The El Bimbo Variations by Adam David

When reading a poetry collection, one of the last things you expect to do is laugh out loud. But, if you were to read Adam David's new edition of The El Bimbo Variations, that is exactly what you'd be doing. My advice: try not to read it in public, unless you're okay with people looking at you weird because your shoulders are suddenly shaking in laughter or you have a snap-happy grin on your face.

I first read The El Bimbo Variations back when it was still in pdf format. Four years ago, the poet Adam David gave a talk to one of our high school junior classes during a yearly activity where we expose students to real-life writers. In preparation, he sent us a copy of his El Bimbo Variations, and told me that we could distribute it to the students so that they'd know his work. We photocopied them for the classes assigned to Adam and, on the day of the talk, I went in and listened to his session where he got riled up about big publishers and their limited repertoire. Apparently, the established (read: big and traditional) local publishers wouldn't publish his work. So, Adam went ahead and published his work online through his blog, Oblique Strategies.

Now, four years later, with greater exposure to the book world and the publishing industry, and having bought and read the new edition of his book, I see where he's coming from. I'm not sure which publisher declined to publish this jewel, but I honestly think they made a mistake. The El Bimbo Variations is one of the cleverest poetry collections I've read in a long time. And, in my opinion, it's very "sellable."

Take the title: The El Bimbo Variations. For those not from the Philippines, the title is inspired by the song "Ang Huling El Bimbo" (The Last El Bimbo), one of the most popular songs by the Eraserheads, gods in the local rock scene. The Eraserheads first achieved popularity in the 1990s with their alternative rock songs that spoke particularly to and of the Filipino experience. One cannot overstate their contribution to original Filipino music and the music industry that thrives today. (Obviously, I am a big fan, having been in college in the 90s, when the E-heads were doing their gigs.) Unfortunately, the band broke up in 2002, but their status is now legendary. To give you a clearer idea, think The Beatles and how people go used to crazy over the idea of a reunion. The E-heads did perform two reunion concerts, and you can imagine how fast those tickets sold out.

Anyway, this post isn't supposed to be about the Eheads. But it was their song from which Adam took his inspiration. And let me tell you, that particular song is a contemporary classic. It was even the last song played during the closing minutes of an iconic local rock radio station, NU107, November 8 of last year.

Hmm. It seems the theme here is "the end of an era."

Because the first line of the Eheads' song "And Huling El Bimbo" is

               Kamukha mo si Paraluman
               Nung tayo ay bata pa.

(Translation: When we were kids, you looked like Paraluman.)

Now, Paraluman was a gorgeous Filipina actress from an even older era, around 1940s to 1970s. It is her face that graces the front page of The El Bimbo Variations. And it is this first line--just this first line--that Adam David plays with in his variations.

The whole song, though, speaks about a childhood love a boy had for this girl, who entranced him with her dancing. It is a song of innocent love and emerging sexuality, told through the boy's observations of how they danced. In the song, the boy eventually loses touch with the girl and grows up. Next thing he hears is that the girl, his first love, has borne a child out of wedlock, worked as a dishwasher at a club in the red-light district, and was run over by a car and killed. And so, for the boy turned man, his childhood dreams end. It's an awesome bittersweet song. Again, the end of an era for the boy.

I realize that I had to provide a long description of the entire book's context for the benefit of non-Filipino readers, but this is exactly why I think the book is sellable, especially among Filipino readers, whom, understandably, most of the local publishing houses target. All of these contexts are something Filipinos will automatically get, especially those of a certain age bracket, i.e., the economically independent ones. Moreover, since Eraserheads fandom cuts across different social strata, especially for the song "Ang Huling El Bimbo," I don't think it's difficult for a lot of people to find some connection to this book.

Because when you take a look inside Adam David's book, you realize that there's something in it for everyone.

I mentioned that I was laughing while I read this book. The first half is immensely funny, of the humor the Filipinos will love. And yes, Filipinos love humor. It is our defense mechanism against everything that strikes or may strike us. But there's low humor, and there's clever humor.Clever is what Adam does.

First, the structure: Adam riffs on that one line for his variations. Each variation has a title, which is exemplified in the poem below. For instance, the first poem is this:

Reductive

     Kamukha mo dati

     si Paraluman

(Translation: You looked like Paraluman before.)

