THE HALO-HALO REVIEW'S MANGOZINE, Issue 2

In addition to aggregating reviews from the internet, THE HALO-HALO REVIEW presents The Mangozine which features new reviews and serves as the online publisher for reviews and other engagements (e.g. book introductions) published in print but not yet available within the internet.  Other features, including author interviews and reader testimonials, also will be presented. The following presents a Table of Contents for Issue 2 -- CLICK on links to go to the reviews.


ISSUE 2
(February 2016)

Editor's Note:  Welcome to the second issue of THE HALO-HALO REVIEW where we provide engagements with Filipin@ literature and authors through reviews and engagements, interviews and other prose. We hope readers, writers and publishers will continue to participate and share information about numerous Filipino authors and the wide variety of their writings. 

The Mangozine's Review Copy information is HERE; you are encouraged to fatten up the list as well as pick some to review! Submission deadline for the third issue has been set at July 15, 2016 (though I will take reviews sooner than the deadline if that is more convenient for the reviewers).
Eileen Tabios' Editor's Note continues over HERE.




I.  NEW REVIEWS AND ENGAGEMENTS

Four books by R. Zamora Linmark: Rolling the R's (Kaya Press, New York, 1997); Prime Time Apparitions (Hanging Loose Press, Brooklyn, 2005); The Evolution of a Sigh (Hanging Loose Press, Brooklyn, 2008); and LECHE (Coffee House Press, Minneapolis, 2011). Engaged by Sheila Bare

"The Boatman's Spine Poetry," a poem and sculpture by Aileen Ibardaloza (2015). Engaged by Eileen R. Tabios

After projects the resound by Kimberly Alidio (Black Radish Books, 2016). Engaged by Marthe Reed

Angel De La Luna and the 5th Glorious Mystery by M. Evelina Galang (Coffee House Press, Minneapolis, 2013). Reviewed by Amadio Arboleda

COURT OF THE DRAGON by Paolo Javier (Nightboat Books, New York, 2015). Reviewed by Chris Mansel

INVENT(ST)ORY: Selected Catalog Poems & New 1996-2015 by Eileen R. Tabios (Dos Madres Press, Loveland, OH, 2015). Reviewed by Neil Leadbeater

Hollywood Starlet by Ivy Alvarez (Dancing Girl Press, 2015). Reviewed by Rebecca Loudon

Three books by Albert E. Alejo: Tao Po! Tuloy! Isang Landas ng Pagunawa sa Loob ng Tao (Ateneo de Manila University Office of Research and Publications, 1990); Generating Energies In Mount Apo: Cultural Politics In A Contested Environment  (Ateneo de Manila University Press, 2001); and Nabighani: Mga Saling Tula ng Kapwa Nilikha (University of Santo Tomas Publishing House, 2015). Engaged by Leny M. Strobel

Bridgeable Shores: Selected Poems (1969-2001) by Luis Cabalquinto (Kaya Press / Galatea Speaks, New York, 2001). Reviewed by Neil Leadbeater

THE BEAUTY OF GHOSTS: Five Voices: A Theater of Poetry by Luis H. Francia (Ateneo de Manila University Press, Quezon City, 2010). Engaged by Eileen R. Tabios

Her Wild American Self by M. Evelina Galang (Coffee House Press, Minneapolis, 1996). Reviewed by Amadio Arboleda

Reproductions of the Empty Flagpole by Eileen R. Tabios (Marsh Hawk Press, New York, 2002). Reviewed by Monica Manolachi

Names Above Houses by Oliver de la Paz (Southern Illinois University Press / Crab Orchard Series in Poetry, 2001). Reviewed by Cristina Querrer

Bistro Filipino Book edited by Yolanda Perez Johnson, with Contributor Chef Rolando Laudico (Soumak Collections, Inc., Manila, 2014). Engaged by Jeannie Yniguez

Disturbance by Ivy Alvarez (Seren Books, Wales, 2013). Reviewed by Nicholas Whitehead

Tattered Boat by Luis H. Francia (University of the Philippines Press, Quezon City, Philippines, 2014). Reviewed by Rhett Pascual

Two books by R. Zamora Linmark: Rolling the R's (Kaya, New York, 1997) and LECHE (Coffee House Press, Minneapolis, 2011). Reviewed by Justine Villanueva

FOOTNOTES TO ALGEBRA: Uncollected Poems 1995-2009 by Eileen R. Tabios (BlazeVOX [books], New York, 2009). Reviewed by Chris Mansel



