Vocalese: Poems by Aldus Santos
Cover art by Adrian Arcega
RELEASE DATE: DECEMBER 12, 2006
7pm at Conspiracy, Visayas Avenue
from likhanan.blogspot.com:
True to its vision of building a community of Filipino creatives, Likhanan is proud to publish Vocalese (Poems), the first book of poems by Aldus Santos, an independent poet and musician whose work with independent rock act The Purplechickens has been deemed as “some of the best lyrics ever to grace a rock song” (Pulp).
In his first collection of verses, Santos veers away from the succinct paradoxes of his lyrics without losing his penchant for phonetic lyricism, irony and situation. Vocalese is replete with fictitious retellings of the lives of some of the most misunderstood icons of science and art-Albert Einstein, Tycho Brahe, Jonathan Swift and Neil Young, among others. In poetic strophes brimming with humor and scandal, Santos attempts to marry popular subject matter with legitimate poetic inquiry. The end-result is antonymous to the soullessness of yellow journalism or public trial; it is deconstruction…mad, mute, mellow.
Vocalese is currently looking for sponsors who can help fund the printing and launch on December 12, 2006. For contributions and inquiries, please leave a "comment" for this post.
“The book’s scope is wide, almost catch-all, dipping into science, history, and popular culture. It’s a club full of interesting characters that range from Tycho Brahe and Charles Darwin, to Victor Hugo and Neil Young, to Don Quixote and Pepe Smith. But, strictly speaking, they’re all to be found only on the guest-list and are not the main performers. The headliner, so to speak, is Santos’ intelligent, steady prodding.”
-from the Foreword by Mayo Uno Martin, author of Babel