May 26, 2013 at 5:30 am (Artists and Writers, Links, Recommended, Surprises, Women Writers, Writing)
Tags: discoveries, Filipino writers, photography, praise, Saturdays, science fiction, seasons, short story, summer, websites
It makes self sad to write the above. Indeed, it is the last Saturday of May 2013 she will ever live through. Then May will turn into June, and before you know it, July will be here (though she loves July. And not just because it’s her birthday month!) Before you know it, it will be Christmas again. And those silly Christmas doo-dads she pasted on her dining room windows, and has been too lazy or too distracted to take down? She’ll just leave them on, so that when Christmas comes, there will be no more of this hunting around for them in the garage!
Self has discovered a new Kindred Spirit Blogger! She’s not sure how she stumbled on this site, but she must have added it to her Bookmarks after she got back from Venice.
Tonight, she was browsing through it and thought: Hmm, it’s been a while since self blogged about another blogger. Let’s just say, she was very moved by the series of sunset pictures on this blog. They reminded her of the picture that Philippine Genre Stories used to illustrate her story “The Departure,” which was the very first story of that webzine, and which she’s been reading regularly ever since. It was fun to see it on the site, and a few months ago she discovered that Ellen Datlow (Who is Ellen Datlow, you may ask? Don’t blame you, self had to look her up: She is the editor of Science Fiction Magazine) had given self’s story (and a couple of other ones by Filipino writers, one of whom was Kristine Ong Muslim, whose writing self likes very much) an Honorable Mention for Best Science Fiction 2011!
Just now, self wandered over to Kristine’s website and discovered that Kristine has “garnered multiple nominations for the Pushcart Prize” and that “her short fiction and poetry were accepted in over five hundred anthologies, periodicals, and podcasts.” Gadzooks!!! Way to go, Kristine !!!
Later, self browsed for mentions of her own story, and found some other writer mention it in passing, saying it was “rather dark.” To which self could only respond with a hearty
BWAH. HA. HA. HAAAAAA!
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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May 9, 2013 at 9:09 pm (Lists, Movies)
Tags: lists, performances, previews, science fiction
- Olga Kurylenko’s acting abilities are extremely limited. “Oblivion” was a halfway decent movie until she and Tom Cruise were together on-screen during an escape sequence, and she kept turning her head from side to side and opening her mouth – this is a simulation of fear? To top it all off, for five minutes she says nothing but “Jack” “Jack” “Jack” “Jack.” We already know Tom Cruise’s character is called Jack. So, cut it out, Olga, can’cha? In another scene, she is called upon to scream in agony, and she sounds like someone just yanked her pony tail. SPOILER ALERT! Self simply COULD NOT believe it when they off-ed Andrea Riseborough’s character, because hers was the one compelling performance in the whole movie.
- Andrea Riseborough looks great. Self particularly loved her use of eyeliner, and her gray shift dress.
- Nicolaj Coster-Waldau is in this movie and that is probably the only reason self saw it. But he’s in only one scene. He does look good as a Mad Max-type character, though.
- It’s been so long since the last time self got ice cream at the Redwood City Downtown Century 20 that the salesperson (who’s been there year-in and year-out for, maybe, five years) no longer says “hi.”
- Even on weekdays, it is difficult to find parking in Sequoia Station.
- Matt Damon made a sci-fi movie! She saw the preview for it today. It’s directed by the same guy who directed “District 9.”
- The price for the early show at the downtown Redwood City Century 20 has increased: from $7 to $7.50.
- Ryan Reynolds and Jeff Bridges made a movie together, and it looks like a knock-off of “Men in Black.” Only, instead of battling aliens, Bridges and Reynolds battle the dead who try to pass as the living, who are really trying to take over the planet.
- There is a sequel to “300″ appearing soon. It seems like only two characters from “300″ return: Lena Headley (who played Gerard Butler’s wife) and Rodrigo Santoro (who was creepy/scary as Xerxes, Persian Conqueror)
- There is a new “Hangover” movie coming out. This one is billed as “Epic” and “Final.” Ho. Ho. Ho.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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March 29, 2013 at 3:44 am (Artists and Writers, Links, Writing)
Tags: art, inspirations, photography, science fiction, short story, Stella Kalaw, writing process
Stella K has a pair of photographs on her site that seem to embody the ineffable. They’re landscape photographs, but – it’s hard to tell what’s below the horizon in the first photograph. Could that be a city? The ruins of a city?
