Monday, January 30, 2006
Gabo puts his pen down
The Nobel-Prize-winning author, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, has said he has given up writing. "With my experience, I could write a new novel without any problems," he told the Spanish newspaper La Vanguardia. "But people would realise my heart isn't in it."
Read the rest at the BBC News Magazine
Tell 'em, Howie
There was rain on the parade, in more than just the literal sense (which of course didn't deter the crowds). Manila Mayor Lito Atienza's insistence on sharing the limelight with Pacman on his float was shameless. I don't care if the former PR man organized the motorcade that snaked through the metropolis. His waving to the masses while standing in Pacquiao's shadow gave what should have been a unifying event a partisan color, as if Atienza were already running in the next senatorial elections.
Howie Severino, on Manny Pacquiao's visit to GMA.
Tuesday, January 24, 2006
Fireball fight, Richard Gutierrez version
Separated from birth and fighting on different sides of warring tribes, Amante and Miguel grew up as differently as night and day. Ngunit sa muling pagkabuhay ni Apo Abukay, kinailangan magsanib ng puwersa ni Amante at Miguel upang mailigtas si Isabel, ang babaeng pareho nilang minamahal.Join Miguel and Amante as they train to fight Apo Abukay, and save the woman they both love! Click to play the Sugo Online Fighting Game
Kwentong Pacman
Last Sunday morning, Leks, Jonas, Frank, JAm, Ivan and I all hied off to Megamall to worship at the Church of Pacquiao. We sat patiently through the undercards, made fun of Quinito Henson, watched the replay of the first fight as we pretended to be boxing experts, and made some more fun of Quinito Henson. I even paid 70 bucks for a large popcorn, and the dork that I am, even took a couple of photos inside the theater.
Of course everyone knows what happened by now, but let me just add a few more things:
-- The 300 bucks we paid was so, so worth it. As Leks put it afterwards, "Kahit 600 yun, sulit eh." Of course, it might have been different if Pacman had lost.
-- As early as three hours before the fight, everyone was cheering everytime Manny was shown on the screen.
-- During a long break prior to the fight, we got to talking about Manny's CD, which was being sold outside the theaters. The lead single was this awful, awful ballad called "Para Sa 'Yo ang Laban na Ito" (or something like that), which he sang (quite badly) with little prodding during some of his interviews before he left for the US to train. Then we started wondering what his entrance music would be, and someone joked that it would be his own song. So his actual entrance music? A remix of his own song.
-- Even as Jennifer Bautista screwed up the national anthem, everyone in the theater politely stood up and broke into cheers as she finished.
-- Was I the only guy who wished that after singing the Mexican and the US national anthems, Jon Secada had refused to give the mic back and instead start on "Just Another Day Without You"?
-- By the seventh round, when Manny had Morales on the ropes, it was so loud in the theater that no one could hear Quinito creaming his pants anymore. Everyone was screaming, high-fiving, and even hugging each other and it was like a college basketball game, only everyone in the place was on your side.
-- The best thing about the morning was of course Manny winning the fight? Why, Manny's post-fight interview with Mario Lopez, aka Slater from "Saved by the Bell". It went something like this:
Slater: "So Manny, what was the difference between this and the first fight."
Manny, thinking about the question for a moment: "In this fight, I knock him out in the 10th round and I win..."
Us: "Tangina Manny, buti na lang champion ka."
-- Not only were we spared GMA's post-fight interview, we (along with pretty much else in the theater) got to boo quite heartily when Chavit Singson and Mike Arroyo were shown on screen climbing the ring and congratulating Manny.
-- Almost as soon as the fight finished, the place lit up with cellphones, as everyone tried to text everyone they know about the results (I tried taking a photo of it, but it was still too dark).
After the fight, we decided to celebrate with pizza and beer at Shakey's. Hehe, how '80s (and early '90s)! But then, considering that Jon Secada and Mario Lopez were the entertainers present during the fight...
(At siyempre, tanghaling tapat pa talaga kami nag-inuman, 'di ba?)
And then after lunch we still hung out for about a couple of hours at Starbucks just talking about the fight very loudly, so much so that some of the yuppies there started giving us weird looks. We only stopped when it was time for Ivan and Frank to be somewhere else. As we were leaving, Leks quipped, "Shit, excited na akong mag-boxing message boards para magbasa ng comments tungkol kay Pacquiao."
Monday, January 23, 2006
King Kobe
Will post about Manny in a mo, but holy shit, did you guys see this?I know. I was watching the game on Solar and I couldn't believe it.
Update: YAYsports! put it best:
Kobe Bryant has done the impossible - he's made us happy for him, and he's made us want to root for him.
