More terrifying are the nightmares when you’re awake

Ang Kapangyarihang Higit sa Ating Lahat (The Power Greater Than All of Us) by Ronaldo Soledad Vivo Jr. (Ungazpress, 2015)



Note: I wrote the following in 2015 as an intro to the novel. There is no translation.



[Mga] Paunang Salita

1. ang mabisang paraan ng pagsasaayos ng problema

MAHALAGANG PAALALA:
Kung ikaw ay nagdesisyon na magpakain ng stray cats o mga pusang gala, importanteng ipakapon mo sila. Kung hindi sila kapon, magbe-breed sila at dadami.Maling pagmamalasakit ang pagpapakain sa galang pusa ng walang kaakibat na pagpapakapon

Kadalasan sa mga nagpapakain ng ligaw/gala o stray na pusa ay nape-persecute o nakakaaway at pinagtutulong-tulungan ng mga kapitbahay at komunidad, lalo na’t hindi pinapakita ng taga-pakain o “feeder” na sya ay “responsible feeder” o nagpapakapon at nagsisimula ng TNR effort sa kanilang komunidad.

Ang TNR o “Trap-Neuter-Return” ang pinakamabisang paraan ng pag-control ng populasyon ng mga pusa sa isang lugar. Dahil ang kapong pusa ay hindi na manganganak o makakabuntis, hindi na madadagdagan pa ang kasalukuyang bilang ng pusa sa isang lugar. Maging ang mga pusa sa kalapit-lugar ay hindi na rin papasok sa isang lugar na may mga kapon ng pusa.

Ang mga kapong pusa ay pangangalagaan ang kanilang “source of food” at hindi nila papayagang may kaagaw sila dito. Kapag ang pusa ay hindi kapon at nanganak, i-si-ni-share o ibinabahagi nya ang pagkain sa mga anak nya kaya’t dumarami ang pusa sa isang lugar kapag hindi sila kapon.

Kapag kapon lahat ng mga pusa sa isang lugar, hindi na rin mapapalitan ang mga pusang namatay na (maliban na lamang kung namatay na lahat ang pusa at merong mga papasok na bagong pusa na makikinabang sa “holding capacity” resources /tira-tirang pagkain ng isang lugar.)

– The Philippine Animal Welfare Society. http://www.paws.org.ph

2. dreamlandangst

Sa mga nakabasa na ng dalawang kalipunan ng kuwento ng ungazpress, hindi na nangangailangan ng babala ang handog nilang unang nobela. Dapat alam mo na rin ang bitag na pinasok mo. Ang [mga] babala ay hindi na uubra kaya 'di na kailangang pamain. Lalo na kung ito naman ay walang kabigin sa [mga] bangungot na umaakbay sa bawat himaymay at kalbaryo ng buhay maralita. Sa dreamland na iniikutan ng nobela, ang buhay ay isang panaginip na umuupos sa (halang na) kaluluwa ng sambayanang hindi na magigising. Hindi dreamland ng operang Miss Saigon o soap operang pampalipas-oras. Ang [mga] digmaang itinatampok dito ay kainan ng laman, puso, at bayag. "Higit na nakagigimbal ang mga bangungot habang gising" – ang sabi dito. Evil na puwersa laban sa mabuti. Mahirap laban sa filthy rich. Hayop laban sa karapatang pantao.Tao laban sa animal na tao.

Habang naghihintay ng order, nagmasid-masid muna s'ya sa paligid. Desperadong humahanap ng dilihensya. Sa kapal ng tao, hindi n'ya mawari kung pa'no didiskarte. Hindi naman kasi s'ya mandurukot. May malaking pinagkaiba ang mandurukot sa holdaper. Para sa kan'ya, ang mga mandurukot ay mga tirador na walang bayag - na kung kumana ay palihim, patalikod, galaw hunyango. Mas panglalake raw ang panghoholdap at di hamak na mas makatao ang proseso, dahil bilang holdaper ay ipinaaalam mo sa mga biktima na kailangan na nilang magpaalam sa mga minamahal nilang gamit at salapi, di tulad ng mga mandurukot na iniiwanang praning ang kanilang mga biktima.

