Blasts of Silence

Blip

2011-08-24T03:57:00.002+08:00

Apathy killed this blog, which is no surprise since its former title was The Indifference Engine.

This post is a blip, a possible sign of life. Stay tuned for more silence.

Huston's Guns to Shape the Future

2010-08-24T04:05:00.004+08:00

Awesome Charlie Huston essay on Mulholland Books.

"Along with the future, I also like a good wall I can bang my head against.

It’s a very healthy process, this writing thing."

Demonized

2010-06-25T03:40:00.007+08:00

My short story Best Served Cold is included in the horror anthology Demons of the New Year by Estranghero Press.

I know, I know. The anthology's been online for a few months now but I only got around to posting about it now.

And The POC's Fidelis Angela Tan has a two-part review of the anthology which you can read here and here. A sampling of what she has to say about my contribution:

'"Best Served Cold" takes demons, big corporations, and politicians – all one really needs to know of evil – and puts them all together in a creepy (and at the same time funny) read.'

There's also a two-part interview with the anthology's co-editor Karl de Mesa here and here where my contribution gets mentioned.

And I'd be lying if I proclaim that the review and the mention didn't embiggen my heart. And my ego. Heh.

Gordon Goes to Detroit

2009-07-02T16:10:00.005+08:00

Noooooooooooooo!!!

"The Detroit Pistons have reached agreement with free-agent guard Ben Gordon(notes) and forward Charlie Villanueva(notes), a source with knowledge of the talks told Yahoo! Sports Wednesday evening."

And your friendly Bulls Blogger rants about it.

There goes my 2010 and beyond scenario (more like dream) with LeBron, Derrick, and Ben leading the Bulls to a number of championships.

Bummer.

Curse Songs

2009-06-21T02:46:00.003+08:00

From the backmatter of the second issue of Kieron Gillen and Jamie McKelvie's Phonogram: The Singles Club:

"It's worth stressing that the curse record is a different thing to a true angry break-up obsessive record. Putting on Gentlemen or early Nick Cave and drinking a lot of whiskey while scowling is actually a healing thing. Not nice for anyone else to be around you as you coat yourself with blood and sin, but actually a utilitarian thing for self-repair, an aesthetically-inversed version of white wine, smeared mascara and bawling "I Will Survive". A curse record is the opposite. A curse song, will, in a real way, open old wounds, tearing the stitches you're trying to make hold. A curse song should be avoided at all costs. I have friends who, suffering through the most virulent stages of the curse, abandon entire bands or even genres of music due to the associated poison."

So what are your curse songs?

Designated Drinker

2009-06-20T02:56:00.003+08:00

Tally:

1 bottle of Red Horse beer (with one more to go; Red Horse is not my beer of choice but it's the only one in stock in the nearest suking tindahan open at one A.M. I've only had one but I feel like I've downed half a case of San Mig Lite.)
1 Burger Machine cheeseburger (with one more to go)
unknown handfuls of cheese flavored popcorn
x number of shots of vodka (one bottle down and one more to go)
a number of unopened chips (Piattos, Tostillas and some Nagaraya)

Needless to say, I'm a bit smashed. I'm tempted to not check the spelling on this post--or the grammar--but I'll hold off posting this until later this afternoon after I've sobered up and my brain's working again.

Background noise: girls chatting and giggling about stuff, a hiss and a pop of a bottle being opened, ice tinkling on an empty glass followed by pouring liquid, giggles, "putang ina" liberally mentioned, as well as "asshole" (or was it "aso"?). My ears are going to sleep first, I think.

Times like these I wish alcohol could help me and write works of genius like, say, Charles Bukowski but all I can manage is this post.

I'm off to open the last bottle of Red Horse and scarf down the last burger. And then to sleep. Right after I drive home a couple of the people here home, yes. And no, I'm not that drunk to not drive. A sign of my being drunk is when I go off and write a maudlin post about a frakking Tom Waits song or something. But then again, I wrote that the day after, I think. Oh well...

P.S. I inadvertently hit control something which posted this, uh, post, so fuck the spellcheck and the grammar.

The Strain

2009-06-06T00:49:00.005+08:00

Filmmaker Guillermo del Toro has a novel out, The Strain, co-written with crime novelist Chuck Hogan.

They have always been here. Vampires. In secret and in darkness. Waiting. Now their time has come.

In one week, Manhattan will be gone. In one month, the country.

In two months--the world.

A Boeing 777 arrives at JFK and is on its way across the tarmac, when it suddenly stops dead. All window shades are pulled down. All lights are out. All communication channels have gone quiet. Crews on the ground are lost for answers, but an alert goes out to the CDC. Dr. Eph Goodweather, head of their Canary project, a rapid-response team that investigates biological threats, gets the call and boards the plane. What he finds makes his blood run cold.

In a pawnshop in Spanish Harlem, a former professor and survivor of the Holocaust named Abraham Setrakian knows something is happening. And he knows the time has come, that a war is brewing . . .

So begins a battle of mammoth proportions as the vampiric virus that has infected New York begins to spill out into the streets. Eph, who is joined by Setrakian and a motley crew of fighters, must now find a way to stop the contagion and save his city--a city that includes his wife and son--before it is too late.

And there's a trailer:

It's another book that I'm sure will test my resolve not to buy until I've halved my backlog of books to read, which currently stands at 40, I think, but I've lost count.

And James Ellroy's Blood's A Rover comes out in September but it's still a long way off so I've plenty of time to cut down my reading pile to a manageable number. I hope.

Ellis Will Do Anything

2009-06-02T20:30:00.002+08:00

Warren Ellis debuts a new column on Bleeding Cool.

"I have the head of Jack Kirby in my office.

I built it myself. Which means, this being the late-postmodern 21st Century, I stole it from someone else and then tinkered with it until it became a transformative work. What I actually did was steal the Hanson Robotics-designed android head of Philip K Dick off an airplane, resculpted the front and filled its brain with the work of, interviews with and anecdotes about Jack Kirby. Like the original Philip K Dick head, it now does the work of an oracle of that mysterious time, the 20th Century, and of the seminal years of a 20th Century art form. In the case of Phil Dick, this was the science fiction story. In this case, it is of course the comic book."

Read the entire thing here.

Fade Away

2009-06-01T01:37:00.007+08:00

Turns out my forecast last week that Cleveland will win the Eastern Conference finals in 6 games was a bit off.

Oh, it ended in 6 games alright, but instead of LeBron and the Cavs facing the Lakers starting this week, it'll be Dwight and the Magic.

There's next year, I suppose, if Cavs management will finally get a player that'll play Pippen to James' Jordan. Mo Williams was touted as such all season long but where the fuck was he during the Cavs-Magic series? And the year after that if they still fail to break out of the East and win the NBA championshiop, who knows? Cleveland can offer James a contract extension in July and it's up to him if he signs or not. If he does, Cavs management will have to do whatever they can to get LeBron a championship caliber team. If he doesn't, LeBron's off to freeagency and greener... no, not greener for that'll imply him going to Boston which I hope never happens. And no to New York too, please. Um, for bullish pastures perhaps?

And now we go to fantasy land...

