My little contribution to bright prospects in the genre for 2010.
I just dig Anthony Zuiker's Level 26 and his approach towards his series of digi-novels that combine print, web and videos in full multi-media interactivity. Am sure there'll be a platform game of this soon, as well.
"Level 26," from Anthony E. Zuiker, the creator of CSI. Level 26.com and the Level 26 books combine to form a "digi-novel," a multi-platform experience that moves the reader from passages in the books to videos and interactive content right here on the Level 26 website.
The first installment in the series, "Level 26: Dark Origins" tells the story of Steve Dark, a former FBI agent pulled out of retirement to hunt down a serial killer unlike anything the world has seen before.
Hope I can score a copy of the book soon/somewhere locally.
Here's the official trailer:
More details here. In the Year of the Tiger I hope we all find the strength to roar and growl. Happy New Year ghoulies!
I kid you not. But I would actually go out and see this movie : D I mean it's Padme for chrissakes!
The world needs another Pride and Prejudice adaptation like Tiger Woods needs another media-hungry mistress but with a title like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies we're assuming this incarnation will be delightfully skewed...and feature the decapitation of Mr. Darcy. . . .
Interestingly Natalie Portman will produce and star in the project while David O Russell of Three Kings and I Heart Huckabees fame will adapt and direct.
In 2004, August Highland of the Muse Apprentice Guild (sadly defunct) urged me to write about my experiences as a child who grew up with parents who worked as agents of the Philippine communist movement for an issue of the net-based mag he ran.
This issue would feature artists and writers who have "experienced reprisal , human right violations or condemnation because of their works; or whose works are a product of, or greatly influenced by, their political experiences or background."
There was an added note of hesitation at the end of the letter that, while polite, was still insistent: "this would be invaluable for readers to read first-hand experience -- please consider this karl -- i understand if it's not something you want to remember and write about."
Oh, fuck it. I wrote an essay in a feverish three days, barely spell-checking it and, almost with eyes closed, sent the thing to Mr. Highland. Which he published almost verite, to my chagrin at all the errors and typos I only noticed after wards. That essay used to be here under a different title.
Fast forward to 2009 and Dr. Jing Hidalgo is telling me they liked the essay and are putting it out in the UP Institute of Creative Writing's Journal or Likhaan 3. Since it's an institutional journal it also apparently counts as a sort of, kind of academic award. That's a first for me right there. And the darn thing is now in print format! Yey!
Thanks UP ICW and Mr. Highland. Hooray for the fairly long history behind "Report from the Abyss." : D In a poetic yet disturbing and seductive way, Japanese photographer Izima Kaoru creates scenes of sophisticated violence and enchanting horror. More here.
Despite having lost count of the friends and journo comrades who have given their lives in the field (many of them in Mindanao) I am glad that, aside from my lack of surprise, I can still grieve for those who fall anew to the enemies of truth.
One day we who report will pick up arms and enact the revenge that signals our own brand of justice. One day the truth will strike and hurt you back, motherfuckers.
Politicians of the Bangsamoro heartland, GMA, et al, cover your faces in shame. People should not die like this. Get briefed at CNN.com.
Found this old clip of White Zombie bringing down the house at 1995's MTV Video Music Awards night. Ah, Sean Yseult. Zombification, must be exquisite with you, mon amour.
Because it's Sesame Street's 40th anniv (and because I get nostalgic about my Batibot days) I just had to post this for the delectation of all Cookie Monster lovers.
The awesomeness that is CK shows you why the band I play for is named after this puppet. Plus, that hot Brit chick is in total groupie behavior mode : D
Tama na muna ang horror shit: Happy Birthday muna to Sesame Street!
I met Atty. Pao Chikiamco last night at an unusual resto/drinking dive that suddenly morphed right before our eyes into an Embassy-type DJ/dance club. Horrible house/jungle music played by an amateur jockey, egad. There's a reason your turntables have an EQ, dude.
Anyway, Pao also runs the genre fiction site Rocketkapre and he's got his first on-line antho up and running for your perusal. It's called Usok. Check it out here.
