As someone who has been efforting to write reviews of other people's various texts, I've been wanting and waiting to read reviews written about my own humble cache of literary production, even if written merely as retaliation for the words I've scrawled on the walls of the House of Hegemony, and alas, two years after coming out after half a decade of writing in darkness, I'll have to console myself with this, and this. There, there.
The new issue is out, focusing on the Maguindanao Massacre. It's an all-essay issue. Also: we're still looking for stuff for the next updates - essays, poems, photographs, komix, paintings, just plain electronic correspondence - so be sure to eMail us your reactions - to the essays, to the questions - and we'll post them on the website in the coming weeks. We plan it to be a collaborative work-in-progress, and maybe a book in 2010.
I'm sponsoring a drink-up 17th December 2009, which is tonight, 8PM to whenever, here in Project Four, Cubao, all in aid of a lot of things, but primarily because 2009 was all kindsa sucky and yet also all kindsa kewl, a year that deserves a few bottles drunk to it out of spite and out of love, too, and I promised a few people some books, and I promised some people some free beer and videoke, and so here we are with two maps for three different routes to the drink-up place.
The first route, which is the easiest route to follow:
Just make your way towards the big red heart and ride a PROJECT FOUR - KALANTIAW JEEP I repeat a PROJECT FOUR - KALANTIAW JEEP, standard fare. It'll go straight down P TUAZON and then turn right towards KALANTIAW - the only turn it'll make in the route - and just patiently wait for maybe two minutes for this place -
- on the left-hand side of the road, and this is exactly how it'll look like when coming from P TUAZON, at 8PM.
The second and third routes, which are pretty easy, too, are here:
ROUTE 1: From the UP - ATENEO - KATIPUNAN AREA, ride towards AURORA, but OVER THE FLYOVER and past the OVERPASS and LABOR HOSPITAL and just a bit past BANAPPLE, turn right to RAJAH MATANDA - the first turn you'll make in the route - and go straight down the street to the very end, and turn right to KALANTIAW - the second turn you'll make in the route - and just drive slowly down the street until you see this -
- on the right-hand side of the road, and this is exactly how it'll look like when coming from RAJAH MATANDA, at 8PM.
ROUTE 2: From the UP - ATENEO - KATIPUNAN AREA, ride towards AURORA, but OVER THE FLYOVER and just after the FLYOVER on the right-hand side of the road is a street right beside an OVERPASS: that is P TUAZON. Turn right - the first turn you'll make in the route - and drive down P TUAZON past LABOR HOSPITAL and EMERALD SQUARE and just a little bit after the MARKET you'll see HOTEL P TUAZON on the right-hand side of the road, and directly opposite it on the left-hand side is a street turning left: that is KALANTIAW. Turn left - the second turn you'll make in the route - and then drive slowly down the street until you see this -
- on the left-hand side of the road, and this is exactly how it'll look like when coming from P TUAZON, at 8PM.
You can download high-def versions of the maps here for the Cubao Route, and here for the Katipunan Routes. Hope to see you there. The first 72 bottles of beer are for free! 35 pesos per bottle. Pretty cheap, especially in the context of Christmas Drink-ups only ten minutes away from a famous metropolitan shopping center!
I'll be selling about 50 copies of the book on Friday at UP Writers Night, from 5PM til whenever, for 200 pesos per copy. Writers Night is on Balay Kalinaw, UP Diliman. Everyone who is within shouting distance of the event and wants to get a copy should go there.
For the people who texted/eMailed/Fezboobs-messaged me about getting copies reserved for them, you can get your copies of the book on Writers Night, but they won't be on reserve, in light of the limited number of copies and in an effort to allow more people to get copies of the book. I plan to run yet another 100 copies next week for you, and set up a place and a date next week in Cubao where and when you can pick them up before Christmas. Pasensiya talaga, at sana okey lang sa inyo! Drowingan ko lahat ng kopya niyo. I love you.
My review of Francisco Coching's El Indio is finally out and complete in three parts - here, here, and here - and is the first of what will be a regular series of komix reviews from yours truly. The next review will be a revisit of Gerry Alanguilan's Elmer, now collected, and with a blurb from yours truly along the top of the front cover. What I feel about this book is no real secret for a lot of this blog's more faithful readers, but I felt that it was worth a critical revisit in context to it being a whole book, now, and the Ampatuan Massacre, and the limits/capacity of art to confront such things. I'll also talk about Alanguilan's other Komikon 2k9 book, drawn by Arlan Esmeña, Where Bold Stars Go To Die, locating its proper place in the Komikero's komixography (I might talk about Feminism, too).
Friend and BitTorrent freak Francis Q fans the flames of the carbon briquettes of my heart with this post, which made me go gago again on the Greek Ms Grey so here are some relevant links on the girl - a Playboy spread with Richard Ken (wow) - a Penthouse spread with Terry Richardson (fucking wow) - the Playboy interview with the Kern spread (wow again) - and a super superb review of Sasha Grey's Anatomy, a movie I'm presently downloading (it's super) - Sasha Grey fans the flames of the caving-in lava dome of my heart. Follow her on Twitter!
I’ve always seen the book as the girl from Cubao with the awkward nose and the knobby knees and the well-thought-out proposal to achieve World Peace who will always lose out to the girl from Parañaque who marches in step while waving a baton in her two-piece bikini. Apparently, I was wrong.
The El Bimbo Variations won the 9th Annual Madrigal Gonzalez Best First Book Award for the publication years 2007-2008, in the English-language category. It was the first self-published, the first bilingual, and the first book of poetry that ever won the award in its category. The judges were David Bayot, J Neil Garcia, and Angelo Suarez.
One of the issues that was brought up about the book was about beauty, and it being seemingly not the book’s main preoccupation, the assumption there being beauty is poetry’s main preoccupation. My answer is this: “I’ve always seen this book as the girl from Cubao with the awkward nose and the knobby knees and the well-thought-out proposal to achieve World Peace who will always lose out to the girl from Parañaque who marches in step while waving a baton in her two-piece bikini. Apparently, I was wrong.”
Cubao Postcards - a collaborative anthology
the Readers of Oblique Strategies
the Books being read in Oblique Strategies
the Archives of Oblique Strategies
the Words of Oblique Strategies
