LIKE, SCHMLIKE!

I often turn a jaundiced eye towards social media's various accoutrements -- it's just part of Big Brother, this brother making money offa you, ain't it, viz market intelligence?  Nonetheless, one can also turn certain features around...

Entonces.  When Bino Realuyo wrote his HuffPost article on Fil-Am Writers, I emailed some folks asking them to hit the "Like" button on it.  To show there is interest in Fil-Am lit.  As I speculated on the email, if some publishing folks see that such an article would generate a bunch of Likes, it may make it easier for the next Fil-Am writer pitching a manuscript.  At the time I sent out the email, Bino's article had about 300 Likes.

I woke up this morning to see that the article has over 1,300 Likes.  Very good.  Apparently, yesterday when the article was released, HuffPost first buried it.  Then, as the Likes kept increasing, HuffPost moved the article at one point to be the lead article in their "Books" section with a new headline about the emergence of Fil-Am Literature.  Very Good.

But is 1,300 Likes good enough?  I don't know -- I don't usually pay attention to such things.  So, for a good read, why don't you go on over to this NECESSARY ARTICLE (say Hi to moi handsome dawg Achilles) and then

HIT THE LIKE BUTTON!

cheers!

CARLOS VILLA MEMORIAL

More details forthcoming but venue details available now over HERE.

CARLOS VILLA, R.I.P.

Manong and Tata, it was an HONOR.

R.I.P.

LORY MEDINA, R.I.P.

Sigh. I just learned that poet-artist Lory Medina died unexpectedly of cardiac arrest. She was just 59 years old and (according to a mutual friend) had just been preparing to go back to art school ... This is one of her works, "TemperednVeiled" (part of a 2007 exhibit at Gwang Gallery Seoul which featured her treebark paintings and photographs):



It just goes to show how ... things happen and we really should savor each moment and try to live it in a state of blessedness. That lesson strikes me hard today with this news, in part because Lory is the second Filipino artist I'd promised to write about, but didn't/couldn't until after her/his death (the first artist who never got to read my words about his art was V.C. Igarta).

Laurel Johnson reviewed Lory's poetry book HEADING HOME HERE in Galatea Resurrects. Lory also was inspiring and helpful to me, de facto collaborating with my Commodities: An Autobiography list project.

We never met in person, but I am grateful for your presence, Lory. R.I.P.