Oasis, Gone Girl, and Small Mercies

I bought a Kindle Oasis from Amazon because it was on sale. As far as I know, Amazon has discontinued making Oasis. That almost always thrills me—the collection of things that will soon disappear. Like typewriters. 

Kindles are wonderful devices. I've had my Kindle Paperwhite for seven years; it works just as well as when it had first arrived. But I was curious about the Oasis. I like real buttons to click when I turn pages. The physicality of reading gives me pleasure, like the turning of the pages, or the smell of books, both old and new.

How does Oasis compare with Paperwhite? The Oasis offers a more premium reading experience—warm light, better screen, and the buttons you can actually click. Then there's the ergonomic design: the uneven surface at the back that juts out for your hand to grab. It feels like reading an actual book. But the battery life is lousy. As someone who reads for hours each day, the Oasis gets drained after three days. I do not relish the ritual of charging my devices. In comparison, I can use the Paperwhite for weeks without ever charging it. I like that its back is in plastic, which feels more comfortable to my hand (I have bouts of hyperhidrosis), compared to the Oasis' aluminum surface. 

In the end, I'd very much prefer the Paperwhite. I do not regret buying the Oasis. It is still a wonderful device. It would have been much, much better if it had a longer battery life.

Now that the review of the Kindles are done, let me tell you about the two books I've read in my Oasis. 

Gone Girl by Gillian Flynn, which was an absolute delight. 

And Small Mercies by Dennis Lahane, which was the kind of fast-paced book that felt like watching a film.

Lolo inside a Seoul café

I saw him napping and browsing his phone.

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS: The Fifth La Salle National Creative Non-Fiction Writers’ Workshop for Health Care Professionals & Medical Interns . Deadline: September 30, 2024

The previous La Salle National Creative Nonfiction Writers’ Workshop for Doctors has been re-designed as a hybrid two-part workshop. It is also now open to writers among Health Care Professionals (Physicians, Nurses, and allied Medical Professionals) and Medical Interns. The workshop is focused on Creative Nonfiction narratives (in prose or poetry), based on personally experienced or witnessed true-to-life stories, which are well-told using fictional techniques.

Applications for the 10 competitive national workshop fellowships is now open for the 5th La Salle National Creative Nonfiction Writers’ Workshop for Health Care Professionals and Medical Interns. The deadline for submission of applications is on September 30, 2024.

This Workshop is part of the BNSCWC’s efforts to boost collaborations and critical-creative exchanges between scientists and artists; to train health care professionals in the art of life-writing; and to give value to the stories written by health care professionals in caring for our people and in building the nation.

The hybrid workshop shall consist of eight synchronous sessions on Wednesday and Thursday evenings (6:00 p.m.-9:00 p.m. via Zoom) across four weeks. Part I, from October 30-31, 2024 will consist of lecture-discussions on the Art of Writing and Close-Reading Creative Nonfiction. Part II, from Nov. 20-Nov. 28, will consist of workshop discussions on the fellows’ submitted creative work. The culminating program on Nov. 29, 2024 will be held onsite at De La Salle University. 

Marjorie M. Evasco, DLSU’s Writer-in-Residence and Professor Emeritus of Literature, is the workshop director. She will be joined by Drs. Joey A. Tabula and Lance Isidore Catedral as panelists.

Submit the application portfolio here: https://bit.ly/5thLasalleNationalCNFWorkshop2024.

Dew

The walk

Because I'm the one left at home—everyone else is abroad or doing something—I trick Paul to come near me, and I tie his leash, first on his neck, with another hoop around his upper body, for good measure. He is strong and forgets he has a human to obey when he's out of the gate. He goes straight to the dirt road on the other street. He immediately chews on wild grass, and bows his head to smell whatever it is that dogs smell, raising his hind legs to pee to mark his territory. With my earphones on I listen to podcasts and greet passersby, occasionally speaking to Paul like I would to a child. The children adore Paul and pat him. Paul enjoys the attention. At the end of the road, the big black dog Victor growls at him. He was once Paul's best friend and now, for reasons unknown to everyone in the neighborhood, has become the fiercest enemy. I drag Paul away from the street and head over to ours—the quieter row of houses—and Paul realizes that he is getting older and more mature, and the bowl of fresh water is better than another round of walking.

Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower and Jamil Jan Kochai's the Haunting of Hajji Kotak

A great year for reading so far. 

Jamil Jan Kochai's The Haunting of Hajji Kotak and Other Stories was a treat. It's a powerful but tender writing about men and women in Afghanistan. He's brilliant.
 

After church, I finished Octavia E. Butler's Parable of the Sower. A young lady organizes a community built along her theology called Earthseed. The novel is set in a dystopic United States. Now I need to read something lighter. What do you recommend?

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As you may have noticed, I'm having fun with Hipstamatic. The photos, filtered and made to look like they were taken by an analog camera, remind me of the good old days of the internet, when everything seemed safe and everyone had a quiet space in the web. 

Cats and dogs

Lovely covers from The New Yorker.

Caloy wins gold!

Carlos Yulo, winning the Olympic gold:

“We are a really small country and the portion of athletes is not the same as the US or UK, so to be able to get a gold medal is really big for us,” he said after. “I dedicate this to the Filipinos who supported me. I’m really grateful to them. I want to say thank you for watching and praying for me throughout the competition.”

And just beautiful journalism from the Philippine Daily Inquirer:

PARIS, France — Twice, Carlos Yulo let out a roar during the floor exercise finals of men’s gymnastics in the Paris Olympics. 

The first came after he stuck a cold landing to cap his routine, a primal yell that let the world know he had done exactly what he had come to do late Saturday evening (Manila time)—produce an almost perfect run that would be the standard to beat for the title.

The second came when the judges agreed with him.

The wait that came after was tense, but it seemed only to prolong a forgone conclusion: Filipino greatness was on the global stage once again.

In this country where good news is hard to come by, this is refreshing news.

Pens

Norman Maclean

So far, so good. That much I can say about 2024 as a year for reading. 

I finished Norman Maclean's story, "A River Runs Through It," this morning. He wrote it when he was in his seventies. I learned about Norman through Kathryn Schulz's piece in The New Yorker. 

. . . You can’t capture Maclean’s brilliance just by quoting him. Much of what he did best was architectural, and the strength of his writing often comes from the soundness of his structures, large and small. A beguiling setup leads to a punch line, or to a gut punch; the oomph of a sentence derives from how perfectly it caps or how swiftly it topples the ones that came before. My copies of his books are filled with underlinings that sometimes run for pages on end before terminating in an exclamation point.

Rambutan

Before they're ready for picking.