Cinderella in Combat Boots

Bottled Book Scents?

2012-02-26T23:36:00.000+08:00

Time for this week’s doodle! :)

BOOK SCENTS. If I could bottle all the scents of books—the new smell and the I-kept-this-book-for-years smell—I would. Book-smelling is one of my geeky quirks, and I consider the scent as my own version of marijuana. ;)

Top 10 books (for Meganbarns)

2012-02-25T22:17:00.000+08:00

It’s almost a week since I last checked my tumblr inbox. Along with all the new messages there, I found this fanmail, which contains a FAQ that I really had troubles answering, even before:

Hello,

I was wondering of you would be a post on your top ten books. The top ten books you couldn’t live without. One doesn’t have to limit themselves to just ten but I wondered which books you would put above the rest.

Thank you and cheers. — meganbarns

This is kind of hard, you know? It's like picking up my most awesome folks among a circle of truly fabulous friends that are amazing in their own way. Anyway, the following are the first 10 that came to mind. I have a series of runner-ups, so stay tuned:

Season of Mists (Sandman volume #4) by Neil Gaiman.

My life without The Sandman graphic novels would be like owning the whole The Beatles discography minus Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band. Seriously. I met my favorite writer of all time through these series of graphic novels starring the seven entities that are neither mortals nor gods—Destiny, Death, Dream, Destruction, Desire, Despair, and Delirium. It may not be the best, but Season of Mists is my favorite of all the volumes in the series. Here’s the blurb from GoodReads:

"Lucifer has grown tired of being the lord of Hell. He kicks out the demons and the damned alike, closes up shop, and gives the key tp Hell to Morpheus. Beings from all the world's mythologies converge on the lord of Dream to seize this instrument of power.”
Les Miserables by Victor Hugo.

I was trying not to pick from the classics, but I just couldn’t help it. Here’s Victor Hugo’s Les Miserables. As I said in one of the previous asks, I see it as the masterpiece that sparked the ember of activism in me…and every time I reread it, I feel like I’m fanning the flames some more. This preface from the Gutenberg ebook edition pretty much sums up what I want to say:

“So long as there shall exist, by virtue of law and custom, decrees of damnation pronounced by society, artificially creating hells amid the civilization of earth, and adding the element of human fate to divine destiny; so long as the three great problems of the century—the degradation of man through pauperism, the corruption of woman through hunger, the crippling of children through lack of light—are unsolved; so long as social asphyxia is possible in any part of the world;—in other words, and with a still wider significance, so long as ignorance and poverty exist on earth, books of the nature of Les Misérables cannot fail to be of use.”
Sabriel by Garth Nix.

It’s an important book for me because through it, Nix introduced me to the realms of paranormal young adult fiction ~~and gave me a permanent morbid streak~~. I wish more YA books are like this book—the content is more about character and plot development, not about who the girl will pick as her lifetime partner or stuff like that. Nix is a tease when it comes to romance. It’s almost nonexistent in the book, and you won’t see it unless you want it to exist.

Here’s a blurb from GoodReads: “Since childhood, Sabriel has lived outside the walls of the Old Kingdom, away from the power of Free Magic, and away from the Dead who refuse to stay dead. But now her father, the Mage Abhorson, is missing, and Sabriel must cross into that world to find him. With Mogget, whose feline form hides a powerful, perhaps malevolent spirit, and Touchstone, a young Charter Mage, Sabriel travels deep into the Old Kingdom. There she confronts an evil that threatens much more than her life'and comes face to face with her own hidden destiny. . .”
The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.

Be a filter, not a sponge. They say you either really love or really hate this book, but I landed in the gray area. While I did not subscribe to everything that Rand said in this book, I got to admit I learned a lot from it. For a long while it even became one of my favorite novels.

Blurb from GoodReads: “On the surface, it is a story of one man, Howard Roark, and his struggles as an architect in the face of a successful rival, Peter Keating, and a newspaper columnist, Ellsworth Toohey. But the book addresses a number of universal themes: the strength of the individual, the tug between good and evil, the threat of fascism. The confrontation of those themes, along with the amazing stroke of Rand's writing, combine to give this book its enduring influence.”
The Book Thief by Markus Zusak.

One of the best books I’ve read so far. Since Neil Gaiman’s quirky Goth girl interpretation, I’ve never been this fond of a personification of Death.

Blurb from GoodReads: “It’s just a small story really, about among other things: a girl, some words, an accordionist, some fanatical Germans, a Jewish fist-fighter, and quite a lot of thievery. . .Set during World War II in Germany, Markus Zusak’s groundbreaking new novel is the story of Liesel Meminger, a foster girl living outside of Munich. Liesel scratches out a meager existence for herself by stealing when she encounters something she can’t resist–books. With the help of her accordion-playing foster father, she learns to read and shares her stolen books with her neighbors during bombing raids as well as with the Jewish man hidden in her basement before he is marched to Dachau. This is an unforgettable story about the ability of books to feed the soul.”
The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano.

I don’t normally like soulmate stories, but this one is such a bittersweet, exquisitely told tale of two people that can’t seem to connect, even if they know they’re the only ones who can complete each other.

Blurb from GoodReads: “A prime number can only be divided by itself or by one-it never truly fits with another. Alice and Mattia, both "primes," are misfits who seem destined to be alone. Haunted by childhood tragedies that mark their lives, they cannot reach out to anyone else. When Alice and Mattia meet as teenagers, they recognize in each other a kindred, damaged spirit.

But the mathematically gifted Mattia accepts a research position that takes him thousands of miles away, and the two are forced to separate. Then a chance occurrence reunites them and forces a lifetime of concealed emotion to the surface. Like Mark Haddon's The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night- Time, this is a stunning meditation on loneliness, love, and the weight of childhood experience that is set to become a universal classic.”
The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins. Do I really need to explain this? I wouldn’t be the bookworm that I am today if I hadn’t come across this book.

Blurb from Goodreads: “In the ruins of a place once known as North America lies the nation of Panem, a shining Capitol surrounded by twelve outlying districts. The Capitol is harsh and cruel and keeps the districts in line by forcing them all to send one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen to participate in the annual Hunger Games, a fight to the death on live TV. Sixteen-year-old Katniss Everdeen, who lives alone with her mother and younger sister Primrose, regards it as a death sentence when she steps forward to take her sister's place in the Games. But Katniss has been close to dead before — and survival, for her, is second nature. Without really meaning to, she becomes a contender. But if she is to win, she will have to start making choices that will weigh survival against humanity and life against love.”
1984 by George Orwell. Ever since I read this, I’ve always dreaded the possibility of an Orwellian future. I mean if you think about it, it really can happen! The internet Blackout Revolution brought about by SOPA and PIPA were chillingly reminiscent of the book’s theme.

Blurb from GoodReads: “Written in 1948, 1984 was George Orwell's chilling prophecy about the future. And while 1984 has come and gone, Orwell's narrative is timelier than ever. 1984 presents a startling and haunting vision of the world, so powerful that it is completely convincing from start to finish. No one can deny the power of this novel, its hold on the imaginations of multiple generations of readers, or the resiliency of its admonitions a legacy that seems only to grow with the passage of time.”
Paper Towns by John Green. This has a personal reason, but even if it hasn’t, I think I still my bookworm heart wouldn’t be complete if I hadn’t read this book. It’s like an updated Looking for Alaska.

Blurb from GoodReads: “When Margo Roth Spiegelman beckons Quentin Jacobsen in the middle of the night - dressed like a ninja and plotting an ingenious campaign of revenge - he follows her. Margo's always planned extravagantly, and, until now, she's always planned solo. After a lifetime of loving Margo from afar, things are finally looking up for Q . . . until day breaks and she has vanished. Always an enigma, Margo has now become a mystery. But there are clues. And they're for Q. Printz Medalist John Green returns with the trademark brilliant wit and heart-stopping emotional honesty that have inspired a new generation of readers.”
The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle by Haruki Murakami. My first ever Murakami book, which started my love affair with his other novels. ‘Nuff said.
“Japan's most highly regarded novelist now vaults into the first ranks of international fiction writers with this heroically imaginative novel, which is at once a detective story, an account of a disintegrating marriage, and an excavation of the buried secrets of World War II. In a Tokyo suburb a young man named Toru Okada searches for his wife's missing cat. Soon he finds himself looking for his wife as well in a netherworld that lies beneath the placid surface of Tokyo. As these searches intersect, Okada encounters a bizarre group of allies and antagonists: a psychic prostitute; a malevolent yet mediagenic politician; a cheerfully morbid sixteen-year-old-girl; and an aging war veteran who has been permanently changed by the hideous things he witnessed during Japan's forgotten campaign in Manchuria. Gripping, prophetic, suffused with comedy and menace, The Wind-Up Bird Chronicle is a tour de force equal in scope to the masterpieces of Mishima and Pynchon. 3 books in one volume: The Thieving Magpie, Bird as Prophet, The Birdcatcher. This translation by Jay Rubin is in collaboration with the author.”

Shades of Gray: GW Ramblings

2012-02-24T22:44:00.000+08:00

When I was a kid, I always root for the good guys in TV shows and storybooks. Who doesn’t? Distinguishing white from black, siding with the goodies and going against the baddies…it’s one of the few lessons the earliest media we’ve been exposed to and our parents fed us. So when I watched Gundam Wing for the first time, I was intrigued.

With all the promo materials I’ve seen, I readily tagged the five pilots and Relena as the heroes before I even watched the series. But when I sat down for a GW marathon, I found myself asking—just like how some of the characters found themselves asking—who are the real enemies? Zechs Merquise? Treize Khushrenada? The Alliance? The Romafeller Foundation? White Fang? And who exactly are the good guys? The Japanese boy, who always opts to do the supposedly “right” thing (in consonance with his missions) instead of doing the obviously “kind” thing? The braided one, who believes he’s some kind of a god of death? The green-eyed soldier, who follows the example of guys who think life is cheap? The blond kid, who blasted a whole colony into smithereens? The Chinese guy, who once commented something to the effect that women’s place is right next to bleeding hearts?

For me, the lack of central antagonist (or the cookie-cutter goody heroes) is one of the beautiful intricacies of Gundam Wing. No one’s pure black or pure white: everyone is made up of several shades of gray. The personality of each character is labyrinthine, and trying to find the easiest way out of it requires a lot of work and thinking. That’s why I love how the fans are drawing their own maps of the characters’ identities through analyses and fan fiction. Actually, just watching the show then trying to figure out the team you’re going to cheer for already explains how you view the characters! It’s only expected that the five pilots would get lots of love, but even the folks who would normally be placed at the ‘evilest’ end in a clichéd story’s good guy-bad guy scale also get sizable love-chunks from the fandom.

I love Gundam Wing up to now because it is the first fictional work that taught me to appreciate the characters because they’re more like humans—complex, flawed, a mixture of good and bad, capable of growth—instead of because they’re obviously portrayed as the good protagonists. :)

Why We Broke Up (Celebrity Edition)

2012-02-23T23:17:00.000+08:00

I posted this on my tumblr a week ago. I found these on the back of my copy of Why We Broke Up, the book that I’ve been wanting to read ever since I laid my eyes on it. Now that I’m done with The God of Small Things, I think I can begin reading it now.

Anyhoo, here are some contemporary authors talking about their teenage heartbreaks. I found most of them touching and funny! There’s even one that sounds like Jace Wayland (guess who!) I wish there’s a whole compilation of these quotes. :)

“When my heart was broken and I was fifteen, I listened to Lou Reed’s Berlin over and over and walked around a lot in the rain, while my friends followed me looking worried and imploring me not to do anything stupid. Well, stupider than walking in the rain, anyway.”
- Neil Gaiman

“The boy I loved didn’t know I existed. Then again, he was obsessed with Camus, so he didn’t know if any of us existed.”
-David Levithan

“When Patti Fox broke up with me, I typed her name over a thousand times on my manual Olivetti until the entire page was beaten into a stiff sheet of black ink.”
-Jack Gantos

“The first boy I fell in love with didn’t know I loved him, but he managed to break my heart anyway.”
-Holly Black

“Of course I had my heart broken as a teen. I was desperately in love with myself. Then I found out that I was completely shallow. I haven’t spoken to myself since.”
-M.T. Anderson

“I was heartbroken when my boyfriend announced he was moving to Chicago without me. But, oh yeah, I could keep his guitar amp. Thanks.”
-Sarah Shepard

“My heart was broken the spring of my senior year in high school. We broke up in a park outside of town, and as I drove him home, he read me what he’d written in my yearbook. The line that really made me sob? ‘You will always be my Princess Bride.’ Sniff.”
-Carolyn Mackler

“We broke up because I was not a boy.”
-Lisa Brown

“I thought dating her was just fine. Pleasant. You know what I mean? When she said she didn’t want to go out with me anymore my friends gathered around me. They shook their heads and frowned. They patted my back. ‘To bad,’ they said and ‘you’ll be okay.’ I wasn’t sure how they wanted me to act so I tried stomping around and punching walls. I tried to feel bad. I really did. But it didn’t really make any sense to keep up the act. Then I found the meaning of relationships when you’re a teen. It’s a wonderful country music tune called: I Don’t Know Whether To Kill Myself Or Go Bowling.”
-Kevin O’Malley

“After my first lesbian break up, my ex left a series of ‘I hate you’ parting gifts on my porch. Including a cassette tape of the Radiohead song ‘Creep.’ Looped. Back to back. Side A and B. Best. Mix tape. Ever.”
-Mariko Tamaki

“We broke up because I kept forgetting that I had a fake British accent.”
-Adele Griffin

“I got dumped on my nineteenth birthday. The next day a car hit me. The impact threw me ten feet. My jeans were shredded so badly that my college roommate hung them on our dorm room wall as a conversation piece. I spent the next week recovering in bed, listening to The Smiths and feeling sorry for myself. It took about a decade, but eventually I understood that young love is always a comedy.”
-Matthew Quick

Un-Bookwormism and Dorkology Update

2012-02-22T23:50:00.002+08:00

And here’s another update about books and the current blahs of a hobbit-sized human being’s quite nondescript life.

I guess a cleanup day is very much like a serendipity day or an accidental treasure hunt day (if such things exists). All the dust bunnies that sent me sneezing proved to be just a small prize for finding a few of my long lost CDs! I love every album. My attitude in owning books is like my attitude in owning music. I’m completely okay with having the electronic versions/downloads, but holding the actual thing in your hand and witnessing it produce their magic seem more…intimate. I don’t know, if you’ll ask me for real, I’ll just say the feeling’s ineffable. A book’s smooth cover or a CD’s smooth side smudged for the first time with your fingerprints is only one of the little wonderful things their virtual counterparts can’t give you. ;) /ramblings

Oh, and I didn’t just chance upon my CDs—I found my high school yearbook as well! Imagine what I felt when I reread our Class Prophecy, which was penned by a fifteen-year-old joke of a writer called Me. Haha! If I could go back in time, I’d smack the younger me for being so giddy when writing a piece that anyone in our batch can read and reread whenever they want. Perhaps I’ll humiliate myself some time and post a portion here. But right now, I’ll just give you a photo of one of my writing wins! Yay. Hey, I’m grabbing the opportunity here to be narcissistic. Next time, I’ll laugh with the world when seeing my hilarious pen-warrior mishaps. :p

FYI, I didn’t take the photo above. It’s from Austin Kleon himself, and I got it via his twitter. I wish I can have this book and Newspaper Blackout Poetry one. Unfortunately, none of the biggest bookstores in the country carry a single copy of either awesomeness. *sniffs*

Anyway, book (un)events in Airiz’s life:

I’m still stuck with The God of Small Things.
I saw a copy of John Green’s The Fault in Our Stars in NBS Tutuban! Why are the online contacts saying the book’s out of stock? I’ll purchase it the next time I go there. There’s heaps of them on the display table.
I’m still excited to read Why We Broke Up, but *see first bullet*

I just finished downloading the remastered edition of GW, and I’m excited to have a marathon soon! Wooot! But right now, I’m reading some sidestory mangas. ;)

__

I promise to post things that make more sense than this. Have a good day! :)

My Writing Inspiration (from FFN)

2012-02-22T03:23:00.000+08:00

Can you be a fangirl of a fangirl?

Of course. I can attest to that.

It’s through the Gundam Wing fandom that I came to know Isis CW, one of my favorite fanfiction writers right now. Her fanfic-novels are perhaps the best that I’ve read at the Pit (which is still a melting pot of rotten, yaoi-infested fangirl goo). When browsing multi-chaptered tales at FFN started to prove to be some kind of self-flagellation for my aching brain, I refrained from visiting it—except when Isis updates Revelations, the third in her trilogy of amazing works. The 4xD pairing doesn’t get a lot of love from the GW fanbase, but Isis being one of the few shippers is enough for me!

She's the reason why the image of the Egyptian goddess doesn't readily come to mind
\when someone mentions the name Isis to me.

The following’s written on her profile page at FFN. From this alone, you’ll know why I look up to her so much. :)

Well, if you're going to read this, you must be mildly interested in the woman behind the stories. So here is a little of me, and I would love to know a little of you.

-My attitude on writing has always been three-fold. Any fictional work you read should be able to take you away from reality one paragraph at a time. You should be able to have an emotional response to the story or characters completely regardless of whether you have known that feeling before or not. And, it should be good for you. If that’s by teaching you something, making you think, or just taking you away from other situations in life that trouble you.

The first two items I can strive for, the third is primarily up to you, the reader. But what they can do is let you be another person, a character, as you hear their thoughts and say their words. They can make you laugh, tug your heart, and give you a little vacation.
And I get to do that for you guys. I don’t know your stories, the things each of you face in life, unless you’re willing to write and tell me. But for the few minutes you sit in front of the screen and read these chapters… you’re mine. And I promise to be gentle and protect you while you’re with me. No one who reads my works is a stranger to me, because you all know me more intimately than most people I am around every day.

-Outlook on FanFiction: Where do I begin? My first love is Character! Give me a character I can fall in love with, and I'm yours! I'm that way with fiction, TV, movies, anything. My own fiction tends to be rather boring from the on-set, but I love just 'revealing' the characters. The more complex, the harder I work. That's why I LOVE Gundam Wing.

Plot is also a wonderful selling point to me. Yes, have to have it, no matter how annoying it is to try to develop. Trust me, I know. But like I said, I, personally, will sit through a bad plot if the character is so good I drool over my keyboard :)

Spell check and grammar issues. I will personally admit that I have the same trouble everyone does with this. (Heavens, "For Argument’s Sake" is so full of it I'm almost disgraced by it now) Time and care, time and care; that's all I can say. That and, if possible, find a wonderful set of proofreaders to give you a fresh set of eyes. And please, correct me when I screw something up. I can't grow without true, honest opinions!

Anyhoo, enough about me. You came for the fics, not the author. That is the price we pay, is it not? So please enjoy, and review if you think I'm worth it. Please feel free to email me too, any questions, comments, rants, anything at all. And God bless you! ;)

I adapted this personal writing attitude...and if you're a budding writer, I think you should, too. I enjoyed the art of fiction-writing more when I started keeping this in mind. :)

(image source)

Bookstore Hangout Pseudo-Cards :)

2012-02-19T01:06:00.005+08:00

Here’s the Photoshop dabbler again presenting you some mediocre art-junk! Hah.

I was cleaning my desktop this morning when I happened upon some snapshots taken eons ago, during a bookstore hangout with my friends. I thought the photos suffered a premature demise along with my other files, when the laptop had to be reformatted and I forgot to transfer them to my hard drive. Turned out there’s some lucky survivors! :p

Anyway, I incorporated some reading-related quotes with the photos. Check them out:

I wanted them to look like the Hallmark cards that are usually found on some stands in 7-Eleven, but looking at the results made me think I should just stick with traditional art. Haha! This is me with too much time on my hands. ;)

Toodles!

On Writing Your Characters

2012-02-19T01:03:00.000+08:00

Remember that you’re the God of your world when you’re writing a story. That’s why when you’re writing your characters, you should be creating real people, not just cardboard cutouts to stand in an imagined world. The characters should not merely be tools that will push the plot forward, or one-dimensional caricatures to serve as avatars for your idiosyncrasies. Make them live. Make them breathe.

You must know each character inside out. You should see him naked—literally and metaphorically. Undress him. Learn all the facts about him, from his real full name to the last toy he ever had as a kid. Know all his blemishes and flaws, his most embarrassing memories, his worst fears. Discover his dreams and aspirations, his regrets and frustrations; find out what makes him flinch and what makes him smile despite himself. Feel him under your hands, run your fingers over his scars and wounds, those little histories scribbled on his skin. Learn what his weaknesses are. Prod the skeletons he’s keeping in the built-in closet of his personality. And in the end…give him the respect he deserves.

You ripped his clothes—for your own benefit—and you respect him? Yes. It may seem so technical when you do it with the eyes of a scientist studying a specimen, but it’s much better when you do it with sincere feelings. You must learn to “love” the character. You see his imperfections and accept them as a unique part of his personality. Perhaps it’s parental love (characters are your children!), or “friendly” love (characters are your friends!). What’s important here is that you view the character as someone close to you, and it shouldn’t matter if he’s a good guy or a bad guy.

