i would never presume to know enough about politics to blog about it in any way that makes sense, my rants about anarchy notwithstanding. (well. those just prove my point, don't they?) but today's events had me nursing a sullen rage as i sat at my work station all fucking day.
let's speak no more of it here, shall we?
instead, why don't you mosey on over to Nontrivial Pursuit and let my friend E. Cross Saltire tell you things about it:
http://nontrivialpursuit.blogspot.com
on the spinner: Nine Inch Nails, Year Zero.
*
done with Alabaster. i wouldn't argue with the author herself, i'm sure reading it her way would provide a very different but nonetheless delightful experience; still, i strongly suggest reading these stories in the order in which they are presented. in this order, the narrative of Dancy Flammarion's life feels just that bit more off-kilter, disjointed like some abandoned, trampled myrmecine husk, more alienating and yet also more immediate; more akin, perhaps, to the reality in her head--just that bit stranger, more obscure, more mysterious. each fiery 'chapter' goes down like a shot of Green Fairy Tequila(tm), and moving backwards and forwards through and between them gives the book the heft and feel of some Goth Epic Tarantino concoction.
right. i seriously need to chill now.
28.11.07
strange little girl
three stories through Alabaster. a couple left, and then the afterword. i've been reading the stories in the sequence of publication--the sequence as presented in this collection--rather than by the alternate table of contents Ms Kiernan provides, which lets you know 'which happened first'. although following the fictional chronology is Kiernan's preferred reading order, i rather like the suggestion of this strange little girl being disinherited from time...and i like the idea that i might be discovering things about Dancy the way Ms Kiernan did.
though i always itch to get out of the office, i haven't done so out of the desire to read a particular book in a while. this, of course, is a good thing.
right. i'm off to drop some text i originally wrote for this blog onto the other life, where it just seems more appropriate, and then it's back between the sheets...and into the pages with that strange little girl.
though i always itch to get out of the office, i haven't done so out of the desire to read a particular book in a while. this, of course, is a good thing.
right. i'm off to drop some text i originally wrote for this blog onto the other life, where it just seems more appropriate, and then it's back between the sheets...and into the pages with that strange little girl.
27.11.07
oh yes...
...because i think the world needs more of this sort of thing, or maybe it doesn't and we just don't hear about it enough:
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/search/label/unusual%20things%20that%20happen%20at%20signings
and
http://diveabout.multiply.com/journal/item/13/The_Proposal_co_Neil_Gaiman
as a friend of mine puts it, 'pucha naman o, raising the bar too high.'
good thing i'm done with all that then.
http://journal.neilgaiman.com/search/label/unusual%20things%20that%20happen%20at%20signings
and
http://diveabout.multiply.com/journal/item/13/The_Proposal_co_Neil_Gaiman
as a friend of mine puts it, 'pucha naman o, raising the bar too high.'
good thing i'm done with all that then.
some witty reference to albinos and valets
i took a break from writing the novel today, having finished the second draft yesterday. but not from writing per se, not entirely. waking up at 3am and unable to get back to sleep, i reworked the end of a story i'd written a month or two before i even began thinking of writing a novel. this had the effect of revealing to me just how uneven a skill with words i've developed. and, more damaging, how unsuited i am to writing a novel. not that i write good short stories all the time, or even most of the time, but that with a novel the caprice of my writing hand has more room, more space to get the better of me, which, more often than not--at least as evidenced by my first arguably successful attempt at it (i've got two 'complete' drafts, after all, whatever their faults)--it does.
currently reading Caitlin Kiernan's Alabaster. Jeff Smith's Bone had given me back a taste for straight-up fantasy i haven't had in a while, and Kiernan's delightfully whimsical creepiness suits me just fine at the moment. i've also been reading Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach, James Salter's Light Years, and P.G. Wodehouse's Carry On, Jeeves, but Alabaster has the bonus of being a relatively light and handy hardback that had been pre-wrapped in what i assume to be acid-free plastic by Page One, making it rather easier to read than even the smaller paperbacks (i have disgustingly sweaty palms, which makes handling paperbacks a bit unwieldy, owing to the bandana i have to use for 'protection'--i once wiped out an entire eighth of a page of text thanks to the awful combination of crappy printer's ink and sweat--before i could read it*)...i suppose that should give you an idea of where i'm at when it comes to reading right now.
i should like to finish Alabaster before i come home. and, come to think of it, Carry On, Jeeves. i think Mabel might get a kick out of them. (she, for anyone who'd like to know, is currently about a quarter of the way through her second or third reading of The Sandman.)
and on that note--slow reader that i am, i've got my work cut out for me--i'm off to bed with that crazy albino chick.
