Baghdad cabaret
March 3, 2003 | 12:00am
No one listens to cassette tapes anymore, not unless it’s for transcribing an interview or if the CD player has just broken down. Everyone wants to listen to CDs and MP3s, watch VCDs and laser discs, among other state-of-the-art gewgaws.
But in a postwar scenario, say, in a cabaret somewhere in the soon-to-be-ruined desert city that is Baghdad, cassettes will again be playing in order to counter any aftereffects of the US weapons of mass destruction. Perhaps cassettes will be the only music receptacles that will survive all that allied shelling, as hardy as it is as the legendary cockroach named Saddam Hussein.
"Baghdad Cabaret" is actually the title of a story written by the exiled writer Eric Gamalinda, whose plot totally escapes me. We may surmise that it is set in some nondescript Iraqi urbanscape, with a belly dancer or two thrown in for good measure.
I was reminded of the story now that everyone is on war tethers, bracing for yet another round of oil price increases. Especially so at the recent post-Free Press Literary awards night held at the Mandarin, where Cesar Ruiz Aquino ran off with third prize in poetry for his long poem, "In Finland." It went with a cool P30,000.
Second prize went to J. Neil Garcia (P50,000) while first was Philippine Daily Inquirer Northern Luzon correspondent Frank Cimatu (P80,000).
At the Kipling’s bar in Mandarin where Aquino and his fans soon relocated for a post-mortem analysis of the proceedings, a slim lady named Michaela attended to our gustatory needs.
For a while there a semi-drunk Erwin was doing some tai chi for Sawi and the rest of the befuddled audience, only to be followed by the authentic Chinese Boyu whose moves made Erwin remark, "Now, that is the truth," as if to imply that his own demonstration of the Chinese martial art was a parody.
Krip on the other hand was taking pictures with his digital camera and handing out packets of chicharon bituka or is it bulaklak to go with a bottle of single malt whiskey, and not far off was Lady Star Trek occasionally strumming a guitar and the Kobe Bryant of Philippine literature with his lady love, the young poet Naia, among others in that wild and befuddled aftermath of the Free Press awards night.
So before we knew it we were headed out for the transcendental parking lot with a sheaf of cut and dried vegetables, and Cesar was wondering what could it mean when he, Boyu and myself were the ones who had been left at Kipling’s, even if east is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet.
Michaela though met the trophy of Cesar he left at the bar, and she promptly caught up with the Trio Los Tai Chis before crossing over to the parking lot, where a bladder or two was relieved before the circuitous drive home.
Cesar Ruiz, before taking the boat back to Dumaguete via Cebu the next day, said he has a manuscript waiting for a publisher, Stories from a Day, Poems through the Night, comprised of new and selected works.
Erwin too should be coming out with his long overdue novel Cape Engano by now, and where most likely east meets west to do Kipling one better.
Krip on the other hand has two books out by the UP Press, Eight Stories and Hairtrigger Loves: 50 Poems on Woeman, which is waiting for review in a men’s magazine.
Good god, why am I telling you all this? For the simple reason that each day we get closer to war or peace our lives resemble a Baghdad cabaret, even if we’d never read the Gamalinda story.
I asked Kobe if he knew the niece of Gamalinda studying at UST, and he said yes, in fact she was older than him, my how time flies. Her name is either Natalia or Natasha, after either the Van Morrison song or a variant of actress Nastasha Kinski, daughter of Klaus.
Dear Eric, sorry for using your story title here, but it could be part of pre-US-Iraq war syndrome. You must do something about your president, what he needs is a night out in a Middle Eastern nightclub without any pretzels of mass destruction for fingerfood.
Meanwhile, the latest on the propaganda wars is that the next motorcycle-riding Indian you see could be yet another Iraqi defector running away from an imaginary cabaret, a bag full of old cassettes by his side.
But in a postwar scenario, say, in a cabaret somewhere in the soon-to-be-ruined desert city that is Baghdad, cassettes will again be playing in order to counter any aftereffects of the US weapons of mass destruction. Perhaps cassettes will be the only music receptacles that will survive all that allied shelling, as hardy as it is as the legendary cockroach named Saddam Hussein.
"Baghdad Cabaret" is actually the title of a story written by the exiled writer Eric Gamalinda, whose plot totally escapes me. We may surmise that it is set in some nondescript Iraqi urbanscape, with a belly dancer or two thrown in for good measure.
I was reminded of the story now that everyone is on war tethers, bracing for yet another round of oil price increases. Especially so at the recent post-Free Press Literary awards night held at the Mandarin, where Cesar Ruiz Aquino ran off with third prize in poetry for his long poem, "In Finland." It went with a cool P30,000.
Second prize went to J. Neil Garcia (P50,000) while first was Philippine Daily Inquirer Northern Luzon correspondent Frank Cimatu (P80,000).
At the Kipling’s bar in Mandarin where Aquino and his fans soon relocated for a post-mortem analysis of the proceedings, a slim lady named Michaela attended to our gustatory needs.
For a while there a semi-drunk Erwin was doing some tai chi for Sawi and the rest of the befuddled audience, only to be followed by the authentic Chinese Boyu whose moves made Erwin remark, "Now, that is the truth," as if to imply that his own demonstration of the Chinese martial art was a parody.
Krip on the other hand was taking pictures with his digital camera and handing out packets of chicharon bituka or is it bulaklak to go with a bottle of single malt whiskey, and not far off was Lady Star Trek occasionally strumming a guitar and the Kobe Bryant of Philippine literature with his lady love, the young poet Naia, among others in that wild and befuddled aftermath of the Free Press awards night.
So before we knew it we were headed out for the transcendental parking lot with a sheaf of cut and dried vegetables, and Cesar was wondering what could it mean when he, Boyu and myself were the ones who had been left at Kipling’s, even if east is east and west is west and never the twain shall meet.
Michaela though met the trophy of Cesar he left at the bar, and she promptly caught up with the Trio Los Tai Chis before crossing over to the parking lot, where a bladder or two was relieved before the circuitous drive home.
Cesar Ruiz, before taking the boat back to Dumaguete via Cebu the next day, said he has a manuscript waiting for a publisher, Stories from a Day, Poems through the Night, comprised of new and selected works.
Erwin too should be coming out with his long overdue novel Cape Engano by now, and where most likely east meets west to do Kipling one better.
Krip on the other hand has two books out by the UP Press, Eight Stories and Hairtrigger Loves: 50 Poems on Woeman, which is waiting for review in a men’s magazine.
Good god, why am I telling you all this? For the simple reason that each day we get closer to war or peace our lives resemble a Baghdad cabaret, even if we’d never read the Gamalinda story.
I asked Kobe if he knew the niece of Gamalinda studying at UST, and he said yes, in fact she was older than him, my how time flies. Her name is either Natalia or Natasha, after either the Van Morrison song or a variant of actress Nastasha Kinski, daughter of Klaus.
Dear Eric, sorry for using your story title here, but it could be part of pre-US-Iraq war syndrome. You must do something about your president, what he needs is a night out in a Middle Eastern nightclub without any pretzels of mass destruction for fingerfood.
Meanwhile, the latest on the propaganda wars is that the next motorcycle-riding Indian you see could be yet another Iraqi defector running away from an imaginary cabaret, a bag full of old cassettes by his side.
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