Keep in mind that, like real human beings, they’re akin to icebergs too. What’s on the surface is just 10% of the whole thing. Keep the water level up, and let your readers find the 90% all by themselves. The legwork should be theirs, but all their efforts would be dependent on your writing. Let your character’s speeches, thought processes, and actions unfold more about himself. And slowly, as the story charges on, let your readers undress your character, too. :)

(cross-posted from my tumblr)

Bookwormism and Dorkology Update

2012-02-16T00:06:00.013+08:00

Belated Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! I hope you expressed your love for all the people you care for, and hope that those who are boyfriend-less, girlfriend-less, or just don't-know-where-they're-standing didn't let their current statuses prevent them from being happy (I didn't). Sometimes I wish we don't need any hallmark holiday anymore that will remind us to wear our hearts on our sleeves or show kindness to others. Why can't every day be heart's day? ;)

Anyway, here's another update about books and the current blahs of my quite nondescript life.

Starting with the fourteenth! You know there’s something “wrong” with your friends if they got you a novel about breakup on Valentine’s Day. But for me, of course, it’s a good kind of wrong! :p I’ve been eyeing Daniel Sandler’s Why We Broke Up for a while now. The dudettes want to see a review from me soon, but I can’t read it yet; I still have to finish Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and a couple others I lined up after it (Steampunk, The Girl Who Played with Fire, and Underground). But then again, I’m a fickle little creature…I may hoist WWBU up my reading list if I feel like it. ;)

The book looks amazing, with its pages glossy and Maira Kalman's artwork stunning. I don’t think it will be able to accompany me during my train and jeepney rides, though. It's too big and heavy…

Not that it’s super big a deal. :p

In other news, I started drawing on my sketchbook journal last night! My first entry is not particularly cheerful. When insomnia decides to visit me at night—right after I shut down the now overused laptop—this little ghost drifts from the middle of nowhere and haunts me till the wee small hours of the morning. Just sometimes, though. On good days, Mr. Pillows and Sheets will transport me straight to Dreamland once I hit them.

I don’t plan to spill everything online, but I’ll still feature at least one doodle from my journal every week. :)

As for other RL stuff, when I’m not out doing "sidelines" or tutoring in front of the computer, I’m babysitting my grandniece Fiona. She’ll be four months old on the 18th and she’s already eating Cerelac! :) She grows so fast. The last time I posted about her here, she’s nothing but a tiny, pink blob of flesh that I can swaddle with both my palms. Now, I often need to sit down after ten minutes of carrying her in my arms.

I realized babysitting is no mean feat, but to be honest, I’m enjoying every minute of it. There’s something about being able to coax out a peal of giggles from an infant, you know? Sometimes, it also brings out a little inventor in me, making me pull out tunes and lullaby lyrics from god-knows-where and choreograph a small dance when I’m rocking the babe to sleep. :)

As for stupidities…look at that jungle of hair! I decided to have it curled after a crazy salon experiment mishap one night. Turns out I jumped from the frying fan into the fire, eh? I don’t like it. I prefer my straight hair before. I’m just waiting for the chemical to wear off—it will be the death of my poor locks if I subject them to rebonding or any kind of torture soon. Right now, I’m just bunching them up in a bun on the top of my head.

Yep. Lesson learned.

A World Without Books?

2012-02-15T23:30:00.001+08:00

This video is heartrending in its own way. I just can’t specify all the books I’d miss if I were blind, and thinking about my life without them is like imagining myself living in a world where oxygen is close to non-existent. This is no exaggeration. I’ve spent a majority of my life in the company of books, and they helped in paving the yellow brick road toward my dreams and goals. :’)

Anyway, I think the dilemma above could easily be solved. Blind people can read nowadays! There’s braille, screen readers, audiobooks, etc. They wouldn’t miss out on the colorful realm of literature that we—readers with the gift of sight—are enjoying right now just because they can’t see the inked letters on the pages. The reading experience is entirely different, but like what I always say, it’s not how you read…it’s that you read.

ZONE Magazine (The Revolt Issue)

2012-02-13T02:11:00.002+08:00

Since I know there are a few people here that may be interested—ZONE magazine’s third issue is out now!

Pauline Prieto doesn’t give a damn (Photo by Jerick Sanchez)

Also known as the “Revolt” issue, this month’s ZONE revolves around the themes of change and zeroes in on being a “mixed media” release. Basically, it combines the concepts of the first and the second issues. Featured fashion models and artists are Pauline Prieto, Kneil Melicano, Vincent Quilop, Beth Hoeckel, Ulrike Theusner, and many more! :)

I definitely enjoyed penning the articles for Miss Prieto, Mr. Melicano, and Mr. Dex Fernandez. I know that writing things about them is not necessarily like meeting them, but with our indirect conversations—my researches and questions, the power of the info superhighway that connects us, their answers—it’s like they’ve let me glimpsed a part of them to me, before even our readers had the chance to see them. I’m particularly drawn to Mr. Melicano’s answers. :) Here’s my favorite bit about our interview:

Q: "Starving artist” is an old stereotype to imply there is not much money or bright future in the field of arts. In the course of your career, have you ever experienced being a ‘starved’ artist? What advice can you give to people who want to pursue a career in the arts but are discouraged that there is not enough money the profession produces?

A: It's absurdity! In this age of time, if you're not getting something out of your talent, you must be doing it wrong. There should be a good balance. One cannot live on dream alone or dance for peanuts.

Being a budding illustrator myself, his words of wisdom gave me some queer form of encouragement. You can find the whole interview on pages 128-129. Some of his illustrations were featured too, and they’re amazing. Remember that he’s the guy behind Red.

My article for Miss Prieto, Square Peg in a Round Hole, is on page 113. She is photographed by ZONE’S Creative Director Jerick Sanchez.

The Man Behind the Kaleidoscopic Paints and Collages, my write-up for/interview with Dex Fernandez, is on page 133 and 137. His art is unconventional and colorfully controversial, check them out too!

My book reviews for Alexie Sherman’s The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian and Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar were published, too. You can find them on pages 205-207.

I would want to say I’m looking forward to working more in this magazine as the Managing Editor, but recent developments may intervene with my stint. I’ll blather about it in a separate post. :)

PS: Like our official page at Facebook!

Beyond Demise (Poem)

2012-02-12T23:47:00.000+08:00

“Why is the sky blue?” every child wants to ask.
And he usually responds, “The angels play a game of tag in heaven,
and one little cherub trips on a can of blue paint,
spreading it across the pallid marble floor of the sky.”
His heart, though, cannot lie: it was her love that dyes everything in
its full vibrant glory—she was the Sun of his wonderland,
seated on a throne of clouds
like the Queen that she was.

When she finally took her eternal slumber,
when she pillowed her head on the soft earth
six feet beneath the dancing fingers of grasses
and thousands of miles away from the canopy of stars,
everything transfigured from a multicolor series of snapshots
into an eerie negative filmstrip of a world he never dreamed to live in.
It was the glimpse of a purgatory, a reality
he doesn’t want to stay in, even for a millisecond.

He missed her.
He missed her kisses that tinted his mind a sweet, lovely plum,
reminiscent of how the sunup throws a cloak of colour upon the sky
after the last smudge of the night thawed in the light.
He missed her embrace that put creases in the sunbeams
that fall upon the sheets. He missed her laugh
that sweetened the blandness of that lingering feeling
when the tail end of a good dream dissolves into thin air.

He missed her I-love-you-like-I-love-the-sky-at-sunset caress.
He missed her I’m-sorry-I-won’t-hurt-you-again embrace.
He missed her I-missed-you-and-I-want-to-hit-you-for-going-away-
but-I’ll-just-do-this kiss.
He missed her You-are-the-most-amazing-thing-that-happened-in-my-life hug.
He missed her I-do touch.
He missed her Please-love-someone-again-after-I’m-gone grip,
before she slept forever.
He missed her, he missed her, he missed her.

Thankful for the sting, thankful for the venom of false waiting,
he let the blade’s lips graze the soft, beating vein beneath his translucence.
In fairytales, he believed then;
to lie with his Princess, to sleep beside his Sun,
and to let the ghosts of their hearts merge again.
And they lived—beyond death—happily ever after.

©Airiz Casta 2011

My Bookworm Valentine

2012-02-11T17:05:00.002+08:00

Valentine’s Day is approaching! As a gift for you guys, here are some geeky hand-drawn cards, inspired by the awesome doodles of elledoubleyou and butthorn. Feel free to print these out and give them to your loved ones if you want! ;) It will surely make a happy, Cupid-esque single this February 14. Haha!

The first one features Katniss Everdeen & Peeta Mellark from Suzanne Collin’s The Hunger Games (whoops! Looks like Cupid managed to slip one of his arrows in your quiver, Kat!). The second features Daenerys Targaryen & Khal Drogo from George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones. I originally planned to draw Cersei and Jaime, but I guess the Khaleesi’s love life is less…poisonous. If you know what I mean.

Of course we’ll have a gay couple! The card on the left features Jack & Grayson from Alaya Dawn Johnson’s Love Will Tear Us Apart (anthologized in Zombies vs. Unicorns and Wilde Stories 2011). Grayson’s drooling because Jack still smells like a happy meal to him. :p The card on the right features Touchstone & Sabriel from my ever-favorite fantasy YA series, Garth Nix’s Old Kingdom Trilogy.

You might have noticed already that I only doodled my literary ships (yeah, I roll like that). I root for Zane and Tally from Scott Westerfeld’s Uglies series, but here I drew our heroine with David. Their pairing strongly represents one of the series’ main themes, in my opinion.

I have a lesbian valentine card too, but a friend took it away before I had the chance to scan it. It features two girls from Malinda Lo’s Ash, a lesbian retelling of Cinderella. I drew Kaisa and Aisling with their backs to the viewers, looking up at a small clock that reads 12:01. The caption says, “I’ll love you even after midnight.”

~~Maybe I’ll just post it later, when I feel not-so-lazy to doodle again. LOL~~

Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! :)

Review: May Day Eve and Other Stories

2012-02-11T17:03:00.001+08:00

Title: May Day Eve and Other Stories
Author: Nick Joaquin
Genre: Magic Realism, Romance, Historical Fiction (Filipino lit)
My Rating: ★★★★★

“Pareng Nick” is a frequent companion of mine when I was in high school. I remembered burying my nose in a dog-eared copy of Manila, My Manila and staying in the library after classes just to search for his anthologies. It’s been ages since I last sat down and binge on some of his works, so the *roundhouse kick* of nostalgia that greeted me at the bookstore when I saw May Day Eve and Other Stories is only expected. Needless to say, I relented to the sudden irresistible urge to pick it up. I finished reading half the book in the bookstore, but I bought it (and another Joaquin anthology) anyway. I suddenly felt like my shelf would be incomplete without it.

May Day Eve is still my favorite story. Despite having read it for perhaps the hundredth time, it still doesn’t fail to make me tremble from the knee-buckling blow of regrets in life (and love) that the characters experienced. Joaquin’s magic mainly lies in the subtle unfolding of events, in a gentle whisper of epiphany that crescendoes into a howl of tragedy by the end. The story revolves around the European-educated Badoy Montiya and the feisty, liberated Agueda as they let one superstitious moment in May Day Eve be the ‘driver’ of their lives, leading into a disintegrating marriage. Agueda is my kind of female protagonist, for the most obvious of reasons: she’s the readers’ little window to Joaquin’s feministic streak that is more pronounced in his other story The Summer Solstice. Great realizations often come when it’s too late; the bitter-sweetness of this lesson lasts in the final moments of the story, wherein the characters took in that they did love each other after all, even if subconsciously.

The other stories are just as enchanting. Three Generations can be considered a little portrait of a family in a patriarchal society, focusing on the three men of each step of generation. Doña Jeronima reads like a classic Filipino legend about love, repentance, forgiveness, and piety. The Legend of the Dying Wanton teems with harrowing scenes of death as well as the beautiful images of freeing yourself…from yourself. Guardia de Honor is a mystifying tale about love, destiny, and chances. I just love how in each story, there is one character that represents rebellion in his/her own way.

Five stars for an amazing read.

GW Meta: My Thoughts on Catherine Bloom and Dorothy Catalonia (& Select Fandom Responses)

2012-02-09T16:59:00.002+08:00

In which I blather about how these two girls prove that, unless you’re some guy with an eerie kind of ESP called Space Heart, your level of I-feel-you-ness with someone is never going to be precise.

THE ESSAY

Comparative analyses between Catherine Bloom and Dorothy Catalonia are seldom because (1) they never interacted in the show, (2) it’s more fun to compare Dorothy to Relena, and (3) what’s the point? Venn-diagramming their personalities is just a waste of time, because everybody seems to know that nothing will meet in the center.

I was originally typing up a post about how Catherine is more than just a chipper, overprotective knife-thrower (it’s for fuckyeahcatherinebloom, a blog I started a week ago), but halfway through I couldn’t stop thinking about Dorothy. I stumbled upon an interesting similarity between them that is only a similarity if we talk about their seemingly striking difference: their attitudes toward war.

The pilots were not the only ones exposed to death at an early age. These girls also lost their loved ones to war when they’re still young. Cathy was about five when her parents got killed in an air raid, and Dorothy was 12 or 13 when former OZ General Chilias Catalonia, her father, died (I believe it’s in AC 193, when Treize officially took over OZ). The way they responded to these events is the interesting part. We’ve seen what they’re like in the show, and the common impressions among viewers consist of Cathy being a mother stereotype and Dorothy being as crazy as a peach-orchard boar. If only we try to zero in on the meager information about their semi-identical pasts, it’s easy to notice how they can prove us that hate and hurt are like fingerprints—that no two people feel exactly the same way about the same thing.

Cathy’s “hatred” is straighter and clearer. After surviving the attack that killed her parents and separated her from her little brother Triton/Trowa, she outwardly expresses how much she despises warfare. She seems to have sworn to herself that once she finds people she can consider her second family, she will do all her best not to lose them again.

I think the fandom should refrain from thinking that the creators only included Catherine on the show just to be a motherly female counterpart for Trowa. Or a potential key to pilot 03’s enigmatic past. She’s more than that. Just because she’s the only major GW gal that doesn’t engage in any kind of political or physical combat doesn’t mean she’s not fighting her own war! Call it over-analysis if you want, but I think the creators put her there to make us see that even civilians have their own battles too—and what’s more dangerous to fight than a war you’re waging inside your head and heart? She’s a symbol that says, “we’re all involved; we’re all victims.” In my mind, Catherine tries to survive being the survivor. This is not emphasized, but think about it. The legwork is left to us after we’ve glimpsed her past in a handful of panels in Trowa’s Episode Zero. In the series, we’ve witnessed how she reacts when a loved one’s in peril. The bigger part of her life happened off-screen, but it doesn’t take so much to bridge the gap.

There’s a big possibility that the ghost of trauma haunts her. But instead of letting herself be crushed under its weight, she fights it. She tries to exorcise it by rebuilding and protecting what has been previously destroyed in her life.

Dorothy’s “hatred” is more twisted and complicated. Up to now, many GW fans still misunderstand her “love” for warfare. I’ve said this before and I’ll say this again: the AC era teems with all kinds of politicians, soldiers, and pacifists, but if I were to choose a favorite character that genuinely wishes to wipe all kinds of war, I’m going to pick Dorothy. And then I hear you: “Are you kidding? That batsh*t crazy girl who pirouettes and shouts at the fighter planes to hurry up and start a war like she’s in some kind of a warped After Colony Disney movie—she wants peace?” Well, YES. DESPERATELY SO.

“You can’t do away with wars by just taking weapons away from the people,” she reasons. “You first have to change the hearts of all mankind.”

Her unconventional albeit spine-tingling suggestion is an evolved version of Treize’s philosophy: to stage a war so gruesome, so horrible, that after everyone witnesses it, they would never want to have wars ever again. For her, subscribing to utopian fantasies is not the best course of action. So she opts to take the extreme path. She opts for bloodshed. She opts for death.

It’s implied that her father’s untimely demise contributed a lot to this belief. I have no inkling as to how much she loves him, but I can guess. After all, only an extreme amount of love can trigger an extreme amount of hate. She must have been so pained by his death and was shocked to find the world still continuing to make a chaotic inferno of itself, despite all the fatalities and casualties that heap up every day. She must have thought, “Why do you keep on doing this? You’ve seen it, you’ve known how it felt! Isn’t this enough? Why are you acting as if you don’t know how it hurts? Oh…maybe you don’t. Well, let me show you. Or better yet, let you show you.”

This is why I believe Catherine is much stronger than her when dealing with grief. The whole thing’s quite similar to the usual Relena-Quatre analogy. Cathy’s response is of true strength, of rising up from the rubble, like Relena’s when her father died (although the latter’s is initially tinged with revenge). Dorothy’s is more akin to Quatre’s after Mr. Winner’s death, although his is overly vindictive (Pre-ZERO: “I’ll never forget this, and I’ll make sure you people don’t forget this day, either.” During ZERO: “What the colony really needs is a war!”). So if you’re still baffled why Quatre thinks she’s kinder than him, remember her confession at the end that makes her cry—“If I don’t [help to change mankind’s hearts by staging the worst war], humanity will perish just like my father!” Twisted? Perhaps, but Quatre recognizes no trace of an eye-for-an-eye mentality there. In her own distorted way, Dorothy is still trying her best to salvage humanity.

In a nutshell, Dorothy wants to end wars by using them as a lesson for the most intelligent ‘animals’ that refuse to learn—human beings. She believes this is the only possible way to strip the people of their drive to fight each other. She wants the worst war to happen because the small ones won’t be enough to teach mankind. She can’t do it single-handedly, so she switches sides, manipulates, and provokes people. A warped kind of love and desperation fuel her, and in truth, she’s just as lost as her namesake in L. Frank Baum’s storybooks. I love Quatre’s little speech, but I think what Dorothy needed to hear are just the few words Trowa tells her in the end: “Maybe what you are attempting is correct, but it still won’t bring true peace.” Trowa is referring to the overall space mishap that’s happened during that time, but it coincides with what she’s wanting all along.

Catherine fights. Dorothy wishes for peace. This is why I love Gundam Wing, you know? The characters are layered; there’s more to them than meets the eye. It’s been a long while since I last watched the show as a whole, but I’ll definitely sit down one night for a non-stop GW marathon. I know I’ll discover something new in every rewatch, especially now that I’m older. ;p

THE RESPONSES

The reason I wrote this essay is mainly because I know other fans will throw in their two cents, especially that most of them are older and have been invested in the fandom longer than I have. I'll learn more. The following are two of the responses from the Gundam Wing Tumblr community, which I thought of sharing here. You can find more by accessing my original post here. Just scroll down and click on their answers. ;)

Response 1 by Octavia-Agusta:

Preach. However, saying that “Catherine is much stronger than [Dorothy] when dealing with grief” rubs me the wrong way. This is mainly because I see them as dealing with their grief in their own ways. I don’t think handling a certain situation a particular way means you are stronger than this person when it comes to this or that. It means you are handling it in a way (and perhaps the only way) you know how.

Octavia is right. But that’s my point all along! Grief and pain are like fingerprints, as I’ve mentioned in the opening paragraphs. I only said Cath is stronger because her response to grief is more on moving on, on rebuilding, than dwelling in the past. Hers is more positive. There’s so much going on with Dorothy’s grief, and it’s hard to tell because she wears—and switches—masks all the time. But what’s clear here is that Dorothy’s own version of trauma swerves off the usual path…and it’s not really positive, either. That’s why I compared her grief to Quatre’s. Look what it did to him.

My bad, if anyone else misunderstands what I meant to say.

Response 2 by Dorothy-Catalonia (roleplayer):

OOC: More amazing stuff from CinderellaInCombatBoots! A great insight into two often misrepresented characters.

Also raises a lot for me to think about. I really do need to commit to rewatching the series, and possibly liveblogging so I can keep notes for myself.

Whenever I see someone say, “Dorothy desperately wants peace,” it troubles me. I always sense the implication that she’s just not so bad, that really she’s altruistic, like Treize. I don’t see that in her. She has too much passion for battle, I can’t believe that everything she ever said about the beauty of conflict was for show. She’s genuinely proud of her father and grandfather and the way they died. I don’t think that’s because she sees them as sacrifices to The Ultimate Cause (ending all wars forever). She admires humanity’s resiliency and determination, and she admires their willingness to see their causes through, even unto death.

Dorothy may want peace, but she doesn’t want a Utopian world of sunshine and daisies, either. It would bore her, for one.

As for Catherine, I never saw her as a mother-figure. I reserve that spot for Sally, who offers acceptance, kindness and guidance, but allows her young heroes to still run free and make their own mistakes. I think one reason for this is that I always saw Sally as more mature than Catherine, who is very impetuous. Cinderella’s right, people need to stop writing her off. Catherine IS the civilian survivor, and we mustn’t overlook her.

I’m not following either of the GW-RP tumblelogs, but I think this poster would be an amazing role-player for Dorothy: she’s got a good grasp of her character. Most of the time, Dorothy is indeed like a scientist that loves to watch gerbils as she sets up little changes in their environment—but not without forgetting she is one of the gerbils, too. More layers! I believe Dorothy admires human’s more animalistic nature, which explains her belief that kindness is detrimental to survival. Ironically, for someone who loves to see the ‘beast’ in all humans, she is so…human. Flawed, emotional, and intricate, with the architecture of her psyche that is so hard to figure out.

