Entry #1
love my father’s yellow stream buttnaked green coconut open to surprise cuckoldroaches-dancing-in-a-cone Porkrind-Chronicles saltweep of fish Emilia [sic] Christmas lights Padre Mariano Gomez (r.i.p.) my gonads! indios Jorge Raymundo Mata scabs lanzones deeply ripe mangoes navel-orange thighs40 41 42
40 Raymundo Mata begins his diary with gibberish. This can only be Katipunan code, the secret weapon of the secret society. The list’s complete meaning remains a mystery, though one discerns the name of one of the three martyr priests—Mariano Gomez—friend of the Mata family and beheaded by Spaniards in that incident that foretold the revolution, the Cavite Mutiny of 1872. The priest’s name occurs almost in the same breath as that of the future general’s father, Jorge Raymundo Mata. Thus, this opening refers to the family’s connection to the Cavite Mutiny. Town lore proclaims that the Mata brothers, priest and actor both, had been involved in the uprising, using dramatic disguises to foment revolt. (Estrella Espejo, Quezon Institute and Sanatorium, Tacloban, Leyte)
41 Katipunan code or not, there is method in this madness. Globular shapes are classic imago of the pre-mirror stage: the maternal mangoes, not to mention the direct reference to navels, show the general awash in vagitus—“the infantile cry” way before the mirror stage—“the first stammerings of speech” [vid. Mürk, “Message to the Antibes Plenary,” 1953]. Of course, the reference to the father is an obvious (and, to be honest, banal) allusion to The Father. (Dr. Diwata Drake, Kalamazoo, Michigan)
42 The text begins with the following list: “ama rillo, bukong nabuko, cucurachas, chicharon de Chirino, daing ng daing, Emilia [or Emilio, handwriting unclear], faroles, Padre Gomez, etc etc . . .” My guess is that General Mata, a child at the time as the clumsy handwriting shows, plays an abecedary game (a is for amarillo, etc.) lifted from school exercises and common to bored children. His alphabet is unfinished; the last word is naranjitas. His game is marked by ingenious, though childish, puns—hard to translate. He code-switches, as in “ama,” which means “father” in Tagalog but ‘she/he loves’ in Spanish; “Rillo” is a town from Castile-La Mancha, studded with little streams, or rills. Amarillo, of course, means the color yellow. My rough translation of his trope, ama rillo, connotes the crudeness of his humor. Similarly, the wholly Tagalog bukong nabuko may be interpreted as personification (nabuko denoting chagrin, uncommon to buko, young coconuts) or rhetorical emphasis (as in “chagrined chagrin,” an annoying tautology). An occult allusion to Russian aristocrat Nabukoff is abject and must be avoided. However, the vulgar imagery of the surprised-open coconut is inescapable in the phrase. In this case, I made compromises but kept the ambiguity intact (I think). My own favorite translation is “saltweep of fish”—daing ng daing in the admittedly more accomplished Tagalog. I consider my phrase a fine evocation of the young Mata’s wit. I could not duplicate its lyrical malady. (Trans. Note)