The specfic geeks I had drinks with lats night pointed out that Charles Tan (dubbed as the international face of local speculative fiction) did a review of my book Damaged People last October.
Book/Magazine Review: Damaged People: Tales of the Gothic-Punk by Karl R. De Mesa
Every Monday, I'll be doing bite-sized book/magazine reviews. What got me interested in Karl R. De Mesa's fiction was the praise our editor-in-chief at work gave with regards to his upcoming novella collection, News of the Shaman. Damaged People: Tales of the Gothic-Punk is a a slim (under a hundred pages), four-year-old short story collection. My first impression is that the book is an example of an amateur author's mistake with regards to collections: instead of waiting until the writer has developed a series of strong short stories, this is instead a compilation of the author's recent work (at that time).
Go to hell with us with the upcoming on-line anthology from Estranghero Press: Demons of the New Year. My partner in crime (and publisher head honcho) Joey Nacino has written an excellent call for submissions am re-posting verbatim below.
So scribble down your brush with Beelzebub, Azazel or Lilith or any of your own grotesque personal demons and hand it over. The infernal marches call you, friend.
CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS -- Demons of the New Year “Demons of the New Year: Horror from the Philippines, edited by Joseph Nacino & Karl de Mesa” will be published electronically to make this collection of stories available to a wider international audience. Through this anthology we will be able to show the world that the Filipino writer can create worlds with the best of them.
This collection of stories will be an anthology about demons-- but don't let that stop you from coming up with a really good idea about what constitutes your 'Demons of the New Year.' Like I said in an earlier post, don't let a particular idea stop you from writing a good story.
Submission Guidelines:
1. As works of the imagination and speculative fiction, the theme is the title: 'Demons of the New Year'. Works of horror will be preferred.
2. Stories must cater to an adult sensibility. However, if you have a Young Adult story that is particularly well-written, send it in.
3. Stories must be written in English.
4. Stories must be authored by Filipinos or those of Philippine ancestry.
5. We will accept only original unpublished stories.
6. First time authors are welcome to submit. Good stories trump literary credentials anytime.
7. No multiple submissions. Each author may submit only one story for consideration.
8. Each story's word count must be no more than 7,500 words.
9. All submissions must be in Rich Text Format (.rtf – save the document as .rft on your word processor) and attached to an email to this address: estranghero@gmail.com. Submissions received in any other format will be deleted unread.
10. The subject of your email must read: DNY Submission: (title) (word count); where (title) is replaced by the title of your short story, without the parentheses, and (word count) is the word count of your story, without the parentheses. For example – DNY Submission: The Fields of Marikina 4500.
11. All submissions must be accompanied by a cover letter that includes your name, brief bio, contact information, previous publications (if any).
12. Deadline for submissions is January 15, 2010. After that date, final choices will be made and letters of acceptance or regret sent out via email.
13.This anthology will be made available online. Target publishing date is January 30, 2010.
14. Compensation is Php500 for every accepted story.
Kindly help spread the word. Feel free to cut and paste or link to this on your blogs or e-groups – and send your story in.
I'd like to reiterate that it's up to you define the story's 'demons' but I'd rather keep it vague so that you can have a free field. But make it scary, okay?
Spent hours yesterday playing this with Von and Yonina. I swear it's every old school metal fan's dream come true (the in-game soundtrack has all the faves from Sabbath to Savatage). Plus, it stars the incorrigible Jack Black as the reluctant savior who is on the path from roadie-hood to rock god-dom. Despite the sometimes awkward car controls and a host of other kinks having Ozzy, Lenny, etc in there is more than enough to make this thoroughly enjoyable.
Raise yer horns and headbang in unison! Here's Brutal Legend!
Poldo and I went to see Archenemy last night and all I got was this stupid shirt (plus the Black Earth album, rare, I'm told). Wait, where the fuck is that stupid shirt? Ah well, t'was a blast raising devil horns through the night anyway. Plus we bumped into my katukayo and erotica author Karl Kaufman.
