Lush life in the cycle of Pisces

Barely has a year started when we are reminded of the many Piscean friends who happen to share in our idea of a lush life.

After Chinese New Year, the season rolls in with the growing awareness that on the third weekend of February, a wild bunch of writers will have to plan a caravanserai to Alabang, and there descend on (or is it ascend upon) Adrian’s manse/mansion, or domain/dominion, to help celebrate his birthday.

That’s Adrian E. Cristobal, not the new head honcho of the Intellectual Property Office, but the intellectual and very proper father who’s ever been one of our best fatherly writers pound for pound. Or peso for peso.

He has been both godfather and consiglieri to a lot of writers. He may look like he’s looking at you mock-disdainfully or with sympathetic scorn, but mercy if not charity beats in that gallant breast. How often has he succored many of us from impenitence? Too, from impecunious conditions.

Sir Adrian ("Emperor," the poet-courtier Florentino Dauz used to hail him in less politically correct days) happens to be chairman emeritus of UMPIL or Writers Union of the Philippines, which alone earns him yearly tribute. That he also has a deep dark cellar full of sundry spirits, and more importantly, sports his own generous spirit, convinces us contemporary courtiers to pay him homage on or about his natal day.

As with his elegant writerliness (the stance and source of his "occasional prose"), Adrian’s ever on the cusp. Of something or other. Maybe none of us understands him as much as, or more so than, a former MTRCB chair who took a satirical piece so seriously he wound up thanking Adrian profusely in print. Such is Adrian’s imperial reach that he straddles the junction of Aquarius and Pisces, albeit we like to think he’s more Piscean (a lush) than Aquarian (a water-bearer).

The last carousing sessions we indulged in, right at his expansive backyard between the bahay na bato and the humongous swimming pool, serially and seriously had it been Old Parr, Johnnie Walker Gold, Johnnie Walker Green, and Chivas Regal on the downside, taken with novelist Erwin Castillo, poet Marne Kilates, balagtasero Teo Antonio, fictionist-essayist Gemma Cruz, among others…

For his birthday last month, it was volumes of Sideways-type red & white wine for starters, then beauteous daughter Celina’s curried lamb atbp., before Bossing Adrian came up from the cellar with fine Canadian sipping whisky. But by then this lush was nearing his deadline for a French leave. There’d be other Piscean parties to prepare the liver (in more ways than one) for.

Over in Bhutan, compadre Bimboy Peñaranda, poet of the first water, would be turning a prayer wheel older. So too would comadre Jo, conjugal partner; never another absent twain would we hold dearer.

And over at that Isla in the sky, compadre Caloy Abrera would be beaming down on all of us, beatifically like a true Piscean. How we miss him.

Good thing we still have a neighbor across Edsa, compadre Juaniyo Arcellana, Conde de Sacrepante, even if we failed to transmit felicitations. Or did we wait too long for him to ask us over to share his diminishing Glenmorangie? Neither did actor-composer Jimmy Fabregas, born on the bissextus (that’s February 29!), ring any warm alarum this year. Hmmph! Just because it isn’t Leap didn’t mean we shouldn’t have had libations on his account. Then there was premier painter Jaime de Guzman, out there in Candelaria, adding to his magnificent collection of canvases and ceramics. Maybe that Glenlivet American Oak Finish we shared weeks ago on Peñãfrancia St. was the toast for the season.

Came March and a trio of other Pisceans threw their regular bashes. Tito Yuchengco invited for open bar at Wasabi, live music thrown in. The group Brass Munkeys from UST jazzed up the night, the sexy sax not a solo but a trio, plus trumpet and guitars and percussion, pinstripe suits and old big-band standards as can unite fish swimming in opposite directions.

So soused, so soused, we crossed Avenida de Ayala to the Giraffe thence Dreambar makeover that is now Quisine, and enjoyed in turn the nightcap of Acoustic Jive and the unique if genius-zany political plans of a prose stylist non pareil, who also happens to be a Makati Congressman. With writer-prophet Mario Taguiwalo on his corner, and itinerant impresario Bubot Quicho as cut man, no way Hon, Teddy Locsin can lose the wacko-jacko vote in future. Hic. There’s hope for our country.

