my memory because it was played one night when no other sounds obtruded: Ask Me Why. Haunting.

And so they remain, the old songs, the Peanuts strips on half-a-book without cover, Henry, Nancy, Dagwood, Dick Tracy, Casper, Wendy, Richie Rich. The years would pile new memories on top of old, and although the structures of lives and buildings have been so drastically altered now, just an old picture in Facebook can bring the past to life. That version of the past will live, as long as the old cells in my faltering mind sustain the existence of my Angeles, in high definition.

Brown Sugar

Evolution of the Philippine Flag

EIGHTEEN YEARS AGO the world was younger and so was I. I was more innocent, less experienced; so was the world.

Angeles City, too, where I walked on one of her unpaved streets, under a sheet of rain, tiny fingerlings probing me for spots left unwet.

I laughed. I was sopping wet but I laughed with my newfound freedom to get wet with impunity. Drops and drops of waterpins dripped from my hair; there were a lot of drops because I had more hair then.

Suddenly a runt of a jeep – there were very few full-length Saraos then – splashed by, carrying a bunch of palengkera in its belly.

One of them cried out to me: “Oy, boy! (I was that young. At least I looked that young.) Queni, sake na ca; bayaran que’ng pamasahi mu.” She was a stout motherly woman, her heart as stout and soft as she.

The jeep waddled to a stop, but with a friendly wave I let it go, the woman still protesting, “Boooyyy…”

It was fun while it lasted. Of course I paid for it the next day with a raging fever. A few weeks later the big flood came and washed away the bridge near Tibagin. A few months later bombs exploded and Marcos declared martial law.

But it would take more than exploding bombs and martial law, in fact it would take more than a few years, before I realized that stouthearted fishwives – especially those on their way to Pampang Market to haggle and fight over a few centavo difference in their galunggong – do not instinctively succor a boy in the rain.

But in 1972, 18 years ago, there were still a lot of them.

At that time, old-age pension was unheard of because in the provinces old people were cared for. Orphanages were not built because no child was ever without a home. Mental hospitals were few because Filipino life did not provoke nervous breakdowns.

And poverty was not a shame then because no Filipino would see his brother starve. Besides:
EDJOP was still alive.
Eman still wrote his poems.
Cory visited Ninoy in his cell.

And through all my doubts, I admired people I would later hate.

But that was a long time ago, when beggars were not syndicated, when coup d’etat was only an exotic French phrase, when we had to look up a dictionary to know what pedophile meant.

That was when Snoopy ruled the Earth. Garfield did not exist, Calvin and Hobbes still a universe away. The seed of Pugad Baboy was not even planted yet.

Those were salad days even if Nixon was president of the United States, Marcos the dictator of the Philippines; even if we didn't care as much about the US bases and we didn’t ask why we sent our soldiers to fight in Vietnam. We coasted along.

So it was almost too late when we realized that the old-age pension was missing because they closed down the Veteran’s Bank, that orphanages were not filled because the children were sold to foreigners. And the reason why mental hospitals were still few was that most of those who should have been committed there were occupying Cabinet positions instead.

We became sophisticated. We learned to bury some of our dead under film centers. For a papal visit, we whitewashed poverty out of existence by erecting walls around the squatters.

Ninoy fasted and almost starved to death, in a country so richly endowed by nature that it was almost impossible to go hungry.

What happened? There was a time when Rafael Zulueta da Costa, a poet as fine as this country could produce, compared the Filipino to the molave – brown, sturdy and resilient.

Or perhaps my friends Ody, Abner and Joven will agree if I use another definition -- that the Filipino is Brown Sugar: coarse, unrefined, undiluted by foreign and false flavors, yet offering the same sweetness; more natural, therefore more honest.

And brown. As brown as the skin of the fat, gentle fishwife who with instincts as old as the islands, gives sanctuary to any boy running from the rain.