The Amott Bros were in top shredding form and Angela Gossow is a gorgeous, blond angel of the apocalypse clad in amazingly tight leather pants and possessing vocal and bootylicious, uh, talent. Who got that towel she threw after rubbing it on her ass?
From Nerve, one of the best sex and culture institutions for my money, here are transgressive, exploitationesque movies that are so wasak they'll make you want to sleep alone. Well, at least for tonight. Best not watch with the boy/girlfriend.
I think I've only seen three out of the whole list.
"Antichrist, the new movie from fifty-three-year-old Danish bad-boy Lars von Trier, has been called “the most talked-about” new film of the season. Talking about it sure beats watching it. The film premiered at the Cannes Film Festival, where its reception suggested an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000: The International Edition. Von Trier, whose provocations are usually carefully thought out for maximum manipulative effect, reportedly wrote the movie to dig himself out of a crippling depression that had rendered him unable to work, abandoning thoughts of narrative logic and cobbling the script together with images and events largely taken from his dreams. The results definitely put the one about reporting to biology class naked in perspective.
Antichrist opens with married couple Willem Dafoe and Charlotte Gainsbourg having graphically depicted sex, in slow motion and to the accompaniment of an aria from a Handel opera, while their baby does a triple-gainer out the high window. What follows includes the most convincing-looking genital mutilations that you can get on an eleven-million-dollar budget. (Pretty convincing-looking, unfortunately.) Is von Trier right in calling Antichrist the most important film of his career? One thing’s for sure: it might just be the worst date movie ever made. But there are other contenders. If you’re looking to nip a new relationship in the bud, throw a few of these on your Netflix queue."
Or Henry Rollins rants about why he hates the "new dance" shit they put out and try to call music. Great stuff from the Shock and Awe DVD.
Also try to check out his autobiog prose book Get In the Van. He's intermitently obnoxious and elegant but you can't be more brutally honest than this.
After a gap of 1000 years. . .This first issue of WASAK! Stories of Pinoy Transgression and Deliverance features uber wasaq fiction from Carljoe Javier, Jonathan Jimena Siason, and editors Marguerite Alcazaren De Leon and Karl De Mesa. Plus, multi-awarded cult hero and godfather of Pinoy transgressive fiction Norman Wilwayco.
Find out why you are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. Soap up HERE.
WHAT IS TRANSGRESSIVE FICTION? A genre of literature that focuses on characters who feel confined by the norms and expectations of society and who break free of those confines in unusual and/or illicit ways. Because they are rebelling against the basic norms of society, protagonists of transgressive fiction may seen mentally ill, anti-social and/or nihilistic. The genre deals extensively with taboo subject matters such as drugs, sex, violence, incest, pedophilia and crime.
It graphically explores such topics as incest and other aberrant sexual practices, mutilation, the sprouting of sexual organs in various places on the human body, urban violence and violence against women, drug use, and highly dysfunctional family relationships, and that is based on the premise that knowledge is to be found at the edge of experience and that the body is the site for gaining knowledge.
What's amazing, actually, isn't that this was a bad ass storm or that inevitably we'd have one of these, but how flat-footed we were caught considering we've got people (weather experts, duh) monitoring these kinds of things to tell us exactly if, how and what we should prep.
A fighting chance would have been nice. But then again what do you expect from gov't work?
The result? See for yourself. And to think I'd just watched a Greenpeace-sponsored climate change docu. Drives home the point quite fiercely. Damn. Here's a list of donation/relief centers.
At the very least this proves how Pinoys come together in adversity, and the aftermath thereof.
Or how to mutate into a cyber-media personality and take over the world (as prescribed by cyphernauts R.U. Sirius and St. Jude). Dr. Horrible is The Man (insert evil cackle here). Hmmm, or shoudl it be NPH is the man?
augh! the agony of desire : D moore's jazzmaster looks awesome. already used on their new album. see vid below
Thurston Moore + Lee Ranaldo. Jazzmaster guitars slung across seminal shoulders. In the hands of both men, the sound of Sonic Youth is the sound of that guitar used as part paintbrush and part cluster bomb. Introducing the new Thurston Moore Jazzmaster and the Lee Ranaldo Jazzmaster guitars from Fender.More here.
