REVIEWS / THESPECTRUM
AUGUST 2016
11
BOOK REVIEW
Negros Tours
Art House Along Araneta Ave.
The Proxy Eros
by Mookie Katigbak-Lacuesta
By Iris Denise N. Rivera
A treasure trove of locallymade art lies on a backstreet between Metrodome and Planta Hotel, hidden away from the eyes of the common Bacolodnon. J&L Marañon Art House is a boarding house filled with magnificent pieces of art ranging from Terracotta Warriors to cherub frescos open to the public. Every building beside it seems to pale in comparison because even just the esoteric facade of the house is overwhelming. The iron gates, guarded by terracotta warriors, are a gold-painted lionhead knocker and only 50 pesos away from being opened. A repeating motif in the Art House’s pieces is the integration of classical European art with religious themes and Filipino culture. The first few steps within the house is enough proof with a statue of a glaring Medusa, a Grecian gorgon, wrapping her glass marble-encrusted snake’s tail around a pillar, petrifying visitors. The garden within the gates of J&L Marañon Art House is brimming with life— plants, caged animals, and a small waterfall pouring itself into a miniature lagoon. An iron spiral staircase wrapped with metal leaves, vines, and grapes lead to the eagles’ cage entrance over the lagoon. A balcony overlooking the garden is framed by a gigantic sculpture of Eve being tempted by the Serpent and Adam pointing at her accusingly. An area by the garden left jaws hanging with its largerthan-life statues on each corner—one of which is the Greek titan Atlas seemingly holding up the ceiling. A marble statue portraying Michelangelo’s Pietà stands tall in front of an enormous wood carving that takes up the entire wall. To the right of the marble Pietà is a tile mosaic
By RJ Nichole L. Ledesma
Photos by Jhon Aldrin M. Casinas
of Da Vinci’s Last Supper. A fresco of Adam, Eve, and a female representation of the Serpent looms over the entire room. The living room area, with its soft orange light and crystal mirrors, welcomes all guests as they walk through the House’s doors. To the left stands a minibar with its marble countertops and bench. A narrow hallway leading to the dining area is lit by different-colored lightbulbs shaped like round cut diamonds. The dining area is elegantly designed with a long rectangular wooden table and mirrors on
either end. The back wall is decorated with golden leaves, vines and flowers while the front opens to the ocean—at least, that’s where the artist wanted to take his guests. A soft green light bathes the shell-lined walls of the room transporting visitors to the bottom of the sea. Upstairs, a mural of a Grecian-looking pavilion greets visitors with a comedic surprise of a disappearing Philippine Airlines airplane. A door with a family portrait of the Art House’s owners opens to a library with an array of large
bookshelves and an enormous porcelain plate collection lining the walls. An adjacent sitting room contained more glass cabinets filled with antique clocks and glass figurines. Finally, another dining area holds a stylish round table and is bathed in light by stained glass windows. On the room’s ceiling is a reinterpretation of Botticelli’s The Birth of Venus with the goddess, now black of hair, standing not on a shell, but on various fruits and vegetables with historical Filipino figures watching on. It’s surprising that the place isn’t flocked by art enthusiasts looking to immerse themselves into inspiration-inducing environments or fans of the eccentric looking to take the perfect Instagram photo. The City of Smiles tucks away its most magnificent treasures and offers them up to those still willing to scratch at the surface—to those who still look for beauty in oddity.
ALBUM REVIEW
Sukli by Gloc-9
By Lex Diwa P. Aloro
The Philippine’s fastest known rapper has reunited with his debut record label after 10 long years for his eighth music album, Sukli. Aristotle Pollisco, famously known under his stage name Gloc-9, has returned to Star Music for a comeback album containing eight songs plus one acoustic set.
Sukli was released last June 6. The 38-year-old artist has stuck with his fast-paced rapping style and hard-hitting lyrics but strayed from tradition in terms of musical style. In this latest album, Gloc-9 has resorted to a more tech-y electronica approach for delivering his lyrical ideas. Though many rap artists — and musical artists in general — have garnered help from synthesizers and autotunes, Gloc9’s use of them in Sukli spewed him right in the middle of the mainstream. Nevertheless, his brutally honest, ever-unflinching lyrics make up for the surprisingly substandard, middle-of-the-road sounds.