Think about it--and a little bit of caveat for I've no idea how much cap space the Bulls have or how much cap space they will have come 2010 and like I said, it's a fantasy--but all the support LeBron needs to win a championship is in Chicago. Players to share the scoring load? There's Ben Gordon (if he gets renewed), a budding star in Derrick Rose (though he still has lots of room to improve, defense-wise mostly) and John Salmons (though he tends to get a bit erratic sometimes but when he's on, he's fucking on). Kirk Hinrich can also score when needed, though he's more of a defensive player lately. Maybe he can be Steve Kerr. And for the frontcourt there's the duo of Joachim Noah and Brad Miller who brought some much needed swagger and badassery during the classic Bulls-Celtics first round series. Trade either Tyrus Thomas or Luol Deng but keep one as back-up to LeBron. If they do not want to keep Brad Miller, acquire another center who won't be afraid to get bruised while defending the goal, and maybe also score.

Oh yeah, and I guess they need a better coach. Or hope that Vinnie del Negro improves. And, most important, that Jerry Reinsdorf will open up his wallet.

So, LeBron, in 2010 if you still haven't won a championship with the Cavs and you become a free agent, go to the Bulls. They have the talent and have regained some of their lost swagger and all they really need is a bona fide star.

Shots Fired

2009-05-24T12:27:00.006+08:00

Everybody's talking about it. I wasn't even sure it happened when I saw it during the live broadcast for I thought my pre-caffeinated brain was just playing tricks on me even though they replayed it a couple of times and I had to rewatch the late-night replay of the game--the closing minutes, at least-- just to make sure it did happen. And yeah, it did.

From Adrian Wojnarowski's column:

“Whatever happens,” James yelled to Williams in the huddle, “I’m going to come get the ball.” Whatever options fall apart, James insisted to his point guard that he would find a way to get open and promised him, “I’m going to knock down the shot.”

Turkoglu had made an immense shot over Pavlovic to take a 95-93 lead, but he made one grave mistake:

He left a second on the clock.

He left LeBron life.

Great article and all and I liked his storytelling about that final second (I felt compelled to watch it again, dammit!) but there's just this eerie feeling I get when he gets to the part where he paints LeBron James in a messianic way. Don't get me wrong, I am a fan (until he heads to New York, which I hope never, ever happens) but there's just something eerie about it that I can't explain.

And of course, comparisons to His Airness' The Shot is inevitable (it celebrated its 20th anniversary a couple of weeks ago, I think) but I'll leave it to more knowledgeable basketball pundits to debate on which one is better or whatever. All I know is that they're both incredible, unbelievable, awesome shots that one can't help but watch over and over and over...

So, Cavs in 6.

Cabin Fever

2009-05-22T13:08:00.007+08:00

I have the entire house for myself the entire weekend. The rest of the family--well, minus Nald and me, but Nald's at the condo in Cubao--went to Baguio and Sagada. I wanted to go with them for the last time I was in Baguio was Christmas of 2005 and I've never been to Sagada and was looking forward to snapping byteloads of pictures using Nel's digital SLR.

But, there are the dogs. No one's going to feed them. It's okay if it'll be an overnight trip. We can feed them early today and hopefully they can bear their hunger until we return the following day. But three days is too much for them and we can't find anyone who'll come in and feed six dogs, one of them a noisy, barky, fierce-looking-but-really-she's-sweet German shepherd. And just imagine, six hungry dogs who've not been fed for three days, barking and yapping when we arrive and they snap at the first sight of fresh meat they come across come Sunday evening: namely, us. They attack and eat us and go on a feeding frenzy across the neighborhood and beyond.

Really, I stayed behind to save us all.

So, three days with no company aside from the dogs. Let's see who succumbs to madness first and who eats whom or who sics whom to eat what or who sics what to eat whom or...

Boom

2009-05-15T13:04:00.003+08:00

Godaaaaammmiitttttt!!!

That was pretty much my reaction after seeing Lost's season-ender. Mind-blowing as usual. Still reeling from it, trying to process what I just saw: Jacob and his counterpart (Anti-Jacob?), the full statue, the contents of the box, "They're coming," some deaths and one heartbreaking fall into a hole and then the fade to white (but still can't beat season three's "We have to go back, Kate") and then the realization that it'll be almost a year's wait before some of the mysteries presented this episode will be answered.

Hence: Godaaaammmiitttttt!!!!

Drinking Song

2009-05-11T03:52:00.006+08:00

Sunday was not-so-little-sister Cha's birthday so the weekend involved consuming (un)healthy amounts of beer and vodka. If it were up to me, the drink-up's soundtrack would consist of nothing but Tom Waits for his songs seem tailor made for drinking sessions but I doubt the people I was drinking with (cousins from San Juan and some friends) even know who Tom Waits is.

I Hope I Don't Fall In Love With You was the very first Tom Waits song I ever listened to, though the version I first heard was a live version by the 10,000 Maniacs. Looked up the maniacs' version but couldn't find it. Maybe I just imagined it for that was a long time ago.

And anticipating what some you could be thinking right about now: is this indicative of something?

...

Could be the hangover typing.

Now it's closing time, the music's fading out.
Last call for drinks, I'll have another stout.
Well I turn around to look at you,
you're nowhere to be found,
I search the place for your lost face,
guess I'll have another round
And I think that I just fell in love with you.

But yeah, I guess I'll have another round.

Tunay na Lalake

2009-05-07T02:57:00.003+08:00

From Hay!Men! ang blog ng mga tunay na lalake:

Manifesto ng Tunay na Lalake

1. Ang tunay na lalake ay di natutulog.

2. Ang tunay na lalake ay di nagte-text-back, maliban na lang kung papasahan ng load. Gayunpaman, laging malabo ang kanyang mga sagot.

3. Ang tunay na lalake ay laging may extra rice.

4. Ang tunay na lalake ay hindi vegetarian.

5. Ang tunay na lalake ay walang abs.

6. Ang tunay na lalake ay hindi sumasayaw.

7. Ang tunay na lalake ay umaamin ng pagkakamali sa kapwa tunay na lalake.

8. Ang tunay na lalake ay laging may tae sa brief.

9. Ang tunay na lalake ay di naghuhugas ng pinagkainan o nagliligpit ng kanyang mga gamit dahil may babaeng gagawa noon para sa kanya. Mas lalong nagiging tunay ang pagkalalake kung di niya kilala o di niya maalala ang pangalan ng babae.

10. Ang tunay na lalake ay di nagsisimba.

Robochompocalypse

2009-05-06T19:09:00.005+08:00

'I plan to invest in anti-carnivorous robot security' by Warren Ellis:

"The future is a moving target. It’s not predictable like the weather – and even weather forecasting misses the odd devastating hurricane. Science fiction’s never going to tell you what you’ll be doing next year. What it really does is use speculation to examine the present-day condition – but it can, however, warn you about possible futures."

And earlier in the column is a funny bit about the Wachowskis and their failure in warning people of the coming Robochompocalypse.

Massive Moore Interview

2009-04-30T03:33:00.004+08:00

Excerpts from Part 3 of a six-part Alan Moore interview on Newsarama:

"In Watchmen, we were suggesting, I think, that reality is perhaps a web of tiny coincidences and resonant images and little motifs that we hardly notice – this web of meaning that may be all glued together with repetitions of dialogue and slight similarities of image."

And...

"And I think that it’s now time to move to new ways of thinking to help us understand this situation in which we find ourselves. I know that Watchmen is being talked about a lot at the moment because of this ridiculous film, but these are ideas that are 25 years old. I think that I started writing it in 1984. That’s why it was set in 1985, because I had the idea that it would be all out and finished in 1985. But it was 25 years ago.

