(FROM THE EDITOR'S, SENSE&STYLE'S "ART-ISH," JULY 2008, senseandstyle.net.ph)
In my editor’s letter for a travel magazine back in 2005, I wrote that life, more than simply its inspiration, was the essence of all art. This is also the bedrock of this special, collectible edition in your hands, whose aim is to help open your eyes to life as an art form, which, to borrow from that same letter, is “often overlooked because it is neither framed nor gilded nor hung on a museum wall.”
Randomness is hard to achieve. Organization merges back, if you don’t pay attention. —Charlotte Gainsbourg as Stephanie, The Science of Sleep, 2006
Putting these pages together, I find it truly inspiring that there is so much art around us, whether or not we care to distinguish a world of difference between a B-brush and a Filbert. Sure, it would have been grand if we all had the wherewithal to go for a piece of divine genius at Sotheby’s, but more often than not, all it takes is to live our lives with our eyes wide open or—in the case of Stephane, Gael Garcia Bernal’s character in Michel Gondry’s dream of a movie, The Science of Sleep—with our “eyes wide shut,” with apologies to Stanley Kubrik.
To Bernal, who played “white-collar drudge by day, genius by night” in this hip, heartfelt love story, The Science of Sleep is a film about rejection, but to me, it is as cleverly and delightfully hopeful as its wonderland version of Paris abuzz with cotton clouds, paper boats, cardboard cars, and cellophane waves, not to mention skyscrapers and trains made entirely of toilet paper rolls.
In the magazine world, where reality and fantasy necessarily collide almost every day of the workweek, movies like Gondry’s quirky, quixotic, and inventive masterpiece are a wellspring of inspiration. But so is reality. In preparation for this issue designed to acquaint us with the art that surrounds us, I sent my writing stable of twentysomethings out there in search of content. They came back with more than a generous helping of artful lives, from graphic designer Chicho Suarez (“Art & Schisms,” page129) to poet, songstress, and lyricist Aia de Leon of Imago (“The Music and the Message,” page128), from book author and sommelier Ines Cabarrus (“Vin de Siecle,” page 131) to painter Camille Ver (“When All Is Still and I Can Dream,” page 133), from thespian Cathy Azanza (“It’s Showtime!” page 132) to indie filmmaker Sigrid Bernardo (“The Suspension of Disbelief,” page130). What a blessing, indeed, to have such amazing talents inhabit our everyday world!
For Sense&Style associate editor Hector Reyes, whose main duty as fashion and beauty editor compels him to step up as a creative director as well, generating ideas for the more visual aspects of this magazine, this month’s issue is a welcome challenge. He and his team of pretty young things, many of them artists waiting to unfurl their wings, have spent the past few months in close collaboration with photographers, makeup artists, hairstylists, and fashion designers, such as Cary Santiago, Oskar Peralta, Danilo Franco, and Francis Libiran. In pursuit of Hector’s vision to give not only fashion but also hair and makeup their rightful place in the realm of art, these venerable designers created for this issue the most beautiful black gowns, most of which, paired with the makeup artistry of ArtDeco’s RB Chanco (“Behind Beauty,” page 65), I find as hauntingly shadowy as Tim Burton’s Sleepy Hollow or, better yet, as his design inspiration, Mario Bava’s La Maschera del Demonio. Why, like fashion, like most pieces of art, makeup and hairstyle also seek to turn mundane into magical.
Another such collaboration was with EveryWhereWeShoot, with whom we sought to bridge the gap between photography and lomography (“Digitales/Lomostories,” page 78), not that we saw any real difference between the two disciplines, except perhaps in terms of general appearance and technicalities that are beyond us. It’s quite refreshing to work with these young photographers, who wear their artistic credentials and creative potential on their sleeves or, in the case of Garovs Garrovillo, from her waist down in the form of a pair of checkered Jodhpurs that disappear into special-edition Adidas.
For this month’s cover, featuring Miss Earth 2004 Priscilla Meirelles with young actors Rafael Rosell, Brent Javier, Marco Alcaraz, and Jay-R (“Body and Broadway,” page 119), we have a double dose of art appreciation, celebrating the human body, a divine creation that has all the elements of balance and harmony, and cloaking it in little touches borrowed from our favorite larger-than-life tales on the theater stage.
Indeed, despite the protestations of the purist, art finds expression in many forms, which now include even practicalities, such as clothing, what with so many of our couture and prêt-a-porter masters drawing inspiration from or working closely with painters, sculptors, filmmakers, poets, and architects. Maybe art, like life, is also about moments, fleeting as they are. Maybe the Mondrian dress that the late Yves Saint Laurent—for whom we have a tribute this month (“Au Revoir, M. Saint-Laurent,” page 104)—created using wool jersey in color blocks of white, red, blue, black, and yellow was only meant for a particular season sometime in the mid-Sixties, but as we know now it has had its pride of place at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.