The second photograph has branches – sticks, really — rising out of what could be a marsh, a swamp, mist.
Stella’s photographs always lead self to imagine a story. That must be because, even though self’s medium is language, stories come to her in images, flashes, fragments.
There is something really powerful that happens – emotionally – to self when she ponders Stella’s work.
So here’s a story, “Thing,” which is set After the Apocalypse, in Outlier Rehabiliation Center Sector V:
Caesar tells stories late at night if we can’t sleep. He is old. Old enough to remember a time when there were factories and pigs were processed night and day, when the smell of pig blood lingered over everything. He remembers a time when people ate every part of the pigs: ears, eyes, even entrails. Pork fat was used in cakes, and in bread. I try to imagine a cake.
The factories still cry out. When we hear the keening sound, we know it is the herd of ghost pigs, running into walls and crying because they can never find their way out. They are inside people’s heads, like the memories of old ways. And when people’s heads get too full of the memories, the first ones to tumble out are the pigs, running every which way and squealing.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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February 25, 2013 at 3:34 pm (anthologies, Books, Lists, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Women Writers, Zack)
Tags: Asian American Writers, book lists, essays, Filipino writers, Mondays, novel, poetry, science fiction, short story, speculative fiction, travel
Self still lost in the thickets of son’s room. But the end is in sight!
The number of books on the 2nd shelf above son’s desk: 47
1079 + 47 = 1126 Total Books Counted Thus Far
Some of the titles: The Father, a poetry collection by Sharon Olds; 50 Stories From Israel: An Anthology, edited by Zisi Stavi; The 48 Laws of Power, by Robert Greene; 100 Cases That Every Scots Law Student Needs to Know, edited by W. Green; Drive-By Vigils, by R. Zamora Linmark; Pinoy Capital: The Filipino Nation in Daly City, by Benito M. Vergara, Jr.; The Best American Travel Writing 2011, edited by Sloane Crosley (“Treason only matters when it is committed by trusted men.”); Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively, by Rebecca McClanahan; Winterbirth: The Godless World, Book One, by Brian Ruckley (This one self picked up in a bookstore in Edinburgh); If I Write You This Poem, Will You Make It Fly: Poems, by Simeon Dumdum, Jr.
Here’s a short passage from Winterbirth:
The great column was led by a hundred or more mounted warriors. Many bore wounds, still fresh from the lost battle on the fields by Kan Avor; all bore, in their red-rimmed eyes and wan skin, the marks of exhaustion. Behind them came the multitude: women, children and men, though fewest of the last. Thousands of widows had been made that year.
It was a punishing exodus. Their way was paved with hard rock and sharp stones that cut feet and turned ankles. There could be no pause. Any who fell ill were seized by those who came behind, hauled upright with shouts of encouragement, as if noise alone could put strength back into their legs. If they could not rise, they were left. There were already dozens of buzzards and ravens drifting lazily above the column. Some had followed it all the way up the Glas valley from the south; others were residents of the mountains, drawn from their lofty perches by the promise of carrion.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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February 15, 2013 at 8:12 am (anthologies, Books, Lists, Personal Bookshelf, Recommended, Women Writers)
Tags: book lists, Filipino writers, reviews, science fiction, speculative fiction
As far as the book tallying project, self seems to be lost in the thickets of son’s room. She’s on the shelves above his desk:
1028 + 51 = 1079 Total Books Counted Thus Far
Some of the titles: Handwriting Analysis: The Complete Basic Book, by Karen Amend & Mary S. Ruiz; Against the Shore: The Best of the Pacific Rim Review of Books, edited by Trevor Carolan and Richard Olafson; The Cradle, by Patrick Somerville; Deepening Fiction: A Practical Guide for Intermediate and Advanced Writers, by Sarah Stone and Ron Nyren; Handbook of Prayers: A Complete Treasury of Prayers and Order of Mass, by Charles Belmonte and James Socias; The Lover, by Marguerite Duras; Empire, by Orson Scott Card (“Treason only matters when it is committed by trusted men.”); The Philippines Handbook, by Peter Harper & Laurie Fullerton; Philippine Speculative Fiction III, edited by Dean Francis Alfar & Nikki Alfar; Self Potraits 2: Fourteen Filipina Artists Speak, edited by Thelma B. Kintanar and Sylvia Menendez Ventura; The Hunger Games, by Suzanne Collins.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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February 5, 2013 at 6:48 am (anthologies, Books, Lists, Personal Bookshelf, Surprises)
