anounceaweek

[anounceaweek]

05012010

i fell

out of my mother’s womb into an alien world

hands pressed in prayer, borne out of convention

i

thanked a god i read fairy tales about in sunday school

never asked once for a. never learned the concept

                      of my own desire

LET THY WILL BE DONE

AS IT IS IN HEAVEN

raised to be seen, never to be heard

i thought of befriending my loneliness

                   but she wasn’t there. there was nobody there.

so i

kissed a boy under the kindergarten table

              Louie held my hand. Louie sees ghosts. Louie sees ghost-

and with a slap on the hand i learned

what is proper is to never let anyone too close

                                           for that is shameful.

FORGIVE OUR TRESPASSES

LEST WE NOT FORGIVE OURSELVES

in church

preoccupied with witchcraft and sorcery, i felt the

daggers stared through me by

titas and lolas who tut tut tutted disapprovingly  

at the absence of my white collared dress, the blueness of my jeans

little did they know i longed for

the whiteness on my skin, the blueness in my eyes (is this desire?)

until came Joseph the dreamer, wrapped me in his

long coat of many colours, kissed me with his prophetic

visions, borrowed Moses’ staff so that he could

part the red sea for someone like me.

I MARTYRED MYSELF FOR MY FIRST LOVE

AND THEN HE ORPHANED ME

i martyred myself for my first love

and then he orphaned me.

i martyred myself for my first love

and then he orphaned me.

[anounceaweek]

rice, inherited

Rice is one of the simplest and often plainest element of any meal that includes it. It is ubiquitous as a staple food in cuisines around the world. Its versatility as a grain allows it to take many forms such as: risotto in Italy, cooked richly with stock, butter and parmesan cheese; or paella in Spain, cooked aromatically and abundantly in a gigantic paellera, batches enough for a village. Rice can be found rolled in one's hands atop Tsukiji market's freshest slice of red tuna, delicately wrapped like a gift with a strip of seaweed; or slow cooked in a fragrant stock with curry and tomato as a jollof in West Africa.

In the Philippines rice is taken very, very seriously. Any Filipino gathering that fails to produce a large pot of steamed rice is considered ludicrous, even shameful. Every Filipino dish imaginable requires the accompaniment of rice, which claims about three-quarters of every plate. It is the reason why Filipino dishes, called ulam, are generally hyper savoury. The cook, as a part of his or her process, must consider how the dinuguan (a rich pork blood stew) or sinigang (a puckeringly tart tamarind soup) will stretch in a spoonful of rice. Rice not only complements Filipino dishes; it is the primary and most necessary vehicle for that sweet, salty, sour, and sometimes bitter combinations of flavours.

Along with many other Asiatic countries, Filipinos enjoy fried rice. More commonly however, is the silog, which poses as a breakfast item but is usually eaten at any time of the day. A cup of steamed rice is topped with a fried egg, yolk glistening and runny, with crunchy whites that add a layer of texture in a bite. Alongside it would either be a few pieces of longanisa (sweet cured sausage), tocino (sweet cured pork), bangus (fried milkfish) or the most popular tapsi (cured beef with onions). In times of celebration, huge mounds of rice are placed atop a long table lined with banana leaf, sprinkled with an array of fried and grilled items and fruit in a military style of eating called a boodle fight. Rice is often marketed as a selling point for restaurants such as Mang Inasal, a chain that famously offers unli-rice—a deal that means exactly what it advertises—with their signature skewered charred chicken leg. The low price of rice in any establishment is considered an excellent value, particularly among Filipino families or friends dining out, which are often larger in number, and even more than often, larger in appetites. 

History has found that any indigent Filipino household can survive for months, even years on end, so long as there is rice. Due to its low price and its presence in any corner store of any small, obscure barangay in the Philippines, it is a godsend for any underprivileged home. For only twenty-seven pesos (less than $1 CAD), one can feed a family of four: perhaps accompanied by a can of sardines cold or warmed, fried corned beef with a generous amount of onions, or if available, canned SPAM thickly sliced and fried with sunny-side eggs. Filling up a hungry stomach more than any other dish, it can even be eaten with a simple seasoning of just soy sauce, or patis, for those who are truly in a pinch. 

