Pot Training

MY BALETE BANYAN (Ficus philippinensis) bonsai-in-training ($50 FedEx included, Wigerts nursery in Florida) had to come in while still with its moorings and take its reserved pot ($20, pick up at Home Depot) when the temperature outside dropped below 60°, and is already firing up the imagination. Not yet permanently planted, the aerial strangler roots are there, anchored in the ground but still too young to tackle a giant dao tree, and the main branch is leveled for a kapre to smoke his postprandial cigar on. Shaping a bonsai is a long and slow process especially for a newbie like me, so I'll be coming back to this specimen about a year from today to check on its progress, saving in the meantime for a phone with a better camera. And to be clear, this pot has nothing to do with weed!

Giving It A Shot

VISITED THREE MORE campuses (Amsterdam Avenue and Ithaca are done) and several antiquarian bookstores in the last four weeks. We are giving ourselves a break this Columbus Day weekend, then it's off to Providence ("where the Old World shadows hang heavy in the air" says Don Henley) before the November 1 Early Decision deadline. My baby stretching wings and aiming high before she takes off.

Imperial Gothic

WHO WAS SARGENT KAYME? Because I like mysteries, I did some online sleuthing on a recently acquired book to shed light on the identity of the author behind Anting-Anting Stories and Other Strange Tales of the Filipinos, a well-received book of short stories (in 1901 when America was fascinated by the exoticism of its new possessions) but only came upon one interesting lead. Written under a pseudonym, the book was thought to have been written not by "a soldier in the United States service but a well-known New England author" (Current Literature, 1901) and indeed reminds one of Kipling out of other writers of the Gothic during the imperialist period--Conrad, Croker, Perrin, Bierce, Crawford et al. "Mivins", the only other known work ascribed to this nom de plume, was a short story in the July 1902 issue of Metropolitan Magazine (More on this later). So if the writer was a well-known author, why use a pseudonym? Wouldn't using the real name help sell a book, much more one of demonstrated quality? Care to take a stab? I've given up, going instead for a story in the anting-anting collection that touches on Mindoro and gives one a taste of Moro terror and raw swift's nest.

The First Mangyans In America

THE LARGELY UNKNOWN FACT that among the non-Christian Filipinos brought by the Americans to the United States in 1904 to participate as living human exhibits in the St. Louis World Fair were five Mangyans from Bulalacao--Kabesa Sabong, Sinhigan, Daliwnan, Salayaw (who died there) and Karyo--was documented by Antoon Postma in a (somewhat disorganized) manuscript called The First Mangyans in America: Their Aborted Bamboo Mail 100 years after the exposition.  The manuscript was based on Karyo's early account of the experience (page 30), told from memory thirty five years after the voyage and after being urged by US Army Contract Surgeon Fletcher Gardner, who was "instrumental in attracting and recommending these Mangyans (to Dean Worcester) as interesting tribal subjects to their curious countrymen at the World Fair." The manuscript also delves into the fate of the unanswered and presumably lost bamboo mail sent by the families they left behind in the Philippines and known to have been under the guardianship of Gardner, duplicates of which reappeared years later. Some of the most powerful messages in the bamboo mail was one reminding a husband not to gamble and another warning Kabesa Sabong that his wife will kill herself by eating a poisonous sea crab called tanggalungon if he didn't return by the month of April. Last is the amusing but perfectly understandable effect of the voyage on the returned Mangyans (as reported by American officials in Mindoro) after having seen the "Great White City": Kabesa Sabong's character change when dealing with his village subjects (which was promptly corrected by authorities), the trophies, certificates and souvenirs they brought home, and the intriguing suggestion (apparently by Harold Conklin) that Karyo may have had a wife (or wives, and even an offspring!) in America. If there ever was, Karyo's descendants should collect far more than the 50 silver dollars he was paid by the Americans when he returned home.

Mangyan gentlemen at the turn of the 19th century (Dean Worcester)

More Tropical Highs

TESS' SUMMER HARVEST deserves a shot, and the thermostat is a memory.

Temporarily Tropical

MY PERENNIAL PLANTAIN (Musa basjoo) in the Maspeth backyard comes back every year to provide leaves for our inihaw na bangus and maruya (not the seed-laden fruits). This one is ready to fruit and drop its talisman, and I assume its heart can also be shredded for Mindoro kare-kare.

Our Peace Corps Volunteer

KINDA COOL to connect (online through her daughter) with the Peace Corps volunteer who taught at Juan Morente Sr. Memorial Pilot School in Pinamalayan, Oriental Mindoro in the 60's when I was a second and third grader. Mary Koeman Olthoff, a Dutch Calvinist from western Michigan, was a beloved figure during her two-year stay in our town as a volunteer, for which she was named an Outstanding Young Woman of America for 1969. I remember her as the teacher who tackled apprehensive parents and took her class to Paraiso Beach after school to teach us how to swim. Mary, who I imagine is in her eighties today, was gracious to share old pictures with alumni of JMSMPS celebrating a grand homecoming. Grateful to Mary, and for the things that few of us remember.

Done With Junior Year

SARA'S RECORD in her first three years at Stuyvesant High School came out this week, so I'm replacing her junior year report card with a transcript that shows more values to intellectualize about. After Sydney, here's to senior year and college applications!

The Kansas Connection

THE WICHITA DAILY EAGLE kept close tabs on the Philippine front this month in 1898 to monitor the situation for arriving sons in the 20th Kansas Volunteer Infantry Regiment, set to sail for Manila later that year. The 964 enlisted men and 46 officers that included General Frederick Funston, sly captor of General Emilio Aguinaldo, were officially mustered into service on May 13, 1898, but didn't arrive in Manila until December 6. Funston captured Aguinaldo in Palanan on March 23, 1901 and was lampooned by Mark Twain in his sarcastic satire A Defence of General Funston because of the tactics he employed in the operation: “begging for food then capturing his benefactor.”

The Wichita Daily Eagle, June 18, 1898

The proclamation muted below the headline

Where the buffalo roam: the 20th Kansas, home on the firing range

Frederick Funston with officers that captured Aguinaldo

Gabo 101

JUST GOT MY HANDS on the first edition of Márquez's Cien Años (Barcelona, Círculo de Lectores, 1967) and Eréndira (México City, Editorial Hermes, 1972), both for less than $40. In Spanish, of course. Buen provecho!