Now/here no/where woman

... that I could pile my bike, my dogs, and the Artist-in-Residence into the pickup and just drive into the mountains for a weekend of sleeping under the stars and eating with our hands, our backs leaning against tall pine trees whistling in the wind, the dogs lying contentedly at our feet. But first, I need a pickup truck.

I absolutely love this video of Harlan Ellison ranting about monetary compensation for writers' work!!! I have Cor to thank for finding and sharing this gem! This brings me back to my own thoughts (not half as rabid, but ok, kinda rabid) and dilemmas about writing for free . I have more to say about this. Real soon!

Image credit: Why, Mika Oshima of course! "Some day, I'm going to write stories and my best friend Mika is going to illustrate them." I feel brave enough to say that now that Carlo J. Caparas is National Artist for Visual Art and Film. (Ooh and next time let me tell you about my digital fantasies too.) Comics illustrator Gerry Alanguilan has a very straightforward opinion on why the award is undeserved, here and here . National Artist for Visual Art, Bencab had scathing yet sensible things to say about it too . I've been holding to my comic(s) fantasy for years but I haven't yet written a single story. I'm still saying I'd love to try my hand at short fiction almost everyday, like it's a mantra of some sort. (That is to say, I'm still trying to get over the fear of making the attempt.) But anyway, I'm so happy that Mika is turning her comic(s) dreams into reality. She's churning them out in Dense Valley . Yey, Mika !

In this time of unfettered political disillusionment, it's good to remember that there are people in government like Grace Padaca and the members of her anti illegal logging Task Force. A heroine and heroes of the Sierra Madre forest. This page requires a higher version browser For the latest Philippine news stories and videos, visit GMANews.TV

Image credit: Amazon.com I've always said that Baguio is Where the Wild Things Are. My friends and I, we're all a bunch of monsters out for a good time. Image credit: Amazon.com I grew up loving Maurice Sendak's book , and now I am waiting, waiting, waiting for the movie by Spike Jonze. Watch the trailer here. I wish I had a Max outfit when I was a kid. (And I shouldn't have to tell you that I don't mean the chicken.)

Corneille Ewango is a former poacher who is now an eloquent hero of the Congo forest (even though he says his English is bad).

READING ADVISORY: Rather righteous sounding stuff on the Ngaju Dayak livelihood repertoire and conservationists' limitied view of "alternative livelihood". The parallels and connections drawn between the environmental history of Southeast Borneo and the contemporary livelihood repertoire of the Ngaju of Baun Bango show that the importance and prevalence of various sources of income and sustenance have continually shifted over time. These shifts occurred – and continue to occur – through people’s interactions with physical and temporal aspects of the environment and the decisions they make in the context of these interactions. The relative ease of physical access to both resources and markets leads people to choose less risky enterprises. Decisions on ‘harvesting’ particular resources from the forests and rivers depend on the seasons as well as on the actual means by which these resources can be reached and transported out to buyers. For example, at the time headhunting wa...

Litson Rice Atbp! Featuring Fritson the multilingual pig. Yeeey!

It's after midnight and I've just stepped back inside from having a delicious shot of Laphroaig Quarter Cask at a soothing concert of unseen crickets conducted, it seemed, by a bat that whirred softly back and forth through the trees across the way. The humans I live with are asleep. The dogs are asleep. The cat is asleep. The squatter mice in the ceiling are asleep. It's just me, the crickets, the bats, and now Madeleine Peyroux awake, blurring ever so slowly into tomorrow, our edges fuzzied by the effort of being yesterday. My body is still but my mind is near hysterical, feeling blindly along the walls, looking for an exit that might suddenly open unto Rembrandt's Nightwatch in the Rijksmuseum, or the display of shrunken heads in the Pitt Rivers. Why my mind wants me to be there, I do not know. It's time to put these waking dreams to sleep.