Letter from Tita

From literally out of the blue of Davao City comes a letter from the painter/poet Tita Lacambra, whom I hadn’t seen in a lifetime. It must have been close to 20 years ago when we visited her city in the south of Mindanao, during the total solar eclipse of 1988, when the Minokawa swallowed the sun for a few minutes.

Part of her letter reads: “Several months ago Ronaldo Lim wrote a feature pinpointing why a lot of people don’t read books. Books take too long to read.

“I sent him four issues of Road Map that he has not acknowledged in post or print. If you could, find out what he intends to do with them. Else you could appropriate them for your own Filipiniana collection.”

Tita, however, did not mention for what publication the recipient wrote his piece, but he may have a legitimate beef about people no longer bothering to read, a good number of them anyway. On the elevated train stations, commuters either just nod away while listening on their earphones, or else texting on their cell phones.

As for the Road Maps, these were the foldable literary publications in the form of a road map — thus the series’ name — which Tita started putting out in the early 1980s featuring mostly southern writers. I have a few somewhere in the topsy-turvy library, one of them the poetry of Cebuano Melito Baclay.

If it seems that people no longer read these days, it’s possible that they haven’t seen the Road Map series, which, according to Tita’s daughter Cynthia Alexander, is still being published by the Davao-based poet to this day.

Also somewhere in my Filipiniana collection is her back-to-back book of memoirs with the fictionist Jaime A. Lim, the title having something to do with camels, either the animal or the cigarette or both. In the book she describes a contemporary Elmer Ordoñez as a pixie fellow with curly hair.

Her letter continues: “This is the second letter. The first, addressed and ready for mailing, got lost before it could be slipped into the mailbox.

“Also — Free Press printed a one-page poem of mine on May 20, 2006, and it has not been paid for. What’s with the business office?”

That happens all the time, Tita. A letter already written and ready for mailing only to be misplaced. But receiving one in longhand, in this day of e-mail and short messaging service, is certainly an occasion.

As for the Free Press slip-up, I have no idea. For their perusal I will print here the return address on the envelope so they can really say your check is in the mail: Dinaba Grill and Restaurant, Diversion Road, Buhangin, 8000 Davao City.

“I like your Julie review. You should cover art sessions and exhibits. Thanks for the honor.

“Keep well. And hope to see you sometime. Conspiracy is putting up a show of some of my stuff. But don’t know when and I won’t be there. Cynthia should know.”

I try the best I can to cover art events and write art reviews, though I don’t really consider myself an art critic. It was a pleasure interviewing Julie Lluch, especially since her townhouse is just a couple of blocks away from my mom’s house. I also try to regularly drop by Penguin Café and Art Gallery in Malate when they have a show on. They have exhibits and live bands, something close to your heart.

Am looking forward to the Conspiracy show. I remember seeing your work there in a group show that included Cynthia. The place also features live bands and exhibits, but in Quezon City way across town from my place of work. But will still try to be there.

“Hi to Krip, Jimmy, Eric G.

“Met up with Ninotchka for cocktails but didn’t get to really talk to her. She was in disguise, surrounded by Gabriela members. See you sometime soon.”

Krip Yuson, of course, has a regular column in this section. Jimmy Abad, I believe, is retired from teaching at the UP but still handles a graduate subject or two. Eric Gamalinda I haven’t heard from in ages, though I read in Krip’s column that he has a new book of poetry published in the States.

Missed Ninotchka Rosca during her whirlwind Manila stop, though I heard she and some colleagues got into trouble with immigration regarding their political leanings (you know how it is in a paranoid, post-9/11 scenario). The establishment can never be too careful when it comes to dealing with fist-waving, female militants, heh-heh.

We’ve also been waiting forever for a chance to return to Davao, which we can only guess has changed much in 19 years. You still remember when Krip, Eric, Fatima Lim and I visited you in your apartment and your second son David was still around and could be sent out for some beer and smokes?

It was the year of the Minokawa, the view from Cataluña Grande awesome as the sun was shut out and lights came up in the distance, while in Ijo we had set up an installation of tree bark and other found objects on the beach of the patriarch Joe, who we heard gave up the ghost amid a clamor of boards on the ceiling, as if a conflagration of spirits had come to take him away, the sweet chariot swinging low coming to take him home.