At Rest TYIOF Issue 5 Dear Manila by Gabrielle Domingo p. 4 Quarter Rest by Elise Ofilada p. 8 In the Rain (Everything is Gray) by Christian Baldomero p. 10 Active Reflections by Jedd Ong p. 12 he(a)ven by Mayumi Isabel Paras p. 18 Stasis by Cedric Pascua p. 21 last night was wild by Gabrille Domingo p. 23
Cover art by Gabrielle Lladoc 2
Photo by Maxene Geronimo
When we announced the submission call for our fifth issue for The Youth Is On Fire, we decided the theme would be “At Rest,” to signal what was, at the time, the beginning of the summer vacation. This editor’s note is being written now, a couple of weeks after the conclusion of the summer season, which is frankly upsetting. High school’s starting, the weather is getting erratic again, and rest is now more elusive than it was some months ago. At the same time, we all take it wherever we can get it, and the world gives us as many forms of relief as it does experiences of pain. Perhaps we can call that symmetry. May you never have to bear more than what you can handle.
3
4
Dear Manila by Gabrielle Domingo
Dear Manila, You don’t know rest. You’re skilled in blockages and traffic; familiar with the territories of heat and its inflammatory human effects; like to drive women into breathless exhaustion when MRT lines stream into an ongoing river; clueless with children; have skyscrapers for teeth; cage the helpless; free the unknowing madmen; wrestle with language; need to be scrubbed clean; need to be handled gently; insecure; always busy with all this work. But I love you most when you come home; when you sigh dawn into night; when I can meet your half-lidded neon eyes that graze me tender and starryeyed. I wish you’d unravel softly; loosen the electrical wires and joints; unburden and breezily lick ourselves clean; finally fall into rest.
5
of palms & laps by Alanis Manantan
6
7
Quarter Rest by Elise Ofilada Art by Mika Reyes it is early, again and the window is singing this morning I’ve happened to know as breathlessness. the sun’s decided for me, today I am not bothered by the words. the mangoes aren’t asking me to be anything special. there is no true listening, no holed white cloth in my yawn. these trees though not quite trees are only that. are only dreams. I am only awake. there is no rhythm to it. I open my eyes, one up, out. I just do. I do what I can and it’s benign, no earth is about to be pulled apart this time. no giant hands. green fruit. I am not about to write weep, body. or bones. right now is a tender thing, to sit here and be saved. the birds rail against the sky, and I am light like them, lighter than the exacted weight of the word that won’t rest on me for just a little longer.
8
just like this. god. it is quiet, I know I am trying so hard to be happy. I am happy, that is, I mean this must be what it’s like to have good poetry. to be real. where it’s no point to keep my words. they just slick out as if possessed by softness. this good poetry is not grand. this good poetry is my own mouth woken shut along the curve of whatever hunger loses next. this is fine. I am fine.
9
In The Rain (Everything Is Gray) by Christian Baldomero Photo by Ava Cecilia Ricafranca
Puddled concrete pavements reflect the ashen gray clouds;, the sun shining es without a trace in the January sky. The sound of raindrops — softly clanging unto thin metal rooftops — voids other noise. I count the days of your absence in cups of bitter coffee. My hand yearns for yours as I hold the steaming mug, then I sip the bitter. It never tastes sweet despite the heaps of sugar I put in; perhaps it’s my numb tongue, perhaps it’s because — everything is in grayscale after you left. I light a stick of cigarette. Smoke thaws my freezing fingertips, I let it. I hold the smoke in for a moment before exhaling. From my bedroom window — raindrops tap, tap, tap against the glass pane as — I look across the street. The rainwater keeps chasing the sidewalk, it the rain doesn’t seem to stop.
