The practice of Buddhist meditation clearly helped me through some tough times; for reasons only now becoming clear to me, I’ve always resisted commitment to a regular practice, and to joining a Buddhist community. I’ve never studied at length with a Buddhist meditation teacher, and I’ve never attended anything longer than a one-day retreat.1 For the last couple decades, my meditation sessions had been slacking off considerably.

Something changed this year when I hooked up with the Secular Buddhist Network (SBN) and read a couple books2 (and a lot of articles) authored by people deeply involved with the group. I don’t think of myself as a “secular” thinker, and I’m not an atheist. I guess you could call me agnostic—a stance that was probably influenced by my father. His distrust of the Catholic Church is why my parents never pushed hard for me to become an observant Catholic, unlike most of the Filipino kids I knew.

Apparently, I had also inherited from Western culture certain expectations and priorities about the attainment of “enlightenment”3 while slacking off on the ethical side. But I knew something was missing. I needed a more pragmatic approach, one that incorporated individual mindfulness and psychological healing with ethical social awareness and engagement. It’s not enough to tend only to the flourishing of oneself when you are surrounded by and connected to so many others in this world that we all share.

There’s a lot more to this topic, a lot of personal history behind it. I suspect this “exploration” will have a significant effect on my life. But I’m not going to go deeply into it today, because I feel I’m in a transitional phase.

What’s wonderful is that my partner has started meditating, too, encouraged by his physician, who noted: “If only everyone meditated and took a laxative regularly, the world would be a better place!”

Leave a comment

Share

ART

Gampi Paper:

With just one large sheet4 of Philippine gampi “leather” paper to work with, I wanted to experiment with it, first, to see how it takes ink and watercolor. I also wanted to know if it would tear evenly (more or less) along a fold. So I decided to fold and tear a couple inches off one end, and make it into a tiny accordion-fold book, and do a free-form experiment on each page. Here are the first 4 pages:

It took the watercolor and ink surprisingly well. The watercolor didn’t soak through, and the ink soaked through just a little bit. The paper is quite tough. I want more! Here are the last 4 pages:

Anyway, that was fun. I think I’ll even make cardboard book covers for each end. These drawings seem related to earlier work I’d done with Lokta paper from Nepal. The drawing process was meditative, as I allowed the structure of the paper to guide my hand. The one below, done with a ballpoint pen, is entitled “Blue Okir” (2022):

RABBIT HOLE

Rafael Manuel on Filipiñana

• Filmmaker Rafael Manuel discusses his award-winning film Filipiñana on Democracy Now:

  When Manuel was a child, his family imported and exported golf equipment. The film’s setting is an elite golf course. He observes: “The first golf courses in the Philippines were in American military bases. The whole historicity of the golf course hides a very violent past. So this is what I know about those spaces, a space that I know very intimately.” I’m particularly interested in what he has to say about “designing the silences,” as I relate that to the asemic art I’ve been making, and his strategy of eschewing narrative plot for moments of emotional clarity.

Art Materials are Endless

For my Dailies, I had vowed to use up all the paper and board that I have before purchasing any new paper. Now, I’m beginning to wonder if I will ever come to the end of all this material? First, I have drawers full of paper and board, some of which are “failed” drawings or paintings that I’ve realized I can recycle into collage or new paintings. When I finish a pad of, say, watercolor paper, what remains is the cardboard backing; I can use that board to make art or sketchbook covers! I receive stuff in the mail that I can use in collage. Or I could possibly grind it up and turn it into handmade paper.

At home, we keep collecting cardboard from boxes that once held items ordered and shipped to us. What can I make with cardboard? How long will it last? I’ve looked online to see how other artists are using these materials:

• Leonie Weber curates “Cardboard: Infinite Possibilities” :

• Darryl Vance’s notes on cardboard art; its preparation, and longevity. Here are some of Vance’s art works.

Poetry, Art, and More

• Renegade, an online journal of international visual poetry

• Sandy Press: New books for 2026

• Paloma Press is an award-winning independent literary press on the San Francisco Peninsula officially founded in 2016 out of a project that began in 2008 led by Filipino immigrant women.

SOUNDINGS

R.I.P. Tim Curry:

Leave a comment

Thanks so much to all of you who read Eulipion Outpost regularly, and to those who have subscribed or donated on my Ko-fi page to support my efforts. Donations contribute to my rent payments!

My thanks and appreciation go to the Mysterious M. for editing support and expertise.

My website and blog: Jeanvengua.com

My Shop at FourthWall

A Crooked Mile (on mobility and being carless)

Eulipion Outpost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:

Subscribe now

Notes:

Note: This post may be truncated on some servers. To view the entire article on Substack, click on the available link or go to Eulipion Outpost.

Tricksters, Chaos, and Creativity

One of my college courses at UCSC in the early 1990s included discussions about North American indigenous trickster myths. The character took many shapes, including human (in many of the stories I read, the trickster was portrayed as a small animal or a humble peasant up against a much larger animal or powerful figure of authority). Crow and Coyote were most resonant for me, because I had seen those animals often in the California neighborhood where I lived as a child.

For my Bachelor’s Thesis, I wrote about the Philippine Trickster as a mythical figure that helped Filipinos in their struggle against colonization.

Traditionally, tricksters are viewed as troublemakers and pranksters who love a good joke when others are on the receiving end. In indigenous communities, they are portrayed as both wily and foolish, prone to lust and greed; they are frequently associated with sexuality, birth, and the creative principle.

Compared to other indigenous folklore characters, the trickster does not seem absolutely tied to locale. Some myths credit the figure with creation of local customs and landscape features, but it is frequently a mobile, border-crossing and boundary-breaking character. Stories place it in transitional situations where it must find shelter, wait at a crossroads, or get across a river or large body of water .1

The trickster seems to appear when the social fabric crumbles, but from their devilish or buffoonish mistakes, new ways of surviving, thinking, and being can arise—even new tribes and civilizations. In America’s urban mythology, they are embodied in DC Comics characters such as the Riddler and the Joker, and Marvel’s Loki, the Asgardian god of mischief. The African trickster also appears in the Americas in the forms of the spider storyteller Anansi, and the god Eshu, who embodies chaos and communication at the crossroads.

Besides Monkey, Tortoise, and (the usually evil) Crocodile, I read about Pilandok (the mouse deer) and the human tricksters lazy Juan Tamad and clever Juan Osong or Juan Pusong. My favorite was Pilandok, the diminutive deer (less than 12 inches high), which in real life sports a pair of tiny fangs, giving it a vampirish look.

In folk literature, Pilandok is a prankster. In Maranao and Magindanao folktaless, he is portrayed as the clever ordinary man of scanty material means but who plays tricks to get the better of others. Pilandok chooses to challenge creatures who are greedy and filthy rich. People with enormous wealth and power like Kings, Datus, and even animals like lions and crocodiles are subjected to embarrasing [sic] situations concocted by him which lead these authoritarian figures to lose wealth, power and authority. Because of his pranks those who lust for power and authority are maimed, embarrased and punished miserably. Lilia Quindoza Santiago, The Pilandok Narrative in Philippine History and Society.

In contemplating my thesis, I remembered that the Philippine national hero and martyr, Jose Rizal, had drawn a cartoon featuring the monkey and the tortoise.

The tale involves two tricksters, one embodying deception with evil intent, and another appearing naive, but able to call forth its trickster skills in order to escape a bad situation. In the story, Monkey and Tortoise are each cultivating a banana plant. Monkey is jealous of Tortoise’s more bountiful plant, and offers to “help” Tortoise harvest the fruit, since Tortoise can’t climb the banana tree to reach the bananas. However, in his greed, Monkey steals and eats all the tortoise’s bananas, throwing down only one unripe fruit.

The angry tortoise pays back this behavior by laying a trap of thorns for the trickster to step on, and later yanks painfully on Monkey’s tail. Although Monkey deserved the punishment, he angrily appoints himself judge and executioner of the innocent Tortoise. Yet, the slow and seemingly naive defendant manages to outwit and escape the monkey’s clutches.2

The Working Fil-Am Archive presents their interpretation of the tale in The Monkey and the Wise Tortoise (video):

Rizal and his peers were of the Filipino elite “Illustrado” class sent to Europe to study in its universities. Like many young students, they were a rambunctious group, and their writings critical of Spain were banned by the Spanish government from appearing in the Philippines. Published in Europe, Rizal’s cartoon helped to preserve a sense of unity (”solidaridad”) and community for the student exiles living together in a foreign land, as they attempted to counter various forms of imperial rule imposed upon the Filipino people as a whole. Published in Madrid, their journal was entitled La Solidaridad. Rizal wrote two novels while living in Europe, both critical of the Spanish colonial government, particularly the Catholic friars who paved the way for colonial governance. Labeled by Spanish authorities as a “subversive,” Rizal was executed after he returned to the Philippines.

I scoured Philippine newspapers for all the tricksterish figures that appeared in them during the war with Spain, and later the Philippine American war. Filipino cartoonists drew deeply from their indigenous traditions for such characters in order to make up new stories to satirize and criticize their enemies. The figure seemed to give them courage to resist their Western colonizers, even after the US won, and the Philippines became a colony.

During the early American period in the Philippines, Trickster’s antics appeared in newspaper editorial cartoons and comics, in speeches, and in plays. The journal Lipag Kalabaw (aka Lipang Kalabaw) was well-known for its satirical attacks; thus, its writers and artists had to remain anonymous. Lipag operated at the margins, constantly testing the limits of the American colonial administrators. In tricksterish fashion, they utilized “deceit” since they were under pressure to remain “invisible.” Today, we know that the journal was owned and edited by Lope K. Santos, and its lead cartoonist was Jorge Pineda (Butch Dalisay, Pinoy Penman 3.0).

Referring to the masthead image by Jorge Pineda, the kalabaw bush, wielded by the fellow on the far right, was described by the editor as a plant that “stings the skin upon contact.” It was used like a whip to cure ailments such a rheumatism. He noted, “In order to cure this malady, one must strive to produce a rash. Rheumatics are flagellated without compassion with lipang kalabaw leaves and the rheumatism disappears as though by sorcery. In cases of moral rheumatism, it will be utilized with its rightful limitations certain that the rashes that its flagellations raise will produce a salutary reaction to the spirits. We do not count on the gratitude of the patients” (Issue No. 1, July 27, 1907).

A favorite target of Lipag was anthropologist, photographer,3 and American Secretary of the Interior Dean Conant Worcester, whom McCoy and Roces4 characterized as “a blunt man whose incomplete scientific training inspired a confident racism.” A high-ranking administrator, he was also an aggressive businessman whose monopoly on Philippine minerals and forest resources enraged Filipinos.

In The Philippine Islands and Their People, Worcester told readers that “great opportunities will open before the Capitalist” if the Philippines were to “come under the control of some progressive nation,” and if the capitalist had “patience and enterprise enough to familiarize himself thoroughly with existing conditions, and to overcome the obstacles they present.” Worcester may have imagined himself as one such capitalist, one who would be able to take advantage of his familiarity with the Philippines to become a prosperous businessman in the Islands. — Mark Rice, Dean Worcester’s Fantasy Islands: Photography, Film, and the Colonial Philippines (2014)

Worcester became a target of Lipag’s “healing” flagellations, partly because he had sued another Philippine newspaper, El Renacimiento, for libel, and had won the suit. El Renacimiento was forced to shut down, its editors sentenced to prison.