*this may or may not have happened. but it could happen, couldn't it?
currently reading Caitlin Kiernan's Alabaster. Jeff Smith's Bone had given me back a taste for straight-up fantasy i haven't had in a while, and Kiernan's delightfully whimsical creepiness suits me just fine at the moment. i've also been reading Douglas Hofstadter's Godel, Escher, Bach, James Salter's Light Years, and P.G. Wodehouse's Carry On, Jeeves, but Alabaster has the bonus of being a relatively light and handy hardback that had been pre-wrapped in what i assume to be acid-free plastic by Page One, making it rather easier to read than even the smaller paperbacks (i have disgustingly sweaty palms, which makes handling paperbacks a bit unwieldy, owing to the bandana i have to use for 'protection'--i once wiped out an entire eighth of a page of text thanks to the awful combination of crappy printer's ink and sweat--before i could read it*)...i suppose that should give you an idea of where i'm at when it comes to reading right now.
i should like to finish Alabaster before i come home. and, come to think of it, Carry On, Jeeves. i think Mabel might get a kick out of them. (she, for anyone who'd like to know, is currently about a quarter of the way through her second or third reading of The Sandman.)
and on that note--slow reader that i am, i've got my work cut out for me--i'm off to bed with that crazy albino chick.
*this may or may not have happened. but it could happen, couldn't it?
23.11.07
a-chronicity, or anachronicity, or anachronology, or something
it had been a long time since i'd last regretted turning the last page of a book for nothing but the right reasons. then Jeff Smith's Bone reset the marker. two days and counting...i'm rarely a straight-up optimist, but i find myself enthusiastically wondering whence the next absotively wonderrific reading experience will come? perhaps the next time i turn Bone's last page...
*
a sure sign that a lot of time has passed is when events start getting jumbled up in my head. on second thought, no, i suppose that never takes more than a few days, but there you go. numbers rarely help, but sometimes they do. for instance: the time from about midway through 2005 to the beginning of this year, 2007, seems to have been the most progressive period in my life thus far. the past two years have been rather eventful, though the past few months have seen me, well, catching up with myself, i suppose. or, when i'm feeling pessimistic, only getting left behind.
it occurred to me just now that, yes, it has been that long, and it happened when i realized that the man who inspired me to begin this journey in the first place is currently back home, potentially inspiring a whole new batch of schmucks and schmoes like me to pack their bags and follow their dreams wherever they may lead. and, hopefully, a few bastards and bastardesses with real talent as well. while me, i'm stuck here, alone, blogging from nowhere.
was it ever a good idea? even now it's hard to tell. answering one set of 'what-ifs' only spawns more 'what-ifs'. but if i were to allow myself any regret, well, best not to think about that, i suppose.
on the final stretch of the second draft of Spooky. barring one less-than-mediocre short story and a thousand words or so of failed pornography, practically all of my writing mind in the last three months has been dedicated to trying to get this thing to work. and while the second draft is, imho, a vast improvement on the first, i'm finding myself increasingly convinced i'm unequal to the task.
as some bloke over at Uncle Zip's Window pointed out, it's probably the most devastating, insulting, and yet necessary question to ask anyone who's ever had the hubris to pick up a pen (or word processor) and make stuff up: maybe i'm not a writer.
and then i sigh. shove the sleeves past my bony elbows. crack my knuckles. play a few rounds of solitaire. and write.
what else can i call myself now?
