‘Tragedy begets text’

Okay, I borrowed that title. Or more correctly, appropriated it. My dear friend Ben Razon, photographer non pareil and one of the sanest and most articulate artists I know, used it as his subject title for a recent e-mail message.

"Tragedy begets text." Yes. Exactly how I felt, deluged and besieged by text as I have been, perhaps like everyone else among you who’s linked to the obstreperous Net.

By text I don’t quite mean SMS or Short Message Service, a peculiarly local phenom I have yet to subscribe to. My cellphone’s a museum piece I’m proud of. It’s analog and bulky, an early Motorola model I have to flip open and stretch the antenna out on the few occasions I have to ring up someone when I’m lost and/or mobile.

When it’s in my bag, I know it’s in my bag. I feel assured that we both carry some weight. It’ll never be grabbed off even if I wave it around Cubao. Should I leave it on a resto table, no one will pick it up, except perhaps a waiter who’ll then charge after me to take it away, lest mall security raise a fuss under the notion that it could blast the premises to smithereens even as I make a quick getaway.

Besides, I still have to appreciate the sight of grown men and women hunched over a gadget when we’re walking or riding along, sitting across a table for a supposed meeting, or during any social conversation. As I’m wont to tell my kids, if there’s anything I hate, it’s two people talking, or worse, texting, while I’m trying to get a word in.

But enough of an eccentric’s mild diatribe against the folly of SMS. Now I have to contend with the written and printed word as well. Tons of it, more than enough to equal the rubble in lower Manhattan.

Well before that tragedy, I was already feeling wordsore. Swamped with words, words, and more words. Coming back from a brief literary reading stint in Singapore, I had to spend a quarter of a day unbuttoning all the messages that had stacked up in my e-mail box. I guess it’s one of those post-modern tragedies, this devotion to correspondence. The Internet has a way of ganging up on you whenever you return from a sabbatical, however brief.

Of course the ritual covers the obligation to respond to the rational queries and follow-ups, personal or official. I do this while sifting chaff from grain, even as the former doesn’t automatically provoke clicks on the delete key.

I have a serious problem. I like to document much of everything that proves engaging. Even postings that I know won’t stand the test of time are retained for possible future reference, until weeks pass and I confirm that the trivia should remain trivia, and thus earn free if deferred passage to the trash bin.

This passion for hard copy does me in, spatially and economically. Discovering that I had used up half a ream of Best Buy bond paper in a day, I feared that my printer could also decide to give up on my diligence. My supply of BC-02 ink also faced the threat of depletion, all too soon, as I had just purchased yet another monthly kit.

But it wasn’t until I received my irritatingly urgent monthly billing from my service provider, the E-Mail Company which hosts many of my writer-friends, and saw with alarm that I was being charged for excess hours, for the third consecutive month, that I realized that I was being held hostage by the compunction to be a responsible correspondent.

Now, that’s not easy when one communicates with friends, acquaintances, scholars and fellow pilgrims in four continents. Continence is the challenge, especially since I also happen to belong to a couple of highly active e-groups that sometimes produce messages and discussion probes by the bucket. Then of course there’s the usual spamming, stranger mail, or even more startling communication from someone urging quick investments in Sudanese bonds.

I realized with alacrity how the past had gotten around to haunt me. An early story I wrote, way back in the ’70s, was titled "The Letters." It was published in either the Philippines Free Press or its spawned competitor, Asia-Philippines Leader. I may have lost my clipping. Or perhaps it lurks somewhere inside one of the array of trunks and bins I keep in the attic.

It was a sophomoric story, an idea story (now that’s not quite the same). It told of a person who liked to write letters, until he finds himself in correspondence with an ever increasing number of similarly inclined individuals, institutions, pen pal clubs and the like. The final scene finds the protagonist nearly buried under a deluge of incoming letters in his small room. Oh yes, I thought I was a junior Borges.