She may not have an altruistic streak, but I don’t think she’s selfish, either. Isn’t boredom such a little thing to sacrifice if it means not having war victims anymore? If it means there won’t be any bereft twelve-year-old Dorothys anymore? Anyway, I believe she can always celebrate the greatness of humans striving for survival through something else, not only through wars—even if it doesn’t bring her the same excitement. She does love the idea of heroes dying in battle (her father and grandfather included); she even mentions once that she wants to die like them too.

I may be reading too much into her, but I think she believes the peace that awaits them will be more beautiful and glorious if it’s hard-won. If it leaves a colorful history in its wake, and especially if she’s involved in achieving it.

Still, I think her grief contributes to her being a character that is not all black, not all white, but all different shades of gray. I admit, I’m not really engrossed with her character until the moments aboard Battleship Libra (Relena is my favorite until that episode). I just can’t get over what she said about not wanting the world to vanish like her father. It’s that one-liner, and the tears that punctuate it, that opens a crack in her personality where an old Dorothy can be glimpsed. Sadly, we weren’t able to pry further into this because the show ended an episode later.

But at the end we see the lesson she’s learned, when she’s visiting Treize’s grave for the last time: “I’m tired of living in the past.” At that point, she won’t let the ghost of her yesterday’s grief affect her today.

~~why am I so talkative in this fandom lately? I should just go back to making graphics and gifs lol~~

Puncturing My Thought Balloon: David Fincher’s ‘The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo’

2012-02-06T00:22:00.011+08:00

What I planned to be a book vs. film post about The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo turned out to be an unintelligible mess of hyperfangirlism (it was an eyesore to the regular blog-hoppers, I tell you), so I had to go over it again and omit the unnecessary keysmashery of love. :p I’m no film critic, but here’s what I thought of David Fincher’s take on the first installment of the Millenium Trilogy:

❏ The opening sequence. First things first! Fincher wowed me with the opening credits. I’ve seen it a couple of nights ago via Facebook, but it didn’t diminish my awe upon seeing it on the big screen. I heard it was supposed to be Lisbeth’s dream, and what else could be the best way to know more about a mystery-on-two-legs but to tap into her subconscious? It’s amazing. There are a keyboard and some wires, a lit matchstick, and shape-shifting gasoline flowing from the remains of a wrecked car(?).

I simply love the way the gasoline coagulates into different shapes that depict opposing ideas. There’s a kissing couple pulling away from each other like some jellified Siamese twins, and there’s also a masculine hand throwing hard blows at the face of a woman until it shatters into smaller drops. There’s a flower blossoming delicately while a cluster of cruel hands covers the face of a screaming girl (which to me looked like the petals of a monstrous flower closing around an unlucky prey).

Passion and rage, innocence and corruption…seriously, everything about this is violently beautiful. I think it effectively communicates not only the personality of the title character but also the nature of the movie itself. Initially I thought it has more to do with The Girl Who Played With Fire, with Lisbeth wanting to drench her male captor with gasoline and set him aflame, but I figured it’s connected to the way Martin Vanger died in the movie. *hints*

You can watch the sequence here.

❏ Rooney Mara. In my honest opinion, Rooney nailed Lisbeth Salander’s character to perfection. She effectively encased herself in the same hard shell as Lisbeth and still let out all the things that define the character—the spunk, the iron will, the rage she couldn’t keep at bay, her intense albeit off-kilter way of achieving justice, and that little shade of fragility that still makes her the human we know from the pages of the first Millennium book. After seeing Fincher’s adaptation, the name Rooney became synonymous with Lisbeth in my mental thesaurus. I haven’t seen the original Swedish version yet (I will!), but I guess it’s hard to ‘dethrone’ Rooney for me now.

❏ The Irony. Don’t get me wrong, I loved the movie for the most part. But based on most of the audience’s reactions, I think it wasn’t that successful in relaying what Larsson is really trying to say. Did they even try to convey it in the first place? The book (which is originally and aptly entitled “Men Who Hate Women”) is meant to call for action against rape, trafficking, and any kind of abuse perpetrated by male suspects. Lisbeth is supposed to be the embodiment of this action, and I guess only those who’ve mulled over what the book is all about will realize this. I was too excited to realize right off the bat that the film subverted the very essence of it. Did it objectify Lisbeth? Again, based on the comments that treat the girl as if she’s some kind of a sex symbol, I think it did. I'll appreciate you leaving your two cents.

❏ “I am a Rapist Pig.” The scenes with Nils Bjurman are as harrowing as the ones in the book, but I have to admit that Rooney’s screams and her showcase of apathetic brutality made the scenes all the more disturbing. Hell hath no fury like a Lisbeth Salander scorned! And oh, heed it girls—Taser guns are the new pepper sprays. :p

❏ The Hunt. No rants about the tag-team: Lisbeth and Blomkvist’s search for the woman-killer was translated well on screen, from the Leviticus connection to the old photographs of the Children’s Parade. I know you don’t want to read any of my feminist blatherings anymore, but they could have zeroed in on the gender-based crimes more. Just saying.

❏ Stieg Blomkvist! I’m very sorry, but Blomkvist still felt like a Gary Stu to me, both in the book and in the movie. I look up to Larsson and I love Craig, but it’s hard to ignore that Blomkvist is the author’s own glorified fictional alter ego—a thinly veiled one at that.

❏❏ Why, Don Juan? Why am I asking this? I already know Blomkvist is a self-insert. He doesn’t interest me whatsoever, and I loathe how he so effortlessly draw girls to bed. Come the eff on. Even Lisbeth? :(
❏❏❏ Why, Don Juan (part II)? Blomkvist is the Millennium trilogy’s Achilles’ Heel. I just have to say that in a different line.

❏ The ‘Parents’. I’m aware of the limits of a two-and-a-half-hour movie versus a 700-page book, but I wish they didn’t completely leave out the subplot about Lisbeth Salander’s mother. I thought it would be much better if they included bits of it, at least for the sake of a glimpse of her private life. But then again maybe that’s what they’re aiming for her character—enigmatic ‘til the end. I hope they make up for it in the next film installments.

Anyhoo, I kind of wish the same thing about Milton Security CEO Dragan Armansky. I know he’s just a minor character, but he’s one of the few men that actually cares for Lisbeth in the book…at least after he snaps out of his inexplicable attraction to her and begins to stand as her surrogate father of some kind. Meanwhile, the scenes Lisbeth had with Palmgren show a little of her softer side. I especially loved the chess scene near the end. :’)

❏ Mimmi Wu. I just felt like mentioning her, okay? She’s Lisbeth’s lesbian friend and occasional lover. :p I thought they’d leave her out because Larsson just mentioned her in passing (in the first book).

❏ Babysitting Blomkvist. Maybe it was mentioned in the movie and I just missed it? I liked how in the book, Blomkvist has already met Harriet and Anita when he’s still a toddler. Aside from backing up the supposed closeness of the two girls, mentioning this will also bring Blomkvist father’s into the picture, which will make Henrik’s choice about hiring Blomkvist more believable. Yeah, yeah, you can’t cram everything in the movie. ~~But dang, a line or two about it would suffice.~~

❏ Enya. THIS. The non-stop earworm after I heard it! Haha. Remember the scene where Martin Vanger traps Blomkvist in his torture chamber? It had me cracking up like crazy. I know it’s inappropriate, but the moment I heard “Orinoco Flow,” I lost it. The track being chosen as a ‘murderous’ tune is said to be Daniel Craig’s fault. :)

❏ "To Sally, Who Taught me the Benefits of Golf." I have to include this, because the movie didn’t. It was written on the dedication page of Blomkvist’s “revenge” report for Wennerström, referring to Lisbeth saving him from Martin in the latter’s murder den.

❏ The Anita-Harriet Twist. Practically still the same the ending, but Fincher twisted it up in a manner that will be able to surprise even the ones who’ve read books. It’s very well-played, though if you ask me the book’s original ending is still better.

❏ The Investment. Need I say more? I enjoyed every minute of it. I haven’t read the last two books yet, so I still don’t know if they’d ever find out it’s Lisbeth who emptied Wennerström’s bank accounts. :p

___

All in all it’s still a very good movie, and it made me want to read The Girl Who Played with Fire right after I watched it. :) Still, I think I need to see the original Swedish version.

Review: The Sky is Everywhere

2012-02-05T23:59:00.003+08:00

Title: The Sky is Everywhere
Author: Jandy Nelson
Genre: Contemporary, Young Adult, Romance
My Rating: ★★★★

When a shroud of mourning drapes itself on your world, how would you able to see the sky again? Looking up is just a misconception: “The sky is everywhere—it begins at your feet.”

Meet Lennon “Lennie” Walker: teenage bookworm, band geek, clarinet-player, and Heathcliff fangirl. All her life she’s always been the sidekick, the shadow, and the second-placer to her older sister Bailey. That is why when Bailey dies, she is forced to take the center stage and choreograph her own life’s dance while dealing with her grief...and juggling two guys for a previously non-existent love life.

This is The Sky is Everywhere: fueled by sorrow that gradually enmeshes itself with music, poetry, and love, until later on it transfigures into a bright new entity that encourages you to live instead of just to exist.

Contemporary romantic tragedies, particularly ones that kill off beloved characters near the end, can be counted as chick lit staples nowadays. I am not a happy-ever-after junkie but for some reason, this kind of books never became my cup of tea. I do not pick them up when I feel like I need to pepper my reading challenges with something from the chick lit shelf. If you ask me, stories that start with a death of someone you never knew or loved are more appealing. They have a quiet, morose charm that automatically tugs at your curiosity, and the author will attempt to assemble a jigsaw puzzle of this person in your mind, a patchwork of memories that made the other characters love him/her so much. In the end, if the author is successful, the tale will leave you a lingering feeling that will make you say, “I wish I met him/her before he died.”

I expected The Sky is Everywhere to be such a book, but it is not exactly like that. For a story that initially revolves around a gloomy concept, it is incredibly…loud. Loud with all the emotions our bereft heroine is trying to shut inside her private world, loud with all the reckless ping-pong of reasons between logic and emotions, loud with all the off-key melodies of a heart that deliriously tiptoes on two tightropes. Lennie’s only outlet for the excess songs is scattering her poems all over town, hoping that in some way, she can mark the world with her story. The poems, which are mostly about her sister, appear at the beginning of almost every chapter:

The morning of the day Bailey died, she woke me up
by putting her finger in my ear.
I hated when she did this.
She then started trying on shirts, asking me:
Which do you like better, the green or the blue?
The blue.
You didn’t even look up, Lennie.
Okay, the green. Really, I don’t care what shirt you wear…
Then I rolled over in bed and fell back asleep.
I found out later
she wore the blue
and those were the last words I ever spoke to her.

(Found written on a lollipop wrapper on the trail to the Rain River)

The tones of Lennie’s poems change throughout the novel, especially when she falls in love (we will get to that later).

The thing about Bailey is even if she is dead, her presence lingers thickly in every turn of the plot. The author still stitches together an image of her, but in the end you will not say “I wish I met her before she died” because in the course of the story, you did meet her. I guess Nelson’s hypnotic duet of poetry and prose made this possible. :)

I find the romantic aspect of the novel quite fine. Funny and loyal Joe Fontaine, with his eyelash-batting and guitar-playing (and his being from Paris, if I may add), does not stray that much from the common teenagers’ fantasy of Mr.Right. Toby, the other guy, is Bailey’s skateboarding boyfriend. I shared Lennie’s embarrassment and guilt when she and Toby start a confusing, illogical affair, although I came to understand how both of them were just trying to fill the void that Bailey left behind in their lives.

My favorite part is that even if the main male characters did contribute to Lennie’s growth, neither can be considered as her complete Knight in Shining Armor. Lennie comes out of her shell on her own; she begins to stand up for the things she believe in, she learns to bravely rectify the mistakes she make, and ultimately, she accepts her worth as an individual. Not just someone’s “shadow, sidekick, and second-placer.”

To those who think this is a darkish novel, it is not. It has just the right amount of humor that bursts even in the first pages, balanced out by the overall poignant feel of the story.

I give this four out of five stars.

So there's a term for it? (Foreign Word Trivia)

2012-02-05T23:53:00.000+08:00

(compiled by Pamela Haag at BigThink)

Mamihlapinatapei
(Yagan, an indigenous language of Tierra del Fuego): The wordless yet meaningful look shared by two people who desire to initiate something, but are both reluctant to start. Oh yes, this is an exquisite word, compressing a thrilling and scary relationship moment. It’s that delicious, cusp-y moment of imminent seduction. Neither of you has mustered the courage to make a move, yet. Hands haven’t been placed on knees; you’ve not kissed. But you’ve both conveyed enough to know that it will happen soon… very soon.
Yuanfen
(Chinese): A relationship by fate or destiny. This is a complex concept. It draws on principles of predetermination in Chinese culture, which dictate relationships, encounters and affinities, mostly among lovers and friends.From what I glean, in common usage yuanfen means the “binding force” that links two people together in any relationship.
But interestingly, “fate” isn’t the same thing as “destiny.” Even if lovers are fated to find each other they may not end up together. The proverb, “have fate without destiny,” describes couples who meet, but who don’t stay together, for whatever reason. It’s interesting, to distinguish in love between the fated and the destined. Romantic comedies, of course, confound the two.
Cafuné
(Brazilian Portuguese): The act of tenderly running your fingers through someone’s hair.
Retrouvailles
(French): The happiness of meeting again after a long time. This is such a basic concept, and so familiar to the growing ranks of commuter relationships, or to a relationship of lovers, who see each other only periodically for intense bursts of pleasure. I’m surprised we don’t have any equivalent word for this subset of relationship bliss. It’s a handy one for modern life.
Ilunga (Bantu):
A person who is willing to forgive abuse the first time; tolerate it the second time, but never a third time.
Apparently, in 2004, this word won the award as the world’s most difficult to translate. Although at first, I thought it did have a clear phrase equivalent in English: It’s the “three strikes and you’re out” policy. But ilunga conveys a subtler concept, because the feelings are different with each “strike.” The word elegantly conveys the progression toward intolerance, and the different shades of emotion that we feel at each stop along the way.
Ilunga captures what I’ve described as the shade of gray complexity in marriages—Not abusive marriages, but marriages that involve infidelity, for example. We’ve got tolerance, within reason, and we’ve got gradations of tolerance, and for different reasons. And then, we have our limit. The English language to describe this state of limits and tolerance flattens out the complexity into black and white, or binary code. You put up with it, or you don’t. You “stick it out,” or not.
Ilunga restores the gray scale, where many of us at least occasionally find ourselves in relationships, trying to love imperfect people who’ve failed us and whom we ourselves have failed.
La Douleur Exquise
(French): The heart-wrenching pain of wanting someone you can’t have.
When I came across this word I thought of “unrequited” love. It’s not quite the same, though. “Unrequited love” describes a relationship state, but not a state of mind. Unrequited love encompasses the lover who isn’t reciprocating, as well as the lover who desires. La douleur exquise gets at the emotional heartache, specifically, of being the one whose love is unreciprocated.
Koi No Yokan
(Japanese): The sense upon first meeting a person that the two of you are going to fall into love.
This is different than “love at first sight,” since it implies that you might have a sense of imminent love, somewhere down the road, without yet feeling it. The term captures the intimation of inevitable love in the future, rather than the instant attraction implied by love at first sight.
Ya’aburnee
(Arabic): “You bury me.” It’s a declaration of one’s hope that they’ll die before another person, because of how difficult it would be to live without them.
The online dictionary that lists this word calls it “morbid and beautiful.” It’s the “How Could I Live Without You?” slickly insincere cliché of dating, polished into a more earnest, poetic term.
Forelsket
(Norwegian): The euphoria you experience when you’re first falling in love.
This is a wonderful term for that blissful state, when all your senses are acute for the beloved, the pins and needles thrill of the novelty. There’s a phrase in English for this, but it’s clunky. It’s “New Relationship Energy,” or NRE.
Saudade
(Portuguese): The feeling of longing for someone that you love and is lost. Another linguist describes it as a “vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist.”
It’s interesting that saudade accommodates in one word the haunting desire for a lost love, or for an imaginary, impossible, never-to-be-experienced love. Whether the object has been lost or will never exist, it feels the same to the seeker, and leaves her in the same place: She has a desire with no future. Saudade doesn’t distinguish between a ghost, and a fantasy. Nor do our broken hearts, much of the time.

My favorites are Ya’aburnee, Mamihlapinatapei, and La Douleur Exquise. :p

Red

2012-02-05T23:50:00.000+08:00

Imagine Red Riding Hood strolling down a forest path that mysteriously bleeds a few shades of scarlet. As she gets closer, you realize she’s not so little after all—and the sight of the Big Bad Wolf pelt she’s donning sends a chill down your spine. Furtively, she slides a pistol into her basket and purses her blood-red lips at you. That’s when it hits you: this is not the girl that everyone told you is a brainchild of Disney or the Brothers Grimm.

No. She hails from the mind of Kneil Melicano.

And just if you think that scene comes from a re-imagined fairytale that he penned, you’re wrong. It’s from RED, a piece of art that has become so popular, you can see it plastered on the shirts of almost every storybook buff you encounter. It can weave a thousand stories, from one that has strong feministic implications to just a treat for fairytale purists that prefer grit to happy endings. This is just one of his astonishingly beautiful works.

A lot of people may ask, what is the story of this one man that creates one image with a hundredfold possible tales?

Find out in ZONE magazine’s Revolt issue this February, to be released soon! Follow our Tumblr and stay tuned!

The Hunger Games (Trailer 2)

2012-02-03T08:55:00.001+08:00

I…just. *sniffs*

So you can’t judge a movie by its trailer the same way you can’t judge a book by its blurb (it’s true not only for the cover), but my hopes are already Everest-high, okay? I can’t help it. Watching this just raised my expectations another notch, if that is even possible.

My mother of all clichés: I can’t wait for this movie.

~~Now I’m off to see The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo.~~

The Hunger Games: A Bookworm’s Ruminations

2012-02-01T13:32:00.002+08:00

Sometimes, I wonder why I’m so sad after finishing this trilogy—aside from the fact that Mockingjay is an utterly depressing book, that is. I wonder why I desperately cook up scenes in my head where Suzanne Collins realized that Panem (or her whole post-apocalyptic world) is really an under-explored setting and she’d write spin-offs of this series. Why I reread this and continuously wish there’s not just three books.

But then I asked myself, did the trilogy really end? I think it did not. Good books stay with you forever—their stories continue long after you’ve turned the last page. They may not be the most well-written books in the world, there may be a plot hole here and there, but those don’t matter as long as they leave you something dear, like a dent in your heart, lessons, and memories. They’ve become a part of your life, in one way or another. This does not only apply to the Hunger Games trilogy but to all other books you may have read and yet to read. :)

Books—you have to agree that they’re some form of a miracle. Not breathing, but they’re alive and they have hearts that can pinch yours. :D

Less than two months from now, the world will finally get to see the movie adaptation of The Hunger Games. I know I’ll cry—and I’m not just talking about Rue’s death scene or Peeta’s “it’s all for the games” bitter realization or any of the usual ouch-my-heart moments. I don’t know how to explain it, but just knowing the fact that one of my favorite literary work will be translated on the big screen is enough to prod my tear ducts of happiness. :)

I really, really hope the movie will not disappoint.

Ramblings (Restless Prosemeister and Doodler Edition)

2012-02-01T13:29:00.000+08:00

Slips of Yellowed Memories

Cleaning or rearranging my bookshelves doesn't feel like a chore to me because of many things, and one of them is a potential trip down memory lane. In my post about last week's general cleaning, I mentioned how I kept on flicking through the books to find my favorite passages when I was supposed to just dust them off. The quotes and scenes I revisited did bring me a few fond memories I had while reading them the first time, but I also came upon several post-its and creased papers inserted between the pages...little things that took me back to my wilderness years. Here is one of them:

It’s a doodle I made about four years ago, when I and a college friend were talking about…our feelings. Our frustrations and failures and secrets and ambitions and wishes. Everything. We were in a library when we had this ‘open-up’ session, so we had to keep our voices down. What we lacked in decibels, we made up for in the hurricane of inked words: those were our screams that we wanted the world to hear. That time, the only ears that would heed us were the flat surface of paper and each other’s hearts.

The whole thing sounds a tad too dramatic, right? I just found the need to put it out here—I know there would always be a point in your lives when it seems like no one is listening to you. Spilling all your thoughts onto your journal may sometimes help, but there’s nothing like a friend who’s there by your side, sharing your pain and assuring you that everything will be alright. :)

Scattering a Fistful of Hopes

Recently—more specifically after reading Jandy Nelson’s The Sky is Everywhere—I went back to my high school hobby of penning poems and slipping them through random books in libraries. I saw how the habit helped the character Lennie in immortalizing her memories with her dead sister as well as lessening the grief. I’m not exactly grieving right now, but in high school, I’ve always thought that scattering fragments of myself could help me lighten the weight of these held-in ideas I’ve always wanted to tell someone but couldn’t. The only difference of my little hobby now from its preceding version is that I write not only to ‘unburden’ myself, but also to encourage other people to think positive. For example:

On one fold of a tissue paper—

“Fear is a savage beast that resides in your heart.
It feeds on all the doubts and lies and tears and pain you harbor inside, fattening itself so that one day, it may destroy you completely.”