Anyone that calls themselves a Filipino shows genuine love and care through the act of scooping a disproportionate amount of rice on a plate for a guest, a family member, or even the odd stranger that walks through the front door. My family is not exempt in this deeply cultural sentiment with rice. I knew how to eat rice like I knew how to walk: with a fork and a spoon, or my preferred method, with my bare hands. Four fingers scoop the rice and ulam while the thumb pushes the contents into a hungry mouth. My mom and dad and their parents before them were raised on rice and the abundance of it, much as as they have raised me. Rice is so pervasive with my family, it would even be eaten with items that aren't traditionally paired with rice, such as sweet Filipino spaghetti.

My lolo, in his seventy-two years of life, was exceptionally adept at ensuring that the rice cooker was always full. Keeper of rice twenty-four seven, he would often fry what little is left in a pot in order to swiftly replace it with a full steaming pot. My lolo taught my mom that the best part of the rice is found at the bottom of the pot, called the tutong. Encrusted and dried out due to the high heat, and yet still stuck to the soft sticky bit of regular rice, it adds another dimension of texture as well as a toasted flavour when it is eaten with a stewy or savoury ulam. His fried rice hails mighty as the fried rice in the household of twelve. Maintaining the perfect balance of garlic fried to the extent of just before burnt, eggs, soy sauce and patis, and without leaving a greasy residue on the lips; it is the fried rice of everyone's dreams. He has perfected the art of rice so well that after his sudden death in February of 2019, my younger cousin Vincent who grew up watching him cook every single day was pestered on end to reveal the secret of Kaka's fried rice—a secret even I am not and may never be privy of. 

Kaka's fried rice carries on in its legacy for fifteen pesos today in Vincent's binalot stand in Imus, named much after himself: The Big Boy's Kitchen. Silogs are served in banana leaf, wrapped like a present for lunch or merienda (a snack, and indeed, Filipinos have rather large snacks). Its compact and portable nature helped the business flourish during the pandemic with the binalot as a very viable takeout food item. As a small and inconspicuous stand it is now a local favourite, where many return for the value and flavour. Rice, once and still is a main source of subsistence, now provides for subsistence. 

The meaning of rice on the dining table is not dissimilar across families, or even nations. Rice is loved ones gathering. Rice is comfort and warmth. Rice is survival to some, and a celebration of abundance to others. Rice achieves the dual sentiment of transcending boundaries of difference while converging on our similitude as social beings. Yes, rice may be common, and there may not be much to say about rice that has not been said before. But it is often in the particulars rather than the universals that one might find a novel way of perceiving what is overlooked; and that which is overlooked tends to be what is most missed when it is no longer there.

[anounceaweek]

An Ode to the Death and Life of Benjamin

The death of Benjamin occurred curtly past the midnight of November eleventh. Twelve years, a short amount for those of his kind, have lasted longer than the love of the young marriages told about in the stories of my grandmother. The inevitable Graying, she used to say, once a thing like this happens to you, unfolds in moderation, but does not fail in succession. First, the wood of the tocador will lose its sensuous concentricity. The kamagong will soon look more like a yakal, made dull, lacklustre, cheapened. Once dense, it will turn hollow; a knock on its side will reverberate a distant echo in approximately the key of B minor. The smooth, unfinished walls of cement, she iterates, already gray, will gradually turn into a shade of domestic eggshell; a tone similar to the walls of the public clinic, of which the kidneys of my father consistently avoids. The floors, despite any effort with a walis tambo, or any dusting with an old abandoned shirt by way of jerking the foot back and forth in a wiping motion, will gather more dust than was ever possible for an enclosed space. You will sneeze at once, you will sneeze again, and you will sneeze infinitely. The space, she adds, in fact will cease to be enclosed; windows of capiz, once emanating a gentle eerie light with its tiny frames of mollusk (who thought oysters could double as a kind of glass?), will at once fall off its hinges, shattering on the ground below as if they were never connected in the first place.