Now take that poem as the background, and check out these samples. (I will endeavor to translate the words for non-Filipino readers, though I really wish I could translate the experience. My apologies to Adam and to professional translators for my efforts.)

Subtle Insight

      Maganda ka dati.

(Translation: You used to be pretty before.)

A Different Generation

      Kamukha mo si Joey Albert

      nung tayo ay bata pa.

(Translation: You looked like Joey Albert [a popular singer/actress from the 80s], when we were still kids.)


With One Word Altered

      Kamukha mo si Paraluman

      nung Tao ay bata pa.

(Translation: You looked like Paraluman, when Man was still young.)

Exclamatory

      Oh my God, dude!!!

      Kamukha mo noon si Paraluman!!!

      DaFuuuuuck!!!

(Translation of 2nd line: You used to look like Paraluman before!!!)


Derogatory

      Yuck.

      Paraluman.

Trust me, there are funnier gems in the book. I made a few people read it, and they were laughing out loud, too. 

But after the first 26 poems, the variations turn more interesting, and you realize that Adam David is not just playing around. He's doing something experimental and immensely clever. Take some of the next few titles: William Blake (which is a Blake-style illustration with caption), American Haiku, Koan (which is "a paradox to be meditated upon to train Zen Buddhist monks"), and HTML. In other words, Adam riffs the first line of El Bimbo in varying formats and styles. Pretty soon, you'll realize that it's not enough to read the poems themselves; you'll have to turn to the notes at the back of the book, where Adam provides the definitions of the various styles he used as well as his process in coming up with the poems.

And, for me, the "Notes" portion is the real treasure. It is an education and a peek into a brilliant mind. 

Adam bases his entire creation on Raymond Queneau and Francois le Lionnais's Oulipo (Ouvroir de Litterature Potentielle or Workshop for Potential Literature) and is reminscent of Queneau's Exercises in Style. The point of the Oulipo was to explore the potential of mathematics to produce literature. Now, I am an English major and a Math minor, and I've never seen any contradiction between the two. Moreover, I love the poems that have some kind of math principle in them (hence I love sonnets, villanelles and most of the closed forms or most anything with a pattern.) Naturally, my eyes lit up with the Oulipo's fascinating theory.

However, I also know many fascinating theories fall flat because of bad execution. Fortunately, Adam's execution is excellent. His experimentation with the different forms was astounding, if only to demonstrate the infinite flexibility of words and language and the interplay of language, forms and meaning.

Of the 99 variations in the book, the split between the Filipino and English poems is almost 50-50, though all of the poem titles are in English. There are also a few variations that have no words at all, only images, as Adam is an illustrator, too. But for each variation, whether it be English or Filipino, Adam shows his facility with either language. He writes an entire Square Poem (originated from Lewis Carroll, wherein the first words per line make up the first line and the last words per line make up the last line) in Filipino. He creates Univocalisms (a text using only one vowel) in English, so creative that it made me think that there must be an alternative word or phrase for everything. He even toys around with Tabloid News Clippings, Experimental Theater, Connect-the-Dots, and the Chord Book.

Moreover, a lot of the poems are shorter than your usual tweet, much befitting this generation of short attention spans and sound bytes. The notes, though, will require more of one's effort.

The El Bimbo Variations will have something in store for you, regardless of how much effort you choose to put into it. If you're merely looking for a good laugh, it's there. If you want exhilarating new poetry, that's there, too. If you want an exposition of the marriage of form and meaning, you won't go wrong with Adam's book. Heck, even if you want your local comic fix, you can find it there, too.

And, come to think of it, if you're a teacher aiming to let your students appreciate the fun one can have with poetry, I would strongly, strongly urge this book.

My point: The El Bimbo Variations should not have been ignored. Since it first came out, it has won the Madrigal Gonzalez Best First Book Award in 2009, beating out several other books from mainstream publishers. Now it's on its second edition, in print format with new material, I beg you not to ignore it, either. It's much too good for that.

Finally, I leave you with Adam David's inspiration, and the song that's been playing in my head the whole time I was writing this post--Eraserhead's Ang Huling El Bimbo. Enjoy!





You can also check out the reunion concert version here.