“Vocalese (Poems)” Launch on Dec. 12 at Conspiracy Bar

Aldus Santos will launch his first poetry book entitled, “Vocalese (Poems),” on December 12, 2006 at Conspiracy Bar & Garden Cafe located along Visayas Avenue in Quezon City. 

Enjoy a night of poetry reading and special performances by friends like Outerhope, Vin Dancel (of the now defunct Twisted Halo), and Cynthia Alexander.

Be one of the first few to get a copy of “Vocalese (Poems),” which will be sold at the venue for a discounted price.

Event is from 6:30 pm to 9:00 pm only.

To get to Conspiracy, take Visayas Avenue from the Quezon Memorial Circle. Landmark is the Department of Agrarian Reform Building. Upon entering Visayas Avenue, you’ll pass by a McDonald’s to your left and, straight ahead, a Jollibee to your right. A Shell gas station will follow. Conspiracy Bar is right across. Make a U-turn on the corner of 7-Eleven.

Entrance to the launch is free. However, beyond 9pm, patrons who are just about to get in will have to pay the cover charge for the second event: the Bikolano Poets’ Kabanggihan (Part 2). Proceeds of the said event will go to the victims of Reming in Albay and other affected areas. The booth selling copies of “Vocalese (Poems),” will continue to hold shop beyond 9pm though, for your information.

Vocalese (Poems) by Aldus Santos

Vocalese (Poems) is the first book of poems by Aldus Santos, an independent poet and musician whose work with independent rock act The Purplechickens has been deemed as “some of the best lyrics ever to grace a rock song” (Pulp).

In his first collection of verses, Santos veers away from the succinct paradoxes of his lyrics without losing his penchant for phonetic lyricism, irony and situation. Vocalese is replete with fictitious retellings of the lives of some of the most misunderstood icons of science and art—Albert Einstein, Tycho Brahe, Jonathan Swift and Neil Young, among others. In poetic strophes brimming with humor and scandal, Santos attempts to marry popular subject matter with legitimate poetic inquiry. The end-result is antonymous to the soullessness of yellow journalism or public trial; it is deconstruction…mad, mute, mellow.

“Vocalese (Poems)” cover art by Adrian Arcega

The first print-run of Vocalese will start on November 20, 2006. Its launch is set on December 12, 2006 at Conspiracy Bar+Garden on Visayas Avenue in Quezon City. For inquiries, please leave a “comment” for this post.

“The book’s scope is wide, almost catch-all, dipping into science, history, and popular culture. It’s a club full of interesting characters that range from Tycho Brahe and Charles Darwin, to Victor Hugo and Neil Young, to Don Quixote and Pepe Smith. But, strictly speaking, they’re all to be found only on the guest-list and are not the main performers. The headliner, so to speak, is Santos’ intelligent, steady prodding.”

—from the Foreword by Mayo Uno Martin, author of Babel

Aldus Santos, author of Vocalese 

Photo by Grace Mirandilla

Praise for “Vocalese (Poems)”

“There is something of Hughes here in following fragments, punctuation and the perceptive alignments of words which continually displace experience and our experience of language as it is thrown at or thrown out of circulation (or owned parenthetically). In a world drowning in knowledge and instant troubleshooting, Santos intelligently sets up the game of facts to win us over with a poetry that is a play of memes.”

—Paolo Manalo
Palanca Award-winning author of “Jolography”

“It’s not so hard to quickly label Santos’ poems as intimidating and cerebral, both for their visual flow on the page and—for readers who are often spoiled by a demand for immediate meaningfulness—their seeming inaccessibility. But the patient reader should be rewarded generously by this brilliant and meditative collection, if not by its sharp twists, turns, and dream systems, then by its kept promise of clarity. One grows into ‘Vocalese’ when one considers that the poems here are mostly concerned with the movement of language in the mind, and how our mental voices subsequently seek to utter these words.”

—Joel Toledo,
Winner for Poetry, 2006 Bridport Prize

Typography

“This is the one-act play where it’s all soliloquy by a harelip and music blared through bad speakers.  

This is the part where words are mere characters and they cease having character.

This is this: the whole wide world, crumbling. ”