(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, THE LIFESTYLE WEEKLY PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY IN MANILA BULLETIN, 8 AUGUST 2008)
Strung on a stick and dipped in hard sugar candy coating, the crab apples are a treat even before you have a taste of them, arranged like flowers on a basket at the back of a bicycle. Along Wangfujing, the shopping street in the middle of Beijing, these vendors on bikes look as ancient as the Great Wall of China, where it reveals itself at the Juyon Pass some 50 kilometers from the capital, and the skewers of miniature apples, also known as tang hu lu, that they peddle around town seem as Chinese as Tiananmen Square, except that, at least according to Wikipedia, the candied apple, otherwise known in America as caramel or toffee apple, owes its existence to New Jersey candy-maker William W. Kolb, who has been given historical credit for inventing it in 1908.
BLURB
Is it not delightful to have friends coming from distant quarters? —Confucius (551-479 BC)
But in northern China, the pleasures of the tang hu lu are not limited to apples, which are just as famous as strawberries, blueberries, grapes, pineapples, and kiwifruit as street delicacies wrapped in a delightful sugar glaze, and not even quite as traditional as the Chinese hawthorne. Still, when I eat candied apples on a bamboo skewer, I always imagine myself walking down the banks of Houhai Lake, a leafy lakeside neighborhood that traces its origins to the Yuan Dynasty, sometime in the 14th century, when Houhai, along with two other lakes connected to it, was dug out to allow “barges to bring in goods from all around China and beyond to the emperor in his nearby Forbidden City.”
I heard that Houhai, which was a quiet park district abuzz only with the occasional tourist and some residents walking their dogs the last time I was in Beijing, has acquired some kind of a split-personality: a laidback lakeside promenade by day and a party-hearty zone by night, lined with bars and clubs and throbbing with teenagers no longer chained to Chinese traditions, as though influenced by the controversial novelist Wei Hu, whose Shanghai Baby was, at least in the ’90s and at least in the realm of the sexes, the literary equivalent of the War of Liberation. It is just as well now that Beijing has embraced the virtues as well as the vices of the modern world. Even within the ancient walls of the Forbidden City, once off-limits to the common folk, unless you were a concubine, a eunuch, or a servant, there is now room for such practicalities as hot pants and tubes, especially in the summer when throngs of tourists invade this portal to more rigid times.
Today, 08/08/08, an auspicious date in the Chinese calendar, temperatures in Beijing range between 30 and 35 degrees Celsius. It’s a terrible time to squeeze yourself into the crowded bleachers and, with adrenaline rushing and sweat pouring, cheer your country on, one voice in a world of nations all screaming for “One World, One Dream.” We have some 15 athletes going for gold there and, with hope, aside from the politicians and aside from Manny Pacquiao and his entourage of many, there will be more of us to raise the Philippine flag as well as the spirit of our representatives on the field, in the court, in the arena, in the ring, and elsewhere, where Olympic glory is at stake. I am no sports fan, but I envy those who now have the opportunity to be one with the world and to see Beijing as it has never been seen before.
In the meantime, when tourist arrivals drop a bit after all this Olympic frenzy and cold, bitter winter sets in toward the end of the year, I dream of visiting Beijing another time. With an apple skewer in hand and preferably snowflakes on my lashes, I dream to experience the Forbidden City yet again, crossing from the south through the Meridian Gate all the way to the north through the Gate of Divine Might. Without the crowds, at the top of the Yellow Crane Tower, I might catch a glimpse of a crane flying over the Yangtze. In the chill of winter, in the inner courts of the Forbidden City, and elsewhere in the old city of Beijing, visitors do not fill every gap in space and time with a Babel of awe. Instead of rushing headlong into a future where everything is the same here, there, everywhere, time stands still, caught in the arches and ridges and turrets of the towers and in the cracks on the weatherworn pavements.
And look! There ’s the Empress Dowager Cixi emerging from the Hall of Happiness and Longevity at the Summer Palace, undisturbed by the flash of cameras, where no tourist crowds around her for a shot at immortality. Now that’s Beijing before the future turned around to fetch her.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
Monday, August 4, 2008
WHAT'S ON YOUR LIST?
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, THE LIFESTYLE WEEKLY PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY IN MANILA BULLETIN, 1 AUGUST 2008)
If you were to die tomorrow, what would you do today? Would it be a hectic day, crazy with a million things to tick off your life’s list, or would it be a day of leisure, a day to watch the sunrise and the sunset, the cloud formations in the sky, and the many other beautiful things you hardly even notice if you feel you have the rest of your life ahead of you? Better yet, why not spend it watching as many movies as you can, if only so you could live, if vicariously, so many lives in 24 hours, granting that your own is about go blank?
BLURB
Eh, anong gagawin ko, aatungal (What will I do, shriek)? —Mylene Dizon as Joyce, 100, Chris Martinez, 2008
If art, as defined by my online dictionary, is a piece of work, whose main purpose, apart from capturing beauty, is to provoke thoughts, Chris Martinez’s film, 100, recently shown at the 2008 Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, is truly an art form.
Over lunch late last week, before a private viewing of his directorial debut at the CCP Dream Theater, Chris shared with us what inspired him to do 100. There are a million other inspirations, of course, including the common fascination with lists, but the plotline showed itself to him during a vigil held over the corpse of a beloved UP Theater Arts professor, where special performances, including a drag show, were made in honor of the departed’s deep commitment to the arts.
Listening to Chris was in no way different from looking at pictures, although we had barely enough time to warm up over lunch to enable us to talk more openly with each other. Working on such a visual medium, filmmakers like him do have to communicate in images rather than in words. It is through words, however, that Chris made his way to filmmaking, first as a copywriter for advertising; as a playwright with such Palanca Award-winning works as Last Order sa Penguin and Welcome to IntelStar; and then, as though to get him closer and closer to his new title now as filmmaker, as a screenwriter whose achievements, at such a young age, include Sukob starring Kris Aquino and Claudine Barretto and Caregiver starring Sharon Cuneta, to name a few.
100, to be more precise, is not exactly Chris’ first film. Before it, he had done a short, Bakas, which won him the CCP Award for Alternative Filmmaking. On the theater stage, he is no stranger, having directed the stage adaptation of the '70s cult classic Temptation Island. As for his bread-and-butter, Chris directs commercials.
Given Chris’ achievements, 100 seems inevitable an outcome at this point. Even the very execution of the film’s storyline, that of a terminally ill woman making a list of things to do before dying, is a surprise to me, who, predisposed to artistic exaggerations and creative licenses, expected something more dramatic, more fantastical on that list than cleaning out the closet. But there’s the thought: If you were to die 100 days from now, you cannot simply fly off to Paris and bungee-jump from the top of the Eiffel Tower. There are so many mundane tasks to do in preparation for that end-all, be-all moment and, yes, that includes, as the film made me realize, bank transactions, transfer of ownership, and finding a new human for your pet, if any.
