DumasGoethe redux

Last Thursday, Anvil Publishing’s head honcho Karina Bolasco made a special overnight trip to Dumaguete, laden with fresh copies of the fifth novel, The Builder, by National Artist for Literature Edith L. Tiempo. The book was launched at "Mom" Edith’s Montemar spread in Sibulan, half-an-hour’s drive from the capital city of Negros Oriental.

The elegant Tiempo abode nestles on a hill, with its sprawling sala, front balconies and verdant garden offering a sweeping vista of Tañon Strait and the islands of Cebu, Sumilon and Siquijor across. On clear days you can include Bohol, where STARman Juaniyo Arcellana made a side trip a fortnight ago before escorting his young family to Siaton, south of Dumaguete, for their annual summer vacation. But that’s getting far ahead, or is it far back, of our multi-temporal account.

At the launch, attended by panelists and fellows in the 42nd edition of the National Writers Workshop, poet Danny M. Reyes served brilliantly as the evening’s emcee, while his fellow third-week panelists Susan Lara and Marjorie Evasco, as well as balik-fellow from last summer, fictionist Peter Mayshle, read excerpts from the novel. Dame Edith obliged her guests, which included Instituto Cervantes officials preparing a concert in town, with an Ilocano love song. I can imagine how panelist Butch Macansantos, who had come all the way from Baguio with his precocious daughter Monica, had quietly sang along (or at least garrulously in his mind).

Fortuitously, as I write this the morning after that launch cum traditional party commemorating Mom’s and the late "Dad" Ed Tiempo’s wedding anniversary (which meant a sumptuous spread highlighted by Negros’ distinctive lechon), I receive a copy of Mom’s latest title. I am sufficiently intrigued by its promise of being a whodunit. Mom writing a detective novel? Well, why not? (If Butch Macan can sing in silence, what can’t be possible?)

Here’s the back-cover blurb, which should similarly interest everyone:

"As he ends his Physics class one morning, Professor Felix Acuña is jolted into the daylight violence across the street in the university town of Dumaguete. But dare he put his own life to a standstill when he must build a house while awaiting the birth of his firstborn? While he prods his students to speed up their work, he must also take on responsibility for the school administrator’s middling son. Now he must run after an enigmatic outlaw and two purloined documents in forging a compelling punishment to an unsettling domestic crime.

"Readers will welcome this gripping novel by Edith L. Tiempo, her most recent after being named National Artist for Literature. The Builder assembles a cast of indomitable characters, replete with wit, cleverness, and most amazingly, with sudden unexpected depths. Here is a work which abounds with the clear surprises of inversion and moral ambiguity, where the consummate artist meditates on the human leaning for rootedness – as in life’s rooms, the seekers come and go, ripening into wisdom and discovering that time is the one firmament building the house of convictions and faith, slaking our thirst for truth."

Hmmm. Can’t wait to pore through this suspense thriller.

Anyway, the day after that launch marked the last sessions of this summer’s workshop, which had 12 writing fellows. For poetry, these were Vincent Esquejo Coscolluela, Mark Anthony Reyes Cayanan, Joseph Rosmon Tuazon, Ken Ishikawa, Nicolo Rocamor Vitug, Jonathan Davila and 14-year-old high schooler Jasmine Nikki Paredes of Cebu City. For fiction, there were Maria Francezca Theresa Kwe, Carljoe Javier, Anna Felicia Sanchez, Rolando Salvaña and Louella Fortez.

The first week’s visiting panelists were Sir Charlson Ong, fresh from paneling in the UP Baguio writers’ workshop, and Davao-based writer Macario Tiu. They assisted Mom Edith when the workshop started on May 5, along with co-administrators Atty. Ernesto Superal Yee, Roberto Flores-Villasis and Cesar Ruiz Aquino, the local triumvirate of accomplished authors who together rated the submitted manuscripts and recommended the successful applicants. All three are currently at work on their first novels. (Laurels to the swiftest!)

Poet and literature professor Anthony Tan of MSU-Iligan Institute of Technology, UP-Tacloban professor Dave Genotiva, and this writer came for the middle week, and were joined in the panel by Dr. Sawi Aquino.

The manuscripts we took up generally exhibited a high level of energy and ideas, capable articulation, and an admirable cognizance of the demands of fiction and poetry. Many of the pieces we took up generated spirited discussion, not so much on the weaknesses in craftsmanship, but rather on the intriguing ideas and themes, emblematic and symbolic concepts or conceits conveyed.

As has been my wont for all the years I’ve participated in these rites of passage for young writers in fabled DumasGoethe, I take down copious notes myself, quotes from the speakers, especially from my co-panelists and Mom. I look forward to a time further into the millennium when I can spread out all the collected folders of workshop manuscripts before me, and go over all the pages once again where I had scribbled nuggets of wisdom and felicities of expression or recall.

From Tony Tan (circa 2003): "One needs to know when it becomes necessary to clothe the familiar in terms of the unfamiliar."

