this is not a book by norman

Mondo manila is one motherfucker film peeps in their wtf minds should not miss.

The characters were memorable and funny and nakasusulasok. Pato fucker, Tony Baby Jesus, the pole bean pregnant fucker Pablong Shoeshine (Palito), the pimp midget who does a mean breakdancing shit, and Baby Jesus' young brother who reminded me of my sons who are prone to abuses of the world. Preggy Maria was kalibog-libog in her sex scene with Palito while Whitney Tyson really brought crassness to new heights. It is very colorfully dark with the violence and grime mixed with the 'Looban' peeps. The film is just like the community where I live. I could be any of the freaks in the film trying to make life more livable.

The film finally gave me that push to read the mondomanila book of Norman Wilwayco. According to press releases, the film is a post modern version of 'Maynila sa mga kuko ng Liwanag' by Edgardo Reyes but is an adaptation of wilwayco's palanca winning book of the same title but is not a faithful adaptation of the book.


One thing that struck me though that is not even connected with the mondo film while watching the MFMF was that repetitive tag of 'this is not a film by khavn', 'this is not a film by khavn', 'this is not a film by khavn.' Big bold letters spelling out that tag that can somehow drive you sane after watching a film that was supposed to make you crazy. 'Death of the film' (pareho kaya ito sa ibig sabihin nung Barthes na Death of the author?) was mentioned during the opening of the MFMF but the hypnotic repetitive nametag made me sad. Why not fucking write mondomanila as 'this is not a book by iwa', 'this is not a book by iwa', 'this is not a book by iwa?'

This is not a blog by louis, this is not a blog by louis, this is not a blog by louis.

Bragging List

Ive been reading and reading since last month and happy with the stories i've read so far. It's just that I am so lazy writing blogs and shit because I am so lazy doing blogs lately but I am not lazy to read and am devouring books and books. I want to share the titles ive read since October and will try to write something about each of them when I am not lazy anymore.

1. Human Punk by John King
2. Boo
3. The Watermelon King by Daniel Wallace
4. Slam by Lewis Shiner
5. Schooled by Gordon Korman
6. Neva Hafta by Edwardo Jackson
7. Never Mind the Pollacks by Neil Pollack
8. Dogeaters by Jessica Hagedorn - so cool! digs.
9. Ang mga Kuwentong mga Supot sa Panahon ng Kalibugan - Book and Shite's Breakthrough Award

I am sure I have forgotten a title or two and I hope I remember them so I can add it in my bragging list.

Sheryl Crow

Sheryl Crow is heaven on earth. Wala lang. I do not know what to post at this point. But she is heaven on earth, Sheryl Crow. Wala lang.

+ film, music

I know that there is a proliferation of movie review blogs and shit and there are real damn good reviewers like Rotten Tomatoes. But after watching two films in a row over four bottles of beer, it is apparent that I also like to start watching films and write something about it. So, I am adding in this supposed to be book blog anything about film, music, and things in between because I also like listening to music, and things in between that is why it will be so.

Street-Bound

I borrowed Street-Bound: Manila on Foot by Josefina P. Manahan and it is a refreshing read even though I have done everything except one (that is visit Museo ng Maynila) that she had suggested in the book. I love to walk Manila and its environs and share its glory and gloom to my most intimate friends. I love to embrace Quiapo’s semi-proletarian noise and smell and extol Recto Avenue’s grimy streets and the people, my people, who scraps the grime for survival. I want shaking the calloused hands of the lumpen proletariats hanging out under the LRT station in front of Isetann and checking out their loots from the hoods.

Street-Bound made me miss the fish and the Kois near the Quezon Circle area and suggested that I tread again the Kamuning Road for some new old treasures stashed at the back of the antique and used stores.

you suck

Suck it. I sucked out the book’s marrow laughing at every page of the blood sucking couple’s bloody adventure, till death do they part.

Christopher Moore’s book I normally see in the bestseller shelves of big shot corporate bookstores and not even browse it because it is way too expensive for my taste.  And besides, his titles sound just like any trying hard bohemian writer. I am bollocks for thinking that way. He is actually way too cool that some would compare him with Kurt Vonnegut and Tom Robbins.

You Suck is another way of treating the vampire genre applying the craziness of contemporary San Francisco scene and the wackiness of youthful love, and lust, I suppose.