Indeed, the beauty of this work is in its restraint. Originally, as Chris confessed to me, the intention was just to create a list, random and unconnected, but in the interest of the audience, a story was woven in to tie everything together. But the story, too, is a study in restraint, just as the spaces in every scene is devoid of anything unnecessary and extraneous, just as the delivery of the lines as well as the facial expressions, even among otherwise flamboyant actors like Eugene Domingo and Tessie Tomas, save for a very few highlights, in which they seemed to be on the verge, but only on the verge of letting go an outburst of emotions, is perfectly under control, as in life, where not everything is in cinematic proportions.
Kudos to Mylene Dizon for keeping us drawn to the screen for one hour and 56 minutes, without having to scream or shed buckets of tears or cry out to God, “Why me? Why me?” Indeed, as Chris himself would admit, 100 was made for her to play the lead. The writer/director, without a doubt, made the right choice and Mylene’s Cinemalaya Best Actress 2008 Award is not necessary to prove it.
Kudos, too, to the rest of the cast and the crew! All they wanted, according to Chris, is to make a good film and here it is, with such distinctions as Chris’ Best Director and Best Screenplay trophies, Mylene’s Best Actress, Eugene’s Best Supporting Actress, and the Audience Choice Award to make it worth all the sacrifices.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
If you were to die tomorrow, what would you do today? Would it be a hectic day, crazy with a million things to tick off your life’s list, or would it be a day of leisure, a day to watch the sunrise and the sunset, the cloud formations in the sky, and the many other beautiful things you hardly even notice if you feel you have the rest of your life ahead of you? Better yet, why not spend it watching as many movies as you can, if only so you could live, if vicariously, so many lives in 24 hours, granting that your own is about go blank?
BLURB
Eh, anong gagawin ko, aatungal (What will I do, shriek)? —Mylene Dizon as Joyce, 100, Chris Martinez, 2008
If art, as defined by my online dictionary, is a piece of work, whose main purpose, apart from capturing beauty, is to provoke thoughts, Chris Martinez’s film, 100, recently shown at the 2008 Cinemalaya Independent Film Festival at the Cultural Center of the Philippines, is truly an art form.
Over lunch late last week, before a private viewing of his directorial debut at the CCP Dream Theater, Chris shared with us what inspired him to do 100. There are a million other inspirations, of course, including the common fascination with lists, but the plotline showed itself to him during a vigil held over the corpse of a beloved UP Theater Arts professor, where special performances, including a drag show, were made in honor of the departed’s deep commitment to the arts.
Listening to Chris was in no way different from looking at pictures, although we had barely enough time to warm up over lunch to enable us to talk more openly with each other. Working on such a visual medium, filmmakers like him do have to communicate in images rather than in words. It is through words, however, that Chris made his way to filmmaking, first as a copywriter for advertising; as a playwright with such Palanca Award-winning works as Last Order sa Penguin and Welcome to IntelStar; and then, as though to get him closer and closer to his new title now as filmmaker, as a screenwriter whose achievements, at such a young age, include Sukob starring Kris Aquino and Claudine Barretto and Caregiver starring Sharon Cuneta, to name a few.
100, to be more precise, is not exactly Chris’ first film. Before it, he had done a short, Bakas, which won him the CCP Award for Alternative Filmmaking. On the theater stage, he is no stranger, having directed the stage adaptation of the '70s cult classic Temptation Island. As for his bread-and-butter, Chris directs commercials.
Given Chris’ achievements, 100 seems inevitable an outcome at this point. Even the very execution of the film’s storyline, that of a terminally ill woman making a list of things to do before dying, is a surprise to me, who, predisposed to artistic exaggerations and creative licenses, expected something more dramatic, more fantastical on that list than cleaning out the closet. But there’s the thought: If you were to die 100 days from now, you cannot simply fly off to Paris and bungee-jump from the top of the Eiffel Tower. There are so many mundane tasks to do in preparation for that end-all, be-all moment and, yes, that includes, as the film made me realize, bank transactions, transfer of ownership, and finding a new human for your pet, if any.
Indeed, the beauty of this work is in its restraint. Originally, as Chris confessed to me, the intention was just to create a list, random and unconnected, but in the interest of the audience, a story was woven in to tie everything together. But the story, too, is a study in restraint, just as the spaces in every scene is devoid of anything unnecessary and extraneous, just as the delivery of the lines as well as the facial expressions, even among otherwise flamboyant actors like Eugene Domingo and Tessie Tomas, save for a very few highlights, in which they seemed to be on the verge, but only on the verge of letting go an outburst of emotions, is perfectly under control, as in life, where not everything is in cinematic proportions.
Kudos to Mylene Dizon for keeping us drawn to the screen for one hour and 56 minutes, without having to scream or shed buckets of tears or cry out to God, “Why me? Why me?” Indeed, as Chris himself would admit, 100 was made for her to play the lead. The writer/director, without a doubt, made the right choice and Mylene’s Cinemalaya Best Actress 2008 Award is not necessary to prove it.
Kudos, too, to the rest of the cast and the crew! All they wanted, according to Chris, is to make a good film and here it is, with such distinctions as Chris’ Best Director and Best Screenplay trophies, Mylene’s Best Actress, Eugene’s Best Supporting Actress, and the Audience Choice Award to make it worth all the sacrifices.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
Friday, July 25, 2008
BASIC NEED
(FROM THE EDITOR, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN SENSE&STYLE, WOMAN, MAKE A DIFFERENCE, AUG2008)
Among the Chinese around the world, the seventh month of the lunar calendar (lunar July in our calendar this year is between the seventh of August to the sixth of September) is regarded as the ghost month, dedicated mostly to ancestral worship. During this period, “when deceased ancestors emerge from the lower realms to visit the living,” important events like weddings, inaugurations, and construction are avoided at all costs.
BLURB
I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex—Oscar Wilde
For us in the media, August, like the latter part of July, is a time to take a breather from our media circus, which will promptly resume in September and, I expect based on experience, will not slow down until around July next year. But this month, at least, we need not run around like headless chickens with brunches and lunches, high-teas and cocktails, dinners and nightouts to tick off our daily schedule. Because thankfully the economy never comes to a standstill, there is, of course, always the occasional invitation or two that you cannot turn down even in this slow month.
I’d like to think that ancient Chinese wisdom has been validated that in August, even among us pragmatists, hardly any brand launches a new product and many designers are away on holiday. Whatever the reason, August’s gift to us is the luxury of time, which this magazine in your hands encourages you to spend wisely, taking stock of what is truly essential in your life.