Thursday, January 19, 2006
The big book list
(got this off the quirky girl)- Bold the books you have read
- Italicize the books you had read to you as a child OR read as a child and cannot remember
- Underline the books you intend to read
- Strike the books you hated so much you couldn't finish them
- Add three
1. The Lord of the Rings, JRR Tolkien
2. Pride and Prejudice, Jane Austen
3. His Dark Materials Trilogy, Philip Pullman
4. The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, JK Rowling
6. To Kill a Mockingbird Harper Lee
7. Winnie the Pooh, AA Milne
8. 1984, George Orwell
9. The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, CS Lewis
10. Jane Eyre, Charlotte Bronte
11. Catch-22, Joseph Heller
12. Wuthering Heights
13. Birdsong, Sebastian Faulks
14. Rebecca, Daphne du Maurier
15. The Catcher in the Rye, JD Salinger
16. The Wind in the Willows, Kenneth Grahame
17. Great Expectations, Charles Dickens
18. Little Women, Louisa May Alcott
19. Captain Corelli’s Mandolin, Louis de Bernieres
20. War and Peace, Leo Tolstoy
21. Gone with the Wind, Margaret Mitchell
22. Harry Potter And The Sorcerers Stone, JK Rowling
23. Harry Potter And The Chamber Of Secrets, JK Rowling
24. Harry Potter And The Prisoner Of Azkaban, JK Rowling
25. The Hobbit, JRR Tolkien
26. Tess Of The D'Urbervilles, Thomas Hardy
27. Middlemarch, George Eliot
28. A Prayer For Owen Meany, John Irving
29. The Grapes Of Wrath, John Steinbeck
30. Alice's Adventures In Wonderland, Lewis Carroll
31. The Story Of Tracy Beaker, Jacqueline Wilson
32. One Hundred Years Of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
33. The Pillars Of The Earth, Ken Follett
34. David Copperfield, Charles Dickens
35. Charlie And The Chocolate Factory, Roald Dahl
36. Treasure Island, Robert Louis Stevenson
37. A Town Like Alice, Nevil Shute
38. Persuasion, Jane Austen
39. Dune, Frank Herbert
40. Emma, Jane Austen
41. Anne Of Green Gables, LM Montgomery
42. Watership Down, Richard Adams
43. The Great Gatsby, F Scott Fitzgerald
44. The Count Of Monte Cristo, Alexandre Dumas
45. Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh
46. Animal Farm, George Orwell
47. A Christmas Carol, Charles Dickens
48. Far From The Madding Crowd,Thomas Hardy
49. Goodnight Mister Tom, Michelle Magorian
50. The Shell Seekers, Rosamunde Pilcher
51. The Secret Garden, Frances Hodgson Burnett
52. Of Mice And Men, John Steinbeck
53. The Stand, Stephen King
54. Anna Karenina, Leo Tolstoy
55. A Suitable Boy, Vikram Seth
56. The BFG, Roald Dahl
57. Swallows And Amazons, Arthur Ransome
58. Black Beauty, Anna Sewell
59. Artemis Fowl, Eoin Colfer
60. Crime And Punishment, Fyodor Dostoyevsky
61. Noughts And Crosses, Malorie Blackman
62. Memoirs Of A Geisha, Arthur Golden
63. A Tale Of Two Cities, Charles Dickens
64. The Thorn Birds, Colleen McCollough
65. Mort, Terry Pratchett
66. The Magic Faraway Tree, Enid Blyton
67. The Magus, John Fowles
68. Good Omens, Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman
69. Guards! Guards!, Terry Pratchett
70. Lord Of The Flies, William Golding
71. Perfume, Patrick Susskind
72. The Ragged Trousered Philanthropists, Robert Tressell
73. Night Watch, Terry Pratchett
74. Matilda, Roald Dahl
75. Bridget Jones's Diary, Helen Fielding
76. The Secret History, Donna Tartt
77. The Woman In White, Wilkie Collins
78. Ulysses, James Joyce
79. Bleak House, Charles Dickens
80. Double Act, Jacqueline Wilson
81. The Twits, Roald Dahl
82. I Capture The Castle, Dodie Smith
83. Holes, Louis Sachar
84. Gormenghast, Mervyn Peake
85. The God Of Small Things, Arundhati Roy
86. Vicky Angel, Jacqueline Wilson
87. Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
88. Cold Comfort Farm, Stella Gibbons
89. Magician, Raymond E Feist
90. On The Road, Jack Kerouac
91. The Godfather, Mario Puzo
92. The Clan Of The Cave Bear, Jean M Auel
93. The Colour Of Magic, Terry Pratchett
94. The Alchemist, Paulo Coelho
95. Katherine, Anya Seton
96. Kane And Abel, Jeffrey Archer
97. Love In The Time Of Cholera, Gabriel Garcia Marquez
98. Girls In Love, Jacqueline Wilson
99. The Princess Diaries, Meg Cabot
100. Midnight's Children, Salman Rushdie