Sometimes I think humans are the real pranksters of the animal world. We have so much power over the planet that we can trap and harvest animals on a global scale to provide our food. We can pull mineral and water resources out of the earth and use it for good or evil. While we’re capable of doing immense good, we are also overconfident and greedy, and cause great damage in the process.

Yet, the ancient trickster—present in so many cultures—has also been characterized as a hero, healer, and creator of civilizations. Is it just another lie promoted by the trickster itself?

What is it about this powerful, yet extremely untrustworthy character that continues to inspire artists and storytellers? I think it’s that mix of human fallibility and power, and its connection to chaos and creativity.

The trickster embodies and projects the anxieties of both individuals and communities. It recounts tales of foolishness and creativity in the face of overwhelming challenges. It pushes us toward new paradigms while posting warning signs along the way. “Sure, go for this risky action or path,” the trickster says, “but remember: Don’t be an idiot, and don’t be too sure of yourself, because you’re only human and bound to make mistakes.”

*****

My college newspaper research spurred my interest in print culture, which I continued to pursue during my studies at UC Berkeley. My PhD dissertation, Migrant Scribes and Poet-Advocates: U.S. Filipino Literary History in West Coast Periodicals, 1905 to 1941 was based on those newspapers, but focused primarily on Filipino newspapers published in the western US.

A seminal source for American portrayals of the Philippine-American war through political cartoons is The Forbidden Book (2004), by Abe Ignacio, Enrique de la Cruz, Jorge Emmanuel, and Helen Toribio.

One of my important source books for Philippine satirical cartooning is Alfred McCoy and Alfredo Roces’, Philippine Cartoons: Political Caricature of the American Era, 1900-1941. Sadly, it’s now very difficult to find if you want to purchase a copy. Hopefully it’s available in some college libraries.

Leave a comment

Share

ART

Recently some friends took me on a tour of the Alebrijes & Nahuales exhibits in Salinas, CA. It is touring the US from Oaxaca, and was curated in Salinas by Juan Carlos Gonzalez of Urban Arts Collaborative. At first, I saw them as “trickster” figures, but I suspect the artists view them through a broader lens. The 15-20 ft. pieces are all over town, often appearing in unlikely spaces, like “The Dog,” which is exhibited in a corner of the Star Market parking lot. Smaller pieces are on exhibit at the National Steinbeck Center, also in Salinas:

For my Daily Drawing on August 10, I drew what in retrospect (after visiting the Alebrijes & Nahuales) looks to me like a cabinet containing imprisoned prankster spirits. They’re just waiting for some hapless artist to let them out.

RABBIT HOLE

• On her podcast, Nathalie De Los Santos recounts tales of “The Mischief Makers: Tricksters in Filipino Mythology” (from her Substack Filipino Fairytales, Mythology, & Folklore).

• In true trickster fashion, Pow Martinez is an artist storyteller who likes to make art that’s not “nice” or “boring” (Silverlens):

• Meet Coyote, an aboriginal legend in western Canada:

• Miguel Yga (of Rambling & Roving) tells us the history behind the creation of Alebrijes & Nahuales by Pedro Linares in Oaxaca, and how they influenced arts and crafts in Mexico:

SOUNDINGS

“The Trickster,” vocals by Fabio Lampero, animation by Gamingly |Among Us (a science-fiction murder mystery game).

Leave a comment

Thanks so much to all of you who read Eulipion Outpost regularly, and to those who have subscribed or donated on my Ko-fi page to support my efforts. Donations contribute to my rent payments!

My thanks and appreciation go to the Mysterious M. for editing support and expertise.

My website and blog: Jeanvengua.com

My Shop at FourthWall (I’ve currently got 5 items up, but will add more art soon).

A Crooked Mile (on mobility and being carless)

Eulipion Outpost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:

Subscribe now

Notes:

San Bruno holdings comprise 100,000 cubic feet of records, including Asian and Pacific immigration and naturalization materials; the original case file from United States v. Wong Kim Ark, the 1898 decision that helped establish birthright citizenship; Chinese Exclusion case files; German, Italian, and Japanese American World War II records; documents concerning the Tanforan Assembly Center incarceration; legal records related to the motion to vacate Fred Korematsu’s 1944 conviction; Japanese picture bride files; Alien Files containing visas, photographs, and family-history materials; records documenting Indigenous and Hawaiian communities; Mexican Land grant cases; and arrival case files for Russian Jews and other immigrants from throughout the world.

Chicago facility holds permanent records created by federal agencies and courts in Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin, including naturalization and genealogical records and Chinese Exclusion Act case files from Chicago and St. Paul, Minnesota. (JACL Alert)

The Formidable Genealogist notes that the naturalization records in Chicago may be important to those still pursuing naturalization and citizenship in the US. Observing that these actions have received little coverage in the news, she poses several questions:

• Where are these records going?

• How long will they be unavailable?

• Why hasn’t the public seen any access plan [for these records]?

Furthermore, the government seems to be intent on dismantling the “Institute of Museum and Library Sciences (IMLS)—the only federal agency dedicated to providing funding for the nation’s libraries—by executive order,” even though the order to shut the organization down in 2025 was overruled by the courts. See the American Library Association (ALA) website for updates. The latest news involves an attempt to remove the E-Rate Program for affordable broadband service to libraries and patrons.

According to a KPIX report, NARA archives facilities have already been shut down in Ohio, Illinois, and New York.

There’s more to the JACL memo, including information on what you can do about this situation. Read the whole JACL Action Alert on their website.

PBS Report on the NARA closures (June 2026).

Leave a comment

Subscription to this newsletter section is free:

The Messman Chronicles

I’m reading Richard E. Miller’s The Messman Chronicles in order to help me understand my father’s life at sea as a messman and steward, and his sometimes self-censored references to racial and other conflicts aboard ship.

Miller’s book focuses on Black seamen from the early 20th century through WWII, but Filipinos take up a larger part of his narrative than I expected.1 This is understandable, considering that Filipinos still dominate the global seafaring workforce (among merchant fleets)2:

• The Philippines is ranked the largest supplier of merchant-shipping seafaring officers (203,179 as of 2026) globally after India, China, Russia, and Indonesia.

• The Philippines is ranked the largest supplier of merchant-shipping seafarers (~460,000) after Ukrainians, Indians, Romanians, and Polish.

• The Philippine share of the global seafaring force is 25-30%

In 2026, BIMCO/ICS reported:

Since the 2021 report, demand for STCW-certified seafarers has increased by 35%, representing a significant increase from the previous two reports in 2021 and 2015. The demand for officers has increased by 23.1% and the demand for ratings has increased by 46.3% compared to 2021 levels.

Miller’s narrative details the US Navy’s policies of hiring Blacks, incorporating into his narrative many first-hand accounts from the messmen and stewards themselves. Here are some of my notes from the first few chapters:

Early on, it was a policy to hire most of the Black crew from the southern and southeastern US, because they were more likely to be experienced as servants on plantations. Thus, Blacks were hired in the 1920s and 30s to serve White officers and maintain the familiar, racist hierarchy. As mess attendants, Blacks worked in the galley and on the mess deck, near officers’ dining areas. The higher-ranked stewards supervised them and also attended to the officers, keeping their quarters clean and uniforms laundered. Stewards were trusted to care for officers and to keep quiet about conversations heard in those areas.

Miller notes that by 1932 “the US Navy’s Black population had shrunk to its twentieth-century nadir, with only 441 individuals in a total enlisted force of 81,120.”

A few Chinese, Japanese, and Filipino crew members were hired to work on Navy ships, although they hardly made up for the gap. However, many of the white officers had been working with Filipinos since US colonization of the Philippines, and some of them preferred Filipinos over Blacks. During the first two decades of the 20th century, the US Navy’s “insular force” in the Philippines had recruited 4,133 Filipino sailors (all making about half of the Navy’s regular base pay).

In 1932, a policy change resulted in more Black US citizens enlisting in the Navy, but (despite basic training) their positions remained essentially as servants. Filipinos, even those who had contracted to work in the US as farm laborers, were considered “nationals” and therefore non-citizens, so they did not have priority in hiring.

All that changed at the onset of WWII, and especially after Japanese forces bombed Pearl Harbor and attacked the Philippines. American naval and merchant fleets began to hire crew members from allied countries in the Pacific, and Filipinos made up the majority.

My father had migrated to the US in 1929 and worked in Alaska’s fisheries and in California and Oregon as a farm laborer. But Filipinos were receiving the lowest wages among all the other ethnic groups on the West Coast, and he had recently quit farm labor to work in San Francisco restaurants in whatever job he could get. When the Navy and merchant ships started hiring more Filipinos, he saw this as a chance to better his life—although it would be an adventurous and risky path. My father’s first job was on one of the first hospital ships to arrive in Pearl Harbor after the attack.

During WWII, most Navy crew members of color seemed united in contributing to US efforts to defeat the Japanese war machine. According to Miller’s book, many Black crew members died or were wounded in the conflict. Some distinguished themselves by rescuing other crew and officers during attacks and manning anti-aircraft guns when necessary, including Doris “Dorie” Miller who was awarded the Navy Cross at the age of twenty-four for such action.

Messmen aboard the destroyers and even some who served on the fleet’s cruisers and other ship types were likely assigned at general quarters to topside gun crew positions as loaders, gunners, and “hot shell” men.

Miller observes that “The heroism of many messmen . . . would eventually contribute to forcing a policy of equal employment opportunity throughout the Navy. But that would only come after the war that was just beginning. Meanwhile, the messman’s inferior status remained all too apparent.”

. . . . .

As I watch merchant marine tanker vessels being either stuck or shuttled around the Strait of Hormuz—like pawns in a dangerous game—in Sal Mercogliano’s What’s Going On With Shipping, I think about the Filipino crew members on those ships. I think of my father working on hospital and supply ships during WWII and the Korean war.

During the late 1950s through early 1960s, I heard my father mentioning racial tensions among the Black and Filipino crew members. The racial discrimination along with low wages and poor pensions (even after the War) may have exacerbated the tensions.

And I’m reminded of passages in my father’s letters that reveal his worries:

I am very low in [morale], as far as my work is concerned. The MSTS3 is exploiting us or taking advantage of us nowadays. We have to slave ourselves so hard that I’m now disgusted about my work. I’m feeling sick and nervous, I don’t know if I can finish this trip without getting real sick . . .

A lot of older Filipinos have relatives working as both crew members and officers on merchant ships and in the Navy. They may find Miller’s book worth reading. Another worthwhile book on the topic is Kale Fajardo’s Filipino Crosscurrents: Oceanographies of Seafaring, Masculinities, and Globalization (especially in relation to gender issues).

You might also be interested in my earlier newsletter post titled “Bloody Mutiny, Public Folly,” about Arthur Conan Doyle’s “The Deed of the Six Manila Men” (1899), which covered the public execution in London of six Filipino mutineers in 1864. Broadsides distributed in London, and newspapers in distant Australia revealed public sympathy for the Filipino seafarers.

Also, check out the Strait of Hormuz sea shanty in SOUNDINGS, below!

If you know of other books about Filipino merchant mariners, I would love to hear about them.