Under the theme, “Back to Basics,” this special, collectible edition trains the spotlight on the key ingredients of a life well and wisely lived. Of course, there’s no denying that there is pleasure in our excesses, but without the fundamentals, we find ourselves empty when all the things we don’t need are no longer there to close up the hole. So this month, we focus on what is vital to our existence.
Health, for instance, demands constant, unfailing attention, as exemplified by nurse Jenny Yoro (“Order of the White Caps,”), whose profession is a vocation rather than a practical career choice.
Although it remains a luxury for too many of our brethren, education is also non-negotiable in the pursuit of a meaningful life. Here we salute young teachers like Mia Villavicencio (“To Ma’am, With Love,”), who make it as much fun to teach as it is to learn from generations-in-training.
No longer confined to the laboratory, science or the awareness of it among us laymen is now integral to day-to-day living. Scientist Rochie Cuevas (“The Cereal Scientist,”) is dedicating many of her young years to the study of rice, the most basic of Asia’s basic diet. Who knows her cereal chemistry project might yield the solution to the rice shortage that threatens to exacerbate the problem of starvation around the world?
Incidentally, one of our fashion editorials (“Rice is Gold,”), emphasizes the value of rice and the need for a consolidated effort to keep it a staple, therefore affordable and available, on every table in the Philippines, in the region, and other parts of the world, where billions depend on it for daily sustenance.
But back to basics, inspiration and self-realization are crucial, too. Wrapped in the arresting package of beauty and glamour, not to mention height, our cover girl, New York-based Ford supermodel Charo Ronquillo (“Model Behavior,”), calls attention to these basic ingredients of the life worth living. Within her recipe for success is yet another recipe that combines in equal measure hard work, humility, a sense of gratitude, and the desire and energy to keep dreaming.
Love of others, especially in this day and age of economic turbulence and environmental disaster, is doubtless a fundamental virtue. In preparation for this issue, my staff and I, upon the prodding of associate editor Hector Reyes, threw an afternoon party for the children of the Philippine Orthopedic Center (POC) in Quezon City (“Happy Days,”). Partnering with Diether Ocampo’s K.I.D.S. Foundation and seeking the support of our own friends, such as the brothers Rachy and Ricky Cuna of Fiorgelato and Lynn Sunico of the Skyline Group, as well as the lovely mascots Sergeant March and Lionel at SM Storyland, we endeavored to give joy to over sixty children, along with their families, if only to give them momentary relief from the pain of broken bones and the boredom of being tied to their beds for months on end. We know there’s so much more to giving than a whole afternoon of entertainment, but I take consolation in the fact that people like Diether and his group, whose key members include the lovely lawyer Karina Tañega and the musician Mondo Castro, are constantly at the service of these children in need.
Ours was barely half a baby step to civic consciousness. I believe we derived more benefits from this excursion into sharing than the children at POC, who are sadly in need of many other basic necessities, such as new beds to serve as their entire world for extended periods of time.
Indeed, we were privileged to have spent a few hours with these children in need, if only because now we know caring for others is a basic need. Without others to care for, to worry about, to dream for, each of us will be such a small world inhabited by nobody but ourselves. I do love me but if it were just “I, me, and myself” in the universe, what’s the point of infinity?
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
Among the Chinese around the world, the seventh month of the lunar calendar (lunar July in our calendar this year is between the seventh of August to the sixth of September) is regarded as the ghost month, dedicated mostly to ancestral worship. During this period, “when deceased ancestors emerge from the lower realms to visit the living,” important events like weddings, inaugurations, and construction are avoided at all costs.
BLURB
I adore simple pleasures. They are the last refuge of the complex—Oscar Wilde
For us in the media, August, like the latter part of July, is a time to take a breather from our media circus, which will promptly resume in September and, I expect based on experience, will not slow down until around July next year. But this month, at least, we need not run around like headless chickens with brunches and lunches, high-teas and cocktails, dinners and nightouts to tick off our daily schedule. Because thankfully the economy never comes to a standstill, there is, of course, always the occasional invitation or two that you cannot turn down even in this slow month.
I’d like to think that ancient Chinese wisdom has been validated that in August, even among us pragmatists, hardly any brand launches a new product and many designers are away on holiday. Whatever the reason, August’s gift to us is the luxury of time, which this magazine in your hands encourages you to spend wisely, taking stock of what is truly essential in your life.
Under the theme, “Back to Basics,” this special, collectible edition trains the spotlight on the key ingredients of a life well and wisely lived. Of course, there’s no denying that there is pleasure in our excesses, but without the fundamentals, we find ourselves empty when all the things we don’t need are no longer there to close up the hole. So this month, we focus on what is vital to our existence.
Health, for instance, demands constant, unfailing attention, as exemplified by nurse Jenny Yoro (“Order of the White Caps,”), whose profession is a vocation rather than a practical career choice.
Although it remains a luxury for too many of our brethren, education is also non-negotiable in the pursuit of a meaningful life. Here we salute young teachers like Mia Villavicencio (“To Ma’am, With Love,”), who make it as much fun to teach as it is to learn from generations-in-training.
No longer confined to the laboratory, science or the awareness of it among us laymen is now integral to day-to-day living. Scientist Rochie Cuevas (“The Cereal Scientist,”) is dedicating many of her young years to the study of rice, the most basic of Asia’s basic diet. Who knows her cereal chemistry project might yield the solution to the rice shortage that threatens to exacerbate the problem of starvation around the world?
Incidentally, one of our fashion editorials (“Rice is Gold,”), emphasizes the value of rice and the need for a consolidated effort to keep it a staple, therefore affordable and available, on every table in the Philippines, in the region, and other parts of the world, where billions depend on it for daily sustenance.
But back to basics, inspiration and self-realization are crucial, too. Wrapped in the arresting package of beauty and glamour, not to mention height, our cover girl, New York-based Ford supermodel Charo Ronquillo (“Model Behavior,”), calls attention to these basic ingredients of the life worth living. Within her recipe for success is yet another recipe that combines in equal measure hard work, humility, a sense of gratitude, and the desire and energy to keep dreaming.
Love of others, especially in this day and age of economic turbulence and environmental disaster, is doubtless a fundamental virtue. In preparation for this issue, my staff and I, upon the prodding of associate editor Hector Reyes, threw an afternoon party for the children of the Philippine Orthopedic Center (POC) in Quezon City (“Happy Days,”). Partnering with Diether Ocampo’s K.I.D.S. Foundation and seeking the support of our own friends, such as the brothers Rachy and Ricky Cuna of Fiorgelato and Lynn Sunico of the Skyline Group, as well as the lovely mascots Sergeant March and Lionel at SM Storyland, we endeavored to give joy to over sixty children, along with their families, if only to give them momentary relief from the pain of broken bones and the boredom of being tied to their beds for months on end. We know there’s so much more to giving than a whole afternoon of entertainment, but I take consolation in the fact that people like Diether and his group, whose key members include the lovely lawyer Karina Tañega and the musician Mondo Castro, are constantly at the service of these children in need.