But now I don’t have to lick stamps to achieve a similar impasse or catastrophe. I’m running out of space in the attic to store bulging legal-size envelopes marked E-mail Correspondence, May to June 1999 or something. Then again, how can I cease and desist from the habit when I’m communicating professionally with Asian, Fil-Australian, Fil-European and Fil-American contributors to yet another anthology-in-progress, multinationals commissioning writing and/or editorial services for a cutting-edge map of Metro Manila or a coffee-table book on good ol’ RP, or like-minded editors posting calls for submission to this or that thematic volume on poetics?

I also have to download and print brief felicitations, inquiries or love notes from a host of writer-friends with eminent by-lines, a full dozen of them from New York, the rest scattered about Chicago, Iowa, Kentucky, San Fran, LA, Chico in California, Vancouver, London, Paris, South Africa, Tokyo, Singapore, KL, Sydney and Wollongong. And then some.

I mean, you don’t trash a brief note from an Eric Gamalinda or a Felix Fojas, a Luis Francia or a Luis Cabalquinto, a Bino Realuyo or a Bert Florentino, a Rowena Torrevillas or a Luisa Igloria, an Eileen Tabios or a Lara Stapleton, a Merlinda Bobis or a Reine Melvin. These people will be even more famous someday, I tell myself. And perhaps a grandchild of mine can hold up one of their letters against the light someday, and swoon before rushing to the nearest auctioneer to raise major funds.

It’s terrible to be a collector. Every day one feels inundated and more wanting in elbow space. One’s formerly minimalist world, or the last established afresh, feels like it’s closing in again. And it’s not like one can yet turn all that piled stuff over to Jo-Liza’s antique shop. Let the grandkids do it; further posterity carries a premium.

Just as I was pondering over this reprise of Life following juvenile Art, that cataclysm had to happen in the Big Apple. Of course I had to raise a voice of concern over friends‚ whereabouts. And receive, and print out, their assuring replies that they’re still eyeing the scene of the carnage.

Then of course the e-groups get into the act. Plaridel shifts gear from the entertaining communal litany on jologspeak to air divergent views on the terrorist attack and its likely consequences. Someone is charged with practically saying "Beh, buti nga," since America’s been so arrogant anyway. He denies the allegation, but more impassioned or, alternatively, humbling polemics aggravate the cacophony.

Nostradamus is quoted. Someone else cries hoax. But I recall having read those quatrains myself, a long time ago, in the original French. Of course I failed to understand it, and had to turn to the English translation.

The posting of the numerological coincidences featuring "the elevens" is scoffed at. But my favorite lady astrologer comes to its defense, quoting Jung: "…since remotest times, men have used numbers to express meaningful coincidences... those that can be interpreted." And herself expertly pointing out that "Sept. 11, 2001 was ruled not by the moon but by Uranus…, the planet associated with unexpected and disruptive events, meant to jolt and drive the mind to break out of old patterns of thought, just because the old paradigms don’t work anymore and new ones still have to be apprehended."

Now, that’s carrying the discussion onto a higher plane of understanding. I am thankful.

But then someone sends a regurgitated message from some Brazilian academic alleging that CNN had shown file footage (circa early ’90s kuno) of a Palestinian crowd dancing in the streets in reaction to the terrorist attack. This is flatly denied by CNN some days later, but not before more of the expected anti-Amerikanski and peaceniks wade into the verbal fray. And they haven’t stopped since.

Days there have been when scores of voices strident and ameliorative, from Manila to Manhattan, line up in red ink in my e-box, overwhelming the private correspondence. It takes time to click them all open and decide if they stay or skeedaddle. Oh, it’s from Walden Bello. Ring a bell? Off you go to Walden Pond.

And all this doesn’t stop the usual Cassandras from issuing their fabulously constant alarums on viruses. So that I finally exult upon receiving this jewel of a cautionary put-down:

"WARNING, CAUTION, DANGER, AND BEWARE!

"Gullibility Virus Spreading over the Internet!

"WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Institute for the Investigation of Irregular Internet Phenomena announced today that many Internet users are becoming infected by a new virus that causes them to believe without question every groundless story, legend, and dire warning that shows up in their in box or on their browser.