Or Biscochong Halimaw at Bookay Ukay, UP Village. Going nerdcore at our friend Norman Wilwayco's book launch (the award-winning novel Gerilya) last June. Thanx to Iwa and the rest of the Bookay Posse for letting us play.
They're all wasted? Hope not. This was a touch of brightness in a week of heaviness and mourning.This probably took a long time to think about and get down right but the people behind this totally bagged it in the end.
Playing at Astrid's wake in Marikina. Two fifth's of Biscochong Halimaw (me and TJ) sudenly find it extremely difficult to play "City Shuts Down" and a rendition of "So Tonight that I Might See" (Poldo hates covers, see, so we don't do them).
This must be what catharsis by performance feels like. The cobwebs of rage, sorrow and helplessness getting brushed together like so much chaff under a broom directed by the sure, steady hand of ritual. Then released into the firmament with a grand gesture. As grand as you can make it in the awkwardness of grief.
It is harder to play songs you've done dozens of times before to a room full of mourners than a hundred or so geeks or hipsters or artists or scenesters or toy enthusiasts. It is more frightening to think that your friend is watching from on high and shaking her head, going"you better not fuck this up, dude," than worrying if the people in the back row can hear the glockenspiel.
So I try my best and hope that I have not, even if the intensity of it burns like a kettle newly boiled held in bare hands. Beat that, Kwai Chang Cain. The aftermath of two songs felt like the glow and exhaustion of a full set. An exhaustion of the bones. A glow somewhere between the navel and the heart.
TJ: Well, that was heavy. (stunned) ME: But for two songs? (sweating like a pig) TJ: Bawi bawi naman sa pagka-loaded. ME: I see your point.
We are not the most vocal people in the world so we wanted to say goodbye the only way we knew how. This one's for the road, on to the final, unbeheld destination. May the music of the spheres greet you at the gates, saying: you're home.
A moment of silence please for my dear, departed friend. In a lifetime of writing I find myself without any words to convey my sorrow at your loss. Your energy and wisdom will be missed, Astrid. Thanks for everything.
ASTRID TOBIAS (1979 - 2009)
Astrid's "big night" is on Tues (Aug 25) 7PM. Friends and colleagues who would like to give their eulogies are welcome to do so.
Astrid's wake is at the Paket Santiago Memorial Homes in front of Our Layd of the Abandoned Church, San Roque, Marikina. Funeral is on Aug 26/ Weds.
An advert aside from regular TYBS programming. . .
Just wanted to share that JUAN PABLO DREAM is on the cover of the June-July 2009 issue of PULP Magazine. Which means that my friend Lotte V (also the lead singer of Shinjuku Lager Club, Biscochong Halimaw's sister band and our occasional guest vox, also the girl with the short hair in the above pic) is in there with uber-groovy frontman Bing Austria.
Grab a copy from any major bookstore or news seller if only to find out how Pinoy Mod is alive and well. . .or to take a gander at Lotte in fishnets and her co-singer Bianca H in a shapely, short yellow dress. If you haven't seen JPD live then you really should check them out. Bing's splits done in groove are the shiz.
Cheers and much love to our sister Lotte (and her gaddam adorable, bruisingly mighty steel-cased teeth): today, PULP, tomorrow the covah ov ah Rolling Stone! : D
Susan Sontag was I think referring to photographs, specifically to combat photography that came from WW2, when she wrote about the concept of viewing images of pain, taking an almost voyeuristic pleasure in stuff that’s hard to look at. Like, testing yourself against the brutality of a concentration camp photo or the aftermath of storming a beach defended by machine guns and mortar. She said: “There is the satisfaction of being able to look at the image without flinching. There is the pleasure of flinching.”
Last week our VP asked me what, as a horror writer, still gave me the heebie jeebies and subsequently commented that the list must be quite short. To which I nodded that the list was, yes, short but that I was probably more acute to the sensation of fear than your pedestrian in an alley jumping at shadows.