I think that the world moves at an unforgiving pace, and that this has accelerated. I don’t think 25-year-old ideas, no matter how adequate they were at the time, apply to our current situation – either my 25-year-old ideas or anybody else’s."

And about tying in tv shows The Wire and Homicide: Life on the Streets into the League of Extraordinary Gentlemen:

"That is the beauty of the League! We can tie in all of this stuff. Hey, it’s Baltimore! There might have been some relative of Police Chief Rawls or perhaps Det. Munch who was involved in manning the Baltimore Lunar Base."

Vengeance is To's

2009-04-29T03:38:00.005+08:00

Vengeance, Johnnie To's latest film, starring French actor Johnny Hallyday and To regulars Anthony Wong and Simon Yam. It's the one must-see this year that I doubt will even be shown in cinemas here in Manila. It's a longfuckingshot but here's a callout to any generous publisher out there: Send me to Hongkong to watch and review Vengeance for your publication and I'd be happy, ecstatic even, to watch and review a year's worth of crappy films for you.

And pulling my head out of the clouds and plunging back to earth... I guess I'll just have to wait and get a copy from the usual suspects.

Crime Does Not Pay and Two Dead Authors

2009-04-28T03:19:00.003+08:00

Steven Grant pays tribute to the end of Azzarello & Risso's 100 Bullets while ruminating about the crime genre and why it'll never catch on with the American comics readers. Excerpts:

"Crime stories, on the other hand, are about losers.

Stories about losers may seem counterintuitive to a lot of readers – like I said, American culture doesn't holds losers in much of anything but contempt – but for a writer they can be fascinating. It's simple math, really: winners win. That's what they do. That's what they must do. Doesn't matter what the story arc is, the story still has to end up in the same place. The hero wins.

Shift the focus to a loser, and the possibilities jump substantially."

And:

"Likewise, losers are usually simply more fun to write. Not only does similar storytelling math apply – the hero can't act villainously (at least not in some way that's not ultimately explicable in heroic terms, like Jack Bauer torturing a suspect for information necessary to stop a ticking nuke that will slaughter millions) but the criminal can act heroically – but no set characteristics are required, except those the writer sets himself. The absence of rules – it wasn't always so, but has evolved that way – fits the genre, and this inherent acceptance, demand even, of ambiguity invites the writer to conceive stories, characters and ethical issues in more fluid and unpredictable terms than is possible with superhero comics. (Not that superhero comics are incapable of it – there's no reason any genre should be – but the baggage that talent, publishers and readers bring to them prohibits it on any serious level, and where it has been achieved to any degree it has usually triggered a defensive backlash to reinforce the "purity" of superhero comics.) From the writer's standpoint, the crime story is simply more open to possibility.

From a reader's perspective it may not look that way, since crime stories, though frequently superheated and preposterous, usually involve the mundane world, as opposed to the supernatural elements that underpin genres like superheroes and horror, supernatural in this instance meaning "beyond nature" rather than "occult." From that outlook, the crime story, absent of vampires, androids, extraterrestrials and radioactive spiders, may seem less open to possibility. But that's a marketing issue. The other problem regarding an audience is the preponderance of "crime" stories, in the broadest application of the term, across other media like novels, film and television. Anyone wanting crime fiction has plenty of options. (Unlike anyone who wants a steady diet of superheroes or even horror, where options across media are considerably narrower.) Which means crime comics are under considerable stress to provide material not found elsewhere."

Read the entire thing here.

He also mentions that author J.G. Ballard passed away the previous week.

And I only found out the other day (via Ed Brubaker's column in his and Sean Phillips pulpy Incognito) that author Donald Westlake passed away last December 31. I'm a fan of his work, especially the Parker novels which he wrote under the name Richard Stark (which is just one of his various pseudonyms).

Ellis and Abrams are Wired

2009-04-27T02:31:00.004+08:00

From Warren Ellis' Wired UK column:

"This is the problem with writing fiction in the early 21st century: the real world outdoes you for madness every day. You’d be overdoing it, as a fiction writer, if you had Congolese bushfighters eating their enemies’ flesh during an ebola outbreak… except that it’s happening as I write."

Read the entire thing here.

And that Wired issue guest-edited by J.J. Abrams is very interesting and very fucking expensive.

Watched It

2009-03-11T03:33:00.007+08:00

Saw Watchmen earlier. Visually, it was great; Dave Gibbons' artwork brought to cinematic life. And while it tried to stay true (maybe even inanely true) to the graphic novel, as with all film adaptations of Alan Moore comics, it pales in comparison to the source material. The best part of the film was the opening credits montage where director Zack Snyder shows the world's background and origins to the tune of Bob Dylan's The Times They Are A-Changin'. (Maybe Snyder should stick to making short films in the style of opening credits montage. Prior to this, I thought that his best work was the opening credits to the Dawn of the Dead remake.) What follows is a very uneven film that tries to get the feel and the mood of the world that Moore and Gibbons created but stumbles more often than not.

Another gripe I have with the film has something to do with Snyder's fight scenes which I think were bloodier and more gruesome than the ones in the comics. Plus, they were shot in Snyder's signature fast forward slow motion (fastfoslowmo?) style which annoyed the hell out of me when I first saw it in his300 (not that that's the only annoying thing in that movie. That whole movie was an annoyance in itself) which made the film feel all the more dragging.

I admit that it took a couple of readings before I truly appreciated Watchmen. The first time I read it, it was okay. It did not wow me or anything, I just thought that it was different than any of the comics I've read before. It was darker, more violent, the heroes were not really heroes (some of them, at least) and what the fuck was that pirate story all about? I only "got" it after the second time around and I appreciated it even more after subsequent readings. If my appreciation for the movie adaptation will increase through subsequent viewings, that remains to be seen.

Haruki Murakami

2009-02-25T03:30:00.006+08:00

Recently finished Haruki Murakami's Blind Willow, Sleeping Woman and I declare that Haruki Murakami is the only writer that can reach the hopeless romantic in me that I keep locked up like Schrodinger's Cat.

His story On Seeing the 100% Perfect Girl One Beautiful April Morning (which is included in The Elephant Vanishes) convinced me of his greatness that I muttered "shitfuckdammit" the first time I read it and then I immediately reread it three times in a row. He made the work seem effortless and easy. The story seems simple but it's not. Only the great ones can pull it off. Read it and I dare you to disagree with me. When I first read that story years ago I was courting someone so I reasoned out that I was in the mood for such a story (not that the story is overly romantic and mush-filled).

And years later, I buy and read his latest collection of short stories. I figured that On Meeting the 100% Perfect Girl... was a fluke and nothing would come close to it. I was partly right and partly wrong. No story in the collection came close to being a punch in the gut like that story but many of them came close. Amid his weird and strange and oblique stories like Nausea and The Poor Aunt Story, there are stories of lost loves and longing like A Folklore for My Generation: A Prehistory of Late-Stage Capitalism? (Which reads like a Wong Kar Wai film.)

And then there's Tony Takitani. (Which also reads like a Wong Kar Wai film that I hope Wong gets off his ass and adapts a Murakami story. Although there is a Tony Takitani film already, how about adapting Nausea, the one about vomiting? I'd love to see Wong's version of that, with of course Chris Doyle lighting.)

Reading these stories makes one want to fall in love only to wallow in and even cherish the the misery of the ensuing heartbreak.

