Lolcat Writes Modernist Poetry
My bleeding brain let me show you it:
IM IN UR WASTELAND BURYING UR DEAD.
AKA: The Wasteland by T.S. Eliot.
And just in case you fine connoisseurs of language haven’t seen it:
The Lolcat Bible Translation Project.
At the risk of burning in hellfire in my sleep (sry): the Book Of Job is particularly made of win.
Notably unnotable
This is very belated but I haven’t had time to blog until now — Thanks again to the Reading Association of the Philippines and Vibal Publishing for bringing RoD over to the Midyear Demofest in Bacolod. The conference coincided with the famed Masskara festival — of which I saw nothing as there was so much to absorb in the conference and by the time we hit the hotel, we were all kind of dead. Gwenn Galvez of Anvil managed to join a street party but she told me it was more something my age group would enjoy. I did see representatives thereof partying a storm and my instinctive reaction was to cluck my tongue, which just goes to show. The district superintendents in the demofest are way more hip than me, I swear.
The theme of this year’s conference was “Beyond The World Of Words” so presentations and demo-teachings clustered around the subject of “comprehension” and how reading should, well, go beyond parsing the words on a page. The guest of honor, Dr. Cheah Yin Mee of Learning Ventures (Singapore) , gave an illuminating talk on metacognitive strategies for reading.
I think that–aside from the publishers–I was the only non-teacher present so it was instructive, to say the least, when I assisted in a couple of demo-teaching sessions. The first session was conducted by Dr. Mila Arias, head of the Reading Department of Philippine Normal University, who talked about content-based reading for tertiary-level students. We held our session a few meters away from a circle of preschool teachers who were very intently listening to a talk on Filipino stories for kindergarten students. Dr. Arias observed that she always had fun with preschool teachers as they were often an enthusiastic and actively engaged bunch. They should be, she added, to keep up with their charges! I hadn’t really thought about it before, but yeah, I would suppose that lethargy isn’t a prime quality for preschool teachers. Or teachers in general, for that matter. Everyone looked so hectic and rushed as they zipped from session to plenary to workshop. I felt guilty for always dawdling at the snack stand (about the only truly notable thing I did during the conference was to eat an entire pack of barquillos by myself–ahem).
Another session which I helped out with was Ace Elgar’s lecture-workshop on how to create integrated lesson plans, which are already standard in Ateneo but which seemed to be a novel and intriguing idea to other teachers. Ace demonstrated a lesson plan based on the story “Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan” which involved an entire series of activities utilizing different media–newspaper reports, comic strips, telephone conversations, scrapbooks, diaries–to elucidate the text to a class of Grade 6 students. I haven’t made a lesson plan in my life but I appreciate the power of creative collaborations. And it’s a really great concept, getting teachers to work together and integrate their different ideas into a fun and unique lesson for their students. Note to self.
Luis Gatmaitan and Jean Lee Patindol conducted writing workshops for teachers in Filipino and English respectively while Manolo Silayan led a rousing session on storytelling. I was tasked to take pictures on the second day so I was able to listen in on practically all the workshops (I found Mrs. Rizalina Lambada’s talk on Reading Theater particularly interesting).
Also saw Dr. Carmen Bonoan of Reach Out and Read, an association of doctors whose advocacy is to encourage reading in hospital waiting rooms through provisioning these rooms as one would equip libraries. They focus especially on expectant mothers and child patients. Dr. Bonoan was also a speaker in RodCon so we had a great time catching up. The program has been adopted by several hospitals in Manila and is supported by UNICEF and other medical organizations. Dr. Bonoan and I have promised to keep in touch–should really get to work on that networking thing for literacy organizations/efforts in the Philippines–so if there are any upcoming RoR events, will definitely post about them here or in Libro.ph. I’ll see if I can rip their DVD presentation as well.
RAP also printed an omnibus of sorts compiling all the presentations and papers delivered during the conference. I’m writing a few teachers to ask if they would mind Read Or Die re-printing their papers online but this is understandably a bit iffy (as lesson plans, alas, are not any less prone to outright plagiarism compared to novels and other written texts — I suggest that teachers visit ReadWriteThink.org if they want open source material for classroom use).
So congratulations to RAP for a great event and again, thanks for inviting me to address the plenary. Seriously, I couldn’t believe it till I was standing there. I was all, Holy cow, I am talking about reading to an assembly of… reading educators! They’ll kick me out in five minutes flat! I’m such a n00b! And I think my USB disk might have a virus! And it infected the laptop where the presentation of DepEd’s Library Hub project director is housed! I’m dead!
