Link Drop August 2009

Apologies for the late update–working on something… special. More on that tomorrow–I’ll need your help guys–but for now, enjoy some interesting links I’ve picked up over the Inter-tubes (though you might have seen some of these on the Twitter feed):

• Local News:
  • Bob Ong as National Artist: An article in the Philippine Star by Isagani Cruz where he breaks down why anonymous author Bob Ong might qualify as a National Artist–as opposed to you-know-who.
  • District 9 Review: by David Hontiveros. Protip: He liked it.
  • Cosplay Mania 2009 Contests–Updated: Some interesting upcoming events for cosplayers, listed over at the New Worlds Alliance.
  • Filipino-made Film Named Best SciFi Film in California Festival: The article doesn’t really describe the film much so can’t say how SciFi it is… but thing that saddens me about this is the comments section.  I understand not getting worked up about the achievements of another just because he’s Filipino, but to justify such disregard by labeling him a “Fil-Am” seems to me small-minded in the extreme. It builds walls where we should be breaking them down.
• Science News:
  • Spiderbot: It looks kind of… awkward. But hey, I’m sure I did too when I was learning how to walk. (Cors’ I never did master the walking on the ceiling bit…)
  • Theatrical Robots Kiss: I want to see robot musicals now. Are you listening Repertory Philippines? ROBOT MUSICALS!
• Book News:
  • Google Opens Up Its EPUB Archive: Download 1 Million Books for Free: Need I say more? I probably had you at “Books for Free” For the curious “EPUB” is an ebook file format that quite a few groups want to see adopted as the standard ebook file format, sort of how the MP3 is for audio.

Books. Matter. Stories. Matter. (Or: How a Book Made Me Cry After Six Pages)

Damn. Six pages in.

I don’t usually blog about personal matters but…

Books have brought me to tears before. I’m kind of a sap that way. Usually though this happens at the end of a novel, when I’ve become so attached to the characters that when the time comes for something, or someone, to be sacrificed in order to lend the heroes’ eventual triumph the proper degree of drama and pathos; or, rarely, in very personal non-fiction accounts such as Didion’s “A Year of Magical Thinking” where the language is so beautiful and the event (the death of a loved one) so close to our own hearts that sympathetic heart-wrenches are unavoidable.

But while reading a factual report of an event? Never happened before. And I’ve certainly never teared up six pages in to a book.

This is the culprit: Every Book Its Reader by Nicholas A. Basbanes. The subtitle is, fittingly enough “The Power of the Printed Word to Stir the World.” By all means click the image to peruse the first few pages of the book… Amazon’s preview covers the entirety of the section which had me sniffling, since it didn’t take that friggin’ long. (Go on, I’ll be here when you get back. Still sniffling probably.)

[All done? Join me after the cut.]