Farewell to Koyang, hello to Pinoy e-books

Edgar “Egay” Avenir is gone. So sad. The master guitarist everyone called “Koyang” was laid to rest last Friday after four nights of a wake, à la Finnegan’s, that couldn’t help but be transformed into a nightly jam session by everyone who loved him and had played music with him, necessarily in that order.

We were there on the first night to condole with Zeny Celdran, Sandra Lim-Viray, Jun Viray, Myra “Skarlet” Ruaro, Cooky Chua et al. And on the last night, we caught old buddies Jaime Fabregas and Pete Canzon joining Jun V. in the performance corner of a now-larger hall, forming a threesome that represented the then-evolving Genesis band, of the late ’70s and early ’80s.

Koyang Egay was in that band, together with pianist Carlitos Calaguian. That’s the quintet we remember entertaining us no end at My Place on Shaw Blvd. Even just the remaining three — with Koyang lying in his casket and his guitar standing alongside — proved awesome with their tribute retro numbers.

Pepe Smith ambled in like a Rakenrol edition of Ichabod Crane, and of course sang Ang Himig Natin — with Pete’s soaring sax and Jimmy Melendres’ thumping guitar joining Jun’s percussion in yet another magical version of our age-old anthem. Then bluesman Bong Sotto, again visiting briefly from Down Under, had everyone stomping a raucous farewell to the guy who was also often referred to as the “Yoda” of Pinoy guitar players.   

Only a few weeks ago, we had caught Koyang performing at Manila Hotel’s Tap Room with the Virays. His sudden ailment caught us all unawares.

I recall too that the last one-on-one palaver I had with Koyang was outside the pavilion tent at Sofitel, and I was asking why he still had to gift us all with a CD of his music. With his usual goofy grin, he naturally went into self-deprecating mode, as if to say, “What for?”

A haiku for the Red-Keeled Flower Pecker by poet-playwright-photographer Reuel Aguila

I understand that Louie Talan had also been urging him to put together a kind of retrospective of his genius fretwork. Hey, Zen, please, you do it with Louie; we all deserve to listen to Koyang for all time. 

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Thanks to the Peyups Pep Squad’s latest triumph on a basketball court, I wasn’t too ashamed to revisit ye olde Diliman campus exactly a week ago, on a Monday. Well, had my reasons, too. First was to pick up my “FilArt” from Kitten Alcantara’s gallery at Balay ng Alumni: a lovely nude portrait, acrylic and gouache on board, rendered by “Dennis the Many.”

Okay, enough of codes. That’s Carlos “Dennis” Filart, good old friend, who exhibited a grandiose collection a month ago, over which Kitten had a tough time attaching “sold” spots on that very night. In any case, I had the prescience to acquire one from the multi-genre, multi-style artist as soon as common friend Vince Puzon put up an FB album for pre-show discounts.

The second reason for the Diliman incursion was also art-and-friendship-related. Palanca Hall-of-Famer (as poet and playwright) Reuel Molina Aguila had an afternoon unveiling at the UP Faculty Center’s Gallery 1 of his collection of 30 photographs of birds with accompanying poems — haiku, haiga, tanaga, and other brief poems in Filipino inveigled from his poet-friends such as Jess Santiago, Ed Maranan, Marne Kilates, Joey Baquiran, et al. Including someone named Alfred. 

Per Reuel: “My aim is not merely to document birds and their beautiful plumage, or their enthralling flight, but my pictures are intended to awake feelings with which people can identify, so that they might see themselves in the birds that I photograph.”

Acclaimed tenors Lemuel dela Cruz, opera singer and actress-dancer Banaue Miclat-Janssen, and pianist Mary Anne Espina perform this Thursday at the Maningning Miclat Art Foundation Inc.’s 10th anniversary concert and Poetry Competition awards rites.

For a maya (Eurasian Tree Sparrow) caught in mid-flap against a background of dark green palmera blades. Aguila’s accompanying haiku goes: “Paminsan-minsan/ Ang mga karaniwa’y/ Saglit na rikit.” I chose a Purple Heron, a migrant from China that Reuel captured with his lens over the Candaba swamp, to inspire six lines of irregular short verse. A Long-tailed Shrike perched on a stick, contrasted with a blurred, rainy background, drew this tanaga from premier poet Marne Kilates: “Sa pagitan ng telon/ ng ulan, at kamera,/ gaano katotoo/ ang iyong basang pakpak?”

“Sa Pakpak ng Tula: Birds and Verse, an Exhibit of Bird Photography” will remain on exhibit till the end of the month.  

