Unfortunately, the list of books I've read for the past months (since the start of the year) was also in the laptop and I can't remember them anymore.

But here's an interesting statistic I culled from my reading list which also included a list of my purchases: in the past months (January - June), I had an average of 7-8 books read per month. However, with the exception for the month of June, I had bought an average of 13 books a month. This, of course, is a mixture of books bought from regular bookstores but mainly from secondhand bookstores.

For the month of June I imposed a book-buying moratorium so I had zero purchases. How's that for emotional quotient, eh?

All my stories, for one thing. Oh, I know, I have some backups here and there. But I was living primarily on my laptop for the last three months. And for the last six of those, all my backups were in my flash drive-- which was also in the laptop bag.

There were also work files from my previous jobs, music files, pictures, lists, notes, this-and-that-- really, my whole life for three months were in that laptop. It's hard to characterize the loss itself: one can give a price tag for the actual item stolen but how do you give value to what you've created? You can try to re-create them again but that initial spark, that fire that set the idea burning and blossoming into a possible story-- all of the bits and pieces that held those sparks were lost.

Sometimes I feel like I'm haunted: I would remember something and then stop and say, "Ah, that was also what was lost." But as a good friend says, what can we do? We live in an unfair and unjust world. There is no such thing as magic in the real world, except in what we create and pour into it.

Maybe this should teach me to rely too much on the wonders of technology. Maybe this is a kind of a virtual clean slate, a very expensive crumpling-of-paper-and-throwing-it-into-the wastebasket way of doing your stories right. A kind of starting all over again. We reach for any kind of reason when reason is not enough, after all.

At the end, I reached finally for humor: last Sunday while we were driving home, I started singing Air Supply's All Out of Love to the consternation of [identity-protected]. I had no reason why and I didn't really care to explain. I just felt like doing it.



When in doubt about life, reach for absurdity...

Hear ye, hear ye.

After much deliberation, dean and I have finally decided which stories will be accepted in The Farthest Shore anthology. These are:

1. Balancing Darkness- Rodello Santos
2. Hindsight- Paolo Chikiamco
3. Rite of Passage- Dominique Cimafranca
4. The Just World of Helena Jimenez - Eliza Victoria
5. Spelling Normal- Mia Tijam
6. Emberwilde - Nikki Alfar
7. Light - Kate Aton-Osias
8. They Spoke of Her in Whispers - Bessie Lasala
9. In the Arms of Beishu - Vincent Simbulan
10. Wildwater- Crystal Koo

The 11th and 12th story will be a contribution from both co-editors to anchor the anthology. Go forth and disseminate.

Update: As dean mentioned, we're hoping for an August release in the Internet wilds. I'm planning to make this the first of a series of PDF books which you can also read online. Will explain this later.

Here's the actual TOC of the anthology with the finalized story titles:

1. Strange Weather - Dean Francis Alfar
2. Queen Liwana's Gambit - Rodello Santos
3. Emberwild - Nikki Alfar
4. The Just World of Helena Jimenez - Eliza Victoria
5. Wildwater - Crystal Koo
6. Rite of Passage - Dominique Cimafranca
7. Light - Kate Aton-Osias
8. Spelling Normal - Mia Tijam
9. They Spoke of Her in Whispers - Bessie Lasala
10. The Siege of Silence - Paolo Chikiamco
11. In the Arms of Beishu - Vincent Michael Simbulan
12. Brothers-in-Arms - Joseph Nacino

There will be an introduction by yours truly and an afterword by dean with eight original stories, two reprints and two stories from dean and myself.

Fuck.

Someone stole my laptop early Friday morning. All my stories I've been working on, all my music, all my work files, all my life for almost two years-- all gone.

I never gave my laptop a name like some other owners did. But it's only now I realized why: I didn't own my laptop, it was a part of me-- like a hand or a foot.

And now that it's gone, I feel like an amputee.

Fuck.

Interesting enough, I'm currently going a book moratorium for the month of June. Four more days to go and that's one whole month of no books for the cat, whether new or used.

On the other hand, my reading pace is constant and I've already gone through 7 or 8 books for this month. That's my average per month if I have the time.

As part of some freelance work, I went to the Cultural Center of the Philippines last week to do a profile on Art Valdez, the guy who led the Philippine team that conquered Mount Everest.

Currently, he's about to launch a balangay to sail around the Philippines and then around the world. I was sorely impressed with what the man's been doing: first climb Mount Everest and then sail around the world in a pre-Hispanic boat. What next, the moon? I tremble to look at his checklist of things-to-do.

After the interview, I took a few pictures of the balangay with my cell phone camera. Unfortunately, it's a bit low-tech so pardon the crappy resolution:



Here's a shot of the length of the balangay. Unfortunately, they were setting up a pictorial beside it so don't mind the mess. Right beside it is a Mitsubishi pick-up so you can guess how long the boat is in comparison.



Here's a closer look of the prow of the balangay.



Another view of the bottom of the balangay. See how streamlined it is so it can cut through water swiftly? Mr. Valdez called the balangay the Viking longships of Southeast Asia. I can see why.