101. Three Men In A Boat, Jerome K. Jerome
102. Small Gods, Terry Pratchett
103. The Beach, Alex Garland
104. Dracula, Bram Stoker
105. Point Blanc, Anthony Horowitz
106. The Pickwick Papers, Charles Dickens
107. Stormbreaker, Anthony Horowitz
108. The Wasp Factory, Iain Banks
109. The Day Of The Jackal, Frederick Forsyth
110. The Illustrated Mum, Jacqueline Wilson
111. Jude The Obscure, Thomas Hardy
112. The Secret Diary Of Adrian Mole Aged 13 1/2, Sue Townsend
113. The Cruel Sea, Nicholas Monsarrat
114. Les Miserables, Victor Hugo
115. The Mayor Of Casterbridge, Thomas Hardy
116. The Dare Game, Jacqueline Wilson
117. Bad Girls, Jacqueline Wilson
118. The Picture Of Dorian Gray, Oscar Wilde
119. Shogun, James Clavell
120. The Day Of The Triffids, John Wyndham
121. Lola Rose, Jacqueline Wilson
122. Vanity Fair, William Makepeace Thackeray
123. The Forsyte Saga, John Galsworthy
124. House Of Leaves, Mark Z. Danielewski
125. The Poisonwood Bible, Barbara Kingsolver
126. Reaper Man, Terry Pratchett
127. Angus, Thongs And Full-Frontal Snogging, Louise Rennison - annoying
128. The Hound Of The Baskervilles, Arthur Conan Doyle
129. Possession, A. S. Byatt
130. The Master And Margarita, Mikhail Bulgakov
131. The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood
132. Danny The Champion Of The World, Roald Dahl
133. East Of Eden, John Steinbeck
134. George's Marvellous Medicine, Roald Dahl
135. Wyrd Sisters, Terry Pratchett
136. The Color Purple, Alice Walker
137. Hogfather, Terry Pratchett
138. The Thirty-Nine Steps, John Buchan
139. Girls In Tears, Jacqueline Wilson
140. Sleepovers, Jacqueline Wilson
141. All Quiet On The Western Front, Erich Maria Remarque
142. Behind The Scenes At The Museum, Kate Atkinson
143. High Fidelity, Nick Hornby
144. It, Stephen King
145. James And The Giant Peach, Roald Dahl
146. The Green Mile, Stephen King
147. Papillon, Henri Charriere
148. Men At Arms, Terry Pratchett
149. Master And Commander, Patrick Obrian
150. Skeleton Key, Anthony Horowitz
151. Soul Music, Terry Pratchett
152. Thief Of Time, Terry Pratchett
153. The Fifth Elephant, Terry Pratchett
154. Atonement, Ian McEwan
155. Secrets, Jacqueline Wilson
156. The Silver Sword, Ian Serraillier
157. One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest, Ken Kesey
158. Heart Of Darkness, Joseph Conrad
159. Kim, Rudyard Kipling
160. Cross Stitch (aka Outlander in the U.S.), Diana Gabaldon
161. Moby Dick, Herman Melville
162. River God, Wilbur Smith
163. Sunset Song, Lewis Grassic Gibbon
164. The Shipping News, Annie Proulx
165. The World According To Garp, John Irving
166. Lorna Doone, R. D. Blackmore
167. Girls Out Late, Jacqueline Wilson
168. The Far Pavilions, M. M. Kaye
169. The Witches, Roald Dahl
170. Charlotte's Web, E. B. White
171. Frankenstein, Mary Shelley
172. They Used To Play On Grass, Terry Venables and Gordon Williams
173. The Old Man And The Sea, Ernest Hemingway
174. The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco
175. Sophie's World, Jostein Gaarder
176. Dustbin Baby, Jacqueline Wilson
177. Fantastic Mr. Fox, Roald Dahl
178. Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov
179. Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, Richard Bach
180. The Little Prince, Antoine De Saint-Exupery
181. The Suitcase Kid, Jacqueline Wilson
182. Oliver Twist, Charles Dickens
183. The Power Of One, Bryce Courtenay
184. Silas Marner, George Eliot
185. American Psycho, Bret Easton Ellis
186. The Diary Of A Nobody, George and Weedon Gross-Smith
187. Trainspotting, Irvine Welsh
188. Goosebumps, R. L. Stine
189. Heidi, Johanna Spyri
190. Sons And Lovers, D. H. Lawrence
191. The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera
192. Man And Boy, Tony Parsons
193. The Truth, Terry Pratchett
194. The War Of The Worlds, H. G. Wells
195. The Horse Whisperer, Nicholas Evans - got a copy of this at Bound, for something like 20 bucks
196. A Fine Balance, Rohinton Mistry
197. Witches Abroad, Terry Pratchett
198. The Once And Future King, T. H. White - I have a copy of this
199. The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Eric Carle