From Dave Genotiva: "I remember ‘Doc’ Tiempo saying that the title of a literary work is like the clasp in a necklace."

From Edith: "Concretize it!" "The attitude here is more important than what is being said. What is essential is the attitude stamped on by the poet." "There is a yoking together of disparities." "You can’t put a finger exactly on the process of ambiguity; it only becomes clearer with each equation." "Ambiguity when it is prevalent enhances the poem, but it must never be random." "Lines in a poem must be lean but full of substance, as against the fat, flabby line, or the starved line."

Among the stories we took up was a hilarious tale, titled "Bombs Away," by Rol Salvaña of Pagadian City, who had won a Palanca for its Cebuano version. He had also initially submitted it as a screenplay, which didn’t win but caught the attention of master scenarist Jose Javier Reyes. The story is something like a send-up of Ishmael Bernal’s "Himala," parlaying inventive incidents, like the painting of a Sto. Niño on a wall, which is then believed to have turned miraculous, into a satire on faith, fanaticism, and other small-town fancies. The Blessed Mother is even said to appear in fishballs!

The panelists agreed that we need more humorous stories like this, if only to help mine, with good cheer and acute reassessment, the wealth of "native" material, or "local color," that we will never run out of. Sir Sawi recalled examples of black humor in Western fiction, in particular a character by John Cooper Powys who "dreams of pissing into the Holy Grail."

For her part, Edith remembered how, as a high school girl visiting with a family once, she was told to tie something around a house post to ward off spirits in the room she was assigned. And how she wound up using her host’s necktie, much to his chagrin the next day over its apparent loss. Edith went on to recall how she had once urged Eileen Tabios’ mother, who was writing a thesis on local color, to rely much on the tales of weirdness we are steeped in during our youth. She then stressed how "the indigenous can sometimes be so unbelievable that it becomes humorous."

Nikki, the 14-year-old writing fellow, had submitted poetry that validated her precocity: "… pictures before me keep on moving/ Constantly changing/ Without my consent." (from "Star-Shaped Sunlight")

Another 14-year-old often joined us in the session room, as a sit-in observer/listener. A discovery and protégé of Sir Sawi, she had started writing short stories at the age of 10, and had now completed her seventh book-length tale of myth and fantasy. Stacy Alcantara had even desktop-published her latest novella all by herself, inclusive of a cover designed by her, for the ersatz book "A Thousand Miles to Adventure."

When I spoke with her, she let on that her influences included C.S. Lewis, Tamora Pierce and Gail Carson Levine. An incoming junior in high school at Silliman, Stacy began to write her fabular and mythic stories when she was but in Grade 5. Here’s the opening part of her Prologue to "… Adventures":

"It was a long, long time ago.

"The clear blue waters sparkled in the light of the fiery red gem that was the sun and the sweet, cool amihan breeze swept past the lush emerald green forest. The waves crashed on the rigid rocks protruding from the fine sandy shore, and the endless horizon stretched out until the ends of the earth.

"The myriad birds of every shape, color and size that you could imagine ruled the sky, while the peerless buwaya, a lizard-like creature marked with an irregular pattern of colorful patches and a coffin-like saddle on its back, ruled the unfathomable waters."

Very clearly, the young Stacy has learned to be copious with her imagery, at the very least. And no doubt she will join the workshop too in a formal capacity, all too soon, perhaps next summer.

Our Dumaguete summer of 2003 we will also remember for our first foray, on our first night, into the first girlie bar in the city, Lipstick, found right on the highway past the airport. How disappointing, however, we agreed with the fellows, that the bikinied country lasses on stage simply danced around or caressed the metal pole, and never took off anything. Of course we didn’t let on regarding this failure when we engaged some absent friends, like Juaniyo, in SMS conversation while we drank our whisky and beer. ("Wish you were here.")

Then there was that offensive text I espied on a movie poster before Ever theater on main street, claiming that the movie it was screening, Xerex, was the "full version, with no cuts." Offensive because, at the very least, it was false advertising. I was later to learn, however, upon reporting back to main base (the MTRCB office), that indeed some deletions had to be made from the movie. So was it a case of the usual "provincial" insertions courtesy of the producer? We should find out soon enough.

One particular sense of closure was definite: The Lakers’ tumble from its championship reign, courtesy of my favorite Spurs, so that I had to miss the first part of the morning session on that fateful Friday, when upon waking I opted to stay on at my capacious bamboo-and-marble-floored room at South Sea Resort to watch the climactic Game 6.

Two days previous, we had held the session at Bobby Flores-Villasis’ aunt’s place at Dauin. The Yanzon family which ran the Ceres bus line lent us their private resort with a fine swimming pool and a wide beach as attractions, plus a pavilion with cable TV that gave us the dramatic moments of Game 5, with Sorry Horry missing what could have been a game-winning triple.

These are among the memories we’ll savor (along with the budbod kabog) of the summer treat that was, in our adopted hometown of DumasGoethe – plus the words, words, words of infinite leisure and pleasure.