When I was growing up in the Philippines, every guy in my neighborhood played basketball. As a writer one is trained not to use absolute terms like “every” or “all,” but this is surely a statement of empirical fact. Maybe those guys were too busy now, or their knees, like mine, had given way...
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Author Archive
On Rafe Bartholomew’s “Pacific Rims” (2010).
On Arthur Phillips, “The Song Is You” (2009).
No, it’s not a proper review (I leave that up to the experts), but more of an extended observation, which can perhaps be best illustrated with an example of Arthur Phillips’ prose, with our protagonist Julian listening to his Walkman in the Manhattan twilight: …and he had...
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On Andrew Ross Sorkin’s “Too Big to Fail” (2009).
I always used to say that life was too short for bad movies or cheap beer, but with books I had an ironclad and perhaps foolish rule: you make a commitment to read it all the way to the end. Not so with Too Big to Fail; for...
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On William Vollmann’s “Argall” (2001).
Weighing only a little less than last year’s book Imperial, Argall is Vollmann’s 746-page retelling of the “true story of Pocahontas and Captain John Smith — though by “true” Vollmann refers to what he calls a “Symbolic History”, and that the facts contained within are “often untrue based on...
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On Brian Selznick’s “The Invention of Hugo Cabret” (2007).
Engrossing and thrilling and wonderfully evocative of 1930s Paris. Best part: how the book nails the magical aspect of cinema (though there are many other movies that do this better, for obvious reasons). Don’t be daunted by the length; I finished it in three hours — but...
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On Tiffany Potter and C.W. Marshall’s “The Wire: Urban Decay and American Television” (2009).
I rarely give out five stars, especially to an essay collection (where the quality can be uneven). But this is just fantastic: a highly readable selection of scholarly essays — mostly from professors of English, actually, but the essays are written from a more sociological perspective. Doubtless...
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On Lionel Davidson’s “Kolymsky Heights” (1994).
Exceptional offbeat minimalist thriller, with an unlikely hero — a “Native Canadian” linguistic anthropologist! (Actually, I think the proper term is “First Nations”.) The book didn’t quite suit my purposes at the time — I was about to board a plane, so I wanted a relatively mindless airport novel — but...
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On Dennis Lehane’s “Shutter Island” (2003).
VERY MILD SPOILERS CONTAINED INSIDE (you’ll have read the same in the book’s blurbs, anyway): I love a good page-turner every now and then, and this novel — locked-room mystery, ghost story, haunted-house flick, cop thriller, in various amounts — definitely didn’t disappoint. (Especially when you’re on a plane.) But the...
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Where’s The Other Pinay?
Dear Mr. David Byrne, You mean to tell me the one single Pinay singer who actually has a lead vocal on your project didn’t get to be on your cool poster? I mean, she sings lead vocals and all! Sincerely, The Wily Filipino p.s. Thanks, though, for the big spike in visits on my...
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Music Video Quiz #1.
Back in the day — four years ago, a lifetime in Internet terms — when I was more active on Last.fm and had way too much time on my hands, I would change my avatar to a screencap from a music video and have people guess its source. (Back then YouTube wasn’t that popular...
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