Michael Janairo

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Category: Reading

  • Lincoln in the Bardo and the impossible audiobook

    audiobook_ilOn paper, it sounds like something magnificent: master short-story writer George Saunders’s very first novel! An examination of a moment in the life of America’s greatest president!

    As Penguin Random House says:

    George Saunders spins an unforgettable story of familial love and loss that breaks free of its realistic, historical framework into a supernatural realm both hilarious and terrifying. Willie Lincoln finds himself in a strange purgatory where ghosts mingle, gripe, commiserate, quarrel, and enact bizarre acts of penance. Within this transitional state—called, in the Tibetan tradition, the bardo—a monumental struggle erupts over young Willie’s soul.

    And then there’s the audiobook: 166 characters! 166 voices!

    “The first truly blockbuster audiobook? …  it’s going to be incredible”

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  • Close reading: ‘Epiphany’ by S.E. Venart

    Here’s a poem that has stayed with me, Epiphany by S.E. Venart:

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  • 2016 Year in Review

    2016 Year in Review

    Fifty-six blog posts published so far this year

    Number one, most-read blog post: Review of Justin Cronin’s “City of Mirrors”

    Number one, most-watched videos: Sun Yuan and Peng Yu’s “Can’t Help Myself” from the Guggenheim Museum

    Two poems published: “That Day in Assisi” and “For Your Own Safety”

    One short story published: “Auntie Lovely Says Goodbye”

    Two countries visited: Guatemala, South Korea

    Twenty-four books read

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    Twenty-one seconds: Best completion time of the NYTimes mini puzzle

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    Patronus: Fox

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    Participation Award: La Tortilla Cooking School, Antigua, Guatemala

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  • I just pre-ordered Chuck Kinder’s Silver Ghost

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    Outlaw. Writer. Professor.

    Chuck Kinder was my professor at the University of Pittsburgh’s MFA program. Like many of his students, I benefited greatly from his imaginative approach to writing, the often imaginative worlds opened up by his constant question: “What if?”

    In an exciting turn of events, his 1978 novel “The Silver Ghost” is coming back into print through the work of Braddock Avenue Books where one of the publishers just so happens to be another one of Chuck Kinder’s former students, Jeffrey Condon.

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  • Why you should download the massive, free e-book ‘Up and Coming’

    AnthoCover3_400.pngWhat is the future of science fiction?

    It could be in the pages of Up and Coming: Stories by the 2016 Campbell Eligible Authors.

    You can download the book here: http://www.badmenagerie.com/

    Hurry up, though, the download will only be available until March 31, 2016.

    What is a “Campbell Eligible Author” you may ask? These are writers who are new to the science fiction and fantasy field with their first professionally paid publications. The John W. Campbell Award is presented at the World Science Fiction Convention (this year, it will be held in Kansas City, Mo., in August). More info on the awards is available here: http://www.writertopia.com/awards/campbell

    I was happy to see lots of writers that are familiar to me from my reading of shot stories and/or SFF-related blogs, including:

    • Nicolette Barischoff
    • S.B. Divya
    • David J́on Fuller
    • Jaymee Goh
    • LS Johnson
    • Alyssa Wong
    • Jeff Xilon
    • Isabel Yap

    So you could consider this list of writers as a point of entry into this tome. You may find plenty of your gems in it, though.

    Let me know what you find and recommend.

     

  • Coming soon to a YouTube near you: Creatures Of Philippine Mythology

    Coming soon to a YouTube near you: Creatures Of Philippine Mythology

    So this has been on my mind for the past couple of years, and now there’s a web series coming soon. Very cool.

  • An Ohio Woman in the Philippines, published 1904

    An Ohio Woman in the Philippines, published 1904

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  • “ET HE UGLY RUTH” courtesy of a sponsored ad on Twitter

    et=he=ugly=ruth

    A young person I know recently said something along the lines that Twitter was going down the drain. I don’t where that idea came from. I’ve been using Twitter since Sept. 19, 2008. (which is longer than 99.755% of all other Twitter users, according to http://twopcharts.com/howlongontwitter).

    Perhaps the young person was thinking of sponsored contents like the ad here from the Alliance for Quality Education of New York. I ignore most Twitter ads but this one got me because of the words “ET HE UGLY RUTH.”
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  • A primer: How Americans taught Filipinos to see the Philippines

    A primer: How Americans taught Filipinos to see the Philippines

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    As part of the U.S.’s colonial policies of “benevolent assimilation” in the Philippines, they set up a system of universal education. At first, the primers were geared toward U.S. children (with references to things outside of most Filipino experiences such as snow), and then new primers were made.

    This page comes from a 1908 Revised Edition of the First Primary Language Book by O.S. Reimold.

    This is the entirety of the essay and image to go with lesson 40 (what follows it are a description of centavos and pesos, and then “Written Exercises” such as “Write the names of ten things that you can buy in the market.”).

    The questions the passage raises for me are: Who is the we? Is it the teacher (whether a Filipino or American) and the school children in the moment of the lesson? Or maybe I’m reading the “We” all wrong, and perhaps it refers to all the members of the colonial system? After all, wouldn’t it be too much to expect school children to have spending money for the market? So then is the “We” supposed to be a generalized “everyone,” as in “everyone goes to the market”? Then again, the “we” seems to be in opposition to the “many people” in the previous sentence? Couldn’t it be possible that some of the Filipino children learning to read, speak and write in English through this lesson be part of the “many people”? Is there a class distinction at play here that may be confusing to some of the student? Doesn’t the act of naming the shopper (Natalia) as opposed to the seller (“the man”) further that kind of class difference? And then, if the narrator can name one of the people depicted in the image, how is a child supposed to respond to those final questions about who is buying and selling the chicken? Are children supposed to know the names of the people? Are they supposed to respond with a gender identification (“the woman”/”the man”)?