luis katigbak

His place is packed with books... on the bed, in his closet, and in every nook and cranny! Check out the world of writer, editor, and Palanca Award winner Luis Katigbak. :)



Luis Katigbak
(Quezon City, Philippines)

Occupation: Writer / Editor

Website: thekingofnothingtodo.tumblr.com, twitter.com/luis_k, www.unomagazine.com.ph

Favorite toy as a child: Super Robot Gaiking, with accompanying Space Dragon. (Borrowed, not actually owned. I did own a Shockwave though, the only Transformer I could afford, because a rich classmate got bored with it and sold it to me for P50, which even in those days was chump change.)

Favorite toy now: Hepa the yellow stuffed hippo. Although I consider him not so much as a toy as a roommate. Wish he would cough up his half of the rent though.

Turn-ons: Smarts, creativity, genuineness, jocosity, bibliophilia, and nice feet.

Turn-offs: Incompetence, hypocrisy, manipulativeness, being inconsiderate, stubbornness (as opposed to tenacity), and unfortunate taste in music.

What are 5 things that inspire you right now? Dreams, memories, facts, words, love.

Top 5 movies: This list is changing all the time. Today it's: Trust (I love Hal Hartley), Until the End of the World (a near-future road trip movie, wide-ranging and oddly affecting), My Neighbor Totoro (I love Miyazaki), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (intriguing idea, amazing execution), Bon Voyage Charlie Brown (a childhood favorite).

Top 3 books: This list changes even more than the movie list. Today my top 3 is: Momo by Michael Ende, Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut, and Norwegian Wood by Haruki Murakami. Tomorrow it might be My Life and Hard Times by James Thurber, Watership Down by Richard Adams, and From the Teeth of Angels by Jonathan Carroll. I could go on...

Music you listen to: XTC, Prefab Sprout, ebtg, Outerhope, Ciudad, Up dharma Down, Drip, Massive Attack, David Bowie, The Sundays, The Spinanes, etc. Basically songs that remind me of who I am or who I want to be.

5 Favorite website: Topless Robot, The AV Club, Cracked, Chris' Invincible Super-Blog (and a ton of other comic blogs), Fingertips Music (and a ton of other music blogs)

When you're not busy with work, what do you do in your free time? Go to gigs. Plunder secondhand book shops. Read blogs and other online distractions. Harass my landlord's cat. Eat adobo flakes. Listen to music in other people's cars. Sing along.

If you were to choose a different job, what would it be? A filmmaking, comics-drawing architect with a Ph.D in Mathematics. Who breakdances.

If you can have any super power, what would it be? Okay, this is a question I have asked myself repeatedly since my age was in single digits. Most cool powers have serious drawbacks: super-speed, telepathy, even invulnerability (and don't get me started on optic blasts or hyper-senses). At first I was going to go with time/space manipulation (a la Hiro Nakamura), but I realized that I would probably spend the rest of my life trying to "fix" EVERYTHING. So... I'm going to go with a power which actually infuriated me when I was a child reading X-Men/New Mutants comics, because it seemed to me so useless: Doug "Cypher" Ramsey's "superhuman intuitive facility for translating languages, spoken or written, human or alien in origin." Especially now that he can 'see' combat skills as a form of language, and can totally kick your ass. But even aside from that, he can communicate with anything in the universe, and hack any computer. Aw yeah.

What is the biggest problem of the world right now? Fear.

What do you think is the solution? The Green Lantern Corps.

What's the most important life lesson you've learned so far? "There is no gift like the present." He he.

Most inspiring statement/moment (heard/said/read): "Write the story that only you can write! The story that makes your balls twitch!!" - the late Francisco Arcellana, at a lecture in UP in the mid-90s (with accompanying snatching-at-the-air gesture)