*
a sure sign that a lot of time has passed is when events start getting jumbled up in my head. on second thought, no, i suppose that never takes more than a few days, but there you go. numbers rarely help, but sometimes they do. for instance: the time from about midway through 2005 to the beginning of this year, 2007, seems to have been the most progressive period in my life thus far. the past two years have been rather eventful, though the past few months have seen me, well, catching up with myself, i suppose. or, when i'm feeling pessimistic, only getting left behind.
it occurred to me just now that, yes, it has been that long, and it happened when i realized that the man who inspired me to begin this journey in the first place is currently back home, potentially inspiring a whole new batch of schmucks and schmoes like me to pack their bags and follow their dreams wherever they may lead. and, hopefully, a few bastards and bastardesses with real talent as well. while me, i'm stuck here, alone, blogging from nowhere.
was it ever a good idea? even now it's hard to tell. answering one set of 'what-ifs' only spawns more 'what-ifs'. but if i were to allow myself any regret, well, best not to think about that, i suppose.
on the final stretch of the second draft of Spooky. barring one less-than-mediocre short story and a thousand words or so of failed pornography, practically all of my writing mind in the last three months has been dedicated to trying to get this thing to work. and while the second draft is, imho, a vast improvement on the first, i'm finding myself increasingly convinced i'm unequal to the task.
as some bloke over at Uncle Zip's Window pointed out, it's probably the most devastating, insulting, and yet necessary question to ask anyone who's ever had the hubris to pick up a pen (or word processor) and make stuff up: maybe i'm not a writer.
and then i sigh. shove the sleeves past my bony elbows. crack my knuckles. play a few rounds of solitaire. and write.
what else can i call myself now?
16.11.07
dry heat
just got home from Beowulf. i've never liked CG when it's used to depict 'real' people; even done with motion capture, it never looks right to me. there's a strange foreshortening effect on anatomy, a subtle wrong-ness to movements i seem to be particularly sensitive to despite the graphics having started out real-time anyway, a certain deadness to faces--Anthony Hopkins, for one, couldn't seem to get much through the pixel-juice mask, though his line delivery was typically brilliant. it's all very displacing when it isn't meant to be, shouldn't be. 'toonish' CG folks such as the Pixarians--The Incredibles, Linguini and Collette, for instance--make much more sense in my head. i suppose that was at least partly to blame for the fact that the opening scenes of Beowulf had me shaking my head, mumbling 'uh-oh' repeatedly to myself. thankfully, either the graphics team or my head eventually started pulling things together more or less seamlessly (albeit not perfectly), and i ended up more or less perfectly happy with what i'd just seen.
i would have liked to see Stardust and Beowulf back to back. in my head they make nice endpieces on the spectrum of 'epic' fantasty in cinema. (though of course Stardust isn't epic, but let's not mince words here. i'm sure someone out there must see what i mean.)
there're a few things here and there i could link to--like this article from The New Scientist which seems suggestive of the solution to the problem of 'Is God male or female?'--and a few other things i could ramble about--like how after ten months i believe i've finally genuinely developed homesickness--but instead i think i'll just drop this quote, picked up from this review of Viktor Shklovsky's Energy of Delusion at The Guardian--it's from Tolstoy, on the writing of Anna Karenina:
Chris had already found another way of looking at it, by way of a Marcus von Altenburg--i suppose she means Eva Ibbotson's A Song for Summer. read the quote here:
http://ficsation.blogspot.com/2007/11/advice.html
i'll figure out which might apply to Spooky in the morning. if i can get myself out of bed.
i would have liked to see Stardust and Beowulf back to back. in my head they make nice endpieces on the spectrum of 'epic' fantasty in cinema. (though of course Stardust isn't epic, but let's not mince words here. i'm sure someone out there must see what i mean.)
there're a few things here and there i could link to--like this article from The New Scientist which seems suggestive of the solution to the problem of 'Is God male or female?'--and a few other things i could ramble about--like how after ten months i believe i've finally genuinely developed homesickness--but instead i think i'll just drop this quote, picked up from this review of Viktor Shklovsky's Energy of Delusion at The Guardian--it's from Tolstoy, on the writing of Anna Karenina:
"...everything seems to be ready for the writing - for fulfilling my earthly duty, what's missing is the urge to believe in myself, the belief in the importance of my task, I'm lacking the energy of delusion."
