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The Copy Editor

I'm Jojo Pasion Malig. I'm the usual suspect behind the night desk of the Philippines' leading news website. I like making interactive data eye candy. Mild prescriptivist.

James Franco reads short story in bed for The Paris Review

James Franco reads “William Wei,” a short story published in The Paris Review literary journal. Clean audio-only file here.

[via Open Culture]

Pablo Neruda - Poema 20

Poems as short films: One of 21 video poems in Four Seasons Productions newly released Moving Poetry Series - Three innovative new films - RANT * RAVE * RIFF. Poema 20 was written in 1924 by Pablo Neruda. The poem is recited in its native Spanish by Carlos Alfaro and includes English subtitles translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin.

[Four Seasons Productions on YouTube, via OpenCulture]

The book has an epigraph from Webster’s Dictionary: definitions of the verb “to serve.” It’s an interesting range of meanings, from the idea of obedient servitude to the authoritative (from law, the military, a prison sentence), to the meeting of another’s needs, to being of use. The title poem begins with an erotic moment registered in a world of torture and violence. It turns, midway, from the sensual and “poetic” to an official grammar, parsing violent policies as you might diagram a sentence in a classroom.

Adrienne Rich on ‘Tonight No Poetry Will Serve’

[via The Paris Review Daily]

The book reimagined as an interactive, non-linear storytelling experience. [IDEO]

Experts will tell you that fairy tales — folk tales — were never meant for children at all. In the not-so-long-ago days of yore, the people of the world were illiterate, intransient, and in need of entertainment.

Stefany Anne Golberg, Pertinent & Impertinent

When I was 19, I wrote my 40-year-old self a letter that I am about to read.

One Sentence: True stories, told in one sentence

Visual Poetry - Minimal view

[via loving winter]

Creative nonfiction revisited

Currently reading Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo’s Creative Nonfiction: A Reader from the University of the Philippines Press.

Intended as a companion volume to Creative Nonfiction: A Manual for Filipino Writers, the book features includes works by Shiela Coronel, Pete Lacaba, Alfred Yuson, Randy David, Butch Dalisay, Conrado de Quiros, Nick Joaquin, Kerima Polotan, Gregorio Brillantes, Gilda Cordero-Fernando, Jessica Zafra, Clinton Palanca, Luis Katigbak, and Sarge Lacuesta.

Revisiting my passion for literary journalism.

Um, no it’s not.

How a misunderstanding about Chinese characters has led many astray

A whole industry of pundits and therapists has grown up around this one grossly inaccurate statement. A casual search of the Web turns up more than a million references to this spurious proverb. It appears, often complete with Chinese characters, on the covers of books, on advertisements for seminars, on expensive courses for “thinking outside of the box,” and practically everywhere one turns in the world of quick-buck business, pop psychology, and orientalist hocus-pocus. This catchy expression (Crisis = Danger + Opportunity) has rapidly become nearly as ubiquitous as The Tao of Pooh and Sun Zi’s Art of War for the Board / Bed / Bath / Whichever Room.

[Read More]

Wired Reports: Facts and Pundits Can Actually Ruin Political Discourse (mediaite.com)
“Dean Miller has spent years getting journalists to lose their gut. “Your gut is the most dangerous…” (copyeditor.tumblr.com)
10 Frequently Used Chinese Characters (brighthub.com)
An Excellent Book to Learn Chinese Characters (brighthub.com)
Complicated Chinese Characters Harder To Text, Easier To Forget [Texting] (gizmodo.com)
Chinese Characters Prove Truth Of Bible? (anadder.com)
A Guide to Learning Chinese (brighthub.com)
The Key to Learning Chinese Characters (brighthub.com)