Speaking of New York, our senior writer Krizette Chu, who is in Manhattan at the moment, dispatches a report (“Superman Wears Moschino,” page 58) on her coverage of “Superheroes: Fashion and Fantasy,” an exhibition ongoing until September at the Costume Institute at the Met. In this report, at the risk of displeasing the purist yet again, she might have found the core of true art, which, like the marriage of fashion and superheroes in this exhibition, allows us, to paraphrase its curators, to fantasize and escape “the bland, the ordinary, and the quotidian.”
And so, in the quest of palatable, everyday art, may I also invite the purist to a gourmet tour of Paris (“Wish Upon A Michelin Star,” page 35) because, like a Picasso or Swan Lake or a passage from Mozart’s Piano Concerto No. 24 in C minor or a 150-word Proustian sentence or The Marriage of Figaro, a good meal, whether or not fanciful, requires fine skill and produces a sense that all is beautiful in this world, too.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING MORRISSEY
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, A LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY IN MANILA BULLETIN, 27 JUNE 2008)
There were times when I could have murdered her/But you know I would hate anything to happen to her —“Girlfriend in a Coma,” Strangeways, Here I Come, 1987
A co-worker of mine recently retrieved music from the archives of my youth. With The Smiths’ “Girlfriend in a Coma” playing in the background, I have thus spent the past few days shuttling between now and my teen years, when passing through an angst-ridden phase, I thought Morrissey was as dark as the kohl we put under our eyes at Saturday night New Wave parties to separate ourselves from the “normal, wholesome” kids.
In my life/Why do I give valuable time/To people who don’t care if I live or die —“Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now,” Hatful of Hollow, 1984
In my youth, I lived a double life. On certain nights, I would hang out with a group of friends in mainstream places like Rumours, Culture Club, Faces, and Mars, dancing to Madonna or George Michael. Other nights I would spend—and equally enjoy—with another group of friends in the “underground,” drinking Pale Pilsen in places like Mayric’s or Club Dredd, where, as the indie bands covered the likes of The Smiths, I sought the meaning of life.
I am the son/and the heir/of a shyness that is criminally vulgar —“How Soon is Now,” Hatful of Hollow, 1984
That was when I was young and Morrissey was just a beautiful, sad voice articulating beautiful, sad feelings on the radio or my Walkman or the turntable at home. Now that I’m older, I realize that Morrissey, born Stephen Patrick Morrissey in Manchester, England in 1959, is, like his idol Oscar Wilde, an iconoclast who made music to make a stand in a language that is at once cryptic and familiar, erudite and plebian. Even at the height of his fame, he was beyond celebrity. Based at least on his own pronouncements, music was his only currency, the medium with which he expressed his ideals or, more pronouncedly, all that he found ill in this world.
And if the people stare/then the people stare/Oh I really don’t know and I really don’t care —“Hand in Glove,” Hatful of Hollow, 1984
More than open and honest, Morrissey was forceful with his feelings and opinions. As a result, he had more than a “hatful” of enemies, including then UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whom, in a public statement, he said, “could be destroyed,” as “the only remedy for this country.” Among his other enemies were David Bowie, Madonna, and Elton John, whose lyrics he generally described as “pointless and more concerned with celebrity than with music,” as well as Robert Smith of The Cure, whose antagonism toward Morrissey was just as seething. Attacking Morrissey’s animal rights crusade and his vegetarianism, which he had adopted as a way of life since he was 11, Smith once said, “If Morrissey says, ‘don’t eat meat,’ then I’ll eat meat because I hate Morrissey.”
When will you accept your life?/The one that you hate —“Accept Yourself,” Hatful of Hollow, 1984
But then, while he did not beat around the bush when it came to his displeasure of others, Morrissey had always been circuitous about his personal life, which, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, made him “a peculiar heartthrob,” having created a “compellingly conflicted persona.” In some of his songs, such as “Hand in Glove” or “Handsome Devil,” it might seem easy to conclude that he is gay, but as The Times critic Tom Gatti argues, “Morrissey’s music offers an infinite capacity for interpretation.” In 1984, The Smith’s vocalist and lyricist said he refused to recognize the prefixes homo, bi, or hetero in defining human sexuality. “People are just sexual,” he said. “Everybody has exactly the same sexual needs.” Prior to that, in an interview, he “claimed to be a kind of a prophet for the fourth sex” on grounds that “he was bored with men… and bored with women.” Through it all, he maintained that he was asexual, disclosing only in 2006, without offering any more detail, that he was no longer celibate, hinting at “a late-blooming sex life.”
You ask me the time/But I sense something more/And I would like to give/What I think you’re asking for —“Handsome Devil,” Hatful of Hollow, 1984
Does it really matter whether he was gay or not? Back in high school, it didn’t. Even my “homophobic” rocker friends, who were as macho as they were big fans of The Smiths, did not seem to entertain the question. That was because Morrissey was a musician more than a celebrity, who graced magazine covers, endorsed lifestyle products, and traipsed around red carpet events with a lover in tow. But then that was then and this is now, where, to have room in the music industry, the paparazzi and a multi-million-dollar advertising contract are sometimes as important as talent—and definitely more important than having something to say.