I totally get Ms. Sontag’s concept of pleasure in flinching and not flinching. And this isn’t just because I continually try to expose myself to things that scare me out of my wits (with a 50/50 chance of the flinching or not phenomenon) or give me a sense of awe (no delight the equal of dread, like Clive said) but because afterwards (when I’ve taken stock of how far my balls have shriveled) trying to convey what I’ve seen/felt onto the page without my hand shaking is the best training I can think of to accurately tell the kind of stories I like.
Still, some things are awesomely hard to watch. I haven’t had something come my way that I can well and truly say made me flinch/squirm/writhe in my seat, clutching a pillow and closing an eye now and then to stave off what the heck was happening in front of me, for a long time.
Which is why, I think, in the course of one of our meetings for our book, my graphic novel artist Gani Simpliciano, gave me a file, among a host of other media (comics, movies, e-books) in preparation for our project, of one of the short films under Showtime’s Masters of Horror series.
“Wait,” I said, “I already have that boxed set.”
“Not this one you don’t.”
Turns out the producers took one look at this Japanese short film they’d commissioned and came out of the viewing room with ashen faces. Suffice to say this one didn’t make it to the collectible DVD.
Which brings me to “Imprint.” The concept of “hard to watch” doesn’t even come close to being a reality until you view this piece of pure dread directed by Takashi Miike.
Oh, sure, you say you’ve watched Monica Belucci getting torn a new asshole and bludgeoned a new face for 10 plus mins in Irreversible, or Mel Gibson’s paean to holy blood that is The Passion, or the original Nosferatu, or The Exorcist, or you’ve stared at HR Giger’s paintings for a week, or insert title of Japanese horror flick adapted into major Hollywood motion picture here.
I tell you now these things are mere chaff to the scythe of this hour and 45 minutes monstrosity. They don’t even make half-mark. While some horror films revel in its artsiness and subtle psychological eerienes “Imprint” is the film equivalent of a ground and pound game. Getting hit over the head again and again with a blunt object probably comes closest to the experience. The Shining eat your heart out. Or rather, "Imprint" will eat its heart out and gladly gnaw on the bones.
This one, you see, I remembered for days afterwards. I recalled scenes that I wanted to forget. That I rather I couldn’t recall because they made me uneasy and felt that this mighty ghost of the heebie jeebies had somehow invaded my mind, resistant to my usual aloofness (usually I just do a pantomine of “Oh, yes it’s scary, ooooh, aaaahhh").
I say this because I watched it at 10AM, with the sun high and having just taken breakfast. By the time the horror started I flinched all the way. This thing took me beyond uber-wasak. It is such an unbridled display of power that the mind reels in trauma. I tell you this without drama -- and having watched Urotsuikondoji: My God, Miike is one sick guy.
Thanks a lot, Gani, you filthy beast, you’re an amazing friend, man.
I won’t even sully this entry with a plot summary because it won’t affect your appreciation of it or help you understand it either way. The reality of the story’s situation is simple and easy to grasp and classic, even. “Imprint” definitely makes my short list, in any case. Lemme go find Ichi and Audition.
So go watch it if you find it -- and don’t ask me for a copy. I am NOT giving you one.
Out of the zillions of porn "actors" out there Sasha Grey is a real fave.
If you've seen any of the pornography she's been in then you know she isn't just one of the bottle blonde, silicon chested ditzes but a real performer with how interestingly she pushes deviance in her, um, roles.
Aside from this though her body of work in the arts just totally escalates as she proceeds.
She was 18 when she started in porn and quickly got a reputation for excellence in an industry littered with brain dead actors:
In May 2006 Grey moved to Los Angeles and started her career in adult films just after turning 18.[3] Originally she toyed with the name Anna Karina[3] (the name of Jean-Luc Godard's ex-wife) before deciding on her present name. She has stated the name "Sasha" was taken from Sascha Konietzko of the band KMFDM,[2] and "Grey" represents Oscar Wilde’s novel The Picture of Dorian Gray[6] and the Kinsey scale of sexuality.[2] Her first scene was an orgy with Rocco Siffredi for The Fashionistas 2 by John Stagliano. She "shocked" her fellow performer by requesting to be punched in the stomach during fellatio.
