Enclave Was

I want you to get creative with me today.

Together we will create a vividly offensive, yet morbidly fascinating creature.

My aim is to assault your senses the way mine have been and continue to be by this creature. This creature is real, I see it at work.

Without your stomach turning today's tale will be bland.

Let's start with the outline. Five foot, maybe four-foot-nine without the hair.

Give it a faux-hawk, top of the crest maybe four inches above the forehead. So because of the hair, five-foot-three. Bleach this shark's fin to about mustard, cover that with dark brown, cover that with dark cherry.

And now...the mug.

Combine this: female housefly-not the small males that dot food up and fly away easily, but the big, fat, shiny, slow, low-flying, noisy female heavy as fuck with hundreds (thousands...millions) of maggot eggs incubating in her belly; with this: old toad, or bullfrog; and this: monkey. That's the creatures face. Now paint it shit-brown. Literally feces-fudge colored.

Cover the limbs with wannabe trendy knock-offs of styles spotted in expensive boutique display windows. Everything of course has been altered to fit the creature's long torso and short bowlegs. The pants are pulled up high, high on the waist of that long torso. As in wedgie-high.

The creature smells like something that eats too much fish, fish sauce, soy sauce, and MSG and enhances it with a vaguely floral, absolutely tasteless stench.

Are you excited yet?

To put movement into the sketch, to animate the creature, have it walk down an perpetual catwalk. Give it the movement of Miss Universe confident in her endless legs standing six foot in her in her five inch heels. Don't forget to figure that movement into a five-foot body with short bowlegs.

It's not a pretty sight. There is absolutely nothing inoffensive about this creature.

Did I forget to mention this creature is a male homo sapien? But not the aristocratic lady it believes itself to be. We call it La Mosca (The Fly) or La Mos-cuca (The Fly-Roach).

But oh, wait, the sound. Loud. Projecting. Falsetto. Banshee wail meets donkey heehaw meets pig squeal. Capable of piercing your noise-cancelling in ear headphones.

Now, I normally shut out as much of this creature as I can. This sort of shit causes blindness and deafness. It's got to. I'm willing to bet it causes post traumatic stress disorder, at the very least.

However...however.

Three weeks ago my ears inadvertently pricked up when I heard what must have been the tail end of the creature's shrieking, wailing, broadcast, "......Salcedo Marke-e-e-e-e-t-t-t-t!"

My jaw dropped and I slowed my pace as, in absolute nauseating horror, I listened to the Cockroach thing educating its maid-like groupies about Salcedo Market.

Salcedo Market, located in a nicer part of town. Where purveyors gather every Saturday morning to cater to clientele with distinct tastes. Expats and locals who have managed to cultivate their tastes come spend too much money in an environment that doesn't smell, look, or taste third world. A total enclave, virtually undiscovered, as of two months ago, by the gentuza, the riffraff.

I came back to Salcedo Market last Saturday after not having been by there for several weeks. It was like the goddamn Food Court at some mall, it was so full. Of shit.

I can't even begin to tell you the name of anyone I saw there (not that I wanna know). The Cockroach-Fly-Monster must have laid its eggs right, insidious creature that it is, because there was a sea of call-centerish maggotry squirming and squealing and shrieking their d2 na me drivel all over the dining area.

I had a vision of tour buses going around to call-centers postshift to pick up people for the weekly Salcedo Market Cultural Outing Field Trip.

It was a blessing we found two seats around a corner of a small table, the only one without a tablecloth. Talk about a place having been comandeered.

I know, this is, after all, a democracy. There are no rules banning anybody from these places. Multi-demographic consumption is a suggestive of disposable income, which I guess is a sign of economic improvement. The vendors must be happy, because there are more purchases.

So whoopee-doo, are you all happy now? I hope you aren't too thrilled. Just like when concerned locals are saddened by their beautiful beaches being spoiled by tourists, I'm lamenting the inevitable rot brought about by the invasion of these creatures.

I need to take some Baygon to the office to stop that creature from laying more eggs. Fucking piece of shit. Needs to get shot.

Salcedo Market and Market Market

Dara took me to the Salcedo Market Saturday morning.
We did a lot of tasting and looking. She was taking a lot of pictures that might end up in T&C. I was looking at people and thinking I recognized them....and knowing I wasn't being recognized. Even my own first-degree cousin who had been at my house a couple weeks prior, a regular Salcedo Saturday merchant selling paper-thin lavash bread alongside her Woodrose co-alumnus who sold rice milk, did not recognize me. I walked up to her in my bandanna & aviators - yeah, I know, feeling incognito - and hit her on the arm. She had stared at me, a Who The Hell Is This Creep? look on her face.
Some people looked vaguely familiar and even had familiar-sounding voices but were caricatures of the reasons for which I found them familiar. Caricatures in the sense that they seemed to have plumped up and aged at staggering pace. Then again, there's a whole lot of aging and fattening that can be accomplished in the 10 years I've been away.
I think the heat got to me at some point. We were standing at the coffee table talking about the dude selling Spanish food. I thought I had done drugs with him almost a couple decades ago and actually looked younger than he should, despite being at least 80lbs. heavier. I remember being impressed by the rich, thick milk froth on our lattes when were handed them; I remember picking up up the non-dairy creamer container and recognizing it for what it was; I remember the vendor saying, "that's Coffee-Mate, not Splenda".
Who in his right mind is gonna put Coffee-Mate in a beautifully latted latte? The vendor must have thought I was on one, because I mixed some in after he told me what it was. I didn't even realize what I'd done until I crunched on a nodule of undissolved creamer. Okay.
Only thing I bought to eat was Php100 worth of langka, which was unspectacular. I really wanted some Durián; nothing ripe available. I didn't wanna spend on stuff we d0 better at home: in one booth there was Callos alongside Bacalao in chafing dishes, each indistinguishable from the other, tomato-paste-&-animal-flesh-mash floating in reddish-orange oil. The Callos didn't taste too bad, still, ours is better. I was looking for Kilawin, but when we did find the one booth that had it, the fish cubes had that opaque, grainy appearance I associate with boiled fish. It looked like Paksiw na Isda. I had been looking for translucent, delicate, Pinoy ceviche.

Didn't see too many McPinoys (that's Middle Class Pinoys) at the Salcedo Market; that was later at Market! Market!
Whatever it was I had been expecting, it didn't prepare me for the airport-looking monstrosity. Or for the low-end version of Glorietta it seemed to be. People walking around in Mindanao scarves and tattoo-type patterns on their deconstructed clothes. Bangketa wannabe-Kanye West-shutter-shades. Bleached, feathered Korean-style haircuts and imitation Gucci white loafers or Lacoste sneakers on guys. Glutathione publicity all over the place, and women rocking the dark neck, white foundation, rouged cheek look. Stares from people as if Dara and I were celebrities.
They did not have the Tofu & Century Egg special at Mann Hann as advertised. The Sautéed Pork & Eggplant I had was slightly too oily though it tasted good. The whole thing was cheap - I think Php365 for a soda, a large bowl of Beef Ramen, and the eggplant dish.