Mandatory Post-Iyas Workshop Blog Entry a.k.a. Hi. My name is Marguerite, and I am an alcoholic. (Hi, Marguerite.)
Tuesday, April 29, 2008
Carlo, Mitch, En and me outside Balay Kalinungan pre-panel. More (and far more incriminating) snapshots at Carlo’s Multiply here and here. Feigning sobriety is an art like any other.
As with any attempt to write a mandatory post-workshop blog entry three days after the fact, it’s hard to put anything down without sounding giddy or vague, bogged down as you are with many fresh, express memories and a body on major alcohol withdrawal. So the best I can say is that I had a very good week. I had great co-fellows (special shout out to Ida, Carlo, En, Charles and Mitch), great panelists, and a great over-all environment. I learned much, be it during the actual panel or during our nightly load* sessions at Balay Kalinungan’s dining hall, and I will always be grateful for every conversation, inebriated or otherwise.
Damn, that was fun. Yeehaw.
*The term “load” was our batch’s term for booze, since we didn’t want the authorities to wonder too much about our frequent trips to the alkie store a few blocks away. It has since spawned an entire definitive (and surprisingly coherent) lexicon of cellphone-related code words, which Mitch has so graciously posted here. We are creative, and we are desperate.
posted by marguerite @ 12:26 PM
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Plop
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Warning: Major cheese ahead. Hold your breath.
Despite the number of times I’ve typed the word “doody” down on this blog, or posted about events that suggest a day to day existence of utter arbitrariness, I am one of those people who really and truly believe that things happen because they need to happen. Not because you want to or even deserve to (asa ka pa), but because you need to, because whatever force it is that’s greater than us just wants you to make better sense of who and why the hell you are. (I obviously can’t write self-help. I’m sorry.) Opportunities plop down from the sky all the time, and whether or not you end up their target is, I think, not as erratic a matter as it would seem. Things both shitty and glorious happen because they will be good for you in the end.
So what the fuck am I referring to that’s taking up a whole, ham-fisted paragraph even though common decency says it shouldn’t?
I just got word that I’m going to Dumaguete, too. And I am so fucking pumped and so fucking scared and so going to pass out now.
Bakasyon grande, ika nga ni Kael. But far beyond that, this will help me get my shit together a little better. Will help clear my head and calm me down and dump me back in Manila not only as someone with a more lucid disposition towards writing, but as a more functional Human Bean.
When I found out that I got in, I couldn’t even squeal out or do a little happy dance or anything like that. I just stared at my computer screen and pondered over how I was going to get through the next few days without bursting into flame. The security guard in front of me was probably wondering why my face was twitching the way it did, with equal parts joy and pure, helpmehelpmehelpme alarm.
If I was stoked before, then I am way, way, way stoked now. That’s the only thing I can say for certain and boy, I sure do like it that way yeehaw.
Now lemme at ‘em grits.
posted by marguerite @ 9:21 PM
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1Two3
Sunday, April 13, 2008
[1]
It’s April 13 again! Today marks the 13th Annual Margie Celebrates Oasis Day! The 13th on the 13th! Yaaaaaay! Yaaaaaaay! Happy Oasis Daaaaaay!
For a backgrounder, check out last year’s little expository post. (Really, there’s only so many ways I can narrate the moment I became Mad for It, so that shoddy old primer should suffice.)
If you’re an Oasis fan in any way, give your favorite album a spin on this very special (albeit manufactured by a queasy, whiny 9-year-old more than a decade ago) day and try to forget that the band’s more recent fare pretty much sucks. Or if you’re as mad for it as I am, then do the whole discography along with me. On this day of days, through the good (Definitely Maybe) and the bad (Heathen Chemistry whatthehellwasthatiknowright), we shall drown in our respective bedrooms together.
[2]
I never would’ve thought that I’d do erotica in my lifetime, being that I have the compassion and maturity of an adolescent male, but:
In the next week or so, FHM Philippines will release their first-ever erotica anthology in bookstores and rag stands throughout the metro. What makes this collection extra-tasty is that each writer was delegated a particular genre. A nifty sex story sampler, if you will. The round-up is as follows: Carljoe Javier for sci-fi, Karl de Mesa for horror, Anna Sanchez for mainstream erotica, Norman Wilwayco for transgressive fic in Filipino, me for transgressive fic in English, Joey Nacino for fantasy, and Lourd de Veyra and Ramil Digal Gulle for poetry. Go grab a copy, you sick fucks.
[3]
And for this post’s last woohoo:
I’m off to Bacolod next week for the Iyas Writers Workshop!
And Mister Earnest Mitch too, so we’ll be co-fellows for the third time in a row. Pretty cool.
I am so stoked I could pee. Yeheeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeey. :)
posted by marguerite @ 12:02 AM
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Y’All Simmer Down Now
Sunday, April 06, 2008
Things I Learned from This Good N’ Random Weekend (Fudge Mag Workshop + Band Practice + Nice Ol’ Night of Debauchery):
+ Tenacious D: The Pick of Destiny RULES.
+ Trix, the baby amp Karl got for the band, is a downright purdy piece of equipment, gademmet.
+ With the right company, the 90’s is still alive and well.
+ It is common knowledge that each person is blessed with a special yet stereotypical ability when drunk, be it the knack to get laid, speak in an impeccable Irish brogue, etc., yet I hadn’t really settled on my own faculty until last night. Thus, I hereby herewith heretofore declare that my official stereotypical drunken mutant superpower is the ability to get free beer from strangers.
+ In order to hold one’s own against pervert beer benefactors who just happen to be musicians from Hyderabad, grill them about their faith. They will stop talking to you in (give or take) 15 minutes, or when it dawns on them that they’ve been way too bullshitty even for people who try to ply random girls with booze.
+ I think I get Sikhism now.
+ I lie down on the sidewalk more often than I thought.
+ This will be fun.
+ I’m going to be okay.
+ No. You know what? Screw it. I am.
posted by marguerite @ 1:15 PM
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Post
Wednesday, April 02, 2008
The more recent batch of musical genres makes use of the word “post.” Post-punk, post-grunge, post-pop, post-hardcore, and my personal favorite due to its utterly apocalyptic flavor, post-rock. (Post-rock. Post-rock! How cool does that sound?! Right? Right?! It’s so freaking tasteh!) But it makes me wonder about the next round of genres in the coming decades. What comes after something that’s come after everything? I know that how a song is tagged doesn’t matter a smidge, just as long as it gets you off, but it’s something nice and pointless to ponder over on a sticky summer night such as this.
The floor for pretense is hereby* open.
*And that’s another pointless puzzler right there! Hereby. Herewith. Heretofore. Curse these disposable terms! The AD in the design agency I worked for last year (a.k.a. Blip No. 1 on my stunning job track record…seriously, I didn’t think I’d end up such a fucking vagrant job-wise, though I would like to think I’m finally getting my act together after a year’s worth of occupational misfires, I swear, I swear I am, but I digress) used these throwaways at every conceivable opportunity, though it didn’t make her any more classy than her closet of gauzy, rhinestone-studded blouses would so desperately like you to believe.
posted by marguerite @ 9:49 PM
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