So please don’t stand in my way/Because I’m going to meet the one I love/No, Mamma, let me go! —“Shakespeare’s Sister,” The World Won’t Listen, 1987
The Smiths broke up in 1987 due to irreconcilable musical differences between Morrissey and his longtime collaborator, The Smiths’ guitarist Johnny Marr. As a solo act, Morrissey has since produced many songs with his signature depth and longing, including the 1994 hit “The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get” from the number one UK album Vauxhall and I. There is talk that a new album is in the works, supposedly slated for release in September this year, and that there is a 40-million-pound offer for Morrissey to reunite with Marr, but Morrissey dismisses the rumor, calling it a hoax.
Haven’t had a dream in a long time/See the life I’ve had/Can make a good man bad —“Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want,” Hatful of Hollow, 1984
Does Morrissey still have a place in today’s musical landscape, dominated by the likes of American record producer, composer, and singer Timothy Z. Mosley, aka Timbaland? I heard over the radio a few years ago that Timbaland once threatened to retire from the music industry that he found boring and not challenging enough. Maybe, especially if one could earn riches and respect out of such celebrity-obsessed lyrics as “People know me/As the Great Timbaland (Timbaland)/Been brought in the slums but I ranned (But I ranned)/Been boning girls in the Scooby Doo van (“Naughty Eye,” Under Construction II, Timbaland & Magoo, 2003).
He’s not strange/He just wants to live his life this way —“Vicar in a Tutu,” The Queen is Dead, 1986
Maybe, like the dead queen’s, Morrissey’s time is up. But music, like life, goes on.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
There were times when I could have murdered her/But you know I would hate anything to happen to her —“Girlfriend in a Coma,” Strangeways, Here I Come, 1987
A co-worker of mine recently retrieved music from the archives of my youth. With The Smiths’ “Girlfriend in a Coma” playing in the background, I have thus spent the past few days shuttling between now and my teen years, when passing through an angst-ridden phase, I thought Morrissey was as dark as the kohl we put under our eyes at Saturday night New Wave parties to separate ourselves from the “normal, wholesome” kids.
In my life/Why do I give valuable time/To people who don’t care if I live or die —“Heaven Knows I’m Miserable Now,” Hatful of Hollow, 1984
In my youth, I lived a double life. On certain nights, I would hang out with a group of friends in mainstream places like Rumours, Culture Club, Faces, and Mars, dancing to Madonna or George Michael. Other nights I would spend—and equally enjoy—with another group of friends in the “underground,” drinking Pale Pilsen in places like Mayric’s or Club Dredd, where, as the indie bands covered the likes of The Smiths, I sought the meaning of life.
I am the son/and the heir/of a shyness that is criminally vulgar —“How Soon is Now,” Hatful of Hollow, 1984
That was when I was young and Morrissey was just a beautiful, sad voice articulating beautiful, sad feelings on the radio or my Walkman or the turntable at home. Now that I’m older, I realize that Morrissey, born Stephen Patrick Morrissey in Manchester, England in 1959, is, like his idol Oscar Wilde, an iconoclast who made music to make a stand in a language that is at once cryptic and familiar, erudite and plebian. Even at the height of his fame, he was beyond celebrity. Based at least on his own pronouncements, music was his only currency, the medium with which he expressed his ideals or, more pronouncedly, all that he found ill in this world.
And if the people stare/then the people stare/Oh I really don’t know and I really don’t care —“Hand in Glove,” Hatful of Hollow, 1984
More than open and honest, Morrissey was forceful with his feelings and opinions. As a result, he had more than a “hatful” of enemies, including then UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, whom, in a public statement, he said, “could be destroyed,” as “the only remedy for this country.” Among his other enemies were David Bowie, Madonna, and Elton John, whose lyrics he generally described as “pointless and more concerned with celebrity than with music,” as well as Robert Smith of The Cure, whose antagonism toward Morrissey was just as seething. Attacking Morrissey’s animal rights crusade and his vegetarianism, which he had adopted as a way of life since he was 11, Smith once said, “If Morrissey says, ‘don’t eat meat,’ then I’ll eat meat because I hate Morrissey.”
When will you accept your life?/The one that you hate —“Accept Yourself,” Hatful of Hollow, 1984
But then, while he did not beat around the bush when it came to his displeasure of others, Morrissey had always been circuitous about his personal life, which, according to Encyclopedia Britannica, made him “a peculiar heartthrob,” having created a “compellingly conflicted persona.” In some of his songs, such as “Hand in Glove” or “Handsome Devil,” it might seem easy to conclude that he is gay, but as The Times critic Tom Gatti argues, “Morrissey’s music offers an infinite capacity for interpretation.” In 1984, The Smith’s vocalist and lyricist said he refused to recognize the prefixes homo, bi, or hetero in defining human sexuality. “People are just sexual,” he said. “Everybody has exactly the same sexual needs.” Prior to that, in an interview, he “claimed to be a kind of a prophet for the fourth sex” on grounds that “he was bored with men… and bored with women.” Through it all, he maintained that he was asexual, disclosing only in 2006, without offering any more detail, that he was no longer celibate, hinting at “a late-blooming sex life.”