“Filipino seafarers return to sea despite war risks in the Strait of Hormuz and Black Sea” (Al Jazeera):

Leave a comment

Share

ART

Two asemic pieces from my Dailies. The first was prompted by my tarot card draw for 8-12-2026, “The World” and incorporates the sigil for the element of earth, asemics, and a collage piece from a USGS map:

The second piece is an asemic made on part of a discarded ink drawing from a few years ago:

Leave a comment

RABBIT HOLE

• Alexis Rogers writes for his mother Emilia Vendiola Rogers: “Becoming Justice: My Mother’s Freedom Song.” in Field and Flame.

• Multidisciplinary artist Catalina Africa talks about her art, her forest environment, and herself as “Mirrors, Merging.” (Silverlens):

• David Hayes on writing epistolary nonfiction.

• Textile artist and poet Lindzeanne has embroidered an entire tarot deck. It took her four years. That’s a lot of embroidery! Check out her Substack newsletter Notes on Material and Time.

SOUNDINGS

“Strait of Hormuz“ sea shanty for merchant mariners stuck at sea, sung by folk singer and musician Daniel Kelly:

Leave a comment

Share

Thanks so much to all of you who read Eulipion Outpost regularly, and to those who have subscribed or donated on my Ko-fi page to support my efforts. Donations contribute to my rent payments!

My thanks and appreciation go to the Mysterious M. for editing support and expertise.

My website and blog: Jeanvengua.com

My Shop at FourthWall (I’ve currently got 5 items up, but will add more art soon).

A Crooked Mile (on mobility and being carless)

Eulipion Outpost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:

Subscribe now

Notes:

I was recently (on August 5th) reminded of my age when Wordpress.com awarded me with a blue laurel badge for being on that platform for twenty years. So that makes me some kind of internet oldie, I guess. I count myself lucky that I still have my brains and body mostly intact, with a few glitches here and there. That said, some important lessons take a helluva long time to learn. Just as well. Life would be so boring if I thought I had it all down.

The internet now seems barely recognizable from the days when, as “gier99,” I learned to code my blog Nightjar on Geocities. And things have changed a lot online since I first tried out Wordpress.

Created in 2006, my Okir blog¹ is still up, though I stopped posting in 2010. I’ve created multiple blogs and websites on Wordpress. I used one of my blogs as an online notebook in which to draft and edit my poetry manuscript for Corporeal, allowing readers to comment publicly on what I wrote. The book was published by Black Radish Press in 2018, despite the fact that I’d already posted much of it on my blog!

There were idle periods when I didn’t do much writing on my sites, or where I got frustrated with the platform and left for awhile. I still find their Gutenberg editor to be a bit irritating to use. These days, however, with all the predatory, corporate tech platforms and social media, I’m appreciating WordPress much more; despite its faults, it feels like my home on the internet.

I live on a tight budget, and a couple years ago I trimmed my website of all paid plugins when I realized I was paying more for them than if I’d been paying annually for a Squarespace website.

I’m glad that I can do well enough without the plugins, and I hope that WordPress continues to offer free options for folks like myself. In any case, I’m glad that I still have a presence on the platform as Jeanvengua.com. I do think that if you are an artist or writer (and I’m both), it’s necessary to have a website.

To Share or Not to Share

I’ve been randomly posting my parents’ letters and their historical contexts over the last couple years. This has worked fairly well for me, because discovering the contents of the letters was exciting to share. But that process also dredged up emotions and stories (both historical and familial) that I thought I was prepared for, but found to be more complicated than expected.

Unexpected events, contexts, and the emotions they evoke are often what make a memoir interesting and readable, but some things need to be worked out in private. As mentioned in previous issues, I’ve removed myself from about three-quarters of my social media activity1 because I realized it had become a huge distraction from this project and a few other things in my life. It’s no secret that social media has an addictive quality.

I’ll continue to share aspects of my writing process. My parents’ letters are a doorway into a larger history that I’m trying to understand, and it’s important for me to share some of my research. For example, Richard E. Miller’s book The Messman Chronicles has given me a lot of insight into the job tensions my dad experienced while he was at sea. Miller reveals racial hierarchies, conflicts, and cooperation among Black, Filipino, Chinese, White, and Guamanian2 crew members working on military and merchant ships. I’ll write about that in the next issue. I’ll also continue to write about objects and images from my family life that carry emotional resonance for my prose, poetry, and visual art.

In “Betye Saar: Taking Care of Business,” the artist says of her collage and found sculpture work:

“We’re in a culture that likes objects. You’re drawn maybe to beauty or to usefulness. Or there’s other objects that you look at and you’re disgusted with them. Everything has a past; so I feel that energy is somehow enclosed with the object.”

(See Saar’s video in the Rabbit Hole, below).

The “About” page for Eulipion Outpost describes the newsletter as “an intersection where the arts and ethnic culture and history either collide or meet up and chat—and maybe go for a walk.” That broad focus goes against the grain of most advice for writing and posting on the internet, where finding your “niche” or singular brand tends to bring in the most viewers (thanks to algorithms).

I know that my open-ended approach won’t draw many “views” or regular readers. But in this wandering dialogue, I feel a need to open up to the many voices from my past (some of which I’ve only begun listening to).

Leave a comment

RABBIT HOLE

• Rachielle Sheffler is also celebrating an online anniversary, with an article on “How to Emerge as a Filipino-American Writer.” Congrats!

• Artist Betye Saar (R.I.P.) on objects and her creative process:

• “Divination and the Art of Choosing Well (Part I of II: Hard Choices),” by Will Buckingham.

• “Please Use AI,” a poem by Sean Smucker.

• In Notes from the Edge on K-Pop supergroup BTS: Jeff Chang and Dan Charnas on “How BTS Explains the Problem of Asians in America.” And I have to admit that I’m so unfamiliar with the K-Pop scene that I didn’t know about its relationship to Black R&B and Motown.

SOUNDINGS

• This interview with bluegrass/rock musician Billy Strings feels like excerpts from a personal memoir, as he describes some difficult periods leading up to his latest album “So Much for Goodbyes.” He performs a couple songs near the end, and discusses his learning process to the delight of interviewer Dan Marchese.

Leave a comment

Share

Thanks so much to all of you who read Eulipion Outpost regularly, and to those who have subscribed or donated on my Ko-fi page to support my efforts. Donations contribute to my rent payments!

My website and blog: Jeanvengua.com

My Shop at FourthWall (I’ve currently got 5 items up, but will add more art soon).

A Crooked Mile (on mobility and being carless)

Eulipion Outpost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:

Subscribe now

In my last issue I mentioned leaving YouTube and Facebook. Maybe I should’ve mentioned that I had also exited my personal accounts on Instagram and Bluesky. I left Twitter (ugh!) a couple years ago. That doesn’t mean I’m off social media. Although Substack is considered a newsletter site, it’s definitely social media, too. You can also find me on two Mastodon social media instances: my handles are @jeantangerine (at mastodon.art) and @jeanevergreen (at montereybay.social).

I recently completed writing and submitting funding applications (one for a grant, one for a matching funds campaign) for a nonprofit. I feel like that’s worth mentioning. I’m always surprised at how much emotional and even mental energy and time go into grant writing. There’s one more grant application to work on before the end of summer.

I’m making it brief today, and leave you with a few Dailies, images from my neighborhood, and one music video. Have a great weekend . . .

Leave a comment

DAILIES

SOUNDINGS

Erik Satie’s “Gnossienne 1” for koto, electric bass, vibraphone & alto flute played by the ENSEMBLE DELYDIOUS: featuring Karin Nakagawa on 25 string koto, André Buser on electric bass, Urs Wiesner on vibraphone, and Günter Wehinger on alto flute:

Leave a comment

Share

Thanks so much to all of you who read Eulipion Outpost regularly, and to those who have subscribed or donated on my Ko-fi page to support my efforts. Donations contribute to my rent payments!

My website and blog: Jeanvengua.com

My Shop at FourthWall (I’ve currently got 5 items up, but will add more art soon).

A Crooked Mile (on mobility and being carless)

Eulipion Outpost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:

Subscribe now

Leaving Facebook & Entering the Forest

Last week I left YouTube, and this weekend I deactivated1 my personal Facebook page. I need to claw back some personal time from all my social media gazing to work on my writing—for example, on my parents’ letter project and art—which has been eaten away by corporate social media’s “audience capture.” Leaving Facebook was especially difficult, because so many of my friends and relatives are on it, including extended family members in the Philippines whom I have never met in person, but who have reached out to me to either renew or establish family ties.

As journalist-activist and Nobel Prize laureate Maria Ressa has noted, Facebook got its hooks into the Philippines early, and became the primary social media for the country, with its tens of thousands of overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) who also need Facebook’s messaging to keep in touch with their family.2 Ressa claims that Facebook has also been used to spread lies and distrust, and helped to consolidate the power of Duterte’s autocratic regime.

There is another reason for all this. I’d noticed that a few relatives and acquaintances have started posting essays on Facebook that are written by AI. These are essays meant to heighten emotions, replicating the “audience capture” ploy used by many of the biggest social media platforms. Some of these folks even regularly sent me AI-created video shorts through Facebook messaging. It felt creepy.

Without mentioning names, I once made a brief post about the “ick” factor in reading AI essays, especially those that evoke cheap nostalgia, or anxiety and anger. One acquaintance explained that frequent use of AI to write their essays has taught them to be a better writer. As someone who has taught college level writing for years, my feeling is that you don’t teach someone to write better by writing their essays for them!

Well, my contact info was posted in the header of my Facebook page for months, and a week before I dropped out, I reminded everyone to take a look at it if they want to contact me. So, I’d like to think that if they really care, they’ve copied the information by now.3 If not, well, maybe they don’t care that much.

Leaving the two biggest time-wasters on my list of internet platforms feels a bit like leaving a gigantic gated city. I make my way past trashed vacant lots, freeways, and train yards, and find a path out to the hinterlands. In the distance I see a big, dark forest spreading over the hills. As I continue on, I notice a few other people heading in the same direction, too.

Charlotte Dune contemplates the internet’s “dark forest,” and has curated links to others who have been speculating about its growth in recent months, and where this will lead us.

In Issue no. 246, I wrote briefly about how some of my art reflects a sense of “entanglement.” This issue continues, and departs, from that theme.

I took a short break from the card-sized “tarot” paintings I’ve been doing, and fell back on a familiar motif that keeps coming up in my daily art practice, though it has also appeared in earlier drawings and paintings. There’s something comforting and pleasurable about making curvy, tangled, vegetal shapes: vines, flowers, leaves, pods, and roots, with hints of various creatures; birds, an eye that could belong to a human or a dinosaur. More frequently an undulating serpent appears, though it could morph into a centipede, lizard, or dragon.

Suddenly I saw the drawings differently. Besides expressing a sense of “entanglement,” these figures are central to the okir designs (sometimes called okkil or ukkil) of the southern Philippines, especially on the big island of Mindanao (where my father’s family has lived for centuries) and also in parts of Southeast Asia. The motif, found among the Maranao, Lumad, and Moro groups, is woven into textiles, carved into sword handles, boxes, and cemetery markers. It adorns the indigenous Maranao torogans, large community buildings carved with okir designs that house multiple families. A common feature of the okir is the serpent, the bakunawa (dragon-like serpent) or naga (serpent or mermaid) of Philippine and Southeast Asian mythology.