10
11
Active Reflections Munimuni’s brand of folk-inspired rock is meant to evoke a sense of awe. by Jedd Ong Photos by Nathan Santos and Nukie Timtiman 12
T
o know Munimuni is to understand majesty. Majesty to them is marilag — hopeful, resilient. Or as they sing on Marilag: “Hindi maitatago, hindi maikukubli / ang mundo ay binabalot / ng iyong pagbangon muli.” They call their music “Makata Pop” — think The Oh Hellos mixed with a touch of The Strokes, lyrics reminiscent of Huseng Batute and the book of Psalms. Their songs are at once wakeful and serene, restful and filled with anxious contemplation. We catch up with Munimuni members AJ Jiao, TJ de Ocampo, John Owen Castro, and Red Calayan to talk about their origins, their futures, their influences, and all that traverses between. To start things off, do tell us about how Munimuni was formed. TJ: Well, simply put, in the beginning there were three guys: AJ, Moses, and Red. Never met Moses because he moved to Tuguegarao. I join the band when I transferred to UP Diliman around 201213. We start writing songs together. I leave for Japan in 2014. It’s around this time that Owen comes along, starts playing for the band, and eventually becomes a member. [Red, Owen, and AJ] start playing songs together. I come back 2015, then we start playing together as a four piece band, with a session bassist. Our first four piece gig together [AJ, TJ, Owen, Red] was in Enderun. And then we played together for a couple more months, before recording our EP in 2016, and releasing it March 2017. Red: We all came from UP and church, and started jamming in dorms and boarding houses and AJ’s super masculine indie-film quality apartment — AJ: Na sobrang grainy! Red: And people came and went, and our sound just kept growing to where it is now.
Your EP is punctuated by a short dedication that goes: “Tungkol sa bukang liwayway, sa hiwaga, sa pag-alala, sa hindi pag-alala, at sa ma bagong araw.” What do these things mean to you guys, in the context of your songs? AJ: It all goes back to this concept of a day. First song, Bukang-Liwayway, was something personal to me. It was the excitement I felt as a kid when I would lie awake in anticipation before a field trip, this excitement of a child that cannot sleep, so he waits for the sunrise. As for Hiwaga, well, we arranged the EP in a way that it tells a story as a whole. So BukangLiwayway is the sunrise — the morning. Hiwaga means wonder — Red: A lyric from one of our songs, Tanikala — TJ: Yeah, AJ. Kamusta yung Tanikala? AJ: That one I don’t wanna talk about. Everyone: [laughs] AJ: Well, Tanikala is happy but ironic. And well it’s all about this idea of wonder — hiwaga — and how it can shackle you. You see someone so wonderful, and you try to break from it, or someone…but you can’t. TJ: Sa Pag-alala comes from a need for a transition song. When we were making the EP, we wanted to make it follow the concept of a day, and we needed this song that separated night from day. It’s a transition track. Red thought of it while we were recording, actually. TJ: And so the other songs are about the downtimes and dark times, such as Sa Hindi Pag-alala, and Sayo. Marilag is about the dawn after dark times. The phrases “sa pag-alala,” “sa hindi pag-alala,” and “sa mga bagong araw” come from these three songs. Given the playful lyricism in your songs, where do you draw your lyrical inspirations from?
13
AJ: Honestly, I don’t have much of a background in Filipino literature. I am not good at writing in Filipino, prose-wise. But I guess listening to a lot of OPM growing up helped. Rivermaya were my idols — sina Rico Blanco. Yung mga sinulat rin ng Sugarfree with sina Ebe [Dancel] too. But mostly, my [chief inspirations are my] experiences and fragmented thoughts. And I dunno — I guess it’s just easier to translate them to paper by writing Filipino poems. TJ: I was inspired to write in Filipino when I got into Japanese culture and music, actually. I grew to love local bands there like Indigo La End, and how good their songs sounded in Japanese. It inspired me to do the same with our own language. Something also that I found not so much of in our indie music scene here today, with everyone writing in English, with those with access to the really good bands we listen to are mostly English-speakers and whatnot. As for actual books and poems, well, I really like Psalms and the Book of Job. There’s just something about authors that write about the depths of their soul to beings they can’t see that speak to me. What’s in store for you guys in the future? Red: Well, record an album. Full-length. AJ: Write more songs. Owen: Play more gigs! Red: Tumugtog sa ibang bansa! And isang remix album sana. Honestly, kung may magremix ng songs natin, kahit pangit, matotouch ako. TJ: Yung tipong sasakay ka ng jeep galing Antipolo papunta Cubao. Yung mga one hour mix na paulit-ulit, ganun! Kaya yan gawin ni Owen, pramis. Everyone: [laughs]
14
We envision our music to be our bridge in this regard — how we speak to people and show them that well, there is always hope.
