Hoard of morning truths

Friday morning I rouse uncommonly late even for a late-night sleeper. It’s half an hour before noon on deadline writing day. This I vaguely note from the clock of truth that hangs above a lintel — on the door below it a bejeweled cross that was a gift of the yearend holidays.

Both symbols now seem dim and obscure, maybe it’s the still defocused eyes, maybe it’s recent episodes that have enhanced cynicism regarding truths. And so I check my CP close a hand. Indeed it’s nearing noon.

Suddenly I know why I’ve woken from deep sleep induced by an initial engagement with Don Papa Rum from Kanlaon. The Miami Heat are now doing their round-robin calisthenics preceding a game against the Staples Center hosts — that other iconic NBA team that’s been struggling so badly of late they’ve been called Los Miserables de Los Angeles. 

What I call the Fakers are the obvious underdogs. But maybe today I’ll pitch in a ton of sunshine vibes across the Pacific, if only for the sake of my only sister as well as artist-buddies Rodolfo Samonte and Vics Magsaysay out there in Hell-A.

So I get up and amble down to brew coffee, two cups of self-ground Bag of Beans from Tagaytay, take the first towards the lanai where I can view the game on TV and set up the MacBook Pro for Net connect and subsequent work, after lunch.

A pleasant surprise: On the table are terrific tokens of magnanimity. Two thick volumes of literary scholarship lie there, together with a Manila envelope containing print-outs academic — in more ways than one. Hoard of Thunder: Philippine Short Stories in English 1990-2008, Volume I 1990 to 2000 and Volume II 2001 to 2008, edited by Gémino H. Abad (U.P. Press), add another large notch to the Orion’s belt of this precious buddy of mine. Even before I open them for a cursory browse, I know that Philippine literature (and its continuing strong history) has once again been very well served.  

The heart gets even fatter when I read the dedication in fine penmanship on the title page of Volume I. Part of it quotes me! Hah hah and heh heh. Tricky always, this horibol dokirok of a bosom buddy. The phrase quoted is “words of truthful tender” — which Jimmy explains in an accompanying note is taken from my novel GPJEC, which he says he has just finished reading again for his Ateneo class.

But how could he have been so prescient? That he chose those words? “… of truthful tender…”? When I’ve just recently been beleaguered by concerns over little regard for truth, and conversely, reliance on concealment, the constant choice of an elliptical mode when expressing truth, rather skirting it.

The images of that clock and that cross, the first things I get to view from my bed when I wake (other than the TV that’s been left on, locked on either the NBA Premium or BTV channels) — flit back to mind. Are they just symbols for truth and untruth, respectively, for reality and hopefulness relating to universal values?

Ah, too heavy for an existential question in the last minutes of a morning, especially since the Heat have already burst out to a six-point lead.

But then the Duque de Roc has been doubly prescient. Why’d he title his latest landmark double-volume Hoard of Thunder…? Did he know beforehand that this first recipient, not unlike a first communicant, will only be bemused at best while taking side glances at the TV this noon, because equal prescience has it that the Oklahoma City Thunder, MY team, can take on either of these jokers now joined in battle? Hah hah! Ho-ho-hoard of Thunder all right! We’re gonna dethrone those champs come June. I say so, with lightning flash of hoped-for truth!

In any case, I’m also happy to note that Sir Abad, also often called “Lord Jim” by his hoard of admirers and minions, has unerringly included the very best of our contemporary short fiction in these twin doorstops.

The anthologized writers for Volume I are, in order of story publication from 1990 to 2000: Connie J. Maraan, Ninotchka Rosca, B. S. Agbayani Pastor, Alfred A. Yuson, Jessica Zafra, Reine Arcache Melvin, Charlson Ong, Gregorio C. Brillantes, Noelle Q. de Jesus-Chua, N. V. M. Gonzalez, Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo, Jaime An Lim, Bobby Flores-Villasis, Aurelio Peña, Jose Y. Dalisay Jr., Eric Gamalinda, Clinton Palanca, Katrina P. Tuvera, Gina Apostol, Carlos Ojeda Aureus, Carmelo A. Juinio, Lakambini A. Sitoy, Michelle Cruz Skinner, Joy T. Dayrit, Ma. Romina M. Gonzalez, Caroline S. Hau, Luis Joaquin M. Katigbak, Andrea D. Pasion-Flores, Maria Elena Paterno, Marivi Soliven Blanco, Merlinda Bobis, Rebecca A. E. Khan, Ichi (Felisa) Batacan, Ramon C. Bautista, Alessandra G. L. Gonzales, Caroline J. Howard, Angelo Rodriguez Lacuesta, Mencho Aquino Sarmiento, Tara F. T. Sering, Edith L. Tiempo, Iris Sheila G. Crisostomo, Antonio A. Hidalgo, and Katharina R. Mendoza. 