Ours was barely half a baby step to civic consciousness. I believe we derived more benefits from this excursion into sharing than the children at POC, who are sadly in need of many other basic necessities, such as new beds to serve as their entire world for extended periods of time.
Indeed, we were privileged to have spent a few hours with these children in need, if only because now we know caring for others is a basic need. Without others to care for, to worry about, to dream for, each of us will be such a small world inhabited by nobody but ourselves. I do love me but if it were just “I, me, and myself” in the universe, what’s the point of infinity?
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
A CLOCKWORK ORANGE AND OTHER ALTERED STATES
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, A LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY IN MANILA BULLETIN, 25 JULY 2008)
I have since last Saturday seemingly developed a hypersensitivity to alcohol. It isn’t exactly an allergy, except on Sunday morning, when in the shower at 7 a.m., 30 minutes after I got home from a long night of drinking, I thought I could smell alcohol from my body wash and thereafter from my face cream. As a result the shower didn’t seem to sober me up. Instead, it sent me to bed feeling as though I had one more shooter to force down my throat. And I did, but let’s talk about that later.
BLURB
It had been a wonderful evening and what I needed now, to give it a perfect ending, was a little of the Ludwig Van. —Malcolm McDowell as Alex, A Clockwork Orange, 1971
Last Saturday would have been a long night, except that we were having fun. First order of the evening, following a few hours at the office, was dinner at Grappa’s on N. Garcia. The place was nothing special, but, like a preview to what the rest of the night had in store for us, the dinner was. I’m not at all new to this restaurant, but for the first time I was literally licking the plate clean of every last bit of my puttanesca and my Quattro Formaggi.
Next door, at the Purple Feet Wine Depot, Diether Ocampo was hosting a degustacion for his birthday. It was a quiet, intimate dinner, contrary to our expectations, which was the reason we had dinner elsewhere. This party was not for the celebrity, but for the person or, to be more precise, for the charitable soul behind K.I.D.S Foundation. How refreshing it was that over glasses upon glasses of red and white—not to mention course after course of continental dishes, which we skipped—the conversation revolved around public schools that need help in Benguet or the children’s wards at the Philippine General Hospital and the Philippine Orthopedic Center (POC). Incidentally, only a few days before this party, Style Weekend and our monthly magazine Sense&Style collaborated with K.I.D.S Foundation, along with our friends, Lynn Sunico of Makati Skyline, Rachy and Ricky Cuna of Fiorgelato, and SM Storyland, in throwing a kiddie party at the POC children’s ward, replete with balloons, an ice cream station, hot dogs, spaghetti, chicken lollipops, the mascots Sergeant March and Lionel, face painters, and gift bags full of books and toys.
From Diether’s dinner at Purple Feet, where we were happy to have drunk to better, more charitable days with Diether and Karina Tañega of K.I.D.S Foundation and many of their avid supporters like Nike’s Mia Trinidad, Mondo Castro of the Pin-Up Girls, The Good Earth’s JP Castrillo, and Kate Torralba, we moved to fashion photographer Charles Lu’s farewell party nearby.
Over the years, we have collaborated on countless fashion and beauty editorials, and not a few of our cover pictorials for Sense&Style, with Charles and now that he is ready to turn a new leaf, transporting his whole life hook, line, and sinker to New York, it would have been a crime if we failed to say goodbye.
What a send-off it was! Held at a bachelor’s pad owned by Charles’ cineaste friend, Jardine Gerodias, it was a throwback to those college club parties, where strangers stood next to each other, bound by drink after drink after drink. In one room, some people were playing the Nintendo Wii game Rock Band. In another room, some were shooting the bull and horsing around. In yet another, the smokers converged, packed like a can of sardines in a steam room. But the center of it all was the bar, set up by the Sober Club and lined with an endless number of shot glasses full of alcohol in all manner of form and flavor, not to mention all the colors of an Akira Kurosawa movie or at least a chapter from his Dreams, especially once alcohol began flowing through your bloodstream.
“Choose your poison,” said Soda Club owner Jenny Peregrina, gesturing with a sweep of her long arm toward her multicolored collection: Ibiza Grapes, Peaches, Citrus Attack, Orange Crush, Mojito, Apple Concoction, Silver Spider, Quicksand, Shark Attack, Pink Slush, Jell-O Shots, and so many others. Our favorite was the Boracay Mocha Blends, but most exciting was what the bartenders called “The Flamers,” a drink that’s lit up directly in the drinker’s mouth.
Needless to say, we were, to borrow from Morrissey, “happy in the haze of a drunken hour” that stretched from way past midnight to way past sunrise on Sunday morning, particularly when Jardine the bachelor of the pad, a film graduate from Berkeley, took us through his extensive collection of all-original movies and music videos, both artful and commercial. The best part of it was I left the party, squinting in the punishing sunshine, with some loot, a copy of Michel Gondry’s latest release, Be Kind Rewind, and the ’70s cult classic from Stanley Kubrick. Of course, I swore to return them and I will, though I made the promise—and Jardine received it—in an altered state.
So I came home on Sunday morning just before seven and, feeling as though there was alcohol even in the air I was breathing, I didn’t sleep until much later, allowing myself to get lost in the future-shock scenes of Kubrick’s 1971 adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ controversial novel.
Soon, at last, the party was over, as the curtain that was my eyes fell on the end credits of the DVD. I drifted into the REM stage, most probably humming either Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony” or Gene Kelly’s “Singin’ in the Rain” from the soundtrack of this deeply engaging, entrancing, powerful, and downright stylish film, A Clockwork Orange.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
I have since last Saturday seemingly developed a hypersensitivity to alcohol. It isn’t exactly an allergy, except on Sunday morning, when in the shower at 7 a.m., 30 minutes after I got home from a long night of drinking, I thought I could smell alcohol from my body wash and thereafter from my face cream. As a result the shower didn’t seem to sober me up. Instead, it sent me to bed feeling as though I had one more shooter to force down my throat. And I did, but let’s talk about that later.
BLURB
It had been a wonderful evening and what I needed now, to give it a perfect ending, was a little of the Ludwig Van. —Malcolm McDowell as Alex, A Clockwork Orange, 1971
Last Saturday would have been a long night, except that we were having fun. First order of the evening, following a few hours at the office, was dinner at Grappa’s on N. Garcia. The place was nothing special, but, like a preview to what the rest of the night had in store for us, the dinner was. I’m not at all new to this restaurant, but for the first time I was literally licking the plate clean of every last bit of my puttanesca and my Quattro Formaggi.