On the next fold—

“Don’t hold on to its poisoned fangs; look up and see how tomorrow arrives as it tints the sky a lovely hue. You are the only one who can banish the monster inside you. Bandage your wounds; move on. Trust yourself.”

That’s originally from my oneword account, by the way. :)

The re-commencement of the poem-slipping encore took place in secondhand bookshops, but I eventually moved on to wedging them between jeepney seats, rails on waiting sheds, and park benches. Sometimes I just scribble simple two-liners (“SMILE! It can give someone a pocketful of hope—that’s more important that a pocketful of coins.”). Sometimes I even throw in a little doodle. Surprisingly, tissues are my main medium. Those things are practically everywhere—on fastfood restaurants, MRT and LRT food stalls, and in restrooms (why, yes, I did it in restrooms too! Dorks will always be dorks). Other times, I just rip off pages from my spiral notebooks.

It just feels great. I can hide beneath the semi-transparent veil of poetry while spilling my heart. And, when people read them, I can get them inspired too. Hopefully.

Alan Watts' writing advice

2012-01-31T12:54:00.003+08:00

Neil Gaiman shared this "writing advice" on his tumblr a few days ago. I like how Alan Watts sounds so matter-of-fact here. Just reading it fuels my creative juices. ;)

Advice? I don’t have advice. Stop aspiring and start writing. If you’re writing, you’re a writer.

Write like you’re a goddamn death row inmate and the governor is out of the country and there’s no chance for a pardon.

Write like you’re clinging to the edge of a cliff, white knuckles, on your last breath, and you’ve got just one last thing to say, like you’re a bird flying over us and you can see everything, and please, for God’s sake, tell us something that will save us from ourselves.

Take a deep breath and tell us your deepest, darkest secret, so we can wipe our brow and know that we’re not alone.

Write like you have a message from the king. Or don’t. Who knows, maybe you’re one of the lucky ones who doesn’t have to.

Read, read, read: Write, write, write

2012-01-27T23:42:00.000+08:00

The Sky is Everywhere is an enchanting read! Music, poetry, love, grief…Jandy Nelson meshed all these elements in a majestic albeit funny ball of her own patented fiction that she hurls straight to the heart of the readers. I wouldn’t give away so much about it, but I’d like to say I enjoyed it very much. Review to follow! :)

There’s a short interview with the author after the epilogue, and my favorite bit is her advice to aspiring writers. I thought to share it here, since most of you guys I know would be interested in it. Here’s what she said:

Read, read, read. And write, write, write. Also, remember that what makes your voice as a writer unique is the fact that you're you, so don't be afraid to put yourself on the page, to reveal your passions, sorrows, joys, idiosyncrasies, insights, your personal monsters and miracles.

Only you can be you and only you can write like you—that's your gift alone. If you have the writing fever, just keep at it—writing takes a ton of practice, patience, and perseverance—make sure to ignore the market and don't let rejection talk you out of your dream.

I love this quote by Ray Bradbury: "Yet if I were asked to name the most important items in a writer's make-up, the things that shape his material and rush him along the road to where he wants to go, I could only warn him to look to his zest, see to his gusto."

Read Yourself Interesting

2012-01-25T06:15:00.002+08:00

This amazing ad campaign is from Pulpbooks:

How witty! The first one really gets to me; I love how the woman finds the well-read man more interesting than the dapper one in the picture. Honestly, I can talk to well-read folks for hours! And I don’t mean people who get through hundreds of books, but people who let hundreds of books get through them. There’s a big difference. ;)

One of the best days of my life?

2012-01-25T06:13:00.005+08:00

I’m very much like Looking for Alaska’s Takumi Hikohito when it comes to dreams. One of the best days of my life hasn't happened yet. That will be the day when I'll drive my parents in my own car to their own house, and then I'll hand them the keys and tell them its all theirs. I’ll give them the life they didn’t have while being happy in living the life I choose for myself.

I once swore never to explain myself to people who will never understand, but I’ll give them the simplest tidbits they don’t seem to get:

My goals don’t revolve only around my chosen career.
My dreams are never just about myself.
My family is a big chunk of this lofty star I’m trying to reach.

I’m trying to juggle my happiness and my loved ones’ happiness here, and it so happens that a third factor must be involved: money. No need for the usual philosophical word vomit here. Sometimes, no matter how deep you are submerged in your own ocean of dreams and aspirations, you have to resurface to reality: money may not be everything, but it does matter. Such a simple fact in life.

It just irks me to the core when I hear judgmental people talking about how wrong I was to discard the opportunity they’ll rather have. They don’t even know the whole story…which is partly my fault, because I didn’t bother to spill all the reasons for my decision. If I could, I would throw the said opportunity to their faces since they want it so bad! :(

I’m happy about my choice, and that’s what matters. I just hope some people mind their own businesses. Someday, I’ll be able to show them I took the right path—and perhaps that, too, will be one of the best days of my life.

/rant and drama

Operation: Annihilate Dust Bunnies (+ a little late bookwormism update)

2012-01-24T04:35:00.015+08:00

After having a terrible case of hives and another asthma attack, last weekend became general cleaning days specifically focused on raiding my wee fortress of a bedroom. While there were no cobwebs veiling the furniture, dust bunnies have already started amassing, ready to bedevil us again after their untimely demise from last month’s general cleaning.

My mother made it a point to launch feather-duster assaults at my mini-shelves and my other book storage areas (e.g. room corners, drawers, and about 1/4 of the top bunk). I think this is because she and everyone else at home know I’ve always treated my books like my own personal weed, figuratively (getting addicted to the stories they contain) and literally (inhaling the scent of the pages) . The latter is not a good habit for an asthmatic who possess a bunch of old books, but just like an incurable drug user, I just couldn’t…quit, haha! So we’re just left with Plan B, which is to shoo the dust away as much as we can.

I helped in cleaning my babies’ mini-homes, despite their protests.

Surprisingly unlike many bookworms, I always wrap my novels with plastic covers and replace them when they get too clouded with dirt/when they get creased (it’s a pet peeve). For me, the plastic wrappers are like diapers that needed to be changed. :P I armed myself with scissors, a two-yard roll of plastic cover, scotch tape, and some clean rags. Because most of the books were newly purchased, they were not as dusty as I’ve initially imagined.

They didn’t let me touch the old books in my shelves in the living room, though, because apparently the dust bunnies decided the spaces between the novels and the shelves’ black wood would make a good headquarters. It’s not much of an achievement, but I accomplished my part of the mission with just a couple of sneezes. :)

However, I didn’t finish early. It’s because every time I pick up a book, I get an irresistible urge to leaf through its pages and read some of the parts I’ve bookmarked as my favorites. You wouldn’t want to know how long I was stuck with The Hunger Games trilogy! By the end of the day, I ended up rereading the entire Zombies vs. Unicorns anthology.

On an unrelated note, I’m currently reading Jandy Nelson’s The Sky is Everywhere. I was originally choosing between Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things and Audrey Niffenegger’s Her Fearful Symmetry, but I happened to flick through The Sky’s pages while cleaning. I decided to postpone the others and prioritize this one. The main protagonist is a grief-stricken girl who scatters her poems all over their town. It sort of reminded me of myself back in high school, when I used to pen random snippets of made-up songs and poems that I slip between the pages of random library books.

Also, the girl’s name is Lennon. My inner music junkie likes it! I suddenly thought of naming my future daughter Lennon, haha. And if she has a brother, the boy’s name is going to be Ono (get it? Get it?! John and Yoko?). Haha! Please excuse me, I graduated with a major in Bookwormism and a minor in Dorkology. :p

Anyway, the book is good so far.

Color Collision: Murakami meets the Sartorialist

2012-01-24T04:34:00.001+08:00

In my stint as the managing editor of ZONE magazine, I am given the chance to e-interview a few prominent figures from the glamorous world of spotlit catwalks and glossy magazine covers. One of the questionnaires’ default item is “where do you get your inspiration?” and I’ve learned that creative juices of fashion designers can be fueled by all sorts of things.

I’m a multi-fandom geek (whose freak-out meter often goes haywire when it comes to my own possible fashion faux pas), and my approval leans heavily towards outfits inspired by some of my well-loved fictional works (case in point 1, case in point 2). So when I stumbled upon the Vintage Anchor post about Sera Hur’s little lit-fashion mash-up—featuring John Gall’s wonderful cover designs for Haruki Murakami’s books and some equally colorful outfits from The Sartorialist—there’s no wonder an automatic keysmash of love from me ensued!

There's nothing new in literary concepts or illustrations inspiring garment designs, but I’m readily hooked by these. Well, they are not really inspired by Gall’s covers (surprised?), but at first look, you’d think they are. Thanks to Hur’s keen eye for detail and careful browsing at The Sartorialist, she even created a Murakami-esque effect of blurring what’s real and what’s not. :p Check them out!

Skelly isn’t Pretty

2012-01-24T04:30:00.004+08:00

One of my favorite questions for anyone in the fashion industry is this: “Many models say that confidence is sexy, but a lot of girls don’t seem to truly grasp its meaning; they still think they have to be really thin in order to be considered beautiful. What advice can you give them?”

Let’s face it—the clichéd “what truly matters is that you’re beautiful on the inside” won’t do anymore. Up to now, I still haven’t heard an answer that girls would immediately heed, what with their perspective of beauty tampered with and distorted by our society today. If you aren’t stick-thin and post-tall, if you can’t stuff yourself in branded teeny-weeny tees and micro-mini skirts, then most likely you’re out. The fashion industry’s obsession with size zero models with mile-long legs and filament-like arms has always unnerved me, but what can we do? That’s how the world as we know it rolls.

When I chanced upon Gavin Bond’s old in-your-face photography set that ridicules this situation, I know I should give it a space on my blog. It’s playful but definitely thought-provoking. The set features a skeletal girl doing things the typical rich girls most people revere do on the beach.

The photos sort of reminded me of the Apocalyptic horseman Famine from the Gaiman-Pratchett collab, Good Omens. Famine loves skinny models. They’re the living proof of his success. He creates diet fads and new foods that are indistinguishable from any other food except for the nutritional content, which was roughly equivalent to that of a Sony Walkman. It didn't matter how much you ate, you lost weight. And hair. And skin tone. And, if you ate enough of it long enough, vital signs.

Don’t let yourselves become walking skeletons, girls! Health is important, and you can be beautiful without your body image having to mimic the stick-and-paper build of a kite. ;)

The Hunger Games updates!

2012-01-24T04:27:00.001+08:00

To anyone who still hasn’t seen it, Lionsgate has released the official poster of The Hunger Games movie a few days ago. Here’s our very own girl on fire aiming at you!

There are also two official stills: one featuring Katniss and Peeta clad in their Cinna-designed, yet-to-be-lit jumpsuits before the tribute parade, and the other featuring Team District 12 either watching the recap of the chariot parade or the announcement of their training session scores:

Is it March 23 yet?! I'm so excited!

(source: mockingjay.net)

Review: ████

2012-01-19T05:39:00.005+08:00

Title: ███████
Author: ████████ █████████
Genre: ████████, █████████ ██████████
My Rating: ██████

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▲ This review is blocked in protest of SOPA and PIPA. Yes, it's my own personal "SCREW SOPA" statement, because I don't want an Orwellian society. :p Read more about SOPA and PIPA and my views on them here.

Internet’s Blackout Revolution: Waging War Against SOPA and PIPA

2012-01-19T05:24:00.006+08:00

The information superhighway has all its virtual bandoleers ready with their own version of ammunition. Yes, almost everyone online has already waged war against the bills Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and Protect IP Act (PIPA). Hundreds of websites are now on strike...and lawmakers from the opposing side are gradually being convinced to jump ships! I have a hunch that more of them will disavow the bills in the coming days.

Way to go, internet! But the fight is far from over. “In just 7 days, the Senate will vote on forever altering the free and open internet by instituting a new regime of extra-judicial, corporate-led website takedowns. This is a fundamental fight about who has power in society — the people with the means to communicate freely or the governments and corporations that feel threatened,” says an email that is being passed from one netizen to another.

I myself belong to the Anti-SOPA army. I'm a blogger. A writer. A literary critic. A budding artist. A shutterbug. I want the Internet to remain the beloved virtual school and home I've known for a bunch of years, a place where I can freely express my opinions, share my thoughts, and expand my creative horizon. It contributed a lot to my growth, to be honest. I have it to thank for what I am today, and what I will be...if SOPA and PIPA will not win on the 24th.

If they decide not to shelve (or better yet, KILL) the bills, it will affect not only the United States but also many countries around the world—including the Philippines, I reckon. The unregulated Internet may have spawned a couple of plights, but it has also given birth to a lot of life-changing developments that our society can consider as boons. While I believe there is a need to formulate a solution for piracy in the internet, I don’t think censoring or completely shutting down websites without due process is the right answer. Imagine the harrowing collateral damage it will entail! Our basic internet freedoms are being pushed onto the chopping block; even people who are not very well-versed with the Constitution know this is an infringement of the freedom of speech/expression and other related rights.

Is George Orwell right? Did he hit the bull’s eye of our future, as told in his novel 1984? It’s scary, but I’m kind of seeing it now. Dictatorial power is what the American government is trying to get, and recognizing the power of Internet, they made it their first target. They will get this coveted power once the bills pass through the Congress. There is no going back once the ‘blacklist’ system is established. The effect of US government’s every action and decision will ripple throughout the world, and by that time you should be ready to welcome the gradual arrival of a 2012 dystopia. I wish I’m kidding.

How SOPA Would Work

Here’s a video with the infographic from americancensorship.org showing the gist of SOPA:

The Internet Blacklist Bills

And here’s additional information provided by the Read Write Web:

SOPA (bill text) sets up a variety of ways for the U.S. government to block sites that are seen to be infringing on intellectual property. The bill is tailored towards the entertainment industry to protect movie studios, TV networks and record labels from having foreign websites illegally copying and distributing copyrighted works.

Along with the Protect IP Act of 2011, here are the ways the U.S. government can enforce the proposed laws.

1. Force ISPs to block access to Domain Name System servers to infringing foreign sites. Here is the pertinent portion of Section 102 of SOPA: A service provider shall take technically feasible and reasonable measures designed to prevent access by its subscribers located within the United States to the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) that is subject to the order, including measures designed to prevent the domain name of the foreign infringing site (or portion thereof) from resolving to that domain name's Internet Protocol address.

2. Force search providers to make such sites that have been flagged as infringing undiscoverable. Prevent the foreign infringing site that is subject to the order, or a portion of such site specified in the order, from being served as a direct hypertext link.

3. Force payments processors to shut down the ability for infringing sites to make money. Suspend its service from completing payment transactions involving customers located within the United States or subject to the jurisdiction of the United States and the payment account.

4. Force Internet advertisers to cease doing business with an infringing site. Prevent its service from providing advertisements to or relating to the foreign infringing site that is subject to the order or a portion of such site specified in the order.

The Phalanx Against the Internet Blacklist Bills

Last month, Techcrunch have listed at most 40 internet companies that came out publicly against SOPA. I can’t find an updated roster but I’m pretty certain the number upped a notch today, and will continue to rise as the date of the voting nears. Here are some of the websites flaunting their ‘blackout pages’ and statements to protest the bills.

FACEBOOK

Okay, while Facebook doesn’t have a ‘blackout’ page of any kind, its CEO Mark Zuckerberg released an official statement today. Yep, they’re against the bills as well:

The internet is the most powerful tool we have for creating a more open and connected world. We can't let poorly thought out laws get in the way of the internet's development. Facebook opposes SOPA and PIPA, and we will continue to oppose any laws that will hurt the internet.

The world today needs political leaders who are pro-internet. We have been working with many of these folks for months on better alternatives to these current proposals. I encourage you to learn more about these issues and tell your congressmen that you want them to be pro-internet.

You can read more about our views here.

GOOGLE

Lawyer David Drummond prepared an post on Google’s official website explaining their position on the issue.

Fighting online piracy is extremely important. We are investing a lot of time and money in that fight. Last year alone we acted on copyright takedown notices for more than 5 million webpages and invested more than $60 million in the fight against ads appearing on bad sites. And we think there is more that can be done here--like targeted and focused steps to cut off the money supply to foreign pirate sites. If you cut off the money flow, you cut the incentive to steal.

Because we think there's a good way forward that doesn't cause collateral damage to the web, we're joining Wikipedia, Twitter, Tumblr, Reddit, Mozilla and other Internet companies in speaking out against SOPA and PIPA. And we're asking you to sign a petition and join the millions who have already reached out to Congress through phone calls, letters and petitions asking them to rethink SOPA and PIPA.

WIKIPEDIA

MOZILLA

REDDIT

CRAIG’S LIST

WORDPRESS

DP.LA

THE OATMEAL

It’s actually a gif, but it’s kind of NSFW. :) Click here to view it on their official website.

ONEWORD

LIVEJOURNAL

And last but not the least...

MY TUMBLR

Yep, that's Cinderella in Rubber Shoes today! There's a script going around Tumblr that allows you to put a "SOPA blackout" banner on your site. It can be circumvented by clicking anywhere. :)

“What’s in a Name” Reading Challenge

2012-01-19T05:07:00.002+08:00

Aside from Goodreads’ reading challenge (my goal is to reach 50, but I can always add more if I finish it early), I also decided to take “What’s in a Name” challenge this year, hosted by Bethfish. It looks fun, and I can complete both of challenges at the same time. Here are the guidelines:

Between January 1 and December 31, 2012, read one book in each of the following categories:

A book with a topographical feature (land formation) in the title: Black Hills, Purgatory Ridge, Emily of Deep Valley
A book with something you'd see in the sky in the title: Moon Called, Seeing Stars, Cloud Atlas
A book with a creepy crawly in the title: Little Bee, Spider Bones, The Witches of Worm
A book with a type of house in the title: The Glass Castle, The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet's Nest, Ape House
A book with something you'd carry in your pocket, purse, or backpack in the title: Sarah's Key, The Scarlet Letter, Devlin Diary
A book with a something you'd find on a calendar in the title: Day of the Jackal, Elegy for April, Freaky Friday, Year of Magical Thinking

The book titles are just suggestions, you can read whatever book you want to fit the category. Other Things to Know

Books may be any form (audio, print, e-book).
Books may overlap other challenges.
Books may not overlap categories; you need a different book for each category.
Creativity for matching the categories is not only allowed but encouraged.
You do not have to make a list of books before hand.
You do not have to read through the categories in any particular order.

Review: Going Bovine

2012-01-17T07:09:00.000+08:00

Title: Going Bovine
Author: Libba Bray
Genre: Young Adult, Surreal Dark Comedy, Speculative Fiction
My Rating: ★★★★ ½

Warning: SPOILERISH

Take a modern day Holden Caulfield diagnosed with the human equivalent of mad cow disease. Throw him in a mission to find his cure (and save the world!) with a hypochondriac dwarf and a Viking god cursed as a lawn gnome. Add a punk angel with a penchant for spray-painting misspelled messages on her wings, a cluster of fire demons, an enigmatic Wizard, and a wormhole that will bring the dreaded apocalypse. Stir well—and voila! You just prepared Libba Bray’s surreal dark comedy, Going Bovine.

There are many authors who attempted to concoct an effective formula that can render their stories both fall-off-the-chair funny and heartbreaking at the same time, but I believe only a handful of those who declared “Eureka!” got a positive response from the reading world. Libba Bray is one of them.

Speaking through the (vulgar) mouth of teenage lazybones Cameron John Smith,Going Bovine is a story of death, choices, friendship, and of course, life. Bray’s spot-on sense of humor is reminiscent of Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy; her writing style is addictive and convincing. The characterization is astonishingly brilliant, and it proves to be more than enough in persuading the readers to root for the unlikable, unreliable narrator.

Cameron is perhaps one of the most irksome antiheroes in Young Adult literature. The ennui he builds around himself is perpetually backed up by his I’m-the-world’s-most-apathetic-jerk-and-I-know-it-and-you-can’t-do-anything-about-it attitude. Considering himself a ‘social paramecium’, he wants to survive high school (and life in general) just by, well, having mass and occupying space. Nothing more. The word ‘effort’ is nonexistent in his lexicon. Bray makes it so that Cameron comes off as a sardonic quipster that can give you the urge to punch him just for being who he is. That is until he finds out he acquired a fatal illness, the Creutzfeldt-Jakob variant BSE. Suddenly, he is forced to grow out of his shell of indifference; he is forced to care. He has to face many questions, the most important being: have I lived a meaningful life? Have I ever lived at all?

Clearly, the answer is no. Cameron wasted a majority of his life existing, not living. With only a few time left before shifting off the mortal coil, he learns it is too late for him to taste the essence of life. He begins to despise everyone who will outlive him. But as in Pandora’s box, after all the bad news emerges hope: the angel Dulcie gives him a chance to live. He grabs this opportunity and sets off in an adventure like no other, to search for his supposed cure.