C Thomas Flood is a normal guy from Indiana who tried his luck in San Francisco and found himself in a group of vampire catchers under the influence of a street bum called the Emperor. They captured the 800 year old vampire Elijah and his minion Jody, a foxy sexy red head. Tommy noticed Jody’s sexiness and became her blood donor until she eventually turned him into a vampire, much to his chagrin at first until he discovered his uncanny ability to do supernatural stuff.

An agreement required Jody to leave the area lest she be captured again but got caught in a web of incidents that made You Suck a perfect laugh out loud story. 

Before becoming a vampire, Tommy and the rest of his crew worked in a night shift of a grocery store and played turkey bowling. But upon pouncing on the vampire Elijah, they got hold of his treasures and dividing it among themselves, splurged it in Las Vegas with a blue colored call girl named Blue. They fucking splurged $600,000 on her and needed more when they found out Tommy’s new nature. They then tried to get Tommy’s share of the loot until Blue gave them the idea to capture him as their gift to her blue booty.

Tommy and Jody used their vampire powers to lure an emo gothic girl named Abby Normal to aid them in their escape. Abby, with her vampire imagination running wild, thought of being a crony to powerful centuries old vampire until learning the truth, that they were just bunch of week old victims themselves, opted so stay true to her promise and ensconced the two lover’s undying love in bronze.

It is Abby Normal’s chronicles that has that laugh out loud timbre with the way she looked and imagined things in her nosferatu laden world.

Basta, it’s a fun light vampire comedy read that is worth its greedy corporate price of P625.00.

blabberdygeek

Man, I even forget what I’ve read these past months since my last blog entry. It must be the election season that made me lethargic seeing the fucking political rigodon of the ruling class all over again. I tried remembering the books and it was a mesh-up of different genres that all the more meshed up my messed up mind. Someone gave me two books and it put a smile on my face seeing Pablo Neruda’s works Full Woman, Flesh Apple, Hot Moon . It sounded sexy and I find the book sexy. I took comfort in a poem under XVII and I am meaning to write a longer thought train on it. Paolo Coelho’s By the River Piedra I Wept was magical Coelho again. It has all the ingredients of a love story with that magical realism touch that made me conjure my long lost desire to visit Spain, if it is indeed in Spain that the story unfolded. And I think it is actually a happy ending with the lead characters getting together without the magic, and the mystery. They just loved each other and love conquers all, or is it?

I tried reading M is for Magic by Neil Gaiman but did not finish it. It was this time that my reading interest waned for some unknown reason. I returned it to the library unfinished. But I bought A Good Year by Peter Mayle and was it a film that they made into a book or the other way around? I’ve watched the movie before reading the book and it described pretty well the provencal life in France. I want to live in a farm surrounded by grapes and interesting people. The book is better as I can still smell the fine wine.

Then I got hold of American Gods by Neil Gaiman again and it brought back my interest in his works, and reading. It made me dream of gods, and the crass materialism that rules the world. He is a good writer and he has long hair.

King Dork

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Going to See the Elephant

So it was a newspaper people jargon. When a news reporter finds his first ever smash story, they call it 'seeing the elephant.'

The story set in San Francisco, California that is in the United States of America is fun. The young reporter whose passion is to write a great book worthy of becoming part of the annals of literature has been reading the works of literary greats but is fast depleting his finances because he is not earning, because he is trying to write the first sentences of his future great work.

Our hero’s name is Slater Brown and he got dumped on his first shot at The Morning Trumpet, a weekly newspaper, because he sounded very literary and dreamy, and did not meet the expectation of the editors. But he tripped on something magical, a radio that can pick-up conversations. In short, he got the juiciest shit and really got the elephant by the cojones. He became the toast of the town but was hounded by a dreamy encounter with a lovely woman who happened to be a good chess player. He did meet Callio de Quincy, the mystery woman, and they liked each other right away. It was with her that he divulged his innermost dreams, aspirations, and his magic shit. And it was her who can really feel his innermost dreams, aspirations, and how his magic radio is actually just shit that can hit the fan any moment.


