Thursday, February 12, 2026
10:42 PM |
I Love Wuthering Heights!
I absolutely love how Emerald Fennell fucked up this material and made it suit her narrative kinks. We should all take what inspires us and mangle it to form a new kind of beastly beauty. [The rule to follow is really, “Make it work!” and she did!] I love that the film is a thesis on toxicity masquerading as love and horniness, and yet also works hard on making you swoon. I love that our main characters are the most deplorable of the lot and I love that their toxicity almost destroys the partners they chose to marry just to spite each other, and yet still have these partners being strong and very certain even in their debasements. I love that Fennell made a virtual violation scene become a mockery of consent — that was some nimble narrative tinikling!]. I love that I love the supporting characters more than I love Cathy or Heathcliff. [My order of likes: Isabella Linton [her "But I am home" is fantastically delivered] > Mr. Earnshaw [who is an absolute delight!] > Edgar Linton [who is a saint!] > Nelly Dean > Jonathan > Catherine > Heathcliff.] I love Hong Chau’s complicated Oriental. I love the unexpected textures of this film, the marrying of offal pungency with carnal sexuality. I love that this is offending so many people. Snowflakes!Labels: film
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Wednesday, February 11, 2026
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 278.
Labels: poetry
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Monday, February 09, 2026
10:12 PM |
And It's Now Officially Out of Print!
I’m saying goodbye to my first children’s picture book, The Great Little Hunter, with fantastic illustrations by my constant collaborator, the Dumaguete visual artist Hersley-Ven Casero, and published by our local publisher Pinspired Art Souvenirs at the height of the pandemic. We’ve now sold the last copy of the second edition, and we absolutely have no plans to reprint. This book was always meant to be a special edition. When Pinspired came out with the hardbound volume in 2023, we only wanted to print a hundred copies, because it was really meant to be an art book disguised as a children’s book, and didn’t want it to be mass market affair. We numbered all copies and signed each one to make them unique — but to our astonishment, we sold out within a day of the launch, even though it was priced quite high! There was clamor to print more, but we didn’t want to renege on our promise of “uniqueness” to the initial buyers of the hardbound book. So we opted for a paperbound edition, with a higher print run meant only for one cycle. That cycle has been completed. Thank you to those who bought the book, and supported local literature! It was a privilege to introduce Ngayam and his monsters to the world.
[With Rappler journalist and 2024 Marshall McLuhan fellow Pia Ranada last Wednesday at the new Adamo! She made sure she bought books by local authors — and she got two of mine: Bamboo Girls and The Great Little Hunter! She got the last copies for sale of the children's book, by the way.]
[I'm actually working on a second picture book right now, collaborating with Hemrod Duran. And another one, with my Palanca-winning children's poetry, collaborating with Gayle Acar. But we're taking our time.]
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Wednesday, February 04, 2026
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 277.
Labels: poetry
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Wednesday, January 28, 2026
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 276.
Labels: philippine literature, poetry
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Wednesday, January 21, 2026
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 275.
Labels: poetry
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Wednesday, January 14, 2026
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 274.
Labels: poetry
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Wednesday, January 07, 2026
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 273.
Labels: philippine literature, poetry
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Thursday, January 01, 2026
2:39 PM |
Nancy Drew in the Public Domain!
What's in the public domain in 2026, freeing for public use intellectual property from 1930? I'm most excited about the first Nancy Drew mystery, The Secret of the Old Clock! But this is actually for the original version written by Mildred Wirt Benson [yes, "Carolyn Keene" is a pseudonym used by a collective of writers]. The 1959 revised yellow-cased version, published by Grosset and Dunlap and which most of everyone knows better [this is the version I first read] remains under copyright until 2055. There are key differences! Nancy's age is 16 in 1930 vs. 18 in 1959. There are no Bess, George, and Ned in the original text either. And the original run had some racist language as well, and slang that has not survived. I found this out the hard way when I happened to check out the original versions from the Dumaguete Public Library when I was in Grade 5, and I was shocked by the differences in tone and characters. That's when I first suspected that Nancy Drew was not what she seemed. So I wrote a letter to Carolyn Keene c/o Grosset and Dunlap [I used to write to my favorite authors back in the day], and got a nice package in return, including a history of the writing and publication of Nancy Drew, which revealed that Carolyn Keene [and Franklin W. Dixon of Hardy Boys!] did not, in fact, exist. I think this bombshell was one of my formative discoveries as a budding writer.