It went rather well, since the teachers were kind of on downtime already and quite a few administrators–including the principal of a preschool–came to talk to me afterwards. And thank god the DepEd presentation worked.
Dr. Merlene Alon–current president–and the RAP board are very open to working with other groups and organizations with regard to promoting reading and literature. Dr. Alon said that it should be a concentrated effort and that reading isn’t the domain of trained professionals. Definitely agree. It’s great, that there’s this creative synergy thing going on. I feel like we can all really accomplish something. Parang integrated lesson plan!
Flew back to Manila early morning on the 21st. The terminal was crowded with hung over vacationers even at 5:30 AM. Flung my bags in the apartment and then headed off for a meeting with Wikipedia Philippines–okay, I lie. I slept a little first as the meeting wasn’t due to start until 2PM. I’ll talk about this particular encounter in another entry as there were a lot of interesting issues raised about just how one goes about setting up a non-profit in the Philippines. Wikipedia kindly invited us so we could share our experiences re: Read Or Die. I think I started off with a garbled soliloquy along the lines of: “Una sa lahat, kailangan ng kapal ng mukha. ” And it all went downhill from there. Anyhow, dudes, if you’re reading this, thanks for the kind invite and for tolerating our incessant non-sequiturs. Kristel says she loves the book as she has long been ambivalent towards Samuel Beckett so reading how one might eviscerate him–textually, that is–makes her all sorts of giddy. Call us if you need us!
Because the fun just doesn’t stop (join RoD now~) — we were also invited to attend a reading workshop sponsored by the British Council and UP Diliman last October 27. The workshop was conducted by Alan Pulverness of the Norwich Language Institute. I was very late and only managed to stay four hours when I did arrive but during that period of time I saw an old friend, an old teacher and had a nice chat with a Shakespearean scholar when we were supposed to be doing a workshop activity (and planned a Shakespeare festival while we were at it–why not?). Approve heartily of Alan Pulverness, who quotes Keats and assigns Penelope Lively short stories for exercises. Came away from the workshop thinking that I should get a hold of Dr. Vim Nadera ASAP so we can start brainstorming that creative reading workshop series, as in RYT NAO. Fortunately, Sir Vim was out of town and Miya reminded me that yes hello there, that event with Repertory Philippines (more later stat).
Sorry, my brain is a bit loose in the hinges nowadays. I want to write about the Pulverness workshop in conjunction with what I absorbed from the RAP conference since we’ve been unsettled about how to proceed with Propaganda and other plans for setting up reading groups and RAP and the British Council workshop really clarified a lot of things for us. Head’s not um very clear, however. (I think Karen and Rael will be blogging about the Pulverness workshop though, as they were present from the start and their interests really lie in literacy endeavors. Hinthint.)
Poetry Mondays: The Invasion has started.
The Day the Saucers Came by Neil Gaiman
That day, the saucers landed. Hundreds of them, golden,
Silent, coming down from the sky like great snowflakes,
And the people of Earth stood and stared as they descended,
Waiting, dry-mouthed to find what waited inside for us
And none of us knowing if we would be here tomorrow
But you didn’t notice it because
That day, the day the saucers came, by some coincidence,
Was the day that the graves gave up their dead
And the zombies pushed up through soft earth
or erupted, shambling and dull-eyed, unstoppable,
Came towards us, the living, and we screamed and ran,
But you did not notice this because
On the saucer day, which was the zombie day, it was
Ragnarok also, and the television screens showed us
A ship built of dead-man’s nails, a serpent, a wolf,
All bigger than the mind could hold, and the cameraman could
Not get far enough away, and then the Gods came out
But you did not see them coming because
On the saucer-zombie-battling gods day the floodgates broke
And each of us was engulfed by genies and sprites
Offering us wishes and wonders and eternities
And charm and cleverness and true brave hearts and pots of gold
While giants feefofummed across the land, and killer bees,
But you had no idea of any of this because
That day, the saucer day the zombie day
The Ragnarok and fairies day, the day the great winds came
And snows, and the cities turned to crystal, the day
All plants died, plastics dissolved, the day the
Computers turned, the screens telling us we would obey, the day
Angels, drunk and muddled, stumbled from the bars,
And all the bells of London were sounded, the day
Animals spoke to us in Assyrian, the Yeti day,
The fluttering capes and arrival of the Time Machine day,
You didn’t notice any of this because
you were sitting in your room, not doing anything
not even reading, not really, just
looking at your telephone,
wondering if I was going to call.
from SPIDERWORDS.
