For a small-scale blogger, when you post (and how you tag it) is just as important as what you post, in terms of readership. You toss your post, like a little wooden boat, into the swift-running stream that runs through the blogosphere. Sometimes, if the sun hits it just right, it sparkles. The readers on the shore spy it and admire it as it floats by, and point it out to their friends. Other times, the shore is gray and stormy, or someone else’s more stately post floats by at the same time. At those times, your post drifts quietly and unnoticed down the stream into the vast ocean of the internet, and disappears.
These are posts I’ve written that I really like. Sometimes they sparkled; mostly, they drifted. Either way, I wanted to pull them up to shore, where they can stay and be contemplated a little longer.
Photo: Jon LutyFOLKLORE
One of my original motivations for writing this blog was to write about Filipino folklore. I’ve branched out, since then, to other forms of folklore and superstition.
Footsteps From Empty Rooms: This is from a group of posts called Stories My Parents Tell Me; I like them all, but this one is my favorite. About multo (ghosts) — naturally.
Family Folklore Research: Also from Stories My Parents Tell Me. This one is about the aswang, possibly the best known of the Filipino monsters. Features Lynda Barry, too.
The First Bananas: A Tale from Bikol: Bikolano folktale, told with words and photos, comic book style. I originally created this for my previous blog Ephemera, then used it to jump-start this one.
Share and Share Alike: A Russian Folktale: A Russian (Ukranian, actually) version of the folk motif The Grateful Dead, with a little Poison Maiden thrown in for good measure. One of my favorites of my folktale retellings.
Ikkyū and the Hell Courtesan: Another of my favorite retellings. The monk Ikkyū was a historical figure, who seems to have developed a legendary reputation.
The Marriage of Heer and Ranjha: My favorite from a series of posts I’ve done on folktales
from Punjab, originally for the Non Stop Bhangra and Dholrhythms blogs. Most of them are now reposted to Ephemera, here. I had a shorter version of the Heer and Ranjha story on the Non Stop Bhanga blog, but this is the long retelling of what I call the “unofficial” variant of the story—the one with the happy ending.
Johnny Cash, the Wild Hunt, and Lord Shiva: From a group of posts called Folklore in Music. It’s about the song Riders in the Sky.
READING
On Paper and Electrons: Paper is wonderful, but ebooks do have some advantages.
A Different Kind of Science Fiction: In which I argue that what we call “science fiction” is really about technology. But there is fiction that is really about science.
Hamlet in Nigeria: A synopsis of the classic anthropology paper “Shakespeare in the Bush.” You should read the original, too — I link to it in the post.
How to Justify a Private Library: This one is actually on Ephemera; it’s based on the Umberto Eco essay of the same name. I am happy to say our library no longer looks as chaotic as it does in the photos here.
Carlos and Julio (and Monty): Part review of Julio Cortazar’s collection Blow-up and other Stories, part me creating imaginary personas for “Carlos” (Fuentes), “Julio” (Cortazar), and “Monty” (M.R. James).
On the Obligations of the Reader: on genre fiction, “hyphenated” authors, exposition, and the obligation of the reader to meet the writer halfway.
WRITING
The Book Review as Creative Prose: There are other reasons to read or write a book review, besides the book itself.
I Write, Therefore I Think: This is actually on my professional blog, but I reblogged it here at Multo. On the relationship between writing and thinking.
MUSINGS AND MEMORIES
Mementos: Watching my neighborhood change, and trying to remember those who lived here before me.
The Scent of Old Book: Featured on Freshly Pressed.
Ramblings and Random Linkages: Observations about Lewis Carroll and M.R. James
Of Eggs and Hummingbirds: and God, and natural selection. This is my absolute favorite post on the blog.
Saltair and the Carnival of Souls: “is saltair haunted” is a surprisingly common search engine link to my blog. Saltair is a pavilion on the shore of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. It was featured in the cult horror movie Carnival of Souls.
In Praise and Memory of Serendipity: An ode to what was one of my favorite bookstores, ever.
Not Quite Ghost Stories: Well, the blog is called Multo (Ghost). Occasionally, I ought to try to tell ghost stories.
A Daisy Chain of Words and Pictures: Every so often I find a cool quote or three that I really like, but I don’t know what to do with. Here, I chained together a bunch of them with photographs (mostly taken by me) that seemed to fit. There’s supposed to be a progression in the quotes, a conversation that they are having with each other. But maybe no one can hear that conversation but me.
Mirror, Mirror: On my relationship with my mirrors.
Multo (Ghost) 