The Kobayashi Maru of Love Book Cover

Here’s the cover for The Kobayashi Maru of Love, designed by Adam David, who is also doing the book’s overall design. Geek love at its finest.

I plan to launch on my birthday, but it seems that other things have cropped up, so I’m setting the launch date to Sept 6. Please come!

Notes on The Future of the Book

Despite the rather pretentious title to this blog entry, this will not be a long and studied essay (though, well, I will eventually write a paper along these lines).

I’ve been invited to present a paper at The Future of the Book: Changing the Landscape of Philippine Book Publishing. I will be talking at the discussion on “Essentials of digital books from the consumers’ POV” and I copy the abstract verbatim: “Voracious readers will present what the consumer wants in terms of point of sale experience, actual content, and post-sale interaction.”

Arcade Fire’s Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountain)

Arcade Fire’s new album, The Suburbs has a great mix of different styles of music, that familiar way that Arcade Fire has of building up into massive movements, and the ever-intelligent lyricism.

The standout for me has been “Sprawl II (Mountains Beyond Mountains).” Though it could be argued whether this is the album’s best track, it’s very clear that its placement, and how it comes into the album, is perfect. After an album of a range of emotions, the sad and happy, the lonely and bright, and after the dirge-like “Sprawl I (Flatland)” that precedes it, “Sprawl II” breaks through the whole thing, punching this massive light into the depths. It operates, effectively, as a crescendo. Though there is a track that follows it, that track serves almost like a score, that denouement to the climax of “Sprawl II.”

The End and the Beginning

As I begin this entry, I am publishing the remaining articles for Metakritiko which, when August 16th hits, will go on a hiatus of sorts. There’s some restructuring going on, and suffice to say that the page, and most of the site, will be working in a more limited capacity.

Hence this blog. It will serve as the venue for most of the stuff that I had hoped to write for Metakritiko, and for all the other reviews, ideas, musings, etc. which can no longer be accommodated by that site. Alright, so the discourse continues!