Wow, right?
She's confessed to reading tons of existentialist lit and happily, adroitly talks on the debate of the human condition vis a vis sexuality in press interviews. She does industrial music with ATelecine. She's appeared in The Smashing Pumpkin's "Superchirst" vid.
She also stars in two upcoming releases. One of them is the Canadian indie horror film Smash Cut
. . .And a Steven Soderbergh art-film titled The Girlfriend Experience where she plays a high class prostitute
Why do I mention all this? Likely because I've just gotten the ball rolling on the upcoming graphic novel and have been talking to the artist for hours about how the style should be erotic-grotesque or sexually gory.
My good friends (we share a drummer in JP of Biscochong Halimaw) from the Pinoy post-punk/goth band THE LATE ISABEL are currently on their way to wrapping up their second album Imperial.
One of the songs (and I hear the likely first single) is the song "Isabel, The Damaged," which they tell me is directly inspired by my short story in my first book. It's GTA-dark, driving music for one thing. It's also a nifty and gorgeous transliteration of the story's heart into sonic metaphor, for another.
I think Alan, Wawi, Roval and JP have outdone themselves with it. I can't wait for the video, guys : ) This is great creative serendipity (or is it synchronicity?) considering I wrote the story a year before I met the whole band -- though guitarist Alan and I were journalists in the same newspaper back then, with ex-Funeral Frost' vox Aldelm Feriols, to boot.
But don't take my word for it. Listen to a preview of the song here: http://karlrdemesa.multiply.com/music/item/7/ISABEL_THE_DAMAGED_BY_THE_LATE_ISABEL
Here's an old link to the source story "Isabel, The Damaged": http://42opus.com/v3n1/isabelthedamaged
More on THE LATE ISABEL here: http://www.geocities.com/thelateisabel/
And if you like the story, support the semi-starving author and buy the book at any National Bookstore, outlet, the UP PRESS store at UP Diliman, or order it on-line here: http://www.libros.com.ph/alphabetsrch.asp?letter=d
PS if you can't find the book at National, you can bug my publisher to put more of them in bookstores. Call them here: 925-3244
Noel Salonga, front man of Skabeche, sent me this SMS last April 4 (Sat): “Je Bautista of BETRAYED passed away today at 12:15AM because of his cardiac arrest. . .”
Betrayed was one of the pioneers of Pinoy punk. The passing of sir Je (who once held down the bass for said outfit) is a huge loss to the local music scene. Am honored to have met and interviewed him for a piece on Music Front, anotehr local punk bastion, during one of the handful of their reunion gigs last year. He had vision, fortitude and straightforward kindness as well as a passion for the upliftment of punk as a manifesto for life.
My condolences go out to the Bautista family. RIP, sir, and may you find peace in the great gig in the sky.
* * *
Betrayed early 1980s, orig line-up
BETRAYED
Betrayed was formed in 1980 by three High School friends in Queens N.Y. They were Eddie Siojo (vocals), Dave Vote, and Steve. The name of the group was taken from a lyric from the song "Rough Trade" by Stiff Little Fingers. They recorded 4 songs (which ended up on compilations in the US), before Eddie leaves for the Philippines. . .
More here: http://homepages.nyu.edu/~cch223/philippines/betrayed_main.html
Old skool mosh pit, Music Front 2008
(I was actually at this gig. What a pit that was!)
MUSIC FRONT
THE SOUND OF MUSIC FRONT.The music is dead.Goodbye rock 'n' roll. Goodbye Howlin' Dave. LET'S DANCE. Following the disbandment of the Urban Bandits twenty-odd years ago, Arnold Morales formed Music Front and thus declared "We're not a band, we're modern newscasters." The original lineup of Music Front was made up of ex-Urban Bandit Fur on bass, ex-Zoot Suit on guitars, and ex-Negatives Tini on drums. . .
