Author: elizavictoria

sucker punch

What it is:

– Zack Snyder’s wet dream

– A thirteen-year-old boy’s screenplay

– A videogame that thinks it’s a movie that thinks it’s a videogame

– A pastiche

– Shutter Island on crack colored with Watchmen

– A hot mess

What the hell:

– Ah, mental illness. You can do crazy things with it. (Pun intended.)

– Structure’s simple enough, and actually becomes predictable after a few scenes. I liked the silent movie sequence in the beginning. After that, protagonist is taken to a mental hospital. More slow-mo, silent movie shite. Then lobotomy scene! Then bam! Fantasy world! It’s like Pan’s Labyrinth really, the fantasy world as escape from the Awful Real World, except that they wear leather.

– Funny thing, though, inside the fantasy world, whenever she begins to dance, bam! Another layer of fantasy world! Like Inception!

– So A) Real World, B) Fantasy World, where they’re maids/dancers/courtesans, C) Secondary Fantasy World, where they go on several missions to retrieve a map, a lighter, a knife, and a key.

– It would have worked if the movie lingered longer in A, and showed us the actual interactions of the girls with each other. Then we could have a map (lol our own map) we could use to wade through B and the craziness and the shrill over-the-topness of C.

– Pan’s Labyrinth and Shutter Island (and even The Cell!) had the same themes, and they contained references to the real world of the tortured protagonists. Baby’s sister and mother is absent in all of the mindscapes. How can that be? And how come the stepfather only appears as a priest, for God’s sake. And why the dragons and the orcs and the blown-up city? Why the “mission” structure? Why a dance? Without the references, everything is just random, gratuitous shit.

– Yeah, yeah I know lighter, dragon, Rocket getting stabbed in B and getting blown up in C, but that’s about it.

– Character development, nil. So many women, and Blue is the only true character! Remember when he says, “I don’t like guns”? I laughed.

– Was the VO script written by Nicholas Sparks?

– Do I hate it? No. I’ve seen worse. It’s entertaining, in its own way. It’s just a shame that the filmmakers would spend so much time/money on something like this (it IS eye candy, you know) and didn’t even stop to consider THE FUCKING STORY.

The end.

I like the soundtrack.

Lovely title, even lovelier story.

“Until We Are Naked Again Beneath the Mute Witness of Stars” by Berrien C. Henderson

 

Which one? There were plenty. The old road map was slippery like those fireflies. He banked, then soared into the outer dark, one star being just as good as another. They flickered and winked for eons and parsecs and light years. They were all of them bedamned and complicit in their silence (and he supposed he had it coming) like so many absent friend and echoes of conversations fading down the avenues of the mind.

*

On my reading list: Tana French’s Faithful Place.

On my mind: Asset management. And the fact that I increased my deposits to the company coop, so beginning April it’s going to feel like I’m not earning anything. ACK! Yep, growing older by the day. Haha. But at least I’m doing so responsibly.

pieces from spindle

“Jars” by Fidelis Tan

Intriguing opening paragraph, predictable plot, but I was hooked and I read the whole thing.

(The thing with online fiction is you often read it while connected to the internet. So many distractions! So if you have a story that’s interesting enough to read and finish, then it’s worth sharing, I think.)

I also liked:

“What the Chicken Knows (Or, The Eight Stages of Grief)” by Maria Pia Vibar Benosa

— by Petra Magno

About Spindle.

delivery from the book depository

Well, at least one of the books. :)

Hooray!

The book, in very good condition, came exactly 14 working days after it was dispatched. If you’re planning to order from The Book Depository, expect a rather long wait. The books you order will be shipping out of the UK. At least shipping is free.

Hopefully my two other books will arrive soon.

*

Productive week for me, savings-wise. I’ve set up a time deposit account, and opened another ATM account in a different bank. Soon, I plan to start paying premiums for a pension/life insurance plan. (I still don’t know the rates – I’m thinking Sun Life.)

This is what happens when you get old, kid.

the pull of the moon

Nan is fifty. She feels the weight of her body, its sudden changes, the weight of her marriage and her little sadnesses, and she gets up and into her car and drives away. Left behind is her husband Martin, and their daughter, Ruthie, away in college.

This isn’t new. I’ve read many stories of runaway wives and mothers. Runaway rich, ex-hippie wives and mothers, who meet interesting characters during their road trip. Of course. But what makes this novel special for me is Nan herself, with her clear-eyed insights about age and marriage, and her honesty.

When I got to the grocery store, the oddest thing happened. I found it very, very difficult to buy anything. I would pick something up, then think, no, it’s Ruthie who really likes pineapple. No, Martin is the one who loves London broil. I wanted to get something special, a real treat, something I liked to cook and liked even more to eat, but everything I picked up, I put back. Finally, I leaned against the dairy case and thought, well, come on, Nan, what do YOU really, really like? And then I thought, my God, I don’t know. I’ve forgotten.