Chris had already found another way of looking at it, by way of a Marcus von Altenburg--i suppose she means Eva Ibbotson's A Song for Summer. read the quote here:
http://ficsation.blogspot.com/2007/11/advice.html
i'll figure out which might apply to Spooky in the morning. if i can get myself out of bed.
12.11.07
vaguely manhatten-y
just wanted to pop by to say there's a vaguely mushroom-y cloud hanging on the horizon out my window, underlit with a deep red that's staining the sky, subtley flickery. it reminds me of a still from one of those manhatten project high-speed film reel captures, one of the ones before the cloud actually mushrooms and all you have are a few low stratospheric condensations and an expanding sphere of light except it isn't expanding and it's all done in midnight-y red rather than black and very white.
that is all. now back to my chlorpheniramine high.
that is all. now back to my chlorpheniramine high.
got riget?
a moment ago i figured i'd drop by the other life, drop a few comments on the first ep of Lars Von Trier's The Kingdom which i'd just finished watching before this head cold (or the first generation antihistamine i took last night, which always puts me out of commission for at least three days) got the best of me, dragged me off to bed with its arch viral gravity and Maelstrom 2'd my head onto the pillow. quite possibly with a satisfying thwop.
too late. i'm halfway there.
suffice to say The Kingdom (i.e., Riget, as it is more properly called according to imdb or some other site...'struth, just googled it, and it comes onscreen after the jarringly dated opening-credits-sequence-thingum before breaking apart like cheap styrofoam or plyboard and bleeding what looks like sewer water or dirty laundry water sans detergent or some other appropriately probably artificially colored water all over the place) is of a totally different species of television from Stephen King's bastard Kingdom Hospital. 'sfar as i can tell so far anyway. no annoying talking anteater for one thing. plus, being shot digital means this show's got grits Mr King's crew turned into smoothies on that other show.
it'll all make sense by morning, he tells hisself. or by next blog post anyway.
right. to bed.
too late. i'm halfway there.
suffice to say The Kingdom (i.e., Riget, as it is more properly called according to imdb or some other site...'struth, just googled it, and it comes onscreen after the jarringly dated opening-credits-sequence-thingum before breaking apart like cheap styrofoam or plyboard and bleeding what looks like sewer water or dirty laundry water sans detergent or some other appropriately probably artificially colored water all over the place) is of a totally different species of television from Stephen King's bastard Kingdom Hospital. 'sfar as i can tell so far anyway. no annoying talking anteater for one thing. plus, being shot digital means this show's got grits Mr King's crew turned into smoothies on that other show.
it'll all make sense by morning, he tells hisself. or by next blog post anyway.
right. to bed.
8.11.07
home for the holidays?
sigh. i'd meant to get an early day in to get some of the novel done, but holidays inspire lassitude. it's 10 a.m. now and i've just managed to peel myself off the bed.
it's Deepavali, which suggests to my mind--erroneously or not--that 1) the Indian population of Spore City must be predominantly South Indian, 2) it would probably be a good idea to avoid places dominated by Indians today, unless I feel like soaking up some culture--which--as sociopathic as all this suggests--i don't. i just want to find someplace i can write. and 3), to put it briefly and inaccurately, time is a social contract. happy new year.
the landlord's grandson has me worried; i should know better but really i don't. it's probably nothing. the boy was born about a week before i arrived, which makes him a good eight-plus-probably-nine months now, and his most common verbalization is a high-pitched shriek. what worries me about it is how monotonous it is; it doesn't vary at all, almost like the singular call of some flightless bird. but it's probably nothing. there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with his hearing, and he seems to interact appropriately with his surroundings, he's already started walking a bit, smiles adorably--er, socially--and he does babble every now and then. it's probably nothing, although learning last night that my friend Klur's five month old Sophia now says 'mama', and has been saying 'papa' for quite some time now, had me wondering even more. but it's all probably nothing.
good God, i'm going to be one of those paranoid dads, aren't i?
still listening to Iron & Wine and Devendra Banhart, and i've just piled library copies of M. John Harrison's Signs of Life, P.G. Wodehouse's The Code of the Woosters and the Pocket Penguin Jeeves and the Impending Doom, and Anton Chekhov's The Kiss (also Pocket Penguin) on top of the stack of books i'd planned on getting through before making another trip to the bookstore--or the library. oops.
i'd mistakenly indicated that i'd gotten through two-thirds of the first series of Jeeves & Wooster, when in fact i was four-fifths of the way through the series because there are only five episodes in the series, not six as i'd initially thought. so i'm done with the first series, and look forward to the second. most certainly, sir.