React or Die: (1)
If, today, someone asked you to write your biography in Filipino, how would you react?
–don’t chase me out with torches and pitchforks just yet, I didn’t post this here by mistake instead of say, write or die.
I’m supposing that the most common reaction to this sudden request would be reeling in horror. (cue: DO NOT WANT! Incidentally, I also got responses like: die, run away screaming, and panic.) And that would come from either the thought of being asked to write your life’s story out of the blue, or worse, write it in the vernacular. (I’m thinking of Ron Weasley’s line here. The one about getting Hermione’s priorities straight.)
A friend of mine was complaining about the scenario a few weeks back, just before the sembreak started. I asked her what was so bad about it, and she replied that she wasn’t so good at writing in Filipino. (–and as for me, I’d be more concerned about the biography part. Write my life? No way. I haven’t had one yet. Seriously, these assignments are a pain–but, ah, okay, back to–) To encourage her to get over that hurdle, I told her to write it in the vernacular. By this, I meant that she could use common or “low” Filipino rather than “high” Filipino, aka. what students usually expect professors want in biographies in Filipino outputs.
We already know how different written language is from spoken language, so I don’t even need to stress on it. We can all say “pa-no” for how but how do we spell it when we write it down? Paano? Pano? Pa’no? Pno? The first one doesn’t sound like how we’d say it, the second one seems more likely, the third one seems like a good compromise, but there’s one more keystroke there, so why not eliminate it–whichever is easier ’s the rule, right?–and I don’t even know if people really shorten it to that in SMS speek.
What I’m really concerned about here, I suppose I have to explain before I go off tangent even more, is where this notion, although I doubt it is just a local thing, of a stiff or rigid written language comes from.
Ano bang meron sa Filipino na takot tayong magsulat gamit ‘to?
Ano ba ang mayroon sa Filipino na may takot tayong nadarama kapag pinapagamit sa atin ito sa pagsusulat?
The reader creates the writer, yeah? Reader first, writer maybe next? My first theory came from this idea.
See, I happen to remember gradual progress in my early studies into reading and comprehension in English. We start with A is for apple, move onto See Bantay/ See Bantay run and before you know it, you’re getting acquainted with one Holden Caulfield, maybe.
It goes that way for learning Filipino too, although it might be rather awkward for many that someone’s trying to teach us something we already know (ah, youth).
Ah, but not as far as Holden. Where was that image of youth hiding? I think this was around then–high school, right?–that we started groaning about having to read Noli Me Tangere. And you know how angry high school kids can be. I’ve seen the wiki article on Rizal vandalized because of this. Teenage anger, I mean.
I wonder if this is a case of having a choice: between English and Filipino at a too early stage; or on the other hand, a case of not having much of a choice: as far as reading materials in Filipino is concerned. A friend of mine said that because we were forced to read Noli me Tangere and El Filibusterismo then, we somehow picked up that there were the only type of reading materials–novels–in Filipino.
The seeming lack of gradual progression might be the aggressor here. It’s what scared us of our language. From the language that we speak everyday, something we also might take for granted, there’s that feeling of alienation when information does not come as instant anymore. I mean, we’re supposedly reading something in the language we use, but why is it that we “can’t understand it as much as we want to? It’s too much!” and then hands raised, we give up on it. There are other stuff to read. Easier stuff to understand. Not everyone has the luxury of time. And then we can keep on thinking: “why does this language have to be so heavy anyway?” or “old language is oooooooooold and therefore for the ooooooooold.”
And from here we get the rebel attitude. “I don’t understand you! You don’t understand me at all!” Then everything is left behind until the issue resolves itself. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always.
Funny how much our teenage years affects our perceptions, eh?
Sid is thinking of making ‘Read or Die’ a regular segment from now on because otherwise Kapitan will chase Sid with a Bolo. While this is the case, Sid sometimes walks the metro as a brain dead zombie and may then run out of things to react to for the lack of brains devoured. Sid would appreciate if you sent your e-brain (in this case, thoughts, ideas, etc.) in the form of an email to sindapa[at]gmail.com
P.S. Although belatedly, in the spirit of Caturday, I am leaving you with a message from one of our sponsors.
Research Caturday
New Worlds 5
New Worlds 5 is pushing through tomorrow (October 27) at the Glorietta Activity Center. We hope that you can come — the Alliance has a great selection of activities (games, cosplay, presentations) and forums for attendees.
For the complete event schedule please visit their website at http://newworlds.ph.
Write Or Die: Writers Write In Powerbooks
(Write Or Die is officially up at http://write-or-die.org. Yay.)
