19 October 2025

A catalogue of misbehaving things

 



 
Originally self-published in 2014, Ang Kompedio ng mga Imposibleng Bagay (The Compendium of Impossible Objects) by Carlo Paulo Pacolor, was reprinted in an expanded edition by the indie publisher Everything's Fine in 2022. Soleil David, who is translating the collection, received the 2025 National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) Translation Fellowship for the book.
 
Everything's Fine also produced a four-story translation sampler from the book. Presented side by side, the sampler itself was a work of art (check their IG post). I grabbed a copy of both the compendium and the four-some sampler during last year's Manila International Book Fair in SM Megamall.
   
Below is a catalogue of the impossible stories:
 
  • From Silid I (Room I, translated by Soleil David):

    I need your most effective lock, so that even I couldn’t get out, and if I lost my keys there would be no way to get back in.

    Later:

    I can’t open it, I can’t.
  •  In “Salita (Speech), surreal imagery: the violin, like two cats exchanging opinions about the sharpness of their claws.
  • “Dila: Is it just me, or is this story a comment on capitalism and materialism?

    From “Tongue (translated Soleil David):
Along with the vomitus was the bile from her guts, but also she threw up diamonds and pearls, their heft tinkling and pinging against the restaurant's tiled floor. ... and all around her the rush and stampede ... where it wasn't just her co-workers who dropped to their knees and scrambled.
  • In “Aparador (Cabinet): A third-person narrator meditates on the existence of a cabinet, among other objects: 
Is it enough to be a thing, to persist ... ? ... When the owner arrives, once the key opens the lock, all of these turn into fiction. 
 
The “Bagay” in the collection title could be translated as object or thing“Object is appropriate because the stories often deal with literal objects and the objectification of people and the anthropomorphism of objects. Not to mention the author's propensity for exploring the subject-object dichotomy in their other works. On the other hand, “thing” universalizes our shared thing-ness.
 
The story ended thus: Tony Perez, pagkayari. (Tony Perez, after the fact.). A nod to the urban legend quality of the preceding, and to Perez, the purveyor of horror stories.
  • In “Bugtong (Riddle): What riddle is it where the answer is the human heart?
Here is another surreal (love) story in this impossible compendium. The heart, after all, is the most impossible thing. Or object.
  • “Pares-Pares (Pairs) is told in brief snatches. The details create an adulterous atmosphere.  
  • “Mandelbrot Set tells the story of a woman encountering a stranger, a double or a “repetition of her husband. Life, she finds, is not as tidy as the mathematically perfect pattern of embroidery on a tablecloth.
She had no need for happiness. ... Happiness – what would I even do with it, is it spare change I can put in my pockets, is it stain I can wipe off my face, is it a song I can hum? [trans. Soleil David].  
  • “Seismometer is surprisingly absent from the book's table of contents. But did I just read the story? Did we just have an earthquake? In 1999, we were all waiting intently for the apocalypse that we felt disappointed when it didn't arrive. The Big One is nowhere and all around us.
  • “Silid II” (Room 2) is the sequel of “Silid I”. Understatement of the year.
  • In “Tala” (Star): What happens when a fortune teller falls in love and, while searching for answers and the object of love, spontaneously combusts? 
  • In “Pagkatapos Nito” (After This), we listen to “Cry Me a River” by Julie London. Elsewhere, we hear “Summertime” by Sarah Vaughan. The theme songs of the compendium are dope.
  •  “Tungkol sa Nawawalang Isla ng Sangkabayagan” (About the Lost Island of Manosphere). Not sure how to translate that last word in the title. “Patriarchy”? “Manhood”? “World of Men”? “Men-kind”? It literally means “kingdom of testicles.”  
A group of military men defended a palace from egg-throwers. There’s a wordplay in the story about bayag (manhood) and bayan (nationhood). It's a fantastical and fabulous fable on toxic masculinity. The light touch was masterful and guffaw-inducing, making it the standout story in the collection. 
  • “Extant” was the final and longest story in the compendium. A character played a video game called Calvary X, which opened doors into the unknown. “Extant” was a Borgesian story of multiple doors and forking paths. The number of possible combinations of doors was 360 x 359 x 358. This impossibility blended the supernatural, obsession, and mystery. Its flavor of nightmare reminded me of the films of Kurosawa Kiyoshi. 
 
Pacolor's Ang Kompedio ng mga Imposibleng Bagay ventures into the mysterious, unknown, and perhaps unknowable territories of the body, heart, and mind. It creates skewed worlds and dark atmospheres that should hardly exist, yet do so within the logic of dreams and waking life.
 

05 October 2025

3 zines by Aris Remollino

 

I've been reading three poetry chapbooks (or zines) by Aris Remollino: Manhid (DWB Publishing Philippines, 2024); Gabi, Umaga, Sinigang (Alagwa Books, 2025); and Mga Madaling-araw sa 7-Eleven (Alagwa Books, 2025). Four, if you count his flash fiction zine, the playfully titled Wansapanataymderwaseylabistori (Alagwa Books, 2025).

Manhid (Apathy) is probably the best of the lot, a powerful collection about the nightmare world of heinous killings under the Duterte regime. In "Konsensya" (Conscience), the gun as a metaphor for man, and vice versa, is a dueling image that questions what triggers the human capacity to end a life: "Hindi dapat / maging tao / ang baril." (The gun should / not become / a man.). The reversal of that statement at the end of the poem (The man should / not become / a gun.) is the inversion of personification: the depersonalization of the man as shooter, the anthropomorphizing of tragedy, of violence itself.