A few years ago, I created a Redbubble site and called it Okir, because I wanted it to have a name that reflected my Filipina/o ancestry and culture. I created mostly contemporary abstract designs (digitally) and put them on items that I sold. I knew a little about the okir motif, and even tried my hand at doing a contemporary “riff” on a Maranao4 design that I put on a scarf, tote, and other products. But I always felt that this was my attempt at identifying with the country that my parents were from, but whose culture I never quite absorbed, because I was born and raised in the US.

But now I’m wondering if perhaps I’m more “rooted” in Philippine culture than I thought. Are these designs emerging from my imagination because of something programmed into my DNA? Or have I just absorbed the motifs into my subconscious when viewing images of Philippine carvings, textiles, and torogans online, so that now it simply flows from my pen without much thought when I draw?

These drawings and paintings don’t look exactly like the traditional okir of Mindanao—my interpretation is more improvisatory—perhaps even more American! But they contain the primary elements: serpents, birds, pods, vines, flowers, spirals, etc. Besides my loose interpretation, sometimes I insert human elements. The okir motif emerged before the Muslim sultanate and Spanish colonization of the Philippines, but it was nurtured by the Muslim culture. Thus, human forms do not appear in the traditional motif.

Here are two much older pieces that are different, yet exhibit similar characteristics of flowing lines and creatures entwined with plant life:

I appreciate folk art in general. This also leads me to ponder how traditional folk art and design has influenced contemporary visual art.

RABBIT HOLE

• Okir: Mindanao’s Sacred Patterns (by PODKAS TV). Note that some parts of this video are spoken in Tagalog. But if you don’t speak that language, enough of this is in English that you should be able to get the gist.

• Diana Losch: While the art that I’ve been doing lately has been all analog, I do have a little experience in creating digital designs for my Redbubble site. But I love Diana Losch’s approach to art: Her focus is on our shared, real-world environment and experience, viewed through multiple perspectives. As she describes it, her art examines: “states of flux, continuum and the friction between humanity’s tracings and nature. My art shifts between context and abstraction informed by habitats, environmental forces and biospheres.” This makes me think of the surveying and mapping of our planet over the centuries, viewing the terrain first from the ground, and more recently from the air and outer space. What are the consequences of all that tracing and tracking? You can view Diana Losch’s art on her website.

• My father lost his eyesight from glaucoma when he was in his early 80s. As a visually oriented person, I sometimes wonder (as I experience aging and the slow deterioration of my eyesight) how I would function in the world without sight. From Sightless Scribbles: “He learned the gestures.”

I am a blind gay man living in a world obsessed with optics. Things happen to me—some good, some tragic, some absurdly funny. This blog is where I translate those raw, chaotic inputs into something you can hold. It is the ultimate immersion into my literary world, a place where I take the “visual” and dismantle it, brick by brick, until all that’s left is the truth of my non-visual world. —Robert Kingett

• Joan Westenberg on “How to Make Something People (Actually) Give a Shit About: 5 Rules for Creating Work That Leaves a Mark”.

• Leaf Art: Here’s a thought. Have you ever picked up a large leaf that has fallen on the ground, and thought about all the artful, wacky, and creative things you might do with it before it decays and turns into mulch? I thought about that when I saw this article on Lito-Leaf in mymodernmet.com. But you don’t need to get that detailed. Think about it. Embroidery? Using the leaf as a stamp for printing? Collage? What else?

SOUNDINGS

Found sounds from the Folk Archive (from the British Isles).

Angelica Negron, composer/musician and her incredible, edible soundscapes.

The New York Philharmonic performs Negron’s “You Are the Prelude”:

Leave a comment

Share

Thanks so much to all of you who read Eulipion Outpost regularly, and to those who have subscribed or donated on my Ko-fi page to support my efforts. Donations contribute to my rent payments!

My thanks and appreciation go to the Mysterious M. for editing support and expertise.

My website and blog: Jeanvengua.com

My Shop at FourthWall

A Crooked Mile (on mobility and being carless)

Eulipion Outpost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:

Subscribe now

Notes:

Getting Unstuck

Recently, I visited the YouTube account that I’ve had for over a decade. I opened the app, and immediately an invisible card shark with nimble fingers spread out his magical poker deck and began flipping the cards over. Row upon row of AI “shorts,” games, and other tidbits appeared, along with a slew of flashy videos that Google hopes will keep me glued to their precious platform. It’s called “audience capture,” used nowadays by some of the biggest corporate media platforms.

I often watch YouTube videos before sleep—not the best input for dreaming.

As an artist, I’m attracted to visuals like a moth to a flame, but this was getting ridiculous. Exhausted from a stressful week, I was starting to feel like a bug trapped in a spider’s sticky web.

Yet, I seemed to have reached a turning point. Without giving it much thought, I deleted the account along with its app on my smartphone. I then decided to deactivate my Facebook page next week (after notifying certain relatives and friends, and giving them my contact info).

Well, it felt like a spur-of-the-moment decision, but it was years in the making. I started writing on the internet around 2000, first learning to code my blog on Geocities. Since then, I’ve been writing and making art online and in social media on a regular basis. But sometime around 2018, I felt like things were changing on the internet—and not for the good.1

Since I don’t like being a pawn that lures people into sticky web traps, I’m also going to keep the number of YouTube videos in my “RABBIT HOLE” section to a minimum.

My decision to leave these platforms impelled me to visit some of my favorite creators’ websites to see what else they are doing—and I realized I’m missing a lot by just watching their YouTube video content. Many of them offer print interviews, workshops, collaborative projects, newsletters, and exclusive Patreon content for subscribers; some have published books. My favorites are authors and artists who have fun doing creatively oddball, adventurous things with their websites.

My intent is to place more priority on my writing, art, and topics that are important to me,2 especially now that I’m in my 70s. I don’t want to spend my remaining years bouncing from one video or rage-baiting AI reel to the next. Nor do I want to get stuck in a round of content creation in obeisance to an algorithm. If you, too, are feeling stuck, the following (all on Substack) may help:

• Ted Gioia on The Collapse of “Audience Capture”

• Seth Werkheiser’s Social Media Escape Club (Tomorrow, July 20, Seth is doing a talk on “Leaving Social Media and Staying in Touch with Friends and Family”).

• Amie McNee: “I quit hustle culture.”

• Mel Mitchell Jackson also recently left her channel on YouTube and moved to Substack!

Leave a comment

Share

The Dailies

Here are five more asemic tarot images from my daily art project. They are mostly ink, collage, and watercolor on handmade paper. The cards in their natural sequence (174 to 178) do seem to correspond well with the events of the last few days. Yesterday, when I started writing this issue, I pulled “The Chariot,” which I think aligns with the topic of this issue. I’m not very happy with the image and asemic for “The Moon.” But, lo and behold, I drew The Moon card again today! So I have a chance to do a new version.

RABBIT HOLE

• Binh Danh: Along with other members of Asian Cultural Experience of Salinas and residents of Salinas Chinatown, I was honored to be a subject for artist Binh Danh, whose primary medium is photography and daguerreotype. With these tools, he “reimagines traditional photographic techniques to explore the layered connections between history, identity, and place.” Check out the videos and projects on his website. The daguerreotype below was taken during the height of COVID-19. Can you tell?

• Alternative’s Substack features “a research journal of experimental image-making through nature, chemistry and time.” It was founded by artist and educator Chiara Salvi.

• Ahmed Umar, Sudanese performance and multimedia artist (on Art21):

  I was fully aware that after I danced publicly, I would face lots of consequences— how my position in Sudanese society would be affected, the opinions of my parents, and the online threats and danger that might come after. I haven’t spoken to my mom since the work went public.—Ahmed Umar, on dancing the Ragees Al-Aroos, the Sudanese bridal dance.

• “The Adventures of Kate Carew”: Ever since my college days, I’ve had an interest in print culture (newspapers, magazines and zines, pamphlets, etc.); so Joe Livernois’ article on groundbreaking cartoonist and journalist Kate Carew (aka Mary Williams) sparked my curiosity—especially when I learned that she had lived nearby.

She blazed a New Journalism/Gonzo trail before the birth of Tom Wolfe and Hunter S. Thompson by half a century. But Kate Carew’s gonzo was rolled into a petite and proper woman with a sardonic sense of humor, topped with feathered Gainsborough hats.

—Joe Livernois, Monterey Neighbors & Friends

• Maya Lin’s latest creation for the Obama Presidential Center in Chicago, IL.

• Tumba Tumba: A Children’s Museum of Philippine Art

• Wala Lang (Gigo Alalmpay) focuses on Filipino heritage, identity, and art. On Substack.

• Major Philippine literary contest to require writing drafts in AI era.

SOUNDINGS

• The Lot Radio, based in NYC, is always fun, experimental, weird, and occasionally NSFW. If the deejay shows up with three or more friends, expect a party. If that piques your interest, check out their 24/7 live stream3 or featured videos on the thelotradio.com/. Here are the Stray Dogs, featuring composer and percussionist Lesley Mok. Note: most of these videos start with about 5 min. of watching the artists stumble about—sometimes after midnight—while setting up their gear for the recording. But that’s part of what makes it feel like you are right there in the studio.

• My parents had some of the Juan Silos’ records as mentioned by Florante Aguilar in this video, where he discusses what he calls the “Golden Age of Traditional Filipino Music.” By “traditional” I believe he’s referring to European music introduced to the Philippines during colonization, which Filipino composers and musicians interpreted, making it their own.

Leave a comment

Share

Thanks so much to all of you who read Eulipion Outpost regularly, and to those who have subscribed or donated on my Ko-fi page to support my efforts. Donations contribute to my rent payments!

My thanks and appreciation go to the Mysterious M. for editing support and expertise.

My website and blog: Jeanvengua.com

My Shop at FourthWall

A Crooked Mile (on mobility and being carless)

Eulipion Outpost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:

Subscribe now

Dailies

For the last week, I’ve been making small, playing-card-size collages using old asemic writing. I like the feel of the smaller size paper. When working small, my lines loosen up, and I stop trying to get everything “just right.”

Last night, I pulled a tarot card, and used it as an abstract constraint for my daily art. The card was the 4 of Coins. When not reversed, this card often indicates a material gain or windfall.1 Let’s hope it’s true!

This afternoon, I pulled another card for the art I’ll make this evening. It was the Queen of Wands.

Historical Records at Risk

For those who are working on family history projects in Central California, Seattle, and Chicago, you may be interested in the news I received from the Kansha History Project.2 While this information is directed towards Japanese American families investigating the histories of their Issei relatives, I think this could also impact research about other ethnic immigrants. For example, KQED reports the San Bruno Federal Records building contains original records from the landmark birthright citizenship case United States v. Wong Kim Ark.

Here is an excerpt from the Kansha memo:

ALERT: Histories at Risk

In June, the National Archives and Records Administration [NARA] circulated an internal memo outlining the imminent closure of the Chicago and San Francisco/San Bruno records centers and the relocation of the contents of the Seattle center. These centers contain extensive and unique information related to West Coast history and are of special importance to Japanese Americans and many others whose experiences and stories have not been heard. The closures may begin as early as August 2026. In response, 19 dedicated Kansha History volunteers stepped forward to immediately start digitizing Nikkei records in the Bay Area and Seattle this month. With thanks to all the archival volunteers, the Seattle Nikkei community, Densho, and Paul Tamura and Julie Kanazawa for coordinating! — Rūtsu: A Newsletter of the Kansha History Project, Vol. 2, Number 33

The National Archives at San Francisco hold the “majority of records for northern and central California” (National Archives at San Francisco). They are “a major primary resource for study in the fields of Asian-Pacific immigration, environmental, Naval, Native American, as well as other aspects of American history, including genealogical records pertaining to the Chinese Exclusion Act” (Alchetron). If you check out the San Francisco NARA website, you’ll see summaries of what the records include under several categories:

Genealogy: Resources available include free access to computer databases, selected microfilm publications containing records from across the National Archives and one-of-a-kind records of genealogical value.