200. Flowers In The Attic, Virginia Andrews
201. The Silmarillion, J.R.R. Tolkien
202. The Eye of the World, Robert Jordan
203. The Great Hunt, Robert Jordan
204. The Dragon Reborn, Robert Jordan
205. Fires of Heaven, Robert Jordan
206. Lord of Chaos, Robert Jordan
207. A Crown of Swords, Robert Jordan
208. Winters Heart, Robert Jordan
209. Crossroads of Twilight, Robert Jordan
210. A Path of Daggers, Robert Jordan
211. As Nature Made Him, John Colapinto
212. Microserfs, Douglas Coupland
213. The Married Man, Edmund White
214. Winter's Tale, Mark Helprin
215. The History of Sexuality, Michel Foucault
216. Cry to Heaven, Anne Rice
217. Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe, John Boswell
218. Equus, Peter Shaffer
219. The Man Who Ate Everything, Jeffrey Steingarten
220. Letters To A Young Poet, Rainer Maria Rilke
221. Ella Minnow Pea, Mark Dunn
222. The Vampire Lestat, Anne Rice
223. Anthem, Ayn Rand
224. The Bridge To Terabithia, Katherine Paterson
225. Tartuffe, Moliere
226. The Metamorphosis, Franz Kafka
227. The Crucible, Arthur Miller
228. The Trial, Franz Kafka
229. Oedipus Rex, Sophocles
230. Oedipus at Colonus, Sophocles
231. Death Be Not Proud, John Gunther
232. A Doll's House, Henrik Ibsen
233. Hedda Gabler, Henrik Ibsen
234. Ethan Frome, Edith Wharton
235. A Raisin In The Sun, Lorraine Hansberry
236. ALIVE!, Piers Paul Read
237. Grapefruit, Yoko Ono
238. Trickster Makes This World, Lewis Hyde
239. The Mists of Avalon, Marion Zimmer Bradley
240. Chronicles of Thomas Convenant, Unbeliever, Stephen Donaldson
241. Lord of Light, Roger Zelazny
242. The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay, Michael Chabon
243. Summerland, Michael Chabon - I gave a copy of this book to Hannah last Saturday
244. A Confederacy of Dunces, John Kennedy Toole
245. Candide, Voltaire
246. The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar and Six More, Roald Dahl
247. Ringworld, Larry Niven
248. The King Must Die, Mary Renault
249. Stranger in a Strange Land, Robert Heinlein
250. A Wrinkle in Time, Madeline L'Engle
251. The Eyre Affair, Jasper Fforde
252. The House Of The Seven Gables, Nathaniel Hawthorne
253. The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne
254. The Joy Luck Club, Amy Tan
255. The Great Gilly Hopkins, Katherine Paterson
256. Chocolate Fever, Robert Kimmel Smith
265. Little House on the Prairie, Laura Ingalls Wilder
267. Where The Red Fern Grows, Wilson Rawls
268. Griffin & Sabine, Nick Bantock
269. Witch of Blackbird Pond, Joyce Friedland
270. Mrs. Frisby And The Rats Of NIMH, Robert C. O'Brien
271. Tuck Everlasting, Natalie Babbitt
272. The Cay, Theodore Taylor
273. From The Mixed-Up Files Of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler, E.L. Konigsburg
274. The Phantom Tollbooth, Norton Juster
275. The Westing Game, Ellen Raskin
276. The Kitchen God's Wife, Amy Tan
277. The Bone Setter's Daughter, Amy Tan
278. Relic, Duglas Preston & Lincolon Child
279. Wicked, Gregory Maguire
280. American Gods, Neil Gaiman
281. Misty of Chincoteague, Marguerite Henry
282. The Girl Next Door, Jack Ketchum
283. Haunted, Judith St. George
284. Singularity, William Sleator
285. A Short History of Nearly Everything, Bill Bryson
286. Different Seasons, Stephen King
287. Fight Club, Chuck Palahniuk
288. About a Boy, Nick Hornby
289. The Bookmans Wake, John Dunning
290. The Church of Dead Girls, Stephen Dobyns
291. Illusions, Richard Bach
292. Magic's Pawn, Mercedes Lackey
293. Magic's Promise, Mercedes Lackey
294. Magic's Price, Mercedes Lackey
295. The Dancing Wu Li Masters, Gary Zukav
296. Spirits of Flux and Anchor, Jack L. Chalker
297. Interview with the Vampire, Anne Rice
298. The Encyclopedia of Unusual Sex Practices, Brenda Love
299. Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace
300. The Bluest Eye, Toni Morrison
301. The Cider House Rules, John Irving
302. Ender's Game, Orson Scott Card
303. Girlfriend in a Coma, Douglas Coupland
304. The Lion's Game, Nelson Demille
305. The Sun, The Moon, and the Stars, Stephen Brust
306. Cyteen, C. J. Cherryh
307. Foucault's Pendulum, Umberto Eco
308. Cryptonomicon, Neal Stephenson