San Francisco is also home to the smartest person in the world, Milo Magnet, who tried to manipulate the weather for whatever purpose it might serve. It was during his stint as the hotshot reporter that Slater hooked up with Milo Magnet and organized a chess match between Milo’s computer and Callio. Of course, Callio lost that brought her father to despise Slater more while Slater found his soul and disposed his magic transistor radio to pursue his destiny as a writer and his heart as a young man, sigh, in love.

The book described San Francisco at its dynamic best. From the restaurants and the food it offers to the scenic ordinary spots and the cable cars. Slater Brown described the city in a feeling way and how its people make it more interesting.


Going to see the Elephant made me miss San Francisco. My short stint experiencing the BART, the Golden Gate Bridge, Mission Street, the Cable Car, Pier 39, the most crooked street, the Budweiser beers, my KFC chicken without anything on it, the fucking scenic cold beaches, the drive, the people, and most especially a good friend holding his fort in probably the second best city in my world.

Going to See the Elephant
Rodes Fishburne 2009

Mitch Album

it was my cousin Marissa who just arrived for a vacation from Australia where she now resides who woke me from my blogging stupor as she proudly showed a picture of her with her god Mitch Albom of the Tuesdays with Morrie book fame, heard of him? She said she frequent bookstores in Brisbane to check out if they have sale items (new books in OZ cost roughly a thousand or more Philippine pesos) that she can purchase for more than 80 percent off just because the front cover is not perfect, or has a dent or a cut or whatever shit to lower the cost.

Anyway, I actually just read Mitch Albom's "For Another Day" and did not exactly enjoy it for some unknown reason. I liked Tuesdays with Morrie and even gave it as a gift to one of my cousin on her 18th birthday years ago. but "For one more Day" somehow disappointed me. It is about an over the hill baseball player who lost his marbles along the way when his mother died and got estranged with his wife and daughter due to his alcoholism. He tried killing himself, the suicide course to escape, but ended up alive and talking to his dead mother. It was a ghost story, Albom said, and I thought that we really do have ghosts to purge and heal somewhere in our lives. Plus the ghosts my sons occasionally see when they are in the mood for ghost hunting and stories and shit.

I have to admit it is heartwarming. It is touching, Not necessarily life touching, but a good read altogether to start up my reading groove again.

Read and Roll

 picture download from www.absurdrepublic.blogspot.com

Read and roll and fly.

Still Life with Woodpecker

Yum – it’s a fucking love story

Still Life with Woodpecker is not just “a sort of a love story” as suggested by its writer, Tom Robbins. It is a love story through and through as it threads the overflowing love of individuals expressing and experiencing it in different ways and in different circumstances.

The story revolves around two characters that came from opposite sides of the life spectrum in almost all aspects of their mortal life and the itsy bitsy idiosyncrasies of freaky individual characters in the sidelines of their world stage.

Leigh Cheri Furstenberg-Barcelona, a princess whose exiled parents, King Max and Queen Tilli, does not give her much choice but adapt to the American way of life. Leigh Cheri, the exiled princess who learned her life lessons quite early experiencing two abortions and being kicked out from school that led her to a celibate life and offered her service to help mankind through alternative lifestyle and being a future Ralph Nader groupie. (I have always been fascinated with Ralph Nader, the forever alternative candidate for the U.S. presidency. Last time I saw his shit was on MTV typing in an old school typewriter.)

Then there is Bernard Micky Wrangle, a.k.a The Woodpecker. The all-black clad Bomb expert. Anarchist. Outlaw extraordinaire. Lover of life and what ever it has to offer. The two met in Hawaii when Leigh Cheri’s lady-in-waiting Guiletta saw Bernard a.k.a the Woodpecker lit the dynamite fuse that wrecked a portion of the place where they were to attend a hippie cum new age type of conference. It was there where love struck them both melting their cold articulation of what love is into a “Love Kills” segue that made Sid Vicious and Nancy Spungen get-off their fucked up world.

The Woodpecker sharply articulates his anarchist view of causing incidents, explosive most of the time, literally, to forward his protest against anything that has to do with what is happening in the world. His dynamite talks and the woodpecker walks. That’s what made Leigh Cheri unlock her chastity belt and offer everything she can offer the outlaw.