Historical Research: The National Archives at San Francisco has more than 75,000 cubic feet of archival holdings dating from 1850 to the 1980s, including textual documents, photographs, maps, and architectural drawings.

In addition to unique original records, the San Francisco facility has selected holdings of National Archives microfilm publications. Included are records relating to Native American-Government relations, Asian immigration, and World War II.

Federal Court Case Files: We have civil, criminal and other case files Federal courts in northern California, Nevada (except Clark County), and Hawaii. In addition, we have appellate case files from the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

If you are doing historical or family research based in San Francisco, Seattle, or Chicago, you may want to keep track of what happens to these important archival resources.

Leave a comment

Share

RABBIT HOLE

• Opinionated “bad boy” poet Enrique Enriquez on moving to the US from Venezuela and feeling like “a ghost” until he started doing tarot readings:

I feel that [my] first years here [moving to the US from Venezuela], I still was a tourist. You walk around, and somehow all your exchanges are commercial... You go to a place to buy something, to pay for something, and you leave; then you go home. But everything, the buildings, the houses—they are like a facade, like Hollywood scenery, because you don’t have connections with the city or the people who live there. And my way of making that connection was through the Tarot. I started sitting in a little coffee shop that doesn’t exist anymore, did the readings for free, and people started sitting. I started to have connections, and people started to understand that I was there and I was available, and I was me, somehow. It’s not easy to explain; when you move to a new place, you become like a ghost. You walk around and no one sees you—Enrique Enriquez

Tarology: The Art of Tarot, is both a book and a documentary film (directed by Chris Deleo & Kimberlie Naughton), on Enriquez’ unique, embodied 21st century approach to the tarot:

• “I basically discovered a job where you could get paid to do research and not have to write papers. So that was pretty cool.” —Cristina Moretta, photo librarian, San Francisco History Center.

• Vanishing Culture: The Stories Hidden in Cookbooks (Internet Archive). Chefs are discovering centuries-old technique in very old cookbooks.

SOUNDINGS

• OK, I’m exposing my ancient Boomer roots. The first live concert I attended was in Golden Gate Park in the mid-1960s, and the band was the Grateful Dead.4 After decades of 3-5 minute pop hits, the Dead changed the landscape of pop recordings by improvising rock music and extending the length of their songs so that if you dropped acid before the concert, you just might be high before the first song was over.

  I just learned that some of that “Summer of Love” history is archived at my old alma mater, UC Santa Cruz.5 Both Garcia and the Dead cannot be viewed apart from the music and arts culture of Haight-Ashbury during the 1960s/70s.

  I remember walking through “the Haight-Ashbury” neighborhood in 1968 with my boyfriend. The street seemed to be an endless carnival of hippies, mutual aid stands, and musicians. Below, the Grateful Dead’s 1968 concert in “the Haight” as we called it back then:

• The Kennedy Center honored the Grateful Dead on December 8, 2024 (R.I.P. Bob Weir)6:

Leave a comment

Share

Thanks so much to all of you who read Eulipion Outpost regularly, and to those who have subscribed or donated on my Ko-fi page to support my efforts. Donations contribute to my rent payments!

My thanks and appreciation go to the Mysterious M. for editing support and expertise.

My website and blog: Jeanvengua.com

A Crooked Mile (on mobility and being carless)

Eulipion Outpost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:

Subscribe now

ARTS & LETTERS

I continue to produce my “dailies.” Along with my sustained interest in asemic writing, in my daily art cycle I keep coming up with drawings that look like entangled vegetation or creatures. I don’t always intend for them to be that way; it just happens. So I’ve been thinking about this growing awareness I have of how entangled all our lives are, which reminds me of the Buddhist idea of interdependence or “dependent arising.”1 No matter how singular and independent we feel ourselves to be, in fact we are inextricably linked.

Writing about “power, consciousness, and the work of transformation in an age of collapse,” Thanissara calls such entanglements “webs of unexpected connection”:

We might call this a rhizomic way of moving. Rhizomes are the underground root systems upon which life depends. They braid webs of unexpected connection, weaving through obstacles while continually orienting toward relationship. They navigate from source-based rather than being defined by outcomes. They embrace and nourish effortlessly along the way, intuitively sensing ways to enhance the natural flow and synergy of life. Rhizomic intelligence mirrors the collaborative, enduring life force of nature, expressing itself through networks of care.

Unlike an empire, which requires oppression and domination, rhizomes move in ways that not only endure but also renew, replenish, and thrive by branching out through mutually empowering networks of co-aliveness. In essence, rhizomes mirror the inner intuitive intelligence of all that aligns itself within the magical and mysterious self-organizing intelligence of life itself.

—From “Inside the Unfinished Revolution” in Thanissara’s Substack

Share

RABBIT HOLE

• Ruth Tabancay’s beautifully detailed embroidery of microorganisms, and “coral” assemblages are based in her work in microscopy, magnification, and interest in geometric forms. Her art also reminds me of entanglements and rhizomic connections. Heather Woodlawn interviews Tabancay in “What Linens Know”2:

• You can find a “universe” of meaningful symbolism in any setting, as The Kitchen Tarot (by Susan Shie and Dennis Fairchild) shows us. We have a deck at home, and it’s beautiful to look at and quite detailed. Many of the images are comprised of zillions of tiny words.

• I make my art on the dining room table, which also happens to be my writing/editing table. So, I find it difficult to relate to artists who have huge studios with perfect light and big walls on which to hang art, and—most importantly—a place where they can make a mess. I appreciate Rebecca Chapman’s kitchen table art studio, and ideas for how to organize a small studio space:

• Drewscape makes his daily journal entries in the form of simple comics:

• I can easily imagine Litronix’s music (see in Soundings, below) as a soundtrack to Justin Parpan’s paintings, especially those set in the nighttime freeway landscapes of southern California. Parpan is also a writer and animator. Check out his Substack “The Art of Everything.”

SOUNDINGS

• Go Kurosawa, live on KEXP:

• Who on Earth is Litronix? Is this guy with an awkward comb-over and a 1980s Sears suit a man or a machine? He says that for four years he lived above an apocalyptic Chevron gas station on a busy intersection in Venice Beach, California. Clearly it had an effect.

The Gas Station is a movie that never ends. People of all kinds come to the gas station to fill up and roll out. Always coming and going. Some people are local, most are not. Some are travelers, some are hookers, some are drug dealers, drinkers, homeless, supermodels, actors, tweekers, surfers, professionals, and some are survivors. The gas station is always moving. Except for me. I stay still. I live here. I watch the never-ending movie and take notes. And this album [Pump the Gas] is what I came up with.

Live on KEXP, he performs “Electric Panoramic” :

Leave a comment

Share

Thanks so much to all of you who read Eulipion Outpost regularly, and to those who have subscribed or donated on my Ko-fi page to support my efforts. Donations contribute to my rent payments!

My thanks and appreciation go to the Mysterious M. for editing support and expertise.

My website and blog: Jeanvengua.com

A Crooked Mile (on mobility and being carless)

Eulipion Outpost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:

Subscribe now

Monterey Weather

The day began as usual, clothed in uniform gray. 

Mid-morning turned sunny; I sat on the brick stoop

cradling my mug of Assam tea. A couple steps down, 

a slender, new dragonfly shifted position, drying

its translucent wings in the sun; too young for iridescent tints.

Now, as I type this looking out the window, shadows

cast from the Sally Wattle tree are creeping

up the neighbor’s shingled roof. My brain tells me 

the sky is blue, and I believe it.

—Jean Vengua 

Leave a comment

Share

RABBIT HOLE

• Artist Geraldine Javier on her solo exhibition “A Tree is Not a Forest”:

• Alebrijes and Najuales (larger-than-life fantastic creature sculptures from Oaxaca) are on tour in the US, and will soon be exhibited in nearby Salinas, curated by JC Gonzalez (Urban Arts Collaborative). What are Alebrijes?

• Submissions are open for Utriculi Issue no. 3 until August 1st. Published by Sandy Press; editors Mark Young and harry k stammer. Check out earlier issues here.

• Artist Lorenzo Pace on his sculpture “Triumph of the Human Spirit” in New York City:

• Video artist Martha Atienza on “The Protectors” exhibition and Bantayan Fisherfolk Day:

SOUNDINGS

• Pianist and composer Tze Toh performs highlights from The Vast One in Singapore, with Lazar T. Sebastine (Carnatic violin), Teo Boon Chye (saxophone), Wu Bingling (violin) and guest musician May Loh (viola). Check out Tze Toh’s newsletter Multiverse in Symphony on Substack.

• Eternity or Bust: Meditative autoharpist and composer Laraaji on his musical journey, and how he came to record Ambient 3 - Day of Radiance with Brian Eno :

• Laraaji: Ambient 3: Day of Radience (w/Brian Eno)

Leave a comment

Share

Thanks so much to all of you who read Eulipion Outpost regularly, and to those who have subscribed or donated on my Ko-fi page to support my efforts. Donations contribute to my rent payments!

My thanks and appreciation go to the Mysterious M. for editing support and expertise.

My website and blog: Jeanvengua.com

A Crooked Mile (on mobility and being carless)

Eulipion Outpost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:

Subscribe now

Art

Two pieces from my Daily Art Cycle:

I’m taking another look at rule-based art and oracular prompts. It would be fun to incorporate prompts from tarot card draws in my Dailies. I wouldn’t necessarily produce the usual archetypes inspired by Jung, et al., but I’d like to leave the field open for whatever comes up. I’ve noticed when using divination-based prompts that the art I make tends to reflect the “personality” of the source. So it would be interesting to see what comes up with tarot.

When I used geomantic divination (with dice), I produced surreal landscape images like the first image above, and “Geomancy 4” below:

A description of an exhibition, “Tarot and automatism in the art of Hilma af Klint” (Hill-Stead Museum) led me to the work of two abstract artists inspired by artist and mystic Hilma af Klint: Dannielle Tegeder and Sharmistha Ray show you how “far out” you can get with this approach. They have created a feminist art collective called “Hilma’s Ghost.”1

As Ray mentions in the video below, they work to address “existing art historical gaps by cultivating a global network of women, non-binary and trans practitioners whose art addresses spirituality.” The result has been major exhibits and art installations, such as the beautiful “Abstract Futures” mosaic mural in New York City’s Grand Central Station. Here’s an interview with them on how they create art and curate exhibits:

• Tegeder and Sharmistha discuss their “Cosmic Geometries” exhibition (including 25 artists) curated through the use of their Abstract Tarot Deck:

• Author Benebell Wen offers her review of the Abstract Futures Tarot Deck.

• Sharmistha Ray on Sigil + Thought-form drawings.