Most of the poignant moments occur while Cameron and his newfound friends are on the road. Why is it only when Death is reaching out to you with open arms that you are finally noticing the things in life worth hanging on to? Cameron belongs to a dysfunctional family, and though he does not admit to hating any member, his attitude toward them is the usual “I don’t give a damn.” Everything changes when his impending death is confirmed. When Cameron talks with his father on the phone, you could almost hear his croaking “I love you.” He has a couple of touching moments with his mom too, but my favorite is the subtlest, when he dines at Konstant Kettle and misses his mom’s Grammar Nazi-sh pet peeve. He decides to call her:

There’s a pay phone in the way back next to the men’s bathroom. I drop in all the change I’ve got and make the call. It rings four times and goes to voicemail. I hear my mom’s familiar message.

“Hi, this is Mary Smith. I can’t come to the phone right now because I’ve probably been carried away bygrifﬁns. But if you leave your name and number, I’ll get back to you just as quickly as Hermes would.” There’s a pause, and then she says to me, “Cameron, did I do that right? Oh! We’re still recording! Oh my goodness…,” and her laugh is cut off. That message used to annoy the crap out of me, my mom being all spacey and mom-ish. But right now, hearing her voice is the best thing in the world, like waking up and realizing there’s no school. There’s a beep, and my stomach tightens.

“Um, hi, Mom. It’s me. Cameron. Well, you probably ﬁgured that part out,” I say, sounding like the biggest dork. “Anyway, I’m okay. I want you to know that ﬁrst. And, you know what? Keep grading those moronic English Comp 101 papers, because otherwise, we’re all gonna be getting our gas at the K-W-I-K S-E-R-V and drinking our E-X-P-R-E-S-S-Os at the Konstant Kettle, two K’s. Seriously, the world needs you. You matter. A lot. Okay, I gotta go, ’cause the grifﬁns are here and you know how much they hate to wait. Love you,” I add quickly, and hang up.

Halfway through the novel, Cameron is becoming a more pleasant person. He is still a potty-mouthed smartass, but he cares a lot now. He even loves. I enjoyed reading about their “stops” and how Cameron picks up a couple of lessons from them that he hasn’t learned in the past sixteen years of his life. However, it easily became clear to me that the story will take a Lewis Carroll-esque turn. I’m not certain if it’s because of the plethora of clues strewn across each chapter or the extreme surrealism of events, but either way it did not deter me from liking the whole thing.

Aside from carrying significant messages that will send you pondering, what makes Going Bovine stand out from today’s flurry of cookie-cutter Alice in Wonderland tales is that it makes you question what really happened. That said, I absolutely love the concept of parallel worlds/alternate realities. In the readers’ perspective, everything is just a Don Quixote journey…but what is real, anyway? Bray poses that rhetorical question from the very start. Like Schrödinger’s Cat experiment, who’s to say only one reality exists? Can two realities not happen at the same time? Perhaps it’s only my inner kid’s happy-ever-after alarm going off, but I took comfort in the fact that this recurring element may also apply to the storyline itself.

There’s one thing I did not see coming: the identity of the Wizard of the Reckoning. I was shocked in a good way, and that’s plus points in my book. The final pages were amazingly bittersweet and thought-provoking. I was sobbing quietly, but a sense of eternal hope is also lingering there, making me smile (therefore making me look like a first class idiot, haha).

Going Bovine is officially taking its place in the bookshelf of my favorite novels. 4.5 stars out of 5 for an unforgettable read!

“We’re all mad here.”

2012-01-17T07:08:00.000+08:00

I can’t say a lot of things about Libba Bray’s Going Bovine without spoiling anything, so I’ll just say…read this book! You’re going to like it. It will make you think. It will make you feel, and it will urge you to live your every day like it’s your last. You’ll laugh, you’ll cry, you’ll laugh while crying. This is perhaps one of the best books about a dying teenager I’ve ever read. Cameron Smith is such a memorable kid, and I’m willing to revisit this novel over and over just so I can see his growth and hear his voice. It’s that good.

I’ll share one of my favorite poignant moments in the book. It’s an exchange between Cameron and his dad, right after they learned Cam has a fatal illness. They are not really close. His dad usually chides him harshly for not being the son he wanted him to be, and the sudden change in his attitude when he learns of his son’s fate makes for an amazing drama:

“Hey, buddy.” The last time Dad called me buddy I was eight and had the measles.

I look up briefly. “Hey.”

“How’re you feeling?”

“Okay.”

“Yeah?” He asks like he really wants to know.

“Yeah. You know. Okay.”

“Yeah.” He nods and picks up a Great Tremolo LP and pretends to read it. “This guy any good?”

I shrug.

“Your mom told me about the, ah, the doctor’s visit. I swear those guys don’t know their asses from their elbows. Anyway, Stan in my office—you know Stan Olsen?—he gave me the number of a specialist in Dallas. I made an appointment for Tuesday.”

“Okay.”

“I’m sure it’s nothing, Cam. Viruses can mimic all kinds of things. The doc will probably throw us out for wasting his time.” Dad puts the Great Tremolo LP down. He looks at the junk-strewn floor like it’s causing him actual pain but he only clears his throat. “Cameron, what did you see? When the toaster caught on fire? Your mom said something about fire giants.”

“I guess I was just getting sick.”

Dad thinks it over, nods. “Speaking of fire, maybe I’ll build us one tonight. We could toast marshmallows, watch a movie?”

It seems like a bad time to point out that it’s sixty degrees, not exactly cozy fire weather. “Sure.”

“Okay. Well. I’ll, ah, just … chop some wood. Okay, buddy?”

I hear the sliding doors into the backyard open and close. When I peek out my window, Dad’s standing in the yard with his hands on his hips, just looking around like he’s never really seen our backyard before. He picks up the ax, takes a halfhearted swing at a puny log. Then he drops to his knees and closes his eyes for a minute. I’d almost swear he was praying. But my dad’s a scientist. He doesn’t believe in religion. He leaps up and swings the ax down hard on the log, putting his whole body into it again and again till there’s nothing left but a mess of splinters.

Did you hear the pain in the father’s voice while he assures Cam the previous doctor made a mistake? And did you feel the hurt in the image in the last paragraph? Everything about this totally breaks my heart. He loves Cameron, even if the kid is one heck of a jerk who doesn’t want to achieve anything in his life. Just rereading this part makes my eyes sting with tears. :’(

Coach Lipsyte!

2012-01-17T07:06:00.003+08:00

Here’s Robert Lipsyte’s writing pep talk for last year’s NaNoWriMo. Like any other writing advice for the event, it’s applicable for writing "for all occasions", if you know what I mean. I thought of posting it here, since I know a few of my visitors here will be interested:

Listen up, Word Warriors.

You have to stop thinking of yourselves as sensitive scribblers waiting for inspiration. It's perspiration you need. Forget about muses; think coaches. Grab a couple of metaphors off the weight rack and follow me.

We are members of a varsity team that kicks sentences, dunks paragraphs, passes pages, slugs out stories. We need to train just the way physical athletes do—hard, consistently, with discipline and goals—because that's the best way to improve.

For warm-ups, read. And read like a writer, not like a reader. Look for what you can use in your own work.

Just the way school ballers study college and pro athletes, young writers have to learn the moves of their favorite authors. Examine their techniques, how they handle dialogue, description, plot, sentence structure, simile. See what they do that you like. See where they swing and connect—or swing and miss. Be sure to read not-so-good writers, too, and try to figure out what you would have done to make the story better.

Now you're ready for your own workout.

Before NaNoWriMo, try to write every day—the same way you would work out physically, but instead of running, lifting, and stretching, you'll be listing ideas, writing notes, character sketches, and outlines. Always carry a notebook. You don't want to miss a good thought—but more importantly, you need to get into the habit of thinking of yourself as a varsity writer in training.

Writing is usually something you do alone. But as with most athletes, it's always better to have a coach and a team for support. By coach, think of a teacher, friend, or family member who can keep you motivated. By team, think of all the other young novelists, online or in your class, with whom you can share problem-solving and ideas.

Okay, let's get out there.

Ready?

Sit.

Write!

Use your hurt. :)

2012-01-17T07:05:00.000+08:00

That is all.

Review: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian

2012-01-11T04:28:00.000+08:00

Title: The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian
Author: Sherman Alexie
Genre: Young Adult, Coming-of-Age
My Rating: ★★★★ ½

It’s a massive understatement to say life is hard for someone like Arnold Spirit, Junior. Being geeky and having hydrocephalus, epilepsy, stutter, lisp, and extra ten teeth made an outsider out of the aspiring fourteen-year-old cartoonist in an already outsider of a community. He’s used to the feel of punches and kicks on his body and the sharp stings of barbs on his heart; to take the edge off, he uses his humor and talent in the arts. “I belong to the Black-Eye-of-the-Month Club,” he jests when referring to the bullying. “I think the world is a series of broken dams and floods, and my cartoons are tiny little lifeboats,” he says about his drawings.

Like everybody else in the Spokane Indian Reservation, Junior acknowledges the fact that they are destined to be poor for the rest of their lives…but only at first. He has a lot of dreams, and deep inside he knows he will not reach them if he stays in the rez. One book-hurling incident and a heart-to-heart talk with a teacher later, Junior decides to change his fate: he’s going to study in an all-white school and start chasing his dreams, even if the odds are not in his favor. His choice pushes him up a step closer to being a social pariah. Everyone in the rez thinks he’s a traitor (an ‘apple’, red on the outside and white on the inside) and everyone in his new school thinks he’s different (he’s the only Indian in school…if you don’t count the mascot). Junior knows it will be a difficult journey, but he figures it’s better to search for a brighter future than to surrender to the bleak destiny he is expected to fulfill.

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian is one of the books I’ll recommend without second thoughts to people who want to have a good laugh…and perhaps a good cry. There are only a few novels that can make my spleen hurt from laughing too hard one minute and then break my heart the next, and this one is perhaps the best of them. Sherman Alexie nimbly handles the hilarious and poignant moments with his simple but powerful writing prowess, and by that I don’t exactly mean he uses an extraordinarily brilliant prose. I just admire how easy it is for him to make Junior sound like a genuine kid blathering about his uproarious mishaps after a long, exhausting school day. In short, Alexie makes the readers feel like they’re conversing with the characters instead of actually reading a book (which, if you ask me, is a sign of a really good book). Even if you don’t have a drop of Indian blood in your veins, finding a friend—or bits of yourself—in Arnold is a cinch. The conversational narrative helps in drawing in the readers closer to the storyline.

I heard this is Alexie’s first foray into the young adult genre, and honestly, it doesn’t show. He knows how a teenager’s mind works, he knows how a teenager’s mouth speaks, and he knows how to use this knowledge to reach out to all the teenagers inside of us.

Interspersed with the story are the cartoons (by Ellen Forney)Arnold draws. These do not only serve as complementary illustrations, they also help the narrative to flow smoothly and provide additional humor (and on some occasions, insightfulness) to the story. Take a look at these doodles:

I think the best thing about the book is how Alexie attacks serious issues like racism, poverty, alcohol and drugs usage, etc. with his sharp wit. In the process, he colors the prose with a lighter tone, but he never forgets to imply that these issues are grave enough to define the Native American life that exists even before the story starts. My favorite theme presented in it is the constant tug o’ war between individualism and collectivism, which Junior finds himself participating in while searching for his identity and place in the society. How do you continue to function in a community that sees you as a traitor? There’s nothing like watching a boy succeed in dealing with the heap of new burdens his own choice dropped on his shoulders, problems that would normally send an adult’s knees buckling. What’s fascinating here is that Junior doesn’t come off as precocious, like most kid geniuses in YA literature who hope to pass up as normal. He still sports the fragility of a kid, and he has a kind of optimism no one in the rez ever possessed.

While I cannot say all the characters are well-developed, I think a majority of them can leave a mark deep enough in the readers’ hearts to make them remarkable. I give Alexie a thumb up for portraying everyone in gray shades; no one is one hundred percent hero and no one is one hundred percent villain. They are justpeople, described with stark honesty in the eyes of a fourteen-year-old.

4.5 stars for an enjoyable read! I’m now considering reading more of Alexie’s works. :)

Reading in the Dark :)

2012-01-11T03:56:00.002+08:00

If there’s something I really can’t stop doing, it’s reading. It’s true that there are nights when I just slide to dreamland without my noticing (with the book clutched in my hands ending up dog-eared, creased, and betrayed in the morning), but when I can struggle to be awake, I spend a lot of time reading stories.

Insomnia has its perks sometimes, though not in the health department. My sleepless nights are frequented by my mother’s voice telling me for the nth time to turn the lights off and sleep. Since I don’t want to cause a lot of trouble, I half-pretend to obey: I flick the lights off, but I ~~can’t~~ don’t sleep. I just fish out my old MyPhone from my bag, crawl beneath the sheets, and start opening e-books. As stated in FAQ#08, I prefer real books to the electronic ones, but it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m averse to reading the latter. :)

I don’t have a Kindle or a Nook at the moment, but I’m planning to get one. My Tumblr friends say I’m not going to regret getting an e-reader, especially that most of the newly released e-books are cheaper (and there’s always the power of free Internet download! Haha). I'm just using my phone right now. With a 4gig memory card and a spacious phone memory, I can stuff it with as many e-books as I like. I think that's enough for the time being. :)

I got Daenerys Targaryen!

2012-01-11T03:46:00.000+08:00

There’s a rather popular A Song of Ice and Fire personality test that many George R. R. Martin fans on Tumblr have already taken. I was initially hesitant to try it in fear that I might come across some spoilers, but I got bored one morning and answered the test anyway. :p Fortunately, I only stumbled upon unfamiliar names—nothing that can spoil A Clash of Kings and the other books for me. :)

It was quite a longer and more comprehensive exam compared to the other fandom personality tests I’ve taken before. At the end it said I’m most like Daenerys Targaryen:

A queen must listen to all. The highborn and the low, the strong and the weak, the noble and the venal. One voice may speak you false, but in many there is always truth to be found.

You are Daenerys Targaryen.

Also known as Daenerys Stormborn, you are the last of the "Blood of the Dragon". You have put up with a lot of difficult people in your life, but you have not let this get you down. You may not seem like it right away, but you are a natural leader. You have a great amount of love for the world, but you know how to stand up for yourself when it needs to be done. You are very open and adaptable—you enjoy learning about and experiencing different cultures. Social justice issues are especially important to you. Madness may run in your family. You are strong, compassionate, and fiery.

You are also similar to Robb Stark and Bran Stark. Your polar opposite is Robert Baratheon.

Perhaps this test is not 100% accurate, but I think I do have the qualities stated above. Honestly, I would have been more satisfied if I got Arya Stark! I believe she’s a little Airiz thrown in a medieval fantasy world (only I’m not as “athletic” as she is, and I guess that counts a lot when it comes to passable Arya-ness). Haha!

“My Strength is Not for Hurting”

2012-01-09T02:24:00.002+08:00

These posters came from a campaign by Men of Strength, a project by California Department of Health Services and the California Coalition Against Sexual Assault (CALCASA). CALCASA is a statewide coalition of rape crisis centers and prevention programs founded in 1980.

Perhaps I’m so 2000-and-late, but this is the first time I stumbled upon a site that actually enlists young men to take action to stop rape. Their vision is to make the world free from sexual violence. I’m very happy it exists, and I wish there are more of them. The campaign speaks a universal language: it centers on the theme “My Strength is Not for Hurting,” and is designed to raise awareness of sexual violence among youth and highlight the vital role that young men can play in fostering healthy, safe relationships.

Spread the word! :)

BookRec Time: The Curse Workers Series!

2012-01-09T02:08:00.005+08:00

Do you like noir fiction or hardboiled crime fantasy? Have a penchant for alternate worlds with three-dimensional feel like ours, populated with well-rounded characters? If yes, then this series is for you! (Okay, I know I sound like a retarded commercial, but I can’t help it).

The Curse Workers Series | Holly Black
White Cat► Red Glove►Black Heart

Blurb from the first book:

Cassel comes from a family of curse workers — people who have the power to change your emotions, your memories, your luck, by the slightest touch of their hands. And since curse work is illegal, they’re all mobsters, or con artists. Except for Cassel. He hasn’t got the magic touch, so he’s an outsider, the straight kid in a crooked family. You just have to ignore one small detail — he killed his best friend, Lila, three years ago.

Ever since, Cassel has carefully built up a façade of normalcy, blending into the crowd. But his façade starts crumbling when he starts sleepwalking, propelled into the night by terrifying dreams about a white cat that wants to tell him something. He’s noticing other disturbing things, too, including the strange behavior of his two brothers. They are keeping secrets from him, caught up in a mysterious plot. As Cassel begins to suspect he’s part of a huge con game, he also wonders what really happened to Lila. Could she still be alive? To find that out, Cassel will have to out-con the conmen.

Holly Black has created a gripping tale of mobsters and dark magic where a single touch can bring love — or death — and your dreams might be more real than your memories.

A new set of covers are released. Personally, I think the UK covers are still better.

Try it! Also, don’t forget to check out Lila Zacharov in 13 Pieces at the series’ official website. It’s a short story generator containing vignettes told from Lila’s POV. The stories explore Lila’s character and her relationship with the others, particularly Cassel. These are said to bridge the gap between White Cat and Red Glove.

Black Heart will be out this May 2012. :)

~~PS: Forgive me for the mediocre graphics above, I’m not a Photoshop expert.~~

How the Creative Mind Works (The Oatmeal Style)

2012-01-08T02:00:00.003+08:00

I’m posting for the truth this cartoon says:

Every. Effing. Time. I usually hit the sack a few couple of minutes before 4am (yep, messed up body clock because of assignments and all that jazz). I’m always terribly exhausted by that time—too tired to think or dream, I swear. Then just before I close my eyes, when I feel all calm and ready to plunge into dreamland, all the plot bunnies decide to start hopping and leaping inside my sleep-deprived head, sprouting all kinds of awesome scenarios that are perfectly fic or art fodder. “I’ll type that down first thing in the morning,” I promise myself. And that’s the promise I break first thing in the morning. Why? Peg’s amnesia girl. XD

I’m sure I’m not the only one. This is perhaps one of the most annoying things ever.

Un-bookwormism Update :(

2012-01-05T05:58:00.002+08:00

I’m not very happy to say that I haven’t picked up Going Bovine again since I bookmarked it at New Year’s eve. Things have gone a little busier lately, and I felt like betraying a friend for ignoring this book. I’m not even kidding.

I’m still on page 40 and I have to say Cameron Smith is such a likable narrator! I hate to be predictable, but there is something really magnetizing about guys who have exceptionally self-deprecating humor (you'll notice a trend if you know my favorite YA male characters). And gads, I love the language of this novel. Libba Bray does know how to worm inside a teenager’s mind! I didn’t see this in her short story “Prom Night” (Zombies vs. Unicorns), my first taste of her work. If Going Bovine turns out really good, I’m going to try all of Bray’s other books! But for now…I need to finish this baby first. :| Schedule, be kind to me…

On an wholly unrelated note—LOOK! My fandom tumblr’s got a new look!

Recognize the background? Yep, it’s also the doodle I used for my book tumblelog, with white reverted to black and vice versa. It used to be just my downtime blog, but I’m starting to form a little circle of fandom friends right there so I might as well “clean up my house,” if you know what I mean. :p The chibi’s on the header are my OTP for G.Wing, Dorothy and Quatre.

Hopefully when I come back to blog, I have a happier bookwormism update. Review for The Absolutely Diary of a Part-Time Indian to be posted soon! Toodles!

Reuniting with Journ-Leftover Girls

2012-01-05T05:55:00.000+08:00

There’s nothing like hanging out with your college girlfriends to punctuate a string of exhaustive months. I haven’t seen them for a long time, and this little reunion, though a little short, is definitely worth remembering.

I met up first with Eliza at the P.Gil train station. As usual, I was taking my daily dose of LRT music (random tidbit: I have a playlist solely for my train rides), so I didn’t notice Eliza when she arrived. She practically screamed my name when she spotted me and then wrapped me in her Girly Bear Hug™. When I returned her embrace, I became aware of several pairs of eyes—including that of the security guard’s—trained on us. I realized how loud Eliza’s shouts were since they penetrated my full-blast Arctic Monkeys-dominated eardrums, and I noticed she also had her earphones stuck in her ears. She realized it too, but she couldn’t care less (that’s one lovable thing about her, though sometimes it can get her in trouble). We barely understood each other’s first sentences because we’re too excited to remove our earphones! Haha. After that, we did some catching-ups, munched on warm cheese-flavored empanadas from the MRT station food stalls, and met up with Debbie and Mamu.

Mamu, Moi, and Eliza at Pinkberry

*smooches*

We dined at Dad’s for merienda and talked with another college friend, Jeff, who is working there as an intern. Anyone in their right mind will never bring me to any buffet/eat-all-you-can restaurants. I mean, I’m a Gobble Queen on some days (read: holidays), but on normal days all I can have after my seconds is a few bites, sans dessert. Needless to say, Dad’s is not a place for me. As much as I enjoyed eating all the siomai’s and tofu’s and fries, I felt as if finishing everything on my plate was a punishment of some sort. Haha!