Read more about Public Doman Day here.Labels: books, life, memories
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Wednesday, December 31, 2025
11:59 PM |
New Year's Eve at Mother's
I made sure I spent some time with mother tonight for New Year’s Eve. She hasn’t been well since her hospitalization more than a week ago, but she’s fine. At least that’s what the doctors say. She’s 93, and tonight she kept asking me the same questions: “What happened to me?” Your blood pressure shot up, it was very high. “Why?” Because you ate a lot of lechon at ___’s party. “Did I collapse?” A bit. “Where?” At home, two days later. “Thank God, it wasn’t at ____’s. What happened next?” You were hospitalized. “I was? Oh dear. Where?” At PolyMedic. “That’s in Sibulan. Why are you here?” Because it's New Year’s Eve. “It’s New Year’s Eve? Wala lagi handa?” We do have handa, there’s some lechon over there. “That’s a small lechon. That’s not real lechon.” Then she proceeds to identify everyone around her. Dennis. Daisy. All her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. Also Cypress, Daisy’s sister. She asks about her dearly departed daughter-in-law, Efeb, who died two years ago. When we tell her she is gone, she says, “Sayang.” She asks for a head massage, and complains her food is bland. She enumerates all her sons, asking where they all are, which reads: are they here with me? We tell her Alvin is dead, Rocky can’t walk up the stairs, Edwin is in Switzerland, and Rey is in America. We do this many times. But she knows a lot of other details. Like the name of my nephew Dale’s new girlfriend, and that a cousin is from Kidapawan. But her short term memory is loose. “What happened to me?” she asks again after a few minutes, and I find myself tireless in repeating the same exact things, laughing at some of her silly responses. “Are you staying with me tonight? Please don’t leave me,” she says as we prepare her for early bed time. I won’t, I’ll be here, I lied. Tell her I’m just here, I tell her caretaker Gigi, as I later prepare to come back to the apartment where I live.
Happy New Year, everyone!
Labels: family, life, love, new year
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7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 272.
Labels: new year, poetry
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Wednesday, December 24, 2025
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 271
Labels: christmas, poetry
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Saturday, December 20, 2025
10:40 PM |
Two Cat Daddied and Their Cat
That’s Orville Wright on my chest, but she actually loves lying on Renz. When we’re home alone, Orville and I, she’s just a normal cat, being a loaf somewhere in my apartment. But when Renz comes over, her ears perk up, and she will do everything to climb on top of him, rubbing her head on him, playing with his clothes, etc. “I think you’re catnip to Orville,” I tell Renz. I’m not puzzled at all why our cat is crazy about him: Renz is lovable every which way.Labels: cats, life, love, pets
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Wednesday, December 17, 2025
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 270.
Labels: poetry
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Monday, December 15, 2025
9:36 PM |
Rob Reiner, 1947-2025
What grim madness! One of my favorite film directors, Rob Reiner, who helmed contemporary classics such as When Harry Met Sally..., The Princess Bride, This is Spinal Tap, Misery, A Few Good Men, and The American President, is dead, a victim of homicide. Apparently murdered together with his wife by their own son. What a week! A shooting in Brown University, a shooting in Bondi Beach in Sydney, Australia, and now this. Rest in peace, Mr. Reiner. Thank you for all the movies.
This tweet says a lot about Mr. Reiner's legacy:
Labels: directors, film, obituary
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Wednesday, December 10, 2025
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 269.
Labels: poetry
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Monday, December 08, 2025
9:30 AM |
Seeing Richard Brody Typing on an External Keyboard
I’m watching Marshall Curry’s documentary, The New Yorker at 100, and I see film critic Richard Brody working on an external keyboard because his MacAir keyboard has stopped working. I felt this, hahaha.Labels: criticism, documentaries, film, magazines, new york, people, writers, writing
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Saturday, December 06, 2025
7:00 PM |
Reading to Children
To get back on track, I accepted this invitation from Virginia Stack and her Valencia Book Mobile brigade to read my picture book The Great Little Hunter, to a bunch of youngsters, aged 7-10, in Bong-ao, Valencia last Saturday. I had the time of my life! The children were initially shy but they were also curious and interested, and I really do think this is the best age range to get kids to start and love reading, the way I was when I was their age and encountered Henny Penny. This is the thing about Dumaguete becoming a UNESCO City of Literature: it is curious to have this designation now in an age when literacy among children is falling away fast. How can we have a City of Literature when nobody reads anymore? That's a question we are grappling with, and this literacy program is part of our solution. Thank you Tata and your Indefatigable team of teachers and volunteers for making this commitment work!
Here's a video of me reading:
Labels: children, children's books, city of literature, dumaguete, life, literacy, negros, reading, UNESCO
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Wednesday, December 03, 2025
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 268.
Labels: poetry
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Wednesday, November 26, 2025
7:00 AM |
Poetry Wednesday, No. 267.
Labels: philippine literature, poetry
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