The past week, like most other weeks before it, saw me living and breathing for books. More than that, though, it also saw me and my precious skin being saved by them. You see, the company I work in has partnered with a couple of small restaurant owners to supply us employers with packed meals every day so that those who choose to order from them wouldn’t have to go out of the office for lunch. Every morning, right after we punch in, I and most of my co-employees would check the available dishes for the day and specify what we’d like to have for lunch. Last Thursday I happened to arrive at the office mere seconds shy of being declared tardy, and not wanting to be reprimanded for coming late to our daily department morning meeting, I ignored the day’s menu and sprinted towards my desk straightaway. I figured I’d just tag along with my teammates who regularly eat lunch at nearby fast food restaurants or convenience stores—and I did as soon as the bell signaled lunchtime. Later, at least five employees were rushed to hospital for suffering severe allergic reaction apparently to the dish which they all ordered from one of the packed-meal suppliers. The culprit? Ginataang tulingan (tuna in coconut milk), something I, a sucker for fish-based viands, would have ordered in a heartbeat that morning had I not been almost late. (The tuna, the unlucky employees later told us, might have been mishandled or have already spoiled prior to preparation, thereby resulting in scombroid food poisoning.) And the reason I was almost late that morning? I stayed up till the wee hours of the morning reading books, of course.

In other (bad) news, the issue of whether J.D. Salinger’s The Catcher in the Rye should (or could) be turned into a movie has again surfaced recently. The late Mr. Salinger’s estate is reportedly in dire straits right now on account of a certain tax law, which, like other tax-related stuff, is hardly worth one’s effort to understand, and the easiest way out appears to be one that involves selling the film rights to the author’s most popular novel. I say, bollocks. I shall agree to a film adaptation of The Catcher in the Rye if and only if the prospective producers (otherwise known as phonies) could commission a time machine to bring the 16-year-old Jared Leto to the present and have him portray Holden Caulfield.

On a happier note, the books in the Penguin Inks collection, included in the series of releases from Penguin in celebration of the world renowned publisher’s 75th anniversary, arrived at local bookstores no sooner than last Wednesday. Penguin Inks features six novels, each re-released with a new and striking cover designed in collaboration with tattoo artists. The novels are Martin Amis’s Money, Helen Fielding’s Bridget Jones’s Diary, Keri Hulme’s The Bone People, Ian Fleming’s From Russia with Love, J.M. Coetzee’s Waiting for the Barbarians, and David Foster Wallace’s The Broom of the System.

Finally, last night I and several friends from the office threw a farewell party for one of our teammates who has resigned to pursue a career in, well, job-hunting. It was a riot, to say the least, and a good portion of it was spent reading a book that was far removed from my usual literary selections of late: a KTV songbook, no less, featuring songs by Justin Bieber. Naturally.

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  1. chefgoldblum said: Ang ganda nung the Broom of the system, nakita ko kanina sa Fully Booked.
  2. aldrin posted this

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