309. Invisible Monsters, Chuck Palahniuk
310. Camber of Culdi, Kathryn Kurtz
311. The Fountainhead, Ayn Rand
312. War and Rememberance, Herman Wouk
313. The Art of War, Sun Tzu
314. The Giver, Lois Lowry
315. The Telling, Ursula Le Guin
316. Xenogenesis (or Liliths Brood), Octavia Butler
317. A Civil Campaign, Lois McMaster Bujold
318. The Curse of Chalion, Lois McMaster Bujold
319. The Aeneid, Publius Vergilius Maro (Vergil)
320. Hanta Yo, Ruth Beebe Hill
321. The Princess Bride, S. Morganstern (or William Goldman)
322. Beowulf, Anonymous
323. The Sparrow, Maria Doria Russell
324. Deerskin, Robin McKinley
325. Dragonsong, Anne McCaffrey
326. Passage, Connie Willis
327. Otherland, Tad Williams
328. Tigana, Guy Gavriel Kay
329. Number the Stars, Lois Lowry
330. Beloved, Toni Morrison - I have a copy of this
331. Lamb: The Gospel According to Biff, Christ's Childhood Pal, Christopher Moore
332. The Mysterious Disappearance of Leon, I mean Noel, Ellen Raskin
333. Summer Sisters, Judy Blume
334. The Hunchback of Notre Dame, Victor Hugo
335. The Island on Bird Street, URI Orlev
336. Midnight in the Dollhouse, Marjorie Filley Stover
337. The Miracle Worker, William Gibson
338. The Genesis Code, John Case
339. The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, Robert Louis Stevenson
340. Paradise Lost, John Milton
341. Phantom, Susan Kay
342. The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, Anne Rice
343. Anno Dracula, Kim Newman
344: The Dresden Files: Grave Peril, Jim Butcher
345: Tokyo Suckerpunch, Issac Adamson
346: The Winter of Magics Return, Pamela Service
347: The Oddkins, Dean R. Koontz
348. My Name is Asher Lev, Chaim Potok
349. The Last Goodbye, Raymond Chandler
350. At Swim, Two Boys, Jaime ONeill
351. Othello, by William Shakespeare
352. The Collected Poems of Dylan Thomas
353. The Collected Poems of William Butler Yeats
354. Sati, Christopher Pike
355. The Inferno, Dante
356. The Apology, Plato
357. The Small Rain, Madeline L'Engle
358. The Man Who Tasted Shapes, Richard E Cytowick
359. 5 Novels, Daniel Pinkwater
360. The Sevenwaters Trilogy, Juliet Marillier
361. Girl with a Pearl Earring, Tracy Chevalier
362. To the Lighthouse, Virginia Woolf
363. Our Town, Thorton Wilder
364. Green Grass Running Water, Thomas King
335. The Interpreter, Suzanne Glass
336. The Moor's Last Sigh, Salman Rushdie
337. The Mother Tongue, Bill Bryson
338. A Passage to India, E.M. Forster
339. The Perks of Being a Wallflower, Stephen Chbosky
340. The Phantom of the Opera
341. Pages for You, Sylvia Brownrigg
342. The Changeover, Margaret Mahy
343. Howl's Moving Castle, Diana Wynne Jones
344. Angels and Demons, Dan Brown
345. Johnny Got His Gun, Dalton Trumbo
346. Shosha, Isaac Bashevis Singer
347. Travels With Charley, John Steinbeck
348. The Diving-Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby
349. The Lunatic at Large by J. Storer Clouston
350. Time for Bed by David Baddiel
351. Barrayar by Lois McMaster Bujold
352. Quite Ugly One Morning by Christopher Brookmyre
353. The Bloody Sun by Marion Zimmer Bradley
354. Sewer, Gas, and Eletric by Matt Ruff
355. Jhereg by Steven Brust
356. So You Want To Be A Wizard by Diane Duane
357. Perdido Street Station, China Mieville - I've had a copy for several months now, but I'm intimidated by it
358. The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Anne Bronte
359. Road-side Dog, Czeslaw Milosz
360. The English Patient, Michael Ondaatje
361. Neuromancer, William Gibson
362. The Epistemology of the Closet, Eve Kosofsky Sedgwick
363. A Canticle for Liebowitz, Walter M. Miller, Jr
364. The Mask of Apollo, Mary Renault
365. The Gunslinger, Stephen King
366. Romeo and Juliet, William Shakespeare
367. Childhood's End, Arthur C. Clarke
368. Season of Mists, Neil Gaiman
369. Ivanhoe, Walter Scott
370. The God Boy, Ian Cross
371. The Beekeeper's Apprentice, Laurie R. King
372. Finn Family Moomintroll, Tove Jansson
373. Misery, Stephen King
374. Tipping the Velvet, Sarah Waters
375. Hood, Emma Donoghue
376. The Land of Spices, Kate O'Brien
377. The Diary of Anne Frank
378. Regeneration, Pat Barker