Just as she had described, upon Benjamin’s death, it all happened. In the beginning, it wasn’t so terrible. The cavernous drawers were altogether manageable, and though the walls had an air of malaise, it was really the taste of nausea that was the bother. The floors, at first merely gathering dust, in time were swarmed with long strands of hairs, too. In trying to walk too quickly, a bundle of strands would trip me over; though, the pain of falling was none compared to the feeling of ticklish tresses between the gaps of my toes. In an attempt to combat the cold, I plastered large posters on the wall. Darlings and idols, accumulated and amassed over the years, have finally come to some sort of use. Except, nearly every evening, a strong gust of wind would blow a hole straight through them, as if a ghost; thereby, at once, I came upon the idea of manufacturing a Frankenstein plug to fill the break, in gluing together: an anthology of Spanish poetry, Blood on the Tracks, a Björksnäs bed frame, some heavy blankets, socks with avocado print on them, and a number of knick-nacks collected in a trip to Europe about four years ago (which I had originally meant for a scrapbook, but then got lazy, and then I stopped caring about the whole experience, and the whole endeavor was senseless anyway).

I would be lying if I said that I didn’t try to revert Benjamin’s death. I heard once that you could fashion a real, working heart, by putting together an unopened can of liver spread, processed cheese, some fried galunggong, all soldered together with bits of bronze. Careless that I was, I forgot the part about it needing to be consecrated; and though it was in vain, I remembered that I had lost the phone number of my pastor anyway (it was useless, of course, to ask a stranger to bless your makeshift heart). Then, I remembered the uncle of my grandfather, who was said to be a katalonan. I imagined him, as my father had once told me, whispering mysticisms to the foreign occupiers in the jungles of Luzon, rendering him invisible to their eyes and ready to strike. (If a tree falls quietly in the forest, maybe it was never there). Or how, in demonstrating the grit of the spirits residing in his body, he would bite the head of beer bottles with his bare teeth, ingesting the shards of glass with a measly gulp. (I am, therefore I bite). And so, with these in mind, I called for his magick: in silent appeal for nearly a day and a half, I prayed to the ancestors of my ancestors. And to no avail. Hence, I made up my mind that, perhaps through time, due to an insincere intention, or due to a pure lack of faith, the magick of the ones who gave me my name, in fact, perchance, had an unprecedented date of expiration of which my father had, swept in the emotions of his recounts to me, forgotten to disclose.

Still, in feverish and mad hopes to revive my only and beloved Benjamin, following a number of other futile shortcuts and tactics, I had finally decided to consult an expert on the matter. Upon a lengthy discussion of options (of animation, which was a no, on his part; of modifications, which also resulted in a resounding no, on my part; and naturally, I refused to submit Benjamin to any kind of freezing or skin-mounting), we eventually came to an agreement on an affordable and yet luxurious Memory Foam™. As I do anticipate, the temporary depression upon any kind of petting will inevitably deform the look of Benjamin. The incremental return to its original state however, following the slightest bit of pressure, shall have the effect of Benjamin responding as if in vital motion (an advantageous feature).

Admittedly, when I was told that it would be difficult to hide the scars of the incision, I could not hide my dismay. I did not, by the slightest means, want to be reminded of his cadaverous state. I knew that my wishes, however dire, were idealistic- quixotic even. As such, the expert offered me a kind of compromise: if I truly wanted this illusion to be grounded in reality, I must then commit the ultimate sacrifice of renouncing the privilege of having both of my two eyes. Through the surrendering of one eye, one measly eye, for the benefit of Benjamin, I would then be rewarded in two ways.

The first is that, in seeing through only one eye, the left eye, my perspective would be entirely skewed in a sense that I will no longer be able to, so much as I try, notice the scars of the incision. No matter which angle I attempted as a point of vantage, I shall not see it; it will not be there. In retrospect, I had forgotten to ask what else would be amiss, and in this report from having completed the operation in question, I suppose I haven’t missed much, yet, or at least, of anything that I am aware of. The second is that, in donating my other eye, the right eye, to take the place of Benjamin’s right eye, I shall have the rare and gratuitous honour of, as well, seeing the world as it appears from the perspective of Benjamin. Dubious, I know. I was also curious about how this would unfold.