"Isang aleng nagmumurang kamias ang nadale namin kahapon, matrona. Kontak ng tropa ni Buldan. Sabik sa burat, pinatikim ko ng burat saka ko dinigma. Tumataginting na pitong libong piso ang laman ng wallet ng gaga. Pares ng hikaw na ginto, tatlong singsing na ginto rin, at kwintas na silver na may pendant na puso. Inarbor ko yung kwintas sa hatian namin ni Buldan. Di naman na ito nag-arimuhunan at pumayag agad.

3. sellout cops

Nambasag na naman ng trip si Ronaldo S Vivo Jr. Hinantad ang [mga] kaepalang umiiral sa (alta-)sosyedad. Kaipala'y hatid ang [mga] kabalintunaan sa paligid-ligid na puro linga. Sa dreamland ay tuluyan nang nakapinid ang pinto ng palasyo at gobyerno. Kaya naman ang nasasakupang sambayanan ay patuloy sa pagganap sa kanilang dakilang propesyon: pagpupuslit, pandurukot, pagbebenta ng katawan, pangongotong, pangingikil, pang-aagrabyado.

Ang [mga] naturingang alagad ng batas, ang [mga] kampon ng dilim – patuloy sa pagpapatupad ng batas at lagim. Hindi sila maaring lumihis sa layunin: ang Sariling Alamat ng kapulisan.

Ang sabi, para mo masukat kung ga'no kabobo ang isang pulis ay huwag mong bilangin kung ga'no na karaming katarantaduhan ang nagawa nito o kung ga'no na kabigat ang atraso nito sa sinumpaan n'yang tungkulin. Sa halip, tukuyin mo kung ga'no ito kadalas nagtanggol sa masa. Ibig sabihin, bobo kang pulis kung lumilihis ka sa dakilang layunin ng kapulisan na susuhin ang higanteng burat ng gobyernong pahirap at maging instrumento sa pananarantado nito sa bayan.

4. wasakpad

Ano ang [mga] sumunod na nangyari? Ito lang naman ang tanong na nagpapaikot sa mambabasa. Hindi ito yung babasahing prenteng-prente ka na sa pagkakaupo habang kinikilig sa maaring mangyari dahil alam mo na na mangyayari. May kakaibang estilo ng pagkukuwento si Vivo na bumabalik sa kanyang mga unang kuwento sa PseudoAbsurdoKapritso Ulo. Ito ang wasak (non-linear) na pagtatahi ng kuwento at damdamin. Hindi mo namamalayan tastas na ang diwa mo dahil sa pagragasa ng agam-agam at pighati. Nakapaloob sa di-kompromisong pagpapahayag ng pinandidirihang katotohanan, halaw sa hilaw na buhay lansangan, hinding-hindi mahihiwatigan ng mga fan ng pamaypay na kwento (fan fiction) sa wattpad.

5. kinapon ang (kapangy)ari(han)

Sa paglukob ng transgresibo sa tradisyon ng sosyal realismo, ang nobela ay maaring pampurga sa [mga] hindot na luho at ulayaw ng burgismo't burgesya. Dude, ito ay negosasyon hindi lang ng puri at dangal. Kaluluwa at buhay na ang nakataya dito. May eksenang pantapat sa kalunus-lunos na mga tagpo sa Maynila: Sa mga Kuko ng Liwanag, Insiang, Scorpio Nights, Mga Agos sa Disyerto, at iba pang produkto ng malubhang haraya. Huwag nang ikumpara sa metaporikal na inidoro ni Bob Ong sa MACARTHUR. Ibang shit-level ng hardcore ang nakapaloob sa unang nobela ni Vivo dahil lubos na isinuka ang metapora at ilusyon. Higit anupaman, ang nobelang ito ay pagdalumat sa [mga] emaskulasyon ng kabataan sa lipunang makatae. Ang [mga] di-makatarungang paraan ng pagkapon sa pag-asang umahon sa buhay, mabuhay nang tahimik at di sumala sa pagkain sa buong araw. Dinggin ang bating(ting). Tinigpas na ang kaka(n)yahang lumalang ng sining.