10:29. right. time i tried to get something done.
it's Deepavali, which suggests to my mind--erroneously or not--that 1) the Indian population of Spore City must be predominantly South Indian, 2) it would probably be a good idea to avoid places dominated by Indians today, unless I feel like soaking up some culture--which--as sociopathic as all this suggests--i don't. i just want to find someplace i can write. and 3), to put it briefly and inaccurately, time is a social contract. happy new year.
the landlord's grandson has me worried; i should know better but really i don't. it's probably nothing. the boy was born about a week before i arrived, which makes him a good eight-plus-probably-nine months now, and his most common verbalization is a high-pitched shriek. what worries me about it is how monotonous it is; it doesn't vary at all, almost like the singular call of some flightless bird. but it's probably nothing. there doesn't appear to be anything wrong with his hearing, and he seems to interact appropriately with his surroundings, he's already started walking a bit, smiles adorably--er, socially--and he does babble every now and then. it's probably nothing, although learning last night that my friend Klur's five month old Sophia now says 'mama', and has been saying 'papa' for quite some time now, had me wondering even more. but it's all probably nothing.
good God, i'm going to be one of those paranoid dads, aren't i?
still listening to Iron & Wine and Devendra Banhart, and i've just piled library copies of M. John Harrison's Signs of Life, P.G. Wodehouse's The Code of the Woosters and the Pocket Penguin Jeeves and the Impending Doom, and Anton Chekhov's The Kiss (also Pocket Penguin) on top of the stack of books i'd planned on getting through before making another trip to the bookstore--or the library. oops.
i'd mistakenly indicated that i'd gotten through two-thirds of the first series of Jeeves & Wooster, when in fact i was four-fifths of the way through the series because there are only five episodes in the series, not six as i'd initially thought. so i'm done with the first series, and look forward to the second. most certainly, sir.
10:29. right. time i tried to get something done.
6.11.07
Pornography on hold
all one/two of you (depending on the weather, one should expect. as in, 'whether or not you've got me standing behind you with a gun in my hand pointed at your head'. er. trust me, it's much better heard than read. and no, that's not a guarantee.) who've been following this blog will have noticed the disappearance of 2 November's 'Corn!' post. i'd been having trouble with the blog since i put that up direct from Tickle, and though i was happy to learn i was Children of the Corn (despite the crappy ending), i'm rather glad to be rid of it as Blogger's being much more cooperative now, thank you very much.
i am now two-thirds of the way through the first series (that's 'season' to the rest of us--to cut down on the anglophilia that has been running rampant throughout this blog, what with all the Whovianism, not to mention last night's Bonfire Night post and, well, this one) of Clive Exton's Jeeves & Wooster. Wodehouse has always been on my list of 'books to read before i die', but he just kept getting bumped-off on account of me losing track of the one or two Jeeves books i have whenever i feel like reading them, and me feeling like reading something else whenever they're someplace i can find them. of course, hereabouts they are nowhere at hand. they're no doubt to be found chuckling away at the bottom of one of the boxes all the way back home.
(you can watch the entire series--or maybe only most of it, i haven't checked--online at youtube, or, better yet--for the moneyed and more morally restrained knuts out there--purchase the DVDs.)
Fry & Laurie are always a hoot. though nothing quite beats Python, eh?
i wish i could write funny. (funny ha-ha, of course, the other kind being much too broad in definition to decisively 'do wrong'.) i happen to think i can be a pretty funny guy given half the chance, but i just can't seem to do funny (ha-ha) with my writing. i can do grotesque, right enough; i can just about verge on camp, even. but i don't think i've ever quite gotten things right for 'funny'.
sigh. someday. just another one of those things, then.
meanwhile, i've lopped off the latter end (about half, in fact) of Spooky. i think i have a better idea now of *the way things really happened*; hopefully i won't make a muck-up of it this time. though i doubt i can repeat the feverish pace i managed in the month i wrote the first draft. even if it is NaNoWriMo.