Nonetheless, I had consented to the operation before the expert could enclose to me as to how exactly it would transpire. What can I say, when the serpent gives you fruit, what else are you to do but to squeeze the juices out of that fruit until it runs dry?

As you are reading this, I can only imagine that you are anticipating the the results of my decision. I shall make no further delay in telling you: this double vision, a kind of simulated mirror of the world, as an effect of having each eye in two separate locations, has been miraculous and has entirely transformed the procession of my life. I have become the cinematographer of my own perception; a kind of omnipotent ad hoc God. At any given point, I can choose to close my right eye and view an event from the West, or close my left eye and view it from the East, or see through them both in concurrent discord (which, I have to say, produces a refraction of lights, colours and shadows, most pleasing to the senses). The mode of having such a malleable and manipulable vision is quintessentially surreal- the possibilities of which, as I imagine in both eyes now, are incalculable. Its application in any sort of activity involving the visual is manifold; its resources, inexhaustible until I perish (and I have Benjamin’s immortality, now, to thank as well).

My preoccupation in testing the limits of this newfound ability has, as an understatement, served well to pass the time. Things do not quite appear the way they used to; they are different, the same, and yet different, but in the good sense. The Graying was still there, though somehow, the double vision (a miracle) made it appear less pitiful, more ephemeral. If I shut one of my eyes, I could fully neglect half the room. Best of all, not only have I encased Benjamin into an ultimate and solidifying permanence, (and lately, I have also been considering my very own transition) but I have also acquired this cutting-edge vision: effervescent, imprecise, absolute

to which, not even the latest model

of a mirrorless Canon© can compare to.

[anounceaweek]

Sometimes Doors Happen to be Open

A doorstop is not a styrofoam cup.

A doorstop is not a parka, not an umbrella stand, not a sleeping bag, nor a mannequin. A doorstop is, in most cases, more a scarecrow than a doorstop.

A doorstop is a doorstop on a tempestuous day. A building's doorstop is similar to the doorstop of another establishment, yet one must not be mistaken, they are not interchangeable. One might avoid using the doorstop, though opting for a closed door seems absurd.

Speaking to a doorstop is not encouraged, but not discouraged; mere eye contact blows the process out of proportion. Acknowledgement of the doorstop is, however, unavoidable, simply for the reason that the doorstop holds the door as a doorstop does.

A doorstop is a remnant of being, an elusive nothing, and a mark of everything in simultaneous fashion. Like many objects, a doorstop claims its right as a vague inhabitor of space.

A doorstop is the reckoning of a consciousness condemned to annihilate, by the method of bodies in motion, and minds of which, perchance, are unaware of the source of its infinite preoccupation, and its arcane and tasteless paralysis.

A doorstop asks for no sympathy; a doorstop hardly asks. The doorstop is not asked of, yet it does. The illusion of choice negates the doorstop's existence; the city nods to its lack thereof.

[anounceaweek]

Of all the words in the english alphabet

I find it hard to find the ones

That sit in perfect rhythm and harmony

To sum up the way i love you entirely.

But maybe words can't describe everything abstract

That adjectives don't exist for the way our legs intertwine

At 5 am in the early morning.

You could even say that a blank page

Is not much of a lack of,

But more of a intricate compliment

Kind of like sinking your hand in a tub of water

Simultaneously touching nothing and everything.

[anounceaweek]

the secret wisdom of insects

clingy creatures

from the shadows of a Sitka spruce

fearless, paratrooping down the spine of a tropical shirt.

a careful and innocuous operation

sinking teeth into skin, a bite and then two

of such little sensation, 

it goes unnoticed.

an automated reaction grows 

pink peach bumps blossoming 

discreetly, under a bed of flowers.

just as an attraction blooms 

in halcyon fields, with the stealth of an assassin

a polite act of poisoning.