The outlaw can light his dynamite stick, shove it up his ass for show, but not to out mind his heart over what he felt and what he wanted, and that is not just Leigh Cheri’s ass, but her heart as well. He pursued her, just as she wanted him to be beside her all the time that led to his arrest. Wanted by the pigs, Bernard wanting to make love stay brought him to the pigsty.

It was during the times when Bernard was in the lam that made Leigh Cheri discover her potential for thinking freaky thoughts and theories by her meditating on a pack of Camel cigarettes. As a sign of her truthful love to the outlaw, she carbon copied her outlawed lover’s jail cell and lived just like a convict inside a cell, not going out, not going in, not going anywhere except inside her mind, and heart.

Just as Princess Leigh Cheri was planning to save Bernard the outlaw, she received a letter from the motherfucker spouting shit on her alleging that she capitalized on their love relationship as love struck people would also lock themselves up in clear imitation of what Leigh Cheri, the heir to the throne of the Furstenberg-Barcelona royalty, did for the sake of love.

A pissed Princess can do crazy stuff and that she did. She went out for her billionaire admirer and asked that a pyramid be made in honor of her before she weds him. Of course it was not a platonic relationship, dimwit. She learned to use her beauty and sex machination to maintain the steady flow of money, and liquid sex juice she deeply yearn to cum from the woodpecker. She was able to separate sex from what love really should be until she learned the death of the woodpecker that was able to leave prison by virtue of her lady-in-waiting Guiletta’s whim to release him. Guiletta by twist of fate was actually the next-in-line to the throne of the small kingdom! She is the older daughter of the King from his chambermaid or something. Anyway, Woodpecker was apparently killed somewhere in Algeria when he tried to follow Leigh-Cheri and rescue her from her vicious tragedy.

But it was not the case. By some dumb luck, the Woodpecker was actually alive and even met Princess inside the deepest chamber of the Pyramid on the eve of her wedding. No shit! Of course they tried to argue about the letter, about the camel pack, about the pyramid, but love, ah, love made them see through each others’ bullshit and made them hug. Then the jilted Arab saw them, and locked them inside the pyramid. They escaped in the end. Thanks to the ever present dynamite the outlaw carries almost wherever he goes.

Tom Robbins’ novels always, always reminds me of Ely Buendia and the Eraserheads’ witticism in writing lyrics to their songs. Almost all the Eheads album had that hippie flair consistent with Tom Robbins’ books. Both Robbins and the Eheads’ playful psychedelic shit bring thoughts of mescaline peyote induced hallucinations. Even Ely Buendia changed his name to Dizzy Ventura for sometime, a very suitable name for a Tom Robbins book. But it’s not about the Eheads, or the music scene. I just don’t know how to end this spiel, so here it goes.

Wrapped up in Books

Belle and Sebastian singing inside a library. Where the hell is the librarian?

reading lethargy

I have been meaning to write a new blog entry but I just cant get my thoughts organized. So much for parenting and work and cooking and shit. Ive bought a couple of books to be read but has not started reading reasoning out loud that I should cover it first. I got Nick Hornby's Fever Pitch and some not famous authors but shows promise reading from their respective blurbs.

Finding time to read when there is none is a joke. I sometimes steal time reading while in transit but it easily zaps my already spent energy. And the sad part is, I am actually not doing shit at all but still feel tired.

I try to recall the last book I was reading until lethargy crept in. Was it 31 Songs by Nick Hornby or the Che Guevara book written by his companero, Alberto Granado?  My brain entered the 'more stupid' mode even before I returned the two unfinished books at the library. Even '31 Songs' failed to shake my incoming stupor.  Could alcohol deficiency be the culprit for this low reading intellectual stimulation shit?  I tried to recall the book I read a couple of months ago, Easter Rising by Michael Patrick Macdonald but could not even write a start up sentence.

Its time to beer.

Please Read a Book

I am a strong advocate for book reading due to my sincere belief that if more people will read, then more people will be enlightened, and ahh, er, will buy from my fledgling book mongering business. I sell books for people to be enlightened, have wider knowledge and perspective, help humanity, and ahh, er, for beer and cigarette money.

Here is a video that knocks at the soul of every sensitive human being. Humbly sincere, and respectfully meaning to spread the joys of reading a book. I believe every book lover should post this in their internet social networking accounts to reach the biggest number of people in our quest for a better world through book reading. 

Thank you very much.