For Volume II covering 2001 to 2008, the writers include Linda Ty Casper, Maria L. M. Fres-Felix, Rosario Cruz Lucero, Norma O. Miraflor, Raissa Claire U. Rivera, Socorro A. Villanueva, Dean Francis Alfar, Cesar Ruiz Aquino, Rodney Dakita Garcia, Enrico N. Gutierrez, Janet Baclayon Villa, Cyan Abad-Jugo, John Bengan, Fran Ng, Carolina A. Sarmiento, Alexis A. L. Abola, Nicolas Lacson, Gabriela Lee, Vicente Garcia Groyon, Anna Felicia C. Sanchez, April Timbol Yap, Dennis Andrew S. Aguinaldo, Nikki Alfar, Doulas James I. Candano, Marguerite Alcazaren de Leon, Celeste Flores-Coscolluela, Carljoe Javier, Francesca C. Kwe, Yvette Tan, Marianne Villanueva, Ian Rosales Casocot, Mary Jessel B. Duque, Rhea B. Politada, and Chiles Samaniego, plus some who were also in the first volume. 

A total of 78 Filipino short story writers, then, if my count is right, but certainly more stories than that, as not a few are represented by more than just one selected story for the periods covered. All in all, 93 stories, in truth.

This is monumental work: what is now a six-volume historical series of our short fiction over the period 1956 to 2008, beginning with Upon Our Own Ground in 2008 and Underground Spirit in 2010, both also published by the U.P. Press.

Apart from the offered collection, also or arguably even more valuable is the substantial Introduction from the editor, replete with Footnotes that help form both a timeline and a charted map, as it were, of our fiction writing in the so-called “borrowed” language that is English.

The incomparably consummate literary historian, scholar and critic Dr. Gémino H. Abad makes his theses/points while steering us through roadmaps and clearings of what he calls the “Four Phases of the Philippine Short Story in English.”

Abad writes: “Whatever the future holds for our country’s literature in English, Filipino, and other Philippine languages, there can be no doubt as to its continuing vigor in craftsmanship and innovation in light of, and also despite, every theory and critical orientation, because the writer will always cherish above all his freedom of expression against any imposition of a theoretical perspective or ideological bias in matters of content and vision. His craft is his own to cultivate and refine; he makes his own clearing within a given historical language.”

I also like very much what he says of inherent values: “Through the essential dark of language, the poet as maker finds a path to the ineffable real. The fiction is Truth alive, incarnating with words from a given historical language what has been imagined as lived.”

I take that personally. Indeed, as I take personally any grief over cavalier betrayals. Inclusive of LeBron James’ cavalier treatment of his first team, the Cleveland Cavaliers, when he took his talents to South Beach. Sure, he finally won a championship with Miami — which is now engaged in a pitched battle on my TV against the suddenly lowly LA Lakers. So much so that I FB my friends in California that for once I’m rooting for Kobe & Co.

It doesn’t work. Despite tying the game with over a couple of minutes to spare, the Lakers are blanked the rest of the way, while Bron & Co. end it with an nine-point blitz, spelling the truth for the present. 

Such are my mornings, a whole hoard of them spent in vicarious engagement with 30 teams vying for a season’s crown. Presently the Thunder lead the league in the win-loss column. I hope to see the ultimate NBA 2013 truth in June, of whether we get past the Heat in a Finals rematch. In reality, and partially in virtual fiction, I envision the OKC Thunder hoarding multiple, possibly serial championship rings.

That clock and that cross of faith will have to wait many more mornings before I can pump my fist up in the air. Yes! We did it! Just like our literature, and our love affairs with history and fate. Yes! We did it!