Santo Niño Barbie
As a columnist I get a lot of invitations to book launches and exhibit openings. I stick them on the fridge, and when I run out of door space I throw them away. But one invitation I kept for show and tell with my friends. It announced the launch, at the main lobby of the Cultural Center of the Philippines, of Warriors of Heaven, a novel by Marlene Aguilar. I have never met the author, but assumed those were her photographs on the invitation.
In one photo she appears to be channeling the Nazarene or the Santo Nino, and in the other she is wearing butterfly sleeves and nothing else. (Danton Remoto, I challenge you to appear on the cover of the Ladlad books nude and holding a nipple.)
The large-format invitation includes a statement from the author (“If your mind is locked away within the rules of society, religion and other institutions, please do not buy this book”), an excerpt from the novel which I gather is about the secret US plan for world domination (That’s a secret?), and blurbs ranging from the lukewarm (“I really enjoyed reading it”—Howard Marks, author of Mr. Nice) to the enthusiastic (“I love the sex! I loooooooove the sex!!!!”—Inday Espina-Varona, Editor-in-chief, Philippine Graphic). It was so. . .unusual, I filed it away.
My sister just called me. “Remember that weird invitation you got? Well there was this road rage killing and the author’s son is now wanted for murder.”
Answers to questions you might be asking, unless you wandered onto this site purely by accident >>>
November 25th, 2009 at 23:00
On Marlene Aguilar’s website there were book excerpts. If the book is fiction its a comedy and if nonfiction its a tragedy. You know the tyranny of us thinking ourselves as special with a mission to save the country or some other metaphysical mumbo jumbo, it smacks of Imelda Marcos with her hole in the sky. Maybe she doesn’t talk with her top notch chemist sister Zoraida who is her exact opposite.
November 25th, 2009 at 23:56
Saw very strange interviews of her in the news. Todo emote and wearing some kind of gown during a presscon on her fugitive son. Yes, a gown with a plunging neckline. In a presscon where she appeals to her son to give himself up.
November 26th, 2009 at 09:25
she’s related to freddie aguilar right?
November 27th, 2009 at 20:24
There is a P.5million bounty for anyone who could tell her fugutive son’s whereabouts.