Year: 2011

moxyland

The book opens with a young photographer agreeing to become a sponsorbaby for the beverage, Ghost. She receives an injectable tech that circulates in her system and attaches to her cells. The Ghost logo will appear like a luminescent tattoo on her skin. She will crave for Ghost for as long as she lives.

This is her world. The city is drowning in advertising. Everyone is dependent on their phones for money and identity, and even the simple task of opening a door. To be without a phone is to be a disconnect: homeless, identity-less. But someone is forming a group that will aspire for just that – to be disconnected from the world, in order to change it.

The divide between corporate versus “civilian-plebes” plus the brutality of the police force is reminiscent of apartheid (author Lauren Beukes is from South Africa, where the novel is also set). Beukes says so herself in the “Extras” that the novel grew from the legacy of this divide. “Don’t let anyone tell you that apartheid has nothing to do with South Africa now.”

She covers several topics in her novel – gaming culture, nanotech, technological dependency, advertising, corporate rule, oppression, terrorism – and presents them fresh and highly charged. The energy of the narrative is amazing. Read this book.

The Mighty Reading List!

Feast for Crows

The Kobayashi Maru of Love

Showbiz Lengua

PGS Horror issue

Floating Dragon

El Bimbo Variations

The Tesseract

Faithful Place

Moxyland

Zoo City

The Dispossessed

Our Story Begins

Glass Soup

Here on Earth

The Pull of the Moon

Little Bee

source code

It is easy for us to guess who the bomber is, but not so for Colter Stevens, who wakes up on a commuter train in the body of another man. The train explodes, and Stevens finds himself in a dark, cold capsule with a video monitor. You have to go back, the woman on the monitor says. Eight minutes, like last time, until you find the terrorist.

I have to admit that when I first saw the trailer for Source Code, I dismissed it as just another brainless, heartless sci-fi summer flick with an A-list cast. Glad to be proven wrong.

book giveaway

Gave away these books to friends.

I want to do more book giveaways (to readers for example) but I don’t have the time and the energy to do meet-ups or send books via courier. What if I parked myself in a nearby McDonald’s, would you come meet with me? Haha. Give me an idea. (And a truck, while you’re at it, so I can get my books from my parents’ house.)

senior year

The high school that Senior Year shows is the high school that I know. I have never seen a more honest, more vibrant depiction. This is not the oversexed, ultra-hip, super-rich, privileged variety shown in Western TV, or the overwrought, lachrymose, mechanical high school dramas shown in local shows. In this high school, teachers are real characters, lovelorn students leave anonymous letters, graduating students fret over college entrance exams, and players cry when their batch loses during the intramurals. Here, the characters talk in class and with each other, and every time, they sound exactly like high school students – overeager, overconfident, a little bit naive. They speak in cliches (“Wala kasi tayong batch unity, e.”), use generic terms, and at times are unintentionally funny, but always, always, you see that shrug, that smile, that says you cannot touch them because they are invincible. And then, years later, the things that used to mean the world to them, they forget. High school has always been bittersweet, and Senior Year works because it offers no false note.

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What could be better than watching Senior Year with your high school friends? Jaykie’s my date. After the movie, we had dinner. It was a good night.

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Old pictures (ninakaw sa Facebook ni Ghia):

:)

a word from the philippines free press

If you’re a writer, the world inside your head can be as chaotic as you want, but at the end of day, you’ll still need  order and process. I’m happy to read this.

Source.

Notice to Contributors to the Philippines Free Press Literary Section:

The Philippines Free Press is streamlining submissions to the magazine’s literary section. In this light, hereunder are updated guidelines that we hope would address most contributors’ common concerns.

1. Contributors are kindly advised to submit one short story or a maximum of two poems to the following centralized email address: literary@philippinesfreepress.com.ph.

Do indicate your contact info (landline/mobile) for faster advisory from the literary editor if and when the work will be published. The editorial board will only contact (via email notification) contributors whose respective works have been accepted for publication. Sending rejection letters is not a practice of the magazine.