You ask me the time/But I sense something more/And I would like to give/What I think you’re asking for —“Handsome Devil,” Hatful of Hollow, 1984
Does it really matter whether he was gay or not? Back in high school, it didn’t. Even my “homophobic” rocker friends, who were as macho as they were big fans of The Smiths, did not seem to entertain the question. That was because Morrissey was a musician more than a celebrity, who graced magazine covers, endorsed lifestyle products, and traipsed around red carpet events with a lover in tow. But then that was then and this is now, where, to have room in the music industry, the paparazzi and a multi-million-dollar advertising contract are sometimes as important as talent—and definitely more important than having something to say.
So please don’t stand in my way/Because I’m going to meet the one I love/No, Mamma, let me go! —“Shakespeare’s Sister,” The World Won’t Listen, 1987
The Smiths broke up in 1987 due to irreconcilable musical differences between Morrissey and his longtime collaborator, The Smiths’ guitarist Johnny Marr. As a solo act, Morrissey has since produced many songs with his signature depth and longing, including the 1994 hit “The More You Ignore Me, the Closer I Get” from the number one UK album Vauxhall and I. There is talk that a new album is in the works, supposedly slated for release in September this year, and that there is a 40-million-pound offer for Morrissey to reunite with Marr, but Morrissey dismisses the rumor, calling it a hoax.
Haven’t had a dream in a long time/See the life I’ve had/Can make a good man bad —“Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want,” Hatful of Hollow, 1984
Does Morrissey still have a place in today’s musical landscape, dominated by the likes of American record producer, composer, and singer Timothy Z. Mosley, aka Timbaland? I heard over the radio a few years ago that Timbaland once threatened to retire from the music industry that he found boring and not challenging enough. Maybe, especially if one could earn riches and respect out of such celebrity-obsessed lyrics as “People know me/As the Great Timbaland (Timbaland)/Been brought in the slums but I ranned (But I ranned)/Been boning girls in the Scooby Doo van (“Naughty Eye,” Under Construction II, Timbaland & Magoo, 2003).
He’s not strange/He just wants to live his life this way —“Vicar in a Tutu,” The Queen is Dead, 1986
Maybe, like the dead queen’s, Morrissey’s time is up. But music, like life, goes on.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
CRY FREEDOM
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, A LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY IN MANILA BULLETIN, 20 JUNE 2008)
I spent the last holiday watching Peque Gallaga’s obra maestra, Oro Plata Mata, over again. I have seen this ‘80s classic from the now defunct Experimental Cinema of the Philippines more than once before, but released only late last month in DVD format by ABS-CBN’s Star Home Video, it proved worthy of yet another run.
BLURB
…in the Philippine vernacular [the] term ‘peacetime means exclusively all the years before Dec. 8, 1941. There has been no ‘peacetime’ since then. —Nick Joaquin
Back in 1982, when it was shown at the Manila Film Center, I was too young to have had the privilege to see Oro Plata Mata unfold on the big screen. But talking incessantly about the film, if only because it was a great shock to them that there was so much explicit material in it, the grownups around me had made it a part of my childhood fantasies. I waited for years to be able to see it and when I finally did, I must say I wasn’t at all disappointed, the cuts notwithstanding.
It was a coincidence that I saw it another time on Independence Day holiday this year, but it did make me think that Independence Day doesn’t really mean anything anymore now that freedom is nothing more special than the fact that we breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. Besides, who among us still have memories of war and liberation? A great percentage of today’s population, myself included, does not even know exactly what the Marcos regime meant to day-to-day life or what the 1986 revolution meant to those who were liberated from that.
But Oro Plata Mata, hailed as one the 10 best films of the ’80s, is not so much about war and freedom as it is about life changing under and adapting to dire circumstances. In the film, the Japanese only had a cameo role, appearing for no more than a minute in one scene in the form of a bloodied soldier, who died just as quickly. Mostly, the invading forces only made their way to the scene through the conversations of the hacienderos over a game of mahjong or through the lens of a telescope in which they appeared only as a parade of headlights tearing through the darkness toward the protagonists. But then, in brief, although it was set in World War II, the Peque Gallaga classic is not even about the Filipino at war with foreign invaders, but Filipinos at war with each other, which makes it even more poignant and terrifying.
What I find most commendable about this war epic is its realism. Like life, not all the scenes are exciting—some drag interminably like an afternoon in the woods, which is where the “Plata” section of the three-movement film unravels, with the two haciendero families of Negros taking refuge there. As in life, too, there is laughter even through the terror. Although I feel the whole cast performed excellently, including Mary Walter, Abbo de la Cruz, and Melly Mallari who all played servants, my favorite was Lorli Villanueva’s character Viring, an aristocrat who has a knack for gossip and an obsession with her diamantes. The most powerful scene, to me, is when bandits cut Doña Viring’s fingers off because she refuses to give them her precious rings. Equally powerful is the scene where, in the wake of the attack of the bandits, who leave immeasurable physical, emotional, and psychological damage, the lead character, Miguel (Joel Torre), coaxes the quorum—Nena (Liza Lorena), Inday (Fides Cuyugan Asensio), Jo (Maya Valdez), and Viring—to resume their mahjong sessions to ease them out of shock.