At MagNet+ Katips, across the Miriam College gate and right beside Rustan’s, one Friday evening saw the soft opening of its café-bar upstairs, the best way to crown a gallery-bookstore in the best way painter-curator and birthday boy Rock Drilon knew how. With Binky Lampano and his blues band thumping as wondrously as brown-black soul, on the very eve of departure for a Singapore jazzfest. In the pumped-up crowd were Senate President Frank Drilon and better half Mila, perchance reminiscing on salad years in nearby Diliman.

What is it with these Pisceans that they’re such naturals as party givers and goers? If you give it they will come, they seem to assure us sotto voce. Their fields of dreams are as wetlands (one for the birds of spirited migration); liquid and deliquescent are their mystic plans.

Which brings us to National Artist for Literature Virgilio "Rio" Almario, also chairman emeritus of UMPIL, whose panata it has been to launch a book on his b-day. In fact, over a week ago, two titles from UP Press, at a double-launch at UP’s Pulungang Recto: his nth poetry collection Memo Mulang Gimokudan: Aklat ng Tulang Tuluyan; and Pablo Neruda: Mga Piling Tula, translations into Filipino co-edited by him and Romulo P. Baquiran Jr.

The precious Susan Fernandez sang for all. Poet-performer Vim Nadera orated a piece as danced by Donna Miranda of Green Papaya.

El Señor Poeta de Isla Negra would have been proud to have such an astig company of Filipino poets honoring his works. Translators for the Neruda keepsake include Almario, Baquiran, Nadera, Rebecca Añonuevo, Roberto Añonuevo, Joi Barrtios, Grace Bengco, Michael Coroza, Jerry Arcega-Gracio, Bienvenido Lumbera, Ruth Elynia Mabanglo, Rogelio Mangahas, Joselito delos Reyes, Fidel Rillo, Zeus Salazar, Lilia Quindoza-Santiago, Ramon Sunico, Delfin Tolentino, Rene Villanueva and Maria Jovita Zarate.

Here’s an excerpt from Joey Baquiran’s remake of our favorite Neruda, "No hay olvido (Sonata)":

"Ngunit hindi tayo makaigpaw sa mga ngiping ito,/ hindi natin makagat ang mga talukab/ na inipon ng katahimikan,/ dahil hindi ko batid ang sagot: kay-raming mga patay,// at kay-raming dikeng pinigtas ng pulang araw/ at kay raming ulong bumunggo sa mga barko/ at kay-raming palad na lumikom sa mga halik/ at kay-raming bagay na nais kong limutin." ["Walang Paglimot (Sonata)"]

For its part, Rio’s Memo… marks a significant break from previous, prodigious works. It’s his first collection of prose poems, or what he dubs as "tulang tuluyan."

"Makamandag kang ganda! Tinutuklaw mo ako araw-araw upang matulad sa mga santo’t pulubi sa plasa – maruruming buto’t marmol – nakatitig sa nagmamadaling batas ng walang-hanggan.

"Tinutugis kita magdamag sa bukid at gubat, at kapag inabutan at niyakap, bigla kang naghuhunos sa isang malaking punongkahoy ng alamat, laging-lunti, at kinasisindakan ng ahas at kidlat." ["Inspirasyon" (Pagkatapos nina Ovid at Petrarch)]

Rife with imagery has always been Almario’s poetry. Graphically does it indulge our mental screens, so unlike the simply disputatious perorations, or the keening abstractions, of lesser mortals in whichever language. The cerebration is never writ stiffly as with memoranda or propaganda. With Almario, what you get onscreen is also what is evoked in the viscera of revelation. Conscientiously, the insights go voila!

("… I chase you overnight in field and forest, and when tagged and hugged, of a sudden you molt on a large tree of myth, ever-green, and found terrifying by snake and lightning.") Quick, give us a cloning machine and we’ll render the entire book into buddy English.

For now, no curtains come down on the wild gossamer chase through wetlands of Pisces, even as our dreamy season comes to a close; yet ever, still, do we pop a cork anew. Salud!