Tags: book lists, history, Mondays, science fiction, World War II
Top Shelf Above Son’s Desk: 30 books
998 + 30 = 1028 Total Books Counted Thus Far
Books include: Stone of Tears, by Terry Goodkind; a number of paperbacks by R. A. Salvatore, which self remembers purchasing for son; The Legend of Drizzt, Collector’s Edition, which self knows she did not purchase for son (So when/how did he procure it? It appears to be quite an expensive tome); Into the Rising Sun, by Patrick K. O’Donnell; Snow Crash, by Neal Stephenson; The NuyorAsian Anthology: Asian American Writings About New York City, edited by Bino A. Realuyo; Edible: An Illustrated Guide to the World’s Food Plants, by the Editors of National Geographic; Word Painting: A Guide to Writing More Descriptively, by Rebecca McClanahan; and Dr. Spock’s Baby and Child Care.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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February 2, 2013 at 6:44 am (Lists, Personal Bookshelf, Philippine History, Surprises)
Tags: book lists, discoveries, Fridays, Gardens, memories, science fiction
Now, to resume the Humongous Book Counting Project:
898 + 63 = 961 Total Books Counted Thus Far
On this shelf in the bookcase in son’s room, a few selected titles: A Pocket for Corduroy, by Don Freeman; Dune, by Frank Herbert (Hardcover); Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown; Bandila: The Story of the Philippine Flag, by Merci Melchor; Dandelion, by Don Freeman; Rikki-Tikki-Tavi, by Rudyard Kipling (A GREAT children’s book: self read it to son at least a dozen times. She is reminded that lately, when she turns over rocks in her garden, she finds, coiled underneath, brown scaly snakes, looking up at her with still, unblinking eyes. The other day, she decided to give one such nest a poke, and then they uncoiled and thrashed, and – really, self didn’t know whether to run away and scream or what); Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People’s Ears, by Verna Aardema (“One morning a mosquito saw an iguana drinking at a waterhole. The mosquito said, ‘Iguana, you will never believe what I saw yesterday.’ ‘Try me,’ said the iguana. The mosquito said, ‘I saw a farmer digging yams that were almost as big as I am.’ ” For dear blog readers’ information, son ended up being really really good at chemistry and math, and as far as she knows has never looked at these children’s books after the age of 10 or so); and Webster’s Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary.
Stay tuned.
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December 26, 2012 at 12:26 am (Books, Links, Lists, Recommended, short story collections)
Tags: book lists, novel, reading lists, science fiction, short story collections, The NYTBR
The NYTBR of December 2 is the “100 Notable Books of 2012″ issue. Impossible for self to go through the whole gamut, digesting for dear blog readers, so she will confine herself to culling through the Fiction. And she picked 18 books from the 50 in the Fiction list that she feels MOST interested in perusing, for the following reasons:
She likes stories about hackers. She likes stories set on rural communes. She likes Sherman Alexie, especially when he’s being “moving and funny.” She likes stories about parents who do idiotic things, like “rob a bank” (Self always ends up feeling almost saintly, by comparison). She likes novels set in 2053. Especially if they are set in Ireland. She likes novels set in “shabby urban mental” hospitals. She likes novels about “clerks, cooks and lawyers,” especially if they are found in “a forward operating base in Iraq.” She likes novels about caregivers. Especially if the caregivers are in California. She usually disdains story collections about recurring characters, but not when they are tied together by “a desert rock formation.” She likes novels that ask existential questions. She’s never been on a Chesapeake Bay estate, so she is happy when a novel wants to take her there. She’s never read a story set on the “desolate Channel Islands,” she is happy for the same reason she wants to read a Chesapeake Bay novel. She likes “smart and nuanced” short story collections. She likes stories about outsiders, especially when the outsider in question knows how to stir up trouble. She likes novels that takes liberties with Biblical characters. She has never read a novel with characters from Senegal, so she is ecstatic that she can finally get to read one. She likes reading novels about families “torn apart” by war or by a cataclysmic natural event. She likes war novels in general.