Next door, at the Purple Feet Wine Depot, Diether Ocampo was hosting a degustacion for his birthday. It was a quiet, intimate dinner, contrary to our expectations, which was the reason we had dinner elsewhere. This party was not for the celebrity, but for the person or, to be more precise, for the charitable soul behind K.I.D.S Foundation. How refreshing it was that over glasses upon glasses of red and white—not to mention course after course of continental dishes, which we skipped—the conversation revolved around public schools that need help in Benguet or the children’s wards at the Philippine General Hospital and the Philippine Orthopedic Center (POC). Incidentally, only a few days before this party, Style Weekend and our monthly magazine Sense&Style collaborated with K.I.D.S Foundation, along with our friends, Lynn Sunico of Makati Skyline, Rachy and Ricky Cuna of Fiorgelato, and SM Storyland, in throwing a kiddie party at the POC children’s ward, replete with balloons, an ice cream station, hot dogs, spaghetti, chicken lollipops, the mascots Sergeant March and Lionel, face painters, and gift bags full of books and toys.
From Diether’s dinner at Purple Feet, where we were happy to have drunk to better, more charitable days with Diether and Karina Tañega of K.I.D.S Foundation and many of their avid supporters like Nike’s Mia Trinidad, Mondo Castro of the Pin-Up Girls, The Good Earth’s JP Castrillo, and Kate Torralba, we moved to fashion photographer Charles Lu’s farewell party nearby.
Over the years, we have collaborated on countless fashion and beauty editorials, and not a few of our cover pictorials for Sense&Style, with Charles and now that he is ready to turn a new leaf, transporting his whole life hook, line, and sinker to New York, it would have been a crime if we failed to say goodbye.
What a send-off it was! Held at a bachelor’s pad owned by Charles’ cineaste friend, Jardine Gerodias, it was a throwback to those college club parties, where strangers stood next to each other, bound by drink after drink after drink. In one room, some people were playing the Nintendo Wii game Rock Band. In another room, some were shooting the bull and horsing around. In yet another, the smokers converged, packed like a can of sardines in a steam room. But the center of it all was the bar, set up by the Sober Club and lined with an endless number of shot glasses full of alcohol in all manner of form and flavor, not to mention all the colors of an Akira Kurosawa movie or at least a chapter from his Dreams, especially once alcohol began flowing through your bloodstream.
“Choose your poison,” said Soda Club owner Jenny Peregrina, gesturing with a sweep of her long arm toward her multicolored collection: Ibiza Grapes, Peaches, Citrus Attack, Orange Crush, Mojito, Apple Concoction, Silver Spider, Quicksand, Shark Attack, Pink Slush, Jell-O Shots, and so many others. Our favorite was the Boracay Mocha Blends, but most exciting was what the bartenders called “The Flamers,” a drink that’s lit up directly in the drinker’s mouth.
Needless to say, we were, to borrow from Morrissey, “happy in the haze of a drunken hour” that stretched from way past midnight to way past sunrise on Sunday morning, particularly when Jardine the bachelor of the pad, a film graduate from Berkeley, took us through his extensive collection of all-original movies and music videos, both artful and commercial. The best part of it was I left the party, squinting in the punishing sunshine, with some loot, a copy of Michel Gondry’s latest release, Be Kind Rewind, and the ’70s cult classic from Stanley Kubrick. Of course, I swore to return them and I will, though I made the promise—and Jardine received it—in an altered state.
So I came home on Sunday morning just before seven and, feeling as though there was alcohol even in the air I was breathing, I didn’t sleep until much later, allowing myself to get lost in the future-shock scenes of Kubrick’s 1971 adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ controversial novel.
Soon, at last, the party was over, as the curtain that was my eyes fell on the end credits of the DVD. I drifted into the REM stage, most probably humming either Ludwig van Beethoven’s “Ninth Symphony” or Gene Kelly’s “Singin’ in the Rain” from the soundtrack of this deeply engaging, entrancing, powerful, and downright stylish film, A Clockwork Orange.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
Monday, July 14, 2008
THE SCIENCE OF SLEEP
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, A LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY IN MANILA BULLETIN, 18 JULY 2008)
I can’t get over it. It’s been over a month since my DVD weekend, the most memorable, dreamiest two hours of which unraveled like visions during R.E.M., as scene after scene I followed Versailles-born filmmaker Michel Gondry on his journey into the imaginative mind, The Science of Sleep (Warner Independent Pictures, 2006), originally entitled La Science des rêves, which literally means The Science of Dreams.
BLURB
First, we put in some random thoughts. And then we add a little bit of reminiscences of the day… mixed with some memories from the past. —Gael García Bernal as Stephane, The Science of Sleep
On the subject of dreams, I simply cannot resist musing about this dream of a movie again and again. But then, The Science of Sleep is one of the few movies you can watch over and over again.
Starring Gael García Bernal and Charlotte Gainsbourg and set as much in Paris as in the mind of its lead character, Stephane, Michel Gondry’s quirky, quixotic film is a love story as awkward as first love and almost as pathetic as obsession. To Bernal, who plays Stephane, a transplant from Mexico, a “white-collar drudge by day, genius by night,” who dreams in pictures as well as in English, French, and Spanish, it is a film about rejection. For Gainsbourg, who plays Stephane’s object of affection, Stephanie, “the characters are meant for each other and would find a way to be together,” but rather than a logical declaration, her statement, as she herself is quick to clarify, is in fact only a hopeful sentiment.
Indeed, even the lead actors can only guess. This clever film has none of the clichés, so that from start to finish, as the viewer confuses fact with fantasy, reality with reverie, he finds that a huge part of the film, particularly the ending, is subject to interpretation.
Like any work of art, The Science of Sleep is full of inspirations from its maker’s past. Gondry’s recurring childhood nightmare about giant hands has, for instance, woven itself into the fantastical visual of the film. So has what I assume to be his fond memory of S.E. Hinton’s iconic The Outsiders, if only because in his film, Golden the Pony Boy directly alludes to the lead character in the 1967 novel.
Indeed, even in Gondry’s references, real, unreal, and surreal intermingle. But really what separates fact from fiction? What separates imagination from actuality? Think about it: A sequence of delightful images makes up most of this 106-minute masterpiece by Michel Gondry, all unfolding in a city of dreams that is so much like Paris, albeit with paper boats afloat cellophane waves under cotton clouds and with skyscrapers and skyways crowded with cardboard cars and cardboard trains made entirely of toilet paper rolls. So why can’t an expanded sequence lasting anywhere between two and eight hours per night over the course of a lifetime, not counting the hours spent more consciously in daydreams, make up a life? After all, even the universe might have started merely as a figment of God’s imagination—or still is, unless God, too, is only the sum of all our dreams, the most depraved and the most divine, the lowliest and the loftiest, the best and the worst.
