Along Rizal Blvd. by the seawall, one now hears a quaint new sound other than the usual concatenation of tricycles. It’s a musical tune, a tinny, come-hither muzak that recalls the ambulant appeal of ice cream vans in Mother America. Seated on an old man’s bench of concrete that faces Tañon Strait and Siquijor Island across, Jimmy Abad and I turn around and are surprised to see that the music comes from a junior version – a motor-driven cart offering Nestle’s ice cream and Kimy frozen products. Just what we need on another hot and humid day, pretty much of it given to dead wind.
Farther down the esplanade, diagonally across Chin Loong resto of the modestly priced yet fulfilling pata tim and camaron rebosado con jamon, another surprise: eye-catching public art in the form of a painted, concrete sculpture in the round – of an old-fashioned dinghy bearing several nuns!
The nuns are wearing tri-cornered hats and seem to be standing precariously on the boat, which may be reaching shore. From a distance, the scene depicted looks much like a cross between the Mayflower landing and George Washington crossing the Delaware. Can’t be Thomasites, we surmise. Nor any group of Silliman University founders, as Protestants don’t have religious orders.
The seven sisters, upon closer scrutiny and per the plaque in front of the dried-up pool the anachronistic boat stands on, turn out to be of the SPC, or St. Paul of Chartres. They were the first batch of nuns who arrived in 1904 to establish St. Paul’s College.
On the main road is a Chinese porcelain fair, al fresco, where Jimmy, Butch Perez and I find ourselves on the fourth afternoon of our stay as panelists in the 43rd National Writers Workshop, along with local guru and xenagogue Sawi Aquino. We come away with a clay teapot, a wildly colored ceramic bowl with cover and several glass-bead trinkets for imagined girlfriends.
We proceed to the Muslim shopping center, where the latest DVD offerings include Hellboy and Spartan, but not Troy, not yet. It occasionally becomes difficult to negotiate the downtown area, as many streets are being repaved, obviously in honor of an electoral exercise. Or so everyone says, from flustered trike drivers to coeds on scooters.
At night, the illumination from the boulevard’s colonial-style lampposts is enhanced by multi-colored lights spiraling around the trunks of the old, familiar acacia trees. There’s a festive air on the strip. The restos, bars and hotels seem to be doing good business, and many expatriates and foreign tourists are seen lolling about. But North Pole has closed down, or so we notice as we walk by. And Sawi recalls for the nth time how Nick Joaquin had held court at the original North Pole on Alfonso XIII St., now Perdices aka main street, way back in the early ’60s.
We arrived on Monday, May 3, the first day of the workshop, a day after we had marched along with the cortege bearing our dear National Artist past flame trees in bloom at Libingan ng mga Bayani.
The morning and afternoon sessions that take up poetry and fiction manuscripts, respectively, are presided over by another dear National Artist for Literature, Edith L. Tiempo. She is loving and beloved Mom to all of us, as much as Nick was literary father, beer-guzzling uncle, carousing padrino, saint and magus all rolled into one.
We have 14 writing fellows for May 2004: Selina Alano, Ia Aparentado, John Bengan, Michelle Correa, Fay Ilogon, Gabriela Lee, Hedwig de Leon, Glenn Maboloc, Monica Macansantos, Ginny Lisa Mata, James Neish, Rommel Oribe, Myrza Sison and Marie La Viña.
Adrian Cristobal was to have been a first-week panelist, but had to beg off due to pre-election excitement in Manila. He may yet make it to the third week, presumably when all the ballots north to south have been counted. In his stead came his daughter Celina together with her equally beauteous daughter Aryn, and our own longtime friend Nap Jamir, photographer and TV commercial director.
After Election Day, the workshop sessions will be held in Tagbilaran City in Bohol, with Mom Edith being assisted by the second set of panelists: Marjorie Evasco, Susan Lara, Anthony Tan and Danny Reyes. The third week will see the fellows back in Dumaguete, receiving guidance from Ophie Dimalanta, Butch Macansantos, Rofel Brion and local panelists Ernie Yee and Bobby Flores Villasis. Also joining us for most of the sessions are Dumaguete-based writers Ian Casocot and Nikko Vitug.
On our second day last Tuesday, we received an invite by text from Pete Lacaba, for a sing-along get-together at The Other Office in Malate, to celebrate what would have been the 87th birthday of Nick Joaquin. We text back that we could have a satellite link-up as we would have our own celebration in Dumaguete, by way of a poetry reading with the young fellows, plus Cole Porter songs from Celina.
"May the 4th be with you!" adds Sawi over our shoulder.
And so it was that at nine that night we welcome the fellows at the pleasant poolside garden at South Seas Resort, to engage in merry Joaquinesquerie: San Miguel beer, Absolut vodka and Jack Daniel’s bourbon, over oysters and kinilaw with gata and crushed chicharon.
Celina sang the songs, with Sawi droning in when his version of Alzheimer’s allowed entry to certain lyrics. Poems for and by Nick Joaquin were read and recited. Nikko read Bitoy Camacho’s closing monologue, while Sir Jimmy recited "Crazy Jane Talks With the Bishop" by William Butler Yeats. Climaxing the informal program was a rendition of the Tony-Paula seduction scene in Portrait… – with Glenn and James extemporaneously translating most of the dialogue into Bisaya. It was brilliant and uproarious, and NJ would have loved it and boomed along with laughter.
Only fitting, too, that the night segued into that rare phenom that is a total lunar eclipse. We walked all the way back to town, lay supine on the seawall, and appreciated the spectacle as the May moon began its descent over Mt. Talinis of the twin peaks called Cuernos de Negros.
From Manila, a young poet sent us a haiku:
A half-nibbled moon
Pinned on velvet ebon sky–
A shower of stars!
Yes! A falling, fading meteor, too, had joined our view of night sky. Of course that wasn’t Nick Joaquin, most likely just another gesture from our Dahrrling Dad. For he lives more than ephemerally, just as Dumaguete and Mom Edith’s workshop will live on and on, regaling us with seasonal showers of delight.