Monthly Archives: February 2009
American Gorbachev
Is Obama the American Gorbachev? A striking comparison from n+1: The America our new president inherits bears an uncanny resemblance to our old enemy, the Soviet Union—right before it went under. Our country’s paranoia and stubbornness have secured us indifferent
American Gorbachev
Is Obama the American Gorbachev? A striking comparison from n+1: The America our new president inherits bears an uncanny resemblance to our old enemy, the Soviet Union—right before it went under. Our country’s paranoia and stubbornness have secured us indifferent
Reading Updates
Let me begin by checking how I’m going with my New Year reading plan. It’s already two months into 2009 and I’ve read three of the ten titles I targeted at the start of the year, namely Dickens’s Great Expectations,
Reading Updates
Let me begin by checking how I’m going with my New Year reading plan. It’s already two months into 2009 and I’ve read three of the ten titles I targeted at the start of the year, namely Dickens’s Great Expectations,
The Battle of Red Cliff
I have a soft heart for East Asian epic films. John Woo’s two-part Red Cliff, based on the historical battle of Red Cliff, is one of the best I’ve seen so far. A million thanks to my cinemaphile friend Dada*
The Battle of Red Cliff
I have a soft heart for East Asian epic films. John Woo’s two-part Red Cliff, based on the historical battle of Red Cliff, is one of the best I’ve seen so far. A million thanks to my cinemaphile friend Dada*
Tolstoy’s Hadji Murad
Leo Tolstoy’s Hadji Murad begins with this now very familiar device of the unnamed first-person narrator who vanishes, replaced in the rest of the text by an omniscient one, after the story’s premises are introduced.* On his way home, the
Tolstoy’s Hadji Murad
Leo Tolstoy’s Hadji Murad begins with this now very familiar device of the unnamed first-person narrator who vanishes, replaced in the rest of the text by an omniscient one, after the story’s premises are introduced.* On his way home, the
Götz and Meyer’s Truck to Nowhere
What David Albahari’s Götz and Meyer is basically about can be read from the back cover: Believing they were being taken to a better camp, Belgrade’s Jews would climb into the truck with a sense of relief. Mainly women, children
Götz and Meyer’s Truck to Nowhere
What David Albahari’s Götz and Meyer is basically about can be read from the back cover: Believing they were being taken to a better camp, Belgrade’s Jews would climb into the truck with a sense of relief. Mainly women, children
Learning from EDSA
This is a repost of an entry published in my former blog last year: In “A Call to Stop the Threat of People Power,” Onomatopoeia argues that the two EDSAs has not brought real change in the country but has
Learning from EDSA
This is a repost of an entry published in my former blog last year: In “A Call to Stop the Threat of People Power,” Onomatopoeia argues that the two EDSAs has not brought real change in the country but has
Riposte
The links found at Quezon’s on the commotion in last Friday’s U.P. Fair had me laughing. This is a bit late as I’ve read them only now. I thought the knee-jerk reactions from those blogs to the violence (calling the
Love Is Evil
Today is Valentines Day. I was thus quite prepared to gloss over all the mushy gibberish that the occasion usually inspires in the newspapers’ pages. Amazingly, something quite out of the ordinary found its way somehow in one of the
Love Is Evil
Today is Valentines Day. I was thus quite prepared to gloss over all the mushy gibberish that the occasion usually inspires in the newspapers’ pages. Amazingly, something quite out of the ordinary found its way somehow in one of the
On Love
What does love feel like? Like a great misfortune, a monstrous parasite, a permanent state of emergency that ruins all small pleasures. Slavoj Žižek, “The Guardian Q&A”
On Love
What does love feel like? Like a great misfortune, a monstrous parasite, a permanent state of emergency that ruins all small pleasures. Slavoj Žižek, “The Guardian Q&A”
Fox in the Attic
Fox in the Attic, published by the New York Review Books, is the first volume of The Human Predicament, which the author Richard Hughes described as a “long historical novel of my own times culminating in the Second World War.”
Fox in the Attic
Fox in the Attic, published by the New York Review Books, is the first volume of The Human Predicament, which the author Richard Hughes described as a “long historical novel of my own times culminating in the Second World War.”
Unstuck In Time
In Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five’s first chapter, the narrator (who is probably Vonnegut himself) recounts how he came to write about how he survived the firebombing of Dresden during World War 2, an account that would form the contents of the
Unstuck In Time
In Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five’s first chapter, the narrator (who is probably Vonnegut himself) recounts how he came to write about how he survived the firebombing of Dresden during World War 2, an account that would form the contents of the
Infertility as the Lack of Meaningful Historical Experience
I have to thank Frances for recommending Children of Men. I just saw it. I’m such a latecomer when it comes to films. God knows where I was when the film was shown in the big screen two years ago.
Infertility as the Lack of Meaningful Historical Experience
I have to thank Frances for recommending Children of Men. I just saw it. I’m such a latecomer when it comes to films. God knows where I was when the film was shown in the big screen two years ago.
The Days of Abandonment
“One April afternoon, right after lunch, my husband announced that he wanted to leave me.” Thus began Elena Ferrante’s The Days of Abandonment, a novel chronicling a wife’s desperate struggle to cope with her new situation. From the first page
The Days of Abandonment
“One April afternoon, right after lunch, my husband announced that he wanted to leave me.” Thus began Elena Ferrante’s The Days of Abandonment, a novel chronicling a wife’s desperate struggle to cope with her new situation. From the first page
Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold
What I found remarkable about Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold is its style. The novella does not follow the formula present in Garcia Marquez’s other more magical realist books and stories. The flights from reality and the
Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold
What I found remarkable about Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s Chronicle of a Death Foretold is its style. The novella does not follow the formula present in Garcia Marquez’s other more magical realist books and stories. The flights from reality and the
A Wall
There was a wall… Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on. Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed
A Wall
There was a wall… Like all walls it was ambiguous, two-faced. What was inside it and what was outside it depended upon which side of it you were on. Ursula Le Guin, The Dispossessed
(Mis)readings