Heath as Nick Drake

mtv.com came out with Ten Things You Don't Know About Heath Ledger and they uncovered things which will cast doubts about the accidental angle of his death:

3. He was obsessed with Nick Drake. Nick Drake was a British singer/songwriter who died in 1974 at age 26 after overdosing on antidepressants. One of Ledger's final artistic statements was a music video for Drake's song "Black Eyed Dog" that he directed and in which he starred. At the end of the clip, Heath depicts himself drowning in a bathtub.

"[In] ancient Greek culture, drowning was the worst possible death simply because your body couldn't be found," Dames said. "For a while in the 19th century, there was a fascination with drowning. ... Virginia Woolf comes to mind. ... There is this fascination [with drowning] as a method of suicide because it comes from Shakespeare."

Toytown Traumas

Julie Burchil on the topics that hound our fiction:

"I'm referring to the endless stream of books regarding what I call Toytown Traumas; that is, sorrow which is either self-inflicted - drink, drugs, divorce - or which happens to so many of us as not to actually count as anything special: death of a loved one, loss of a job, divorce. Invariably they are written by journalists from the middle or upper-middle class, educated at some expense either privately or by the state; for some reason, middle-class and/or educated people who use their private lives for profit feel able to look down on working-class and/or uneducated people for doing the same, be they an incest survivor or a kiss-and-tell girl. But surely it's far worse to blab if you're educated, because you have so many other options to turn a buck?"

Should we Allow the Burning of Nabokov's Last (Unpublished) Work?

In a Swiss bank vault are about 50 index cards of Vladimir Nabokov's handwriting. This is "The Original of Laura," VN's unfinished last novel which he wanted burned. His wife Vera died and now son Dmitri, 73, has the dilemma of following his father's order or not. And according to Slate, the decision is near.

Even Worse than a Ringing Cellphone in a Theater

Guardian critic Michael Billington wrote that the musical version of "The Diary of
Anne Frank," which opens next month in Spain, might be a bad idea, citing a New
York stage adaptation of the book during which an audience member shouted to
Nazi searchers, "She's in the attic!"

The Dogs of German Gervacio

Hu Let Da Dogs Awt?! Hu-Hu-Huhu!: Isang Desperadong Pag-aaral sa Mga Modernong Bugtong na Walang Gustong Sumagot ni German V. Gervacio

0. Aso kong puti

Inutusan ko sandali

Hindi na umuwi

Clue: pwe!

Sagot:

1. Aso ako ng Puti

Inuutusan ako palagi

Upang maka-loan muli’t muli

Clue: cute po ako at hate ko mga terrorists

Sagot:

2. Aso kong punggok

Sa trono’y iniluklok

Nang pababain ay naghimutok

Clue: hate po niya mga terrorists at cute siya

Sagot:

3. Aso kong tabogol

Kadena’y aking pinutol

Upang tumigil sa katatahol

Clue: Err-rafrafraf, hik!

Sagot:

4. Aso kong itim

Pinabilang ko nang lihim

Trono’y napunta muli sa akin

Clue: kapag bundat na ang linta, nagreresayn nang kusa

Sagot:

5. Aso ako ng punggok

Nang ang tuta ko’y nagpaputok

Nasabon ako mula paa hanggang tuktok

Clue: dog po ako pero parang sa rabbit tenga ko

Sagot:

6. Aso kong panay ang atungal

Sa palasyo nainvite mag-almusal

Pag-uwi may paperbag na busal

Clue: batik-batik po ang aso kong ito, lord

Sagot:

7. Mga aso kong pula

Pinalparan ko na

Panay pa rin ang alma

Clue: Sori, wala pong clue, wala ring ebidensya…

Sagot:

8. Aso kong astang-hero

Mistulang si fernando poe

Nang pulbusin ang mga haybol sa estero

Clue: Sapatusin po kita pag humingi ka pa ng clue!

Sagot:

9. Aso kong may sayad

Tingin sa sarili niya’y isteytsayd

Kuntodo-accent pagbigkas ng “I lied!”