[anounceaweek]

it’s being told something you probably already knew and making you believe you got there on your own pt. 2

Every child, in their ripe years, can likely confess that they have at least once, even in the very slightest, to have contemplated or successfully executed snipping a piece of hair off given a pair of scissors, whether it be with full intention, or out of complete negligence. The Bird, for one, could not recall whether she had consciously performed the act, or whether she had caused her sentencing to the situation unwillingly. All that she knew was that the ball of fine black hair behind the door, by the hinge, had somehow accrued to a near adult’s handful, and she was short of the level of attention to detail it took to fully erase all traces of her deed.

She felt a shiver as the sweat began to form first down her spine, then around the outside of her arms, cooling her small body as the anticipation of her mother’s reaction began to overcome her barely self-aware state of being. Just as a recollection occurs in flashes, the bust arrived in an instant. One bellowing shriek of her middle name procured by her mother and the Bird was immediately aware of the gravity of her sentencing. Dragged by the ear to the mirror of an ancient wooden dresser, the kind that still had intricate details around the corners, the Bird observed her wet face- feeling for a moment, rather ridiculous.

“If you ever try to lie to me again about cutting your hair, I will do this to your tongue!”, her mother screamed, as her tongue was pinched by perfectly manicured fingernails, metal sewing scissors drilling permanent craters into the wooden dresser. She barely remembered the part about lying about the deed yet surely, the ball of hair behind the door was undoubtedly hers.

Her mother’s anger on this day became rather vague in her memory, now that she thinks about it in retrospect. When they discuss the incident a decade later, the Bird couldn’t tell whether her mother was more angry about the blatant denial of the crime, or if it was, instead, her willful act of disrupting an image of a little lady carefully crafted by manicured hands. Perhaps it was out of this confusion that she grew up rebelling to both.

[anounceaweek]

it’s being told something you already know and making you believe that you got there on your own pt. 1

It was at the peak of the fickle Sunday afternoon when the Bird amassed to a full state of zen. Peace and dissonance, two seemingly irreconcilable qualities, kissed each other in the mouth in a sure state of union within her. The uncertain limbo to which the docs have left her produced a chemical reaction with the existential dread sewn in the intricacies of her being. What was perhaps the most shocking about it all, was the limp and stationary manifestation of this particular Nirvana.

Two things became clear. One, that loneliness is simply drowning in a lack of ideologies. Middle school was an era of endlessly attempting to fit into some compartmentalized hive identity. Post graduation, it seemed to largely involve falling out of it. It was this sensation that the Bird’s brain actualized now- the motion of perpetually falling out of reality- while the concepts of possible present selves and futures dodging her grasp at her periphery. 

Second, that perhaps the fate of being a housewife is not as tragic as the media so perpetrates. 

“With the multiplicity of feminisms these days, passivity is so quickly condemned to be derogative- and yet few attempt to consider the rationality of passivity once placated against the insignificance and banality of unremarkable human life.”

Not everyone is so lucky to succeed past child-rearing and copious amounts of free time staring at the window. In fact it seems feasible at the thought of trying to merely survive in a chaotically uncertain money-driven world and being flattened at every effort due to sheer dumb luck. In the end it seems to amount to submitting to those who think they know, or to rest, satisfied as a modern monk. At that moment, at the highest point of early summer’s sun, as the Bird grimaces at the sky- the latter seems entirely preferable.

Glancing at the right corner of the unnamed park she observed three men, about her age, practicing fire sticks to music that sounded vaguely like A Tribe Called Red. From a distance only one seemed to have Indigenous blood, and he sat quietly while the two leapt about in the grass. Spinning one baton ten feet up in the air while twirling another in simultaneous synchronization, the man met the Bird’s eye and missed the catch. Unaffected, he picked it up and continued on.

[anounceaweek]

don’t shit in a coffee shop

don’t shit in a coffee shop where the turnover is quick where there is only one stall free and the TP’s sure to stick where the stink is irreversible risk looking someone in the eye instead of feeling intellectual you come out living a lie

don’t shit in a coffee shop save your shit for when you’re home where you’re free to leave a mark but thrive in being criminally alone it’s cheaper like this anyway and this way you take your time have another cup of tea, forget you’re just another mime

or maybe shit in a coffee shop since so many people do what are people up to anyway, i can’t be the only fool. i’ll take a shit for breakfast as ardent as can be it might not set me apart, but my shit 

might set you free

[anounceaweek]

piece of mind on a monday

It was 5 minutes to 6:30. My stomach was ravenous, the Lido was likely filling up at this time, and I needed to leave. Come for the pizza, if not for the interview, they said. Beneficial to your career, if the concept of a career still exists. Fill up that empty gut, if anything.