The design of the current balangay is based on the historical balangays, which used to house 50-60 people. Fortunately, Mr. Valdez and crew will sail with 10-20 people so it won't be too much of a tight fit when they do. (Sorry about the picture, the light-meter on my phone was on 'bright'.)



To stay true to the design of the balangay, they didn't use nails but rather wooden pegs.



For sealant, they used sap (pictured above, hardened like a rock) that they cooked until they melted. Then they applied it to the bottom of the balangay.



See how tight the sealant is? No cracks here, ma.



This last picture is a small launch they're planning to bring along with them on their trip. They haven't installed the outriggers yet at the time.

There are a few times when I really enjoy doing freelance work and this is one of them. Talk about inspiring... (For those who want to check it out, the launch is on 10 a.m., June 27 so be there before then.)

Essayists Carljoe Javier and Vlad Gonzales are having a joint book launch tonight at Mag:net Katipunan around 7:30 PM. Their books are And the Geek Shall Inherit the Earth (for Carl) and A-Side/B-Side (for Vlad). Be there or be... er, geek.


(Poster taken from chingbee)

Likewise, there's the poetry reading for Happy Mondays LV with live bands playing after. Enjoy Monday night like there won't be work tomorrow.

And just in case you've missed the news, Neil Gaiman is dating Amanda Palmer of Dresden Dolls. Yes, I'm a gossipy ole' cat. Still, they look cute together-- which is invariably what happens when you get two people who rock as a couple.

Given all the concerns raised by the Con-Ass and the Cha-cha in local politics, I came upon this speech in Rafael Sabatini's swashbuckling adventure novel Scaramouche which I thought was quite pertinent.

In the events leading up to the French Revolution, protagonist André-Louis Moreau addresses the crowd at the city of Nantes on the despicable actions of the nobility. The entire speech can be seen here:

"My name is Omnes Omnibus-- all for all. Let that suffice now. I am a herald, a mouth-piece, a voice; no more. I come to announce to you that since the privileged orders, assembled for the States of Britanny in Rennes, resisted your will-- our will-- despite the King's plain hint to them, His Majesty has disolved the States.

...Unfortunately, the nobles, in their insolent arrogance, have elected to ignore the royal dissolution, and in despite of it persist in sitting and in conducting matters as seems good to them.

So that these men who were already rebels against the people, rebels against justice and equity, rebels against humanity itself, are now also rebels against their King. Sooner than yield an inch of the unconscionable privileges by which too long already they have flourished, to the misery of a whole nation, they will make a mock of royal authority, hold up the King himself to contempt. They are determined to prove that there is no real sovereignty in France but the sovereignty of their own parasitic fainéantise.

This is no new thing. Always has it been the same. No minister in the last ten years, who seeing the needs and perils of the State, counseled the measures that we now demand as the only means arresting our motherland in its ever-quickening progress to the abyss, but found himself as a consequence cast out of office by the influence which Privilege brought to bear against him...

But what the privileged orders can no longer prevent, they are determined to stultify. Since it is now a settled thing that these States General are to meet, at least the nobles and the clergy will see to it-- unless we take measures to prevent them-- by packing the Third Estate with their own creatures, and denying it all effective representation, that they convert the States General into an instrument of their own will for the perpetuation of the abuses by which they live. To achieve this end they will stop at nothing. They have flouted the authority of the King, and they are silencing by assassination those who raise their voices to condemn. Yesterday in Rennes two young men who addressed the people as I am addressing you were done to death in the streets by assassins at the instigation of the nobility. Their blood cries out for vengeance.

Citizens of Nantes, the motherland is in peril. Let us march to her defense. Let us proclaim it to the world that we recognize that the measures to liberate the Third Estate form the slavery in which for centuries it has groaned find only obstacles in those orders whose phrenetic egotism sees in tears and suffering of the unfortunate an odious tribute which they would pass on to their generations still unborn. Realizing from the barbarity of the means employed by our enemies to perpetuate our oppression that we have everything to fear from the aristocracy they would set up as a constitutional principle for the governing of France, let us declare ourselves at once enfranchised from it.

The establishment of liberty and equality should be the aim of every citizen member of the Third Estate; and to this end we should stand indivisibly united, especially the young and vigorous, especially those who have had the good fortune to be born late enough to be able to gather for themselves the precious fruits of the philosophy of this eighteenth century.

Let us swear to raise up in the name of humanity and of liberty a rampart against our enemies, to oppose their bloodthirsty covetousness the calm perseverance of men whose cause is just. And let us protest here and in advance against any tyrannical decrees that should declare us seditious when we have none but pure and just intentions. Let us make oath upon the honor of our motherland that should any of us be seized by an unjust tribunal, intending against us one of those acts termed of political expediency-- which are, in effect, but acts of despotism, let us swear, i say, to give a full expression to the strength that is in us and do that in self-defense which nature, courage and despair dictate to us."

For more notes on the story's background, see: French Parlement and a chronology of The French Revolution vis-a-vis classic literature. And who says fiction doesn't have anything to say about reality, hmmm?