By: Iris P. Concepcion
Dear Stephen King's Children,
I just wanted to place the word DE in my title.
Your mother thought at one point this week that she could circumnavigate the world on foot. She had never felt more strongly than to elongate her legs around the globe shrank for her keeping on her fingertips. She had rendered meaningless the excess of her past splurges and could laugh at the stupidity of having to search for things that are unnecessary.
She had thought a P50,000.00 plate for Broadway or a brief skiing trip can perhaps save other people's lives much more than their want of self-esteem; she has not been to those, rustic embering lass that she is, earning her keep for films in the not so distant past. She is as broke as a camel's back and more the richer for it in writing explorations.
It is a hard knock's life but she had truly allowed you to unprettify yourself in melted ice-cream, opening chocolate packaging using her two front teeth. She had been maligned in the process. Taunted too but she had tried holding on to her sense of self. It bode well. Your shrieks had been the best option out of the mundane. She is fighting back tears as she is writing this. The most that she could make sense out of this is that two is never better than one in terms of upbringing. They show you burgers when they know you have been passing food; it is not enough to taunt---they had to tell you you are a slut. What a macabre bunch of people.
She had subsisted on dough staples given by a wild flower of the prairie. Her companion in spirit stood firm behind a voice that could outshine them all, in one twist of thought she never thought she could view.
She finally got the P50,000.00 dinner/plate concert, feasting on a P2.00 bread. It felt like a million bucks. She was shocked to admit she must have revived singlehandedly the creative latches of the past in her imaginary screwdriver, unlocking the bolts of the wild minds. Even the tummies. Not to mind, a priest told her to abstain for three days.
Thus:
She entered the the humdrum mortuary of the ghosts and bumped onto London. Impossible but true. Forgive her confused reaction. How could she cramp in one face the emotion of melancholy, horror, contentment, fulfillment and laughter? Would she appropriate these different masks in arrows? Eyebrows are for laughter; mouths are for tears; ears are for guffaws. In five seconds, she had contained her laughter over the tacky crepe paper waved in a ballerina sequence. The contrast of the women faces are striking: the purity of their devotion to the dance delienated.
Of course, you have always been sassy to downplay the ways of the child wonderment in your saner, entrenched travels. You dug about histories and used them to inspire your works here. You did not use them for evasive trysts in the Roman canals. That is your advantage.
Children of the corn, she saw all these and one. An opening salvo of an ensemble with ethnic overtures. The woman lost her silver fingernails and was glum all over. If only the real Tausug history was made musical through the edgy instrument kulintang: I can see its promise crisscrossing in hiphop beats.
Pamulinawen was rendered beautifully by a lady pianist and the arrangement was enchanting to say the least. Executed in a bravura of happy notes, like elves and tikbalangs merged to finetune its keys. Someone recited Ophelia Dimalanta's poetry which was better than even Maya Angelo's piece. That was spoken verse. The poet was aping the reader and got her just due.
After the verse, this dynamo performance of a petite woman whose only armory were a bag and loud pipes that could detonate even the loudest bombs of musical extravaganza. My GOD! I can only mutter. The song is "Glitter And Be Gay". Is it possible to compress the multitude of entities in one face. This vocalist did. I wanted to scream at her for being ridiculously wonderful! She is a one-woman theater. I wanted to curse why I am getting her for free while teenagers scrimp to score P10,000.00 worth of ticket to watch a foreign band whose language you could not understand. Her name: Nikka Mae Lopez. This is reverse scoring again.
And then came the angry lament of a woman directed at her tormentor in diagonal gaze. It is a warzone in stanzas.
She was addressing the oppression of the leafed trees; can they ever be spared from the cries of the wild?
Then came a trio of old women saying "Bilis, bilis, may perdeble ba?". Upclose, it was brutally grinning than a Hughes flick. She was about to sing. Stuttering and admonishing the pianist, she finally said: "Ayan lumalabas na ang boses ko."
Children, this was the best comedy flick for me. Sure you could not talk in proper phonetics still but to your hecklers I say:
"These are my kids and they are featured in Stan Lee's Spiderman comic book.
Two days after this musical miracle, I caught an open-aired Hiyas Ng Bulacan Concert Band. This is not your usual parade of fiesta cymbals. The host wickedly called the two conductors who alternated in baton beats as "Band Masters."
More on that in another entry: the better musical pied piper looked like this writer's better other, her true, good friend and her favorite author rolled into one. He was wearing a patch on his back like our Prexy, Noynoy Aquino.
I enjoin everyone: Head to Rizal Park (White refurbished) and catch the concert series there. It is worth all that blob and daggers. Nakakatayo ng balahibo. I was happy to see my mass organist friend lounging in one of its benches too.
Thank you Mr. President for having the balls to have these musicians show their wares. They improved our OPM in a tremendous, tremendous scoring worth a Burton flick.
Now, I am no longer hungry. And that G shout after the Eisenhower March is worth the lusty handclapping.
Yes, WE can.