which also means, unfortunately, for the one of you who's been looking forward to it, that i'm going to have to put Pornography on hold for a while. i'm sure Zazie won't mind.
i am now two-thirds of the way through the first series (that's 'season' to the rest of us--to cut down on the anglophilia that has been running rampant throughout this blog, what with all the Whovianism, not to mention last night's Bonfire Night post and, well, this one) of Clive Exton's Jeeves & Wooster. Wodehouse has always been on my list of 'books to read before i die', but he just kept getting bumped-off on account of me losing track of the one or two Jeeves books i have whenever i feel like reading them, and me feeling like reading something else whenever they're someplace i can find them. of course, hereabouts they are nowhere at hand. they're no doubt to be found chuckling away at the bottom of one of the boxes all the way back home.
(you can watch the entire series--or maybe only most of it, i haven't checked--online at youtube, or, better yet--for the moneyed and more morally restrained knuts out there--purchase the DVDs.)
Fry & Laurie are always a hoot. though nothing quite beats Python, eh?
i wish i could write funny. (funny ha-ha, of course, the other kind being much too broad in definition to decisively 'do wrong'.) i happen to think i can be a pretty funny guy given half the chance, but i just can't seem to do funny (ha-ha) with my writing. i can do grotesque, right enough; i can just about verge on camp, even. but i don't think i've ever quite gotten things right for 'funny'.
sigh. someday. just another one of those things, then.
meanwhile, i've lopped off the latter end (about half, in fact) of Spooky. i think i have a better idea now of *the way things really happened*; hopefully i won't make a muck-up of it this time. though i doubt i can repeat the feverish pace i managed in the month i wrote the first draft. even if it is NaNoWriMo.
which also means, unfortunately, for the one of you who's been looking forward to it, that i'm going to have to put Pornography on hold for a while. i'm sure Zazie won't mind.
5.11.07
remember, remember
i'd meant to find something cool to put on here for bonfire night, something appropriate, preferrably anarchic; but i didn't really feel like blogging, or spending too much time on google, so instead, here are some bunny suicides:
also here, sans my chemical romance:
http://www.retrocomputing.net/racconti/umor/coniglio/pandora.beptuui.html
and some 'exclusive cartoons' at The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/gallery/2007/oct/18/bunny.suicides?picture=331009540
thank you, Andy Riley.
on the spinner: Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, Devendra Banhart and The Shepherd's Dog, Iron and Wine.
also here, sans my chemical romance:
http://www.retrocomputing.net/racconti/umor/coniglio/pandora.beptuui.html
and some 'exclusive cartoons' at The Guardian:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/gallery/2007/oct/18/bunny.suicides?picture=331009540
thank you, Andy Riley.
on the spinner: Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon, Devendra Banhart and The Shepherd's Dog, Iron and Wine.
3.11.07
Mishka and Johnny
just in the mail, from the folks at the Johnny Alegre AFFINITY Yahoo!group:
the absolutely lovely Mishka can be found online at http://www.mishkaadams.com/, the Johnny Alegre AFFINITY are over at http://affinity.i.ph/, and you can order their CDs online through the Candid Records website, http://www.candidrecords.com/.
as a kind of experiment to see how it takes, i've uploaded Johnny Alegre AFFINITY's gig sched for November onto a public folder on esnips.
i knew they wouldn't, but i was hoping both Mishka and AFFINITY would launch their albums while i was home, or maybe some copies would hit the shelves a couple months before the actual release date, as i've seen happen before. no such luck.
i just got back, and already things are piling up to make me regret having decided not to come home this December. i almost wish The Nightmare Before Christmas 3-D *won't* play at the IMAX theater back home while i'm away--or have i missed it already? sigh. ah well.
(meanwhile, i have ostensibly started up the other life again, with a rather long-winded post that does nothing to review the books i'm currently reading. ah well.)
...we will be highlighting this year on December 14, 2007 at the annual
Candid Jazz Festival. This will be a very special event as Candid Records
Philippines launches two albums:
MISHKA ADAMS’ amazing new album that she recorded in England,
entitled“SPACE”. Her new material is absolutely stunning and she is immaculately
accompanied by and interplayed with by some of the finest jazz musicians from
the U.K.