Leave a comment

Share

RABBIT HOLE

• Author and lucid dreamer Sarah Janes writes about “ornithomancy and the oracular orifice.”2

• Catalina Africa’s art work incorporates awareness of ecosystems, and divination as dialogue:

  When you are in divination with something, you are kind of having a conversation with unseen forces, one might say; painting as not coming solely from me as an individual artist, but ‘me’ being a conduit for other energies to express itself through me. — Catalina Africa

• Jen Liu is an artist who researches the Chinese American women’s labor in the 19th-20th century; in the process, she became fascinated with hairdos and their significance. More recently, she’s taking a close look at experiences of migration and deportation:

SOUNDINGS

• Philippine folk and music collective Talahib performs “Babaylan”3 live in the Wish 107.5 Radio Bus in Manila:

• All Them Witches perform “Mountain”4 in a live concert.

  God bless our mother, the mountain
  She filled all the holes gathered in my eyes
  God bless our mother, the mountain
  She filled all the holes gathered in my eyes

Leave a comment

Thanks so much to all of you who read Eulipion Outpost regularly, and to those who have subscribed or donated on my Ko-fi page to support my efforts. Donations contribute to my rent payments!

My thanks and appreciation go to the Mysterious M. for editing support and expertise.

My website and blog: Jeanvengua.com

A Crooked Mile (on mobility and being carless)

Eulipion Outpost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:

Subscribe now

Life goes on. And sometimes there’s no revelation, no big idea—just the everyday of work (and play), creating, writing, contemplating, resting, and dealing with life’s ordinary challenges. In some ways “the everyday” is comforting.

Dailies

Here are three asemic pieces from my Daily Art Cycle. The first one contains a collaged portion of one of my father’s letters (photocopied). This is how my writing and visual art interact

In the small piece below, I was figuring out how to work with handmade paper that has not been sized. Sizing is a coating that protects paper from pigment bleed-through and warping. I can buy a sizing solution and apply it. But there are other ways to deal with those problems. I tried painting an area of the paper with acrylics1 and leaving a border around it. Then I applied ink on it. It worked pretty well, although the ink coverage tends to be a little uneven. Using a thinned acrylic as an “ink” would probably work better.

Share

The Letter Project

Readings

My parents’ letters hold the narratives they shared with each other over two-and-a half decades. These narratives are of love and commitment; sacrifice in order to carry out a shared goal (creating a secure home and life in a new country); sharing resources with family across the ocean; and community as both comfort and safety net. Although my father’s letters revealed some moments of bitterness regarding work issues, I can’t help but think that my parents were both strongly influenced by the larger narrative of “the American Dream” which was especially prominent in ads and movies during the postwar period of the 1950s when I was a child. When I look back on those days, I see how the dream started to crumble with America’s involvement in the Vietnam War.

I’ve been doing some non-fiction reading to help me understand the larger context of my parents’ lives. Here are three books I’m reading:

• The Messman Chronicles: African-Americans in the U.S. Navy, 1932-1943, by Richard E. Miller (Naval Institute Press).

I ordered this book because it focuses on the experience of non-White messmen and stewards working on military ships. While the focus is on African-Americans, I had an intuition that Filipinos would find their way into this narrative. Unfortunately, instead of the Messmen Chronicles, the distributor mailed me a book about the WWI German cruiser Emden!

I finally received the right book on my second order. It was in excellent condition, but arrived with a bright pink "discard" sticker on the back cover. Scanning quickly through the pages, I noticed that—despite the focus on African-Americans—Filipinos are indeed mentioned frequently. Second, the author pointed out the strong shipboard racial hierarchy established by Naval officers in the 1930s-40s (no surprise; my father had mentioned racial conflicts at work). This appears to be a well-researched book with a hefty bibliography. I suspect it will also be a disturbing read, given my dad's experiences working for the MSTS (including many Navy ships) and the merchant marines.

• My Dearest Junie: Letters of William E. Cobey

This volume contains the letters of William E. Cobey to his sister “Junie,” introduced and glossed by his grandson William E. Cobey III. During the post-war period, when the US was establishing its civil (colonial) government in the Philippines, the elder Cobey arrived in 1905 as one of the 600 volunteer “Thomasite” teachers tasked to teach primary school in the Philippines. In the process, they replaced the Spanish language instruction2 with English, and introduced American history and culture to Philippine children. So far, Cobey III’s treatment seems a bit hit-or-miss, leaving out some crucial historical information.

This volume interested me partly because of its “letter” format, and partly because my mother was educated by Thomasites at Fort Stotsenberg (now known as Clark Air Base) in Pampanga. All I know about that period of her life is that the students were fined if they did not speak English while they were on the school grounds and in class. I’m curious to read a Thomasite teacher’s perspective through his letters.

• Factories in the Field by Carey McWilliams

This is the classic book on Depression-era race and labor issues that I should have read when I was in grad school, but somehow didn’t quite give it the reading it deserved. Rather, I scanned through it for my research, cherry-picking the parts I needed for essays.3 Also, the fact that I now work for a non-profit organization that focuses on the history and culture of Asian Americans in Salinas Valley, the heartland of Filipino and Mexican migrant labor in the US,4 makes Factories in the Field required reading for me. My father worked as a migrant laborer up and down the West Coast during the 1930s. After a lengthy stint in the Salinas Valley, WWII called him to work in shipping. Carey McWilliams’ book will help me fill in some of the gaps in my knowledge of that era.5

Author and biographer Peter Richardson gives a brief Olli lecture (for UC Berkeley) on Carey McWilliams:

In future issues, I’ll report on my other non-fiction readings for the Letter Project.

Leave a comment

Share

RABBIT HOLE

• In a recent video, author Deepa Paul described starting a new writing project as “like falling in love again.” Indeed, she has the look of someone who has just fallen in love. But this has me thinking about how I view writing about my letter project. I’m coming from the perspective of having written several books of experimental poetry, finding the energy gone from that, and deciding (as an elder person) to write non-fiction prose about my parents’ letters.

  It doesn’t feel like falling in love. In fact, it feels scary and serious, and a little reckless.6 So . . . maybe it does feel like falling in love! But perhaps a better metaphor for me might be exploring new territory? The trepidation and excitement of preparing for a journey into the unknown? That might work.

  I’ll continue this thread on “writing project anxiety” in a future issue. In the meantime, check out “On Falling in Love Again” in Letters by Deepa.

• Chinese American artist Ce Roser invites you into her studio and talks about her art work and activism for women:

• Artist Emmi Whitehorse discusses her “intimate landscapes” and how the land and Navajo culture shaped her art (from Wheelwright Museum, Santa Fe):

• Folk art, textile design, and California culture inspire Gabe Schneider, a northern California artist and graphic designer. Valen Lambert interviews Schneider on Substack.

• Jennifer Owen, a potter residing in Maui, is inspired by nature. She says that “ambition is a trap”;

Leave a comment

SOUNDINGS

Cheryl Crow and Prince sing “Every Day is a Winding Road” live in concert at Lilith Fair in Toronto, 1999:

“Every Day is a Winding Road,” song and lyrics by Cheryl Crow.

Leave a comment

Thanks so much to all of you who read Eulipion Outpost regularly, and to those who have subscribed or donated on my Ko-fi page to support my efforts. Donations contribute to my rent payments!

My thanks and appreciation go to the Mysterious M. for editing support and expertise.

My website and blog: Jeanvengua.com

A Crooked Mile (on mobility and being carless)

Eulipion Outpost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:

Subscribe now

Notes:

Saving New Deal Art from “Accelerated Disposal”

I encountered the art of Ben Shahn in Mr. Jones’ high school art class during the 1960s. My favorite teacher’s broad introduction to art history helped me understand that making art didn’t have to be only about drawing cool stuff to impress my schoolmates. I also learned that realism was just one option among many for artists. Shahn’s rough-hewn depictions of Depression-era workers, war and post-war experience, socialists, and civil-rights protesters made me aware of a larger world connected to my own experience and that of my parents, both of whom had experienced war personally.

Once, attending a Filipino community event in the 1960s with my mom, a teenaged acquaintance walked up to the microphone and urged the audience to support the Delano Grape Strike.1 At that moment—knowing that my dad and uncle had both labored in California’s agricultural fields during the 1930s—the strike was no longer just about grownup problems; they were potentially my problems, too, and I could help by boycotting markets that did not support the strike.

I remembered Ben Shahn and other New Deal artists when I saw an online video seminar by the Living New Deal group and their campaign to save the historic Wilbur G. Cohen Federal Building in Washington, DC. Their article “Our Advocacy is Making News” (May 13, 2026) reports:

The landmark building, completed in 1940 to house the newly enacted Social Security Administration, is listed for “accelerated disposal” by the current administration to be sold or even demolished. The building holds a trove of New Deal artworks that our founder, Gray Brechin, has called “The Sistine Chapel of New Deal Art.” That phrase has gone viral as [the] building’s possible fate has been reported [by] The New York Times, Washington Post, New Republic, NPR, The Atlantic and more. Here’s a sampling of the coverage the Living New Deal is generating through our efforts to save this precious piece of New Deal history.

The building houses and exhibits many significant art works and murals funded by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s National Recovery Administration (N.R.A.). The murals are painted directly on the walls of the building. Mary Okin2 notes that “The actions of the [Trump] Administration proposed this Fall [2025] has made clear that we cannot assume that those in power will protect and save such historic places.”

Interviewed by the Washington Monthly, reporter Timothy Noah (New Republic), mentioned that, pending sale of the building, the staff had all been laid off. He speaks of Shahn’s murals as “very didactic, very 1930s; but also very beautiful, I think. The colors are just so vibrant, and it speaks to . . . what I think all three of us would agree was a truly glorious moment in American politics, where the federal government in the person of especially Franklin Roosevelt really revered the common man.”

I became aware of the local influence of the New Deal in my work for the nonprofit: Asian Cultural Experience of Salinas (ACES).3 Our mission is to preserve the history and culture of Salinas Chinatown. Founded in 1872, its heyday was in the 1920s-30s, when many Asians were migrating to the US for work that would hopefully provide them a better living. China was undergoing a famine, and the Philippines was recovering from similar conditions as an outcome of the Spanish and Philippine-American wars.4

As a member of ACES’ archival committee, I help research and catalogue their historical photos. One image stands out: A racially mixed group of people (Filipino, White, and Mexican) attending a party at the N.R.A. Cafe, which was on the main street of Chinatown.

In his presidential campaign of 1932, Roosevelt promised repeal of the hated liquor prohibition laws. No doubt, the restaurant and bar owners of Chinatown celebrated this, which occurred during the same year the N.R.A. was initiated in 1933.

I looked up Salinas, California in the Living New Deal website to see if the New Deal’s Federal Art Project had funded the work of any artists in the area. Out of the 2,731 sites in California, Salinas had 10,5 many still visible in its 1930s-40s architecture and art.

“Preservation in Action: A Closer Look at the Cohen Federal Building’s Architecture and Art” from The Living New Deal:

You can help save the Wilbur G. Cohen Federal building and all the art it houses by signing the The Living New Deal’s petition.

Leave a comment

Share

RABBIT HOLE

• Asian Americans and the NRA (from The Living New Deal)

• When I accompanied my mom to the Santa Cruz Post Office, I always remember my eyes straying to the powerful murals depicting farmworkers in the fields, quarry workers, and fishermen—all very appropriate to Santa Cruz, which has agricultural fields to the north and south, a quarry in the hills above town, and a history of Italian fishing families. The murals were created by Henrietta Shore for the New Deal’s Treasury Relief Art Project.