Respectfully yours,

Wind-up confusion

I am boggled up after winding up reading The Wind-up Bird Chronicle of Vintage Murakami. I thought his name is Haruki but I will leave it up to him if he wants to be called in his another name, Vintage. But I am a bit bothered that people might not recognize the writer so I will call him Haruki Vintage Murakami instead based on the book cover.

It must be the effect of Mr. Murakami’s book that made me think this way.  Anyway,

I was checking out the newly renovated library where I teach and chanced upon “The Wind-up Bird Chronicle” lying there on a table waiting to ambush a curious reader that happened to be me. I checked on the blurb at the back and thought of the possibility of holding a Murakami while riding the train and people seeing me reading it intensely making me look like a genius thus raising the bar of my image to people who I will not meet again for the rest of my life.

So much for self-image, I borrowed the book and immediately got into the groove enjoying the first few chapters dreamily imagining Japan and the apparent gentle ways of people living their lives. The author generated that serene and mindful atmosphere in the house while not negating the underlying conflicts between the married couple that progressed to a mind boggling end. It greatly reminded me of the film “Lost in Translation” with its subtly quiet way of sending messages to the viewers.

The main character, Toru Okada, is a thirty something law graduate waiting to take the bar or something and unemployed giving me the impression that he is a slacker that keeps the house in order while his wife, Kumiko, works as an ad executive.

The story started with their cat missing and ended with his wife, his brother-in-law, some of his friends, and my sanity missing. The story was a rollercoaster ride for me that crossed between the realms of imagination turning into reality, and reality becoming the imagination of the main character.

Kumiko left him due to her admitted adulterous ways that left Toru more baffled than angry. He then met May Kasahara, his chain smoking, beer drinking teenage neighbor who related well with him in his struggles with his life and attempt to win back Kumiko. It was May Kasahara who I think made Toru Okada survive his ordeals in dealing with the problems in his head, or life, or heart through her presence in his life. 

Kumiko's brother, Noboru Wataya, is a polemicist (somebody who blabbers non-sense a lot but people listen and thinks he is a genius) and a professor who is also a hotshot public figure but has something evil lurking in his heart. The word defilement comes up again and again in the book as he defiled his sisters making the girls' life miserable. One committed suicide while Kumiko, as the story hinted, became a nymphomaniac. He also defiled a character named Creta Kano that made her  turn into a prostitute seeking revenge. Noboru Wataya was killed by Kumiko in the end as a revenge for her defilement that turned her life into bollocks.

While I can somewhat connect the stories on what is transpiring in the life of the main character, there also seems to be a disconnection somewhere when it starts telling stories of Toru Okada meeting up some characters in another world, with all its, I do not want to call it magic, but queerness in the events and situations, then meeting these characters again in the ‘normal’ world. I do not want to dichotomize the character’s thoughts because it is supposed to be his chronicle but I got confused trying to tie-up segments of the book. The book, divided in three parts, is a series of stories, or a chronicle, that should be connected logically to reach a logical end, but got me more confused.I guess trying too hard to connect the stories ended with my disconnection.

I have too much supposition as I read the book that, in the end, defeated the purpose of fully enjoying the creativity and genius and the beauty of Haruki Vintage Murakami's prose. I was windang (Filipino word for confused) as the wind-up bird as I closed the last page of the Wind-up Bird Chronicle. 

the curious incident of the dog in the night-time

I just finished “the curious incident of the dog in the night-time" by Mark Haddon just now. Like a minute ago. The laptop is running as I sit in front of it finishing the last pages, so that’s how I did it.

I liked the book. It reminded me of Forrest Gump and his worldview.  The book, written in a first person perspective, is heartwarming that gives one a view of looking at things in a positive way, whatever shit is happening on the road to kingdom come.

The autistic person’s life and his struggles and his pains and the people around him with their struggles and pains weaved tightly that they cannot just let go off each and everyone of them. It is like the math done by the fifteen year old autistic character that connects his own world with the outside world through his problem solving and algebraic expressions helping him to achieve calmness and focus in the fucked up situations people around him enter for a fuck.

The death and life of Charlie St. Cloud

Ben Sherwood. Ah. I’ve been meaning to read his “The Man who ate the 747″ but got “The death and life of Charlie St. Cloud.” Its a fuckingly great love story it made me pause and wonder how he got that story off. Very creative and really did his research on possible life in the afterlife and even went out of his way to get the feel of being a gravedigger.

