Celebration: An Anthology to Commemorate the 50th Anniversary of the Silliman University National Writers Workshop Sands and Coral, 2011-2013
Silliman University, 2013
Well, not really, but that got your attention, didn't it? But if you are still in a Pottermania hangover and refuse to believe that the whole series is over, here's something to cheer you up: CNN reports on J.K. Rowling gleefully giving us more of what happens to Harry and the gang, long after the demise of Lord Voldemort. In a recent web chat, Rowling reveals that, among other things, Harry Potter becomes head of the Auror Department under the new wizarding government, Ginny Weasley becomes the senior Quidditch correspondent for the Daily Prophet, Ron Weasley joins brother George as a partner at their successful joke shop, Hermione Granger joins the magical law enforcement squad, and Luna Lovegood marries the grandson of Newt Scamander (author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them). And oh, Frank Sinatra's "I Did It My Way" is Albus Dumbledore's funeral music. Doesn't she know that's the deadliest karaoke song ever in the Philippines? People have died fighting over that song. Oh well.
Too soon after the death of Ingmar Bergman, another film master, the Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni, passes away. With these two deaths all incredibly within days of each other, the serious film world can only shake with so much shock. The Associated Press reports in The New York Times: "[Antonioni] whose depiction of alienation made him a symbol of art-house cinema with movies such as Blow-Up and L'Avventura, has died, officials and news reports said Tuesday. He was 94... Antonioni depicted alienation in the modern world through sparse dialogue and long takes. Along with Federico Fellini, he helped turn post-war Italian film away from the Neorealism movement and toward a personal cinema of imagination... His exploration of such intellectual themes as alienation and existential malaise led Halliwell's Film Guide to say that L'Avventura, Antonioni's first critical success, made him a hero of the highbrows... "In the empty, silent spaces of the world, he has found metaphors that illuminate the silent places our hearts, and found in them, too, a strange and terrible beauty: austere, elegant, enigmatic, haunting," Jack Nicholson said in presenting Antonioni with the career Oscar." More here.
[UPDATE: Antonioni died on the same day as Bergman, the Times now reports. How's that for Cinema's Black Monday? Rick Lyman writes a wonderful obituary here.]
It's the most uncanny thing. How you can pause in the middle of an afternoon, buried deep in work, and think out of the blue, I'm so in love. Because I am. After almost four years of being together, I still find myself giddy, and I think, with so much contentment, I'm in love.
The great Ingmar Bergman, the foremost chronicler of our buried guilt, hate, and neuroses, dies today. The New York Times' Mervyn Rothstein writes: "Mr. Bergman dealt with pain and torment, desire and religion, evil and love; in Mr. Bergman’s films, 'this world is a place where faith is tenuous; communication, elusive; and self-knowledge, illusory,' Michiko Kakutani wrote in The New York Times Magazine in a profile of the director. God is either silent or malevolent; men and women are creatures and prisoners of their desires. For many filmgoers and critics, it was Mr. Bergman more than any other director who in the 1950s brought a new seriousness to film making. 'Bergman was the first to bring metaphysics — religion, death, existentialism — to the screen,' Bertrand Tavernier, the French film director, once said. 'But the best of Bergman is the way he speaks of women, of the relationship between men and women. He’s like a miner digging in search of purity.' In his more than 40 years in the cinema, Mr. Bergman made about 50 films, often focusing on two themes — the relationship between the sexes, and the relationship between mankind and God. Mr. Bergman found in cinema, he wrote in a 1965 essay, 'a language that literally is spoken from soul to soul in expressions that, almost sensuously, escape the restrictive control of the intellect.' In Bergman, the mind is constantly seeking, constantly inquiring, constantly puzzled." More here.
Wasted, Gerry Alanguilan's seminal graphic novel of obsessive love, is now available in serialized form online. The work, which I include as one of my primary readings for my Philippine literature class in Silliman University, is a thing of stunning beauty -- if one manages to go beyond the blood that drips in almost every page.