2. Submission by regular mail or post is not encouraged. Contributors are advised to submit no more than twice per year, and submissions should not be a combination of poetry and fiction. All entries must be written in English. Any contributor who is not based in the Philippines but whose work has been published is automatically disqualified from the annual awards.

3. Following up of payment should be done a month after a contributor’s work has been published. The members of the Editorial Board have agreed that such inquiries should be made solely by email (via the abovementioned address) and not by calling the Free Press landlines. Please indicate the title of your work and in which issue of the Free Press it has been printed. This is to facilitate the faster issuance of your check payment by the magazine’s Accounting department.

4. The FP Literary awards will be held toward the end of August 2011, and covers all entries published during the preceding year (2010-11).

– Saw UP Samaskom’s L.I.V.E AIDS for the first time. The thing with watching a first show (we watched the matinee on Saturday) is you can be sure there will be mistakes. This shouldn’t be the case, but it happens. It’s the first show of a run, people are giddy/nervous/crazy, and the audience is basically a guinea pig. The second show will be tweaked and perhaps will end up better, with no dying microphones, people who forget their cues, etc.

purple stage

 

There were errors. Yeah. The pre-show felt like it was done on the fly, although I did laugh at the Mara/Clara gag: “Anong gagawin ko, Clara?” “E di mag-aral ka, bitch!” In the show itself, some jokes fell flat, and the ending feels rushed, but I still found myself laughing at certain segments (Shalami is HILARIOUS). But it could have been better. It should have been better, damn, it’s Live Aids. They decided to put up a musical, but the music isn’t extraordinary, and the story arc (based on the Wizard of Oz) actually restricted the comedy. We don’t need a story, Samaskom, we just want to laugh.Give me one skit after another, and I’ll be a happy clam.

I heard last year’s show was better, so now I’m having second thoughts. Should I watch again next year?

– Jaykie and I tried Wicked Kitchen. I’ll recommend everything we had: buffalo tenders, chunky cheese sticks, chicken kebab, fish and chips, drunken seafood platter, and this big-ass cookie (Gluttony, cookie with ice cream – to share). They have good food.

– We weren’t able to exercise this weekend because we weren’t feeling well, but next week! I need a month to burn this m*therf*ckin cookie!

faithful place

One winter night in 1985, nineteen-year-old Francis Mackey waits for his girl, Rosie Daly, on top of a hill in Faithful Place. All his life he’s lived in Dublin, crammed with his siblings, his drunk da, and his nagging ma, and he wants out. Frank pictures Rosie hurrying to him with her suitcase of clothes and their ferry tickets to London, where they plan to get married and start anew.

Rosie doesn’t show. Believing he has been dumped, Frank turns on his heel and skips town on his own. For more than 20 years he (as well as the rest of the town) believes Rosie has reached London, living a new life.

Twenty-two years later, someone finds Rosie’s suitcase, and Frank is forced to go home.

I’ve read both In the Woods and The Likeness (where Frank first makes an appearance), and I must say Tana French has the incredible ability to inhabit a character. One moment she’s narrating a story as a young man in the Murder squad, then as  a young woman in Undercover, then as a middle-aged detective about to trip on a secret, and you believe her completely. It’s an immersive read. She has good ear for dialogue (I’ve never been to Ireland, and I can’t do an Irish accent, but while reading this I just know I’m in Ireland and I’m listening to Irish characters), and she makes sure that even the most minor of characters are three-dimensional. I’m glad to see Ms French is still as good as ever, and I cannot wait for her next book.

 

The Mighty Reading List!

Feast for Crows

The Kobayashi Maru of Love

Showbiz Lengua

PGS Horror issue

Floating Dragon

El Bimbo Variations

The Tesseract

Faithful Place

Moxyland

Zoo City

The Dispossessed

Our Story Begins

Glass Soup

Here on Earth

The Pull of the Moon

Little Bee