6. Kastrationsangst

Gahd, ang bigat lang ng tema nito. Manhid lang ang walang pandama. Paano ba haharapin ang kapangyarihang higit kaninuman kung bumira at gumupo? Isugal ang oras sa bitag ng salita. Magbasa at panawan ng ulirat. Kung paanong namayagpag sa nobela ang pagkabalisa sa kastrasyon-kolektib. Kung paanong namayani ang terorismo-sibil sa walang patumanggang pandarambong at pagnakaw ng kaayusan sa lipunan. Ang pagkadurog ng pagkalalake at pagkababae ng mga aso at pusang galang nagtangkang magpumiglas at manlaban. Ang pagkainutil ng diwa't pagkalumpo ng kaluluwang hindi maiibsan ang sakit. Kahit anong usal at dasal. Sumpain ang pagpapakatao sa panahon ng kanibalismo at pagkahibang habang nilalaro ang nakaliliyong kalaydoskopyo ng krimen at parusa.

7. sirit na

Isugal ang oras sa bitag ng salita. Magbasa at panawan ng ulirat.

Notes on a journal of subculture

BAKA NG INA MO!: O bakit hindi palaging mother knows best ... by Ronaldo Vivo Jr., Erwin Dayrit, Danell Arquero, Earl Palma, Ronnel Vivo, and Christian De Jesus (UngazPress, 2013)

Desiring your well-being, which is our own, and searching for the best cure, I will do with you as the ancients of old did with their afflicted: expose them on the steps of the temple so that each one who would come to invoke the Divine, would propose a cure for them.

And to this end, I will attempt to faithfully reproduce your condition without much ado. I will lift part of the shroud that conceals your illness, sacrificing to the truth everything, even my own self-respect, for, as your son, I also suffer your defects and failings.

– J. R.

Sir, confirm ko lang, dalawang baka po ba? O isang pak u journal at isang baka?

– UngazPress

1 Shrapnel

UngazPress detonated its second bomb a couple of months ago. But the aftershocks were still being felt. The victims were still reeling from pain and suffering. The shrapnel was still embedded in the mutilated bodies of readers. There's no surgical operation which can remove its traces in the living tissues. The blast leveled the whole establishment. It has colonized the comfortable and sleazy mindset. The scars were here to stay, tattooed in the consciousness of readers. The bomb's label was a literal bombshell: YOUR MOTHER'S COW!: Or why it's not always mother knows best ... Its covers were still blatant eyesores. In front: a defiant fetus inhaling some noxious substance inside a giant cow's udder. At the back: a naked man having congress with a cow. The same terrorists as those in the previous exercise in literary anarchy were to blame in this latest state of emergency. The five authors collectively known as Ungaz Boys, plus an additional co-conspirator. One was hardly ever prepared for the invasion of mind snatchers.

2 Axiom

"Mother knows best." Our instincts tell us to respect this time-tested axiom. The figure of the mother has always been associated with compassion, kindness, unconditional love. Anyone who dared question the idea ... But precisely it is this very notion of "mother knows best" that the authors interrogate, albeit beyond its literal rendering. To question the absolutes. Things we take for granted as true and those that appeared or are accepted as so obvious we don't even pause, take notice, take stock, and assess these givens. Things we swallow whole like imperishable religions and superstitions. Things like "Practice makes perfect" or "Better late than never", etc. Things like "etc."