Set in a quaint town I forgot (but it is a real town and was pictured as it is), the poignant story revolved around brothers who promised not to leave each other, but shit happens and one died. The other stayed but got the magic power of seeing spirits and playing catch with his dead brother then got involved with a girl caught in between worlds.It is an easy read, light for the heart, and a good companion when you are in the loo, all alone, quietly defecating.

Cutely adorable and a bit mushy with a dash of suspense and excitement, Ben Sherwood made my toilet meetings truly a treat.

Everywhere We Go

I got fucking tired reading this book about senseless violence in “Everywhere I go (behind the matchday madness)” by Dougie and Eddie Brimson. The book, however, authoritatively discussed the hooliganism prevalent in football crazy Brits and their counterparts in other European countries. 

Each chapter focused on the different aspect of football's hooliganism and how it thrives and being imitated in different parts of the world. The book does not sound apologetic to the phenomena of hooliganism but lacked in explaining the psychology behind it. But I guess it is not the intention of the book but to just to tell stories of matchday madness in the pitch, terraces, and the streets. 

Fucking "off" (the term they use for those brawls against opposing fans) they go after games in the name of their ‘reputation.’ It is a non-fiction book that will bring you to the forefront of these hooligan fights by the different ‘firms’, or football fan groups, trying to put a life into their otherwise freaking boring society. It suddenly came to me this notion that their society is so boring that they resort to such shits. But it could also be a stupid generalization that I normally resort to when I am tired of rationalizing the violence in this world. I could discuss in length though the necessity for an armed revolution in the Philippines.

I even watched the Elijah Wood starrer “Green Street Hooligans” just to check on the "off" scenes and searched the youtube for some real life “off.” It was a good film seeing the cute hobbit being battered blue by football hooligans.

It was crazy alright. And it got me interested in football. 

  

(First posted at www.bookmongers.wordpress.com February 10, 2010)

Ipod, Therefore I Am

Wicked is how I would describe my reading shit for the past month. I got hold a book I fancied because of one thing close to my heart, music.

“I Pod, Therefore I am:Thinking inside the white box” by Dylan Jones was a trip through decades of music describing the transitions and fads and the things that really mattered in music. From his early days as a vinyl record collector to tapes, to CDs, MP3s, and itunes and all the techie shit that I do not freaking understand, Jones masterfully drew a time line of music close to my generation.

Glam rock, Roxy music, David Bowie, The Clash, Pistols, new romantic, new wave, punk, and every music culture in the fringes. He explained it just how I would like to tell stories of my experiences experiencing these music that was integral to my development, if there is such a development, as a human being. His passion towards music was translated in his lifestyle as a music writer in magazines famous in the United Kingdom. He did meet millions of musicians and he described how they affected him.

However, Jones' continuous praise of the Apple IPod, Steve Job, and everything that constitute the success of IPOD is a bit annoying for my comfort. But hell, the book’s title itself would not hide the glorification of the Ipod. It is interesting to note though the story of Steve Jobs and his ways and his genius.

It is also interesting how Dylan Jones showed the egalitarian nature of the IPOD as it does not discriminate the music it will play once you put it in shuffle mode. Why it reminded me of my days when I kept in secret some music that I listened to like Madonna, Prince, The Romantics and other Top 40 hits because the music one listens too defines the person, then, I think. And I was so into Punk then with mowark and dirty looks and shit. But with the Ipod, your defined coolest song can be played beside your music skeleton in your closet.

(First posted at www.bookmongers.wordpress.com January 6, 2010)

The Book I Read

Welcome.

It is all about books, I suppose, and some shite on the side.

I use to post blogs at

www.bookmongers.wordpress.com

but rather I put everything in one place, or site, or blog provider, or whatever term this space in time is called, for reasons I have not thought as of this writing.

I like to read books. It is very very happy. If not, then it is sad, maybe. I also sell books. If you like to buy, just write me your pleasure. I might have what you are looking for, books that is.



Here is the seminal band Talking Heads with their song, which I do not actually totally appreciate compared to their more famous songs, but is related to reading and books and shit, "The Book I Read."