And the second album of the Johnny Alegre AFFINITY (with GerardSalonga’s
Global Studio Orchestra) entitled “EASTERN SKIES” featuring Johnny Alegre
(guitar/compositions), Tots Tolentino (saxophones) ,Colby dela Calzada (bass),
Koko Bermejo (drums), Joey Quirino (piano)and the outstanding big band and
symphonic arrangements of RiaVillena-Osorio. The twin launch event will be held
at the TeatrinoTheater and Bar in Greenhills.
the absolutely lovely Mishka can be found online at http://www.mishkaadams.com/, the Johnny Alegre AFFINITY are over at http://affinity.i.ph/, and you can order their CDs online through the Candid Records website, http://www.candidrecords.com/.
as a kind of experiment to see how it takes, i've uploaded Johnny Alegre AFFINITY's gig sched for November onto a public folder on esnips.
i knew they wouldn't, but i was hoping both Mishka and AFFINITY would launch their albums while i was home, or maybe some copies would hit the shelves a couple months before the actual release date, as i've seen happen before. no such luck.
i just got back, and already things are piling up to make me regret having decided not to come home this December. i almost wish The Nightmare Before Christmas 3-D *won't* play at the IMAX theater back home while i'm away--or have i missed it already? sigh. ah well.
(meanwhile, i have ostensibly started up the other life again, with a rather long-winded post that does nothing to review the books i'm currently reading. ah well.)
1.11.07
gang aft agley
this is all a bit late, but...
it was all good fun, but looking back i can't help but feel a bit disappointed with the way things went down at the SF writers' forum at New Worlds 5. admittedly, i wasn't very much help--hell, i suppose that's an understatement--but as soon as it started, it was evident that the forum would be embroiled in the same things writers back home tend to find themselves wallowing in all the time anyway, which has a lot to do with wading through definitions. to be fair, again, it really was fun, and rather educational, too, particularly with the arrival of U.P. Prof Emil Flores, but i can't help but feel the couple hours spent wrassling (or trying to wrassle) the concept of 'SF' down could have been spent in other ways.
this was New Worlds 5, after all. if we're still wading through definitions now, what were the last 4 about?
the SF enthusiast in me can't help but think we could have had a much more fruitful discussion with issues like 'who would win in a fight--the Daleks or the Borg?', or 'what's the best way to travel through Time and Space?', or, perhaps a little more currentsy, 'what would happen if Sylar met a Cylon? or the Doctor?' and 'what would Mr Bennett do about it?'
the forum, however, did stay clear of the much overdone 'what is Filipino SF?'
and still, i'm glad i got to be there.
Q's comments on publishing stuff that take a decidedly Borgesian approach to fiction back home had me shaking my head though. mainly because i knew he was absolutely right.
*
i'm currently contemplating starting up the other life again, if only to complain about how Alison MacLeod's The Wave Theory of Angels puts my pitiful attempt at a novel to shame.
so it's back to the drawing board with spukhafte ferwirkungen, Sehnsucht, vom Geist der Schwere. sigh.
*
i can't remember if i watched The Crow last Halloween (i.e., 'ween 2006)--a little ritual i started for myself back in med school--but i definitely didn't this year. i'm a little put out for not having done anything Halloweenish this year--though i did attend a Halloween party with my friends from my first job as Sylar (that's 'dressed up as Sylar for the party' and not 'my first job when i was working as Sylar'. i was feeling lazy.) and i did wear my Jack-Skellington-heads tie to work on the 31st.
but i must be growing old. i don't really mind as much as i'm bitching.
what really got to me Halloween night was finding out they jazzed-up The Daily Show website, currently running on Beta, and now i can't watch any of the vids. grumble grumble.
yes, i am getting old.