3 Cower

At the level of language and humor, there's a lot to admire in this sophomore-that-really-was-like-junior-or-senior effort. It presents a trap for the reader in every page. Readers trapped by their own class trappings and prejudices. BAKA is a pun in Filipino. It means the livestock "cow" and also: "doubt", "perhaps", "maybe", "hesitation", "uncertainty", "unknown", "unknowingness", "unknowability", "uncharted territory", "terra incognita". Your mother's cow might as well be your mother's cowed. Cowed by cowardice, cowering, coward acts, cowardly actions. A mother cowed by apprehensions. A mother's love cowed by worries for her prodigal children. The journal's foreword once again gives ample warning to unsuspecting readers as it poses and then answers the central question, Bakit hindi palaging mother knows best?

Simple lang. Dahil hindi naman lahat ng bata ay may Ina, hindi naman lahat ng bata ay may bahay, marami ang palaboy at lumaki sa kalsada. Kalsadang nagturo sakanila kung ano ang reyalidad ng buhay, mga batang hindi inaruga mg  mga BAKA ni Ina kundi binuhay ng kanilang mga araw-araw na BAKA-sakali at pakikipagsapalaran. Tulad sa dyornal na ito na may turing na anak(ng diyos) sa labas, walang kinikilalang mga pyudal na magulang at lumaki-nabuo ang mga kwento rito sa marahas at malagim na kalsada. Oo, kalsada ang nagluwal at nagturo sa dyornal na ito kung paano tumindig at mabuhay. Ang  panulat namin ay tulad sa mga batang laman ng kalsada na hindi giniya ng mga values at manners ng isang ama o ina sa loob ng bahay, hindi rin ng mga aral ng akademya at simbahan. Wala ring t.v. o internet sa kalsada para mauto sila ng mass media. BAKA trip mo silang pakinggan. BAKA lang naman. 

Simple. Because not all kids have Mothers, not all kids have homes, a lot were strays wandering the streets. The streets taughtthem what's real and not, kids not weaned i in Mother's COUCH but sustained by their daily COW-ering and tribulations. Like this journal which considers itself a bastard child(of god), who doesn't recognize any feudal parents, the stories here gestated-formed in the violent and terrifying streets. Yes, streets bore out and instructed this journal how to stand on its own and survive. Our writing is like the street kids who weren't guided by the values and manners of a house father or mother, not by sacred lessons in the academe and church. No t.v. or internet in the streets, no mass media to trick them. COUGH, you might want to hear them out. COUGH.

4 Foreskin

Take the first story, "Saklob" (Foreskin) by Erwin Dayrit. One could overanalyze the premise and consider the fact of being circumcised or uncircumcised as a satire or allegory on masculinity. One can see it as a representation of an alternative/altered reality. In Philippine society, men who remain uncircumcised were often made fun of. Mocked. It is a taboo, a shame to retain the foreskin. In the story, it's the reverse. The circumcised became the butt of jokes. As a rite of passage, circumcision of young Filipino men is usually associated with his sexual awakening. But the story seems to reject this arbitrary standard of manhood. It doesn't matter if one is uncut or not. The foreskin is here a symbolic covering of labels. Labels like uncut/cut, black/white, male/female, Christian/Muslim. We have to circumcise these extraneous labels.

5 Gamin: Sub(Cult)ure

At the risk of being simplistic, one may consider the journals of UngazPress as an expression of a subculture. This is a subculture who proudly identifies with those who are far from the center of power. Side by side with the dregs of society, the common tao, batang hamog (street urchins), les misérables, Victor Hugo's gamin, God's bastards. The cult of the subculture wants to overturn the larger culture that is inherently hostile to equality and equal opportunity for all individuals of society. It aligns itself with social justice and proletarian movement, but with a more cynical and acid-tongue vociferation. The "high society" ignores the homeless and the urban poor, is particularly hostile to persons with disabilities and children, and as such is soulless and without depth. Those refined people who populate this high society are called "sellouts". Ken Gelder (via wiki) provides the markers for the identification of subculture. It includes: negative relations to work; negative or ambivalent relation to class; association with territory (i.e., kalsada, the 'street'); movement out of the home and into non-domestic forms of belonging (i.e. social groups other than the family); stylistic ties to excess and exaggeration; and refusal of the banalities of ordinary life and massification. While several aspects of subculture are satisfied, there is a novel variation in Ungaz in terms of class consciousness. Because the Ungaz subculture delineates power imbalance, a Marxist reading is inevitable. While some stories may depress readers as characters wallow in utter dejectedness ("poverty porn", a friend of mine called them), the "stylistic excess", lexical richness, and over-the-top comedy of subculture lifts them up to liberating heights. I may be guilty of boxing up an idea with this talk of subculture. But I acknowledge the limitations of the term; it is only used for convenience (I can't think of a more appropriate conceptual framework at this point). But then even genre labels like transgressive fiction also delimit the ambit of a work.