While eating, Mamu and Debbie gave us their gifts:

I got a sketchbook from Mamu and a [really touching] mix vid-tape from Debbie. Broke Girl’s officially my peg this week, so I wasn’t able to bring anything for them. Of course I’ll give them my presents when I get the chance (and the bucks).

Apparently our day’s “theme” is about jobs—you know, our unemployed- and underemployed- status, transferring jobs, call center opportunities, envisaging ourselves in the future after earning lots of money from our jobs, that kind of thing. It was practically all we talked about while eating.

One of the funniest moments of the day was when we visited Fullybooked. While browsing for new potential buys, I stumbled upon The Book of Answers by Carol Bolt. Basically it’s a Magic 8 Ball in book form. :p Knowing that my friends would like it—and at this point in our lives we have so many questions—I called them over. We took turns in asking questions, all the while giggling like a bunch of giddy schoolgirls—which we once was.

After that we stayed briefly at this small church and then ate at Pinkberry. We were trying to convince Row—another friend—to join us, but work-related emergencies came up and he couldn’t meet us. Really bad timing. xD Debbie were creating feigned “anger comments” to send to Row, which we laughed at heartily.

We said goodbye at about 8:30PM, and I went to sleep tired but happy. Can’t wait for another night out. :)

A Toast to You

2012-01-02T23:50:00.008+08:00

“New year, new beginning? Maybe it’s just me, but I think it kind of deserves to be called the mother of all clichés, everybody’s shared self-promise that everybody breaks and then remakes when the calendar changes again.” This idea rolled around a small thought balloon that tumbled out of my reeling mind, 3AM of the first day of the year, when I was sitting on my bed. “But if you come to think of it,” I mused, “it’s not a bad cliché at all.”

Because, you know, it’s not bad at all when people want to make themselves better in the next 365 days of their lives, when they set mental maps to reach their goals. It just irks me a little when it seems to be the trend to wait for new year and announce to everyone they will begin to make changes in their lives. Like it will kill them to change or set goals in the middle of the year or something.

Anyway, that’s just my two cents. I’m not here to rant; I’m here for a toast. For what, you ask? New year, new beginning? Hahaha, naw. Just for being alive. Just for being home—not the place, but the people and memories that wrap me in them to make me feel safe and sound. Just for being me, breathing, living, a being with hundreds of tomorrows. A toast to all the people who, like me, just wanted someone to toast with, someone who wants to celebrate being alive. Care to join me? Don’t worry, you won’t get an agonizing hangover from this. :)

Raise your metaphorical glass, my friend!

Here’s a toast to the people who believe in the beauty of their dreams, dreams they make both while sleeping and while wide awake.

Here’s to the people who are not afraid anymore to try the things that once frightened them, with the acknowledgement that these will make them stronger and better.

Here’s to the people who wet their pillows with their tears, exhausted but still getting up from the bed with hopes clutched to their hearts—hopes with names starting with “everything will be okay” and ending with “because I’ll make it so.”

Here’s to the people who knew you have to be lost in order to be found.

Here’s to the people who believe that losing a battle does not automatically mean losing the war.

Here’s to the people who author their lives, the young ones who drew the lines on their palms—all the paths they’ll take and all the choices they’ll make, the destiny that no horoscope could ever predict.

Here's to the ladies who still believe in fairytales but know they don't need Princes Charming to save them, that they can fight their own dragons if needed.

Here's to the men who still sport the cavalry of knights-in-shining armors but know they're not in a bedtime story, that sometimes they needed to be saved, too.

Here’s to the boys who have their hearts broken and found out they can’t repair them with the same ease as fixing pipe leaks, the boys who cry and don’t care if the world sees them, because they know it’s a strength to show weakness.

Here’s to the girls who are nursing broken hearts beneath their bright smiles, the girls who are strong enough to reassemble all the fallen pieces with their own hands and stronger still to be able to love again.

Here’s to the boys and girls who laugh through the hurt when life throws them a sick joke, those who recognize the small sweet moments sandwiched between the bigger bitter problems.

Here’s to the kids who bury their noses in John Green’s books and realize they are reading about themselves from the very first pages.

Here’s to the kids who wish they were born in another generation while listening to Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Here’s to the people who firmly believe that the things we hang onto tell more about us than the things we've been through.

Here’s to the dreamers who scraped their knees while chasing their dreams but never forget to kneel and pray, to thank God for the power they still have to run again.

Here’s to the dreamers who don’t believe in god, but do in the power of karma, of their gut feel, of their actions, of their destinies—their own compasses in their own journeys.

Here’s to the students who knew that the best lesson they can learn in school is that the best lesson cannot be learned in school.

Here’s to the likes of that guy who bops his head to the private soundtrack of his life, not caring if he is out of sync with everyone else because he’s happy hearing the music he’s swaying to.

Here’s to the likes of that lady who basks herself in the noise of life and the city, but follows the rhythm of her own heartbeat because that’s the only sound that can lead her to true happiness.

Here’s to the kids who refuse to be boxed by society’s standards, to be tagged, to be labeled, to be judged, to be stereotyped.

Here’s to the kids who prefer to spend time with fictional characters from books and TV shows than with other kids.

Here’s to the kids who find company in solitude, and to the kids who find solitude in the crowd.

Here’s to the boys who like girls, boys who like boys, and boys who like girls who think it’s okay for boys to like boys.

Here’s to the girls who like boys, girls who like girls, and girls who like boys who think it’s okay for girls to like girls.

Here’s to everyone who takes being called weird as a compliment.

Here’s to everyone whose haircut and clothes and shoes are old-fashioned, and doesn’t give a damn whatever other people would say about it.

Here’s to everyone who bravely accepts that everything that matters will hurt, and it will hurt like hell.

Here’s to us, so different from each other but still so the same. Raise your glass for a future yet to be unfolded, for the pedestals yet to be climbed.

You are you, and that fact alone is worth celebrating. Cheers!

Gaiman’s Endless: Minimalism Posters

2012-01-02T23:40:00.001+08:00

Less is more, indeed.

While ransacking the archives of dormant Gaiman-related Tumblrs, I was able to dredge up this minimalism project at FYSandman. Where the heck was I when they posted these stunning posters last year?! They’re completely beguiling, much like the characters they represent. If you are not well-versed in The Sandman universe, you may refer to this post so you’ll have a little idea about the Endless. And while you’re at it, why not consider reading the whole thing? It’s an amazing reading experience, you won’t regret it.

Anyhoo, here are the posters:

DESTINY

DEATH

DREAM

DESTRUCTION

DESPAIR

DESIRE

DELIRIUM

2011’s Frenzied Medley of Memories

2012-01-01T02:48:00.004+08:00

AN: Excluding this note, I created this entry a few hours before the clock chimed twelve. Apparently my blog’s entry-scheduling system is made of pure fail, so it didn’t appear as ‘posted’ on December 31. Anyway, it doesn’t make me feel the least bit crabby; it’s a nonissue since I’m still walking down memory lane even now. :p

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

I thought of enumerating all the highlights of 2011 separately like my 2010 year-ender, but I changed my mind the last minute: I opted to show them through a collage. I guess it’s the best presentation, because my year—especially from the very second after I tossed my graduation cap in the air—is not as orderly as the one I had in 2010. Yes, it’s been a frenzied medley of good and bad moments. :’)

My 2011 is a roller coaster ride like no other, being my first 365 days of “doing it on my own”: learning to detach the training wheels I donned for four years in college and finally being set off into the real world on my own, wobbling as I go.

Here are some of the highlights of my 2011:

Publishing our own book. Meeting new friends, outside and inside the school, online, offline, Filipino or otherwise. Graduating. Learning to play the musical instrument I’ve always longed to own. Being awarded copiously just by showing my love through writing and art. Fun times with family and friends. Being torn between wanting to have a good job and needing to leave the country. Experiencing the bittersweetness of love once again. Making difficult choices with long-term effects.Turning twenty (farewell, teenagedom!). Finally having a job other people with the same background as me will be ecstatic to have, yet seeing the need to leave it for a while (don’t judge, sweetling: it’s my choice, not yours). Making new friends in the workplace. Being a grand-aunt. Learning to stand up for myself and for the things I love, not just muttering my own comments under my breath like a chickenhearted sap. Learning more about not fashioning myself after the standards of other people just so they can tag me as ‘likable’—showing the world that I’m proud to be the real me. And most of all, dedicating everything I do to God because He never stopped being generous to me even if I think I didn’t deserve it. :’)

I wish I’d taken photos of all my other remarkable 2011 memories, but alas, the only lenses and shutters that witnessed those are the ones in my heart. ♥

I’ve reunited with some of my old friends; we looked back on our wee, innocent selves, and smiled at what we saw in front of our eyes. While we found ourselves a tad stunned that we’ve gone a long way already, we acknowledged the fact that we still have to travel miles and miles to make our dreams a reality. We may be standing on a balcony right now, but we still can’t wrap our hands around our stars. We need to tiptoe; we need to fly. And we’re going to learn how to do it this year.

I can say that 2011 is not a bad year at all. In 2012, I’ll never forget to “stay hungry” and “stay foolish” as what Steve Jobs had said; nor will I be extremely cautious that I won’t be making any mistakes, because mistakes are glorious things that can change our lives, according to my lifetime idol, Neil Gaiman. :)

Happy New Year, everyone!

11 Books that Rocked my ‘11

2011-12-31T06:48:00.003+08:00

And as promised...now that we are only a few hours shy of 2012, I’d like to pick eleven literary works that rocked my year of incurable bookwormism—books that earned a special place in my heart for making me laugh, cry, or laugh and cry; for inspiring me and challenging me; for introducing me to new universes, both in their pages and in the real world; and most of all, for being good friends when everyone else acts like strangers. :’) And with that I became the recipient of Most Dramatic Bookworm Award lol.

Without further ado, here are my 11 bests of 2011 in no particular order:

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano
The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan
A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin
Paper Towns by John Green (technically a reread, but it’s more awesome the second time around)
Miss Peregrine’s Home for Peculiar Children by Ransom Riggs
The Girl Who Was on Fire: Your Favorite Authors on Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games Trilogy by Leah Wilson
Thirteen Reasons Why by Jay Asher
Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson

Runners up!
11.1 The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie
11.2 Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close by Jonathan Safran Foer
11.3 Blood Red Road by Moira Young

And there you have it! It’s been a good year for books, and I’m looking forward to meeting new book-friends and bookworm-friends in the future. :) Happy new year, everyone! DFTBA!
___

I’ll post my RL year-end post later. Right now, I just need some sleep…

Year-End Book (and Book Blogging) Survey

2011-12-31T04:01:00.008+08:00

December 31! Before I go all dramatic again and stroll down my not-so-eventful offline memory lane, I'll just do some "book business" and answer this year-end literary survey. I've seen this more than thrice in my dash so I guess I'll answer it. Apologies in advance...I may be publishing a lot of entries today. Thanks for understanding! :))

1. The Best Book You Read In 2011?
This question is probably one of the pet peeves I will never ever be able to get rid of. It never fails to render me tongue-tied every time—not in a good way, obviously—there’s so many to choose from! Haha. That said, I have a lot of favorites in different genre. For the record, I have a post in my drafts about my top 11 favorite books of 2011! I’m saving it up for later (later as in a few minutes after I post it on Tumblr). I’ll just pick randomly from that list, okay?

The Book Thief by Markus Zusak
The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano
The Lover’s Dictionary by David Levithan

2. The Most Disappointing Book or a Book You Wish You Loved More Than You Did?
Delirium by Lauren Oliver. Don’t get me wrong, I didn’t hate it. You can read all my thoughts in my review. Runner-up’s Haruki Murakami’s South of the Border, West of the Sun. Normally, I always get smitten with Murakami’s oh-so-surreal works, but this one’s an exception. There’s just something…off about it. Anyway, you know the drill—click and find out more. :p

3. Most surprising (in a good way!) book of 2011?
The Solitude of Prime Numbers by Paolo Giordano. I wouldn’t have picked this book if it solely brandished a regular soulmate formula, but the nerd factor involved in its blurb (and its title, duh!) convinced me to try it. It was amazing, and not just in a geeky kind of way. Also in a flabbergasted oh-my-god-it-shattered-my-heart-but-still-made-me-smile-at-the-end kind of way. See the review to find out more!

Runners-up are: the ultimate music-and-romance YA book Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by Rachel Cohn and David Levithan, and the lesbian Cinderella story Ash by Malinda Lo.

4. Book you recommended to people most in 2011?
The Book Thief and The Solitude of Prime Numbers. Oh, and also Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why! Because they’re awesome, okay? Also, I know I’ve finished Suzanne Collins’ The Hunger Games trilogy in 2010, but I repeatedly ~~shoved them down everyone’s throats~~ recommended them to everyone throughout the year. Just spreading the love, ‘ya know. Same with all of John Green’s books.

By the way, I think it’s important to mention I’m a Gaimaniac Blogging Machine—I recommend Neil Gaiman’s works every chance I get, even if I don’t read them all in 2011. Yeah, I roll like that.

5. Best series you discovered in 2011?
Right, I’m going to cheat again because there’s a lot of good series in different genres I discovered this year. I haven’t finished some of them though, either because the remaining books are not released yet or they’re still far down on my to-read list:

The Curse Workers trilogy by Holly Black (paranormal young adult).
A Song of Ice and Fire aka Game of Thrones series by George R. R. Martin (fantasy, medieval politics).
The Millennium trilogy by Stieg Larsson (thriller/mystery).
Benny Imura aka Rot n’ Ruin series by John Maberry (post-apocalyptic/zombie, young adult)
Lucifer graphic novels by Mike Carey (fantasy, crime, biblical fiction) .

6. Favorite new authors you discovered in 2011?
George R. R. Martin, Markus Zusak, Paolo Giordano, Sherman Alexie, Alaya Dawn Johnson, and Diana Peterfreund.

7. Best book that was out of your comfort zone or was a new genre for you? Actually, I have no problems going out of my comfort zone in terms of reading ever since I can remember. But let’s see…Touching from a Distance: Ian Curtis and Joy Division by Deborah Curtis. I don’t read a lot of biographies, but I really enjoyed this one. It’s kind of biased since I’m a Joy Division fan, but whatevs.

8. Most thrilling, unputdownable book in 2011?
Hmm, in terms of unputdownability (gads, I love the word), I guess the award’s going to Jay Asher’s Thirteen Reasons Why and Lauren Oliver’s Before I Fall (yep, I liked Oliver’s debut novel more than her famed dystopian book). They’re just so gripping!

9. Book you most anticipated in 2011?
Haruki Murakami’s IQ84. Come on—Murakami writing an ode to George Orwell’s renowned dystopian book, 1984? Who can’t NOT get excited by that? I have all three volumes now, but I’m going to get through them next year.

10. Favorite cover of a book you read in 2011?

Unfortunately, this is not the version I own. I have the American edition, the one with the dominoes on the cover. The reason I didn’t read The Book Thief right away in 2010, despite hearing loads and loads of temptingly good things about it, is that I’m trying to find this Doubleday edition. Took me almost a year before I gave up and settled for the Knopf one. I mean, how can you not love this? There’s just something about it that really appeals to me. Dancing with Death, even in illustrations, look so morbidly beautiful and poetic.

11. Most memorable character in 2011?

Unfair! Just one? If this survey is going to continue having questions like this one, I have no choice but to cheat. Just lemme do it, mkay?

Cassel Sharpe from White Cat and Red Glove by Holly Black.
Arya Stark from A Game of Thrones by George R. R. Martin. I didn’t talk about her that much in my book review—just the fact that she may be my fictional alter ego if I were to be chucked in the pages of a medieval fantasy book. She's feisty, tomboyish, and she believes she can forge her own destiny. She reminds me of myself in so many ways.
Mattia Balossino from The Solitude of Prime Numbers.
Norah Silverberg from Nick and Norah’s Infinite Playlist by David Levithan and Rachel Cohn.

12. Most beautifully written book read in 2011?
The Solitude of Prime Numbers (need I say more?), The Book Thief (until I got my hands on this I’ve never enjoyed reading a Death anthropomorph narrating a story that ever exceeded the one in Gaiman’s The Sandman graphic novels), and The Lover’s Dictionary (I share Levithan’s flair for words!). LOL I should have just referred you to question number 1.

13. Book that had the greatest impact on you in 2011?
You wouldn’t be mad if I say it’s one of the books above, right? Haha.

14. Book you can't believe you waited UNTIL 2011 to finally read?
The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. I should have read this a long time ago!

15. Favorite Passage/Quote From A Book You Read In 2011?
from Lauren Oliver’s Before I Fall: “Most of the time—99 percent of the time—you just don’t know how and why the threads are looped together, and that’s okay. Do a good thing and something bad happens. Do a bad thing and something good happens. Do nothing and everything explodes. And very, very rarely—by some miracle of chance and coincidence, butterflies beating their wings just so and all the threads hanging together for a minute—you get the chance to do the right thing.”

from Jodi Picoult’s Weights and Measures (All New Tales anthology): “Medical examiners say a person who died lost twenty-one grams of weight—the measure of a human soul. He realized, though, holding his daughter in his arms, that the scale was all wrong. Loss should have been measured in leagues: the linear time line he would not spend with her as she lost her first tooth, lost her heart over a boy, lost the graduation cap she tossed in a silvered sky. Loss should have been measured circularly, like angles: the minutes between the two of them, the degrees of separation.”

from Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman: Endless Nights: “It wasn’t the loving each other or the knowing they could never be together. It wasn’t the wind in the eaves of the empty house, or the bone-dry rattle of the pills in the brown-glass bottle. It wasn’t the bitter taste, with only a stale box of red wine to wash it away. It wasn’t waking, with her dead and you all too alive. It was the way your fingers shook. It was a stammer, and the thickness of your tongue as you tried to speak. It was the sound of the sirens, coming closer. It was knowing that you would never get another chance.”

I could add more, but I’ll just leave it at three.

16. Book That You Read In 2011 That Would Be Most Likely To Reread In 2012?
Not counting the ones I repeated more than twice above, I guess I’ll reread The Hunger Games trilogy by Suzanne Collins (or at least the first book) before I watch the movie adaptation. :)

17. Book That Had A Scene In It That Had You Reeling And Dying To Talk To Somebody About It? (a WTF moment, an epic revelation, a steamy kiss, etc. etc.)
Haha! Honestly? The Book Thief and The Solitude of Prime Numbers. There’s a reason why they’re my favorites this year. :p I’m always gushing about these books—group-messaging my friends, fangirling about it online (even joining a contest where I declared my love for one them). They’re not exactly for everybody, I think you should give them a try.

18. One Book You Didn't Get To In 2011 But Will Be Your Number 1 Priority in 2012?
The Future of Us by Jay Asher and Carolyn Mackler, Divergent by Veronica Roth, Numbers by Rachel Ward, Goliath by Scott Westerfeld (last book!), The God of Small Things by Arundathi Roy, 1Q84 + a bunch of other books by Murakami. There.

19. Book You Are Most Anticipating For 2012?
The Fault in Our Stars by John Green and Black Heart (The Curse Workers trilogy book 3) by Holly Black.

20. One Thing You Hope To Accomplish Or Do In Your Reading/Blogging In 2012
Just read more, learn more, inspire more, and meet more bookworm friends. :)

————Book Blogging/Reading Life in 2011 (optional)————

1. New favorite book blog you discovered in 2011?
Read Philippines. Technically it’s a forum, but it’s still literature-related. I get to meet more Pinoy bookworms there. :)

2. Favorite review that you wrote in 2010?
So…awkward. Favorite review that I wrote? *snerks* I don’t know what your standards for favoriting one of your works, but I’ll just choose reviews (that’s right, not just one) that I had so much fun writing

…

And the trophy goes to the whole Lucifer graphic novel series by Mike Carey: The Devil in the Gateway, Children and Monsters, A Dalliance with the Damned, The Divine Comedy, Inferno, The Mansions of Silence, Exodus, The Wolf Beneath the Tree, Crux, Morningstar, and Evensong. I enjoyed writing them because it’s been a while since I last read and reviewed graphic novels…it’s like reigniting an old love affair. Haha! Reviewing graphic novels and reviewing books are two different things, I tell you.

3. Best discussion you had on your blog?
I seldom have discussions here or on Tumblr, but I definitely loved peeps’ reaction to my post Graphic Novel: An Underestimated Format. <—That links to another Tumblr, for all the owner’s commentary. I can’t reblog everyone’s answers, but you can just scroll down and click at them.

We also tend to have discussions on TumblrAsks. Mostly they’re recommendations and why I recommend them, but occasionally someone asks about American Gods and why criticizes US, what I think about E-Readers, etc.

4. Most thought-provoking review or discussion you read on somebody else's blog?
Unfortunately, the most thought-provoking metas I encountered this year are not at all book-related. Anyway, I quite liked this Advice to Authors post by Neil Gaiman’s Tumblr. It’s not exactly a discussion, but it’s thought-provoking nonetheless.