Klu: klut-klut hair niya

Sagot:

10. Mga katahulan kong apatetik

Pinabasa ko nitong aking gimik

Di nangagat panay lang hagikgik

Clue:

Sagot:

Costumer

If you still have a child who doesn't know what to do but doesn't like nursing, let him or her take Theater Arts so that he would become a costume designer. He or she would be very privileged in this country. Just look around. For Costumers Only. Costumer's Parking Only. Para sa Mga Kostumer Lang Po. Non-Costumers Not Allowed.
How many costumers do you know. I know the one in CCP but he died already. Are fashion designers allowed because not all do costumes. How about the aboloryo, which incidentally is the tile of Martin Masadao's great script for Cinemalaya. His story is a radical look on sexuality (actually non-sexuality), globalization and love. I hope he makes it in the Magic 10 so he can use the costumer parking lots.
Some said that "costumers" actually means "customers." Gasp! Are the Pinoys that stupid? It's allegedly an Englification of "kostumer." I think this theory is right because why would you call them ""customer" e walang kustom yan (Why call them customers when they have no manners).
This is similar to the "cementery" because its an Englification of "cementerio" or "sementerio."
The Spanish cementerio comes from the Greek koimeterion, which is related to`dormitory'. So the dormitory-type crypts are not farfetched. Also in Ilocos, camposanto was more popular then.
Does "cement" come from "cementerio." It started in the 1300s from the Old French "ciment," from L. cæmenta "stone chips used for making mortar," from cædere "to cut down, chop, beat, hew, fell, slay" from PIE base *(s)k(h)a- "to strike" (cf. Skt. skhidati "beats, tears," Lith. kaisti "shave," Ger. heien "beat").
Cemetery is akin crematorium because of Late Latin's coemeterium which is also "graveyard."
So the assumption that because cememnt is used for tombs naturally meant that the two came from the same is not accurate.
About customer and costumer, there is little relation etymologically except that customer's many meanings include strumpet, lord and patron, which a costumer can easily a costume for. As for parking privileges in the Philippines, the costumers reign supreme above all classes.

How's do you find my English?

This is a page of a letter from Jose Rizal while exiled in Dapitan from 1892 to 1896. More than 110 years ago, you could count Filipinos who can speak in English and here he was, asking us if his English was fine. Then he moved on to French in the latter part of the letter. Remember the great Claro M. Recto who got Maximo Cum Laude in lawschool about forty years later did not pass the Bar because of his English comprehension.
And Rizal wrote here that he was starting to learn Bisaya. But then his English was already even better than some Filipino professionals I exchange emails with.

Filipino-American Reading List: Punkd!

Nerissa Balce sent this through Roland:

In the grand tradition of English film titles translated into Filipino, such as Adik si Harry, Tumira ng Shabu (Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone), Uuy...Aminin! (I Know What You did Last Summer) and Ang Proyekto ng Bruhang si Blair (The Blair Witch Project), here are some playful translations of books by Filipino American studies scholars. The asides and alternative titles are mine.

1. White Love – Ang Boypren Ko, Puti!
2. Empire of Care – Nars
3. Servants of Globalization - Tsimay (alternative title: DH)
4. Children of Global Migration - Mga Anak ng Tsimay (alternative title: DHL or DH Litter)
5. Forced Passages – Ginahasang Konbik (Obscurantism. Better is "Ang Bagong Daan")
6. American Tropics – Libog at Init sa Amerika (alternative title: Mga Trapik sa America)
7. Global Divas – Kabaklaan na Naman!
8. Locating Filipino Americans – Saan nga Ba ang Mga Pinoy? (alternative title: Kaya Nga TNT)
9. Positively No Filipinos Allowed – Sabi sa 'Yo, Wala Talagang Pinoy! (alternative title: Sabi sa Iyo, Walang Vacancy para sa Atin)
10. Model Minority Imperialism – America's Neks Top Model
11. Fantasy-Production – Charing!
12. From Exile to Diaspora – La Visa Loka
13. The Star Entangled Banner – Ang Bandilang Pinaluputan ni Guy and Vi (Kailangang Ipa-Rebond ang Flag)
14. Five Faces of Exile – Ang Limang X-Men

I also looked at anti-Desperate Housewives online petition originator Kevin Nadal's book list for other Fil-Am Studies canon (Hey, he won a contest at Michigan State for his Asian-American book collection!). These are other Fil-Am Studies tomes ripe for translation:

