Thursday, March 20, 2008

Baguio Bound (Show Me the Music)



I love I Can Has Cheezburger. And no, the boxing hamster has nothing to do with this blog entry. It just made me LOL. :)

Anyway! Will be in Baguio City from April 6 to 13, for the UP Writers' Workshop. I never thought I would attend another national writing workshop -- not because I've ever had a horrible experience with one, quite the contrary -- but because I always saw them as most beneficial for writers just starting out. That was certainly the case for me, with my first one: I was the youngest writing fellow there, at 18 (a fact that I'm glad went unknown until the directories were issued on the last day). However, apparently since 2005, the thrust of the UP workshop has changed, as "there is now a proliferation of creative writing workshops on both the national and local levels" and "beginning writers now have many other options," so "the UP ICW has decided to re-conceptualize its annual workshop to address the changing needs of writers.”

So I was pretty happy to be invited to this year's session, especially when I found out who else was going: Tara, Mookie, Ian, and even my old grade school classmate, Vince! Am looking forwward to meeting and hanging out with the others, as well. I still have fond memories of that first workshop -- it was held in Baguio, too -- and while we won't have George R. around this time to run naked and drunk through Burnham Park, stricken by love at first sight, am sure this one will be memorable as well.

And now we come to the sing-along portion of our presentation. Is anyone who's reading this familiar with the Baguio music scene? Would love to check out some bars and bands while we're up there, and possibly write about them for my weekly music column for the Bulletin. Please post suggestions here, or email me at thekingofnothingtodo at yahoo dot com. Thanks!

5 comments:

jadeD said...

Hey Luis!
Not sure if they'll be playing any gigs during the time you'll be in town, but definitely check out Spaceflower Show--awesome ska band that's homegrown Baguio. They usually play Saturdays at 18BC in Legarda--if they're not touring. Also, making some noise now is ethnic, Pinikpikan band-inspired Repolyo Revolution, composed mostly of UP Baguio students and teachers.
The Cafe by the Ruins will feature some great acts at end of March for their 20th anniv--in case you'll be in town earlier. Enjoy!:)

Luis K. said...

Sounds good. Thanks for the recos! :) May I ask who this is, btw? :)

The 365 Project said...

What a coincidence! I just finished reading the essay about your first UP workshop in Baguio (and George R), in the book you wrote, and googled your name, and found this blog, and this recent entry is about the same workshop. :P Hehe.

Good luck, then! :) I really like how you write now, it'll be exciting to see how you'll write when you improve. :)

grumpyurbanslacker said...

Yup, Spaceflower Show is pretty good.

There's this rock band named Northwind that i saw a few years ago, at this bar just near Prime Hotel. They were pretty good.
Not sure if they're still around though.

Luis K. said...

Thank you very much, Ida! Glad to know you're enjoying the essays. :)

Thanks for the suggestion, grumpyurbanslacker -- Northwind is a cool band name. Although comics geek that I am, I admit that I think so largely because there's a slight chance they took their name from the DC comics character. ;p

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northwind_(comics)