6 Fractured

"Nowadays, art that does not use a procedure is not truly art." I'm quoting César Aira on conceptual art. "This radicality is precisely what distinguishes authentic art from mere language use." I want to make an argument that the stories in BAKA constitute a procedural and schematic investigation into the psyche of a subculture. And it is radical because it employs no procedure. The lack of procedure is its own procedure. The stories of BAKA are the living, breathing drafts of an untidy reality. The style of this reality must be uncompromising. Hence, capitalization of proper nouns is ignored 90% of the time. (In his final novel Cain, José Saramago has put all proper names in small caps. The Ungaz collective is too inconsistent for that trick. But what S. and the Ungaz probably have in common: nonconformism and atheism.) Proper punctuations are not a concern. Typo errors litter the text. Spell check and grammar are foundation myths. Style guidelines are encrypted in undeciphered Dead Sea Scroll. Editorial interventions must have been downplayed, save for assembling and arranging the order of stories, inserting drawings, and deciding on the text font and cover art. This (hap)hazard(ous) practice of un-proofread publication promotes a kind of hyperrealism in the stories. Because 100% raw reality is unclean, unpolished, unedited, and irreverent. Because this is pseudo-pop reality, absurd and capricious, headbanging in protest. The stories are episodic, almost to a fault. They are fractured (e.g., "DSC", "Tagtuyot sa Buhay ng Isang Agwador", "Iisa lang ba ang putahe ng Jollibee aurora at mga jolibee sa'n mang dako ng bansa?", "Nata ni Coco", "Mga kwentong gusto kong ikwento sa kin ni mom tuwing bedtime"), a pastiche of wordplays and sectioned heartbreaks, silly Sisyphean cyber/virtual struggles. Shattered fragments of a vase, the criminal intents assembled in the mind. Shards that form a whole, with the cracks and glue proudly showing.

7 Motherland

The first epigraph above is from "To My Motherland" (1886), José Rizal's dedication to his novel. It has nothing to do with this post.

8 LBC

The second quote is a text message from UngazPress confirming my order. Copies of the two journals, BAKA and PAK U, are not available in major bookstores, only in one independent book seller in Manila. To reserve the goods, one needed to contact the writer-publishers through a mobile number or a message in Facebook. Copies are either given through personal meet-ups or sent via courier. It is an emerging publishing model for Manila-based indie writers and publishers of printed works that may or may not have ISBNs. Eschew traditional publishing practices. The vanity press Ungaz brings the books directly into the hands of readers. The form is the content is the means of production and consumption is the base and superstructure. A PDF copy of the first journal was recently made available for free download. Facebook was the main base of operations and dedicated platform for advertising, book reservation, and Bernhardian rants and polemics. And yet the transaction will not end with the buying and receiving. The UngazPress deems their readers completely responsible for the way they approach the book. This is indeed a peculiar publishing venture. Let me mention that there's a sorry incident involving an online group of readers (where I belong) and the writers. The discussion of the book became heated; strong views and opinions were exchanged. On the upside, everyone learns he is a passionate reader. Long live arts and letters! After the gladiators took rest and the dust settled, a modus vivendi was (I think) reached.