II. AUTHOR INTERVIEWS, POST-BOOK

Paolo Javier, Post-Court of the Dragon  (Nightboat Books, New York, 2015) 

Kristine Ong Muslim, Post-Age of Blight (Unnamed Press, Los Angeles, 2016)



III. READERS SHOW SOME LOVE TO FILIPINO AUTHORS

Go HERE to see the Love expressed by the following:

Eileen Tabios on Jessica Hagedorn

Tony Robles on Marianne Villanueva

Eileen Tabios on Nick Carbo 

Jason Koo on Patrick Rosal

Metta Sáma on Barbara Jane Reyes

Dave Bonta on Luisa A. Igloria

Cristina Querrer on Bino A. Realuyo

Paul Pines and John Bloomberg-Rissman on Eileen Tabios

IV. FROM OFFLINE TO ONLINE

Reviews
Magdalena by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard (Plain View Press, Austin, TX , 2002). Reviewed by Eileen R. Tabios for Babaylan Speaks (now offline)



From Books: Introductions, Prefaces, Forewords, Afterwords and Author's Notes

Nick Carbo introduces RETURNING A BORROWED TONGUE (Coffee House Press, Minneapolis, Minn., 1996)

Oliver de la Paz introduces Little Anodynes by Jon Pineda (The University of South Carolina Press, Columbia, SC, 2015)

Luis H. Francia presents an introductory excerpt to his EYE OF THE FISH: A Personal Archipelago (Kaya Press, New York, 2001)

Cecilia M. Brainard introduces A LA CARTE FOOD & FICTION, Collected and Edited by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard and Marily Ysip Orosa  (Anvil, Philippines, 2007 and an Ebook published by PALH, CA)

Lolan Buhain Sevilla and Roseli Ilano introduce WALANG HIYA: literature taking risks toward liberatory practice (Carayan Press, San Francisco, 2010)

Thomas Fink introduces INVENT(ST)ORY: Selected Catalog Poems & New 1996-2015 by Eileen R. Tabios (Dos Madres Press, Loveland, OH, 2015)

EDITOR'S NOTE -- Issue 2

Welcome to the second issue of THE HALO-HALO REVIEW where we provide engagements with Filipin@ literature and authors through reviews and engagements, interviews and other prose. We hope readers, writers and publishers will continue to participate and share information about numerous Filipino authors and the wide variety of their writings. 

The Mangozine's Review Copy information is HERE; you are encouraged to fatten up the list as well as pick some to review! Submission deadline for the third issue has been set at July 15, 2016 (though I will take reviews sooner than the deadline if that is more convenient for the reviewers).

As well, send me links to reviews/engagements with Filipino literature! These links will be aggregated in various genre categories displayed HERE. Updating the genre categories with links will occur as information is received.

An interesting feature of The Mangozine is its putting online various Introductions, Prefaces, Afterwords and Authors' Notes to published books. The presented essays in Issues 1 and 2 corroborate the need for a journal like THE HALO-HALO REVIEW -- they highlight the uniqueness of English-language Filipino literature that cannot be subsumed in other categories like "Asian American" or "People of Color" literature. Feel free to suggest other books which may offer useful contributions that deserve to be republished online.

I also call out to readers to SHOW SOME LOVE TO A FILIPINO AUTHOR(S) by sharing statements as to why they love their writing.  All writing styles. You can focus on authors dead or alive, send as many statements as you are moved to write.  You can praise authors not already mentioned or still to be mentioned. You need not be a critic, writer, scholar or teacher (though all are welcome). You need only be a Reader. (Examples are available at Issue 1 and Issue 2).

The Mangozine is possible not only due to the volunteer efforts of our reviewers but also those who transcribe from written texts; for the latter service, we thank Cristina Querrer and Amy Pabalan for their help.

Finally, Jessica Hagedorn's lovely Introduction to THE ANCHORED ANGEL: Selected Writings by Jose Garcia Villa is featured in Issue 1.  Please note that the reprint permission expires Sept. 1, 2016.  You are encouraged to read it HERE while it's still available online.