• Why New Deal-era art is disappearing from Post Offices:

• What does Banksy’s famous public street art tell us about power and the economic system? Barry Ferns explains, while taking us on a tour of Banksy’s work in London:

SOUNDINGS

• Inspired by author John Steinbeck and travails of migratory farmworkers, the California folk duo Salinas Road (Paul Cruz and Bill Jones) sing “Lonely Road.”

Leave a comment

Thanks so much to all of you who read Eulipion Outpost regularly, and to those who have subscribed or donated on my Ko-fi page to support my efforts. Donations contribute to my rent payments!

My thanks and appreciation go to the Mysterious M. for editing support and expertise.

My website and blog: Jeanvengua.com

A Crooked Mile (on mobility and being carless)

Eulipion Outpost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:

Subscribe now

Notes:

The fun part of my letter project is the sense of exploration and the creativity of writing about my parents’ history. What I don’t enjoy, however, is the tedious part: scanning, identifying, dating, and archiving the letters.

I’ve already filled a 650-sheet binder full of letters tucked into archival sleeves, and yet I still have three filled boxes — out of the three I started with! It’s like the letters are reproducing. After a period of feeling overwhelmed, I’ve decided that this archival work has to take priority over writing about it in the newsletter. At my age, it’s important to me that my parents’ letters be saved digitally, whether or not I end up writing about them at length. As a member of a nonprofit organization’s archival committee, I know the value, personal and historical, in such letters. If this prioritizing means less writing about the correspondence in this newsletter, then so be it.

Still, I have a feeling that in the process things will come up that will be newsletter-worthy.

I imagine that readers who have subscribed to Eulipion Outpost for the art may get a little confused by my frequent forays into ethnic (especially Filipino American) history and culture. But that’s who I am. It’s difficult for me to compartmentalize my interests. And the historical aspect keeps doggin’ me.

While I was attending university, my focus was equally on history and literature. As it turned out, though, my writing took an experimental turn; I’ve had several books of experimental poetry published. And this experimentalism led me back to my first love: visual art. The letter project will be different; I expect it to be an historical exploration through the more traditional lens of memoir.

Right now, I’m reading an interesting long essay by historian Steven M. Stowe, titled “Making Sense of Letters and Diaries.”

. . . the historical value of reading diaries and letters involves understanding the significance of how individual writers employed, experimented with, or altered the conventional forms alive in their time. Perhaps more than any other kind of historical text, the personal writing we are considering reveals how people both embraced and resisted the time and place in which they lived. Their personal motives for employing either form – the emotional and intellectual energy infusing the form with life each time it is written with a new subjectivity – suggest much about how people in the past made their cultures, but made them from the materials at hand. — Steven M. Stowe

I guess my father embraced the “American dream” of his era by dutifully sending home his pay (reporting the amount of every single check—to the cent), and pitching the idea that he was contributing to a secure home and future for Mom and I. But he resisted the expected narrative with his side references to censorship, and not infrequent complaints against the powers that be. My mom went along with the dream, too, by working incredibly hard, and doing her best to make the house a showcase for the success1 that was promised to her in the American schools she attended in the Philippines.

While my parents’ letters document a lot of information that has personal and family significance, some aspects of their lives echo larger contexts: the battles and disruptions of WWII followed by the Korean war and galley work on the high seas for Dad, and the immigrant experience for both.2

If I look online for books about merchant marines during WWII and after, I can easily find ones that focus on white merchant mariners in all capacities. I can also find a few on Filipinos schooled in merchant marine academies after the mid-twentieth century. But I cannot find a single book on the thousands of working-class Filipinos and Asians laboring and risking their lives on merchant marine, MSTS, and US Navy ships during WWII and the Korean War, or during atomic bomb testing.3 4

Recently, I wrote a brief query on Facebook:

“Anyone out there have fathers, grandfathers, or other family members (not necessarily Filipino) who were in the merchant marines or navy serving during atomic bomb testing in the South Pacific during the late 1940s-50s or later? My father was working as a messman and later steward on US Navy, merchant marine, and MSTS (Military Sea Transportation Service) ships carrying troops there, and I'd like to learn more about their experiences.”

Hopefully, I’ll get some answers. I know the stories are out there.

Leave a comment

Share

RABBIT HOLE

• Carole Kuge Kawamura is going through letters and diaries and writing about her Japanese American family, their internment, and her uncle Toshiaki, a Japanese American medic. Click on the link to check out this video on Toshiaki Kuge’s WWII letters to home.

• A visual and auditory overview of George Orwell: A Life in Letters and Diaries, shows how letters, diary entries, photographs, and ephemera can be combined in book form:

• My writing and editing work takes me to Salinas Chinatown, where Dorothy’s Place, a “house of hospitality” inspired by Dorothy Day, has been a landmark for decades. Chinatown was founded in 1872, burned down in 1893, and was resurrected only to go downhill again after the Japanese population in Salinas was interned, and racist urban planning prevented businesses from thriving. Dorothy’s Place provides meals and counseling to the neighborhood’s people in need. I plan to read her book All the Way to Heaven: the Selected Letters of Dorothy Day. Check out this short video, “Dorothy Day: Radical Love and the Catholic Worker”(Writing America):

• “Local groups bring Pacific Islander Culture and Heritage to the Ocean and to the Dance” (Monterey County Now).

• Remigio Cabacar on the “half-baked” recognition received by Filipino veterans who fought against the Japanese forces during WWII:

SOUNDINGS

• My son and his partner just returned from a trip to London, and I happen to be reading the third volume of Ben Aaronovitch’s urban detective fantasy series The Rivers of London. So to continue the theme, here’s Benedict Cumberbatch reading the winning letter from the Letters Live “Dear London“ competition:

• Avie Sheck and his mom Uma visit home in the Himalayas and provide a soundtrack to the experience (with some brief outtakes at the end):

• Laurie Anderson: About Time with poet Jane Hirshfield (audio):

  ---

  Leave a comment

Thanks so much to all of you who read Eulipion Outpost regularly, and to those who have subscribed or donated on my Ko-fi page to support my efforts. Donations contribute to my rent payments!

My thanks and appreciation go to the Mysterious M. for editing support and expertise.

My website and blog: Jeanvengua.com

A Crooked Mile (on mobility and being carless)

Eulipion Outpost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:

Subscribe now

Notes:

The “arts” part of this newsletter keeps merging with the “letters” part. That’s “letters” as in writing and memoir, as well as, more specifically, my parents’ letters, and my interest in mail art and asemic writing. So I’m going with the flow, and changing the title of this section.

Some years ago, I started exploring the genealogy of my family in the Philippines, but found the process intimidating when I learned that older Philippine birth and marriage records would be difficult to find in the US, online and off.

Thanks to a relative I met on Facebook, I was able to see the marriage record of my grandmother Narcisa Gallemit Daymiel to her first husband, Manuel Vengua. The priest identified her as an unmarried “indio” woman of seventeen years.

More recently (thanks to Titania Bucholdt), I went back to the LDS FamilySearch genealogy site and found that they have started to collect many Spanish-era colonial records from the Philippines.

I easily found the document recording my father’s birth on the site:

I’m not sure why the yellow blocks appear on the page, but I was entranced by the swirling, carefully crafted writing. Each graceful letter seems to hold the weight and dominance of the church and the priests’ Jesuit education. Having once been a calligrapher, I appreciate the craft displayed here.

When Dad traveled to the US to work in the late 1920s, his half-brother Miguel Bengua petitioned for his entry. During this time,1 the US immigration officials decided it would be easier for everyone if Nicomedes took Miguel’s surname as his own. Furthermore, “Bengua” became “Vengua” and that was that. Dad kept the name when he became a US citizen.

A Narvaez relative sent me a photo of the interior of the Narvaez family home, which adjoins the Bengua home on Bonifacio Street in Dipolog. Together, the two buildings form a rambling compound that (as I remember it) seemed to stretch half the length of the street. Although I visited the family home in 2001, I did not see the Narvaez side. I do remember marveling at how closely intertwined the two families have been.

I know very little about the history of the Narvaez and Bengua families in Mindanao, but the little that I’ve found suggests to me that both families have been living in northwestern Mindanao, in Dipolog and Dapitan, for centuries. The genealogical research helps to fill in the gaps about my family, adding depth and complexity to their stories.

Leave a comment

More Asemics

Sometimes I wonder why I keep returning to asemic writing and art. Asemic writing for me evokes a feeling of liminality,2 of silence and lack of meaning (a-semic).

Asemic art deconstructs writing to its roots; it focuses on human gesture and energy—where impetus is more important than constructing meaning.

And this takes me back to the situation of being a first generation child of immigrants, in the land where my parents chose to start anew. My parents spoke to each other in Tagalog, but they refused to teach it to me, feeling that I was better off learning English. Nevertheless—and especially now that I am reading my parents’ letters—there has always been the feeling of a gap: in family relations and support, and in meaning (where in the US, so much meaning is lost in the culture of capital, and nostalgia is often evoked as one acceptable way to find meaning).

However, nostalgia holds us too cozily in comfort instead of awareness. The power of the immigrant and first and second generation offspring lies in transitions and beginnings. It can’t rest for long in nostalgic memories.

By “nostalgia” I’m not referring to “history.” Although the latter is also conjured through narrative, its impacts can be discerned, and lessons learned from them. We need an awareness of those difficult things that help us change and morph into what is needed to survive and thrive in our present environment. Our power is in a willingness to be in process, to weave stories and visions that incorporate old and new, reaching out across cultures and oceans to support growth and understanding.

I’ve been aware of this sense of lack and “something missing” for a long time. But only recently have I thought that existing between worlds is a form of power; it is a place of potency and energy.

Leave a comment

Share

RABBIT HOLE

• I often feel my life online is too public. But after reading Carolyn Yoo’s article, “Go Quietly Public on the Internet,” I realize that, compared to other people who are regularly on Substack and social media, my online presence is fairly quiet. See also her article “Making My Website Feel Like Home.”

• Ellie Harold on becoming an artist in her fifties, and how being molested by a priest affected her life:

• Kevin Umaña’s abstract, ceramic painting processes. This is an interesting video because the substrate Umaña uses is unusual for painting, and also because it goes deeply into the artist’s process.

• On the art of Shuling Guo: “Though as a diligent practitioner of meditation in daily life, artist Shuling Guo never restricts herself to any specific technique or method. She believes the most critical part in her practice is not the way to meditate, but the highest mental state she achieves. Therefore, minimizing superficial forms and concentrating on the most intrinsic essence has become her philosophy in both living and painting.” (From an article in Tussle Magazine)

• Alan Moore in a fun conversation with Heather Parry, just after his 70th birthday:

SOUNDINGS

DJ Hurley’s trance tribute to Irish vocalist Máire (Moya) Brennan (R.I.P.) of the group Clannad. You may not be a trance music fan, but I’ll wager you’ve heard the first track. I love Hurley’s obvious elfin glee in listening to these sounds; clearly you don’t have to be young to enjoy this type of music:

Thanks so much to all of you who read Eulipion Outpost regularly, and to those who have subscribed or donated on my Ko-fi page to support my efforts. Donations contribute to my rent payments!

My thanks and appreciation go to the Mysterious M. for editing support and expertise.

My website and blog: Jeanvengua.com

Eulipion Outpost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:

Subscribe now

Notes:

Three from the Daily Art Cycle:

I guess I was in “a mood” when I drew this one:

Leave a comment

RABBIT HOLE

• Mariton Villanueva’s textile art studio:

• Colette Fu’s beautiful pop-up books celebrate Chinese indigenous culture in China, and Chinese immigrants in the US. Along the way, she became a “paper engineer.”

