death at 91

it was a fiery red hunting cap, his fascination for the posterity of museums, and his yearning to be the one to catch children falling off from a rye field that made me love holden caulfied fiercely.

i just found out today that j.d. salinger is dead.

i am at a loss for words. at this rare time, i cannot write laudatory words for a magnificent writer. i feel i will grieve his death more than i did other writers’ passing.

“Boy, when you’re dead, they really fix you up. I hope to hell when I do die somebody has sense enough to just dump me in the river or something. Anything except sticking me in a goddam cemetery. People coming and putting a bunch of flowers on your stomach on Sunday, and all that crap. Who wants flowers when you’re dead? Nobody.”

“Anyway, I keep picturing all these little kids playing some game in this big field of rye and all. Thousands of little kids, and nobody’s around – nobody big, I mean – except me. And I’m standing on the edge of some crazy cliff. What I have to do, I have to catch everybody if they start to go over the cliff – I mean if they’re running and they don’t look where they’re going I have to come out from somewhere and catch them. That’s all I do all day. I’d just be the catcher in the rye and all. I know it’s crazy, but that’s the only thing I’d really like to be.”

“Don’t ever tell anybody anything. If you do, you start missing everybody.”

“It’s everybody, I mean. Everything everybody does is so–I don’t know–not wrong, or even mean, or even stupid, necessarily. But just so tiny and meaningless–and sad-making. And the worst part is, if you go bohemian or something crazy like that, you’re conforming just as much as everybody else, only in a different way.”

“I’m just so sick of pedants and conceited little tearer-downers I could scream.”

weigh his words. one should have known he was going to go like this: in silence; just skulking away with an urgency only he could understand.

*quotes from The Catcher in the Rye and Franny and Zooey

tipped points

one of my quirks is this: i need to condition myself mentally when i’m about to be part of drinking sessions. reasons include the following: to have mental control, the strength to refuse shots and last but the most important of all—the acute, gut-twisting need to do so. when i am not prepared mentally, i get agitated to say the least. and frantic. you don’t like me frantic, that you should know.

take last night. after getting lost in wack-wack, i finally arrived at a friend’s place to hang out. of course, seasoned drinkers they are, drinking was THE itinerary.

and here is where the fact emerges: Fundador is a spawn of the devil masking as a brand of brandy.

my partner and i would always, always curse Fundador the morning after when hang-over has colonized our bodies and when I particularly would yearn to throw myself against the wall just to get past this nauseous stage.

but always, always, the spawn of satan wins. a friend loves Fundador so much it’s like water for her. at every party, she succeeds in converting us into worshippers. hours of drinking revelry would find us puppy-tamed, dreamy-eyed, with brandy breath before the spawn.

last night was no different.

the long and short of it is this: the spawn won. at 3am at home, i found myself writing poetry with a jittery hand and images all a bacchanal riot inside my head. so that was how it felt like to trip on words and brandy: the world tips; you wish to obliterate it but you wonder why the table is doing cartwheels. you egg yourself on and suddenly, utensils and drinking glasses break into a festive song.

i carry their hearts

spending an afternoon with one dear bunch.

no other special event can replace this experience. as always.

i carry your heart with me (i carry it in
my heart) i am never without it (anywhere
i go you go, my dear; and whatever is done
by only me is your doing, my darling)
i fear
no fate (for you are my fate, my sweet) i want
no world (for beautiful you are my world, my true)
and it’s you are whatever a moon has always meant
and whatever a sun will always sing is you

here is the deepest secret nobody knows
(here is the root of the root and the bud of the bud
and the sky of the sky of a tree called life; which grows
higher than the soul can hope or mind can hide)
and this is the wonder that’s keeping the stars apart

i carry your heart (i carry it in my heart)

— i carry your heart by e.e. cummings

shameless request:
redeemer’s home is an orphanage in antipolo, philippines with no consistent sources of funding. any help in cash or in kind would go a long way.

Contact person:
Bernard Cerilla
(02) 697-0960
bernard_cerilla@yahoo.com

(please do not download the photos for the security of the kids. if you noticed, i chose the ones that don’t show their full features. other fun photos to be uploaded to my multiply site for limited contacts only. thanks.)