Oro Plata Mata, as I saw it, is made up of these little nuances that only get punctuated now and then by the big scenes. The premise of the story—the hopes and dreams, the terror and grief—is articulated not by convoluted dialogue or action-packed scenes or the idealization of characters and situations—but by, say, the grunts of Hermes (Ronnie Lazaro), a guerilla who lost his tongue to the war; or the world of meanings expressed through the eyes of Trining (Cherie Gil), whose innocence through the atrocities gradually turns into cynicism; or the sullen expression of her sister Maggie (Sandy Andolong), who awaits the return of her lover, dead or alive, from the war.
Indeed, in Oro Plata Mata, as in life, freedom is most meaningful where it is absent. What you do when you are allowed to do anything you want does not have as much impact as when you do it against the rules, the customs, the conventions, the limitations.
If I may digress into real life to make my point, Yves Saint-Laurent, who left us a few weeks ago, invented his now classic “le smoking” when women were not allowed to wear pants in certain public places, such as in New York’s fine dining establishments. As a result, we will remember him forever.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
I spent the last holiday watching Peque Gallaga’s obra maestra, Oro Plata Mata, over again. I have seen this ‘80s classic from the now defunct Experimental Cinema of the Philippines more than once before, but released only late last month in DVD format by ABS-CBN’s Star Home Video, it proved worthy of yet another run.
BLURB
…in the Philippine vernacular [the] term ‘peacetime means exclusively all the years before Dec. 8, 1941. There has been no ‘peacetime’ since then. —Nick Joaquin
Back in 1982, when it was shown at the Manila Film Center, I was too young to have had the privilege to see Oro Plata Mata unfold on the big screen. But talking incessantly about the film, if only because it was a great shock to them that there was so much explicit material in it, the grownups around me had made it a part of my childhood fantasies. I waited for years to be able to see it and when I finally did, I must say I wasn’t at all disappointed, the cuts notwithstanding.
It was a coincidence that I saw it another time on Independence Day holiday this year, but it did make me think that Independence Day doesn’t really mean anything anymore now that freedom is nothing more special than the fact that we breathe in oxygen and breathe out carbon dioxide. Besides, who among us still have memories of war and liberation? A great percentage of today’s population, myself included, does not even know exactly what the Marcos regime meant to day-to-day life or what the 1986 revolution meant to those who were liberated from that.
But Oro Plata Mata, hailed as one the 10 best films of the ’80s, is not so much about war and freedom as it is about life changing under and adapting to dire circumstances. In the film, the Japanese only had a cameo role, appearing for no more than a minute in one scene in the form of a bloodied soldier, who died just as quickly. Mostly, the invading forces only made their way to the scene through the conversations of the hacienderos over a game of mahjong or through the lens of a telescope in which they appeared only as a parade of headlights tearing through the darkness toward the protagonists. But then, in brief, although it was set in World War II, the Peque Gallaga classic is not even about the Filipino at war with foreign invaders, but Filipinos at war with each other, which makes it even more poignant and terrifying.
What I find most commendable about this war epic is its realism. Like life, not all the scenes are exciting—some drag interminably like an afternoon in the woods, which is where the “Plata” section of the three-movement film unravels, with the two haciendero families of Negros taking refuge there. As in life, too, there is laughter even through the terror. Although I feel the whole cast performed excellently, including Mary Walter, Abbo de la Cruz, and Melly Mallari who all played servants, my favorite was Lorli Villanueva’s character Viring, an aristocrat who has a knack for gossip and an obsession with her diamantes. The most powerful scene, to me, is when bandits cut Doña Viring’s fingers off because she refuses to give them her precious rings. Equally powerful is the scene where, in the wake of the attack of the bandits, who leave immeasurable physical, emotional, and psychological damage, the lead character, Miguel (Joel Torre), coaxes the quorum—Nena (Liza Lorena), Inday (Fides Cuyugan Asensio), Jo (Maya Valdez), and Viring—to resume their mahjong sessions to ease them out of shock.
Oro Plata Mata, as I saw it, is made up of these little nuances that only get punctuated now and then by the big scenes. The premise of the story—the hopes and dreams, the terror and grief—is articulated not by convoluted dialogue or action-packed scenes or the idealization of characters and situations—but by, say, the grunts of Hermes (Ronnie Lazaro), a guerilla who lost his tongue to the war; or the world of meanings expressed through the eyes of Trining (Cherie Gil), whose innocence through the atrocities gradually turns into cynicism; or the sullen expression of her sister Maggie (Sandy Andolong), who awaits the return of her lover, dead or alive, from the war.
Indeed, in Oro Plata Mata, as in life, freedom is most meaningful where it is absent. What you do when you are allowed to do anything you want does not have as much impact as when you do it against the rules, the customs, the conventions, the limitations.
If I may digress into real life to make my point, Yves Saint-Laurent, who left us a few weeks ago, invented his now classic “le smoking” when women were not allowed to wear pants in certain public places, such as in New York’s fine dining establishments. As a result, we will remember him forever.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
CROWNING GLORY
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, A LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY IN MANILA BULLETIN, 13 JUNE 2008)
Good news to all the dads out there, as well as to men in general!