Or maybe I’m putting too much thought into what is designed ultimately as a dream, a chain of images, as defined in the Encarta World English Dictionary, “that appear involuntarily to the mind of a sleeping person, often a mixture of real and imaginary characters, places, and events.” What am I doing trying to unearth reality from this phantasmagoria? Like those images in the subconscious, The Science of Sleep is in parts cryptic at best, meaningless at worst. If there were any linear progression of events, it is only because, as Stephanie puts it in one of the scenes, “randomness is hard to achieve [and] organization merges back, if you don’t pay attention.”
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
I can’t get over it. It’s been over a month since my DVD weekend, the most memorable, dreamiest two hours of which unraveled like visions during R.E.M., as scene after scene I followed Versailles-born filmmaker Michel Gondry on his journey into the imaginative mind, The Science of Sleep (Warner Independent Pictures, 2006), originally entitled La Science des rêves, which literally means The Science of Dreams.
BLURB
First, we put in some random thoughts. And then we add a little bit of reminiscences of the day… mixed with some memories from the past. —Gael García Bernal as Stephane, The Science of Sleep
On the subject of dreams, I simply cannot resist musing about this dream of a movie again and again. But then, The Science of Sleep is one of the few movies you can watch over and over again.
Starring Gael García Bernal and Charlotte Gainsbourg and set as much in Paris as in the mind of its lead character, Stephane, Michel Gondry’s quirky, quixotic film is a love story as awkward as first love and almost as pathetic as obsession. To Bernal, who plays Stephane, a transplant from Mexico, a “white-collar drudge by day, genius by night,” who dreams in pictures as well as in English, French, and Spanish, it is a film about rejection. For Gainsbourg, who plays Stephane’s object of affection, Stephanie, “the characters are meant for each other and would find a way to be together,” but rather than a logical declaration, her statement, as she herself is quick to clarify, is in fact only a hopeful sentiment.
Indeed, even the lead actors can only guess. This clever film has none of the clichés, so that from start to finish, as the viewer confuses fact with fantasy, reality with reverie, he finds that a huge part of the film, particularly the ending, is subject to interpretation.
Like any work of art, The Science of Sleep is full of inspirations from its maker’s past. Gondry’s recurring childhood nightmare about giant hands has, for instance, woven itself into the fantastical visual of the film. So has what I assume to be his fond memory of S.E. Hinton’s iconic The Outsiders, if only because in his film, Golden the Pony Boy directly alludes to the lead character in the 1967 novel.
Indeed, even in Gondry’s references, real, unreal, and surreal intermingle. But really what separates fact from fiction? What separates imagination from actuality? Think about it: A sequence of delightful images makes up most of this 106-minute masterpiece by Michel Gondry, all unfolding in a city of dreams that is so much like Paris, albeit with paper boats afloat cellophane waves under cotton clouds and with skyscrapers and skyways crowded with cardboard cars and cardboard trains made entirely of toilet paper rolls. So why can’t an expanded sequence lasting anywhere between two and eight hours per night over the course of a lifetime, not counting the hours spent more consciously in daydreams, make up a life? After all, even the universe might have started merely as a figment of God’s imagination—or still is, unless God, too, is only the sum of all our dreams, the most depraved and the most divine, the lowliest and the loftiest, the best and the worst.
Or maybe I’m putting too much thought into what is designed ultimately as a dream, a chain of images, as defined in the Encarta World English Dictionary, “that appear involuntarily to the mind of a sleeping person, often a mixture of real and imaginary characters, places, and events.” What am I doing trying to unearth reality from this phantasmagoria? Like those images in the subconscious, The Science of Sleep is in parts cryptic at best, meaningless at worst. If there were any linear progression of events, it is only because, as Stephanie puts it in one of the scenes, “randomness is hard to achieve [and] organization merges back, if you don’t pay attention.”
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
THE FETUSES
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, A LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY IN MANILA BULLETIN, 11 JULY 2008)
Fresh from college, young people converge at an advertising agency, all equipped with what they learned from top universities in Manila and with a vision of a future in which they each will play a role no less than the lead.
BLURB
I live in that solitude that is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity. —Albert Einsten
The oldies, or so they called themselves self-deprecatingly, are happy to take young blood under their wing, if only to inject something new into the stream of day-to-day routine. Some, for sure, have only the best interest of the kids in mind, at least according to their own personal notion of what’s good and what’s bad, and look forward to sharing what they know to the so called emerging generation, the next in line. Others take it simply as a matter of course: The workload is getting heavier and there is a need for help and, taking into consideration the company budget, they settle for greenhorns, hoping against hope that eagerness and enthusiasm will more than make up for lack of experience and potential will eventually translate to performance.
To the young ones, ranging in age from 19 to 21, the workplace is a brave new world all compressed into two floors of a building in the central business district. Instinctively, they look around, hoping for a glimpse of their own future in the way the bosses carry themselves and the way they carry out their tasks, as well as in their things, their cars, their clothes, the words and gestures they use to communicate, what they prefer for lunch, where they go in the evenings, and whom they go with.
Some may have found an inkling of what’s ahead: This is the life I’m going to have when I reach the top, but most, based at least on the turn of events later on, decide this is hardly even step one of the ladder and the top is yet beyond view.
In the meantime, the cravings of youth cannot be sidestepped on the road to the more adult goals of success and security. Inevitably, with so much in common, the young ones band together, first maybe over coffee at Greenbelt, then regularly over lunch, merienda, dinner, after-dinner drinks, midnight snacks following late-nights at the clubs, breakfast in the wake of all-nighters, and weeklong adventures out of town and even out of the country.
At this particular advertising agency, the friendship that forms among the entry-level employees is more than a case of the culture of fraternities and sororities extending beyond the college campus. It becomes a clique that soon grows into a collective force the executive office, from the creative directors all the way to the president and CEO, soon begin to acknowledge. Affectionately and almost officially, they name this young group The Fetuses, but, at least according to one senior vice president during a drunken moment at a beach company outing, these fetuses not only have teeth, but fangs, too. True enough, not only does this clique exclude some unfortunate others during lunch breaks and after-work fun, it also, to some extent, decides how happy these “barbarians,” especially if they belong to the same age group, will be and, often consequently, how long they will stay in the company.