379. Tender is the Night, F. Scott Fitzgerald
380. Dreaming in Cuban, Cristina Garcia
381. A Farewell to Arms, Ernest Hemingway
382. The View from Saturday, E.L. Konigsburg
383. Dealing with Dragons, Patricia Wrede
384. Eats, Shoots & Leaves, Lynne Truss
385. A Severed Wasp - Madeleine L'Eengle
386. Here Be Dragons - Sharon Kay Penman
387. The Mabinogion (Ancient Welsh Tales) - translated by Lady Charlotte E. Guest
388. The DaVinci Code - Dan Brown
389. Desire of the Everlasting Hills - Thomas Cahill
390. The Cloister Walk - Kathleen Norris
391. The Things They Carried, Tim O'Brien
392. I Know This Much Is True, Wally Lamb
393. Choke, Chuck Palahniuk
394. Ender's Shadow, Orson Scott Card
395. The Memory of Earth, Orson Scott Card
396. The Iron Tower, Dennis L. McKiernen
397. Atlas Shrugged, Ayn Rand
398. A Ring of Endless Light, Madeline L'Engle
399. Lords of Discipline, Pat Conroy
400. Hyperion, Dan Simmons
401. If Nobody Speaks of Remarkable Things, Jon McGregor
402. The Bridge, Iain Banks
403. How to Be Good, Nick Hornby - enjoyed this so much more when I re-read it recently
404. The Stone Diaries, Carol Shields
405. A Map of the World, Jane Hamilton
406. Eragon, Christopher Paolini
407. A Series of Unfortunate Events, Lemony Snicket
408. Lullaby, Chuck Palahniuk
409. Veronika Decides to Die, Paulo Coelho
410. White Oleander, Janet Fitch
411. The Land of Laughs, Jonathan Carroll
412. Forrest Gump
413. Roots, Alex Haley
414. Kleopatra, Karen Essex
415. Confessions of an Ugly Stepsister, Gregory Maguire
416. The Psycho-Ex Game, Merrill Markoe, Andy Prieboy
417. Digital Fortress, Dan Brown
418. Deception Point, Dan Brown
419. Bookends, Jane Green
420. Little Men, Louisa May Alcott
421. Vectors, Michael P. Kube-Mcdowell
422. Redwall, Brian Jacques
423. Millennium, Felipe Fernàndez-Armesto
424. Disgrace, J.M.Coetzee
425. Shardik, Richard Adams
426. Tehanu, Ursula Le Guin
427. Z - A Love Story, Vigdis Grimsdottir
428. Diary, Chuck Palahniuk
429. Don Quixote I, Cervantes
430. Season in hell, Arthur Rimbaud
431. Collected poems, Anna Akhmatova
432. Breath, eyes, memory, Edwidge Danticat
433. The Satanic Verses, Salman Rushdie
434. The Gospel According to Jesus Christ, José Saramago
435. Not Before Sundown (or Troll - A Love Story), Johanna Sinisalo
436. Hannibal, Thomas Harris
437. The Iron Dragon's Daughter, Michael Swanwick
438. A Game of Thrones, George R.R. Martin
439. The Ballad of Reading Gaol, Oscar Wilde
440. The Universe in a Nutshell, Stephen Hawking
441. Complicity, Iain Banks
442. Never Let Me Go, Kazuo Ishiguro
443. The Bane Of The Black Sword, Micheal Moorcock
444. Angela's Ashes, Frank McCourt
445. Delta Of Venus, Anais Nin
446. Lost souls, Poppy Z Brite
447. Belle de jour diary of a london call girl
448. Neverwhere - Neil Gaiman
449. City, Alessandro Baricco
450. Hippopotamus, Stephen Fry
451. Thank you, Jeeves, PG Wodehouse
452. Tout à l'Ego (Everything for Ego), Tonino Benacquista
453. Betty Blue, Philippe Djian
454. Naive.Super, Erlend Loe
455. Everything is Illuminated, Jonathan Safran Foer
456. Faust, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
457. Krabat, Otfried Preußler
458. Lieutenant Hornblower, C. S. Forester
459. The Importance of Being Earnest, Oscar Wilde
460. Drawing Blood, Poppy Z. Brite
461. Lady Chatterley's Lover, D. H. Lawrence
462. The Bounty, Caroline Alexander
463. The Matarese Circle, by Robert Ludlum
464. Coraline, by Neil Gaiman
465. Searching for Dragons, Patricia C Wrede
466. The Long Dark Teatime of the Soul, Douglas Adams
467. The Flanders Panel Arturo Pérez-Reverte
468. This Alien Shore, C. S. Friedman
469. Beauty , Robin McKinley
470. The Eight, Katherine Neville
471. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, J.K. Rowling
472. In this House of Brede, Rumer Godden
473. The Abolition of Man, C.S. Lewis
474. Reginald, H.H. Munro (Saki)
475. Queen Lucia, E.F. Benson
476. A Shadow On The Glass, Ian Irvine
477. The Remains of the Day, Kazuo Ishiguro
478. Obernewtyn, Isobelle Carmody
479. The Ancient Future, Traci Harding
480. The Surgeon, Tess Gerritse
481. Blindness, Jose Saramago
482. The Quiet American, Graham Greene