Free Weird Tales and a Weird Question

2008-10-24T02:50:00.004+08:00

A free issue of Weird Tales is available for a limited time. Something to read in time for Halloween.

And there's a question that's been bugging me throughout the day:

How many Oreos (or Cream O's if you prefer the local variety) should one cram in a person's mouth to choke that person to death?

If you have any practical knowledge in this matter, let me know. It won't change the fact that you're scum of the earth, but you'll have my gratitude. Of sorts.

Frenzied Boredom

2008-09-19T03:37:00.003+08:00

Jesus, it's been a while.

Allen e-mailed me this link and boredom led me to click through it.

I AM
65%
FRENZY Take the Transformers Quiz

Frenzy

Frenzy is a chaotic spy turned boom box, sent by the Decepticons to infiltrate enemy strongholds.

Like Frenzy, you are not compassionate and harbor evil thoughts. Your leadership skills are weak at best. You will never be the commander of the Decepticons. In addition, you use technology when you need to, but you do not embrace the latest trends.

I harbor evil thoughts--sometimes, mostly when I'm fresh out of bed and haven't had my caffeine fix--but I'm sure I'm relatively compassionate. I'm compassionately evil!

Ah, crap. Carry on.

Watching the Watchmen

2008-07-18T16:42:00.005+08:00

The Watchmen trailer's up.

A bit apprehensive about this one because I didn't really like Zack Snyder's previous movies (I thought 300 was boring and the best part of his Dawn of the Dead remake was the opening credits with the Johnny Cash song and then it was all downhill from there), but damn, I have to admit Watchmen looks really, really nice. You have the birth of Dr. Manhattan, Nite Owl and Sally Jupiter's assault on the prison, Rorschach with an improvised flame thrower (could've done with a "Hurm", though) and The Comedian being thrown out the window. Damn.

I'm off to dig out my copy and read the whole thing all over again.

Ellis Interrogation

2008-04-09T02:26:00.003+08:00

"I don't like anything I've written, a half hour after writing it."

"I like the games where you kill people and they scream. I liked SOLDIER OF FORTUNE, because you could shoot people in the throat and they'd thrash and choke and drown in their own blood. Also you could shove knives in their balls and they wouldn't die immediately, but lurch away from you shrieking."

"I come from the old school where a writer is a person who sits alone in a room and beats on a keyboard with their fists until the machine surrenders and spits out the story they wanted."

More here.

Exiled

2008-03-09T03:42:00.010+08:00

Finally saw it. Wow. My mind's still reeling in awe of it that I don’t know how to start.

Four men came knocking at a house looking for one man. Two came to kill him, the other two to protect him. The wanted man finally shows up and the gunplay and the violence begins.

Exiled is basically a western but instead of a frontier town the action is transposed to 1998 pre-handover Macau. And while director Johnnie To riffs from the masters of the western genre--traces of Sergio Leone in the first fifteen minutes (and throughout the film, actually) and there are tones of Sam Peckinpah’s The Wild Bunch towards the end--the film is all To. And as with all Johnnie To crime flicks, the action set pieces are things to behold. The aforementioned opening fifteen minutes is fun, but it’s just a taste of what is to come. Personal fave though is the shootout at the underground clinic; close quarters gunfight in a claustrophobic setting and To stages the hell out of it. Jaw-dropper, really. Heck, I found myself slack-jawed even in some non-action scenes.

The cast consists of To mainstays: Anthony Wong, Francis Ng, Lam Suet, Roy Cheung, and Simon Yam. It’s the classic cast of The Mission plus a couple of new faces in Nick Cheung and Richie Jen. Unsurprisingly, the leads do very well. Even Nick Cheung was bearable for I thought he was a bit annoying in Breaking News.

Yeah, the themes and situations are nothing new to To (he even gives some nods to his classic The Mission, which Exiled may or may not be a sequel to, but who cares, right?) but with this one, there’s a certain… exuberance to it. It’s like Johnnie To’s having fun on this one and it is infectious.

Not that the film is light. I think that parts of it are grimmer than The Mission. It turns somber towards the end but in a self-reflexive moment, the characters laugh despite their fate. They had a good run and they had fun and surely the audience did too.

Bye Pooch

2008-02-29T03:00:00.003+08:00

Poochy, one of our dogs, died early Tuesday morning. Whatever the cause was, either heartworm or distemper, I don’t know. The veterinarian never called back with the result of the blood test and besides, it’s rather moot now. It was difficult watching him suffer and I don't dare imagine what he felt during those last twelve hours.

Sleep well, Pooch. You are missed.

Kill Fidel

2008-02-24T14:10:00.004+08:00

I remember reading about this last year, probably when the author's book first came out (and I also remember seeing something like this at the Discovery channel), but in light of Fidel Castro stepping down as Cuba's Comandante, this article lists some assassination plots that the CIA cooked up to get rid of the bearded one. Gotta love the ones where the intended effect (or so they say) is for Castro to lose his beard. And the ones where the Mafia is involved echoes bits of James Ellroy's American Tabloid.

And with Castro gone--well, he probably won't exit the stage entirely--will the CIA dream up more schemes if his successor does not play nice? But then, they don't assassinate people anymore, do they?

Akira Lives

2008-02-23T02:00:00.009+08:00

Leonardo DiCaprio will produce a live-action version of Akira.

It'll probably be westernized so instead of Neo-Tokyo, the story will be set in, um, Neo-New York?

And instead of shouts of "Tetsuuooooo!" we'll have "Jaaaaaaacccccck!" or maybe, "Miiiiiike!" I dunno.

I liked the anime because it was visually gorgeous but wasn't really into the story. I thought it was nice to look at but the story was a bit off. It's hard to compress a thousand-page (at least) manga (which I've not read except for the last few issues of its Marvel/Epic reprint) into a 2-hour film and Katsuhiro Otomo tried admirably but fell short. But he more than made up for it in the visuals. He came up aces on that department.

So the two primary challenges that the producers will have to deal with are to find a writer (or writers) who can make sense of the story and make it comprehensible (or at least near-comprehensible; I'm not asking for much. Hehe.) and find a director who can match (or even exceed?) Otomo's vision. Heck, maybe they could even get Otomo himself to direct the film. With Otomo at the helm, at the very least we'll be treated to an amazingly designed (he does awesome cityscapes) Neo-Tokyo (or Neo-New York), great action sequences, and a grotesquely mutated and bloated Tetsuo (or Jack or Mike) threatening to engulf Neo-Tokyo (or Neo-New York). I'll be first in line on opening day if that happens.

FreakAngels

2008-02-16T02:58:00.002+08:00

The first installment of Warren Ellis' webcomic FreakAngels is up. It's free so go read.

Al Capone Sends His Love

2008-02-14T23:29:00.004+08:00

Celebrating the day of hearts, prohibition-era Chicago style

"One February evening in North Chicago, seven well-dressed men were found riddled with bullets inside the S.M.C Cartage Co. garage. They had been lined up against a wall, with their backs to their executioners and shot to death. With the exception of Dr. Reinhardt H. Schwimmer these men were mobsters working under the leadership of gangster and bootlegger, "Bugs" Moran. Within a few seconds, while staring at a bare brick wall, these seven men had become a part of Valentine's Day history: the St. Valentine's Day Massacre."

And this article says that when the site of the massacre was demolished, an enterprising guy bought the bullet-riddled bricks and eventually sold them as macabre memorabilia. Most buyers returned the bricks, though, saying they are cursed.