Personally, I thought that baldness was something life throws at you, some kind of a genetic lottery. Even worse, I had the notion that it was a natural consequence of aging. As his father before him, my father had receding hairline, but he died at 49 and didn’t live to see how far it would go as he aged.
BLURB
Only 216,000 Filipino men with Male Pattern Hair Loss out of a massive 5.4 million sought treatment options, with ultimately 21,000 receiving medical treatment. —AC Nielsen Factbook 2003
I have never really entertained the thought of going bald, but every time it crossed my mind, I would simply shrug it off, resigned to the fact—or what I thought was a fact—that there was nothing I could do about it, except resorting to a comb-over (which I swore I’d never ever do) or to hair implants (which I find obvious and ghastly on most men I know).
A dermatologist once told me that aging was a disease and therefore it had a cure. It sounds like a commercial for anti-aging medicine, but it’s proving to be quite true. Last week, at lunch with one of only two international board-certified medical experts specializing in dermatopathology in the Philippines, Dr. Adolfo Bormate, at the Mandarin Oriental Manila, I have stumbled upon the fact (a fact this time) that there is also a pill for hair loss or what Dr. Bormate and the people behind ProHair, a program being advocated by Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) Philippines to provide professional attention to hair loss, as “Male Pattern Hair Loss” (MPHL). I won’t go into the details of the program, but suffice it to say that if you are afflicted with MPHL or are worried about eventually having it, the advocacy program has recently created www.prohair.com.ph to help you through the problem. Check it out! It’s literally like Facebook, except that instead of plain networking and throwing red gummy bears at each other every now and then, on the ProHair website, you’re dealing with a problem—yours, your father’s, your brother’s, your husband’s, your boyfriend’s, or your son’s—that burdens some 5.4 million Filipinos, who are fighting “a silent battle with stress, confidence, and self-esteem.” According to a study in 2007, 50 percent of all Filipino males or two out of three will suffer from MPHL in their lifetime.
It’s not funny, although some of us might think that the worst that can happen when your forehead starts to extend toward the nape of your neck is that you will be the butt of all jokes. In a study at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia by Thomas Cash, there is “great distress associated with poor body image in men with MPHL,” who have been found to have “copious coping efforts to adjust to, compensate for, or conceal hair loss.”
Thus, the need to recognize MPHL for what it is, which was the point of our lunch and the point of ProHair. Aside from information, along with all the possible treatments, the website has a long list of specialists you can run to for professional help. Moreover, you can reach out to other MPHL “sufferers” to seek or provide support or simply exchange experiences and information. Best of all, there’s a “Doctor’s Station” where medical experts can share professional opinion and advice. Whether or not you are having anxiety attacks over real, anticipated, or imagined MPHL, prohair.com.ph is worth a visit. There’s cause to worry: MPHL is a progressive condition that, if not properly diagnosed or if left untreated, sheds at least five percent of hair each year.
But what caught my attention over lunch with Dr. Bormate, clinical associate professor at the UP-PGH Medical Center, international fellow at the American Academy of Dermatology, and non-resident associate at the American Society of Dermatopathology, is the drug Finasteride. Showing before and after photographs of many of his patients, he said it had been proven to work, although, according to some studies, some two percent of cases under this treatment suffer such side effects as decreased libido and volume of ejaculation, as well as erectile dysfunction. After all, the main culprit of MPHL is also the one responsible for the development of male organs. What a bitter pill, indeed! But Dr. Bormate was quick to say that all it takes is to stop the medication to get rid of its side effects, except that you also lose all the hair you have gained back along with them.
But are we just splitting hairs here? Finasteride is not an over-the-counter drug, which only means that you can choose to assure yourself of professional supervision while you are taking it, so all you have to do is to pray you do not belong to the poor two percent who have to sacrifice sex for vanity or that, if you do belong to this small fraction, vanity does turn out to be your favorite sin.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
Good news to all the dads out there, as well as to men in general!
Personally, I thought that baldness was something life throws at you, some kind of a genetic lottery. Even worse, I had the notion that it was a natural consequence of aging. As his father before him, my father had receding hairline, but he died at 49 and didn’t live to see how far it would go as he aged.
BLURB
Only 216,000 Filipino men with Male Pattern Hair Loss out of a massive 5.4 million sought treatment options, with ultimately 21,000 receiving medical treatment. —AC Nielsen Factbook 2003
I have never really entertained the thought of going bald, but every time it crossed my mind, I would simply shrug it off, resigned to the fact—or what I thought was a fact—that there was nothing I could do about it, except resorting to a comb-over (which I swore I’d never ever do) or to hair implants (which I find obvious and ghastly on most men I know).