Still anent Peyups, a historic e-book launch was held at the Commission on Information & Communications Technology (CICT) building on Sept. 6. As one of the new initiatives of the UP Press under newly appointed director, poet-critic J. Neil Garcia, and new UP president Alfredo Pascual, 10 of its titles were made available on both the Amazon Kindle and Apple iBookstore storefronts. The launch — held in coordination with the UP Open University’s Round Table Discussion on Open Educational Resources — makes the UP Press the first Philippine academic publisher on Amazon and Apple.

The following e-books were co-published with Flipside DigitalContent Inc.: Beautiful Accidents (short fiction) by Ian Rosales Casocot; Geek Tragedies (short fiction) by Carljoe Javier; A History of the Philippines by Samuel K. Tan; Revisiting Usog, Pasma, Kulam (social science) by Michael L. Tan; Surgeons Do Not Cry (personal essays) by Ting Tiongco; Damaged People: Tales of the Gothic-Punk (short fiction) by Karl R. De Mesa; Fourteen Love Stories, edited by Jose Dalisay Jr. and Angelo R. Lacuesta; Philippine Postcolonial Studies: Essays on Language and Literature, edited by Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo and Priscelina Patajo-Legasto; The Gaze (gay poetry) by Arvin Abejo Mangohig; and Hairtrigger Loves: 50 Poems on Woeman (classified as erotica by Apple!) by Alfred A. Yuson.

Per Carljoe Javier, the UP Press’s communications head honcho, “The move towards e-books shows UP’s striving to be at the cutting edge of publishing in the country.” He adds that they plan to release more e-books “and to further explore all that new media has to offer with regards literature and publishing.” If readers want certain UP Press books as e-books, they can drop their requests on the UP Press Facebook page. 

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Ten titles from UP Press join a Kindle homepage .

On Thursday, Sept. 29, the Maningning Miclat Art Foundation Inc. (MMAFI) honors visual artist and trilingual poet Maningning Miclat’s 11th death anniversary by awarding the winners of the 2011 Maningning Trilingual Poetry Competition — back to back with a concert featuring soprano Banaue Miclat-Janssen, tenor Lemuel dela Cruz and pianist Mary Anne Espina.

The event celebrating art, music and poetry will be held starting at 7 p.m. at the GT-Toyota UP Asian Center Auditorium in UP Diliman.

On the Foundation’s 10th anniversary this year, the grand prize winners in three divisions of the Poetry Competition (held alternately with the Painting Contest) will be awarded P28,000 each, plus an invaluable Julie Lluch sculpture trophy.

This year’s finalists for English Poetry are Marie La Viña, Benedict Parfan and Mikael de Lara Co, while for Filipino Poetry, they are Ramon Damasing and Enrique Villasis. For the Chinese category, more than 50 entries from the Philippines, China, Hong Kong, Malaysia, Taiwan, Vietnam and the United States were received. The winner, a 23-year-old girl from Guangdong province, will fly over and be a house guest of the Miclat family, just as the past winners had been in 2007 and 2009. Mr. William Cheng Lay provided her round-trip ticket, thanks to MMAFI board director James Na who sought the donation.

The judges were Jimmy Abad, Marne Kilates and Marj Evasco for English; Rogelio Mangahas, Benilda Santos and Michael Coroza for Filipino; and Lyonel Ty, Shirley Lua and Alice Changchi for Chinese.

Previous winners were Naya Valdellon (English) and Joselito delos Reyes (Filipino) in 2003; Allan Pastrana (English), Joseph de Luna Saguid (Filipino) and Ye Cai-sheng (Chinese) in 2005; Raymond John de Borja (English), Erica Clariz delos Reyes (Filipino) and Chen Si-yuan (Chinese) in 2007; and Mikael de Lara Co (English), Kristian Cordero (Filipino) and Chen Liang (Chinese) in 2009.

At the concert-cum-awards night, multi-talented singer, actor and dancer Roeder Camañag will read a poem from the winning Filipino collection. Teacher and Tanghalang Ateneo actress Diana Laserna will do the same from the winning English collection, while Chinese writer Alice Chang Chi will read the Chinese poem and DLSU literature professor Shirley Lua will read the English translation.

Directed by Jerry Respeto, the concert will highlight much-loved classical and Broadway songs, classical Filipino songs, and Chinese songs. Supporting the event are Emerson Network Power, Huatong Xinli Flooring Co. Ltd. and World News Publication, as well as individual donors Dr. Jaime C. Laya, Dr. Edna Manlapaz, Johnny Kotah, William Cheng Lay, Jr., Teresita Ang See, Jaja Martinez, Aleli Villanueva, Anvil Publishing’s Karina Bolasco, and Philippine Cultural College’s Mrs. Pilar Ongking,

Tickets are at P500, with free seating. For ticket reservations, call Tess at 812-4885/6 or 0918-9057311, Pambie at 0906-4333147, or Mila at 981-8500 loc. 3577 or 0917-3524939.