Gerry writes: "Why bring Wasted completely online? I think I've reached pretty much all that I can reach with the print version of Wasted. It had been printed, published and distributed several times in the last 12 or so years and the only thing left for it is to bring it online if it's ever going to find new readers. The decision to do it came with my decreasing wariness about webcomics and acceptance that it's a strong and valid way to share stories. I'm still dubious one can make serious money out of this, but I've never done Wasted to make money anyway. Who knew something I finished writing and drawing 12 years ago would still be of interest to readers? I'm only doing this because I just want the story get out there. Whatever comes after I'll just wait and see. Wasted begins serializing, one page a day, 7 days a week, on this site on July 16, 2007. The most current page will be on this page, while the strip will be archived at Web Comics Nation."
... and so it was. A great Saturday. The last time I remember having a great Saturday like this was two or three years ago -- which is an eternity -- and Mark and I had decided we wanted to eat everything and anything we found for sale in the Rizal Boulevard. For those who do not know how Dumaguete looks like, the small city faces the elegant blue of Tañon Strait in the Visayas, and hugs the harbor with a paved boulevard lined with old fir trees, grassy spreads, and old Spanish mansions, some of them since converted into hotels and restaurants. This is the heart of Dumaguete, where everybody meets the sun jogging or doing tai-chi early in the day, and picnics in the middle of the afternoon, and congregates for late-night dinners in a variety of restaurants now mushrooming everywhere. That Saturday three years ago, Mark and I walked around and had our fill with vendor delicacy: from boiled sweet corn to balut to sliced green mango dipped in bago-ong, to tempura. That afternoon remains to date one of the best Saturdays we've ever spent together.
Yesterday, much to our delight, equaled that long ago pleasure -- but this time, our "trip" was decidedly upscale. And we no longer had to walk: there was a car now to bring us to whatever we fancied on going to. Talk about age and progress.
I don't know how we can tell how the best of days exactly begin -- there is no science to this, only a hopefulness that all things fall to a precise and perfect fit -- but this one began with a Friday night of pain. I had been doubling up all night long in a strange case of food poisoning, which went away as easily as it came.
Saturday came with promise of a humid sun. And so we woke up late in the morning, Mark and I, ready to slog through the sweat and the weight of an innate tiredness, which didn't come. Mark, who has the best instincts for our pets (he just knows things, an instinct I envy), had cleaned the hamsters' cages Friday night -- which was the right timing because by noon of Saturday, our Russian dwarf hamster Coffee gave birth to her second litter of cute pups, which was a beautiful sight. We fretted like worried parents. Imagine that, two grown men going about in strange velocity, fretting about hamsters.
Later, we went to Mark's place to get Pepe's package. Pepe was back in the Philippines from Chennai, and was visiting Iloilo, and he had sent Mark a beautiful Indian shirt (see above). He also sent me a gorgeous notebook and a precious DVD of Lagaan, that Indian film which was the first Bollywood musical to get nominated for a Best Foreign Language Film Oscar, and which I could never seem to get anywhere, not even my trusty pirate. (Thanks, Pepe!)
After a late start, we went for Mark's weekly shave at Barberia -- and he went out looking like a swanky teenager. In Pepe's dashing Indian shirt. We had a great late lunch in Sans Rival (Mark has the chef's salad, I had this buttery concoction of a fish dish that melted in my mouth) ... and then we went to the Boulevard for a quick Saturday shoot ... and then went to Lee Super Plaza for a lazy ice cream parfait and chocolate cake dessert. We also bought new t-shirts, just because. Because I needed my two cups of coffee, we went to Don Atilano, where we met up with photographer friend John Stevenson and society don Manolet Teves, who regaled us with stories of the elegant 1970s Bais -- one of the major settings of the novel I am working on. (Oriental Negros in the 1950s to the 1970s was the heart of Visayan high society -- now decayed, and disappeared.) Manolet, in fact, gave me an idea for a working title: "The Long, Hot Summer." His was a recollection tinged in regret, however. "Tara is gone," Manolet said with a dramatic finish. That may be, but I have definitely decided I am going to resurrect it with my fiction.
Then we went to have dinner at Persian Palate, and then we went home. And a great Saturday came to a graceful end.
I was living in the marvelous mid-1990s in Tokyo when Madonna's Ray of Light came out. Her single, "Frozen," had already been out for a few months, but most of us were not prepared for the glory that was "Ray of Light" (and its kick-ass video), which had a sound so insidious we were practically frothing in the mouth when the full gravity of its power manifested itself, willing our bodies to let go in a hypnotic trance. Oh, how we danced and gyrated, most of us in that abandon that defines youth. (Sometimes, today, I would go into a club and get amazed by how tame these young people are today: they dance like twigs in the wind, and I have to ask, What happened?)