5. Best event that you participated in (author signings, festivals, virtual events, memes, etc.)?

The Philippine Star’s My Favorite Book 2011 essay writing contest (guess what’s my entry is about—that’s right, The Solitude of Prime Numbers!). You can see my winning entry here at the newspaper’s online site, and the blog entry about it here.
NOWNESS’s Haruki Murakami design/drawing competition. You can see the article about the winners here and my blog entry about it here (I’ll save my emotional blathering for these wins in my year-end posts later, so I’ll pretend I’m having a poker face right now).
The Manila International Book Fair Experience.

6. Best moment of book blogging in 2011?
Every moment of book blogging this year is good in its own way, but I became particularly giddy when Hank Green reblogged my John Green book doodles and said they’re pretty. Haha!

But honestly, there are a lot of moments that garnered special places in my heart. Those are the instances when I realize I can inspire more people than I expect just by doing what I love. Sometimes all the personal conversations, all the friendly chitchats that get a little deeper day by day, all the thank-you's I’m not sure I deserve...they all make me cry a little. Honestly. There’s one particular person I’m more than glad to help by just being book-buddies and pseudo-sisters with her. I won’t name her here; I’m just really thankful I met her. If memory serves, I helped her do her homework for English the first time we met! XD She let me check her essay and short story, and from then on the connection we established strengthened. She’s really like my ultimate little sister on the Internet, and she reminds me of my younger self. We’ve talked lots of times about books, but this certain message about my art and blog(s), particularly A Teacup of Stars, is a little more special. I hope she doesn't become too embarrassed when I put this here, even if anonymously:

7. Most Popular Post This Year On Your Blog (whether it be by comments or views)?
LOL, I’m not really sure. I guess there are some posts at my Tumblr that got lots of notes, especially my book-related artworks. But my favorite entries (that also seem to be a lot of other Tumblr peeps’ favorites) are the 6-Word Short Stories post and this Literacy Foundation GIF set. I love how they are nitpicking at the foundation’s tagline. It’s kind of a faux pas for the LF’s part. :p

8. Post You Wished Got A Little More Love?
Oh, I don’t know. Perhaps this post about ZONE Magazine. I wish more people will become interested in contributing to our magazine.

9. Best bookish discover (book related sites, book stores, etc.)?
That wee book stall in the underpass near SM Manila. It’s called Afforda-BOOKS. Their products live up to their name…and everything’s in good condition, too! It’s super-bookworm friendly. I just hope the Audrey Hepburn biography is still there when I come back. :’(

10. Did you complete any reading challenges or goals that you had set for yourself at the beginning of this year?
Yep, at Goodreads. I completed it today!

Review: The Bell Jar

2011-12-29T00:54:00.000+08:00

Title: The Bell Jar
Author: Sylvia Plath
Genre: Autobiographical fiction, coming-of-age fiction
Rating: ★★★★★

Imagine this: you are perched atop a pedestal and your lucky stars are smiling down on you. It seems like nothing could go wrong, but deep inside there’s this soft hum of doubt in your heart. Then you catch a glimpse of a fragment of your broken future, rendering you immobile. You look up to find a big bell jar descending upon you, caging you in a glass prison where there is no way out. You feel suffocated; you think of escaping, but every attempt goes awry. The chorus of the voices in your head is singing their dirge for your mind, and the noises from the outside world are distorted and unintelligible. You feel stifled, isolated, and lost.

This is how Sylvia Plath more or less described the slow mental breakdown of Esther Greenwood, protagonist of her only full-length prose work, The Bell Jar. Since the book is often considered as a roman à clé or an autobiographical fiction (with Esther as the author’s thinly veiled fictional alter ego), it’s safe to say that Plath shared a firsthand account of what it was like to have a disintegrating sanity after spiraling down into depression.

In the book, the parallels in Plath’s and Esther’s lives occurred between 1953 and 1954. Esther wins an internship on a prestigious New York magazine; she holds the position most girls her age would kill for, yet for some weird reason, she is confused and dissatisfied. When she learns that she is rejected from a writing course she wanted to join after her internship, she is completely devastated. She goes home with her mother, and everything goes downhill from there.

Most of the issues Esther grapples with are connected to 1950s American gender roles. Being a woman in that era seems to be synonymous with the word ‘inferior.’ Esther struggles with her identity, her status in the society, and her choice of vocation.The patriarchal society’s insistent pigeonholing of the ‘appropriate woman’ pressures her to no end, sending her to ricochet between wanting to get in sync with everybody else and needing to latch to the possibility of her lofty dreams’ realization. While women at that time are encouraged to be successful in their own chosen fields, they are also expected to be subservient housewives—sacrificing their career and dreams—when they marry. “This seemed a dreary and wasted life for a girl with fifteen years of straight A’s,” Esther ponders after envisaging the quotidian life a suburban housewife. The book, in its depiction of men as shallow individuals with usually off-kilter morals, seems to ridicule the established fact of feminine inferiority. However, it also shows several aspects of women’s vulnerability in a world that refuses to take their aspirations seriously. Esther herself is an example—she is intelligent all right, but her inability to take part in the normality of the world around her (or is it the inability of the world to accommodate a woman like her?) causes her sanity to crumble.

The book also touches issues about dating, relationship, and sex that are still relevant today. Why are women who had many sexual partners in the past considered “sluts” when men with the same reputation are referred to as the “cool guys”? Does having premarital sex prove I’m a bad woman? Does not having any sexual intercourse before marriage prove I’m prude? These are only few of the questions Esther finds herself asking.

Since I’m aware of Plath’s fate, the reading experience came with an excitement closely akin to opening letters addressed to a celebrity that somehow wound up on my doorsteps. My thrill meter went up a notch when I find many moments of Esther’s life unnervingly relatable, especially in the first few chapters. But what I liked the most about the novel is the astonishing honesty of Plath’s prose—it’s so naked and unflinching, so determined in showing you the raw facets of life and death in the eyes of someone who is trying to experience both…and seemingly failing. I myself didn’t know how to describe it at first. And of course, there are parts that will remind you that you are reading the Plath, paragraphs that are punctuated with a poetic feel.

As evidenced by the effective depiction of 1950s America, I’ll say the world-building is ace…even if (or especially?) it’s seen through the kaleidoscopic perspective of a mentally disturbed lady.

Overall, The Bell Jar is an excellent book that I will definitely revisit in the future. There are some moments involving electroconvulsive therapies and multiple suicide attempts, but they’re nothing really harrowing. I highly recommend this! :)

Of Wolf Hats and Cyber-High Fives

2011-12-29T00:52:00.001+08:00

I posted this Nerdfighter-esque GPOY at my Tumblr a couple of hours ago. It’s sort of a brief not-so-dramatic thank-you post to everyone who made my year enjoyable and meaningful online (I’ll devote a separate post for those who did in RL). I figured there are also some people here who contributed to a long happy year I had in the info superhighway, so I’m cross-posting ~~and that’s how I roll~~.

Here it is! Nerdfighters who have read John Green’s Looking for Alaska (or at least know Takumi and his fox hat) and George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones will get it right off the bat, but the last message is for everyone. :p

LAST GPOY OF THE YEAR. So Takumi Hikohito has the legendary fox hat? Behold, dudes and dudettes—I got myself a wolf hat. I like to think of it as the direwolf hat. No one can catch the mother-effing direwolf. Especially if her name is Nymeria nudge, nudge, Game of Thrones fans, and if she is Takumi’s fox’s first cousin once removed. Or something like that.

LOL. Anyway, thank you for a year full of recs, reviews, raves and rants! There’s nothing like chatting with and cyber-high-fiving people who can relate to my nerdery. So yeah, fellow nerdfighters and bookworms and all kinds of geeks out there, let’s continue to decrease world suck in our own little ways! And of course—

DFTBA!

Believe it or not, the GIF and the acronym depict more meaning and words than the first four paragraphs of this post. Anyway, this may be a farewell entry of some kind, but it won’t be my last book-related post this 2011—why, I’ll still pick the books that rocked my year! :p

Ta-ta!

In which I blather about more bookwormism alerts, the GW fandom fashionistas, and geek pride

2011-12-26T03:53:00.008+08:00

Bookwormism Alert

If you’re a frequent visitor here, you must be aware that my bunk bed space is almost halved by the heaps of books “residing” with me there, and that this is due to my irrepressible book-hoarding. That’s a couple of weeks ago—you wouldn’t want to see my room right now. :p I’ve gathered a multitude of new babies, but these are the triplets that are currently receiving all my love:

I’ve finished I❤ Geeks: The Official Handbook by Carrie Tucker almost a week ago and I’m already halfway through The Absolute True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie. Going Bovine by Libba Bray is next in the queue; my fangirlfriends can’t stop blabbering about it, and I heard it’s got Nordic mythologies in quirky situations (what’s not to like?).

The first book I got through impulse purchase; upon seeing the heart and the word “geeks,” I couldn’t control myself. I knew I have to buy it. Imagine my shock when I learned it’s actually an “understanding-your-guy” book. Haha! Fortunately, it’s not exactly similar to those run-of-the-mill self-help guides for dating and stuff—it’s like a condensed encyclopedia of geekiness and nerderies! I’ll tell more in my review. :p It’s a really fun book.

Alexie’s book about a fourteen-year-old Indian who transfers an all-white school is all kinds of awesome too. If I wasn’t too busy finishing assignments, perhaps I’ve devoured it in one sitting. I think this is going to be one of my favorite 2011 reads.

GW Fandom Fashionistas
The original air of Mobile Suit: Gundam Wing in Japan is in 1995, but up to now, the fandom’s still alive and kicking (see FYGW and all the related blogs on the sidebar for proof).

I’m so glad that this old anime series still has a legion of super-faithful fans. The site has Character-of-the-Week event celebrating the girl power in what supposed to be a bishounen show; flurries of fanarts at Pixiv still come almost on a daily basis; a RP tumblelog is also operating, now with twenty registered roleplayers; and most importantly, a novel-sequel to the 1997 movie Endless Waltz called Frozen Teardrop is still being written today, serialized in the Japanese magazine Gundam Ace. I wish they animate it, or at least turn it into a manga—that would singlehandedly revive the series for good.

Now here’s what I’m really thrilled about: the fans are also delving in the world of fashion! Not in the professional sense, just…in a fandom sense. If you know what I mean.

Case in point: the “GW Fashion Project” by Lurazeda at Deviantart:

That’s Relena Darlian-Peacecraft and Dorothy Catalonia, two of my favorite female characters in the series. This is a rare drawing style for a contribution to a mecha-themed anime, but it absolutely clicks with the fashion model-esque side of the art. I love Dorothy’s trench coat—I have the exact outfit, but I can’t wear it too often because of the country’s usual oven-like weather. Their shoes are chic, too! ♥

Now let’s go to the boys’ fashion…except that now it’s gender-bent! All the fangirls’ fault, of course. The original outfits—those that the characters donned often in the show—are these:

Clockwise that’s Duo Maxwell, Quatre Raberba Winner, Trowa Barton, Chang Wufei, and Heero Yuy. I wouldn’t say they’re dapper (come on! Clerical clothing + jodhpurs? Tank top + cycling shorts + yellow sneakers?!) after all, they’re just a bunch of fifteen-year-olds thrown in the middle of a war. There’s a little chance they could pay so much attention to their garments. However, these are the inspirations for the following outfits courtesy of fandom fashionista:

I’m so digging those boots! And the gun necklace pendant is so Heero it makes me giddy! :p

I just realized, the inspiration of this Duo Maxwell outfit is not the priest clothing he's wearing in the above illustration; it’s his clothes from Endless Waltz, which you can see here. Just look at that little scythe pendant (a fem-Duo would definitely approve)! And I totally adore those earrings, they look like the scribbles I do on paper when I'm bored in class. :p Pfft! Maybe if I get a little leaner, I’ll get to don something like the dress. Haha.

Let me say that I'm so happy they didn't retain the mom jeans. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against the trademark Steve Jobs look (mom jeans + turtleneck) that Trowa seemed to adapt, but Trowa's sharp unibang makes him look like an emo who just took a terrible fashion faux pas. So mom-jeans transformed into skinny jeans? Thumb up forever. Haha! Anyway, I love the shoes. I mean, who will not WANT those heels? I wish I’m “talented” enough to walk in those. *hint, hint*

Is it summer time yet? Haha, jk. Pastel colors for the win! If I wear these clothes I’ll probably look younger. Which I don’t need right now, because many people are confusing me for a fifteen-year-old. :p The feather pendant is lovely, but what's it got to do with Q-boy? All the flowery patterns are so in character in my opinion, though. :p

Two outfits for Wufei! The blue one’s the fem rendition of the illustration above, while the white one is inspired by this image. Can I just say how much I love the color of that nail polish? Haha. ~~Wouldn’t look good on me though~~.

Geek Pride
Comic book and graphic novel geek. Manga and anime geek. Film and television geek. Science fiction and fantasy geek. Sports geek. Videogame geek. These are the six types of geeks identified in Tucker’s hilarious but highly informative I❤ Geeks: The Official Handbook. The only conclusion I could come up with after turning the last page of the book is this: I’m a combo of the first four…and I’m proud to say it.

It is a long-standing cliché for most people to feel ashamed when being referred to as a geek or a nerd—this fact also made it to the handbook. But at present, it seems like being a geek/nerd is more than acceptable; a negative connotation is no longer attached to it. To quote Tucker:

Woody Allen, Andy Warhol, Stephen Hawking, George Lucas, Isaac Asimov, J.J. Abrams, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates…the list of nerds throughout history and in entertainment and pop culture goes on and on. Beaker and Dr. Bunsen Honeydew on The Muppet Show, Professor John I.Q. on The Simpsons, Louis and Gilbert from Revenge of the Nerds, Gary and Wyatt from Weird Science, Harry Potter, Peter Parker (aka Spiderman), and Hiro Nakamura on Heroes are all beloved, fictional nerds. And even though traditionally nerds are known and defined as socially awkward and undesirable, they always seem to get the girls in movies. Hello, McLovin?

The rise of the Internet age, I think, helped a lot to the fact that the tables are slowly turning in favor of the geeks. “The society isn’t laughing at nerds anymore,” Tucker adds. “We want to join them, we want to get their super-smart inside jokes, and we want to type “pwned!” proudly when winning an Internet debate.”

Whatever the situation may be, I’ll always flaunt my geek pride. :p Anyway, I’ll share more about this book in the next few days in my review, it’s totally fun and edifying.

12:01 (A One-Day Late Christmas Sonnet)

2011-12-26T03:49:00.000+08:00

An Italian/Petrarchan (aka the ABBA2-CDE2 type) sonnet I wrote a few moments ago. It’s a conversation with myself. :p
___

The clock’s secondhand robbed us of the second chance
Of reliving our smaller histories, that map of scars on hearts and skins
And when we chased the paper futures our synthetic pasts enhance
We tripped and slipped onto the pavements where the present begins.
When the carols are fading out, when the wine are all but imbibed;
Are you going to be there, beneath the afterimage of the colored lights?
The dying cranes carrying our hopes will flutter down like broken kites
If you mutter all the words in the breeze you have always scribed.
Pick up the flattened beer crowns from the urchin’s little tambourine;
We will need it in our journey to Morpheus’ basements,
And their little chimes will remind us to hearken each other’s footfalls.
The moon is a disc in our faraway tomorrow, so low and so serene;
We will just follow its cobblestoned paths before He made the arrangements.
Christmas has already passed, and we’ll wait till the whistle of the next one calls.

-Airiz Casta © December 2011

Home?

2011-12-26T03:48:00.001+08:00

Enough said.
___
New 10 Things lists! Here and here. Review for Sylvia Plath's The Bell Jar to follow!

Belated Happy Birthday, Pietro! ♥

2011-12-21T04:57:00.000+08:00

December 18 is Pietro’s birthday! :)

Someday the neighbors will learn not to hurl wordless death threats at me when trying to practice. If not…well, I’ll need to go to the mountains or anyplace that has a basement/soundproof walls! Haha. Belated happy birthday, my love! You’ve been a good violin to me, and I promise to be good to you, too. ♥

A close friend gave Pietro to me as a gift, and this is our semi-true-to-life story about how he became our baby. You may check it out if you want. ;)

I’m still learning to play him. At the moment, it’s quite impossible to cram more time in my schedule for formal violin lessons (and don’t forget the old dilemma about dibs). But then, there’s always this Plan B: Do-it-Yourself thing, and that’s what I did: self-teaching.

Isn't he so beautiful? For so many times I wish I was born in a different generation—mostly because of my musical preferences—but the Internet Age is so helpful that I’m more than contented to be living in my generation now! Haha. Needless to say, the information superhighway helped me with my first violin ABC’s. There’s a bunch of YouTube tutorial lessons for beginners, ranging from proper holding of the instrument to re-hairing the bow. I already knew how to read notes—it’s a requirement for every member of the gamelan orchestra of our high school— so I’m not completely clueless about the whole thing. I’m getting a bit rusty, though, so I need to keep practicing.

So that's about it. I just thought Pietro deserves a little space here on my blog. :)

GW-Sandman Crossover

2011-12-21T04:53:00.001+08:00

You know why my fandoms are awesome? Because they click together. Not so long ago I posted here a squee-inducing Hunger Games-Gundam Wing character analogy for Quatre Winner and Peeta Mellark. Now it’s time for a mix of my favorite GW and The Sandman!

I know I’ve posted this at my fandom tumblr already, but there’s no harm of spreading the love! Especially that I know some of you people are Gaimaniacs too. :p

Endless-Ensemble Male Pilots by Izumi. So I decided to check out the links on all the fanarts at FYGW and reacquainted myself with this GW-addiction site, which I never really explored before. I can barely contain my squee (and fangirly keysmashing) when I saw this crossover fanart—Gundam Wing and Neil Gaiman’s The Sandman, two of my favorite things together!

The pilots are depicted as the Endless: that’s Wufei as Destruction, Trowa as Despair, Treize as Desire, Zechs as Destiny, Heero as Dream/Morpheus, Quatre as Delirium (formerly Delight), and Duo as (duh!) Death.

And while I’m at it, let me rec some crossover fics too, all by the awesome Cozzybob. You don’t have to know The Sandman graphic novels to understand the fics (I strongly recommend reading the series in your free time, though—I promise you, it’s amazing! Gaiman is the man!):

Death Takes One. Heero dies. Death takes him home.
Death Speaks to Death About Death. Death pays Duo a visit shortly after Heero’s sudden departure from the mortal coil, and the two have a face-off. 2/1 implied
Death Meets One Billion and Six. Zechs drifts in space waiting to die, but unfortunately, nothing ever works for Zechs the way he plans them.
Desire and Dorothy Meet the Zero System. Desire pays Dorothy a visit while she’s hooked to the Zero System. 6xD-ish (this one’s my favorite…what can I say, my Dorothy Bias Alarm went off again)
Delirium. Quatre meets Delirium of the Sandman verse when his sanity cracks in his time with ZERO. drabble

Bookstore Serendipity

2011-12-20T02:52:00.000+08:00

Ever have this feeling that you are not the one who found your book, but it’s the book that found you? Weird, but I sometimes feel that way, especially if I have no specific title in mind when I enter a bookstore. I’ll just walk around, examine the shelves, stop, and then there’s a certain book that will turn under my nose. I’ll pick it up, read the blurb at back, and if it strikes a chord with me, it’ll go straight to the cashier. Most of the time, books I don’t intend to buy turn out to be the best.

I don’t know if there’s such a thing as serendipity when it comes to finding books, but the treasures I found that way always give me something that my mind and my heart are starving for the moment before I find them. :D

Like a Second Ondoy

2011-12-20T02:51:00.000+08:00

“The TV was suddenly not an appliance anymore; it was a window, and through it I saw how the world outside the comforts of my home changed after six hours of nonstop rain and how an abused and neglected Mother Nature annihilated social strata.

I witnessed how people—rich and poor—wept and begged for help as they hunched together on their roofs; how cars were pitchpoled like toys by the monstrous waves; how homes were destroyed effortlessly by powerful winds, as though they were just cardboard pop-ups on a turbulent diorama. In that small square, I was given a bird’s eye view of a tragedy that readily drained my energy.

The death toll and damage cost shot up one notch and another as days passed. Heartbreaking stories rose, ones that could rival the most tragic novels I’ve read.”

That was a part of a piece I wrote two years ago entitled Braver Five Minutes Earlier, about the typhoon Ondoy. I had a déjà vu a couple of days ago, when the typhoon Sendong (international name “Washi”) wreaked havoc in the southern part of the archipelago in the thick of the night. The wrath of the pounding rain triggered landslides and caused rivers to swell, waking—and killing—people who were already slumbering in their homes. It was like Ondoy all over again, and the above paragraphs were almost verbatim descriptions of what I felt.

A father breaks down after recovering the remains of his child, who was among hundreds killed by Storm Sendong. (image courtesy of GMA)

I wasn’t assigned to proofread news articles, but I kept tabs on the latest situation: I knew it was worse. The death toll was rising everyday, and as of tonight the latest count was less than two hundred bodies shy of a thousand fatalities. Cagayan de Oro was almost rendered a ghost town after the traitorous assault of the storm. Food and water shortage were to be expected, but what really made my arms go prickly with goose pimples was the coffin shortage. Funeral homes were already refusing to take more bodies, and a mass burial is being organized for the unclaimed/unidentified corpses.

