New uses for old bunkers #2 – Bunkerologi – Basecamp Nesheim.

Read full post »

Carlos Bulosan’s semi-autobiographical novel America is in the Heart narrates the evolution of the character of Carlos (nicknamed as Allos) in his journey to find ‘America.’  Bulosan’s search for the ever-elusive “American Dream,†is a common story for many Filipinos. Despite mos… Read full post »

Sunday is nearly over. The last few hours of the weekend are bittersweet.

h

via http://thethingsicantsayoutloud.tumblr.com/

On one hand, your mind is racing, prepping that to-do list for the work week ahead, mentally beating yourself up for all the personal things you wanted to complete over th… Read full post »

A single organism, similar to an ocean, covers the planet of Solaris. The mysterious forma has shown signs of a supreme yet incomprehensible intelligence, an enigma that has been subject to numerous theories and interpretations by researchers. Numerous voyages to the planet have only resulted… Read full post »

1) Patsy Cline

Crazy

I Fall to Pieces

She’s Got You

2) Phil Phillips

Sea of Love

3) The Flaming Lips

Ego tripping at the gates of hell

Yoshimi battles the pink robots

4) Jeff Tweedy / Wilco

How to fight the loneliness

… Read full post »

Empire of the Sun by  J.G. Ballard is based on his childhood in China during World War II. Published in 1984, the novel’s portrayal of a child’s survival and transformation from child of privilege to becoming another innocent victim in a pointless war,  garnered immediate acclaim and wo… Read full post »

“Music’s the only thing that makes sense anymore. Play it loud enough, it keeps the demons at bay.â€Â  —      Across The Universe

“We’re all different though we may pretend otherwise. We’re all strange inside. We learn how to disguise our differentness as we gr… Read full post »

Grasping the metal bars on top of the bus-like automobile, we held on for dear life as it tumbled over dirt road. The jeepney, emblazoned with images of local celebrities and “In God We Trust†logos, was fully occupied: inside, food and supplies for various villages, and on its roof, young… Read full post »

“May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art — write or draw or build or sing or live as… Read full post »

Photo by Lola Abrera

“The Boxcutters” (www.theboxcutters.wordpress.com) is a blog dedicated to those brave enough to live life according to their own rules.

Here’s what ‘The Boxcutters’ is all about:

Graffiti artist Banksy once said, “Think from outside the bo… Read full post »

Anne Frank had just turned thirteen. Like any other adolescent, she undergoes physical and emotional changes that are a source of both curiosity and frustrations that she records in her diary as letters to an imaginary friend named “Kittyâ€. However, Anne Frank is no ordinary schoolgirl; s… Read full post »

“The struggle for democracy and human rights in Burma is a struggle for life and dignity. It is a struggle that encompasses our political, social and economic aspirations.” – Aung San Suu Kyi

Photo from uncorneredmarket.com

Even from a distance, I could tell that the… Read full post »

“Let us toast to animal pleasures, to escapism, to rain on the roof and instant coffee, to unemployment insurance and library cards, to absinthe and good-hearted landlords, to music and warm bodies and contraceptives…and to the “good lifeâ€, whatever it is and wherever it happens to be.… Read full post »

“I am a camera with its shutter open, quite passive, recording, not thinking. Recording the man shaving at the window opposite and the woman in the kimono washing her hair. Some day, all this will have to be developed, carefully printed, fixed.†– Christopher Isherwood, 1930

Wait… Read full post »

Jeanette Winterson’s Oranges are not the Only Fruit is about a girl’s coming of age and self-acceptance in a community that punished difference. Set in the 1960s, the character learns to make her own opinions about herself and the world.

Guardian.com - Jeanette Winterson

Critics co… Read full post »

The God of Small Things begins with a quotation from the writer John Berger: “Never again will a single story be told as though it’s the only one.†Thus, even as the novel dives into non-linear, multi-voiced perspectives, it is built around the experiences of the twins, Rahel and her/… Read full post »

Just found out that my dad’s short story is in this issue. Supposedly, it’s a disturbing story. I must get my hands on this magazine.

Read full post »

Losing a loved one is a traumatic experience–especially if the cause of his or her death is, by its very nature, incomprehensible.

Nine-year-old Oskar Schell finds solace in the unexpected death of his father–a victim of 9/11–by throwing himself, obssessively, into solving t… Read full post »

Photo by MM Yu

Orchestra conductor Leopold Stokowski once said, “A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence.†While most people see music and visual art as separate entities, The Sleepyheads, often serving as the opening act in Manila’s premier gal… Read full post »

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I’ve ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my… Read full post »

There was nowhere to go but everywhere, so just keep on rolling under the stars.”
— Jack Kerouac (On the Road: The Original Scroll)

“I have lots of things to teach you now, in case we ever meet, concerning the message that was transmitted to me under… Read full post »

"All I can be is me- whoever that is. " — Bob Dylan

“To the poet Bob Dylan…†– Written on the first page of Allen Ginsberg’s Collected Poems 1947-1997

Just a few days ago, on May 24, Robert Allen Zimmerman celebrated his 70^th birthday. But he’s not your run-of-the-mill/… Read full post »

In Barrio Barretto, everything was an adventure. It was just me, my dad and my pal, Hotdog—a black-and-gray dachshund whose thunderous bark made up for his small size. Days were spent investigating tide pools, digging up sand worms, chasing the neighbor’s chickens and testing how far out… Read full post »

“I was born twice: first, as a baby girl, on a remarkably smogless Detroit day in January of 1960; and then again, as a teenage boy, in an emergency room near Petoskey, Michigan, in August of 1974.”

At the age of 14, Calliope Stephanides learns that she has “5-Alpha-Reductase… Read full post »

“Fiction is one of the few experiences where loneliness can be both confronted and relieved. Drugs, movies where stuff blows up, loud parties — all these chase away loneliness by making me forget my name’s Dave and I live in a one-by-one box of bone no other party can penetr… Read full post »