Red Cliff

2008-02-11T00:55:00.000+08:00

Directed by John Woo. Starring Tony Leung Chiu Wai, Takeshi Kaneshiro, and Zhao Wei.

What more do you need to know?

Sweeney Todd

2008-02-08T03:08:00.000+08:00

Not really into musicals (can only count two I saw and really liked and they are Bob Fosse's All That Jazz and South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut. And should Life of Brian count? I mean, there was this song-and-a- bit-of-dancing-while-crucified number towards the end. Um… where was I?) Yeah, but a musical directed by Tim Burton and is about a serial killing barber is enough to draw me out and end my months-old moviegoing abstinence.

It was moody, it was gory, it was disturbing, it had depraved characters in it, it had songs with wonderful lyrics in it (I’ve half a mind to buy the soundtrack, actually), and it was glorious. Excellent performance from the actors, especially Johnny Depp. His Sweeney Todd is all intensity that one can't help but avert one's eyes slightly when Burton closes in on his glowering visage. One thing that rankled a bit was Sacha Baron Cohen’s singing. While his cameo was fun, his singing sounded like he was possessed by Adam Sandler’s Opera Man character during his Saturday Night Live days.

But the thing that really stuck with me from the film is Burton’s vision of Victorian era (or was it pre-Victorian?) London. Burton’s London is dreary, dirty, and bleak that it could easily drive one to depression. Or slit other people’s throats. But despite all that, despite that coat of dirt and dreariness and bleakness--or because of it--Burton’s London is beautiful. Like that old saying goes, it'll be a nice place to visit but I wouldn't want to live there. The city's duality was summed up during the opening minutes where Todd saw the city, as “a hole in the world like a great black pit, and it's filled with people who are filled of shit, and the vermin of the world inhabit it, and it goes by the name of 'London,'” which was a response to a young sailor’s fairly romantic and optimistic view of the city.

And the city perfectly mirrors the movie. For all its gore and gouts of blood and the pervading gloom that sticks with you even after you've left the theater, it is still something that one can't help but love. Just don't be surprised if it doesn't love you back.

A.I. Suicides

2008-02-06T02:12:00.000+08:00

"So what exacty does a web suicide note look like?" McKinstry wrote on January 20, 2006, a week after he posted to Singh's blog. "Exctly like this."

He was sitting in a café near his home in Santiago, pounding the keys on his Mac laptop. He posted the message on his blog and a slightly different version on a forum at Joel on Software, a popular geek hangout.

McKinstry's rant was florid and melodramatic. "This Luis Vuitton, Parada, Mont Blanc commercial universe is not for me," he wrote. He talked about his history of suicidal feelings and botched attempts, and he insisted that this time things would be different. "I am certain I will not survive the afternoon," he wrote. "I have already taken enough drugs that my alreadt weakened liver will shut down very soon and I am off to find a place to hide and die."

Wired article about two A.I. pioneers who committed suicide using eerily similar methods, roughly one month apart.

Airing Out

2008-02-01T03:13:00.000+08:00

It's been a while since I've been here. Some music to blast away the stale air.

Iggy Pop + Sonic Youth + I Wanna Be Your Dog = Rakenrol!

Sonic Youth's one of the few acts I'd kill to see perform live and yeah, I missed out when they were here back in '95--or '96?-- on a triple bill with the Foo Fighters and Beastie Boys. Here they are performing Sugar Kane, their ode to Marilyn Monroe.

Purveyors of beautiful noise, they are.

Today

2007-08-23T00:48:00.000+08:00

Right.

Twenty-nine years down, who knows how many more to go.

Cheers.

Section 8

2007-07-16T02:28:00.000+08:00

Tagged by the guy who doesn't smoke joints (or runs a joint where smoking is strictly prohibited). Wasn't keen on doing the post at first (you could say I was indifferent to it. hehe), but what the hell.

But first, the rules:

1. list eight (8) things/facts about yourself that people don't know (why 8? why not 9? i don't know, why not 10?---so, 8 it is)
2. then tag anybody you wish to tag (can be a friend or a relative or someone who has a blog; or wastes time maintaining one)
3. leave a comment on his/her blog telling them they're tagged (it's not mandatory, but do it anyway)
4. have them post the meme on their blogs and do the same thing (it's a simple instruction, don't you think?).
5. remember, there is no pressure. we're just keeping the cycle running.

Here goes:

1. I watched Sharon Cuneta in concert. Hey, I was a kid, seven years old, I think. This was waaaayyy back in 1984 or 1985 when our family lived in Las Pinas but I had to stay during the weekdays with our relatives in San Juan since I went to school there. They were complimentary tickets and most of the people in my grandma's house went to the concert. And since I didn't want to be left alone in the house, I had to come along.

2. I experienced a bomb scare. It was in 1986 and me and my parents were doing our Christmas shopping in SM Cubao. We were in one of the upper levels, shopping for shoes when someone shouted there was a bomb and people started running to one side of the building. Me and my parents of course ran along. We found ourselves huddled with the rest of them, waiting for the big kaboom that will send us to our big sleep. Or maim us, at least. No bomb exploded.

From what I can remember, someone from the upper levels saw some people in one of the lower floors running for some reason. Turns out Gary V. (or some other celebrity) was shopping there and people rushed to him for autographs or whatever. Some idiot thought there was a bomb (for I can faintly remember that there were some bombings in the Metro during that season) and saw it fit to alert the rest. Or some idiot got his kicks from seeing mass panic and shouted “bomb!”

3. I watched an episode of Kuya Germs' GMA Supershow live at the Broadway studios. Kindly refer to item number one, only a couple of years later. Moving on...

4. I drank my first shot of alcoholic beverage at age 14. My father's Rotary club was hosting a delegation of their sister club from Taipei. They took the guests to Subic (this was a year or so after the Americans left) for an overnight stay. Dinner was at a Chinese restaurant and the Taiwanese guys kampai'd everyone to their favorite rice wine. No exceptions. The old guys tried to intervene when it was my turn to take a shot, saying that I was underaged. The Taiwanese guys said that rice wine is okay for my age. After getting the okay from my parents, I took the shot of rice wine. I caught a whiff of it and it smelled like our local patis. I poured the wine into my mouth and it tasted like our local patis. The salty liquid quickly turned into an accelerant, forcing me to gulp it down, trailing fire down my throat. I downed a glass of ice cold Coke afterwards.

5. The first time I encountered wasabi, it almost burned my face off. Or at least it felt like it. It was in Taipei, some months after the rice wine incident. (Needless to say, bottles and bottles of rice wine were downed during that trip.) We were at a formal dinner; suit and tie stuff. Appetizers were served, some kind of raw fish, soy sauce for dipping and a small saucer of green paste. I saw someone in another table put some of the green stuff into the soy sauce, and-- monkey see, monkey do--so did I. I dipped a piece of fish and eagerly put it in my mouth. I think my face went red instantly. But instead of swallowing, I held it in my mouth. I hesitated spitting it out because, come on, I was in a formal dinner! To make things worse, drinks haven’t been served. Not even water. I stood up and headed for the restroom where I spat the vile thing into the toilet and flushed it away. I then rushed to the faucet to rinse away the burning in my mouth. I was there for quite a while.