483. Portrait in Sepia, Isabelle Allende
484. Middlesex, Jeffrey Eugenides
485. I, Claudius, Robert Graves
486. A Clash of Kings, George R. R. Martin
487. Sammy's Hill, Kristin Gore
488. The Ordinary Princess, M.M. Kaye
489. To Say Nothing of the Dog, Connie Willis
490. Miss Manners Rescues Civilization, Judith Martin
491. Mythology, Edith Hamilton
492. Danse Macabre, Stephen King
493. The Scarlet Pimpernel, Baroness Orczy
494. The Whale Rider, Witi Ihimaera
495. Ella Enchanted, Gail Carson Levine
496. 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, Jules Verne
497. The Metemorphoses, Ovid
496. Star Wars: The New Jedi Order: Edge of Victory I: Conquest, Greg Keyes
497. American Pastoral, Philip Roth
498. This Side of Paradise, F. Scott Fitzgerald
499. A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, James Joyce
500. Going After Cacciato, Tim O'Brien
501. Rush Limbaugh is a Big Fat Idiot (and Other Observations), Al Franken
502. The Kalevala, assembled by Elias Lönnrot
503. New Treasure Seekers, E. Nesbit
504. Caramelo, Sandra Cisneros
505. Morality for Beautiful Girls, Alexander McCall Smith
506. Norwegian Wood, Haruki Murakami
507. Schwarz's Principles of Surgery
508. Written on the Body, Jeanette Winterson
509. The Rules of Attraction - Bret Easton Ellis
510. Shanghai Baby - Wei Hui
511. The Virgin Suicides - Jeffrey Eugenides
512. Watchmen - Alan Moore
513. Werewolves in their Youth - Michael Chabon
514. Slaughterhouse-Five - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
Tuesday, January 17, 2006
Monday, January 16, 2006
I'm an ordinary guy, burning down the house
Former Talking Heads front man David Byrne has very interesting stories about his recent visit to Manila, in preparation for an Imelda musical on which he is currently working. I always find it very fascinating to read foreigner accounts of Philippine culture, especially one as intelligent as Byrne's. And this wasn't just some tourist talking about (to quote Madame herself) "the true, the good, and the beautiful"; Byrne bikes around Binondo, finds himself in a brothel in Laoaog, and visits Imelda's shrine in Leyte.Being a musician, Byrne notes the ubiquity of karaoke in Philippine life, and even notes:
TVK/Video karaoke clubs are everywhere and come in all shapes and for all incomes. Maybe it’s a way for everyone to sing — singing is therapeutic and fun to do, I know this from experience even though I was a party pooper at the karaoke club. They sing western pop songs here — and some Filipino pop songs too, many of which are in English. Singing western pop songs here is not like singing a foreign song — western pop, especially U.S. pop, was such a part of Filipino culture that they feel it is their own. And it is, in a way. Who can own the experience you have when you hear a song?
There’s even a karaoke TV channel. Endless cheap corny videos with music playing and scrolling lyrics. You can stay at home and sing along with your television. Like some kind of radical conceptual art piece — but super popular.
My favorite part was when he goes to a karaoke party with a friend, and someone keys in "Burning Down the House" expecting him to sing, but he doesn't. That would have been too much, I guess.
He also has some very nice words for the showbands plying their trade along Baywalk:
As rumored, the bands are all surprisingly good — if by good you mean amazingly faithful in their ability to reproduce well known songs. The singing and playing is uniformly competent and professional, though of course unoriginal, which is by design. One man sings on a little stage with glowing plastic Santas on either side of him. I wonder if I should reconsider using one of these bands or these singers for HLL (Here Lies Love, his Imelda project)?
Labels: music
Friday, January 13, 2006
Photos
Last night I was at Greenbelt for dinner with Ellen.
She couldn't stay long though, since she still had to go back to work, so I met up with Urk for a couple of drinks.
While we were sitting outside the bar, Tseri bumped into us. She couldn't stay long though, since she still had company for the night.
