Category: plug

the weekend

Friday! Early lunch at Army Navy and Frutti Froyo c/o Jaykie and family. Burned calories in badminton (where I thought I would win against J, and then didn’t). Off to the mall to buy stuff for the boyfriend, puttanesca and pizza at Sbarro, then home. Got drunk on House (Season 5 and some of S6) and Pretty Little Liars. Slept. A lot.

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Was finally able to watch Tangled with my mother and sister. I watched it in 2D, so I don’t know if it’s more exciting to watch in its intended format. I do agree with Roger Ebert’s contention though that colors appear dimmer in 3D. Not to mention that the 3D glasses are cumbersome and the illusion, albeit nifty, give me slight headaches. I’d like to avoid 3D now.

To be perfectly honest, I didn’t think much of Tangled when I first saw the trailer. Ack, another Disney re-imagining of a fairy tale highlighting love and cuteness – and it’s not even Pixar-made! I wasn’t excited about it. What else can you change about Rapunzel’s story to make it fresh and interesting?

I was so glad to be proven wrong. Thank you for the songs and the lanterns, Disney. If ever you felt the urge to translate this film onto the stage as a musical (and what a lovely musical it would make! Imagine the set pieces!), I’d see it in a heartbeat.

(And this should have won Best Song over Toy Story 3. Yes, I’m dissing Pixar for you, Disney. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO ME. I’m a horrible person.)

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Commercial break: My story, “Voyage to Bathala”, will appear in the March 19 issue of the Philippines Free Press, available in bookstands by March 16. :) Do buy and read?

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So I received payment for a story sale via PayPal instead of via a paper check, and I realized, instead of sending back the money and demanding the check, might as well use the funds to – what else? – buy books online. (The first PayPal payment I received was for a poem, and I used that to donate to Duotrope. It’s a very helpful site.)

I’m so 21st century. (I don’t buy things online. I don’t have a credit card. And I don’t even have an ebook reader. And I hate iTunes with all of my being. I’m still not so 21st century, it turns out.)

Books, old and new, are offered at reasonable prices at the The Book Depository, an online bookseller based in the UK, and they offer free shipping to the Philippines! (Exclamation points!!!) So I got Tana French’s Faithful Place, a book that’s already available here but only in (expensive) hardcover, and Lauren Beukes’s acclaimed novels Zoo City and Moxyland, books I can’t find here anywhere. All for around 26 dollars, or around a thousand pesos.

One story = three books. Not a bad trade. Hope the books get here safely, and soon.

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I’ve been feeling rather sad these past few days for whatever reason, but the weekend was able to exorcise all the bad vibes. There’s no place like home.

free press + further story pimpage

I love that Philippines Free Press has already updated its website. New stories/poems every week!

Some recommendations:

“The Battle of Ayala” by Glenn Diaz

“Two Poems” by Allan Justo Pastrana

the divining that doesn’t reach the ear, as all hear,
from the gut, pure animal pain instead when the car

they’re in passes by—so what of the poor pig lying
near the gutter, writhing for being alive still, the throat

slit, from where too much blood gushed,
from what seems to be the only opening, like a window

alone that you lean to, pocket of air, the middle
you once dreamed about, that is as hollow as what a body

can be made of. That no one recalls the last word. That no-
body makes a sound—

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Another thing I love: that friends and fellow writers are telling me that they enjoyed “Summer Evening“, with Tin Lao saying it’s “sick, a la Inglorious Basterds/Pulp Fiction”.

Go read! /whore

one for vanilla

My story, “Summer Evening“, is in the Winter Issue of Vanilla. Click and read!

On the fiery front porch, her back to the screen door, Amarilis stretched her bare legs and stared at the parked car. It was parked right across their house, almost in front of their gate. Amarilis was holding a yellow bell she had plucked from the garden in one hand. She played with the flower, twiddled the stem with her fingers. A few minutes later two men approached the car. She didn’t see where they came from. One had stubble on his face. This one took his time opening the door of the car. He was looking over his shoulder. Amarilis knew he was looking at her, at her bare legs. She was wearing a short denim skirt. Amarilis placed the yellow bell lightly against her knee, twiddled the stem with her fingers. She didn’t like the look he was giving her. Read more.

‘sand, crushed shells, chicken feathers’ on world sf

Late posting! The World SF News Blog has reprinted my story, “Sand, Crushed Shells, Chicken Feathers” for its Tuesday Fiction section. This story originally appeared in Philippines Free Press.

Come read!

The World SF blog is manned by Lavie Tidhar and Charles Tan.

kritika kultura soft launch

Hopefully I’ll be able to attend. :)

From Facebook, and Chingbee Cruz’s blog:

Kritika Kultura and the National Committee on Literary Arts – National Commission for Culture and the Arts cordially invite you to the soft launch of the Kritika Kultura Anthology of New Philippine Writing. This event will take place on February 11, 2011, from 4:30pm to 6:30pm, at the Natividad Galang Fajardo (NGF) Conference Room, dela Costa Hall, Ateneo de Manila University.

The program for the soft launch will include a roundtable discussion on new writing, featuring the issue editors Mark Anthony Cayanan, Conchitina Cruz, and Adam David. Topics pertinent to the anthology—such as the selection process, the trends that have emerged from the contributions, and the tradition from which the “new” seems to be drawn—will be tackled. The discussion will be followed by a reading of works from five of the authors in the anthology: J. Pilapil Jacobo, Anna Oposa, Petra Magno, Carlos Quijon, Jr., and Alyza May Taguilaso.

This anthology is the first exclusively literary issue of Kritika Kultura, the international online journal of language, literary and cultural studies published by the Ateneo de Manila University and indexed by Thomson Reuters (formerly ISI), MLA, Scopus, EBSCO, and DOAJ. The soft launch is the satellite activity of Ateneo de Manila University for Taboan: The 3rd Philippine International Writers Festival.

intersections

Says the Expanded Horizons team:

Dear Readers,

Our Issue 27 is up for your reading pleasure. Four stories, by four women authors! Space travel! Mermaids! Gateways between universes! Hindu mythology!

An all-female issue, awesome! You can click here to read my short story, “Intersections”. Hope you enjoy, and feel free to share, if you are so inclined.