Root, Maria P.P. (1997). Filipino Americans: Transformation and Identity. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications -- Ako si Transformer!
Bacho, Peter (1997). Dark Blue Suit. Seattle: University of Washington Press. -- Ukay-Ukay!
Buaken, Manuel (1948). I Have Lived with the American People. Caldwell, Idaho: Caxton Printers, Ltd.-- Gapo
Bulosan, Carlos (1995). On Becoming Filipino. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.-- Paano Mag-apply ng Dual Citizenship
Coronel, Leandro V. (1997). The Invisible Americans: Why the Filipinos in American Lack Political Clout. Alexandria, VA: Cogs Publishing -- Anong Pakialam Ko sa Blond Hair Mo?
Hagedorn, Jessica (1990). Dogeaters. New York: Penguin Books -- Baguio Cuisine
Ileto, Reynaldo Clemena (1979). Pasyon and Revolution: Popular Movements in the Philippines, 1840-1910. Manila: Ateneo de Manila University Press -- Edsa Revolution: Mga Prequel
McReynolds, Patricia Justiani (1997). Almost Americans: A Quest for Dignity. Santa Fe: Red Crane Books -- Mali Ang Sagot sa Embasi. Pakshet!
Okamura, Jonathan Y. (1998). Imagining the Filipino American Diaspora: Transnational Relations, Identities, and Communities. New York: Garland Publishing -- Pahabaan ng Title Para Sikat
Yamanaka, Lois-Ann (1997). Blu’s Hanging. New York: Ferrar, Strauss, and Giroux -- Nagnakaw ng Bughaw na Hawaiian Shirt, Binitay!

and the canon of them all:
Carlos Bulosan's America is in the Heart -- Grabe na itong Organ Trafficking na toh!

Nobel

No Worry U Has Nobel Fish Fries.

I don't know much about creative writing programs. But they're not telling the truth if they don't teach, one, that writing is hard work, and, two...

that you have to give up a great deal of life, your personal life, to be a writer."

Doris Lessing, who wrote that, just won the Nobel Prize for Literature. She's 88 and she deserves the award (no irony there). I read some of her works years ago including The Golden Notebook which I totally forgot. Anyway, here are some quotes from Lessing which you can pepper your cocktail conversations later so you can pass yourself as an erudite Lessing fan. Maybe Lesser.

• There is only one real sin and that is to persuade oneself that the second-best is anything but second best.

• What's really terrible is to pretend that the second-rate is the first-rate. To pretend that you don't need love when you do, or you like your work when you know quite well you're capable of better.

• You only learn to be a better writer by actually writing.

• The current publishing scene is extremely good for the big, popular books. They sell them brilliantly, market them and all that. It is not good for the little books.

• Trust no friend without faults, and love a woman, but no angel.

• Laughter is by definition healthy.

• This world is run by people who know how to do things. They know how things work. They are equipped. Up there, there's a layer of people who run everything. But we -- we're just peasants. We don't understand what's going on, and we can't do anything.

• It is the mark of great people to treat trifles as trifles and important matters as important

• It is terrible to destroy a person's picture of himself in the interests of truth or some other abstraction.

• What is a hero without love for mankind?

• In university they don't tell you that the greater part of the law is learning to tolerate fools.

• With a library you are free, not confined by temporary political climates. It is the most democratic of institutions because no one - but no one at all - can tell you what to read and when and how.

Ten Words

Do you have this in your shortstory titles? Answer when I get back from Sagada
1. Remember
2. Smoke
3. Revelation
4. Work
5. Grace
6. Waiting
7. Insomnia
8. Voyeur
9. Butterfly
10. Reunion

Relax. Rushdie is on Our Side

From New York Observer: “It used to be much easier to start out as a young writer because you could be sure that a book would get review space all over the place.” These days, Mr. Rushdie said, it’s only the established ones who get any coverage. “The problem is: how do you draw attention to books by new writers who are not well known, who don’t have name recognition – who, you know, don’t look beautiful on the cover of a magazine? That’s 99 percent of all writers! That’s the reason why this is important.” Then Mr. Rushdie went off-message: “I think it’s rather unfortunate that some of the coverage tries to pitch print reviewing against the new media. I think they complement each other very well.” To those familiar with the ongoing debate in the book world about whether lit blogs are destroying western culture--as Rushdie's listeners were--his meaning could hardly have been clearer: Blogs aren't the enemy.As Mr. Rushdie finished, the room erupted in applause. Two minutes later, he was gone.

Litera Tour

The British Council-Philippines and the Department of Communication, College of Arts and Communication, University of the Philippines will co-sponsor the Animating Litera Tour. The project aims to develop the writing and performance skills of poets in East Asian countries through international collaboration and practical workshops on performance poetry.
It is a rare opportunity for members of the academe from Baguio City to participate in such an activity. This year, the British Council decided to bring this workshop to us. We are honoured to have the internationally known performance poet Francesca Beard who will facilitate the "Animating Litera Tour" in the University of the Philippines Baguio, Bulwagang Juan Luna on September 29 to October 1, 2007. Registration will start on September 29, 2007, 8:30 a.m. at the said venue. Workshop and lunch are free.

