Hashtag FML

Dear Lady-Who-Was-Directly-Behind-Me-And-Was-On-The-Phone-While-We-Lined-Up-At-The-ATM-Earlier-Today,


I didn’t have to hear about "the boil outside [your] labia" na "pumutok na," but since you were talking oh so loudly, I did. Many hours later, I still have a very graphic mental image that, despite all my best efforts, has not been supplanted by thoughts of kitties, puppies, or Care Bears.

So from the bottom of my grossed-out heart, Eff you.

Very truly yours,

Ikaw Pa Lang Ang Minahal 20 Years Since

On Cinema One last Monday night I caught the second half of Ikaw Pa Lang Ang Minahal, the 1992 film directed by Carlos Siguion-Reyna and topbilled by Maricel Soriano, Richard Gomez, Charito Solis, and Eddie Gutierrez.

I don't know, the movie just didn't age well (unlike, say, A Few Good Men or Unforgiven, both of which also opened exactly two decades ago). For a multi-awarded drama, Ikaw Pa Lang Ang Minahal is cringeworthy and unintentionally hilarious. My whole experience was perfectly summed up by the twelve-year-old who watched with us and Spoiler! astutely remarked: "This is painful to watch."

…

I went on Google to find the film's exact title and encountered this nearly two-year-old article where the writer said that Maricel Soriano should've won an award for her "tour de force performance." I thought, Okay, that tour de force bit is a stretch but whatever, everyone's entitled to their own opinion, yadda-yadda-yadda.

I soon discovered that the same writer has commended everyone and their mothers, it seems, for "tour de force" performances (Jean Garcia, Anita Linda, Coco Martin, Eugene Domingo, and Gina Pareño) and portrayals (Rustica Carpio, Susan Roces, Judy Ann Santos, and Glaiza de Castro). Hell, even singing (Raymond Lauchengco)!

It looks like somebody found a nice, highfalutin phrase of French origin he could drop in articles as a fancy adjective (when it's not really an adjective). I wouldn't be surprised if the writer in fact describes everything—from overwrought, beat-you-over-the-head acting to his bowel movement in the mornings, and everything else in between—as "tour de force."

Like Iñigo Montoya I can only go, You keep using that word; I do not think it means what you think it means.

Wikipedia Is Blacked Out

Earlier today Wikipedia made its point—and how!

Imagine one indeed.
[Screen grab from here.]

Since I use it only occasionally, Wikipedia's 24-hour blackout is just a minor inconvenience. But for a long while there I couldn't remember what it was I did on the Internet to look up and learn about things before the advent of that website. It only goes to show how much—limited use and all—Wikipedia had become part of my online routine. Before today at least, it was just…there, much in the same way that FM radio was just…there for me for a good long time until just a few years ago, if that makes sense.

Ateneo De Naga University Press Launch

This Friday afternoon, 20 January 2012, the Ateneo de Naga University Press will be launched (yet again?):

Ateneo de Naga Opens University Press, Launches 2 books of Bikol Translations

Naga City—The Ateneo de Naga University opens 2012 with the formal opening of its university press by launching books of translations in Bikol by two of the region's noted contemporary writers. When it is launched on Friday, January 20, 2012, the AdNU Press is the newest addition to the list of academic publishing centers in the country.

Fr. Wilmer Joseph S. Tria, AdNU Press Director, discloses that one of its goals is to become the premier resource of Bikoliana in the world. As an academic publishing house, AdNU Press is open to all who are interested to have a manuscript published. Fr. Tria further adds that optimum quality of materials to be published is a primary requirement, and, therefore, as practiced by university presses worldwide, all submitted manuscripts will be subjected to necessary evaluations.

Full story…

The event will be held at the James J. O'Brien, S.J. Library, and will feature a lecture on academic publishing from Maricor Baytion, Director and Marketing Manager of the Ateneo de Manila University Press, as well as the launch of two AdNU Press books.

…

AdNU Press' initial offerings for 2012 include Doros asín mga Anghél: Translations in Bikol of John Donne's Holy Sonnets and Selected Works by Victor Dennis T. Nierva.

[Image grabbed from here.]

Nierva is the author of the multi-award-winning Antisipasyon asin iba pang Rawitdawit sa Bikol asin Ingles.^* Doros asín mga Anghél^** is his second book.

Congratulations, Pading Vic!

…

This is the (new?) AdNU Press logo:

[Image grabbed from here.]

Classy. That thing on the left is meant to evoke a rotary printing press as well as AdNU's famed Four Pillars, I assume





^* Translation: Anticipation and Other Poems in Bikol and English

^** Translation: Air and Angels

Kicking Ass. More Fun In The Philippines

Here's my (unsolicited) contribution to the new Philippine tourism campaign launched earlier today:

The Manny Pacquiao double punch on Joshua Clottey.
[Original photo credit: AP Photo/David J. Phillip]

You're welcome, Department of Tourism.