Quick Overview:

I have described this newsletter as “intersections of history, culture, and the arts.” But often it seems more like an intersection of busy streets where History, Culture and Art either collide, or meet up and chat—and maybe go for a walk.

The Letter Project

The history & culture part: My Filipino parents never talked much about their past. They are gone now, and I’m finally reading the hundreds of post-WWII letters that they left me. I’m writing about them while researching historical contexts in order to understand the forces that shaped our family life and my creative impulses.

This project is changing me in unexpected ways, reshaping my perspectives. Colonialism, war, nuclear testing, ancestors, and migration have been factors, along with dogged (and sometimes blind) persistence, creativity, love, and regret.

Why “Eulipion Outpost”?

Eulipo comes from Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s jazz piece, “Theme for the Eulipions.” The word also sounds like oulipo,1 game-like rules and rituals to make art. Poet Harryette Mullen writes about oulipo as Eulipean:

“. . . when I first heard of Oulipo and Oulipeans I thought of them in relation to the Eulipeans in Rahsaan Roland Kirk’s jazz classic, ‘Theme for the Eulipeans,’ the ones he calls ‘the artists, the actors, the journeymen’ who come from a planet in another galaxy, Eulipea. I’m not an Oulipean but I can call myself an Eulipean . . .2

I imagined this newsletter as a kind of “outpost,” a temporary retreat from the world. Then I realized (thanks to Rahsaan Roland Kirk), that an outpost is just a stop along a road that takes us through grief, discovery, understanding, and perhaps even transformation.

I hope you’ll join me on this journey. I publish an issue every weekend, with occasional breaks, because I’m human. I’m also an obsessive curator of art and music links and articles, which you will find in the Rabbit Hole and Soundings sections.

I’ve got a BA in Literature & Cultural Studies (UCSC) and a hard-earned PhD in English with a focus on Asian American & Filipino American literature (UC Berkeley). While I learned a lot, my academic journey took a major emotional and psychological toll3, and drained my finances for decades, so that part of my life is significant.

P.S. Last name pronounced: Ven-gwah, i.e., ven as in “venom,“ “gwah“ as in “guava.” In Mindanao (Philippines), where my father was from, it’s written (and pronounced) as Bengua. It’s an unusual surname in the Philippines, and could have either sephardic or Chinese roots. In the latter, it could very well refer to “a fool” (imagine “the Fool” in your favorite tarot deck).

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For now, subscription to Eulipion Outpost is free. Join us, and never miss a weekly update. It goes out every Saturday night, usually in that liminal space we call midnight.