01.30.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:06 pm by khessa
When
the news about your heart attack spread, I was one of your millions of fans who
screamed, “Don’t dare die on us, Ely!” It was definitely one of those bad
dreams that you would want to shake off at once.
I
am not patronizing you, Ely, because I am not good at it. To your many fans,
you may be the rock star and pillar of Filipino music that losing you to
myocardial infarction would mean its fall. To me, however, you are not any of
those. In fact I didn’t go after you anymore when you disbanded the
Eraserheads, and formed your short-lived band The Mongols and now, Pupil.
You,
Ely, must live to see how much influence you made in my life. Because of With A Smile, I learned to trust in
myself and in others. Because of your song Sembreak,
I mastered the art of making good use of what little I have because mom
would not give me allowance or sustenance during semestral breaks. Because of Hey Jay, I understood the plight of gays
or of any other person suffering from the same predicament of being misunderstood.
Because of Alapaap, I got the hang of
emptying myself from all the cares and worries of the world when problems arise.
The
experiences and the feelings your songs have put me in greatly helped me become
the person that I am now. They helped me find my own voice. They helped shape dreams
of my own and for that, you will always be a special person to me. Thank you,
Ely, for reminding me that “only a little
loving and some fruit to bake can make life a piece of cake.”
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01.17.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 8:46 pm by khessa
But memory and sentiment are never enough. You must master the craft of writing and use the language you know best — respect the word and know the rules before you break them. Having mastered the word, use it then as one would create a window — polished, untarnished, so that you can see clearly beyond the crystal. Don’t cover the frame with frills and fancy drapers for it is these decorations that will attract and hide the view. Review, revise, rewrite till it hurts, till the hand that holds the pen is numb, till every sentence reads easily, every word in place and you know by then that the window is made.
You are a storyteller, a singer — so learn rhythm, music, resonance, narrative technique, until these are in your marrow. You can learn all these by writing letters, notes, exercises, journals. That concert pianist, that prima ballerina — everyday they practise and limber up before they go on stage.
Do not be waylaid by the latest literary fads, by fashionable ideologies. They will surely pass as unremembered seasons and what will remain are those verities — love and death, faith and forbearance, which you may have made permanent in prose. Look at your craft with humility, and be your own severest critic. Do not for once believe that ancient panegyric that the pen is mightier than the sword. Nunca! It is always naked power which triumphs and rules, against which you must always rail till your voice hoarsens. Beware, too, of early praise for it can destroy, and remember again that only time will tell if your work will prevail.
Write with all your senses, and some of your ulcers working, so that what you write will throb with life. Live, be observant, be the eternal child aglow with awe and wonder at the world, amass memories for they will be retrieved as dialogue, color, plot, action.
Ask yourself, what is literature, who is your audience. Literature is the noblest of the arts and writers should, therefore, be of noble bearing, affirming in their very lives the Socratic precepts of virtue and excellence. This is difficult to achieve; perhaps, it is enough that you strive to be able to look at every man straight in the eye and to sleep soundly at night without the nightmares of a bad conscience.
Be an honest witness to your time, and be strong when they revile you for telling the truth. Your vocation will also condemn you to solitude, but remember — he who stands alone is the strongest. Even in your shattering loneliness, remember you are writing not for critics, academics, or other writers, but for your own people who, in their silence and perhaps poverty, cannot express their aspirations and anguish. You are their voice but only if you have not deserted or betrayed them.
Whatever suffering might be heaped upon you, never, never lose your equanimity, your humor. Much of what you will write will be bleak — just the same, learn to laugh at yourself first, and your critics, and certainly at the antics of the wretched among your countrymen.
Nurture in yourself that abiding sense of urgency, of passion — deep and volcanic — but always keep it in control and with it, that profound melancholy wrought by our history, by our own leaders — no matter how effulgent our fiestas and how bright our smiles. This passion, this melancholy, must surface as literature if you are to be an artist. So Lenin said all art is propaganda, but remember, not all propaganda is art.
I make writing seem difficult because it really is. Worse, it may not even make you live comfortably, and you will grow old like so many of us who tried without ever being appreciated in our own country. Just look at all those books piled in bargain counters — nobody buys them for though we have a novelist as a national hero, we do not read novels.
Why then must you write at all? do it because there is so much hypocrisy and cussedness in us and, who knows, you may be able to exorcise a bit of these. Do it because many of us have lost our moorings, and it is in literature where history lives, where we can know best ourselves so that we can then live with ourselves and be rooted again in native soil. Do it because it is a vocation which will give you such pleasure, so lasting and so deep — it transcends anything those sybarites and sensualists covet. I assure you, this old man knows.
What, after all, is literature but pain remembered. In remembering, you adorn it with your imagination, your craftsmanship, ennobling it perhaps, imbuing it with permanence; it then exists beyond your puny life, a testament to your humanity for all the world to witness. And having witnessed it, it is your hope that what you have written will evoke compassion, for in the end, this is what draws people together.
One final word: write wherever you can do it best, in exile perhaps, but never, never leave your village, your town, your beginning. Enshrine it in your heart, sanctify it in your mind for your beginning gives you your soul, your humanity. In remembering with passion, you will be writing about a particular place and a particular people but you shall have given them also what all will recognize, the universality of man and of art itself.
From: In Search of the Word, Selected Essays of F. Sionil Jose published in 1998 by
De La Salle University Press, Inc. Philippines
-my all-time favorite essay
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01.04.07
Posted in Uncategorized at 6:38 pm by khessa
yesterday from work, i dropped by dunkin donuts’ booth to get a box of my favorite chocolate munchkins. while i was reciting my order, 4 kids in tattered clothes immediately swarmed around me to ask for christmas gift. i told them christmas has passed but they remained their ground. i often get into a discussion with nikkol about giving out money to those kind of kids but he would often tell me that i would be supporting mendicancy if i do so and how we have a law proscribing such practice. he would continue his lecture by telling me that we have the proper agencies that should deal with them and if i wanted to help, i should course them thru those agencies.
i think he is correct at some point. if we are to give money to these kids, it would encourage their parents not to work anymore and depend on the alms their kids get in the streets. worst, if these kids do not have parents at all, they may use the PISO we give them to buy rugbies which is much cheaper than buying a piece of bread to satiate their hunger. these way, we wouldn’t be helping them at all but instead become part of the problem.
but to say that we have agencies, especially from the government, to cater to their needs is a misnomer. i’ve always wanted to work in this particular agency which is “tasked” to deal with our societal problem on vagrancy and mendicancy but i only got discouragement from my parents because of said agency’s “talamak” practices. they warned me of getting sick in the long run if i work for them.
we belong to a third-world country where our government, added by too much politicking, cannot even give out the most basic services to the people. if we are to depend on agencies to address the problems we see right before our very eyes, it would be like waiting for doomsday to come. i know the donuts i gave out, instead of “piso”, to the kids yesterday is not enough to solve this country’s major problem but at least i know that could make those kids pass through their hunger at the moment. maybe i should give out meals next time.
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