A dermatologist once told me that aging was a disease and therefore it had a cure. It sounds like a commercial for anti-aging medicine, but it’s proving to be quite true. Last week, at lunch with one of only two international board-certified medical experts specializing in dermatopathology in the Philippines, Dr. Adolfo Bormate, at the Mandarin Oriental Manila, I have stumbled upon the fact (a fact this time) that there is also a pill for hair loss or what Dr. Bormate and the people behind ProHair, a program being advocated by Merck Sharp & Dohme (MSD) Philippines to provide professional attention to hair loss, as “Male Pattern Hair Loss” (MPHL). I won’t go into the details of the program, but suffice it to say that if you are afflicted with MPHL or are worried about eventually having it, the advocacy program has recently created www.prohair.com.ph to help you through the problem. Check it out! It’s literally like Facebook, except that instead of plain networking and throwing red gummy bears at each other every now and then, on the ProHair website, you’re dealing with a problem—yours, your father’s, your brother’s, your husband’s, your boyfriend’s, or your son’s—that burdens some 5.4 million Filipinos, who are fighting “a silent battle with stress, confidence, and self-esteem.” According to a study in 2007, 50 percent of all Filipino males or two out of three will suffer from MPHL in their lifetime.
It’s not funny, although some of us might think that the worst that can happen when your forehead starts to extend toward the nape of your neck is that you will be the butt of all jokes. In a study at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia by Thomas Cash, there is “great distress associated with poor body image in men with MPHL,” who have been found to have “copious coping efforts to adjust to, compensate for, or conceal hair loss.”
Thus, the need to recognize MPHL for what it is, which was the point of our lunch and the point of ProHair. Aside from information, along with all the possible treatments, the website has a long list of specialists you can run to for professional help. Moreover, you can reach out to other MPHL “sufferers” to seek or provide support or simply exchange experiences and information. Best of all, there’s a “Doctor’s Station” where medical experts can share professional opinion and advice. Whether or not you are having anxiety attacks over real, anticipated, or imagined MPHL, prohair.com.ph is worth a visit. There’s cause to worry: MPHL is a progressive condition that, if not properly diagnosed or if left untreated, sheds at least five percent of hair each year.
But what caught my attention over lunch with Dr. Bormate, clinical associate professor at the UP-PGH Medical Center, international fellow at the American Academy of Dermatology, and non-resident associate at the American Society of Dermatopathology, is the drug Finasteride. Showing before and after photographs of many of his patients, he said it had been proven to work, although, according to some studies, some two percent of cases under this treatment suffer such side effects as decreased libido and volume of ejaculation, as well as erectile dysfunction. After all, the main culprit of MPHL is also the one responsible for the development of male organs. What a bitter pill, indeed! But Dr. Bormate was quick to say that all it takes is to stop the medication to get rid of its side effects, except that you also lose all the hair you have gained back along with them.
But are we just splitting hairs here? Finasteride is not an over-the-counter drug, which only means that you can choose to assure yourself of professional supervision while you are taking it, so all you have to do is to pray you do not belong to the poor two percent who have to sacrifice sex for vanity or that, if you do belong to this small fraction, vanity does turn out to be your favorite sin.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
BACK TO HISTORY (AND OTHER CLASSES)
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, A LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY IN MANILA BULLETIN, 6 JUNE 2008)
Throngs of young people are heading back to the campus next week. For most students, except for those at De La Salle University, this is the very last weekend of this year’s glorious summer vacation.
BLURB
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. —Aristotle
When you think about it, school is the realm of the past and the future. The present, in the mind of a student groaning under the weight of homework, school projects, and endless lectures, is when the bell rings to signal recess or, better yet, when it rings to signal class dismissal. That’s when you can do what you want when you want to do it, which is now, whether it is to watch the new Indiana Jones or to go on a beer session with friends or to play Grand Theft Auto IV on Xbox 360 or to simply hang around your bedroom and wish it were summer all over again.
But in the classroom, from Monday to Friday or from Monday to Saturday, you have to shuttle back and forth between yesterday and tomorrow, trying to commit to memory the adventures of dead people (history, social science, literature) or the rules made eons ago (language, manners, religion) or otherwise trying to imagine what’s ahead (science and technology), even as this whole ordeal is really about preparing you for the future that has yet to come and arming you with the tools you might need to make it there (mathematics, philosophy, logic).
Oh but if I were young again, I would have a better appreciation of Wharton or Collette or Shakespeare and I would never trade in a school hour spent on the reign of the dinosaurs or the beginnings of our solar system for the pleasure of cutting a class, only to spend the hour my parents paid for dearly to learn how to smoke like James Dean. But then in my youth even James Dean was history.
Sometimes, I find it strange that nowadays people in their 20s cannot relate to stuff that happened only two decades ago, even as practically every aspect of this generation’s version of now is a recreation of then, which is why your latest rap song has tinges of Madonna’s hits before the first of her many self-reinventions, which is why Bevery Hills 90210 is up for a remake, which is why your latest American Idol chose to sing Collective Soul’s “The World I Know” on performance night before the finals. Even during Philippine Fashion Week only a few days ago, many designers presented a loot from days gone by, from tribal touches (Butz Fuentes) to butterfly sleeves (Kenneth Chua), from graphic prints of the ultimate contravida icon Bella Flores (Happy Andrada) to impressions of the long retired dandy (Odelon Simpao), his bow tie and all retrieved from the closet of time.
