The Carver's House

Weekend Plans I want to catch Comedy Concert Queen Ai-Ai dela Alas' starring pic Ang Tanging Ina . It's been a long time since I caught a Pinoy movie, and I do need a good laugh. Praying that the film delivers the goods in that department. I will implore the universe to help me find some kind of order in my life, not so much in terms of direction, but more on getting my filing system in place. My mom has been regularly giving my room some semblance of sanity, which frustrates me whenever I need to find something. But my mom's a cool soul, and she means well. I love my mom. Part of the weekend plans is squeezing my imagination for Vinnie's sci-fi fantasy epic Twilight Empires, which I tackle beginning August. Twilight Empires gives me the opportunity to try something I haven't done before -- interpreting a writer's vision of an alien multiculture. This takes a good amount of planning and research, as I will require myself to do a huge bunch of study pla...

Zsazsa Updates 1) Businessworld - An FAQ article came out in the country's foremost business broadsheet today. The online version, which is only available over the weekend unless you have an account with Business World Online, can be found here . Oozillion thanks to the nice folks at Business World (hello, Gik!) for taking interest in Zsazsa Zaturnnah. (Though the pics show how ugly I can be.) I await the Manila Standard article. 2) Showbiz - The guys at Comic Quest informed me that someone from Star Cinema passed by and asked what the top-selling Filipino comic book was. Said represenatative bought Zsazsa upon recommendation from the guys. Also, John "Sweet" Lapus of The Buzz reportedly mentioned about Zaturnnah in the showbiz talkshow. This was according to the brother of my editor Reby Gaw. I still have to confirm this one. 3) Book Award? - Writer/journalist/lecturer Ruey de Vera intimated that Zsazsa Part One was submitted for consideration to the Manila ...

Homebody Getting my life organized has always been my waterloo. Though at times I come off as having some semblance of order, the reality is clearly evident in my room. It's a mess, a fire hazard, a pit. It's not as bad as some of my other friend's inner sancti, but it still a cause of frustration on my part. While I am still able to find what I need beneath the stacks, I long for the day when I can get everything cleanly labeled and in their place, and have the discipline to keep it that way for a long time. I long for the day when I could have a place of my own, with a bigger room, so I can start my journey to self-organization from scratch. In my ideal world, I'd have two large rooms. One for work, where I'll have the computer, the drafting table, the office desk, the shelves of references and files, and other related bits; and the other for personal where I'd have my bed, my entertainment center, my home gym, and shelves of books and comics for leisur...

Lintek! Sumasakit nanaman ang ulo ko. Hindi kaya migraine na 'to? Huwag naman sana. Du'n daw nagsisimula ang stroke. Napakalakas ng ulan sa labas, nagpapalakpak ang tunog sa tenga. Masaya't malungkot na palakpak, kasabay ng paghiyaw ng pabugso-bugsong hangin. Kelangan ko ng kape, kahit na nakailan na ako kahapon. Adik na ako sa kape. Adik pa sa yosi. Okey lang 'yon. Ganyan kapag mag-isa. Maraming okey.

Storyboarding Thanks to fab pal Suki, I had a meeting last Saturday with high-profile photographer Raymund Isaac for a quickie project: storyboarding a music video. Now I haven’t done a lot of storyboards – less than five, most prolly – and never one for a music video, so I saw this as another opportunity to explore something new. Related, but new. A storyboard is, after all, sequential art. The major difference here being, one has to compose each panel in a manner that could be easily translated for a motion-driven visual medium. Not all comics ‘movement’ can be directly replicated on film despite any kind of technological advancement (Text-heavy Claremont-era X-Men, for instance.) and thus, unless the video is blessed with a plump budget, the palette of techniques is severely limited, ‘indie’ sensibilities notwithstanding. Anyway, I didn’t get any sleep last night finishing the storyboard, accounting for my lack of coordination and balance today. (And being completely take...

Give and Take I miss watching TV. When people start talking about Buffy and Alias , and even freakin' Fear Factor , I'm stricken with envy. I feel the same way when the family starts talking about any Pinoy or Mexican (and soon Taiwanese) telenovela or teleserye or whatever the term in vogue is. Maybe television doesn't interest me as much anymore, though I still manage to sit through episodes of The Buzz and Startalk when I've nothing better to do. I want my own TV. And a cable connection. I miss watching movies. Pinoy movies, to be exact. I used to watch Sharon and Maricel bawl up rivers in the late 80s to early 90s. Now I'm supposed to be excited about Xerex and Sex Drive and Punla . Then there's the great videos, particularly anime, that my friends watch and talk about, or the computer games they play. I want my own DVD player. I want my own XBox or GameCube or whatever freakin' electronic game gadget is out there. Heck, I'd settle for a Ga...

Hoookay, eMode just revealed to me that my Emotional Quotient (EQ) is an above average 130. Whatever it says. Creative Drive All the reading I’ve been doing these past few days has been giving me a headache. Last night I set about immersing myself in the scholarly studies on utopia, and the other nights orienting myself on the societies of ancient civilizations, all part of my prepping for the next book. So much to read, but with each session I could actually sense my brain piecing the bits of information along the plotline, making the story more coherent and logical. There should be room for inferences and assumptions, creative licenses no doubt, but I needed to refer to historical accounts, past and present, to add a level of realism to the piece. I’d ask myself why I put myself through this, going through this wracking cerebral exercise. Isn’t a simple story enough for me? Can’t I just continue with Zsazsa Zaturnnah and reinforce myself that way? It’s not that I find s...