By: Iris P. Concepcion
(If you read this yesterday, read this again today: new words came visiting after a night's worth of melodic trances):
My countrymen,
It's been a while: my fingers are itching not from word drips but out of boredom.
My writing pieces get stuck in note pads. There is a recent running gag in my own universe involving names. It has been my waterloo ever since. Whenever I write my own brand of fiction, I find it difficult baptizing my characters. I once read that John Updike keeps a journal of dates and names (some he culls from the Bible) to facilitate this writer's memory hunchback.
I need not go to the Bible this time to look for names. My dwarf ward (who kicks me often when falling asleep) has this hilarious way of naming people she meets on the block. Sample:
"Si Baldo yan."
If she does not know the name of the person asked, she will gladly supply some creative alternative name like : "Si Perpetual yan." She would readily supply the traits of this person i.e. : "May dalawang ngipin yan. Bulok at di bulok."
Obviously, the man she speaks about works at Perpetual Hospital.
She has names like Pilay, Ompong, Manong Vakla and some other identification tags I find hilarious.
Or if she misses a tag, she says this: "Nakalimutan mo yung matandang duling."
This kid has taken on some challenging tasks too. She could spell difficult words (she is only in prep school) like rendezvous, beautiful, trophy and restaurant but is clueless when you ask her to spell, say, bag. If it is easy, she tells me off the bat: "That is not difficult enough."
When the rest of the world gets frenzy over Internet messages, checking Facebook accounts often by hour, I sometimes shut down these mechanical connections and deal with people themselves, in actual flesh to flesh verbal combats. Some of their quirks do get into my creative psyche that they haunt and populate my next-envisioned fictional works. Surely they shall involve kids and their snots and their delirious logic that defy not only gravity but hypocrisy.
And yes, Rocketman, S. Adler does seem to be an interesting new fold to our way of life. Your being inclusive despite everything is a classic act worth the hear or read. As I said, I want to tell the world: "Have him touch you and your vocal chords: he shall change not only how you approach voice but your manner of thinking."
He is into disco beats right now and they are wonderful, wonderful, wonderful. Hear the girls sing and sing happily. He gives gifts (cheap ones but indelibly poignant) to his oppressors and says "thank you" after every performance.
That, to me, is not breeding. It is an Omnipresent act.
In my melodic sojourn last night, I overheard some wonderfully arranged ditties that used only one instrument. My son, as always, improved on them. Even the lyrics are Iris-ian (he wants me to take credit for things I do not even see as my contribution: I feel it obscene to be yapping about myself unless it is for self-catharsis sessions). I was in middle slumber but it made me smile. Here:
"Daddy knows you are an airplane."
It is not even inside, or above, or on, or in, or beside the airplane but YOU ARE an airplane.
I could no have strung it any better: I need not even scout melodies for that, it is already poetic as it is.
God meant it this way: once you lose yourself into something, make sure you lose it for a worthwhile but happy cause.
I did and came out calmer for it.
Sincerely yours,
A Citizen