Repeat While Fading: Pinoy Rock Biographs, the second book of Vocalese:Poems (2006) author, Aldus Santos, is now available at the following Powerbooks branches: SM Megamall and Shangri-La in Mandaluyong; Trinoma in Quezon City, Glorietta and Greenbelt 3 in Makati; and Alabang Town Center and Festival Mall in Muntinlupa.

There is a slight hike in the price, but it’s still all worth it, we promise you. Stocks are rapidly dwindling and we strongly suggest you grab your copies now.

Thank you for your patience and support!

*Photo taken by Day Cabuhat at the RWF launch (January 28, 2009 at saGuijo Bar+Cafe)

Aldus Santos, author of Vocalese (2006), is launching his second book entitled, “Repeat While Fading,” on January 28, 2009 at Cafe Saguijo, Makati City.

Keep posted for details of this exciting new compilation.

“Vocalese” is now available at the Shrapnel Custom Shirt and Design Store on Mabait Street, U.P. Village, Quezon City.

Shrapnel owner Gelo Lagasca designed the CD sleeve and cover of “Girls, Et Cetera,” the second independent release of The Purplechickens, Aldus Santos’ rock band.

Vocalese is being sold at the U.P. Quill application booth, located at the U.P. Diliman College of Arts and Letters (CAL) building basement, from November 19 to 29, 2007.

U.P. Quill is holding “free-for-all” workshops from Monday to Friday, 5:30 PM, at the old tambayan (i.e., the first stone bench outside Katag). If you want to attend, please bring 10 copies of your work.

Fresh copies of “Vocalese” was delivered to the U.P. Press Bookstore last week.

By the way, please be informed that we will no longer replenish stocks at Datelines, Cubao X.

Keep posted for new outlets!

A friend informed us recently that he bought the last copy of “Vocalese” at the U.P. Press Bookstore.

We will replenish our stocks there within the week. 

Please bear with us and thank you for your support.

Taken from Paolo Manalo’s Multiply site. 

I’m biased because I know Aldus Santos personally. Then I remembered that he asked me to blurb Vocalese (2006) so I’ll just include that here:

There is something of [Ted] Hughes here in following fragments, puncutation, 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.

I was overwhelmed by the manuscript when I first read it in its entirety, and deeply envious of some of the poems, especially those which I put out when I was still literary editor of a weekly magazine. I most admire the resolutions (enforcements?) of disparities of thought through acquisition, juxtaposition, and wordplay. The last poem still my favourite:

English of Never (Causa Prima)*

Which way were they poised, headlong (really)?Which birds dodged all astute ornithology?

What is the point of view?

Almond verandas, eyes, un-ice and generally warm to friends.

Infrequently cold like its homonym.

The view, as any pedestrian fluid, would submit to take the trims of its container.

Un-camera, the view is.

The point of view is that it will not manifest as a point.

The view will, as squarish prose, square
itself off, adapt, take as its template
the turns of the object.

The point of view is perspective, but:

point is also the essence sensed, and, point is,
simultaneously,
without a perimeter.

Point is speck in a line (of reasoning),
in a circle (of friends),
in a square (-off between ever ingrate and defeated master).

All opinions on the prowl, shy and affected like points
on a map.

Faceless citizens, dilly-dallying.

I have known a country (not every).

…

I have known wants.I have wanted.

I wanted knowingly.

(A knowledge in wanting.)

And these–coma, tics:

Shaking cashews in a hollowed palm.

Wiggling feet when running late.

Tucking hairs behind sanguine ears–stereo with heart–a show,
straining to hear further.

Tranquil lyric–this–must cater to the immobile.

It should not be able to run away.
It should know itself on foot.

And the hiccupping reader, by his desk or floor:

coma, tics. (Chromatics.)

 

* This poem appears in “Vocalese” and is copyrighted to the author, Aldus Santos. This poem may not be copied, reproduced, or re-printed—in whole or in part–without the author’s permission.

Vocalese (Poems) by Aldus Santos is still out!

 Get your own copy at the following bookstores:

• Bound Bookshop (Sct. Castor, near Tomas Morato and Roces Ave., Quezon City) 

• Mag:net Katipunan (near Rustan’s on Katipunan Avenue)

• U.P. Press Bookstore (Balay Kalinaw near Ilang-Ilang Dormitory, U.P. Diliman)

• Datelines Cubao-X (near Pure Gold, Araneta Center, Cubao, Quezon City)

For autographed copies, you may buy from the author himself. Send him an email at aldus.santos@gmail.com or aldusmanok@yahoo.com. You can also catch him at any Purplechickens gig. Visit http://thepurplechickens.multiply.com for details.

There is a short feature on “Vocalese” in the March 2007 issue of Pulp Magazine. The said issue has Stonefree and Typecast as back-to-back covers. The feature on Aldus Santos’ book is on page 14, beside a story on the Wolfgang-Razorback reunion. Music editor Jason Caballa (also guitarist for Pedicab) wrote the short-but-sweet featurette. “(It) contains forty of Santos’ own poems, which are remarkably distinct from the lyrics he has written for The Purplechickens’ many songs,” Caballa writes. Santos is also quoted as saying, “(The Purplechickens’) lyrics are poetical, I think, but not poetry. …I just kept delaying it (the book) because I always ended up shifting paradigms or writing styles.”

Read the full story in this month’s Pulp. Visit their official site at http://www.pulpcommunity.com.

“Vocalese (Poems)” is now available at the University of the Philippines in Diliman, alma mater of author Aldus Santos.

You can buy “Vocalese” at the U.P. Press Bookstore located at the Balay Kalinaw (beside the Ilang-Ilang Dormitory). To get there, ride any U.P. jeep (Ikot, Toki, Philcoa, Pantranco or SM) that passes by the Shopping Center area. Balay Kalinaw is on the street in between the Ilang Dorm and the Protestant Church where the main road curves.