Francis who?
~
With VBG in a poetry reading in Vargas Museum, a guy and a girl walks up to us and asks us to sign their copies of a zine VBG and I debuted a few hours ago. The girl pulls her copy out of her bag and hands it to me to sign and I sign the page where my story is (a love story about me and ABSCBN TV personality and newscaster Marieton Pacheco) and as I hand it back to her she reads what I had just inscribed and before she shoves the zine back in her bag she does a double-take on me and quite seriously asks “’Yan ba talaga ang pangalan mo?”
~
Ser Jun tells me he’s writing Amado V Hernandez’ biography, a book I imagine they would have to call Amado, if only to complement that other Reyes-penned biography about Armando Teng, called Armando (Amado V Hernandez Resource Center, 2006). It would be great to see these two books on the shelves, comrades not only in politics, but also by syllable-count, by author, and by rhyming titles (writ in gold ink on white paper).
But of course, he has to finish writing it first. Ser Jun, amazed and excited by the volume of information he had found that almost cancels the near-Che reverence most people give Ka Amado, plans on bringing Hernandez’ feet back down to earth.
He tells me about his research and his plans and after a few weeks when we meet again in a funeral parlour he addends that the Amado V Hernandez Resource Center wants to read the first draft of the book. I tell him maybe the Resource Center wants a few things either included into, or excluded from, the book. He reacts with what can only be described as “disgust”, and asks me if I’d be willing to let other people read my first drafts.
~
I want to push myself out of the chair, turn the table over, and exclaim “But Sir! All of my works are first drafts!!!”