But the boy, sometimes he is not as young as he looks; the rain is not always wet, not when it is made of lead.

***

I’ve got brown sugar in my veins. My veins are as taut as the strings of a guitar strumming the song of a struggle far more destructive than the RAM-SFP coup stuff, much more insidious than the AFP vs NPA war. I am fighting for the Filipino mind.


You see, out there in the streets walks a treacherous woman with more money than brain, more pesos than sense, who would have us believe that white sugar is infinitely better than brown sugar.

She hires hacks with saccharine and nutrasweet in their veins, with molasses as their brains, who churn out tripes in their constant attempt to convince us of the superiority of their pale patrons and the inferiority of our race.


Your culture, they hint, is damaged.

Compare: you have no temple, no Angkor Wat, no grand mausoleum like the Taj Mahal, no Great Wall, no Hanging Garden, not even a Stonehenge, or Easter Island heads. Even poor Peru has Machu Picchu, but you, the only pyramids you have are the ones Johnny Midnight sells.

The Rice Terraces – What of it? It’s only a food-oriented monument to the first brown sugars who molded and cultivated it.

Come to think of it, even the names of your tribes are food oriented. Tagalog, Cebuano, Pampango, Ilongo, Bicolano, Ilocano – translated, don’t they all mean the same thing? A body of people who lives near a body of water, where they pluck the fishes for their food, which make their hair kinky and their noses flat.

Why, even your first freedom fighter was named after a big fish. He made chop-chop out of that grand culture bearer, Magellan, in Mactan.

Wasdimater with you little brown brothers, don’t you like culture? Don’t you like the Aspirin Age?

Ish depengs, I say.

***

Eighteen years later, the big flood returned and the body of water turned bigger than the body of people living near its edge and washed them away.

On that Saturday morning, while houses in Dolores, Abacan and Sapangbato disappeared, my jeep was stuck in the middle of a bridge in Mabiga.

Blankets of rain poured on me, but there were fewer drops that dripped from my hair.

Cultured men in their cultured cars beep-beeped and whizzed by, followed by full-length Saraos – there’s a lot of them now. One even tried to scrape the backside of my runt of a jeep. Then a garbage truck rumbled behind, and the driver, a thin man with a straw hat, jumped down and we pushed the runt to the shoulder of the road.

When we couldn’t figure out what was wrong, he returned to his truck and drove off – he still had garbage to collect, even in that rain – but not before dropping off one of his men to stay with me.

“He’s our mechanic,” the driver said. The man, shirtless, wet and shivering, looked under the hood.

“I can’t fix this,” he said. “I’ll get my son.”

“Where’s your son?”

“In San Joaquin.”

Thirty minutes later, the man, his son and me – three wet miserable creatures -- worked under the hood until the faithless runt throbbed to life again.

I paid the son for fixing the jeep. For getting out of the warm comfort of his house and coming into the rain to help his shivering father and me, he was not paid. Filipino culture has not yet decreed a price for that sort of thing.

The father did not ask and I didn’t offer any payment. I am much older and more experienced now to know that to do so would be an offense. The truck driver was his compadre.

“Salamat,” I said. It was the only acceptable mode of payment.

Then the truck rumbled into view from the opposite direction, its belly already full of the cultured garbage of cultured people. The driver, his straw hat dripping, waved me away with a smile as his shirtless compadre hopped into the truck.

“Salamat, salamat…”

Later on, I figured out that the truck driver, the father and the son, and that fat woman 18 years ago, were the same products of this unfortunate land -- uneducated but gentle, less cultured but lacking the great unkindness of sophisticated races.

I’ll stay with them, maybe only for a short time -- because my life is short. I’ll fight the good fight with them, as long as the treacherous woman leads the good life by throwing brown sugar down the river.

***

This first appeared in The Angeles Sun in September 1990, then in Midweek magazine in November 1991. Maybe it's not surprising that this article has maintained its relevance after more than 20 years.