On a stormy evening, taking advantage of the “rare privilege” of having one of the fetuses in his car for a free ride home, one of these unfortunate outsiders confesses, “Maybe you think I don’t care, but I feel so sorry for myself that when you guys are at the audio-visual room and I cannot seem to bring myself to join you or that when you guys go out for lunch, I always have to be left behind.”
Suddenly moved by their conscience, The Fetuses slowly integrate this outsider into their inner circle, although many of them who went to university with this “boisterous, obnoxious fat guy” admit they could never have imagined having a beer bong with him in college. “Well,” argue the more reasonable members of the gang, “this is not college anymore. We are ‘professionals’ now.” Reason among the majority, who also have fangs to show when they find the need to snarl, prevails and soon this outsider is in the club. But, sadly, not for long: One wrong move and he is back in the same predicament, feeling sorry that he has to stay behind when The Fetuses break for lunch.
Fast forward and this is the future that does not look anything like what practically all of the Fetuses glimpsed back then because they now belong to industries outside of advertising, where every single one of them is on top of their game. The members of the clique remain friends, now godfathers and godmothers to each other’s children. At the workplace, where some of them reign over as top executives, many now have their own Fetuses. During get-togethers, they wonder if like they used to do, today’s fetuses also make fun of the “old fogeys” behind their backs. As for “the boisterous, obnoxious fat guy,” who almost but never did belong to their group, no one knows much about, although there is every reason to believe he also made it in one piece in this “future.” Looking back, The Fetuses have no regrets but wish they were kinder. The people who make up your life are not always your choices, except perhaps at higher, metaphysical levels, but your friends you at least reserve the right to choose.
Still, The Fetuses can only heave a collective sigh of relief that karma did not choose to activate itself. After all, they were young, invincible, therefore reckless. But now that they are older, supposedly wiser, they know it’s a small world. Easily, along the way, the “boisterous, obnoxious fat guy” could have been the devil boss or the evil client and who knows how it could have changed the future?
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
Fresh from college, young people converge at an advertising agency, all equipped with what they learned from top universities in Manila and with a vision of a future in which they each will play a role no less than the lead.
BLURB
I live in that solitude that is painful in youth, but delicious in the years of maturity. —Albert Einsten
The oldies, or so they called themselves self-deprecatingly, are happy to take young blood under their wing, if only to inject something new into the stream of day-to-day routine. Some, for sure, have only the best interest of the kids in mind, at least according to their own personal notion of what’s good and what’s bad, and look forward to sharing what they know to the so called emerging generation, the next in line. Others take it simply as a matter of course: The workload is getting heavier and there is a need for help and, taking into consideration the company budget, they settle for greenhorns, hoping against hope that eagerness and enthusiasm will more than make up for lack of experience and potential will eventually translate to performance.
To the young ones, ranging in age from 19 to 21, the workplace is a brave new world all compressed into two floors of a building in the central business district. Instinctively, they look around, hoping for a glimpse of their own future in the way the bosses carry themselves and the way they carry out their tasks, as well as in their things, their cars, their clothes, the words and gestures they use to communicate, what they prefer for lunch, where they go in the evenings, and whom they go with.
Some may have found an inkling of what’s ahead: This is the life I’m going to have when I reach the top, but most, based at least on the turn of events later on, decide this is hardly even step one of the ladder and the top is yet beyond view.
In the meantime, the cravings of youth cannot be sidestepped on the road to the more adult goals of success and security. Inevitably, with so much in common, the young ones band together, first maybe over coffee at Greenbelt, then regularly over lunch, merienda, dinner, after-dinner drinks, midnight snacks following late-nights at the clubs, breakfast in the wake of all-nighters, and weeklong adventures out of town and even out of the country.
At this particular advertising agency, the friendship that forms among the entry-level employees is more than a case of the culture of fraternities and sororities extending beyond the college campus. It becomes a clique that soon grows into a collective force the executive office, from the creative directors all the way to the president and CEO, soon begin to acknowledge. Affectionately and almost officially, they name this young group The Fetuses, but, at least according to one senior vice president during a drunken moment at a beach company outing, these fetuses not only have teeth, but fangs, too. True enough, not only does this clique exclude some unfortunate others during lunch breaks and after-work fun, it also, to some extent, decides how happy these “barbarians,” especially if they belong to the same age group, will be and, often consequently, how long they will stay in the company.
On a stormy evening, taking advantage of the “rare privilege” of having one of the fetuses in his car for a free ride home, one of these unfortunate outsiders confesses, “Maybe you think I don’t care, but I feel so sorry for myself that when you guys are at the audio-visual room and I cannot seem to bring myself to join you or that when you guys go out for lunch, I always have to be left behind.”
Suddenly moved by their conscience, The Fetuses slowly integrate this outsider into their inner circle, although many of them who went to university with this “boisterous, obnoxious fat guy” admit they could never have imagined having a beer bong with him in college. “Well,” argue the more reasonable members of the gang, “this is not college anymore. We are ‘professionals’ now.” Reason among the majority, who also have fangs to show when they find the need to snarl, prevails and soon this outsider is in the club. But, sadly, not for long: One wrong move and he is back in the same predicament, feeling sorry that he has to stay behind when The Fetuses break for lunch.
Fast forward and this is the future that does not look anything like what practically all of the Fetuses glimpsed back then because they now belong to industries outside of advertising, where every single one of them is on top of their game. The members of the clique remain friends, now godfathers and godmothers to each other’s children. At the workplace, where some of them reign over as top executives, many now have their own Fetuses. During get-togethers, they wonder if like they used to do, today’s fetuses also make fun of the “old fogeys” behind their backs. As for “the boisterous, obnoxious fat guy,” who almost but never did belong to their group, no one knows much about, although there is every reason to believe he also made it in one piece in this “future.” Looking back, The Fetuses have no regrets but wish they were kinder. The people who make up your life are not always your choices, except perhaps at higher, metaphysical levels, but your friends you at least reserve the right to choose.
Still, The Fetuses can only heave a collective sigh of relief that karma did not choose to activate itself. After all, they were young, invincible, therefore reckless. But now that they are older, supposedly wiser, they know it’s a small world. Easily, along the way, the “boisterous, obnoxious fat guy” could have been the devil boss or the evil client and who knows how it could have changed the future?
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
LIKE THE WEATHER
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, A LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY IN MANILA BULLETIN, 4 JULY 2008)
Nowadays, the weather is often bad news.