6. I am wary of open doors. I dunno why. Natural paranoia, perhaps?

7. I used to have delusions of being a comics artist. I used to draw a lot. It was spurred on by seeing and admiring the works of superstar comics artists Jim Lee and Whilce Portacio during their X-Men days. I wanted to be like them so I practiced drawing, starting out with copying comics art line for line. When the time came, I took entrance exams to a couple of fine arts schools but failed them both. That didn’t stop me, though, and I still kept on drawing. Even bought Burne Hogarth’s Dynamic Anatomy on a trip to Canada. The drive to draw eventually tapered off sometime during college. That was when I began having delusions of being a writer, I suppose, but that’s a whole ‘nother story.

8. I love walking. I think I started appreciating walking towards a destination instead of taking a car or commuting when I lived in Cubao where every place I want to go to seemed to be within walking distance. With walking, I can take my time, take everything at my own pace. I get to really see a place, a street, or a neighborhood instead of just catching glimpses of it as the vehicle I’m in speeds along (or not, if I’m stuck in traffic). There are obvious downsides, of course, like letting my lungs wallow in the city’s pollution or the risk of getting mugged. The former is inevitable while the latter, thankfully, has never happened to me.

Whew. As for who to tag, um... anyone who comes across this blog and would like to try this meme. (Not that anyone really reads this blog...)

Japaholic

2007-07-03T02:14:00.001+08:00

Eiga Sai's here. It's usually held during the first quarter of the year that when said first quarter went pfft and no announcement regarding the filmfest has been made, I thought it was discontinued. Glad I'm wrong. Contemporary Japanese films are the focus once again and aside from Takashi Miike, I'm not really familiar with a lot of the films and directors.

And Miike's film in the festival--Shangri-La--is a bit odd. Miike usually deals in ultraviolence and perversity (sample Audition and Ichi the Killer, if you can stomach the grisly violence) and from what I've read, Shangri-la is a feel good movie. Then again, it's a revenge film and calling it a "feel-good film" could be a relative way of looking at it.

As for the other films, Blue Spring sounds interesting and according to film critic Noel Vera, Harmful Insect is good.

Check out the Eiga Sai page for sked info and film synopsis. And as usual, admission is free.

Heart of Darkness?

2007-05-28T02:58:00.000+08:00

Linked from Etchie's blog:

What Classic Movie Are You?
personality tests by similarminds.com

And as we all know, down that river lay madness.

Dancing Over to the Dark Side

2007-05-11T04:51:00.000+08:00

Saw Spider-Man 3. Well, for one thing, it escaped falling prey to the Curse of the Three. Think of every 3rd film in almost every Hollywood film franchise and you'll get a sense of what the curse is all about. Think of Return of the Jedi, think of X3, Batman Forever, Blade 3, Fantastic Four. Oh, wait. That was just its first movie. Most third films range from being huge letdowns (Return of the Jedi) to just plain bad (Blade 3).

I was a bit apprehensive when I heard about the influx of new characters (Gwen Stacy, Sandman, Eddie Brock/Venom) and since it appears that Spidey will be fighting not just one, not just two, but three villains (include Norman Osborn, the New Goblin) I was expecting it to devolve into a mess.

Raimi proved me wrong. He was able to pull it off. It came out pretty good, although not as good as the second film and it's bit better than the first one. Peter's succumbing to the dark side was handled pretty well. It stumbles a bit when it comes to focusing on the villains, a downside when a superhero flick has too many villains. I still feel that it should've been split into two films. The Sandman could've carried the entire film without Venom. They could've introduced the symbiote costume in this one and saved the Venom stuff for the next one. But since Raimi's still undecided if he'll return for the fourth Spidey film, I guess he was forced to include Venom in this one. (I remember reading somewhere that Raimi was considering using another villain but Avi Arad, the movie's executive producer told him to listen to the fans and use Venom. Raimi's not exactly a Venom fan, but, well, I guess he found a way to pencil him in. And imagine a full Spidey film where Venom's the big bad. It'll be something like Raimi returning to his Evil Dead roots. And instead of Topher Grace, Bruce Campbell as Eddie Brock! )

Anyway, the cast did pretty well as expected, although Thomas Hayden Church was underused and spent most of his time as a cool special effect. Topher Grace could've done better. And Bryce Dallas Howard's Gwen Stacy looked like a John Romita drawing brought to life. High marks go to regular scene stealers J.K. Simmons as J. Jonah Jameson and the aforementioned Campbell (Raimi's ubermensch, appearing this time as a "French" waiter in a French restaurant).

The action set pieces one-upped the ones in the previous film, from the first encounter between the New Goblin and spidey to the final Marvel Team-Up-style fight.

And I just have to wonder, with all the dancing Peter did in this one, was it a nod to the dancing Spidey icon that spread through the net a few years ago?

Debutante Muse

2007-05-10T03:24:00.000+08:00

I also think that when she is already in her twilight years, her grandchildren will find Lola Maria Elizabeth sitting on a rocking chair, watching a telenovela on TV… and sniffing a cotton blanket.

Before she retires to a rocking chair, sniffing her blanket, she'll have to go through this whole debutante ball/gala thing first, with her family and relatives and friends along for the ride.

Crunch time approaching and I had to write an introduction for my sister (excerpt above), the debutante. And then I had to go to an actual recording studio to narrate the damn thing, which will be played while she enters the venue. I'm not exactly enamored of my voice (although quite a number of the opposite sex I've known over the years liked the sound of it (heh)) but it was really weird listening to a voice come out of the speakers that you acknowledge is yours but at the same time can't believe is yours. I think it's the aural equivalent of seeing your face through another's eyes.

Anyway, I'm not exactly thrilled doing the recording much less broadcasting my voice to a couple hundred pairs of unsuspecting ears this Saturday, but hey, it's for my not-so-little sister.

Not only is May 10th my sister's birth date (happy birthday Cha), today's also the day Andres Bonifacio and his brother Procopio were executed by men loyal to the traitor Aguinaldo.

Smash Club

2007-05-04T04:20:00.000+08:00

Read in this week's Time that Edward Norton will play Bruce Banner in the next Hulk film. Such a no-brainer since Norton has played Banner-esque roles before. He'll be sort of reprising his role in Fight Club, only this time he'll have a CGI green giant for an alter ego instead of Brad Pitt.

Boredom for Hire

2007-04-25T04:54:00.000+08:00

Bored. Came across this test.

Heroes for Hire

65% organization, 47% responsibility

You're a Hero for Hire! You're relatively moral, but that doesn't always pay the bills. You and your fellow bounty hunters have had some shady pasts, but have put them behind you. The jobs you go for vary, from hunting down non-registered capes to breaking up local crime rings, but if the price is right and the deed makes the world a better place, your employer can always count on you. Famous Members include: Black Cat, Deadpool, Iron Fist, and Misty Knight.

My test tracked 2 variables How you compared to other people your age and gender:

You scored higher than 78% on organization
You scored higher than 25% on responsibility

Link: The Marvel Hero Faction Test written by SpaceCowboyRemy on OkCupid Free Online Dating, home of the The Dating Persona Test

I'll be Shang-Chi, Master of Kung Fu, preferably drawn by Paul Gulacy.

R.I.P.: Kurt Vonnegut

2007-04-13T03:41:00.000+08:00

Novelist Kurt Vonnegut Dies at Age 84

"NEW YORK (AP) - Kurt Vonnegut, the satirical novelist who captured the absurdity of war and questioned the advances of science in darkly humorous works such as ``Slaughterhouse-Five'' and ``Cat's Cradle,'' died Wednesday. He was 84.