Phaidon

I passed by a seldom-visited-anymore used bookstore and came upon a whole treasure of Phaidon books. This is what we bought (with Andy). Don't ask me how much we paid. It's expensive. Andy was crying when he bought that enormous and voluminous "Century" book but I was the one who cried when I surfed the Net and found it "out of fcking stock." Anyway, lesser mortals of Baguio, there are still some good loot there: The History of Art, Dance, Devil's Playground, The Art Book, Photography Book, Hokusai (Tangina ba't nakalimutan ko ito!!!!), House Book, Heaven and Earth, Retro Graphics, mini-Century, Martin Parr, Spoon, Picasso and many more. And one more Capa.

Filipino as Global Language

Filipino as a Global Language:

Future Directions and Prospects

1^st International Conference
Filipino and Philippine Literature Program
Department of Indo-Pacific Languages and Literature
University of Hawai`i at Manoa
March 17-19, 2008

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

The conference will be an avenue for bringing together scholars, writers, language teachers, researchers and other practitioners from around the world to discuss issues pertaining the role of Filipino as a global language. Participants can be teachers, researchers, program administrators/coordinators and other practitioners who are directly involved in the promotion and nurturing of the Filipino language, literature and culture. This first conference is geared towards establishing a tradition of scholarly meetings of this kind among practitioners in the field of Filipino language, literature and culture studies. Its goal is to provide a venue for the exchange of ideas among teachers, researchers, program administrators, writers, and other agencies involved in the promotion and nurturing of the Filipino language and culture for the purpose of:

1. describing/sharing existing state-of-the-art programs
2. identifying program needs as well as available resources
3. sharing ideas, research results, resources, assessment tools, and practices on teaching, program administration, and language promotion
4. fostering cooperation, and collaboration in doing research
5. raising consciousness on the importance of the national language to minimize regionalism and
6. advocacy

Topic: Papers will need to directly focus on one or more of the following

Curriculum Development, Needs Analysis and Syllabus Design
Program Development, Administration and Coordination
Translation, Interpretation and Dubbing
Teacher Training and Professional Development
Language and Politics
Heritage Language Learners: Needs Assessment and Curriculum Development
Materials Development
Research Funding and Grant Sourcing
Teaching Culture
Filipino Linguistics: An Overview and Directions
Language Teaching Approaches
Service Learning, Community Sourcing, Student Organizations
Articulation, Assessment and Implementation of Standards
Language Teacher Certification
Program Evaluation Methods and Practices
Teaching Literature
Filipino in the Media and Diplomacy
Poster Sessions will be on Filipino Programs Outside the Philippines

SECOND DEADLINE: October 5, 2008

Novel and Women

A couple of years ago, British author Ian McEwan conducted an admittedly unscientific experiment. He and his son waded into the lunch-time crowds at a London park and began handing out free books. Within a few minutes, they had given away 30 novels Nearly all of the takers were women, who were "eager and grateful" for the freebies while the men "frowned in suspicion, or distaste." The inevitable conclusion, wrote McEwan in The Guardian newspaper: "When women stop reading, the novel will be dead." From NPR

Mga Kuto ni Gabito

I love this passage from Gabriel Garcia Marquez's autobio, Living to Tell The Tale

Until I was five, death had been for me a natural end that happened to other people. The delights of heaven and the torments of hell seemed only lessons to be memorized in Father Astete’s catechism class. They had nothing to do with me, until I learned in passing at a wake that lice were escaping from the hair of a dead man and wandering along the pillows. What disturbed me after that was not the fear of death but embarrassment that lice would escape my head too in the presence of all my relatives at my wake. But in primary school in Barranquilla, I did not realize I was crawling with lice until I had infected the entire family. Then my mother gave me another proof of her character. She disinfected her children one by one with insecticide for cockroaches, in thorough cleansings that she baptized with a name of noble lineage: the police. The problem was that the sooner we clean than we began to crawl again, because I became reinfected at school. Then my father decided to use drastic remedies and she forced me to have my head shaved. It was an act of heroism to appear at school on Monday wearing a cloth cap, but I survived the mockery of my classmates with honor and completed the final year with highest grades.

Childrenville

Many years after my father died, I returned to the Philippines of my childhood and met one of my father’s closest friends who told me a secret. “Your father,” he said, “was hard on you when you were growing up, and that was him, hard as stone. I never saw him cry. Only once. He came to me one night with a crumpled piece of note. It was something you had written. You ran away from home remember? He could not comprehend how you could have written something so wounding. He was visibly hurt, in tears. But I also remember how easily he shifted from that hurt, how his face suddenly lit up and he exclaimed, “But damn, what my son wrote was brilliant!” He was hurt but he was proud of you.”

This is part of Willi P's Palanca-slamming entry, Lost in Childrenville. It is about his Dad and is 23-pages long so if you want to read it, leave your email add at the end of the beep.