JessicaRulestheUniverse.com

Wait, weren’t you supposed to do your first workshop for the year at Ayala Museum on Thursday?

It’s been cancelled.

I got an email at 8am saying, “Due to low turnout of participants, we have to cancel the workshop for Movie Reviews.”

Oh, really? The day after my second announcement appeared in the Philippine Star? With four days to go, when historically participants wait until the very last minute to register and pay the fee? The first workshop of the year, without which the series straggles along like a headless corpse?

“We will push further with the rest of the workshops,” the email went on to say, whatever that means.

What for? Just cancel the entire series for the year.

Then I had a brainwave: I’m going to do workshops and organize them myself. And since I’m free on Thursday anyway, I’m going to give a FREE WORKSHOP, how about that? Yes, the first taste is free. I think I’ll call my workshop You Do Not Cancel My Motherfucking Workshop. Naah, I’ll call it THE CRAFT AND PRACTICE OF WRITING. For anyone who has ever contemplated the writing life.

Thursday, 18 February, 1830 at the office of BBDO-Guerrero, Frabelle Building (the one with Wildflour on the ground floor), Rada Street (up the street from Union Church), Legazpi Village, Makati.

You need to register by posting a comment here, or sending an email to saffron.safin@gmail.com. Quick, quick, quick, I need to know how many people will turn up.

The more I think about it, the more I like this idea. Why do people piss me off? Don’t they know I live for conflict? Oh right, I’ve been quiet and polite for a long time. Screw that. I’m taking the swords out of the lockbox. See you on Thursday. Tell your friends. Tell everybody. Tweet and repost this.

Update: Here’s our low turnout count as of 1100 of Thursday the 18th.

Registered on Comments section: brewhuh23, Momelia, balqis, santi01 + 1, cookie, Jules, unlimitedgrubgrabs (If you are a spammer, your ass is dead), leiastrud, themark, Leoj, paulaxgianna + 1, tsitai + 1, Ronigurl, kittyb73, gerezimdelapena, Angus, egfallorina, jichuacuco.

Overseas, will attend via video link: spooky, primavera579, alpha12, toyomansi, Cacs, Miray, traceea. To avoid bandwidth issues we are no longer accepting participants via Skype. The address will be emailed to you.

Registered by email: Christian, Carla, Glaiza, Florence + 1, Pb + 1, Murshamir, Erlyn, Dylan, Kate, Fidel, Shala, Jove, Niccolo, Mikhaela, Judith, Irish, Nelson, Kate, Leonora, Johanna, Joanne, Wenz, Dolarica, Marvin, Ancel, Jessica, Joyce, Roch, Rizza, Glaiza Mae, Lucille, Fatima, Roxanne, Albert, Tim, Jeffrey + 1, L.A., Gielizza, John Paul, Anna, Aldrin, David, Grace Anne, Antoniette, Martika, Joe, Anna, Dan, Nissa, Jenica, Rizza, Polly, Chuckie, Marisol, John Michael, Hanniel, Monique, Patricia, Mikaela, Nora, Melissa, Pia, Cherry, Barbie, Bianca, Jhantzen, Angelico, Phia + 1, Jayne, Roselle, Maika, Amy, Janina, Patricia, Kalel, Zoe, Pia, Jannah, Mary Grace, Katherine, Camille, Lynn, Rosette, Chuck, Denison, Hans, Jerome, Agel, Bong, Paula, Michaelo, Christine, Patricia, Janus, Jamaica, Mafe, Jannica, Elai, Lei, Dinnah, Kate, Sharmaine, Mikee, Kim, Emman, Aldrine, Mari, Chenie, Romina, Jules, Christine Ingrid, Lyka, Chrixy, Rosette, Ronalyn, Zonel, Franco, Joy, Tami, Sandino, Aytch, Judy.

15 from BBDO Guerrero
2 from Campaigns & Grey

We are no longer accepting participants, so stop grovelling. We expect that not everyone who registered will show up. If you registered, you had better make sure you appear or you will be barred from any future workshops. You think I’m kidding? This is serious shit.

The venue is

7th floor, WSI (Wordtext Systems) Corporate Center
1005 Metropolitan Avenue (beside Ecoville, near the Makati Fire Station)
Makati 1205

This is a map to WSI.

Ask me again where the venue is and YOU’RE OUT OF HERE.

Do not ask me when the next free workshop is. WHAT ARE YOU, CHEAP?

Participants, “Be there by 630” means “BE THERE BEFORE 630.” Of course there’s traffic. DEAL WITH IT.

Do not be late. THE GATES CLOSE AT 630.

And if you have to ask if you can take selfies with me, YOU HAVE NEVER READ MY WORK, GET OUT.

If any of this causes you distress, forget about writing altogether because YOU DO NOT HAVE THE SPINE TO BE A WRITER.

Screenwriter, fictionist, filmmaker and photographer Rosauro Quevedo Dela Cruz died of liver failure this morning at 0530.