Vonnegut, who often marveled that he had lived so long despite his lifelong smoking habit, had suffered brain injuries after a fall at his Manhattan home weeks ago, said his wife, photographer Jill Krementz."

So it goes.

On Explosions

2006-08-07T02:08:00.000+08:00

"When I stepped inside, I found the room filled with the smell that was quite similar to the smell of dried squid when it has been grilled. The smell was quite strong. It's a sad reality that the smell human beings produce when they are burned is the same as that of the dried squid when it is grilled. The squid - we like so much to eat. " - Mr. Hiroshi Sawachika, Hiroshima survivor

August 6th, the 61st anniversary of the dropping of the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.

Thirty four years later on the same date, Etchie was born, a product of a decidedly different kind of explosion. Happy birthday, p're! Kailan ang inuman?

Vignette: Pieces

2006-04-30T03:47:00.000+08:00

Playing chess frightened her. She knew Matt relished this fact as he cracked open the chessboard and started arranging the pieces.

She watched Matt carefully pick up each chess piece between thumb and forefinger and set it down carefully—maybe even reverently—on its designated square. She noticed that his right thumbnail is irregularly shaped owing to his habit of chewing on it while playing his favorite game. The rest of his fingernails badly needed a trim and she made a mental note to remind him about it. After the game, maybe. After he’s won.

He smiled a nicotine-stained smile as he paced around the table, crouching towards the board and squinting at the pieces every now and then, making sure they are looking straight across the board at the opposing army. He used a long, bony finger to gently nudge a white knight to the center of its square. He then made one last slow circuit around the table, a general reviewing his troops before the battle. Satisfied, he straightened up, positively beaming.

She was so absorbed watching him go about his ritual that she barely heard him address her.

“Hmm?” she asked.

“Black or white?” he said, gesturing with a lean arm towards the table. “White, black? Black, white? C’mon, Ma, we don’t have all night.”

It’s begun, she told herself. The chess game hasn’t started and he’s already playing me. She looked at the chess pieces, at the arrayed whites and the arrayed blacks. What to choose?

She shifted her gaze to her son. He was lighting a cigarette, his intense eyes focused on the lit tip. He took a deep drag, savored it in his deteriorating lungs and exhaled it through his nostrils. A series of wet racking coughs followed it, silenced by another drag of the cigarette.

He saw her watching him and his thin, discolored lips stretched into a grin. “Ma…,” he said.

She walked towards the table, studying the chessboard and its pieces.

“Dither, dither, dither,” said Matt.

She looked up. He was still grinning but she could see impatience starting to creep into his eyes, slowly supplanting the benign grin. He took another drag of his cigarette and slowly ran his fingers of one hand through his thinning hair.

“It’s just two colors, Ma. How hard can it be?”

Do not play his game, she told herself.

“For fuck’s sake, Ma!”

Matt strode towards the table, took a piece each from the whites and the blacks and went to her. She silently prays he won’t try and make her eat one of the pieces like he did a week before.

He stood before her holding up a white king in his left hand and a black rook in his right. She tried hard not to look up, staring straight on at his chest, watching it rise and fall steadily against his loosely hanging shirt.

Do not play his game.

“Ma!”

His raised voice made her look up. She studied her son’s slowly deteriorating face. The grin was gone, melted by impatience. His cigarette still hung from one corner of his lips. She saw ash break away from the stick and fall silently to the floor. Her eyes moved on straight into her son’s eyes, looking for something to appeal to. Her son’s glare met her eyes and quickly terminated the search. He held up the two pieces in front of her face.

“Choose. Now.”

Do not play his game.

She closed her eyes.

Do not play his game. It’s been her mantra for some years now.

“Black,” she heard herself say.

Infinite Ended

2006-03-30T01:50:00.000+08:00

Sad to learn that online science fiction mag The Infinite Matrix had ceased publication as of two months ago. They have an essay by William Gibson and a novelette by Cory Doctorow and Charles Stross among their last salvo of pieces.

Also, raid their archive while their site's still up (it'll be gone after a year or so, I think), especially Richard Kadrey's mindblowing Viper Wire series of nanotales. I tell you, Kadrey makes it look soooo easy.

R.I.P.: Stanislaw Lem

2006-03-28T02:02:00.000+08:00

From Yahoo News:

Author of Solaris Dies at 84

WARSAW, Poland - Stanislaw Lem, a science fiction writer whose novel "Solaris" was made into a movie starring George Clooney, died Monday in his native Poland, his secretary said. He was 84.

Lem died in a Krakow hospital from heart failure "connected to his old age," the secretary, Wojciech Zemek, told The Associated Press.

Lem was one of the most popular science fiction authors of recent decades to write in a language other than English, and his works were translated into more than 40 other languages. His books have sold 27 million copies.

His best-known work, "Solaris," was adapted into films by director Andrei Tarkovsky in 1972 and by Steven Soderbergh in 2002. That version starred George Clooney and Natascha McElhone.

His first important novel, "Hospital of the Transfiguration," was censored by communist authorities for eight years before its release in 1956 amid a thaw following the death of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Other works include "The Invincible," "The Cyberiad," "His Master's Voice," "The Star Diaries," "The Futurological Congress" and "Tales of Prix the Pilot."

Lem was born into a Polish Jewish family on Sept. 21, 1921, in Lviv, then a Polish city but now part of Ukraine.

His father was a doctor and he initially appeared set to follow in that path, taking up medical studies in Lviv before World War II.

After surviving the Nazi occupation, in part thanks to forged documents that concealed his Jewish background, Lem continued his medical studies in Krakow. Soon afterward, however, he took up writing science fiction.

Lem is survived by his wife and a son, Zemek said. Funeral arrangements were not disclosed.

Ten Percent

2006-03-24T03:50:00.001+08:00

Time's All-Time 100 Novels.

I've read only ten of them:

Blood Meridian - Cormac McCarthy's brutal western about a young boy who joins a band of scalphunters and they hunt Indians in Mexico. McCarthy's novels are composed of long stretches of contemplative, idyllic, philosophical scenes written in hypnotic, poetic prose and are often punctuated with beautifully written, unbelievably brutal, vivid scenes of violence. I admit that the violence and the fighting were what I was after in the first place, so it made the slogging through the "quiet" scenes worth it. I've come to appreciate the book as a whole through subsequent readings.

Catch-22 - Joseph Heller's classic novel set during WWII in Italy centers on a clause in the US Air Force contract which states that you can no longer go on flight missions and will eventually be discharged by the Army if you think you are going insane. But since only sane people can realize they're going insane, that means you're sane so you'll still have to go on missions. The entire novel has situations that resemble this logic. It's cynical, ironic, and funny and I admit that I didn't "get" it much when I first read it. Yeah I got most of the funny parts the first time but the cynicism and irony didn't hit me until I reread it some years later (when I was less stupid, I guess) which made the book funnier.

Catcher in the Rye - This J.D. Salinger novel was a required read back in 4th year high school and it bored me. Suffice to say that it didn't make much of a impression on me while most of my classmates were oohing and aahing at it.

A Clockwork Orange - Haven't seen the movie by Stanley Kubrick but Anthony Burgess' novel was awesome. Was greatly impressed with the way Burgess combined bits of Cockney English, Russian, and God knows what else language to create a new lexicon of slang.