Japan has got to be the place to enjoy the pulsating beat of the Great One's techno sound. The Japanese just have this certain edginess, bordering on camp and on the robotic, that makes techno or house its appropriate national sound. I think of techno, and I think of two things: the crush of bodies in a European nightclub, and the strange otherworldliness of the cosplay kids in Harajuku. I remember the Tower Records megastore off Shibuya station having this gigantic banner five stories high promoting the album, but it was the dancing places around Ropponggi, Shinjuku, and Shibuya that defined for me how it was to dance to the sound of Madonna. Because no one in Tokyo really drives a car, and because the mega-city's subways halt promptly at midnight, most of those who want to enjoy the night have to hie off to clubland around 10 or 11 in the evening, and stay on to party until the subways open again at five in the morning. Partying thus becomes a commitment to the night, and techno was our Pied Piper's music.
When we were all settling into maturity in the cusp of college life, electronica -- Paul Van Dyk, Robert Miles, DJ Quicksilver, Energy 52, DJ Taucher, Mike Koglin, splices of Fatboy Slim -- was the dance sound that best defined our generation (when we were not too busy being soulful about angst), and Madonna tapping into that energy with a knowing sense of possession became our enduring icon. Thus, "Ray of Light," together with Lisa Loeb's "Stay," Joan Osbourne's "What if God Was One of Us," the music of Pearl Jam, Alanis Morrisette, R.E.M., Nirvana, and Beck would be the discography of my generation's 1990s youth.
As I go out to meet the weekend (and hopefully have a helluva time -- I need to relax, man), here's a short movie I've made of my cute Russian dwarf hamsters, Coffee and Cream...
They're in the hamper because Mark's cleaning their cage. They're the cutest things in the whole wide world, really. (And it looks like Coffee's pregnant again!)
1. A fat man telling me, with such gusto, that I had gained a little weight. "You filled up your barong last Monday!" he said. Fat people should never say that, especially those with mirrors in their houses.
2. A pseudo-feminist of a student journalist writing in The Weekly Sillimanian, making sweeping statements without doing her research. It's a retread of old whines about beauty pageants, something I don't buy anymore, because really it's just not true.
3. An older woman who is so clearly jealous of what I have accomplished thus far, she has tried to make my life a psychological hell. But enough. And she still has the guts to sound friendly every time she gets around my orbit. My style now is just to ignore her.
4. Not being listened to most of the time, and being accused of the same -- and in my head, I just tell myself: Hey, you do it, too.
5. Meat-eaters who make you feel like a weirdo for giving up on meat. The worst are the patronizing ones. "I don't think I can ever give up on meat," they gush. Nobody's asking you to, moron. It's not like I'm forcing anyone to go this way or that.
6. Every time George W. Bush opens his mouth.
7. Those who roll their eyes over global warming, or population control. I mean, for Pete's sake, I respect people for being at least gung-ho about taking care of this earth.
8. Prejudice without basis.
9. That whiny student I had kanina who complained about why I just dropped her from the class. "You were absent six times in a row!" I told her. And she whined some more.
Nakakainis! Whew. Now let me take a deep breath...
8:05 PM |
Gibbs, the Past, Penises Talking, Banality, and Reviewing Local Theater
The brilliant and fearless Gibbs Cadiz, Philippine Daily Inquirer's own version of critic Ben Brantley or Kenneth Tynan, is somebody who does not hesitate to call a spade a spade in local theater. He is posting his old review of Joel Lamangan and Mel Chionglo's dreadful All About Men 2: Penis Talks Reloaded in his blog. Gibbs reminds me that that actually occasioned the first time we emailed each other. I'm thinking: I did? But a simple search through my Gmail brings me that exact missive, dated 24 October 2005. (That was such a long time ago!) I wrote Gibbs then: "Just read your review of Penis Talks. Finally. Someone fearless enough to call banality to its face in a national paper. We need criticism like this in the Philippines, where reviews often read like publicists's materials... So thanks." Bitchy! And Gibbs replied: "Thank you for your feedback and encouraging words, Mr. Casocot. Best regards." So formal naman, Gibbs! But who knew we'd be blogmates after that?
