Ka-Blog!

I got invited to a blogger’s event at Bonifacio   High Street last Friday.  It was hosted by Fully Booked (www.fullybookedonline.com).  Pom and I braved the horrendous Friday afternoon C5 traffic from QC as I was looking forward to being inside the modern-looking building I’ve passed by many times before.

The press release handed to us read in part:

“Fully Booked, the concept bookstore that is a haven for book enthusiasts all-over (sic), in partnership with YEHEY!, the # (sic)1Philippine portal, welcomed bloggers to an afternoon of fun learning, good food and exciting prizes at TopShelf, Fully Booked’s premiere events place.

“Bloggers were treated to a scrumptious feast…”

Okay.  Stop! “Scrumptious”?  I did not know this archaic word is still in use!  Who but the chi-chi set still employs it?  It sounds (and screams) like “pretentious”!  Are we describing crispy danggit here?

Badly-written releases besides, the event was a success.  Hundreds attended and the food was good.  I wouldn’t call it a feast (pasta and roast beef slivers) but good indeed.  It was fun too.  Many participated in the games that gave away good books (what else?) as prizes.

When all the eating and games were over, Fully Booked made the participants choose two books from piles in a corner.  Pom and I were able to snap up three Isabel Allendes and a Salman Rushdie.  Friend and Yehey! section ed (Tech) Maui Hermitanio got a James Bond 007 Art (Meron pala?) coffee table book and a chick lit title.  Award-winning blogger Tonyo Cruz chose a Gore Vidal and a thick book about Rock & Roll heroes.  Not bad, eh?

But what is it with events like this?  They see an unfamiliar face and they ask him where he or she blogs.  This is probably the usual—to open up conversations—but I really felt like they were taking the measure of me.  (I told those who asked I keep seven sites, I contribute to two online mags and I get blog rolled by several others.  Saka naman ako nangitian. Hahahaha!)

Anyway, for a QC denizen, the frightful drive to Taguig just to visit this Fully Booked branch should be worth it every time.  The bookstore chain’s flagship store (they have eight) rivals NBS-Cubao in terms of floor space but, unlike the latter, its aisles were wide, neat and well thought out.  The music is soft and (while we were there, at least) are not Christmas carols (buti naman).  The lighting is just right and there’s none of the harsh glare from fluorescent tubes of old.  If one had been to an Ikea store Fully Booked-BHS has the same feel to it.  You will be drawn to visit the other sections and floors.  The basement is the comics and stationery sections.  It also has a movie theater that sits 62 behinds.  The ground floor is where the staff is waiting to assist you.  The second floor is the children’s and lifestyle sections.  The third floor is full of business and professional books.  Oh, and this where you could have expensive yet inferior kape courtesy of Starbucks.  A music section occupies the fourth floor as well as an art books segment.  Fully Booked also hosts book launchings, story-telling sessions and workshops.  And then there’s TopShelf at the fifth floor.  Now go and earn some moolah to give yourself a treat at Fully Booked.

The highlight of the evening for us (aside from spending time with Tonyo and Mao, of course) was finding on a most prominent shelf on the ground floor Jeffrey Archer’s “Prisoner of Birth.”  Man!  This bookstore has class!  I just learned about this new novel a few weeks back and Fully Booked already had it.  I have never, NEVER! received such service from Powerbooks.  Their Trinoma store still does not have a local title I asked them to look for me TWO YEARS BACK. Maraming salamat po! To think I had been a Powerbooks customer since their first store along Arnaiz.  To be fair, Powerbooks allows reading and has seats.  So Fully Booked must do it as well.

Anyway, I wish to tell our hosts that not all the books we took home that night were giveaways.  Bumili din naman po kami.

The heretofore mentioned and quoted press release said a Fully Booked branch may “rise” (Ano ito?  Monay na umaalsa?) a Trinoma branch sometime this month.  Goodie!  Three stores in QC! Ang layo ng Taguig, ano! I just hope it’s a big store though.

I am not transferring allegiance from my dear Morayta second hand book stalls to big time bookstores like Fully Booked just yet.  But any store that gives me free books and has the latest Jeffrey Archer titles on its shelves is definitely worth a visit from time to time.

It’s six in the morning and the geckos are calling.A family of kingfishers has been silent for a few minutes and wild ducks are emerging from their nests (taking off like airplanes with beaks extended and leading their way).The other birds are waking up and my ears are assaulted by all sorts of sounds I never hear in the blighted city.

Pom is still asleep.

An officemate-friend is already brewing coffee in the kitchen.A creature of a few horrid habits he will light up his first cigarette as early as his first dark cup.

I’ve been trying to connect to the internet but I can’t, which is just as well.I’m having a rare kind of morning, the kind I wish would stretch for a long time.I wish for the clock to stop counting and allow me to sit here listening to my wife’s low snores, the birds, the geckos, the last of the crabs scampering into their sandholes.

I myself am waiting for the coffee.A cup would make me move bowels and then I could start thinking about breakfast. It’s itlog, kamatis, at tuyo sa sinangag na kanin today.

After breakfast, I am sure Pom would be among the first on the water.I would typically drag my feet but I will be joining her shortly.I have to say hello to the fishes and slugs we got acquainted to yesterday afternoon.It’s a wonder some of them dare stare at us when we were wearing snorkels and goggles that make us terribly ugly.

We are at a private beach hundreds of kilometers outside of Manila.We are doing our best to make appearances we are normal people—the kind that go to the beach in summer.None of us, except one, had been to the beach all summer and so this last hurrah.

These past two months have been spent giving tributes to great men both living and dead—Ka Bel, Ka Romy, Ka Dan and Ka Nes.The tributes to the living were scheduled and happy events; the tributes to the dead were sudden, unexpected, numbing.

And these past four weeks have been emotionally and physically shattering for me.Looking for a forcibly disappeared and, when found, learning he has been severely tortured are not what I call fun summer.The road trip we took last weekend, it was fun in some parts because I spent time with old friends but there was something fundamentally sad about it.And I’m not talking about my driving for three straight days because that only taxed me physically.What saddened me really was seeing my friend inside a cramped and humid provincial jail being watched over by armalite-wielding soldiers.

And so this trip.I looked forward to this for such a long time—three years in fact.And while I can not admit how excited I was, I betrayed myself when I again did all the driving from Manila.

It’s sulit naman.At dusk yesterday we were greeted by one of the reddest sunsets I beheld so far.Ang ganda ng Pilipinas talaga.

Where was I?Ah, yes, the fishes.Pom and I will be swimming with them shortly—a state I want to be in for a long time.I would rather be thought of by the fishes as ugly rather be turned into fish food by the military.