Other favorite poems in the zine (actually, all of them): "Eskenita" (Alley), with its fiery image at the end where the gunman, puffing on his cigarette, sets his head on fire; and "Troll" with its manifesto-like depiction of the language of tyranny: 

Hindi totoo ang totoo, 
kung ayaw ng Pangulo. 
Totoo ang hindi totoo 
kung ibig ng Pangulo.

(The truth is not true 
if the President says so. 
The lie is the truth 
if the President deems it so.) 

The President, the ultimate troll-master, controls the narrative. The import of his words spells life and death, as in the poem's final lines: 

Mabubuhay kayo 
kung ibig ng Pangulo. 
Mamamatay kayo 
kung ayaw ng Pangulo.

(You shall live 
if the President commands.
You shall die 
if the President demands.)

In their insightful essay Mula sa Panahon ng Epektibong Komunikasiyon, isang rejoinder sa bokabularyo ng dalawang Duterte (From the Era of Effective Communication, a rejoinder on the vocabulary of the two Dutertes), Carlo Paulo Pacolor locates the virulence of the Dutertes' and their troll-minions' (messenger/apparatus) extraordinary meta-narratives in the virality and absurdity of the message (content): 

Sa hyper na realidad ng digital/internet/artificial intelligence, ang duplikasiyon ng wangis, ang siyang pinaka-atraksiyon sa pagkakatulad-tulad, ay isa lamang hakbang sa mas pinalawak na ekspresiyon ng pagdanas sa sarili. Kung bagahe ng organikong taong nilalang ang pagsusuma ng politikal at historikal, sa artipisyalidad ng digital ay pwede niya itong i-"unpack" – ikaw ang user, ikaw ang vlogger, ikaw ang mismong avatar, sa siste na produkto ka ng isang libreng plataporma (Facebook, Tiktok, X, Youtube). Ikaw iyon na hindi ikaw. Kaya ikaw rin na hindi ikaw ang troll, ang shitposter, ang alter, ang influencer, ang edgelord sa comment section, ikaw ang DDS, ang kakampink, ang lurker. 

* * * 

Viral ang brand ng Duterte, kumalat at pinakalat, litera­lisasiyon din baga ng memetic quality ng anumang ideya, hindi dahil sa popularidad mismo (content), kun'di sa pinaka-behikulo na nagpapa-popularisa (apparatus); para itong earworm, tunog na hindi maalis-alis sa iyong kukote, at kahit hindi ka naman pukáw ng lyrics ay bakit mo nga rin kabisado? "My god, I hate drugs" ang isang halimbawa ng viral gag na hindi mo pwedeng basahin nang hindi gamit ang boses ni Tatay Digong kahit anong gawin mo, isama na rin ang hanggan-hanggan niyang ekstem­poranyo bawat hatinggabi no'ng kasagsagan ng Covid-19 pan­demic. Ang virality ng Duterte ay hindi mula sa duplikasiyon at reproduksiyon ng wangis; ginawang pamarisan, sa halip, at na­normalisa ang pagdistrungka sa mga nakasanayang gawi nang pagtanggap sa impormasiyon para panlansag sa kritikalidad na mula naman sa paggamit ng evidentiary facts na siyang nagtataguyod sana ng pagkalinga sa katotohanan. Nanlunod ng atakeng spam ang mga trolls, DDS man o hindi, at nagkatawang avatar ang kanilang kinatawan sa pinakamapanikis nitong pagsasaka­tawan: kung mamaril ang kanyang mga pulis, dahil kasi nan­labán ang biktima, at mula sa direktang wika ng isang Tatay Digong na siya ang sasalo ng sisí sa anumang paglabag, sabay na naabswelto ang nagsakatawan ng utos na pandarahas, at napawalambisa pa nga ang mismong pandarahas. Habang ang bik­tima ng krimen? "If you die, I'm sorry (not sorry)." 

There's a lot to unpack in Carlo Paulo Pacolor's arguments, but their point about the twisting of truth (deception) to conform to the fictive narrative is embodied in the chilling poems of Manhid like "Troll" and "Sabi-sabi" (Rumors), where Aris Remollino gave voice to the mastermind of the killings himself.  

The poems in Manhid are a powerful, anthemic record of a brutal regime, and a reminder that the gun, the troll, and the killer are someone in power, and they are also every one who falls prey to (or is deceived by) the slippery, double-edged language of evil. Our inability to parse truth from lie, dignity from cruelty, enabled a regime to spout propaganda as part of its "effective communication," emboldened it to take so many lives. Perhaps only poetry can unmask the avatars of our folly. 

Below are three poems I translated from each zine. 

* * *  

The title poem from Manhid:

  

Apathy 

Killing is easy.
Just rip out the heart
from every part
of your body.

Rip out the heart
from your feet:
Anything you trample on,
you can crush.

Rip out the heart
from your hands:
Anything you hold,
you can strangle.

Rip out the heart
from your eyes:
Anything you see,
you can burn.

Rip out the heart
from inside your mind:
All your problems,
you can obliterate.

Killing is easy.
Just rip out the heart
from your body:
It will be easy to tear out
other people’s hearts
from their bodies.

 

* * * 

 

from Gabi, Umaga, Sinigang (Evening, Morning, Sinigang):

 

Rain

Like quarters,
the rain jingles
on the roof
of your home.

Each drop
slips into
the cracks
of your mind.

Water flows,
leaks through
the broken gutters
of your being. 

 

 * * *

 

Untitled lines from Mga Madaling-araw sa 7-Eleven (Early Mornings at 7-Eleven):  

 

The clock slowly nibbles
on the bread of opportunities.

 

 * * *


I entered the last one in Microsoft Copilot. The AI runs wild with it.