Art Spiegelman! Squee!

The past month has been just fab in feeding my Art Spiegelman fangirl frenzy. First I found that enormous Art Spiegelman book on bargain at a book store sale after last month’s book discussion.

Then my cousin (and bookish partner in crime) Dianne got me an autographed Maus II (and a Strand notebook, and a Great Writers deck of cards) from her trip to New York. And then Flipper friend Mike (who actually made an Art Spiegelman fangirl out of me when he lent me his Maus set) brought me back an Art Spiegelman Strand totebag (and a Strand button pin) showing Maus “stranded in a sea of books”!

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Book Belt

In Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, Hagrid sends Harry a peculiar birthday gift: the Monster Book of Monsters, a textbook that attempts to bite anyone who tries to open it. Harry binds it with a belt, and the other students keep it shut with Spellotape. This Harry Potter moment came to mind when I spotted a new book thingamajig at a Daiso store in Singapore: the book belt.

It’s actually a glorified piece of patterned garter sewn together with a felt band, and I bought it primarily because I’m a sucker for all sorts of book paraphernalia (as you well know), and I only got to try it recently. For 2 SGD (standard Daiso price), you get a pack of two book bands (I gave one to my FFP seezter Ajie) that can fit both mass market paperbacks and trade paperbacks.

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Free Comic Book Day

Saturday was Free Comic Book Day at Fully Booked, and I couldn’t resist going. I meant to go last year but  it coincided with one of my book club meetings so I really wanted to make it this year, not so much for the free comic book but for the 20% discount on comics and graphic novels at the store.

I planned to go early but I woke up late and there was some commotion in the house because the results were in for the April 2010 Licensure Exam for Teachers and we learned my brother Enzo passed (way to go, bro!) and is now a professional teacher. Then I had to drop by the hospital on the other side of town to visit a friend.

It was 5:30 by the time I got to the store on Bonifacio High Street, and I figured they’d have run out of free comic books by then, but there were still some short stacks at the giveaway table and I quickly got in line for a free copy. Although I’ve gradually assimilated graphic novels as regular reading in recent time, I’m still not really into the whole spandex superhero thing and the only choices on the table were either Iron Man or Green Hornet, so after an eenie-meenie-miney-mo I settled on Iron Man and got my hand stamped at the booth.

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Reading in the Time of Elections

It’s been a crazy week: Monday marked the much-awaited national elections here in the Philippines. This isn’t the first time for me to vote; I’ve already voted at one national election and one senatorial election, but this is the first time the country is using automated elections and there was much anxiety about the new technology.

The family walked to the voting center just before 9am. We checked our names in the master list, where I sighed with relief at finding my name listed because I couldn’t find it on the site — it turns out they misspelled my middle name. We proceeded to our clustered precinct to find that the line was snaking down the hallway, packed with other voters.

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The Really Tiny Book Light

Reading in the dark has not been the same for me since my trusty Harry Potter Lumos Lightwedge went out of commission — two of the batteries have leaked shut down both of the narrow terminals and I still haven’t found a way to take them out without destroying the device. I’ve contacted the Lightwedge people and they said it’s outside the warranty and they don’t even make the Lumos anymore.

In my search for a substitute, I came across “The Really Tiny Book Light” at National Book Store and decided to get the Tiny Pink so I could get some nighttime reading done once again, especially since the past two months have been crammed full with out of town business trips.

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