Red: Well, on a more serious note, anything can happen in terms of goals and stuff, so we’re not too uptight about the future. As long as our music can touch lives — how do we phrase this? AJ: We write honest music. We make music to document the highs and lows in life, to give hope to people in a way that isn’t detached from the actual realities of life — to encourage people. Red: We’ve always wanted the band to go beyond us. We’ve always known at the end of the day, our music comes from God din eh. As long as in a way we keep pointing back to God, okay na. TJ: Not to sound like a hippie, but we’re always trying to evoke this transcendent thing between our spiritual, inner lives and the actual physical world. We envision our music to be our bridge in this regard — how we speak to people and show them that well, there is always hope. It’s kind of like how Dostoevsky or CS Lewis, or Kierkegaard set out to express things. Capture the sublime within ourselves, use words and art to reconcile those feelings and inner lives with what we see and physically encounter. Red: So if it ever reaches a point that it becomes about us, then that’s the day we hang it up.
15
16
Art by Willem Dimas 17
18
he(a)ven by Mayumi Isabel Paras Art by by Jan Alaba there’s a mix of things that fall together — unusually, but just so: the whirring of the coffee machine, accompanied by the scents of truffle oil and dessert-smelling candles, couches that have seen better days yet still hold together — out of choice, not obligation. tea sets are as mismatched as the staff’s high socks, but one can consider it just as charming — as the splashes of watercolor against the blue wall. the whirring rhythm slows, to a steady hum; people take a sip of their green tea and sigh: , spirits as grey as the dresses they have on seeming to have been alleviated by the colors of their cups. notebooks lie sprawled out, next to books just as open.; on their right, sushi is consumed at a leisurely pace — for once, they all have time. the musk of books enters the frame, as new hands and eyes peel at the pages — but no one objects. lyrics are whispered out by a quiet artist; in her prime; the light strums of ukuleles soon follow. cue a collective sigh that fills the entire room, just as soon as cigarette smoke looms over like a welcomed cloud — the machine keeps on whirring.
19
20
Stasis by Cedric Pascua Art by Zeusimmanuel Cordez
It is no homecoming to return to a hallowed home. It isn’t so much returning either as it is retiring. Today, the stairs were steeper and each breath I drew, heavier. Heavier with each step I took, and heavier as I cradled the mound of boxes in my arms. Heavier as I fumbled for the doorknob, and perhaps the heaviest when the keys stopped jangling. There is the faint click followed by a grating creak as the door turned on its hinges. I haven’t really noticed these noises until we fell silent. Before me is the TV, its reflection playing a silent movie from our happiest days. On the couch is a tableau of mismatched pillows thrown about – one is smeared with blots of ice cream from midnight cravings, another streaked with wine. To my distant right is the fridge, its door plastered with stickers and magnets from places we visited. Between the gaps are tiny islands of shiny surfaces, each projection a funny face you’d make before you clutch the handle. Of all the trips we took, this kitchen was your favorite. / ɪˈnɜrʃə / There is something about the dust that never settles however spotless a home is, how it breathes life into inanimate objects and reflective furniture. I watched the sun kiss the sink’s enamelled grooves while light bounced off the countertops. I watched the specks flutter in the sunbeams, cling to drapes and billow under stifled sobs. Today, the skies were serene, the air was still, and here I stood, unmoving.
21
last night was wild by Gabrielle Domingo Photo by Ava Cecilia Ricafranca
22
Night drapes its soaking dimness into the city. The girl twists and turns and counts the fangs in her mouth how children count sheep. Sometimes she likes to conjure phantasms – daydreams— about hands soaked in blood, sliding her palms down her face, then leaving crimson trails on her cheeks. She dreams about water – the push and pull of uproarious waves. Water has no mercy. Water is mightier than blood. She grasps her hands and coils her arms closer to her chest. She feels the slow upheaval of her breast, the slow downfall of breath – muscles contracting then loosening and blood cells frisking then flowing. The phantom claws scrape against her shirt. When the night peels off like an orange’s flaking skin and reveals its purplish morning pulp, she finally falls to sleep.
23
24
Art by Marian Hukom
25
Photo by Alphonzo Paco
Contributors Gabrielle Iladoc Gabrielle Domingo Elise Ofilada Maxene Geronimo Alanis Manantan Christian Baldomero Ava Cecilia Ricafranca Willem Dimas Jedd Ong Cedric Pascua Mika Reyes Zeusimmanuel Cordez Mayumi Isabel Paras Jan Alaba Marian Hukom Back cover by Sean Eidder
26
Photo by Zai Tingson
27
This Youth is on Fire is the monthly online of
http://youngstar.ph