It's July. And nearing August. There are some things you just have to do to make your life a semblance of how you've always hoped it would or should be. Think. Cry. Decide. Organize. Do. Finish. Say goodbye. Move on. And never be afraid to pursue that dream. So how do I see the finish of this year? That is the big question. The answer is somewhere, in my pocket, around the corner, on the dead stillness of the television turned off for real. Move.
On July 27, Fox's worshipped, Emmy-encrusted comedy — featuring Homer Simpson, a man so dumb he once called a spoon "that ... metal deelie ...you use to ... dig ... food" — finally hits theaters. The Simpsons Movie promises to be an emotional saga about a man who falls for a pig, ignores his wife's advice, and potentially dooms his town. It also aims to honor the show's rich history (coming this fall: season 19) with physical gags, corner-of-your-screen winks, and beloved Springfieldians (Nelson! Chief Wiggum! That old man with the ZZ Top beard!). Yet this 35mm mission wasn't easy: Cows were had, shorts eaten. But after all the blood, sweat, and Duff beers, Homer's helpers think they've created something entertaining enough to pay for, maybe even woo-hoo!-worthy. And they know what's at stake: a billion-plus-dollar franchise's good name. "Nobody wants to be the one that rams the ship into the iceberg," says [creator Matt] Groening, who first scribbled the Simpson clan in 1987 for [writer-producer Albert] Brooks' The Tracey Ullman Show.
Or as [writer-producer Al] Jean sums up: "As an event, I think it'll be somewhere between Sgt. Pepper's the album and Sgt. Pepper's the movie."
I feel so much more excited anticipation for this movie than I ever had for Transformers. Robots I'm ho-hum about. Yellow, four-fingered people I get. But this is turning out to be a great year for movies already... Ratatouille, Away From Her, La Vie en Rose, Zodiac, Waitress, Sunshine, Hairspray, Knocked Up, Sicko, and a slate of upcoming movies (The Golden Age, Lions for Lambs, Lust Caution, The Golden Compass, Becoming Jane, Atonement, Charlie Wilson's War, Revolutionary Road...) that has all of us salivating like mad.
I've never felt this excited since 1993, a year which had Steven Spielberg's double-whammo of Schindler's List and Jurassic Park bookending cinematic storytelling at its best.
The Book of Things Which Must Not Be Remembered by C. Scavella Burnell The Hours Before Sunrise by William Congreve The First Dream by Robert Jed Malayang The Dead Girl's Wedding March by Cat Rambo
Last two weeks
Originals
A Thin Layer of Skin by Fredjordan Carnice Summer by Robert Jed Malayang The Golden Boat by Lyde Gerard Villanueva The Haunting on San Damian by Rodrigo Bolivar The Collectors by Michelle Eve de Guzman The Flicker by Ian Rosales Casocot The House in Piapi by Marianne Tapales Padre Santiago by Anthony Gerard Odtohan
Three weeks ago
The Mouse Crawling Between the Walls by John Irving Next Sunday at the Bazaar by David Evans Katz The Death of Fray Salvador Montano, Conquistador of Negros by Rosario Cruz Lucero
Four weeks ago
Zilkowski's Theorem by Karl Iagnemma Fox Magic by Kij Johnson A Very Old Man With Enormous Wings by Gabriel Garcia Marquez Harrison Bergeron by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
The LitCritters is a reading and writing group based in Manila and Dumaguete. Every week, we read and discuss several pieces of short fiction from various genres from different writers with the goal of expanding our reading horizons, improving our ability to critique, and learning how to write from the good texts. In addition to speculative fiction, we read Philippine literature in English, as well as world literature.
In Dumaguete, we welcome new LitCritter Justine Megan Yu, a fellow from last summer's National Writers Workshop. Justine's a feminist essayist trying her hand with other genres. We've invited her to add more female perspective for the group. (With Marianne in Japan, Michelle's the only one left to balance off the boys.)
Seriously, I want to take back my nights. Most of my days, too. I've been going out a lot lately, and I come home oh so tired that instead of finishing things for the day, I just stare at the television (or numb myself silly surfing the Internet), and wait for sleep to come. How does one exactly balance time? I long for a rigidly scheduled existence. It's the obsessive-compulsive in me. Moderation, moderation... Now I'm off to my first appointment of the day. Not yet done cleaning the pad, but I have to go.