His name was Michael Poirier, something or other; an alumni for the university I was attending. He had a buggy image, eyes magnified beneath black round glasses, with a very deep, professor-like, earnest way of speaking:

“I was here and there, and I had sent the same manuscript edited for the third, maybe fourth time, and one day they emailed me and finally offered me the job. So I went home and asked my wife if she wanted to go to New York with me and be broke forever.”

The entire round table erupted in synchronized laughter- as if it wasn’t any kind of hardship for him, as if it wasn’t so close to home for any of us, as if it wasn’t the ultimate dream. I suppose the poor and passionate of New York don’t quite resemble the Patti Smiths and the Robert Mapplethorpes anymore- these days they are clad in Fossil watch and an ironed shirt- but not too formal, at least two buttons undone.

The interview, however indulging in the encouragement of failure, seemed to elevate the subliminal pedestal of the community-college English professor. I grabbed my Kånken by the neck and got up.

“The pizza’s coming soon!” Azadeh protested in a whisper. She was a lovely and personable professor, likely responsible for the gratuitous incentive (and my favourite).

“I’m sorry, I gotta go!” I was truly sorry.

Too swift in my intention to leave, I had forgotten my stupid umbrella, hanging by the table in the back wall of the room, so I ran for my life towards the bus loop. The worst part about the rain is the pervasive smell of wet dog. I stank, the bus stank, the stink persists.

My hunger, or the thought of a hot slice of a meaty, cheesy piece of pie, was unbearable by the time I arrived at Commercial-Broadway. I beelined for Megabite and waited to be served. Not minutes later, a man with five large shopping bags made a loud entrance, approaching a seat in which another man was sat across.

“Is anyone sitting here? I’m sorry- can I take this?”

“Yeah, yeah. Go ahead. Do your thing.”

The sitting man wore a large orange jacket with a thin yellow stripe- a construction worker type. He sat with a styrofoam cup of water in front of him, lounging, for some reason, in the loud and crowded pizza shop.

“How’s it going man? You want anything? Can I get you a pizza?”

“Uhh… yeah… Yeah. Sure. If he’s got something new coming out of the oven, I’ll take it. I’ll take a fresh Hawaiian if they have it.”

A slice of Hawaiian pizza, fresh out of the oven, is truly unparalleled. When it’s sitting for more than an hour, the pineapple becomes too chewy, the ham dry, and the cheese a glue for the chewy and dry. When fresh, a bite of it is an explosion of sweet, salty, and a savoury multi-level synthesis of flavours, knowable only to the true connoisseurs of the pie.

“Cool, I’ll take a pepperoni, and a Capicola and mushroom, and uh… You got a fresh Hawaiian for this man?”

The man behind the counter laughed unaffectedly. “No, I don’t have a fresh Hawaiian, but there’s no one around and I can make a quick one in the back if you really want it.”

“No… it’s good. I’m good.” The sitting man said, amusedly.

I took a bite out of my two slices and motioned to leave. There was something striking about what the sitting man did, to me, that seemed a lasting impact compared to that of Mr. Fossil. Some people, indiscriminate of economic status, are convinced they need to take what they can, live how others have, and suffer how others have suffered. Others, even when offered a slice out of someone else’s pocket, continue to maintain a vicious self-respect- an assertive demand for quality.

Later on at the Lido we sat, a few friends and I, hunched together in a couch in the back where the stage was infinitely out of our line of vision. The stand-up comedy on female sexuality was still hilarious, and the poems by the Indigenous woman, wholesome and nostalgic. Forcing his way through the crowd, a man I used to work with held two boxes of Panago above his head inbetween acts. A little later, someone suggests getting Pizza Barbarella up the block, an upscale and expensive, and a rather inauthentic traditional Italian style pizza restaurant.

I said no.