This novel is told through Nan’s letters to Martin and their daughter, and entries from her journal. Most runaways, they run and never look back. Not Nan, though. Every day she sits down to write in her journal, and to write to her family. Every day she learns something new about herself. In a way this is like a coming-of-age story. Not necessarily the term you’d use for a story with a protagonist that is already fifty years old, but the body becomes new when it becomes old. New in the sense that it becomes foreign, surprising, puzzling. Sometimes even frightening.

My mother is fifty. Many times while reading this book I would stop and stare into space, just wondering if my mother feels this way. If I would feel this way, when I get to be that age.

The Mighty Reading List!

Feast for Crows

The Kobayashi Maru of Love

Showbiz Lengua

PGS Horror issue

Floating Dragon

El Bimbo Variations

The Tesseract

The Dispossessed

Our Story Begins

Glass Soup

Here on Earth

The Pull of the Moon

Little Bee

plug it baby

The Kritika Kultura Anthology of New Philippine Writing in English is now live. Edited by Mark Anthony Cayanan, Conchitina Cruz, and Adam David and featuring work by Arbeen Acuña, Liana Barcia, Maria Pia V. Benosa, Lawrence Bernabe, Mae Cacanindin, Catherine Candano, Joseph Casimiro, Marrian Pio Roda Ching, Jose V. Clutario, Isabela Cuerva, Paul S. de Guzman, Jun De La Rosa, Dana Lee F. Delgado, Daryll Delgado, Arlynn Despi, Katrina C. Elauria, Francis Murillo Emralino, Rey Escobar, Apo Española, EJ C. Galang, J. Pilapil Jacobo, Florianne Jimenez, Phillip Kimpo Jr., Pauline Lacanilao, Christine V. Lao, Isabelle Lau, Petra Magno, Johnina Martha Marfa, John Revo Ocampo, Anna Oposa, Zosimo Quibilan, Jr., Carlos Quijon, Jr., Eris Ramos, Ramon Niño T. Raquid, Kristine Reynaldo, Agustin Martin G. Rodriguez, Sandra Nicole Roldan, Chiles Samaniego, Katrina Stuart Santiago, Oscar Tantoco Serquiña, Jr., Vincenz Serrano, Christian Tablazon, Alyza Taguilaso, Rapunzel Tomacder, Eileen F. Tupaz, and Vyxz Vasquez. Exquisite Corpses by DJ Legaspi, Mervin Malonzo, and Josel Nicolas.

I have a poem in it called “Maps“.

From the introduction:

The decision to affix the term new to this anthology derives from the conviction that there are enough surprising behaviors in language present in recent Philippine writing in English to merit a shorthand evaluation that is nothing less than a brazen pronouncement. New, in this case, is meant to careen beyond literal description, although it performs this practical function: the authors in this anthology are young in their writing lives, having published only one book, if at all, and quite a number of the contributors count this publication as their first. This common feature, while pertinent, is not the impetus for the anthology—the most youth does is promise imaginative energy, not assure it, and to host a friendly inventory of potential among those whose early stages of literary production coincide seems simply superfluous, if not vapidly premature, the new reduced to disclaimer rather than declaration. In calling itself new, this anthology holds itself responsible for the literary spectrum it constructs and asserts its position within. It directly engages art’s unwavering fixation with originality—or its more pragmatic twin, reinvention—amid conditions that more and more aggressively eliminate their possibility. It situates itself in conversation with various traditions and whatever its existence renders old, mindful of the fluctuating degrees to which these are inscribed within the works that succeed them. It presumes a pitch peculiar enough to withstand, even temper, the cacophony of existing literature, and consequently, compelling enough to command attention.

My thanks to the editors.

*

I finally had time to read the Stone Telling Whimsy issue. Absolutely loved Catherynne Valente’s “The Secret of Being a Cowboy“, read brilliantly – just brilliantly! – by S.J. Tucker. You must listen to it!

The Roundtable is always a treat, made even more special in this issue by a surprise bonus poem. :) Do read the discussion and Jo Walton’s “Sappho Beyond Hades”.

I also loved the art Rose paired with the pieces. The art paired with “The Weatherkeeper’s Diary” was perfect. I’d like to have that hanging in my room.

*

Apparently, I also made an impression. Author Amal El-Mohtar said she was “very struck” by my poem, “Sodom Gomorrah”. Thank you! :)

Tin Lao (who told me about Amal’s review) also said she loved this poem, as well as “Maps”. Thanks! (Do read her poem, “The Difference Between Abundance and Grace“. The fallen and the bruised on the fragrant lawn and a woman who chooses and chooses what is worth saving.)

I can’t wait to sit down and read the entire KK anthology.