7:02 PM |
Fanfic! (Or: My Last Harry Potter Post, Ever)
Gabby thinks the epilogue of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows reads like fanfic, hehehe. I happen to agree. And one more thing: contrary to what J.K. Rowling had us believe, the last word in the series is not "scar," although the last sentence does contain it.
(You can't read Gab's post, of course. It's locked in the murk of LJ land, and is full of spoilers, anyway.)
I had no idea I was totally in love with Jean Harlow, until last Sunday, when I had a meeting with my brother concerning my mom's 75th birthday party (and my own ... ummm, 28th -- I share the same birthday as my mother, see), and I had casually opened my Macbook, proceeded to Word ... and found myself unable to write a single word with the keyboard.
I panicked, although nobody noticed it. Not Mark, not Dennis, nor my sisters-in-law. What did I do? What went wrong? Ten thousand questions went through my head. Jean Harlow's been with me for only two months, and now this? I have a year's warranty, of course, but still, I worried. I thought: I did kinda "bump" Jean Harlow at Cafe Antonio last Saturday afternoon. Maybe that was it? Oh dear God. I hastily texted Angeline Dy, my friend and fellow Mac enthusiast (and the one who sold me Jean Harlow from AACTech, her ultra-excellent and ultra-slick computer shop -- the best there is in Dumaguete), and I told her I was bringing in Jean Harlow for some serious diagnosis.
I could not sleep last night. I was tossing and turning all night long, and I had nightmares, seriously, of Macbooks in their death beds, gasping for breath. Today, when I met with Annabelle in Don Atilano for coffee and conversation, she took out her own Macbook, and I felt my heart sink. I missed Jean Harlow. It had been hours since I last opened her. After coffee with Belle, I went home, and got Jean Harlow for my appointment with Angeline. There, I opened the Macbook, turned it on, expected the worst ... and I found myself able to type again. What the...?
But I'm way better now. I can finally breathe. And I know for sure that I can't live without Jean Harlow. She's been a great help in my work -- I've written two short stories in a single week, all because she was there, always readily available, always urging me to produce. I don't ever want this scare ever again.
I know, I know... This is such a burgis thing to worry about. But if you owned a Macbook, wouldn't you worry?
10:50 AM |
Favorite Songs No. 14 : He Was Beautiful and Cavatina From The Deer Hunter
I feel the urge to share this song, even if I've already made my choice for this weekend's favorite song...
Stanley Myers's "Cavatina," the theme from Michael Cimino's beautiful and brutal The Deer Hunter, has always struck me as a poignant study of longing in recollection, and I have always found it lovely, given the masterful treatment it received from master guitarist John Williams. Here's that composition in all its glory...
But I had no idea it was made into a great and haunting song with lyrics by Cleo Laine. An online friend, Gilbert Tan, sent me the mp3 of the wonderful Lesley Garrett singing the song (thanks, Gilbert!), and it is without doubt something that reaches deep into each of us who has known great love...
He was beautiful, Beautiful to my eyes. From the moment I saw him, The sun filled the sky.
He was so so beautiful, Beautiful just to hold. In my dreams he was spring time Winter was cold.
How could I tell him What I so clearly could see Though I longed for him I never trusted me completely So I never could be free.
Oh, but it was beautiful Knowing now that he cared I will always remember Moments that we shared
Now it's all over Still the feelings linger on For my dream keeps returning Now that he's gone.
For it was beautiful, beautiful, Beautiful to be loved.
You're right, Gilbert. It does remind me of my bubu, without, of course, the note of separation we glean from the song. And for Mark, the adjective, fortunately, is still very much in the present tense. He is beautiful.
6:15 AM |
Favorite Songs No. 13 : Because of Who You Are
After a battle with crippling depression, you realize two things: first, it is best to let some things take its course to heal, because anything else -- like a false sense of finish, foolishly declaring to the world, "I am all right!" -- is denying how the heart and mind really heal; and second, you find that life afterwards is still the same, with its disappointments and hard edges, but you get to see clear sign posts now, which give you ample warning over the next bump in the road. (You also learn to avoid the cause of your worries, like the plague.) Oh, and one more thing: there's always some particular choice of music that you realize is your favored healing tune. For me, it was Sandi Patty and her brilliant rendition of "Because of Who You Are."
