Status Updates From Voyager and Other Fictions:...

He respected the past; it was certain to have occurred, in one way or another, it was ineradicable and, like a sun beyond the horizon of human scholarship, ultimately immutable; it was far away, it was a breath ago, but it was.

But I'd bet, comrade, that an afterlife exists in any case: a heaven for those who believe and hope, and who therefore try to lead good lives in anticipation of a restful reward, and a hell for those who know but don't give a care, just to remind them that options existed, and those who refuse to believe and do their damnedest in this life, just to give them their comeuppance.

Down Santolan Road.

Goats 4 Sale. A scene from Manila's underbelly. Draws a line between the value of goat meat and sex services, as if to say "It's valued very lowly".
I'm kinda miffed by it. There's an evident dislike of the city's rough sides, with the only time it explicitly makes it blatant is the indictment of the jeepney's way of loading and unloading passengers. Great prose but yeah, topic-wise its uncomfortable

Deuce of Hearts. Butch Dalisay's two favorite things to describe in his stories: poker, and women

Cypraea Leucodon. I liked the smallness and largeness depicted in the text

Some Families, Very Large. That was depressing

Only the Beginning. The pattern is: Young boy lusts over woman A, woman A has interesting character, suddenly reveals she leads a fucked up life and the status quo changes for the worse. Young boy becomes a grown man, remembers the woman but the reader never finds out more about her. He turns out mostly happy and definitely successful, meanwhile she just fades out of our plot. Ick

Napoleon's Revenge. 15,000 is so small

Penmanship. A recurring relationship dynamic thru this collection (and therefore, Dalisay’s body of fiction work) is older man & younger woman. Hm.
About the story itself I can see why Pantoja-Hidalgo likes this one best. The non-couple have enough tragedy respectively that makes the unfolding of the last scene a truly strangled affair. Also are there earlier depictions of situationships than in Dalisay’s?

Ybarra
"I would raise you into ladyship, but you play me down to boyhood, and, God help me, I seek whatever it is you do, I seek you, in the cleverest banter with the newly-returned-from-Paris, in the operating room with choice blood dribbling on my gloves, in my round, upholstered age, I seek you and would bear with anything to feel your liquor- silvered breath on my cold hands"

For readers who like devotion

Delivery. A thin slice of shady politics and evil bourgeoisie. Same-y as "The Body" in content, not particularly impressive. Its unique thing was the descriptions of Semana Santa-time Quiapo and how corrupt people have corrupt underlings, who express it in small insignificant ways

Under The Dinosaurs. An interesting cross section of Philippine politics—specifically on US neocolonialism, fuedal politics and the tourist gaze.

Wok Man. The American main character mistaking his "interest" in Eastern food as actual expertise (the fact that he thinks an entire portion of a continent can be generalizable already proves him wrong) is pretty funny as a premise. Akin to Karate Kid, but more mundane, more grounded

Pig. The concept of the story reminds me of Feature writing strategies taught by underpaid teacher-coaches to their most
promising NSPC/RSPC/DSPC bets. "Personification" of an animal as vehicle for agreedable pro-environment sentiment, you're sure to win in the qulaifiying rounds and stand out amongst the country bumpkins.

"I trailed tenuous connections everywhere, to things brown and mutable, like soft clay. Basically, for all my citified airs, I've kept my provincial sentiments. They're good for the movies. They never fail."
—Storyline

Clark. Men would rather pretend to be a customs agent and spend thousands buying beer for a group of other men than go to therapy.