Thirteen years and 40+ music awards after his first album, G9, Gloc is still writing songs about how his slingshot to fame has been a dream come true. It is evident in his six-minute single, Industriya, featuring KZ Tandingan. The song narrates the story of a struggling artist who later becomes successful and drowns in the glitz and glamour of stardom. The whole tracklist is littered with third-party murmurings of various personas ranging from shady men to opinionated fans, setting the scene for a much darker visual imagery of Gloc-9’s lyrics. It certainly had that effect on Industriya when backdrop buzzed of commentaries like, “Oy si idol! / Mayabang naman yan e.,” as the song also tells of the artist’s struggles. Of course, Gloc-9’s signature social-issues-tackling lyrics reappear strongly in songs like Kalye, featuring Yosha and Ang Probinsyano, and Ebe Dancel. All of the songs in the album are loosely stitched together to form one
narrative that Gloc-9 targeted to cover issues in the Filipino society, such as the people’s conformation to colonial mentality and the undying issue of corruption. The tracks always have a hint of hopefulness to them, though, and it was Gloc-9’s way of bringing an optimistic view for the album. In regards to the number of featured artist in this story-driven album, Gloc-9 said that it was an honor to work with the voices of some artists he respects. With the help of other artists, he was able to string up an album concerning “the day-to-day experience of our kababayans,” said Gloc in his Starmometer interview. Over a decade after his debut, Gloc-9 has maintained to be socially relevant and will continue to be for generations to come. Sukli just contributes to those Filipino anthems sung from college campuses to dingy streets. It is with Gloc-9’s lyrics that a part of our culture and society will live on.
Anne Carson, in the context of mythology and romantic relationships, argues Eros’ triadic nature: the lover, the beloved and that which comes between them. According to her, the third component “plays a paradoxical role for it both connects and separates, marking that two are not one, irradiating the absence whose presence is demanded by Eros.” This is the point of tension by which the poems in The Proxy Eros cleave to. This is Mookie Katigbak’s (as she was yet unmarried to fictionist Sarge Lacuesta at the the time of release) debut poetry collection released in 2008 and published by Anvil Publishing. At once, she becomes the woman loved and in love, as well as the persona being chased by and running after, gazing upon and being gazed upon, with admiration from within and without, a lover— desire viewed from different heights. This monomania is sustained throughout the collection with Katigbak’s deft handling of the craft employed through conspicuous allusions to myth and art (Daphne and Apollo, chiaroscuro, Jean Cocteau), as well as other overtly literary references. The book opens with “Making Love” which quickly foreshadows the sensuous lyricism that pervades the collection. (He enters you slow, then lunges / To break the prone wound open. / The seam gives, an involuntary / Quiver, but this is not a heart—// Even as he says this is how we love.) But steering away from being merely pornographic, despite the bluntness of images used, Katigbak injects, with admirable maturity, snippets of sadness and wisdom in the poems. As she does, she assumes the stance of the virginal but wise persona. There is apparent deliberateness in the employment of sound and diction. Musicality, which is often neglected in much of the conceptual-heavy contemporary practice in Filipino poetry, is particularly paid attention to. Mellifluous words, to heighten its lyricism, fill the collection: cobalt, saboteur, whorl, skein, rivulet,
Official Student Media Corps of the University of St. La Salle - USLS Student Activity Center, La Salle Ave., Bacolod City, Negros Occidental 6100 - August 2016
cluster. It is also as if the whole collection is a firework display of Katigbak’s technical virtuosity. Another feat for the poems in the collection is their quality of restraint. “What I am ever is this: composure of stone,” says the first line of the poem As Far as Cho Fu Sa, a re-rendering of an Ezra Pound translation of a Li Po poem titled “The River Merchant’s Wife.” That line resembles the persona in how it views desire: at a vantage point of stillness. The persona embraces her desire’s impossibility of being physically returned by her lover due to the sprawling distance between them, as in the heartbreaking last lines: But nothing moves. Somewhere / You are actual. Happen to me there. In “Brace Me Somewhere,” she summons the story of the nymph Daphne and the god Apollo in their endless chase, Katigbak assuming the panting and yearning Apollo. (Don’t touch me, you said, meaning / Do. The way a difficult child / Warding off help means to be held.) Similarly, the concluding lines in “Quiver”, also part of the suite of poems that extend the myth, depicts the persona’s persistence: And wherever you go, I am to follow. The crux of this otherwise gleaming and taut debut, like the problems of sugary Top 40 pop songs made for mass consumption, as well as that which makes them work so well, is it sticks to formula. Baring its bones is not difficult for the observant reader. The poems’ closures, their aphoristic nature made to announce a sweeping statement, can become repetitive. Its effect when experienced throughout the collection, on and on and on, can feel rather like proverbial bumps more than their intended jolts of insight. However, this weakness can be its strength when the poems are judged individually. One of Katigbak’s challenges, too, is deeply embedded in the subject matter and the form she pursues in this book: desire and lyric poetry. How does she stand among the greats, from Shakespeare to Sharon Olds, in handling such themes and this form? How does she carry the burden of bringing about successful contemporaneity against a rich tradition? She makes it look easy. The Proxy Eros, in this difficult feat, triumphs with grace, and with it proves that lyric poetry can still be fresh and exciting, abundant of fresh sensations and new ways of looking at the world only poetry can offer. It will even send a tingle or two down your spine.