9 Noir

Nagpapatuloy ang Ungaz Boys sa kanilang malupit na pagkatha ng mga kuwentong sumasalunga sa agos ng kumbensyon at sigwa ng panahon. Pinupuntirya nito ang bestyal na supot na kultura na nagpapalawig sa kapangyarihan ng mga mapang-api, mapang-abuso, at mga evil na puwersa. Di natin yon want. Kung kaya ang BAKA NG INA MO! ay dapat na maging required reading sa mga nakatira sa loob at labas ng Malacañang. Ang BAKA ang tunay na estado ng bansa. Ang BAKA ang tunay na Manila Noir.

10 (Sub)Culture

Because the alternate reality is the reality. And the subculture is the culture.

PseudoAbsurdoKapritsoUlo

PseudoAbsurdoKapritsoUlo by Ronaldo Vivo Jr., Danell Arquero, Erwin Dayrit, Ronnel Vivo, and Christian De Jesus (UNGAZPress Issue 1, November 2012)


The five authors of PseudoAbsurdoKapritsoUlo would have us believe that what we are about to read are stories of the rawest form, like sashimi. That what we have in our hands are stories almost as good as plotless, or half-baked, being far from "overcooked" tales with "overkill" plot. The preface was entitled "Babala: Bakit Hindi Mo Dapat Basahin ang Dyornal na Ito" (Warning: Why You Shouldn't Read This Journal), parts of which were reproduced at the back of the book. It didn't mince any words.

Ang lahat na kuwento rito ay siguradong pag-bali sa mga utos ng hari, pang-dura sa mukha ng pyudal mong erpats, pang-sampal sa nagmamarunong mong guro at lahat ng ito ay istorya ng mga anak ng diyos sa labas. Wala kang mga bida o super characters na aantabayanan dito dahil ang mga kuwento mismo ang siyang bida at lahat ng tauhan ay mapang-antag.
...
At sa mga kritiko ng tradisyunal na literatura, 'wag nyo nang basahin 'to dahil di n'yo naman kailangan pa. Para sa'n pa? e estilo at paraan lang naman ng pagkukuwento ang alam niyong birahin. At 'wag mo na ring itanong kung sino ang impluwensya namin dahil wala naman, di namin kailangan nun. Di require sa'min na magbasa muna ng maraming akda bago sumulat. Sapat na 'yung munti naming karanasan at mga nakikita sa daan at tabi-tabi, doon naman talaga nahahagilap ang lahat ng shit. Ika nga, praktika muna bago teorya. 'wag mong babasahin ito kung hindi ka isang ungas!

(All stories here surely disobey the king's wishes, spit on the face of your feudal pops, slap your pretentious teacher, and all are the stories of children of god out of wedlock. You will not root for any protagonist or super characters here because the stories themselves are the protagonists and all characters are full of angst.
...
And to the critics of traditional literature, don't try reading this because you don't need to. What for? eh, the only ones you know how to slam are the style and manner of telling stories. We are not required to read a lot of books before we could write. Our short experience, as well as what we see in the roads and waysides, is enough. Indeed that's where you could find all shit. As what they say, practice first before theory. so don't you dare read this shit if you're not a complete nitwit!)

Forewarned is forearmed. That acrimonious tone was already set by the book's cover showing a fetus sucking its left thumb and displaying a dirty finger on its right. The back cover showed two dogs having sex. And the title was deliberately worded to spell PAK U in contraction. As if these weren't enough, there's a blurb by one Jack Alvarez and an introduction by the activist poet Mark Angeles. Their very tones will offend any wide-eyed Bible reader.

The "Ungaz boys" would have us believe then that what we have is something like a swearword, something obscene, taboo, a transgressive work. Something that pushed the boundaries of fiction to something the devil (and god) may care. In short, something that went against the grain of traditional Filipino literature because its very source materials were the things hidden from the civilized smiles of political correctness. 

I couldn't help but dig the attitude. The deep-seated antagonism. But did the Ungaz boys actually deliver the goods on Third World deep shit?

