The travel preliminaries included an interview with a friendly consular official who (for a welcome change, considering that most consular officers we’ve met seem to want to do everything they can to keep you away from their country) wanted to know what my interests were and where I wanted to go. That, needless to say, was enormous fun, a dream coming true; again I’ll tell you what I asked for when I get there and when I get it.
But inevitably, The Question came up, the one that always provokes a puzzled stare when answered: "Any dietary preferences or restrictions?" I hesitated for a second, thinking that it might be some trick question my benefactor was obliged to ask, in case my response provided them with good reason to revoke their generosity. But one has to be scrupulously honest in these matters, lest the sky fall – or, worse, lest you fall out of the sky on your way to Shangri-La – and so I swallowed the lump in my throat and admitted: "Cheese. I hate cheese."
"Cheese!" cried my fair-haired interrogator, who probably grew up on cheese and bratwurst the way I did on guava jelly and galunggong. But he dutifully noted my answer down, relieved when I hastened to explain that it wasn’t total lactose intolerance they were dealing with, just queso-phobia, or whatever this malady’s called.
I’m not the only one I know who hates cheese. I had a friend named Oca who not only eschewed cheese but also adored Ma Mon Luk the way I did, leading me to theorize that there must be some connection between one and the other, namely the fact that Chinese cuisine (I know, associating that noble phrase with Ma Mon Luk might be equivalent to some of you to calling my VW Beetle a limousine, but what the heck, I’d kill for that ammoniac mami) seems to ignore milk and milk products altogether. There’s a dissertation out there just waiting to be written that’ll prove me right.
But theory aside, my cheese intolerance stems from a form of psychological incapacity, a maiming-for-life that probably began with exposure in early childhood to a deep and traumatizing whiff of the vile stuff, one Christmastime or other. Ya ya ya, there are all kinds of cheeses, some less olfactorily offensive than others, but that’s like saying that some tumors are benign – you still wouldn’t want one, would you?
As you can imagine, this quirk of mine has led to all manner of complications. At restaurants, whenever I order pasta, I have to remind the waiter – as loudly and as often as I can, above all the cell phone ring tunes and the clink of cutlery and the birdlike chatter about last week’s golf game or clearance sale – to keep my instructions firmly in mind: "No cheese, please!" It works about half the time – leading, when it doesn’t, to another round of remonstrations and reminders, and that inevitable stare of wonder and pity from the people nearby who must see me as some odd animal afflicted with some exotic ailment.
Everybody else in the house loves cheese; Demi was practically raised on daily doses of cheddar (but then she hates jackfruit, an aversion I find mighty strange). And again, I don’t despise everything dairy; I devoured Star Margarine (no relation to this newspaper) by the spoonful, and actually learned to eat butter at around the age of 11, when I finally convinced myself that it wasn’t some insidious variety of cheese masquerading as a kindly cousin. So it’s really just cheese – or rather, it’s really just me (and maybe my friend Oca).
The supreme irony had to be when I became a resident of Milwaukee, Wisconsin for a few years. You know, Milwaukee? It’s that town whose cars sport stickers saying "We Love Cows" and whose football fans proudly call themselves "cheeseheads" (and dress accordingly, mounting Styrofoam slices of "cheese" on their heads to proclaim their allegiance). At one state fair I visited, the marvel of choice was "The World’s Largest Block of Cheese," displayed on the back of a huge truck for all to see and salivate over – except yours truly, who felt like Superman being offered a year’s supply of kryptonite.
In graduate school in America, where wine and cheese parties were de rigueur for any self-respecting Updike wannabe, I learned to home in on the wine, and turned into a loquacious lush in no time. I took my nachos pure and dry, and, when I couldn’t avoid pizza, scraped all the yellow goo off, leaving me with a perfect and perfectly vacant crust.
Today my Fear Factor nightmares consist of being buried alive in an avalanche of shredded Parmesan, or being entombed in a pyramid of Edam. To avoid embarrassing myself, not to mention my hosts, I take pains to decline invitations to social events and commitments that could lead to a deadly encounter with cheese, especially the kind of situation you can’t run away from, like a formal dinner with a fancy French menu printed on a card as thick as your plate. (Did I say that I also hate artichokes and broccoli? I do love adobong kangkong, but they never seem to serve it with ambassadors around. And did I say that I love airplane food and hospital food? But that’s another story.)
Meanwhile, I’m brushing up on the language of this place I’m headed for – if only to be able to say, with a suitably clipped accent, "No cheese, please!"
MC’s message was accompanied by an article he had downloaded from the online version of a magazine called The Weekly Standard, written by a critic named Stephen Schwartz, and titled "Bad Poet, Bad Man." According to Schwartz, "… The truth does need to be said: Pablo Neruda was a bad writer and a bad man. His main public is located not in the Spanish-speaking nations but in the Anglo-European countries, and his reputation derives almost entirely from the iconic place he once occupied in politics – which is to say, he’s ‘the greatest poet of the twentieth century’ because he was a Stalinist at exactly the right moment, and not because of his poetry, which is doggerel…. The admirers of Neruda are tourists in their approach to Hispanic literature, like people who attend a flamenco dance performance and think they have seen Spain – but with a politically correct edge."
MC wanted to know if I agreed with this contrary assessment of Neruda – and, in effect, with the judging of writers by their personal character. MC was disturbed by Neruda’s Stalinism, reputedly deplored by Federico Garcia Lorca as being "closer to blood than to ink."
I told MC that while there was no easy answer to his question, I was inclined to take Neruda for the fabulous poet that I thought he was, and never mind that I don’t know Spanish poetry as well as Mr. Schwartz claims to. Neruda had once written that "poetry should get its hands dirty" and that’s my kind of art – rooted and robust.
As for his ideology, well, perhaps we should ask: what has survived, the poetry or the politics? Do you know, or care to know, how Shakespeare felt about the Elizabethan state? (It’s there, in the work, if you look really hard – but do you want to?) Should we read the book, or the person behind the book? Myself, I read the book more than the man; God will probably read both – the person more than the poetry, but I don’t have that capacity. If I can’t lead a good life, try as I might, I can at least attempt a good book, which might prove my salvation.
The first of them is Sylvia Mendez Ventura, retired professor of English and my tutor in Shakespeare – and, hands-down, the most stylish profesora who ever walked the corridors of UP’s Faculty Center. Earlier this month, she unveiled a marvelous other talent as a watercolorist in an exhibit titled Floral Medley, Floral Paintings in Watercolor, at Gallery Y at the Megamall Art Walk.
The second is brilliant young painter Mark Salvatus, whom we met on our visit to Lucban’s Pahiyas last May, and who won the 2004 Grand PBBY Alcala Prize. He received his award last July 20 at the CCP, coinciding with the launching of his first book as an illustrator.
Kudos to you both, who richly deserve all the praises that come your way.
On Friday, Aug. 20, Chocolate Kiss has a special treat for its patrons and guests: a dinner-dance titled "A Kiss to Build a Dream On," featuring the music of the ’40s and ’50s, with Da Capo playing period classics. The show is being held for the benefit of the UP Health Service, which, Lord knows, could use all the help it can get. Tickets will go for P600, inclusive of dinner, cocktails and one drink. Please call CK for more details at 434-7430.