Which is strange, if you know who I am. I am nowhere near being an evangelical, so this is a surprising choice really. But Ms. Patty's music reminds me of the idylls of my childhood when my mother used to play Christian music all day long -- when Christian music meant the heartfelt and intelligent catalog of Ms. Patty, the original Maranatha singers, Petra, Amy Grant, Michael W. Smith, Steve Green, and Scott Wesley Thomas, and none of the curiously bland community singing of Don Moen. (Ugh, ugh.)
Music is the great Prozac. My choice of "Because of Who You Are" may spring from an early Sunday School memory with the story of King Saul and David from the Old Testament. In 1 Samuel 16:14-23, the King is troubled by evil spirits sent by God, and to soothe himself, he sends for the boy David to play harp music in his presence. Maybe that's why I play Christian music when I, too, get depressed. To battle with the demons, Sandi Patty is handy as the nearest voice that captures the divinity of harps.
9:50 PM |
Harry Potter to Continue...
Well, not really, but that got your attention, didn't it? But if you are still in a Pottermania hangover and refuse to believe that the whole series is over, here's something to cheer you up: CNN reports on J.K. Rowling gleefully giving us more of what happens to Harry and the gang, long after the demise of Lord Voldemort. In a recent web chat, Rowling reveals that, among other things, Harry Potter becomes head of the Auror Department under the new wizarding government, Ginny Weasley becomes the senior Quidditch correspondent for the Daily Prophet, Ron Weasley joins brother George as a partner at their successful joke shop, Hermione Granger joins the magical law enforcement squad, and Luna Lovegood marries the grandson of Newt Scamander (author of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them). And oh, Frank Sinatra's "I Did It My Way" is Albus Dumbledore's funeral music. Doesn't she know that's the deadliest karaoke song ever in the Philippines? People have died fighting over that song. Oh well.
Too soon after the death of Ingmar Bergman, another film master, the Italian director Michelangelo Antonioni, passes away. With these two deaths all incredibly within days of each other, the serious film world can only shake with so much shock. The Associated Press reports in The New York Times: "[Antonioni] whose depiction of alienation made him a symbol of art-house cinema with movies such as Blow-Up and L'Avventura, has died, officials and news reports said Tuesday. He was 94... Antonioni depicted alienation in the modern world through sparse dialogue and long takes. Along with Federico Fellini, he helped turn post-war Italian film away from the Neorealism movement and toward a personal cinema of imagination... His exploration of such intellectual themes as alienation and existential malaise led Halliwell's Film Guide to say that L'Avventura, Antonioni's first critical success, made him a hero of the highbrows... "In the empty, silent spaces of the world, he has found metaphors that illuminate the silent places our hearts, and found in them, too, a strange and terrible beauty: austere, elegant, enigmatic, haunting," Jack Nicholson said in presenting Antonioni with the career Oscar." More here.
The great Ingmar Bergman, the foremost chronicler of our buried guilt, hate, and neuroses, dies today. The New York Times' Mervyn Rothstein writes: "Mr. Bergman dealt with pain and torment, desire and religion, evil and love; in Mr. Bergman’s films, 'this world is a place where faith is tenuous; communication, elusive; and self-knowledge, illusory,' Michiko Kakutani wrote in The New York Times Magazine in a profile of the director. God is either silent or malevolent; men and women are creatures and prisoners of their desires. For many filmgoers and critics, it was Mr. Bergman more than any other director who in the 1950s brought a new seriousness to film making. 'Bergman was the first to bring metaphysics — religion, death, existentialism — to the screen,' Bertrand Tavernier, the French film director, once said. 'But the best of Bergman is the way he speaks of women, of the relationship between men and women. He’s like a miner digging in search of purity.' In his more than 40 years in the cinema, Mr. Bergman made about 50 films, often focusing on two themes — the relationship between the sexes, and the relationship between mankind and God. Mr. Bergman found in cinema, he wrote in a 1965 essay, 'a language that literally is spoken from soul to soul in expressions that, almost sensuously, escape the restrictive control of the intellect.' In Bergman, the mind is constantly seeking, constantly inquiring, constantly puzzled." More here.
Wasted, Gerry Alanguilan's seminal graphic novel of obsessive love, is now available in serialized form online. The work, which I include as one of my primary readings for my Philippine literature class in Silliman University, is a thing of stunning beauty -- if one manages to go beyond the blood that drips in almost every page.