Well, yes and no. It turned out the authors are one hell of a bunch of tricksters and jesters. They were most unreliable, inconsistent, and in total deep (literary) shit. For one, they really could write strings of sentences and end them with punctuation marks. Some stories were so good I wonder if all that marketing and packaging were necessary. What we have are stories premised on shock value but nonetheless are stories that do respect the dignity of a person, that captures the seedy reality of existence. That's reality with a lowercase "r" for they were mostly the lives of lowlifes, drug addicts, frustrated individuals, drunks, and sentimental lovers. All that the escapism of science fiction and urban fantasy wanted to escape from. The sorrows of young Werthers, Oedipus complexes, and portraits of the hunger artists as young men.

The stories in PAK U were conceptualized as works that upend existing modes of expression set by the canons and high priests of Filipino literature. They posed themselves as anti-establishment. And for the most part they were. Some stories were riddled by typos and misspellings one wouldn't dare contest the fact that they are of the rawest sushi form. In fact, the typos were like honorable badges gained after a long night of fighting the demons in the head. The visible scratches and wounds of frustrated writing. Some proper names were not capitalized, as if their lowercase status grant them the right to look the reader in the eye and say, I defy you. I am not sic (sic).

The four sections "Pseudo", "Absurdo", "Kapritso" (Caprice), and "Ulo" (Head) were each introduced by an epigraph and tattoo-like drawing. The very epigraphs belied the fact that the writers were not big readers or were not influenced by some philosopher (Freud! Nietzsche!) or rock band (Pink Floyd).

Stories ranged from flash fiction fillers to send-ups of social realist stories in the mold of Mga Agos sa Disyerto (Streams of the Desert), the 1960s counter-movement in Tagalog writing which sought to oppose the perceived desertification of the local literary landscape. The pieces were rife with wordplays and puns, not to mention the rich vocabulary of a pottymouth, and often punctuated with a punchline so strong it knocked the hell out of the counterpuncher (as in Ronaldo Vivo Jr.'s "Catcher" which caught me off guard I wanted to howl through the long night in utter despair).

The Ungaz boys were right. The stories were the main characters. They attracted attention to themselves. As with the very first story "Iglesia ng Red Horse ng mga Disipulo ng Emperador: Ang gabi ng pagsamba ni Kristal Magdalena" (Iglesia of Red Horse of the Disciples of Emperador: The night of worship of Kristal Magdalena) wherein the holy mass was taken as a template for something like an all night drinking session. Or perhaps a creative writing workshop over the holy spirit of bottles. One thing was sure. There was something close to a consecration (or desecration) to this congress of the faithful.

My favorite writer in the anthology is Ronaldo Vivo Jr. who displayed a mature handling of narrative structure, as in the anticlimactic yet still moving ending of "Room Six-O-Three". The narrator of this story reminded me of Murakami Ryū's in Sixty-Nine. In fact, I was also reminded of "the Other Murakami" in the unadulterated thrill and the sick atmosphere of most stories here. But the most obvious literary model had to be Norman Wilwayco, the leading Filipino writer of transgression.

Perhaps what made PAK U an exciting collection was its satirical bite and versatility. We have, for example, "A Complex E[soterik]rotik Reality", about well, that complex unnameable and titillating reality, reminiscent of the transgressive movies of a master filmmaker like Peque Gallaga. We also have, for example, the commentaries of Manong Google (Big Brother Google) in Christian De Jesus' story "Hin-Dot Com" (a play on the word hindot, which is slang for fucking). Big Brother Google was the ubiquitous author of the artificial happiness in the ICT age.

*Manong Google: Pilit na hinahanap ng mga tao ang mga alternatibo ng araw-araw na pamumuhay sa espasyong walang tiyak na lalim, lawak, agwat at taas, na kung tawagin nila ay cyber space at internet. Nakalikha na sila ng birtwal na mundo na sila rin ang mga diyus-diyosan. At ngayong nagtagumpay sila sa pag-gawa ng mga artipisyal na rekurso ay pinipilit naman nilang magmukhang totoo at tunay ang mga nasa loob nito (3D). Ang mga tao, pilit na itinakwil ang tunay na mundo at natural na mga gawi, gumawa ng kunwa-kunwarian at artipisyal na mundo at mga tao, ngunit pilit namang pagmumukhaing totoong mundo at tunay na mga tao ang mga ito. Ginagawang kumplikado ang lahat. Mga Ungas!

