SOLTICE And The Gods Were Pleased!
SOLTICE
And The Gods Were Pleased!
By Cesare A.X. Syjuco
Published in: Philippine Daily Globe, June 29, 1991
WHEN the mountains are angry, we shudder as we should. When venom spews from their bellies, we wet our pampers in fear. Nothing is quite as terrifying, nor as humbling, as an angry volcano on the rampage. And nothing is quicker at bringing mortal men to their knees.
Fear breeds hysteria of the most bizarre kind, and the papers all week were full of babbling doomsayers. The entire country sorted through its sins for a reason. Everyone and his monkey had an opinion. I knew in my own heart that it would only be a matter of time before some crazed columnist would suggest wholesale human sacrifice as a way to appease the volcano. I feared for all the virgins in Luzon, and for my Tita Edith who was born a nun. I was prepared for the worst.
And then the poets came as champions to the rescue. They gathered like wizards of ooze in that small clearing on that solstice night, lulling the angry mountain back into its slumber. For centuries, they had filled our heads with lusty tales of daring and mysticism, of dragonslayers and brave thumbs in the dike, and now they stood weaving their lyrical magic in the wind.
In the garden of the Kanlungan ng Sining at Rizal Park, the gathering called on the living as well as the dead. Even before the ritual chanting gripped the night air, the late Leonidas Benesa was summoned for his guidance. Seven cups of Blend 45 were toasted as the ground was broken for a café to be erected in his memory. Then, too, the spirits of unsung flower children danced to the pounding upbeat, stirring the occasion into a frenzy. It was Woodstock for the second time in a month.
Solstice, last Saturday’s triumphant gathering at the Luneta, showed poets at their best as cultural priests. Homilies were delivered in tongues of fire, fresh from scribbled pages. Events like this have always been a matter of spontaneous combustion, blind stabs in the dark that are as unpredictable as the hives. If Solstice was, in fact, enormously successful as an event, it was because the chemistry was perfect, the energy was raw and the giving was from the heart. That it was also immensely enjoyable can almost certainly be credited to the fact that the speakers were brief, the homilies were inspiring, and the night was open to mischief.
Comprised of members and friends of the Philippine Literary Arts Council (PLAC), the cast for that evening included literary giants and some of the best young poets in Manila. Before a packed crowd huddled on stone steps in a ritualistic circle, the spoken word was mystical, almost paranormal. Gripped heart and hand in this public seance were Nerissa Balce and Fidelito Cortes, homecoming poetess Bing Caballero, the legendary Mang Larry Francia, Rayvee Sunico of the raven locks and winter scraves, famous profile Butch Dalisay, Scottish balladeer Danton Remoto, and basketball bookie Alfred Yuson, among others.
Some of the finest performances of all time were seen that evening, and they made the event doubly memorable. The unsinkable Virginia Moreno, this year’s Araw ng Maynila awardee, was simply at her most divine, sparkling in an appearance that reaffirmed our faith in her as the Queen of Philippine Poetry. The beer-toting Cambridge poet Ricardo de Ungria swaggered and skipped, eventually settling into a primal scat of verbalized radio frequencies. Polymorphous wonderboy Eric Gamalinda read from his latest novel Confessions of a Volcano, layering each passage with the help of a volunteer chorus and a full musical ensemble of patchwork instruments. An obese village idiot delighted the crowd with his readings to the accompaniment of electronic children’s toys.
Undoubtedly the highlight of the event was a modern-day babaylan ritual by leading performance artist Jean Marie Syjuco, whose exceptional talent for scaring the hell out of everyone appears to have survived a celebrated pregnancy. Her accompanying artists included the brilliant keyboardist Orville Tiamson and the equally-young guitarist Chuck Fournier, with some improvised collaborative percussion by artists Alan Rivera, Eggay Navarro and Robert Villanueva. The performance artist Non, notorious for his philosophical sleights of hand, measured time in elapsed milliseconds. No one escaped unscathed.
And the guests that evening—what a heady mix! Recognized in the crowd were the French Ambassador and his faithful Hoarau, the ever-controversial Jose Joya, leading Singaporean art critic Kanaga Sabapathy, sculptor Ramon Orlina, the Albors, German painter Andy Maluche, critic Isagani Cruz, Galeria de las Islas owner Robert Lane, Roy and Susan Veneracion, Danny Dalena and Nini Gaviola, Julie Dalena, CCP’s Jeannie Javelosa, AAP’s PandyAviado, Met’s Ruth Roe, BF Homes Tiny Nuyda and his charming mother, printmaker Fil Delacruz, performance artists Tad Ermitano and Vim Nadera, videographer Gerry Gerena, and the mobile crew of ABS-CBN news and information.
Did the event actually work its magic? Were the gods of nature pleased? Tell me, how many ashfalls have we had since then?
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Cesare A.X. Syjuco, “SOLTICE And The Gods Were Pleased!” (page 1 of 1), Philippine Daily Globe, June 29, 1991
