As I write this, I’m using the new Lenovo 3000 V100 laptop that Dad sent me. It’s terrific! However, many of its features are probably wasted on a technophobe like me, since I tend to have very simple needs. For example, I love that it’s so portable—it has the dimensions of a short bond paper—and that it lets me write stuff and go online. See? Simple needs.
My sister has already installed the basic programs, though I can think of a few that are still missing. (That’s right: I’m not entirely limited to Microsoft Office.) I’m still getting used to the cramped keyboard and am waiting for the wireless mouse that she promised to donate. But all in all, I’m happy, as someone like me can possibly be, over this gadget.
Like many people who learned to write in the age of computers, I can no longer do without some sort of word processing device. Of course, when I write to clear my mind or record some thoughts, I still prefer a pen and a notebook. And personal letters to people are best handwritten, unless they live so far away that email would be more convenient.
But for the more formal stuff, like the seven million academic papers I’m condemned to write for the rest of my life, or anything for publication, I’ve become dependent on technology. It lets me cut and paste blocks of text, access a thesaurus, do research online, and consult or chat with people—all at the same time.
But have our gadgets improved the quality of contemporary writing, as compared to, say, the quality of the classics? Obviously not. Yesterday I was browsing through this intriguing reference book entitled1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die, and I came across a picture of Jonathan Swift’s handwritten draft ofGulliver’s Travels. He wrote so neatly, he must have been an editor’s dream—there was not a single erasure on the page! I can’t even imagine writing a paragraph without deleting and replacing at least a third of it. And yet I can’t ever hope to produce a masterpiece likeGulliver’s Travels, not even with all the time-saving devices of the post-Information Revolution era.
Oh well. Maybe those Lenovo-less novelists of yore were just plain geniuses. Someone like me, I need a lot of help. So thank you, Dad, for this wonderful gift. Now I don’t have to be stuck for long hours in front of my PC when I have to write something. Like right now, I’m nowhere near my desk. Thanks to a wireless router, however, I’m still connected to the ‘Net. How great is that?
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After my classes yesterday, I dropped by Mall of Asia to pick up a cake for my parents’ anniversary. It was the first time I went back there since last year. No, I didn’t watch the World Pyro Olympics, which was conducted this month in the bay area beside the mall. I heard horror stories about the masses who swarmed all over the place, hiking from Taft Avenue down the length of Edsa towards the mall entrance, because the traffic justwouldn’t move…. partly because the pedestrians had taken up four or five lanes of the highway! I’m serious. However, everyone I know who went said it was worth it anyway.
The show must have been spectacular, or maybe even tenfold what that word can describe. But I still would have said:No, thanks.
Anyway, yesterday when I returned to the mall, it was relatively peaceful. The huge parking lot outside was virtually empty. Strolling past the stores in the South building, feeling the sea breeze on my face, gazing at the late afternoon sunlight reflected on the water surface in the distance, I realized that I’m proud of this mall. It’s better than any I’ve been to in the States (where the shopping centers all look like Glorietta, except you can’t afford anything inside).
Below: From my sunset series. :)
Mall ofAsia has everything: A department store, a hypermarket, my top five favorite bookstores, a skating rink, an iMax theater, any restaurant you can think of, and what must be hundreds of specialty stores, many of which are not even listed in the store directories. To my delight, I had even discovered a Collette’s kiosk somewhere in the hypermarket. Yes, Collette’s ofbuko pie fame! I went home once with two boxes ofbuko pie, and my sister asked, “Did you go to Laguna?” I responded, “Nope. Just Mall ofAsia.”
In the evenings they have music, and on weekend nights there are fireworks. It’s 15 minutes from where I live inPasayCity, and it’s on my way home from school. How amazing is that?
Because it’s so big, I still sometimes get lost there. But yesterday, I located Goldilocks Bakeshop, picked up my parents’ cake, and returned to where I parked without mishap. The trick is to use the ocean as a guide. Someone told me once thatif the water is on your right side, that means you’re facing south. If it’s on your left, you’re facing north. Now, I honestly don’t know why such a simple thing hadn’t occurred to me. Until I learned that trick, I’d gotten many people lost who were depending on me. So for anyone who’s still having problems navigating the place, just consider my friend’s advice and you’ll be all right.
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I’ve been learning a lot about poetry these days. In my literary editing class, our final project is to select the “publishable” poems from a collection of works by other students. However, I’ve never had any formal training in poetry or creative fiction, unlike my friend Mike who sits in my class. He has writing jobs on the side and also used to write forMalate,La Salle’s undergraduate literary journal. So I’ve also been learning a lot of things from him as we work together on some assignments.
Last week, we sat down at the library’s periodicals section to review the back issues ofCaracoa, the Philippine Literary Art Council’s poetry journal. We were tasked to evaluate theCaracoa 2006 Silver Issue, whose express theme is the vague phrase “new voices.” We had a lot of fun critiquing poems, though of course I realize that that’s so much easier than actually writing one.
And being incorrigible cam whores, we took a picture of our critical session. Do we look serious here, or what?
This sort of work is infinitely more exciting than what I’d done so far, in something like five years of graduate school. I guess there’s less freedom in philosophy, an abstract mansion whose foundation is logic. Philosophical work is also less collaborative than what I’ve experienced so far in literature and writing, where the emphasis is on peer evaluation, out-of-town workshops, the learning of craft from professionals. I feel more alive somehow, because all my words are here, and my feet are already obeying the momentum of flight.
So far, I owe most of my inspiration to Dr. Marjorie Evasco. She’s the one who taught me that the difference between philosophy and poetry is that the former is concerned with the abstract, the latter with the concrete. A poem is about the object, and only secondarily the idea. In that sense, philosophy as a reflective discourse is once removed from the poet’s direct sensual seeing. I have layer upon layer of frameworks to unlearn!
I recently read an essay by Dr. Marj, from this anthology of poets’ reflections about their method. (A philosophy of poetry?) She tells the story behind one of her beloved poems, “Heron-Woman.” She describes the flock of herons she witnessed once as a child, the bird sanctuary she has visited with friends, the story of the selfless bird-turned-woman-turned-bird-again that she has heard from a student. I haven’t read her canonical works, for surely there is such a canon, for someone of her stature in thePhilippines. I’m new in this fandom. But that first essay that I read just. Completely. Blew.Me. Away. It’s not that I want to write like her, because of course, a writer must have an inimitable voice. But what I admire so much is the totality of what she expresses in that relatively short essay: Grammar so faultless, I become self-conscious. Her description of those lush places and her encounter with the herons—you can practically hear their wings flapping in the mist. The elegant architecture of ideas wrapped inside her lyrical prose, which includes the lessons from that touching heron-woman story and its loving,feminist message in the end. Oh my God!
Anyway, for my friends who also personally know and admire Dr. Marj, the essay is with me if you’d like to read it. I actually see her every Saturday, a holy day.