BLURB
What a cold and rainy day! Where on earth is the sun hid away? —“Like the Weather,” 10,000 Maniacs, 1988
On a particular day in the aftermath of the sinking of MV Princess of the Stars off Sibuyan Island in Romblon, if I remember right, it was 28 degrees in Paris, a lovely summer day, but it was all that was lovely on the CNN Weather Report. In California, a lightning storm triggered forest fires, but there was zero wind in most places, so thank God for that, as we cannot bear a repeat of the Malibu wildfire that set California in flames barely a year ago. Elsewhere in the United States, the weather was exacerbating the worst US Midwest flooding in North America in 15 years, with the Mississippi River submerging up to two million hectares of farmlands and sweeping away entire towns across the north-central states. Among the neighbors of France, the weather wasn’t as friendly. In Vienna, it rained on the Euro 2008 parade, dampening spirits particularly at the Germany-versus-Turkey semi-finals, whose viewers across Europe were denied television coverage, as the storm, unleashing lightning, high winds, and heavy rains, caused massive blackouts. In Asia, the typhoon that caught the Philippines unawares two weekends ago, leaving hundreds dead and thousands homeless, was now wreaking havoc over parts of China, having just left a trail of wet misery in Hong Kong.
How strange that, as of this writing, we are supposed to be well into the rainy season, but the sun heated up the day as though it were the height of summer, interrupted only by the briefest of rainshowers. Thank God for that, too, as at this point, so many days after typhoon Frank caused yet another tragedy at sea, rescue squads are still hoping against hope some survivors would still emerge somehow, while Sulpicio Lines, on the other hand, is digging its own grave, forgetting that sympathy, rather than appropriation of blame and more than monetary compensation over lives and limbs lost, is indispensable at a time like this, particularly to their survival as a corporate entity.
But as of late last week, even as Sulpicio announced the release of P200,000 per victim to the bereaved, whether or not there had been a confirmation of death, government officials in areas where bodies were being found, such as in Masbate and Camarines Sur, were still irately and desperately calling the attention of Sulpicio officials toward what should have been their key role in the search and retrieval operations. To think that during the crucial first days of the rescue operations, spokespersons, mostly rude, unemotional lawyers, at Sulpicio kept saying the focus was on the search, leaving the victims’ families, already burdened with worry and grief, to their own devices. During a maritime disaster involving one of their ships, WG&A, some years ago, made it a point to care for the victims’ families, flying them to the vicinity of the tragedy to help identify—and claim—their dead and taking charge of their hotel accommodations and meals through their darkest hours.
I used to love the rain and, yes, even the howling winds, when I’m tucked in bed, warm beneath the sheets, safe in a perilous world. After a shower, there used to be romance on wet, slippery roads, with the grey skies reflecting off silvery puddles and raindrops sliding off leaves or otherwise launching themselves like teardrops off the eaves.
Now it’s all guilty pleasure. If only we could return to kinder times, when the girl group The Toys was a major hit, we could still, without guilt, hum along as Barbara Harris with Barbara Parritt and June Montiero rhapsodizes, “How gentle is the rain/That falls softly on the meadow/Birds high up in the trees/Serenade the clouds with their melodies (“A Lover’s Concerto,” 1965).”
But life is more complicated now. When Madonna muses, “Wash away my sorrow/take away my pain (‘Rain,’ 1993)” or when Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks laments, “Thunder only happens when it’s raining (‘Dreams,’ 1977),” there is a chance a boat is sinking somewhere or a family is being buried alive in a mudslide or the old and homeless are cold and dying on the pavement.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
Nowadays, the weather is often bad news.
BLURB
What a cold and rainy day! Where on earth is the sun hid away? —“Like the Weather,” 10,000 Maniacs, 1988
On a particular day in the aftermath of the sinking of MV Princess of the Stars off Sibuyan Island in Romblon, if I remember right, it was 28 degrees in Paris, a lovely summer day, but it was all that was lovely on the CNN Weather Report. In California, a lightning storm triggered forest fires, but there was zero wind in most places, so thank God for that, as we cannot bear a repeat of the Malibu wildfire that set California in flames barely a year ago. Elsewhere in the United States, the weather was exacerbating the worst US Midwest flooding in North America in 15 years, with the Mississippi River submerging up to two million hectares of farmlands and sweeping away entire towns across the north-central states. Among the neighbors of France, the weather wasn’t as friendly. In Vienna, it rained on the Euro 2008 parade, dampening spirits particularly at the Germany-versus-Turkey semi-finals, whose viewers across Europe were denied television coverage, as the storm, unleashing lightning, high winds, and heavy rains, caused massive blackouts. In Asia, the typhoon that caught the Philippines unawares two weekends ago, leaving hundreds dead and thousands homeless, was now wreaking havoc over parts of China, having just left a trail of wet misery in Hong Kong.
How strange that, as of this writing, we are supposed to be well into the rainy season, but the sun heated up the day as though it were the height of summer, interrupted only by the briefest of rainshowers. Thank God for that, too, as at this point, so many days after typhoon Frank caused yet another tragedy at sea, rescue squads are still hoping against hope some survivors would still emerge somehow, while Sulpicio Lines, on the other hand, is digging its own grave, forgetting that sympathy, rather than appropriation of blame and more than monetary compensation over lives and limbs lost, is indispensable at a time like this, particularly to their survival as a corporate entity.
But as of late last week, even as Sulpicio announced the release of P200,000 per victim to the bereaved, whether or not there had been a confirmation of death, government officials in areas where bodies were being found, such as in Masbate and Camarines Sur, were still irately and desperately calling the attention of Sulpicio officials toward what should have been their key role in the search and retrieval operations. To think that during the crucial first days of the rescue operations, spokespersons, mostly rude, unemotional lawyers, at Sulpicio kept saying the focus was on the search, leaving the victims’ families, already burdened with worry and grief, to their own devices. During a maritime disaster involving one of their ships, WG&A, some years ago, made it a point to care for the victims’ families, flying them to the vicinity of the tragedy to help identify—and claim—their dead and taking charge of their hotel accommodations and meals through their darkest hours.
I used to love the rain and, yes, even the howling winds, when I’m tucked in bed, warm beneath the sheets, safe in a perilous world. After a shower, there used to be romance on wet, slippery roads, with the grey skies reflecting off silvery puddles and raindrops sliding off leaves or otherwise launching themselves like teardrops off the eaves.
Now it’s all guilty pleasure. If only we could return to kinder times, when the girl group The Toys was a major hit, we could still, without guilt, hum along as Barbara Harris with Barbara Parritt and June Montiero rhapsodizes, “How gentle is the rain/That falls softly on the meadow/Birds high up in the trees/Serenade the clouds with their melodies (“A Lover’s Concerto,” 1965).”
But life is more complicated now. When Madonna muses, “Wash away my sorrow/take away my pain (‘Rain,’ 1993)” or when Fleetwood Mac’s Stevie Nicks laments, “Thunder only happens when it’s raining (‘Dreams,’ 1977),” there is a chance a boat is sinking somewhere or a family is being buried alive in a mudslide or the old and homeless are cold and dying on the pavement.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)