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.
Sunday, April 30, 2006
Thursday, March 30, 2006
Infinite Ended
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
R.I.P.: Stanislaw Lem
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.
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.
Friday, March 24, 2006
Ten Percent
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.
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.
Friday, January 13, 2006
Reprieve
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.
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.
Friday, November 25, 2005
Enlightenment
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.
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.
Tuesday, November 22, 2005
Natural Selection at Work
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."
"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."
Sunday, October 30, 2005
Back from the grave
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.
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.
Wednesday, July 27, 2005
Fortress of Decrepitude
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.
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.
Sunday, September 12, 2004
Empty
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.
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.
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