(He did not drink. We know this for a fact because he was the most unpretentious foodie, and if wine came with the meal, we drank his portion as well. He had diabetes for many years, and the medication he was taking gave him fatty liver which eventually became cirrhosis.)

He is survived by his wife Anna and his children Tata, Toto and Dodong. And many, many cats.

Friends who wish to see him one last time can come to Santuario de San Jose in Greenhills. Take the Connecticut gate.

The funeral is on Sunday, 7 February, 3 pm at Manila Memorial Park in Sucat.

He should’ve gone to Paris.

Jessica Zafra’s Writing Boot Camp is a series of workshops held every quarter at the Ayala Museum. The first workshop, How To Write Movie Reviews, will be held on February 18 and 25 from 6.30 to 8.30pm. It consists of discussions, brief screenings, and quick writing exercises. Reading assignments and the viewing assignment (one movie, a fun one) are given out upon registration. Coffee and snacks are served throughout the sessions. Writing materials are provided. There is one 750-word writing assignment, to be completed on your own time, which should take two hours or less. The fee is Php5,500.

Register now by emailing education@ayalamuseum.org, calling (02) 759 8288, visiting the Ayala Museum Facebook page or inquiring at the museum front desk.

Drogon ponders the idea for a play that he will dictate to his human.

The VIRGIN LABFEST YEAR 12 is now open for script submissions! The Virgin Labfest is an annual festival of unpublished, unstaged, untried and untested works for the theater held at the Cultural Center of the Philippines. This festival is a partnership project of the Writer’s Bloc, Inc., Tanghalang Pilipino, Inc. and the Cultural Center of the Philippines.

This year, the Virgin Labfest will choose twelve (12) new one-act plays.

The Virgin Labfest accepts submissions of qualified written works:

1. one-act plays or short plays with a maximum running time of 40 minutes

2. All submitted works must NOT have previously been
– published in book form;
– staged commercially for more than two (2) performances (staged readings, one-time workshop productions are allowed);
– awarded any literary or drama recognition in competitions and the like

3. works may be in Filipino, English, Cebuano, Hiligaynon or Ilocano. (Cebuano, Hiligaynon and Ilocano works must have accompanying Filipino translations.)

The festival is open to various themes and genres.

Submission Deadline is on FEBRUARY 29, 2016

Submissions may be sent online:
1) in .doc or .pdf FORMAT ONLY to the following e-addresses:
rodyvera@gmail.com and/or nikkigtorres@gmail.com
OR

2) hand-delivered or mailed (two hard copies) to CLOTILDE LUCERO or NIKKI TORRES, Performing Arts Department, Upper Basement, Cultural Center of the Philippines, Roxas Boulevard, Pasay City

Mailed deliveries should be postmarked on or before the submission deadline date (February 29, 2016), Submissions should indicate full name and contact address of the playwright.

We hope to hear from you!

Congratulations to our friends Dennis Lustico and Noel Orosa, creators of On The Go! Their project for Campaigns & Grey has won a global award for excellence in public relations.

* * * * *

Introducing On-The-Go, the cargo pants with a secret, created by Dennis Lustico, Mon Pineda, James Reyes and Noel Orosa.

The feature at InterAksyon is no longer available, but you can read our article from 2015 at BusinessWorld.

On-The-Go retails at PHP 800.00 and comes in three colors: navy blue, black, and khaki. There are five waist sizes for men: Extra Small (29 inches), Small (30-31 inches), Medium (32-33 inches), Large (34-35 inches) and Extra Large (36 inches). To order, please contact Alyssa Lustico at 0926-7560494 or (02)8460915, email d_lustico@yahoo.com, or leave a comment.

According to his colleague Coeli Barry, Ben was in Jakarta on December 10 for the launch of the translation of his book, Under Three Flags (where he traces the influence of anarchism on the work of Jose Rizal and Isabelo de los Reyes). Afterwards, he went to Surabaya in the eastern part of Java, then to Batu, Malang. He was asleep in his hotel room on Friday night when his breathing became very loud and uneven. Ben had severe sleep apnea, which may have caused his heart to stop.

As of today, 13 December, his body is lying at a funeral home in Surabaya where people will be able to pay their respects.

It was Ben’s wish that his ashes be scattered in Java. Ben had been barred from Indonesia in 1973 after he and Ruth McVey produced a paper arguing that the 30 September Movement in 1965 was not the work of the Indonesian communists as claimed by the Suharto government, but an internal army affair. (Early last year we asked Ben about Joshua Oppenheimer’s acclaimed film on the mass executions of accused communists in Indonesia, The Act of Killing. Ben didn’t like it. He explained why, but we couldn’t hear him because the mall was noisy and Ben had a very soft voice. Even in a quiet place we had to strain to hear him.)

His books Imagined Communities, The Spectre of Comparisons, and Under Three Flags are necessary reading for people who wish to understand the roots of the Filipino nation. The last time we saw Ben was after the launch of El Diablo en Filipinas, his translation of Isabelo de los Reyes’s comic story. The world is dumber for his passing.