By Juaniyo Arcellana
A WOULD-BE columnist once expressed his hesitation at starting to write regularly for a newspaper or magazine, saying he had a profound fear of the slip of the pen, of being misunderstood due to a misused idiom or phrase, a slipshod consequence of a missing word or misplaced punctuation mark that can make a world of difference from which the writer originally intended.
Another fear was that of writing what would become self-fulfilling prophecy, especially if the topic was not so pleasant, in fact might invite roaming demons or cause an ill wind to blow, such was the power of the slip of the pen. To mix metaphors it was like writing on thin ice.
It was not all about editing of course, because writers self-edit all the time, even before they go to sleep or even while sleeping, their dream a manual of proofreader’s marks. Not all the grammatical or typographical errors in the world are an excuse for perceived ideological comprehension, with apologies to semiotics.
The tic of the matter is that at least once in our lifetime we were putting together a special issue about how we still believe in the printed word in a world overwhelmed by digital, and I was assigned to write on something about cinema. The menace of Philippine literature was also doing a piece on film, and for some reason we were doing the rounds of Malate restaurants to discuss our strategies for our respective articles, so that there would be no overlaps.
At one stop the waiters had given him the wrong order, more expensive, but he had already started on it, the slabs of meat in a broth of vegetables and most likely noodles. They didn’t charge the menace because it was a mis-order. On the other hand, I asked for the cheapest item on the menu, just something to tide me over until the anniversary party at the office.
Walking back to the car we had difficulty finding it as usual, the parking area a detour through the slums of Roxas Boulevard. When finally, we did locate it, the office was just a short hop away miraculously still in Port Area.
However we couldn’t find our way back to the mess of South Harbor, its lights lost in the memory of a Boz Scaggs song. We drove through flights of stairs of what looked like a Super Ferry ship, whose slogan and jingle was a jaunty happy trip, through salt baths where French people were sunbathing on the rocky shore, and both public and private schools where children were rushing toward dismissal time and their names would be called out by the security guard if their parent or guardian or designated driver was there to fetch them, something like “Daryll Baranda, Daryll Baranda!” or “Mark Abdon, Mark Abdon!,” familiar names of my kids’ classmates when they were enrolled in the nearby school on Indiana Street and the sound of wheels on gravel echoed the rendezvous in the short story “The Yellow Shawl.”
For all our circus slaloms in rush hour traffic we couldn’t find our way back on the maze of Roxas Blvd., so the menace of Philippine literature decided to get down and return to office by himself, even if it meant walking through the decks of a Super Ferry. We asked him to relay our regrets, it might be too late even for night duty, besides there were pastorals around, let them do the heavy lifting for a change.
When I woke I realized the office had moved to not so far away Parañaque, with its gaggle of jets zooming overhead, either landing or taking off, and aboard some of them maybe reams of not so special issues with column titles like “The Mopman” or “Sports Dub” or “Left Hook” — what is it about past articles flashing before your eyes and you wondering where the years went, maybe should have spent more time with the old folks or an older sibling before they passed, and not on any ordinary plane.
It was a sea change from being near ships to being beside runways and airplanes, “it was the hexagram of the heavens it was the strings of my guitar,” Joni Mitchell would sing in “Ameila,” the disappeared pilot and how it was a false alarm.
Understand also my hesitation to put this to bed, because in the evening I will have to visit the wake of a son of a mentor and neighbor in faraway Araneta Ave., two or three rides and a short walk away through rush hour traffic, and another friend, no menace, texted that he will avoid the celebrities but be comforted, “in Chino’s name and his memory.”
Juaniyo Arcellana is a semiretired/senior desk editor at BusinessWorld’s sister publication The Philippine Star. Thirty years ago he had a sports column called The Mopman in BusinessWorld.