All Best,

Eileen R. Tabios
Editor, THE HALO-HALO REVIEW

Contact: galateaten at gmail dot com

Index (May it Grow!):

ISSUE 1, September 2015
ISSUE 2, February 2016

ROLLING THE R’s, PRIME TIME APPARITIONS, THE EVOLUTION OF A SIGH & LECHE, all by R. ZAMORA LINMARK

SHEILA BARE Engages

Four books by R. Zamora Linmark:

Rolling the R’s 
(Kaya Press, New York, 1997)--BOOK LINK

Prime Time Apparitions 
(Hanging Loose Press, Brooklyn, 2005)--BOOK LINK

The Evolution of a Sigh 
(Hanging Loose Press, Brooklyn, 2008)--BOOK LINK

LECHE 
(Coffee House Press, Minneapolis, 2011)--BOOK LINK

Playing with Tongues: The Use of Language in the Works of R. Zamora Linmark

            Born in Manila, raised in Hawai’i; lives in Hawai’i or Manila or San Francisco; citizen of two countries; speaker of many languages and dialects, R. Zamora Linmark is the quintessential transnational.  Faye Kicknosway calls “Zack,” as he is known to his friends, “a trickster” (Prime Time Apparitions).  His works, Rolling the R’s[i] (1995); Prime Time Apparitions[ii] (2005); The Evolution of a Sigh[iii] (2008); and Leche (2011), like the writer himself, defy categorization.  Leche, for instance, is at once historical fiction, satire, hyperrealism; it contains a play, vintage postcards, dream sequels, tourist tips, and excerpts from a fictional textbook entitled Decolonization for Beginners: A Filipino Glossary by Bonifacio Dumpit, a fictional professor from the University of Hawai’i.  The many tongues he speaks find utterance in all his works.  But despite the dizzying complexity of his works, Linmark, the writer, tends to return to recurring themes throughout his oeuvre.  Here, I will touch very briefly on his use of language to de-center and dis-locate.

            The epigraph in Linmark’s first poetry collection, Prime, reads, “Fluft drin Yalerick Dwuldum prasrad mirplush,” a nonsense sentence from Jonathan Swift’s Gulliver’s Travels, aptly welcoming—or I should say confounding—readers into the pages of his text where we see, in Linmark’s deft hands, the malleability of language.  But seasoned readers of Linmark’s work know how deftly he can slip in and out of different tongues.  His first novel, Rolling, is colored not only with pidgin and Tagalog, but also the cadences and patois of the 1970s disco generation.  When Edgar speaks to Katrina-Trina about the price of books and magazines, for example, he tells her, “Expensive, you know, especially now cuz of in-fel-lay-tion” (Rolling, 7).  The hyphenation in the word “inflation” slows down its elocution and adds the double entendre by which many of the characters in this novel are preoccupied and makes Edgar’s point about the off-color book he is about to lend.  In Prime, even before it’s middle section, “Slippery When English,” indeed from its epigraph through its entirety, we see Linmark’s playfulness with language.  In “Screening Desire,” Linmark’s speaker speaks cyberspeak:

                                    Friday cybersexing all night Saturday

                                    with Hot&Horny35 from Denmark blond

                                    blue-eyed swimmer’s body in search of Asian

                                    or Latin American bottom it must’ve been

                                    his lucky night found both continents

                                    in you as Pablo Sanchez PuertoRican

                                    Pinoy 22 str8acting gay son of

                                    Cultural Attaché stationed in Manila

                                    Posh bungalow brokenglasscapped subdivision

                                    MadMax security guards indoorpool

(Prime, 18)

                                                           

Here it is apparent that the titillation comes not from a movie but rather the “screen” of a computer screen and desire is what the participants of cybersex are experiencing or seeking: they are looking for love in front of their computer.  The transfer of desire from celluloid to hard drive makes the process even more participatory in that, aside from onanistic activities, participants also splash their own images onto the screen.  Participants are much like actors on screen, pretending and creating a persona, a desirable alter ego.  Above, the speaker is Pablo Sanchez, a Puerto Rican Pinoy, son of a cultural attaché; later, 

                                    you christen yourself not Mark

                                    that was earlier this week

                                    not John that was last week what’s left?

                                    two options Luke17 cute

                                    afterschooldaddy bicurious cyber

                                    phone okay or Matthew37 6’1 brwnhair

                                    hazeleyes Italian FilAm from Big Aple

                                    will be visiting in two weeks you

                                    compromise and enter the chatroom as

                                    Paul26 into 69 top please no fems or

                                    drags a macho ritual you picked up along

                                    with lying

(Prime 17-18)

To be desirable in language necessitates not just a masquerade, but also the need to sell oneself.  Hence, the tone of advertising.  The use of enjambment here only increases the reader’s experience of bombardment of technology but also advertisement.

