Evolving genres for the writer
Allow me to promote an activity this afternoon where I serve as the big kahuna — and I don’t mean to serve burgers.
An invitation from good old friends Dr. Michael M. Coroza, chair of Unyon ng mga Manunulat sa Pilipinas (UMPIL) or Writers Union of the Philippines, and Celina S. Cristobal, director of the Adrian E. Cristobal Foundation, has me claiming the honor of delivering the Adrian E. Cristobal Lecture this year.
This will be conducted from 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. today at Function Room 1 of AIM Conference Center Manila (ACCM) at J.V. del Rosario Building on Benavidez corner Trasierra Sts., Legaspi Village, Makati City. Most of us know this old landmark to be facing Paseo de Roxas Avenue and Greenbelt 1.
If you find yourself in the area with time on your hands, and have a smidgen of interest in such matters, then consider yourself invited. It’s a public lecture. Come one come all! Hear me out and let me amuse you.
The Adrian E. Cristóbal Lecture Series is an annual commemorative event that not only honors the esteemed writer, journalist and literary patron for whom it is named, “but also public intellectuals who help others form intelligent and informed decisions for themselves and for society,” per the letter from dear Celina.
She wrote further, as though she had to convince me:
“Because of your exquisite poetry and effective prose in the realm of activism and intellectual discourse, your lecture will be a significant contribution to the world of letters. Where opinion and intellectual discourse — two disparate activities that are often conflated much to the suffering of the public — are so influential to the point of polarism, your wit, experience and knowledge will surely cast a ray of enlightenment in the beleaguered state of our nation.”
Dr. Mike Coroza, poet in Filipino, Balagtasero and universal tenor, in turn detailed the following:
“Hinihiling po namin na kung maaari ay maukol ang inyong ihahandang lektura sa paksang ‘ang mga pananagutan o dapat isaalang-alang sa pagsulat ng mga opinyon o komentaryo lalo na sa social media.’” (This suggests that the lecture is expected to touch on obligations and precepts when writing opinion and commentary, especially in social media.)
I will be the seventh speaker to be honored by this invite. Starting off the series in 2011, Dr. Gémino H. Abad spoke on “The Poetics of Writing.” The following year, National Artist for Literature and UMPIL chairman emeritus Virgilio S. Almario delivered the lecture titled “Ang Malaswa: Sex, Sining at Relihiyosidad.” 2013 had Dr. Resil Mojares speak on “Andres Bonifacio and the Problem of Intellectuals,” followed by Dr. Reynaldo Ileto in 2014 with “The Centennial of ‘Cacique’ Democracy.”
Solita Monsod came up fifth in the series, in 2015, but Celina still has to get her hands on a hardcopy or digital file of that lecture, which featured a Powerpoint presentation and extemporaneous comments. The 2016 lecture was delivered by Marites Danguilan Vitug, on the subject of “Democracy Beyond Elections: Overcoming Impotence.”
All the lectures are being collected for publication as the Adrian E. Cristobal Lecture Series.
By the by, Dr. Coroza has clarified that the scheduled 2 p.m. start for the activity will allow registration of guests, as well as social amenities among UMPIL officers and members and many others joining the gathering. For some literary fans, it could also provide the opportunity to have books signed by National Artist Virgilio S. Almario and the UMPIL officers, namely Mike Coroza, Karina Bolasco, Joaquin Sy, Becky Añonuevo, Shirley Lua, Fidel Rillo, John Torralba, Louie Jon Sanchez, John Teodoro, Ariel Tabak, Kristian Cordero and Celina Cristobal.
My hour-long lecture (well, maybe somewhat briefer than that) starts at exactly 3 p.m., and will be followed by an open forum.
Following is the abstract I was requested to submit for this 7th Adrian E. Cristobal Lecture, which I have titled “Evolving Genres of the Written Word: ‘Fake News Fiction’ & the Like(s).”
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It will be in/an appreciation of the global pivot to a curiously novel inclusion among the genres of writing. While it started with a fringe kind of journalism — blogs and trolling on social media — the initially questionable purveyance of fake or false news has seeped into established tri-media, with prominent personalities, mostly related to politics, spewing mind-toggling conundrums or seemingly oxymoronic terms such as “alternative facts.”
A popular blogger in turn compares the writing of fake news with that of fiction, and identifies them as the same banana.
From the oral tradition to generational, genre-saturated literature, from journalism in all its forms to the crafting of academic papers, advertising briefs, legislative proposals and judicial discourses, indeed, even or especially of history, there has been a floating era of baloney, balderdash and bullshit.
Post-truth. Default narrative. Creative interpretation. These are now the syndromic symptoms that stupefy us who are worshipful of the word, written or expressed in any which way.
But are Cervantes’ windmills also a lie created in his famous character’s mind, in the guise of geriatric lunacy, except that it amuses and entertains us? And is Borges’ phantom in the circular ruins a fictive hero as fantastic, thus unreal, as Smeagol/Gollum or Gotham’s Batman, and Gabo Marquez’ butterflies emerging from a dying man’s mouth as winsome, windblown and yet wacky as Peter Pan?
Opinions and commentary in today’s social media — wayward spawn of masterworks in letters — entail obligations as measurable as those that challenged predecessors in communication.
Where does the snake oil salesman stand among annals of fakery? Perhaps a distinction may be attributed to the quality of the imaginative presentation. Maybe there simply is inherent privilege in literature of gravitas. Or is it that the morality of truth only rears its butt-end whenever the writing deals with actual human beings, the very (real) bumblers in a world of deceit?
This paper will not attempt to provide answers, rather generate more imponderables — while pirouetting around the pivot that partakes of humanist causes inclusive of both entertainment and enlightenment.