Midway through the night, my mom (using our home landline) called me up and asked me to call her back immediately before hanging up. I thought there was an emergency, so I called back quickly, worrying that something bad had happened. Turns out she only called me because she wanted me to do some research for my sister's homework. So I ended up going to the office in the middle of the night just to do it.
My space had just gotten transferred earlier this week. Here's a picture of my desk:
I was surprised then, when I came in earlier, that they had also replaced my monitor.
Thursday, January 12, 2006
Larry and Adam, and Malcolm Gladwell
This morning I read a very interesting piece by pop culture guru Chuck Klosterman on ESPN's Page 2 discussing Larry Bird and Gonzaga star Adam Morrison, who currently leads the US NCAA in scoring and is drawing comparisons to the legend because of their awkward jumpers, their wispy mustaches, and because of the fact that both of them are white.
Bird and Morrison
Aging American white people have been waiting for another Larry Bird in the same way aging hippies have been waiting for another Bob Dylan, but nobody ever gets what he or she wants: Tom Gugliotta ended up being Beck; Keith Van Horn turned out to be Conor Oberst; Mike Dunleavy is probably Ryan Adams. But Adam Morrison -- at least on the collegiate level -- is closer to Larry than Robert Zimmerman was to the Wallflowers: He moves like Bird, shoots with the same kind of range and release, and displays an identical offensive mentality. He is confident and performs well under pressure. He doesn't pass as deftly (or as often) as Bird, and he doesn't rebound as aggressively (or as often) as Bird, but he has the same body frame and an analogous mustache. Gonzaga is a small school from a second-tier conference, just like Indiana State. These men are not clones, but they share important, undeniable qualities.
Klosterman delves deeper into his comparison by talking to a couple of sources: Ryan Jones, editor-in-chief of Slam Magazine (which I read rather regularly), and New Yorker columnist Malcolm Gladwell, most famous for his book The Tipping Point (and previously unread by me). Jones points out the laziness of media types when comparing Bird to other tallish white guys in the league, while Gladwell talks about the psychological reasons why we keep doing so:
We ignore aspects of someone's achievement that contradict the stereotype. Hence the 'White Gunner' -- a type of player we struggle with because he is white yet simultaneously embodies all the stereotypes we've reserved for blacks. Tom Chambers is the White Gunner poster child. Rex Chapman was another example.
...
In basketball, the 'face' we're familiar with is black. We code black players by feature, so we can make endlessly subtle distinctions between players: There is a David Thompson 'type,' which is quite unlike a Grant Hill 'type,' which, in turn, is quite unlike a Gary Payton 'type.' But I think we code white players by category. They are simply 'white,' and we don't make the same kind of sophisticated distinctions among them. So we miss the 'White Gunner.'
I was kind of surprised by how familiar Gladwell was with all these players, which is pretty cool. It led me to check out some of his stuff, and I ended up reading this very, very interesting piece from the New Yorker about Harvard (and Ivy League) admission processes. I'll probably go back to reading the rest of his old stuff.
Monday, January 09, 2006
After my picture fades and darkness has turned to gray
Kagabi (actually, kaninang umaga), nanonood ako ng Veronica Mars, yung episode na Ruskie Business. Mukha akong tanga kasi mag-isa lang ako doon, pero tawa ako nang tawa nung umiiyak si Veronica sa '80s-themed dance nila, tapos tumugtog yung "Time After Time" ni Cyndi Lauper. Hahaha, ang galing nung imagery.
Ang galing-galing ng episode na 'to, probably my favorite of the series.
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
The future of TV
Buffy the Vampire Slayer creator Joss Whedon has always been one of the most fascinating people in the television industry, and this week, in a guest column for TV Guide, he takes hilarious a look at the future of television:Many people have asked me, "Joss, what is the future of television? What will we watch? And how will we watch it? Surely you must know, for you are wise, and slender." I usually smile and say nothing, because I wasn't actually listening to the question. But it's a good one, and I think it's time I let you in on a few highlights of Television-to-Be.
The networks will all be creating exciting, innovative new spin-offs of today's shows. Approximately 67 percent of all television will be CSI-based, including CSI: Des Moines, CSI: New York but a Different Part than Gary Sinise Is In and NCSI: SVU WKRP, which covers every possible gruesome crime with a groovin' '70s beat.
Oh, and the coolest thing about the piece? We find out he's actually a big fan of Veronica Mars.
Bonus link: Kristen Bell in pekpek shorts.
55 more
I had written about 55-word fiction before. Here's the list of the best 55-word stories this year. My favorite:FLIGHT OF THE MOCKINGBIRD
May 14, 1940
Dear Jean Louise,
Thank you for your recent letter. Like most folks in Maycomb, I was deeply saddened by your daddy’s passing. I’d be honored to walk you down the aisle.
My best to Jem. Good to hear he’s doing so well in law school.
Warmest regards.
Your friend,
Boo Radley