Lord of the Flies - This novel by William Golding was a required read for a philosophy subject back in college but I only finished reading it a couple of years after college. I remember liking it but I don't remember much of it except that it's about a bunch of kids marooned on an island (a situation taken by Kinji Fukasaku to the extreme in his excellent Battle Royale) and has an apocalyptic ending. Sounds like it's up for a reread one of these days.

Lord of the Rings - Everyone knows all about these books by now. Liked it when I read it years ago, tried to reread the first book when the movie came out but it began to bore me. Guess I must've outgrown it. Not really a fan of the sword and sorcery type of fantasy anymore.
Neuromancer - William Gibson's seminal book set in a society which has become too dependent, even obsessed with technology. It started the cyberpunk movement and it's the novel wherein the term "cyberspace" was coined. And it has one of my favorite opening lines in a book ever: "The sky was the color of television, tuned to a dead channel."

1984 - George Orwell's scary novel about a totalitarian state where Big Brother is watching and knows all. Read this book and see facets of our present world reflected back at you.

Slaughterhouse-Five - This novel by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr. about a man unstuck in time (he's living his past, present and future simultaneously) is okay, but I prefer his apocalyptic Cat's Cradle. Still worth a read, though.

Watchmen - Written by Alan Moore and drawn by Dave Gibbons, Watchmen is the only graphic novel (or comic book) to be included in the list. One of the few comics work that can truly be called brilliant. It's an annual read of mine for everytime I read it, I discover something new about it.

Reprieve

2006-01-13T22:42:00.000+08:00

And so the deadline to Fully Booked's 1st Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards has been extended up until the end of February. That means I have less than a week or so to bug perennial collaborator and artist of choice Allen and convince (or browbeat) him to draw the story. He signed on to this venture back in early December but had to beg off due to an increased workload in his ad jobs.

First things first, though, I still have to finish writing the story in full script. Broke down my treatment of the story into panels and pages just before Christmas but hit a wall when I realized I still had to do a bit of research (the story being a piece of historical fiction set in early 17th century Manila and starring a samurai). Add to that good pal and artist supreme Allen's departure from the project and the then-looming end of January deadline led me to figure that it could never be done in time even if I were to find a new artist so I held off completing the script.

We roughly have six and a half weeks to complete the damn thing. I have until the end of next week to finish writing the script and hand it to Allen to hopefully convince him to get back into the project. From there he'll have five weeks or so to draw the entire 12-page story.

It sounds quite easy, no?

Hah. I wish.

Enlightenment

2005-11-25T04:39:00.000+08:00

Finally got my hands on the 4-disc Infernal Affairs trilogy boxed set courtesy of my kumpareng balikbayan.

I've seen all three movies before (I own pirated DVDs of the two sequels) but now I can finally understand what the hell they're saying in the first movie. Infernal Affairs 1 I saw a couple of times in the Japanese Wowow channel without english subtitles. Hopefully, the characters' dialogues in the film will be way better than the, uh, dialogue that ran through my mind while watching the un-translated version. Certainly, it'll be less retarded than my dialogue.

Natural Selection at Work

2005-11-22T05:21:00.000+08:00

Found this in Noel Vera's blog:

"After I asked the nurse to leave us, the patient permitted me to remove his trousers, shorts, and two or three yards of foul-smelling, stained gauze wrapped about his scrotum, which was swollen to twice the size of a grapefruit and extremely tender. A jagged zig-zag laceration, oozing pus and blood, extended down the left scrotum.

Amid the matted hair, edematous skin, and various exudates, I saw some half-buried dark linear objects and asked the patient what they were. Several days earlier, he replied, he had injured himself in the machine shop where he worked, and had closed the laceration himself with a heavy-duty stapling gun. The dark objects were one-inch staples of the type used in putting up wallboard...

An unmarried loner, he usually didn't leave the machine shop at lunchtime with his co-workers. Finding himself alone, he had begun the regular practice of masturbating by holding his penis against the canvas drive-belt of a large floor-based piece of running machinery. One day, as he approached orgasm, he lost his concentration and leaned too close to the belt. When his scrotum suddenly became caught between the pulley-wheel and the drive-belt, he was thrown into the air and landed a few feet away. Unaware that he had lost his left testis, and perhaps too stunned to feel much pain, he stapled the wound closed and resumed work.

I can only assume he abandoned this method of self-gratification."

Back from the grave

2005-10-30T04:46:00.000+08:00

Recently learned from Dean Alfar's blog about Fully Booked's forthcoming 1st Philippine Graphic/Fiction Awards. It is a writing contest and it's set to launch within the next few days. It has two categories, one for comics and one for prose genre fiction (scifi/fantasy). As Mr. Alfar reported, author Neil Gaiman has pledged $15,000 for the top prize. Or prizes since I reckon that it would be divided between the two categories. Was talking with Etchie about it earlier in YM and he said that winning just a thousand of that pot prize would be enough for him. So I guess if he joins and wins the contest, I'll leave him with the thousand and run off with the rest. Hehe.

Needless to say, I'm sorely tempted to join in the comics category. While exact details of the contest are yet to be released and the deadline's mid-December, there's no harm in preparing for it this early. I'll have to go through my notebooks and review some of the ideas I've scribbled through the years and have been gathering dust and see which ones are fit enough to be brought back so that my brain could start playing with them again. And of course I can always invite my muse over, hogtie her and threaten to reenact with her one of the deadlier scenes in Deadwood unless she gives me a dozen brilliant ideas or two.

I've been in a bit of a roll the past few days in the writing department. Started writing a script for a short comics story that I'll submit to a minicomic anthology and started polishing and fixing up a prose story that I stumbled upon one of my older notebooks.

I just hope that this momentum won't crash into a dead halt and instead pick up steam in the next few weeks or so.

Fortress of Decrepitude

2005-07-27T00:42:00.000+08:00

Finally went home to the condo in Cubao. I still am enjoying my "vacation" at my parents' house in Sta. Mesa but one thing made me come back home to this little bachelor's pad/office ASAP: CSI's 2 hour season ender directed by Quentin Tarantino will air this Wednesday on AXN. And since they don't have AXN in Sta. Mesa and I have it here, well... 'nuff said.

While I was away from this place for some months, the toilet and bathroom got dirty (duh). No, dirty is too soft a word for it. It degenerated. The floor, heck the entire room has turned into one stinking quagmire. Not just-splotches-of-dirt-on-one-corner-of-the-floor dirty but muck-encrusted-and-Oh-my-God-did-that-small-pool-of-goo-just-try-to-grab-my-leg dirty. And one drawback of living alone is I have to go and clean all that stuff up lest it turns into a new primordial ooze and the first of the earth's new creatures walk out of it.

Empty

2004-09-12T04:37:00.000+08:00

A week or so ago, I received a text message from Etchie notifying me that he has linked to this here blog over at his blog. Never mind that this said blog is empty, he says, he just has to link to it. I don't mean for it to sound like he's desperate to put up a link, least of all to this Godforsaken shithole of a blog. I don't think so. You see, he's been pestering me for months to join him in this blogging thing. I told him that I'd rather read online journals than write one. I'm that other kind of pervert; more voyeur than exhibitionist. It's just one of his passively devious ways to get me to write something, anything on this Godforsaken shithole of a blog.

Hence this post.

And yeah that's one point to you, Etchie.

Gah.

Note to self: Consider changing the blog title to Godforsaken Shithole of a Blog.