But you know what made it more tormenting? It happened less than ten days before Christmas. There would be no celebration; what 2011 will leave in their hearts was trauma and grief. It was a heartbreaking way to end the year. Let us pray for all the victims.

We can help too by texting our donations and donating in kind. Here’s a comprehensive list of where/how we can send our donations.

Bookwormism (and Holiday Nerdery) Update!

2011-12-19T04:40:00.000+08:00

After writing my review for George R. R. Martin’s A Game of Thrones, I decided not to go straight to reading A Clash of Kings. I think I’m not quite ready for the heavy time investment the series requires (they look like multicolored bricks and their words akin to ), and anyway I wanted to have variety in my reading routine. That’s why I picked up Sylvia Plath’s The Bell Jar.

Bookworm Inching Down Her To-Read List:

I’m almost through with it, actually. The fact that I can relate so much to Esther/Plath in the first chapters was…kind of scary, haha! But then again, I’ve always known I’m crazy. LOL.

The blurb at the back of my Faber Firsts edition goes something like this:

When Esther Greenwood wins an internship on a New York magazine in 1953, she is elated, believing she will finally realize her dream to become a writer. Instead she finds herself spiraling into depression and eventually a suicide attempt, as she grapples with difficult relationships and a society which refuses to take women’s aspirations seriously.

The Bell Jar is a semi-autobiographical novel. Often seen as a roman à clef, there are many parallels between the story and Plath’s life, i.e. her magazine scholarship in New York, her being rejected from a writing course, and her hospitalization because of clinical depression. A month after the first UK publication of The Bell Jar, Plath committed suicide.

This is what I deduced after devouring about three quarters of this novel: I know watching how someone’s sanity deplete with utter enjoyment is kind of weird, but that's what I felt. I was fascinated. But more importantly, I think Plath should have written more prose. That’s coming from someone who loves her poems.

A Merry Fandom Christmas

‘Tis the season again! A couple of nights ago, I doodled Christmas cards (sort of) and sent them to some of my fandom friends online.

I’ve exchanged my address with them so next year we’ll be expecting actual cards at our doorsteps. Those drawings in the photo are for Cozzy, Omnicat, and Rob. I’m still not done with the other drawings…I think I won’t be able to send them to my friends—both in fandom and rl—before Christmas, because honestly I can barely juggle all the offline commitments I have at the moment. Maybe I’ll just forward them as advance New Year’s card or something. Omni sent me a card in return, but since she mailed it about two days ago (and it will be coming from the Netherlands) I should be expecting it by New Year.

___

And that’s what we’ll have for today, folks. I have three more drafts, but I don’t intend to spam your dash and…Morpheus is calling already. Tata for now. :)

Review: A Game of Thrones

2011-12-19T04:38:00.000+08:00

Title: A Game of Thrones (A Song of Ice and Fire book#1)
Author: George R. R. Martin
Genre: Medieval Fantasy, Science Fiction, Adventure
Rating: ★★★★

Political intrigue, medieval tropes, and Nordic mythologies—if any of these is your cup of tea (and if you have lots of time in your hands), you should try A Game of Thrones, the first book in George R. R. Martin’s epic fantasy series A Song of Ice and Fire.

It is difficult to condense the storyline, but one thing is for sure: it is aptly titled. Basically, all the events revolve around the metonymic Iron Throne. The Iron throne is made up of one thousand swords surrendered by defeated enemies, forged into the shape of a chair, its edges still sharp and cold that anyone who is not careful enough while sitting on it may get himself cut…or killed. This is said to be the desired effect, for no king should sit comfortably while ruling the Seven Kingdoms. It took fifty-nine days, the flaming breaths of a legendary dragon, and the blood and honor of so many men to construct it. In A Game of Thrones, more blood is shed and more honor is sacrificed in the name of this throne and what it represents.

In the center of the conflict are the Starks of Winterfell, whose lives are jeopardized after getting involved in the political scandals of the Seven Kingdoms.

I half-expected this doorstopper to be choked with unnecessary embellishments, but I was in for a surprise. Martin takes the straightforward angle—he does not bother with frilly descriptions, yet he still successfully establishes a believable and intricate universe in the readers’ minds. Usually the prose I love is the kind that is slightly tinged by poetry, but I have no problem loving Martin’s writing whatsoever. Martin proves that unadorned realism is an efficient bullet in a contemporary bandoleer of writing styles.

It is important to note that while A Game of Thrones is not the first in its genre, it still stands out for zeroing in on the gritty and rotting portrait of the human spirit. Blind pride and the apathy it entails, humans’ inner animals that are forever lured by the pleasures of power and flesh, honor and the desperate battles to protect it, peace and the acknowledgment of its fleeting sweetness…Martin tackles them adroitly from the minds of eight viewpoint characters, never losing a beat. But that does not mean he neglects showing off the fantasy staples—he dedicates portions of the storyline to supernatural creatures too (like zombie-like creatures and dragons), and he consistently paints the colorful cultures of fictional lands with astonishing clarity.

Now we go to the characters. Tyrion “The Imp” Lannister easily became my favorite POV character, what with his sarcastic thought processes and fascinating outlook on things. I find him interesting and weirdly inspiring. He is practically a dwarf and is a recipient of all kinds of insults, but he never comes off as a pitiful person—what he lacks in physical appearance, he makes up for wisdom. Oh, he does clobber himself with self-deprecation sometimes, but only in a humorous way. His defense mechanism is not letting other people use his own weaknesses to destroy him. But most of all, it is “fun” to read from his POV since he, in theory, is the only viewpoint character who came from “the bad side.” Persuading the readers to root for someone from the enemy camp has never been this successful. Clearly, it is a testament to Martin’s writing prowess.

I also enjoyed Daenerys Targaryen’s chapters. If you get past the fancy name and her being white-haired and purple-eyed, it is easy to see that she is not a Mary Sue at all. She has her flaws, too. She may need a lot of character development, but who doesn’t? From the vulnerable girl who timidly follows her abusive brother, she has shown a passable amount of growth by the end of the book. I believe she will become more developed in the sequels.The Mongol-like culture of the Dothraki is a rough backdrop to her fragile character, and when she gradually learns to melt into it, it is easy to see the change in her.

Anyway, the other characters are quite okay. If Arya Stark has more chapters, I guess she’ll be my favorite too (I think she’s my fictional alter ego, haha!). What I am really expecting, though, is the fleshing out of Cersei Lannister that I saw in the HBO small screen adaptation. I am quite disappointed when I did not see that. The TV Cersei is much more layered than the one in the book, in my honest opinion. I wanted to worm inside her head, to learn where she gets all her twisted ideas, to know what fuels her motivations, to peek at what is really behind her cold facade…but no, I did not even get a glimpse of it. To be fair, she is not a POV character, and all of those who are were not around her a lot. I hope I get to know her more in the next books.

Anyone who reads this book must be prepared to invest more of his/her time for the brick-thick sequels, because there will be no “ending” of any kind in A Game of Thrones. Trust me on this.

Over all it is an amazing start. Four out of five stars!

Merida: Pixar’s First Fairytale Heroine

2011-12-15T02:56:00.000+08:00

The knee-jerk reaction of almost everyone who stumbles upon my blog is to wonder: Why ‘Cinderella in Combat Boots’? And why is it a fairy tale that violates all rules of fairy tales? The answer is simple: I wanted to show that even someone who is auto-crowned as the Queen of Damsels in Distress can be her own savior too, that she can wear anything that is tougher than glass slippers as she braves her way through life. I’m only a nondescript girl, but I believe I can show everyone that I can stand up for myself if I need to. In a way, I’m my own Cinderella donned in footwear fit for the harsh roads of life.

This belief ripples to my inclination to feminist fiction. It’s no secret that I have a penchant for fictional girls that refuse to be boxed in the She-Needs-a-Prince-Charming-to-Survive stereotype that, unfortunately, still exists in the world of books and flicks up to this day. I easily fall in love with the likes of Sabriel (The Old Kingdom Trilogy), Katniss Everdeen (The Hunger Games), Lisbeth Salander (The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo), and Arya Stark (A Song of Ice and Fire).

So it’s no surprise I was readily smitten by the feisty, wild-haired, fun-loving, and bow-and-arrow-toting heroine of Pixar’s first fairytale, Brave.

The kickass girl in question is Merida, and she’s already falling into the queue of my (future?) favorite unorthodox fairytale princesses.

“Brave” Offical Trailer

Here’s the synopsis of the film:

Since ancient times, stories of epic battles and mystical legends have been passed through the generations across the rugged and mysterious Highlands of Scotland.

In Brave, a new tale joins the lore when the courageous Merida (Kelly Macdonald) confronts tradition, destiny and the fiercest of beasts. Merida is a skilled archer and impetuous daughter of King Fergus (Billy Connolly) and Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson). Determined to carve her own path in life, Merida defies an age-old custom sacred to the uproarious lords of the land: massive Lord MacGuffin (Kevin McKidd), surly Lord MacIntosh (Craig Ferguson) and cantankerous Lord Dingwall (Robbie Coltrane).

Merida’s actions inadvertently unleash chaos and fury in the kingdom, and when she turns to an eccentric old Wise Woman (Julie Walters) for help, she is granted an ill-fated wish. The ensuing peril forces Merida to discover the meaning of true bravery in order to undo a beastly curse before it’s too late.

This is going to be Pixar’s first ever film that will feature a strong female lead, and I admit, that fact alone is enough to make me buy a movie ticket without hesitation. Pixar films turn out to be really entertaining, but it takes me a long while to watch them. Don’t get me wrong—I loved about half of their dozen original films, but the premise of each doesn’t appeal much to me at first glance. With the exception of the first two Toy Story’s and Finding Nemo, I don’t go to the movie houses just to see them. Usually I just wait for decent torrents from the internet or just buy DVDs when they come out. This time, I know it’s going to be different.

It’s Merida’s fault—I’m in love and I haven’t watched Brave yet! I hate to have high hopes for something like this because I get disappointed easily, but I can’t help it. I’m very happy that Pixar’s first foray into the ‘princess’ sub-genre contains a character like Merida, and I hope it lives up to my expectations. The feel of the movie seems to coincide with my tastes too—dark fantasy and a few tidbits of Scottish history? Like!

I’ve read lots of articles like this one comparing Merida to Arya Stark. I think I could see where that is coming from. Arya, like Merida, is not interested at all in any kind of “elegant pursuits,” much to the disappointment of many people around her (particularly Sansa, her lady-like older sister). The bow-and-arrow thing is also a similarity, at least for the TV Arya. In the first episode of Game of Thrones, Arya sneaks out of her stitching class and shoots an arrow from behind her brothers, who are practicing archery that time. She hits a bull’s eye and it irks Bran, who finds it hard to make a decent shot. Merida in the trailer is seen trying out to “prove her worth” with the other lords’ firstborns, and I have a hunch she’s going to out-shoot everyone in that yard, too.

Apparently, Merida and Arya prefer to do masculine stuff than to wallow in the comforts of their homes, entertaining suitors or knitting scarves. Both of them think they can forge their own destinies, which latter in their separate stories will seem to become identical as well. The analogy is just making me more excited!

2012, you’re going to be a special year for special movies. :)

A Lesson from Arya Stark

2011-12-15T02:46:00.001+08:00

Technically, A Game of Thrones’ Arya Stark got this from her swordsman of a teacher (aka a “dancing instructor”), the bravosi Syrio Forel. The gist of this quote—if not taken literally, that is—is nothing new. In life, being hurt is inevitable, and in every pain we encounter there is always a lesson to learn. Life is a big classroom, after all. Learn and live so when we “graduate”, when we shuffle off this mortal coil, we can actually say we have been good 'students'. :)

___

In other news, new lists at A Teacup of Stars! You can read them here and here.

A RESPONSE.

2011-12-13T03:06:00.000+08:00

Veiling your ignorance about some issues with overconfidence and cloying proofs of your being a braggadocio sometimes just magnifies it a hundred times. This is true.

A friend sent me a link to a blog entry that contains “reactions” about campus issues, particularly ones that concern the Lyceum Independent Sentinel. It's entitled The Outspoken Unedited--Can You Sue Me of Libel by Telling the Truth? (yep, that's a grammatical error in the title) and was dated October 2010. It's a great real life example of the adage above.

I only saw this "article" a couple of hours ago. I wrote a comment and it’s currently awaiting moderation. I hope he approves and answers it—I’m not afraid of any kind of confrontation about this. I just can't keep quiet when someone calls literature "crap."

Here’s my response to his article:

Hello, Jeremy.

I just want to say, first of all, that I’m so tempted to proofread this post of yours. I kept on stopping mid-sentence when encountering your glaring grammatical errors. For someone who sounds so confident, your blog entry is full of what most people would call—pardon my French, though I know you won’t mind it anymore after using the word repeatedly here—“crap.” This would without a doubt go straight to the trash bin if you handed it to our sixth grade teacher. I wish I’m kidding. Errors in hyphenation and preposition usage, the very elementary SVA (you’re free to Google it if you don’t know what it means)…I could list more, but I guess I made my point. If you’re going to be “courageous,” go all the way, and be sure to be armed. Putting UNEDITED in the title or saying that you’re too sleepy when you wrote this are lame excuses, especially if the paragraphs that are not even part of the column can give any Grammar Nazi a nightmare. Sorry for being nitpicky. You can edit your article after you read this comment, just for the sake of other readers that may pass here.

“This is the kind of writing our newspapers don’t have—broadsheet or tabloid.” I TOTALLY AGREE. Even the local English tabloids don’t have grammar issues that are THIS bad. But you know, grammar is not your only problem here. We’ll get to that later.

Because of the thing I just mentioned above, you have no right to call any kind of writing that is a hundred times better than yours “crap” or “immature.” None. Your kind of writing will not even receive a decent mark when passed as a grade school essay assignment. How come can you call a paper that underwent scrupulous editing “crap?” It really baffles me.

People like you deter the development of good literature. When we worked with Mr. Eros Atalia (I trust that you know him), he once told me that literary pieces should never be belittled. Other schools are garnering a lot of support for their literary department, and their literary pages in their official school organs helped a lot. The budding artists in literature come from something as small as a single page for their pieces. Case in point: Carlos P. Romulo, an editor who wrote poems and short stories for their school paper, became a National Artist in Literature (1982). He acknowledged his experience as an editor/literary writer of their paper as a great contributor for this win. If most people are not as narrow-minded as you, maybe Lyceum will be successful in being a hub of future true artists, too. Mr. Atalia encouraged us to strengthen our school paper’s literary voice, and in our short stay in Lyceum, I guess we accomplished this little mission. You do art, Jeremy—you do music. Things like this should not be misunderstood by someone who is flaunting himself as a true artist. Are you a true artist? :p

Another FYI: the literary page is one of the only pages in the paper (aside from VOX LYCEUM) where students are free to speak. In Vox Lyceum they can express their opinions on campus issues; in the literary page, they get to showcase their creative sides. Our paper informs, entertains, and serves as a conduit of the school body. And believe it or not, the school loves that our pages exist.

I would like to comment on those “immature articles” you mentioned, but you only singled out the literary page, so that’s how far I’ll go. I would gladly defend those articles if you tell me which ones.

While we do our thing in the literary page, we never neglected our news PAGES. As for not being newsworthy…clearly, it’s either you didn’t research enough or you weren’t around the school a lot. We got multitudes of students informed about what is really happening inside the campus. Our first issues caused great stirs too that proved we are indeed an organ “without fear or favor.” Articles that are not remarkable can’t provoke a group of people or a department to react. If you can’t tell what “stirs” I’m talking about, then I’m sorry for you. A so-called journalism enthusiast who doesn’t even have a nose for news AND correct researching skills? I don’t know what to say.

Let’s move on to my third point. Technically, in our field of study, “facts” can’t be considered “facts” at all if they’re wrong or not strongly supported by objective evidences. Journalism 101: recheck and recheck and recheck and recheck your facts before you write anything about them. You didn’t even interview anyone for this piece of…ahem, this piece, right? Your observations alone don’t equate to trusted data, so you may delete the phrase “backed up by facts” in your introduction—at least for the Sentinel part. Just so you know, the minor flaw you indicated (the miscalculated years of being present in LPU’s circulation) is not even a flaw at all. The way we count the years of the paper is not the same way we count our birthdays; we count them by school years. You do the math. Also, I want you to know that our “independence” is not what you think it is; it can’t be defined by any simple lexicon, nor can it be understood easily by someone who is not even a part of the school organ. Don’t assume you understand it. This was discussed to us before we passed the editorial exams, and we were repeatedly reminded of the limits of our independence. You could have requested an interview with our technical adviser before writing this to support your claims, but you didn’t. Journalism 101 again: in order to establish credibility, you have to present BOTH SIDES of an issue. I was a grade five student taking up a journalism elective class when I learned that. So basically, to answer your titular question, anyone can sue you…if they want to. We are taught in one of our classes that truth alone cannot defend someone from libel because truth has many versions—and YOURS is so easy to disprove.

“But, hey! I won’t be doing this if I wasn’t that ready. By saying “ready” means I have a lot of supporting documents.”— REALLY? OH MY GOSH I MUST HAVE MISSED SOMETHING.

I want you to know that I’m commenting not because the “truth” you claim to present here hurt me or us—that’s impossible, because you didn’t even present concrete facts that make your arguments stronger. Your observations weren’t even keen enough, and you voiced out your opinions on things you weren’t knowledgeable about. Sorry for redundancy, but I want you to see that’s the core of your writing dilemma. I’m commenting because I wish to inform you this isn’t how journalism works—liberated or otherwise. Please don’t mar its name.

You could have posted this on our official Facebook wall too when you wrote it, you know? We’re all ears, and back then you’re a student. We listen to students. And like I said, if you’re going to be courageous, don’t hold back…but maybe deep inside you knew you can’t go all the way at all because you’re aware you can’t go to war if your weapons are defective or not enough. That’s wise, but it’s a proof you’re not gutsy enough to believe your own words. :p

-Airiz Casta

This is one of the few things I’m always telling myself whenever I feel down…

2011-12-12T01:35:00.000+08:00

There are a thousand reasons why Neil Gaiman is my hero, but one of the most significant is his writings: the ones I had embedded in my heart and head, those that I can relive and dredge up just when I needed them. Like the panels above, from one of The Sandman spinoffs about the character Death.

They help me get through the day, in some ways, especially when I think a single piece of jigsaw fell off the whole picture of my life. I’m not exactly feeling blue right now—I think I’m stuck between the black of sad and the white of happiness, my emotions coming in all shades of gray. Maybe it’s just stress; maybe it’s because I’m just thinking too much. Whatever it is, I have Gaiman to thank for giving me a metaphorical pill for a wee turmoil in my heart. Or emptiness. Or whatever nondescript emotional state it is.

God’s here, too, of course. I never forget that.

Writing this down feels like squeezing stress balls, haha! I won't make this post long. I know I'll be able to wave a dreamland-bound cab with a smile on my face, just with a little prayer and lessons that stories taught me. :)

Just a heads up!

2011-12-12T01:34:00.000+08:00

I’m not posting “Ten Things that Made Me Smile Today” on this blog anymore…but no, I won’t stop writing them. I just figured it would be nicer and more orderly if they have their own place, not just being interspersed with my random ramblings, rants, and raves here at Blogspot. Yep, I created a new site just for them at Livejournal. They’re now being housed at A Teacup of Stars.

The site won’t be exclusive for the lists, though. I’m quite positive I’ll have no choice but to publish other things in it, like non-GW fanfics and entries as answers for writing challenges. More of the latter, I think, since challenges at comms—the table prompts, to be specific—are so tempting.

I have to admit, Livejournal is more interactive than Blogspot. There are LJ communities that let you post on their sites, as long as you agree to follow the rules usually enumerated on their profile pages. I joined and participated in many LJ comms back when I was in college, and in the process I made lots of friends from all around the world (some of them reconnected with me via my fandom tumblr). Tumblr is an amazing social microblogging site, but some of its groups could never rival my favorite LJ comms. That’s why I’m going back there.

Here’s a screenshot of A Teacup of Stars:

One of the many things I love about Livejournal is that there are a helluva lot of pretty premade layouts and themes, most of them you can get for free and are very easy to tweak. The theme for A Teacup of Stars is created by another LJ user, and she’s letting other users snag it. I love this one because that mermaid on the header looks like she’s floating on the clouds, not showcasing some kind of surface tension on the sea. I have a poem that talks of “a mermaid of the clouds that cradles the stars in her palms.” :)

The only edit I can do to the header is keying in the shadowed title of my blog (it’s plain originally). I attempted to add star clip-arts, but they only made the header look messy (not to mention cheap) so I undid the whole thing. Haha!

If you’re on LJ too, please don’t hesitate to add me! And while you’re at it and you’re a GW fan, do check out my fanfic journal. It’s called Spaceheart:

The simple layout for this site is from a layouts comm. I altered about three quarters of the original theme that resulted into this. Since the site is exclusive for my GW fanfics, I thought of putting a GW-centric header and a body theme that coincides with the feel of the header. That’s Quatre and Trowa you see at the top.

So yeah, that’s about it. :p You’re still free to see my lists of little inanities that can twist my frowns into smiles, and also read the things I’ve spun from the shows I loved.