Read Or Die and the UP Institute of Creative Writing in cooperation with Powerbooks present the first series of Write Or Die: Writers Write lecture-workshops. The workshops will be held every weekend from November 2007 to February 2008 in different Powerbooks branches and will be moderated by some of the best writers in the country. The purpose of the workshops is to promote the UP Gawad Centennial Likhaan 2008, a special literary prize sponsored by the University of the Philippines as it celebrates its centennial year in 2008.
We would especially like to encourage people who are not professional or academe-based writers to attend the workshops and submit their works for consideration to the Gawad Likhaan. Teachers are welcome to bring their students to the talks. No reservations are needed.
The workshops will have four areas: Fiction (November 2007-December 2007), Non-Fiction (January 2008), and Poetry (February 2008).
The schedule for the Fiction workshops is as follows:
Dean Alfar
November 10, 2007
Powerbooks Megamall
2PM - 4PM
Jun Cruz Reyes
November 17, 2007
Powerbooks Trinoma
2PM - 4PM
Amelia Lapena Bonifacio
November 24, 2007
Powerbooks Trinoma
2PM - 4PM
Charlson Ong
December 1, 2007
Powerbooks Trinoma
2PM - 4PM
Admission is FREE and open to the public.
For author profiles please visit this page.
Charlson Ong and Jun Cruz Reyes will critique chapter excerpts from novel-length manuscripts during their respective workshop sessions. Jun Cruz Reyes will handle Filipino manuscripts while Charlson Ong will concentrate on English pieces. If you wish to have your work critiqued, please send your excerpt to readordie.ph@gmail.com on or before November 8 (for Jun Cruz Reyes) and November 18 (for Charlson Ong).
Short stories will also be considered.
A maximum of five manuscripts will be discussed. Only one submission will be entertained per person. Thank you.
For your questions and suggestions please email us at readordie.ph@gmail.com or call us at 09283555365. Thank you.
Ang Bagong Libro: The Exhibit
Read Or Die and Goethe Institut Manila present Ang Bagong Libro, an art exhibit featuring re-interpreted covers of Filipino books by Filipino artists using traditional and digital media. The purpose of the exhibit is to foster an intersection between Filipino literature (and writers) and Filipino art (and artists) through the medium of book cover design as art.
We are encouraging Filipino artists of all artistic stripes and affiliations to participate. If you are interested in submitting artwork for the exhibit please take a look at our guidelines.
The exhibit will open on January 25, 2008 at the Goethe Institut, 4-5/F Adamson Centre, 121 Leviste St., Salcedo Village, Makati City.
Shoujo and Sumo!?
If monkeys can draw manga then shoujo heroines can do sumo!? Seriously. Upon the recommendation of many friends who are fans of manga, I had to get my hands on the book “Even a Monkey can Draw Manga” a series of ‘columns’ written by two men trying to explain to readers the formula needed to create a successful manga. And since many RoD people are into shoujo, check out what he has to say about Shoujo comics and Sumo wrestling.
This piece was probably written during the early 90s, when girls were still in a daze over their high school captains and rock stars. And sumo aside, this formula is still being followed in many manga titles today (Mayu Shinjo and Watase Yuu at the front, yo!). There are only a few authors who broke this formula (Tomoko Ninomya?), but I guess pubescent girls like their sumo in their shoujo.
This is just a teaser for this extremely funny book. It even covers other manga genres such as gag and shounen. I’ll be looking into this in a few weeks and see the practical applications of this insane manga manual. For those who aspire to become manga artists, this could be the only book you’ll ever need.
This post was done for the regular Comics/Graphic Novel feature of Read or Die. If you have any suggestions on titles to feature, or if you just want me to post about a particular title or topic regarding comics, feel free to contact me at punkednoodle@gmail.com, or visit my manga website, Otaku Champloo.
Poetry Mondays: The British East India Company also dealt in crack.
An Except from Rudyard Kipling’s The Elephant’s Child
I Keep six honest serving-men:
(They taught me all I knew)
Their names are What and Where and When
And How and Why and Who.
I send them over land and sea,
I send them east and west;
But after they have worked for me,
I give them all a rest.
I let them rest from nine till five.
For I am busy then,
As well as breakfast, lunch, and tea,
For they are hungry men:
But different folk have different views:
I know a person small–
She keeps ten million serving-men,
Who get no rest at all!
She sends ‘em abroad on her own affairs,
From the second she opens her eyes–
One million Hows, two million Wheres,
And seven million Whys!
from Just So Stories for Little Children (1902)
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