"The Gullibility Virus, as it is called, apparently makes people believe and forward copies of silly hoaxes relating to cookie recipes, E-Mail viruses, taxes on modems, postcards for child cancer research and the merits of melanza.

"‘These are not just readers of tabloids or people who buy lottery tickets based on fortune cookie numbers,’ a spokesman said. ‘Most are otherwise normal people, who would laugh at the same stories if told to them by a stranger on a street corner.’ However, once these same people become infected with the Gullibility Virus, they believe anything they read on the Internet.

"…Internet users are urged to examine themselves for symptoms of the virus, which include the following:

" • the willingness to believe improbable stories without thinking

" • the urge to forward multiple copies of such stories to others

" • a lack of desire to take three minutes to check to see if a story is true

"…Anyone with symptoms like these is urged to seek help immediately. Experts recommend that at the first feelings of gullibility, Internet users rush to their favorite search engine and look up the item tempting them to thoughtless credence. Most hoaxes, legends, and tall tales have been widely discussed and exposed by the Internet community.

"Courses in critical thinking are also widely available, and there is on-line help from many sources, including

" • Department of Energy Computer Incident Advisory Capability at http://ciac.llnl.gov/ciac/CIACHoaxes.html.

" • The Urban Legends Web Site at http://www.urbanlegends.com…."

And such. You get the drift. I don’t think I should quote the wonderful item in its entirety, out of respect for IPR. But thanks, Pete. Who knows? Perhaps it’s your very own IPR I come close to violating.

But wait. Here’s how it ends:

"Lastly, as a public service, Internet users can help stamp out the Gullibility Virus by sending copies of this message to anyone who forwards them a hoax.

"This message is so important, we’re sending it anonymously! Forward it to all your friends right away! Don’t think about it! This is not a chain letter! This story is true! Don’t check it out! This story is so timely, there is no date on it! This story is so important, we’re using lots of exclamation points! For every message you forward to some unsuspecting person, the Home for the Hopelessly Gullible will donate ten cents to itself. (If you wonder how the Home will know you are forwarding these messages all over creation, you’re obviously thinking too much.)"

Couldn’t help it, Pete. Thanks again.

Yet other recent jewels that have reached my command post include a few poems, all through the flips list serve.

One was sent by Jean Gier from Berkeley, a poem by Carlos Bulosan titled "Multitude and the Dance of the Multitude" from his book Chorus for America (1942). Move aside, mon ami Nostra. Here are line excerpts: "And suddenly I turned the other way to face/ The sunlight showering the heart of America./ …Did you notice how I watched the men, glancing/ At the hilltop where machine guns might have/ Attacked the buildings, and the streets where trenches/ Might have been dug or where tanks might have been mounted,/ And the sky where bombers might have scoured/ The defenseless nerve centers of America?"

Prescient, Mang Caloy, prescient.

Another is a poem by Cristina Querrer, titled "This Is What I Know," the last three stanzas of which read: "That I will always mourn/ Morocco or the Himalayas/ where I seem to fly/ awake in my dream/ and that I shall continue walking/ toward the sea// with everything of you// before planes crashed/ before buildings burned/ before the world rebelled/ all the way to the silence/ of your mother’s womb."

Still another is a poem titled "Thundershower" by Luis Cabalquinto, from his new book Bridgeable Shores: Selected Poems (1969-2001), which is fresh from the printer. I should have more on this book in a future column.

Here’s a teaser, by way of its concluding stanza: "Poke at woodfires on the earth/ stove: seeds of wild trees/ broiling under hot ashes,/ a mother’s wok scenting/ the lost ancestral house."

I agree with Eileen who shared the announcement and advance adulation over Luis‚ book, especially when she signs off with "Less Blood. More Poems."

Yes, it may be the one thing that’ll keep me posted and posting, albeit sometimes I wish I could escape the torrent of words and migrate to some distant island, where my thought balloon would simply echo, "Silence is golden." While I scan the rolling surf for an occasional message in a bottle.