            And when it comes to advertisement, or adspeak, there Linmark is fluent also.  The poem “ESL, or English as a Sign Language,” is a list poem where “ESL” does not mean the sign language the deaf and mute use to communicate but rather is a list of signs—ads—where English is used creatively or as malapropism and where the speaker gives readers her/his “interpretation” of said sign.  “ALLOWANCE 70,” begins the poem; but “allowance” here does not mean the income one receives but rather “Airline regulation for maximum weight of a / balikbayan box” (Prime, 19; original emphasis).  “PETAL ATTRACTION” is the name of the “florist right next to Edgar Scissorhands Hair & Beauty Salon” (19) and “LOOKING FOR SEWERS” hangs on the glass door of “Elizabeth Tailoring” (19).  A line in “Doris Day & Night Eatery,” also a list poem, reads: “BLOCK & WHITE, best-selling skin-whitening cream.  ‘IT BLOCKS /     THE SUN AND WHITENS THE SKIN” (Evolution, 20).  Even Linmark’s novel, Leche, is not immune to this wordplay, as another list poem, “Signs of the Times,” makes an appearance: where “CULTURE SHACK specializes in native handicrafts” and “MANG DONALD’S makes the best PRINCE FRIES” or “DEAR HUNTER helps you find rich, old, white husbands” and “WALTER MART carries designer labels like CHRISTINE DIOR jeans and GEORGIO NOMANI T-shirts” (Leche, 267; original emphasis).  Perhaps some of these “signs” are from what the writer observes around him when he is in the Philippines, perhaps some are the writer’s own invention.  And while they may be humorous, what they demonstrate are the ways in which the colonial tongue, that monolithic, dominating, and oppressive language, is malleable; it can be bastardized and disavowed, whether purposefully or by accident or ignorance.  What we have, then, is an admixture of culture in language and where the authority of English sits side-by-side with the colors of the local patois.

            But, lest we forget our history—an amnesiac act as Oscar Campomanes calls it—Linmark reminds us quite often of the violent incursions of a colonial language, and, more importantly, of the ways in which language can shape, define, and (dis)locate the self.  In “Rhapsody,” we see the speaker’s classmates from high school who had “2-4-1 double-eye operations that came with color contacts” (Prime, 25); and in “Surviving the Post-American Tropics,” the speaker tells us of

                                    A now-extinct word among Americans

                                    but alive and making lots of money

                                    in the spa and skin-whitening enterprise

                                    is ‘avail,’ usually tagged to ‘promo’        

                                    and ‘special,’ as in: ‘Sir, have you availed

                                    already of the 2-4-1 skin-bleaching promo

                                    special?’  Last night, inside the arctic

                                    dome of Starbucks, while waiting for

                                    my espresso and blood pressure pills

                                    to kick in after a run-in with a meteor-sized

                                    hole on the sidewalk, I heard a blond-

                                    dyed Filipina use ‘avail’ in the same sentence

                                    as the 16^th-century Latin ocularis.

(Evolution, 14)

In both poems, the speaker discloses the ways in which bodies of color are defined as other in two languages: the colonial English tongue, and the neo-colonial language of capitalism.  The “double-eye operations,” “color contacts,” “skin-bleaching,” and the “blond- / dyed Filipina” are all attempts, most of which are quite invasive, towards a particular standard of beauty, a normalization of the “othered” body.  At the same time, the use of pidgin in “Rhapsody,” and the use of what the speaker is calling an “extinct word among Americans” but makes, for the colonized native, “lots of money,” in the latter poem tells us that there are ways to profit from the use of these languages.

            Language, in the hands of that trickster, Linmark, is thus at once limiting—it defines bodies as others—and liberatory—in that it empowers by the ways in which it can be manipulated by colonized natives; thus, language allows for self-expressions. Faye Kicknosway tells us that because of the “many tongues in [Linmark’s] mouth,” it becomes very “difficult to be a fixed anything in the kind of locating of the self that language is supposed to be when there are several of them doing the locating.”  Linmark’s works show the irony and disavowal present in the use of these languages.

*****

Sheila Bare is an independent scholar and a life-long student. Lately, she has been studying Buddhism. When her nose is not in a book or in a cooking pan, you may find her on a yoga mat or out for a run. And there are those days when she tries to write. Best to stay away from her during those times. Unless, of, course you bring with you a good bottle of wine and talk about books. She was raised by two parents and now lives somewhere on planet earth.

---

[i] Hereafter Rolling.

[ii] Hereafter Prime.

[iii] Hereafter Evolution.