• Frank Romero and the Chicano Art Movement in L.A.:

• Kevin Yaun’s article “Quiet Moments of Protest” and art, in his Substack Staring at the Sun.

• Lawns, Colonialism, & Art: an interview with author, educator, and curator Giovanni Aloi:

  That is the slap in the face to those who have next to nothing: ‘I have so much land’ the lawn says, ‘that I can afford for it to be unproductive, and still I am filthy rich.’ That’s also the moment in which artists are commissioned by very rich landowners to make paintings to immortalize the beauty of their mansions which appear surrounded by the beautiful lawns. And before you know it these paintings travel to the United States and other parts of Europe, and so the lawn is popularized. It becomes a virtue-signaling icon--it’s a status symbol... -- Giovanni Aloi

• Jasmine Dukes’ Cerulean art studio and gallery is in her van:

• Art in Vending Machines: Architect and illustrator Jemma Chapman puts her “stamp“ art in vending machines (Toronto Star):

SOUNDINGS:

• Dept. of Homeland Inspiration’s bonus episode, “Dear Jack,” wherein Melissa Smedley shows us why poetry is her favorite word-delivery system. Recorded on the last day of National Poetry Month.

• In “Tshwala Bam,” Amapiano1 producer/DJ TitoM & Yuppe sing about the pitfalls of alcohol.2 Nevertheless, the song makes me want to dance:

English translation of the chorus:

[Chorus: S.N.E]
Forgive me alcohol
I spent all my money
My burdens were heavy
I confessed my sin
Alcohol you’re playing with me
At home they’re complaining about me
You made a fool of me, my liquor
Forgive me alcohol
I spent all my money
My burdens were heavy
I confessed my sin
Alcohol you’re playing with me
At home they’re complaining about me
You made a fool of me, my liquor

• Priyanka plays a soulful Amapiano mix in Cape Town, South Africa:

  Leave a comment

  Share

Thanks so much to all of you who read Eulipion Outpost regularly, and to those who have subscribed or donated on my Ko-fi page to support my efforts. Donations contribute to my rent payments!

My website and blog: Jeanvengua.com

Eulipion Outpost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:

Subscribe now

Notes:

Aside from Walt Disney films, like Cinderella and the Sorcerer’s Apprentice, Catholic rituals inspired my first interest in magic. I know some people would take issue with that—especially observant Filipino Catholics—but I can only say that what stayed with me from my minimal exposure1 to Catholicism as a child in the US was the magic of its beautiful rituals, iconic art, prayers, and chants.

Later, as a teen and young adult, I was drawn to European versions of magical practices. I tried casting a few spells; sometimes they seemed to work, and sometimes not. Later, under the spell of more rational thought, I decided that when magic seemed to work, it was surely just my imagination.

As I grew older, I became aware of indigenous rituals and sacred practices in North America and the Philippines—land of my blood ancestors. But these seemed to fall into the category of “cultural practices.”

I eventually became a writer and an artist, but never connected the arts specifically to “magic.” Sure, some especially compelling writing and art could be called “magical,” but whatever magical properties language and visual art might hold always seemed to fade into the contexts of subjective/objective experience and productivity (i.e., monetary worth). These ideas that structure our lives sometimes feel like a great void, draining the life force out of ritual, art, and language.

The last few years have felt drained of some life force. I continue to keep creating, but there has been a loss of intent . . . and of belief that art has any meaningful power.

Enter the hoary British magician, author, and anarchist Alan Moore—author of the series Promethea and Watchmen. Moore views the arts and magic as synonymous, reminding me that language and writing can be immensely powerful and capable of exerting change. Similarly, the visual arts can cause people to see and experience the world differently.

These effects may not take place as instantaneously or dramatically as depicted in animated films or in our dreams, but that doesn’t mean they don’t work. The right combination of words can impel revolutions, incite fear, peace, confidence, love, or lust. In that sense, we are surrounded by magic; it only takes awareness, practice, and the willingness to take risks in order to wield it.

Alan Moore on magic and the arts:

. . . magic is ‘any purposeful engagement with the phenomena and possibilities of consciousness’, since we wanted to include the arts and the sciences – both of which emerged from shamanism or alchemy – in our definition of the magical. So, from that perspective, there is no artistic process that isn’t magical in that it’s an attempt to magically conjure an idea, something that is invisible and intangible, into material form, whether that be a drawing, or a poem, or a novel, or a piece of banging pop music. So a piece of fiction is, from birth, indistinguishable from a spell, at least if that is its intention. And if you’re doing it right, of course.—-Definition by Alan Moore and Steve Moore

Reading Moore’s words in the article (see the link above), something shifted slightly in my perspective on creating art. I’m now in a waiting and listening mode — paying attention to this small voice inside me.

Leave a comment

ART

In 2018-19, I made a few works that I called the Agimat series. It was inspired by the agimat (or anting anting) folk charms and talismans that I saw in the Quiapo marketplace when I first visited the Philippines in the 1980s.

In creating these, I was not attempting an authentic magical talisman, or reproduction of an agimat. In fact, the images don’t look anything like those objects, although the triangle shape and eye appears. The charms produced in the Philippines are often made of metal, stone, or wood, and worn around the neck. Sometimes symbols are inscribed on paper and carried on one’s person, or they might be embroidered into a piece of cloth.

Geographically and culturally, I am very much removed from this tradition. I think I was trying to “feel” my way into an understanding by drawing whatever iconic shape came up when I thought of certain concepts, like “manifest” or “insight.”

Today, I might approach such a series differently.

Three from the Agimat Series:

Daily Art Cycle (update)

I completed one hundred small art pieces in my Daily Art Cycle project, and rewarded myself with a yummy crepe at Crepes of Brittany in Monterey. Now I just keep going on . . .

Leave a comment

Share

RABBIT HOLE

• Anting anting: A Secret History of the Filipino Mystical Consciousness is a short film dedicated to researcher Dennis Santos Villegas (from Vibal Studios). I think it’s interesting to consider how the artistry of symbolism and words combine to create objects of power :

• “Studying Filipino Folk Magic,” a list of resources on the topic by Carl Lorenz Cervantes.

• I’ve always loved Rodel Tapaya’s art:. Here is a video about his exhibit “Animals Moved by Music”:

SOUNDINGS

• Filipino pop-punk band KMKZ performs their song “Agimat.” (It’s a love song! See this link for lyrics in Filipino and translated to English):

• DJ Sama Abdulhadi performing in Palestine for a young crowd during happier times. We are so used to seeing Palestinians as either perpetrators or victims living in misery; but, like all humans, they have the same hopes for freedom, joy, and a secure future as anyone:

Thanks so much to all of you who read Eulipion Outpost regularly, and to those who have subscribed or donated on my Ko-fi page to support my efforts. Donations contribute to my rent payments!

My thanks and appreciation go to the Mysterious M. for editing support and expertise.

My website and blog: Jeanvengua.com

Eulipion Outpost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:

Subscribe now

Notes:

I leave you with some photos from when I was living a more rural life in Elkhorn, CA, and some older figurative paintings from that period (except for “Sage Fire,” from 2017).

Until next weekend . . .

Leave a comment

Share

Thanks so much to all of you who read Eulipion Outpost regularly, and to those who have subscribed or donated on my Ko-fi page to support my efforts. Donations contribute to my rent payments!

My website and blog: Jeanvengua.com

Eulipion Outpost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:

Subscribe now

ART

Asemics

When my friend Joan passed on January 19th, one of her gifts to me was a book by Peter Schwenger called Asemic the Art of Writing. I’m reading it now, and it’s a wonderful accompaniment to my Daily Art Cycle, which includes many asemic pieces. The book is a summary and theoretical inquiry into a genre existing in the liminal spaces between language, writing, and art.

The first of the three asemic pieces below is a collage from the printed cardboard of a box of facial tissues (the asemic writing is at the bottom of the image).

Leave a comment

Share

RABBIT HOLE

• Peter Schwenger’s book, Asemic the Art of Writing:

• Cecil Touchon’s art is part of his spiritual path. His mail art and cut-up collages act as “constraints” that lead to a kind of freedom, but I’ve always felt that there was an asemic aspect to it:

Two Worlds:

These two beautiful documentaries examine ideas of home, place, liminality, and perhaps also grief. Living between worlds, the artists try to come to terms with their experiences through art and filmmaking:

• Non-places: You’ve all seen these places, and probably live near one, especially if you live in the urban US. Artist and animator Robin Frohardt considers the “non-place” (and her own peculiar place in it) through her art, animation, and obsession with process in this lovely and bittersweet film:

  “But I kept being drawn to the cracks and the weathering, and the imperfections; maybe because these spaces are designed to be so uniform and inoffensive that they only become interesting when they’re falling apart.“

• Installation artist and filmmaker Tuan Andrew Nguyen makes art out of objects like unexploded ordnance and tells “the forgotten stories” of Vietnamese communities around the world through his lens. After growing up in the United States, he moved back to Vietnam.

  “I wanted to liberate myself from this idea of home . . . that I could never grasp, while I was living in the U.S. Now I think there is no home. I don’t think that living between worlds is something that limits us; that liminality actually empowers people. I think that learning to understand different worlds is going to be a skill that empowers us to navigate a very precarious future.”—Tuan Andrew Nguyen

• Actor/stuntman Mark Povinelli and actor/director/writer Peet Montzingo are interviewed about their lives as, and with, little people (PBS Documentaries):

• “Lamentations of a Rocking Chair,” from Animation Obsessive (on Substack)

• From poet and publisher Timothy Green (on LitMag): What does it mean to be “published” today, when you publish your own work online by pressing a key? Is it time for a change of perspective? And while we’re at it, let’s consider the word “curated”:

  “Previously uncurated work is that which has not yet appeared in any curated collection—no books or magazines or anthologies, in print or online. But it leaves open the ability to self-publish on social media or blogs or message boards. It allows the work to be shared on podcasts and open mics. Tweet your poems and flash fiction. Tag the person it was written for on Facebook. Workshop stories online. Blog chapters from your novel-in-progress. This is how a literary culture thrives.”

• Check out Jenny Waldow’s article on “The Fluxus Newspaper” in Brooklyn Rail (2024). It’s a reminder that there are many, many ways of creating newsletters and newspapers. You don’t have to stick to standard formats if you enjoy deviating.

SOUNDINGS:

• Sometimes it feels like “Everybody Wants to Rule the World.” I wish they would play out their rivalries through music and art, rather than the idiotic strategies they are employing nowadays. Alexander 23 and John Mayer cover the well-known Tears for Fears song:

• I first heard Dominic Augustin in an Ari at Home video, singing on the street with a group of rappers, and I was knocked out. Augustin started out as a model in NYC, but he’s also a songwriter and vocalist; music is his true vocation. In the video below, he is interviewed by Earl Davis.

Here is just a taste of what Augustin can do: a short video of him singing Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” in his home studio:

Leave a comment

Share

Thanks so much to all of you who read Eulipion Outpost regularly, and to those who have subscribed or donated on my Ko-fi page to support my efforts. Donations contribute to my rent payments!

My thanks and appreciation go to the Mysterious M. for editing support and expertise.

My website and blog: Jeanvengua.com

Eulipion Outpost is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support my work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber:

Subscribe now