*
the big thing for me thing i hinted at a couple posts back is shaping up into something. but i'd rather not give it away until i'm absolutely sure it's happening. fingers crossed things don't go gang aft agley.
latest thing on the spinner: Wildlife, Pupil.
enjoyed, during my vacation: Matthew Vaughn's Stardust, finding a copy of Lawrence Durrel's Alexandria Quartet, not having to work, and [cheese alert] being with Mabel a lot.
did *not* enjoy: The Seeker: The Dark is Rising. dammit, even Chris Eccleston sucked in that movie. sorry, Mr Eccleston.
am very uncertain about Heroes 2. only the Noah Bennett/Mohinder and Parkman/Parkman/Walker plot threads have any real hold on me, and Nathan Petrelli does seem a more interesting character this season, but am really getting tired of all that 'holy crap i have superpowers! what's it all mean?!?' malarkey, which i was never too keen on--despite being ostensibly necessary back then--with the first season anyway.
the ordinary folks continue to be more engaging as characters than the allegedly 'more evolved' types.
right. i'm off to either Wave Theory or the Inland Empire DVD extras. i haven't decided yet.
it was all good fun, but looking back i can't help but feel a bit disappointed with the way things went down at the SF writers' forum at New Worlds 5. admittedly, i wasn't very much help--hell, i suppose that's an understatement--but as soon as it started, it was evident that the forum would be embroiled in the same things writers back home tend to find themselves wallowing in all the time anyway, which has a lot to do with wading through definitions. to be fair, again, it really was fun, and rather educational, too, particularly with the arrival of U.P. Prof Emil Flores, but i can't help but feel the couple hours spent wrassling (or trying to wrassle) the concept of 'SF' down could have been spent in other ways.
this was New Worlds 5, after all. if we're still wading through definitions now, what were the last 4 about?
the SF enthusiast in me can't help but think we could have had a much more fruitful discussion with issues like 'who would win in a fight--the Daleks or the Borg?', or 'what's the best way to travel through Time and Space?', or, perhaps a little more currentsy, 'what would happen if Sylar met a Cylon? or the Doctor?' and 'what would Mr Bennett do about it?'
the forum, however, did stay clear of the much overdone 'what is Filipino SF?'
and still, i'm glad i got to be there.
Q's comments on publishing stuff that take a decidedly Borgesian approach to fiction back home had me shaking my head though. mainly because i knew he was absolutely right.
*
i'm currently contemplating starting up the other life again, if only to complain about how Alison MacLeod's The Wave Theory of Angels puts my pitiful attempt at a novel to shame.
so it's back to the drawing board with spukhafte ferwirkungen, Sehnsucht, vom Geist der Schwere. sigh.
*
i can't remember if i watched The Crow last Halloween (i.e., 'ween 2006)--a little ritual i started for myself back in med school--but i definitely didn't this year. i'm a little put out for not having done anything Halloweenish this year--though i did attend a Halloween party with my friends from my first job as Sylar (that's 'dressed up as Sylar for the party' and not 'my first job when i was working as Sylar'. i was feeling lazy.) and i did wear my Jack-Skellington-heads tie to work on the 31st.
but i must be growing old. i don't really mind as much as i'm bitching.
what really got to me Halloween night was finding out they jazzed-up The Daily Show website, currently running on Beta, and now i can't watch any of the vids. grumble grumble.
yes, i am getting old.
*
the big thing for me thing i hinted at a couple posts back is shaping up into something. but i'd rather not give it away until i'm absolutely sure it's happening. fingers crossed things don't go gang aft agley.
latest thing on the spinner: Wildlife, Pupil.
enjoyed, during my vacation: Matthew Vaughn's Stardust, finding a copy of Lawrence Durrel's Alexandria Quartet, not having to work, and [cheese alert] being with Mabel a lot.
did *not* enjoy: The Seeker: The Dark is Rising. dammit, even Chris Eccleston sucked in that movie. sorry, Mr Eccleston.
am very uncertain about Heroes 2. only the Noah Bennett/Mohinder and Parkman/Parkman/Walker plot threads have any real hold on me, and Nathan Petrelli does seem a more interesting character this season, but am really getting tired of all that 'holy crap i have superpowers! what's it all mean?!?' malarkey, which i was never too keen on--despite being ostensibly necessary back then--with the first season anyway.
the ordinary folks continue to be more engaging as characters than the allegedly 'more evolved' types.
right. i'm off to either Wave Theory or the Inland Empire DVD extras. i haven't decided yet.
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