(*Big Brother Google: People search hard for substitutes to their daily lives in a space of indefinite depth, width, distance and height, in what they call cyberspace and internet. They have created a virtual world where they themselves are demigods. And now that they succeeded in creating an artificial recourse, they did their best to make real and true its interior walls (3D). The people, trying their best to shun the real world and their natural ways, crafted an earth and people of imitation and artificial make, but they also tried hard to fashion out of these a real world and a breathing people. They complicated everything. The dimwits!)

Oh hail, zeitgest! The story was simply about a boy who was addicted to the pleasures of the Internet. I'm not going to romanticize the concept but here we have the cyberspace in the age of make-believe, the age of borrowed or second-hand reality. Cyberspace artificiality bred the addictive zombie state of attention deficit, the infinitesimal attention span of a mouse click exploding in the face of our Copy-Paste Generation. For me, the story typified PAK U's intended or unintended effect as a balm and antithesis to all the garbage wrought by shit-noise and shit-talk all around the hyperspace.

It was a science fiction world we live in, and PAK U was here to revive readers after waking up from this beautiful nightmare. Poverty and drug addition and teen angst were here depicted in all their loud realities.

Any publicity is still publicity and so I could appreciate how the PR machinery behind PAK U tried to project notoriety, if not infamy. The journal functioned as its own marketing device to test the reader's incredulity.

And of course, the journal did not live up to all the hype proclaimed by its marketing apparatus. Plotless? Half-baked stories? Uninfluenced writers? Who are we kidding? The journal (apparatus) knew it could never anticipate the reader's or critic's reaction. The apparatus was there to distract the reader from the complex esoteric/erotic reality, to jolt the literary critics of tradition out of their pastoral literary reverie, to inject dark comedy to light comedy. We've been had.

The medium is not the message. The work behind the medium is the essence, as what "Obrang Maestra" (Master Work) by Christian De Jesus (almost too good a name to be a pseudonym) would say:

"Ang pag-aaral na sinasabi niyo ay siyang nagtuturo sa akin upang makisakay sa masalimuot na kultura ng pag-angat sa antas ng buhay. Tinuturuan akong maging makasarili at bulag sa totoong kulay ng lipunan. Wala along natututunan pagka't ninakaw ang aking emansipasiyon sa pagtalakay ng bagay-bagay. Nay, huhulagpos ako at iguguhit ang sarili kong kapalaran. Makulay, matingkad, malaya. Isang obra na walang sinuman ang makabubura. Ang sining ng buhay ang siyang pinkamabisang guro sa mundong ito. Ang obra ang siyang maestra."

("The schooling that you prescribe is the one teaching me to ride on the complicated culture of a well-off life. I am taught to be selfish and blind to the true color of society. I learn nothing because I am prevented from freely discussing ideas. Mom, I shall break free and draw my own destiny. Colorful, bright, free. A piece of work no one could erase. The art of living is the most efective teacher in this world. The obra is the maestra.")

So sincere, epigrammatic, word-playful. I dig the frivolous, offensive, and sincere wordplays in this book. They make the language richer and lustier. (The best wordplayer in PAK U was probably Erwin Dayrit. I mean, the crass words these guys came up with! Playing with words like Gollum playing with his precious thing.)

I will end with blurb-ready statements. (I've heard the UNGAZPress is collecting them as a marketing device for its "ikalawang putok"--second explosion, second issue.)

PAK U is a brave new collection for a braver new world, a visceral and scintillating cosplay of blood, semen, sweat, and gore, worthy of real conversation over hard drinking sessions and wasted nights. This debut offering of UNGAZPress is transgressive fiction at its fucked up best.

Five out of five dirty fingers.

Thanks to K.D. and to UNGAZPress for the copy of PAK U.