New Cebuano music
As early as seven in the morning, during an ordinary workday, the speed of trucks that sends the streets to convulsion and the drowsy pace of pedestrians ambling in their search for good breakfast...
View ArticleThe world of Lorna, a storyteller from Cebu
For someone who spends most of her time with books as a school librarian, Ms. Lorna Eguia was still in awe at the sight of books that lined up the cozy shelves of La Belle Aurore Bookshop along...
View ArticleBest friends (an original short story by Nancy Cudis)
Nadia has always been a silent child, but not really lonely. She almost always went anywhere alone. In high school, the company she kept were polite classmates who are her neighbors. They have no...
View ArticleReading: parental support is advised.
One does not need to do a lot of analysis to figure out that many poor parents in Cebu are too hard up to put food on the table and send their children to school. But there are others who are...
View ArticleTwo verses from “Canto Voice” by Cornelio F. Faigao
For a change, I attempted something I have never done before in this blog: read aloud a couple of verses written by Cornelio Festin Faigao, record my utterly nasal and dry voice on my phone, and...
View ArticleCrazy wicked aunts in a Maranao folktale
Many fairytales in the West present stepmothers as evil. They are tall, with arched eyebrows and tightly clipped hairstyles; and they are, if I may say so, exceptionally fashionable. At least, that is...
View ArticleFilling a child's world with stories
Let me tell you a story, a heart-warming one about how stories can be good company to a lonely child, the magic of friendship, and how a friend’s energetic retelling of memories as fairy tales can...
View ArticleThe concept of a library (and a giveaway)
A public seminar about libraries and book reviewing in Cebu is a rare gem, something I don’t get to hear often. So when Tarie Sabido of Asia in the Heart, World on the Mind, one of my favorite...
View ArticleBook Beginnings: The Calder Game by Blue Balliett
This is my first time to join #BookBeginnings hosted by Gillion of Rose City Reader and my renewed attempt to join a meme. When I started reading The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey and began...
View ArticleThe aswang phenomenon
Oh, the old valuable books our libraries publicly make available but hardly borrowed! This was my first thought when I came across—and borrowed—The Aswang Syncrasy in Philippine Folklore, a 1971...
View ArticleWallowing in peril
Joining in the annual reading challenge, Readers Imbibing Peril (RIP), is a decision made naturally (perhaps inevitably) after a couple of blog posts that tackle peril, without me consciously aware of...
View ArticleThe Filipino Cinderella
Cinderella is not really a personal favorite fairytale, what with Cinderella being physically and emotionally persecuted, bad sisters basking in the joy of making other people miserable, and the...
View ArticleThe Aswang Phenomenon: Collected Stories
This post is a sequel to the entry I made on an old paper byMaximo D. Ramos. Did I mention how his paper published into a book by the Philippine Folklore Society in 1971 became my first non-fiction...
View ArticleA celebration of books and anything bookish
What is the best way to celebrate books? Read them, of course. Better yet, share what you have read with others, and encourage others to read, if not with you then on their own. These endeavors have...
View ArticleAnother humbling, inspiring experience
The moment was tense. With heart fluttering, I crossed my legs, smiled at anybody and everybody without really seeing, as the names of the nominees of the Blogger of the Year for the Globe Cebu Media...
View ArticleGaisano Country Mall 20th Anniversary Run
Gaisano Country Mall is a place of many good memories. In its early years, it was where my family went to buy goods for our sari-sari store because of its near location and convenient parking space....
View ArticleWhat was Cebu City like in 1970?
What was Cebu City like in 1970? I was born sometime between 1980 and 1985, so I wouldn’t know the answer to the question. But a thin 1970 book report prepared and edited by Concepcion G. Briones and...
View ArticleA new journey and a story
Yesterday was the official end of my corporate employment. Today, I embrace my state of joblessness. This very minute, like every minute for the past 30 days, I look forward to the good things that I...
View ArticleThe scene of the earthquake
It takes a strong earthquake to distract an excited blogger like me from writing a series of blog posts I have planned to do here. Distraction is putting it mildly, actually. When a 7.2 magnitude...
View ArticleMaking my first syllabus for college
In the Philippines, classes in the tertiary level ended last week. It’s another semester off the back of the teachers. For many schools, a new semester will start a couple of days after All Souls’...
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