So here are self’s picks of the 50 Notable Fiction Books of 2012 recommended by the NYTBR:
- Alif the Unseen, by G. Willow Wilson
- Arcadia, by Lauren Groff
- Blasphemy, by Sherman Alexie
- Canada, by Richard Ford
- City of Bohane, by Kevin Barry
- The Devil in Silver, by Victor LaValle
- Fobbit, by David Abrams
- The Forgetting Tree, by Tatjana Soli
- Gods Without Men, by Hari Kunzru
- How Should a Person Be? by Sheila Heti
- The Right-Hand Shore, by Christopher Tilghman
- San Miguel, by T. Coraghessan Boyle
- Shout Her Lovely Name, by Natalie Serber
- Swimming Home, by Deborah Levy
- The Testament of Mary, by Colm Toibin
- Three Strong Women, by Marie NDiaye
- Toby’s Room, by Pat Barker
- The Yellow Birds, by Kevin Powers
The only five authors self has read before are: Sherman Alexie, Richard Ford, T. Coraghessan Boyle, Colm Toibin, and Pat Barker. Of these five, self has seen three in person (Never mind which ones they are)
The author she wishes could think of better titles for his books is T. Coraghessan Boyle. It occurs to her that she really hates titles like Three Strong Women, because if everyone went around naming the qualities of their major characters, the world might be full of titles like Two Thieving Men or Four Adulterous Women or Three Brave Widows or – well, you get the picture.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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December 1, 2012 at 5:57 pm (Books, Links, Publishers, Recommended)
Tags: book lists, China, Chinese writers, lists, Saturdays, science fiction, weekends
Self is engaged in the following activities: a) trimming clematis henryi, in rather strenuous rain; b) chopping up empty boxes that she’d been storing in her shed “for future use” for at least a decade; c) trolling the web and d) reading the Oct. 11, 2012 issue of The New York Review of Books.
Among the trove of riches contained in this issue of the review, self makes the following discoveries:
- The Library of America has published a two-volume anthology called American Science Fiction: Nine Classic Novels of the 1950s, edited by Gary K. Wolfe. Among the nine are these titles: The Big Time, by Fritz Leiber; The Long Tomorrow, by Leigh Brackett; The Space Merchants, by Frederik Pohl and C. M. Kornbluth; More Than Human, by Theodore Sturgeon; and Who? by Algis Budry.
- iUniverse took out a large ad, and among the books featured in the ad was this one: If You’re Gonna Be Stupid, You’ve Gotta Be Tough! by Bob Cole (An excellent piece of advice, which self will take to heart!)
- Directly beneath that ad is a smaller one by Trofford Publishing, which features this exceedingly interesting book: Romantic Resumes: What Graduate School Did For Lovely Young Jane Doe, by Veronica Verity (What a great pseudonym. That is, if it really is a pseudonym. A writer can’t really have a last name like “Verity,” can she? Are there any people in the world with the family name Verity? Pray tell!)
- Gary Wills has an excellent review of Through the Eye of a Needle: Wealth, the Fall of Rome, and the Making of Christianity in the West, 350 – 550 AD, by Peter Brown (Surely one of the plainest names ever to be sported by a professor anywhere in the world. Unless there is a professor somewhere with the name John Brown?) Self is so excited, she immediately decides to add the book to her “To Read” list, until she happens to glance at the number of pages: 759. Gulp!
Plus, there is an amazingly funny article written by Ian Johnson, on a Chinese writer named Yu Hua, apparently a celebrity in China, who hosted a raucous dinner party with local notables at which Johnson was in attendance. At the end of the party, “when the wine bottles had been emptied, the prawns sucked dry, and a bottle of grain alcohol lay on its side, the guests staggered out to their government-issue Audi A6L limousines, windows tinted and doors held open by drivers in dark aviator glasses. Yu saw them off with a wave and then wondered aloud: Who the fuck are these people?”
And self is not yet done reading! This issue might take her the rest of the weekend to get through.
Stay tuned, dear blog readers. Stay tuned.
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August 19, 2012 at 3:26 pm (Writing)
Tags: art, Just published, Literary Magazines, photography, science fiction, short story, speculative fiction, Stella Kalaw, Sundays
Plankton wakes me one morning. Look, he says.
I don’t have to look. I know because there is a feeling I have that the world is gone. That where Caesar has been is just space wrapped in hair, skin and bones.
– from “Thing,” in New Orleans Review, Volume 38.1, 2012
The Stella Kalaw Landscape (like no other)
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