Indeed, there is no escaping what’s behind us as we go forward into the unknown. Sometimes, I think school’s main goal is to help us come to terms with the fact that everything we are now, everything we know now, everything that is available to us now is the fruit of the labors of our past, including, for the most part, our very freedom. It is so that as we march on into a future of our own making, we would accord those who have gone before us a modicum of respect.
Of course, like our predecessors who broke free from the shackles of tradition to make things better, we have every right to march to the beat of our own drums, but we do need to take some time to thank the one who long ago invented them.
And that’s probably why we need to spend the first 20 years of our lives chained to our desks within the four walls of a classroom, poring over books written under what we believe to be different circumstances, reliving lives long ended, learning lessons others had to suffer to learn, following rules made long ago, as we dream to be free, to make our mark, to make life a little better for us and, often without exactly meaning to, for the generations to come.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
Throngs of young people are heading back to the campus next week. For most students, except for those at De La Salle University, this is the very last weekend of this year’s glorious summer vacation.
BLURB
The roots of education are bitter, but the fruit is sweet. —Aristotle
When you think about it, school is the realm of the past and the future. The present, in the mind of a student groaning under the weight of homework, school projects, and endless lectures, is when the bell rings to signal recess or, better yet, when it rings to signal class dismissal. That’s when you can do what you want when you want to do it, which is now, whether it is to watch the new Indiana Jones or to go on a beer session with friends or to play Grand Theft Auto IV on Xbox 360 or to simply hang around your bedroom and wish it were summer all over again.
But in the classroom, from Monday to Friday or from Monday to Saturday, you have to shuttle back and forth between yesterday and tomorrow, trying to commit to memory the adventures of dead people (history, social science, literature) or the rules made eons ago (language, manners, religion) or otherwise trying to imagine what’s ahead (science and technology), even as this whole ordeal is really about preparing you for the future that has yet to come and arming you with the tools you might need to make it there (mathematics, philosophy, logic).
Oh but if I were young again, I would have a better appreciation of Wharton or Collette or Shakespeare and I would never trade in a school hour spent on the reign of the dinosaurs or the beginnings of our solar system for the pleasure of cutting a class, only to spend the hour my parents paid for dearly to learn how to smoke like James Dean. But then in my youth even James Dean was history.
Sometimes, I find it strange that nowadays people in their 20s cannot relate to stuff that happened only two decades ago, even as practically every aspect of this generation’s version of now is a recreation of then, which is why your latest rap song has tinges of Madonna’s hits before the first of her many self-reinventions, which is why Bevery Hills 90210 is up for a remake, which is why your latest American Idol chose to sing Collective Soul’s “The World I Know” on performance night before the finals. Even during Philippine Fashion Week only a few days ago, many designers presented a loot from days gone by, from tribal touches (Butz Fuentes) to butterfly sleeves (Kenneth Chua), from graphic prints of the ultimate contravida icon Bella Flores (Happy Andrada) to impressions of the long retired dandy (Odelon Simpao), his bow tie and all retrieved from the closet of time.
Indeed, there is no escaping what’s behind us as we go forward into the unknown. Sometimes, I think school’s main goal is to help us come to terms with the fact that everything we are now, everything we know now, everything that is available to us now is the fruit of the labors of our past, including, for the most part, our very freedom. It is so that as we march on into a future of our own making, we would accord those who have gone before us a modicum of respect.
Of course, like our predecessors who broke free from the shackles of tradition to make things better, we have every right to march to the beat of our own drums, but we do need to take some time to thank the one who long ago invented them.
And that’s probably why we need to spend the first 20 years of our lives chained to our desks within the four walls of a classroom, poring over books written under what we believe to be different circumstances, reliving lives long ended, learning lessons others had to suffer to learn, following rules made long ago, as we dream to be free, to make our mark, to make life a little better for us and, often without exactly meaning to, for the generations to come.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
PAY YOURSELF FIRST
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, A LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY IN MANILA BULLETIN, 30 MAY 2008)
One late afternoon at the office, we had an enlightening visit from Joyce Chua, VP, retail branch head at HSBC in Quezon City. It’s quite empowering to have some expert guide you through some simple steps to determine your net worth and help you increase it over the years via sound investment that is tailor-fit to your particular financial circumstances, which include your risk attitude.
BLURB
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. —Miguel de Cervantes
Well, c’est la vie! Apparently, risk plays a big part in the equation that spells your financial freedom or lack thereof. Personally, I used to find it so frustrating that you go to the bank for financial advice, but at every turn it’s up to you to go this way (returns are high, but so are the risk) or that (returns are low, but so are the risk) and you end up just putting all your eggs in one basket, most often a regular savings account that yields no more than two percent interest per annum.
Still, it’s always a good idea to save some (for a rainy day), knowing that in life it’s not summer through and through and there’s always a season for rain and even storms. But then, in the world of grownups, where money is all-important, not only for survival but for the quality of life, the “piggy bank” idea that our elders instilled in us when we were growing up just doesn’t cut it. The idea really is to get your money out there to grow, the more exposed to the risk of drastic fluctuations, such as in the stock market, the more likely it will lead you to abundance, that is if you survive the ups and downs. Ancient wisdom does give credit to falling as the opportunity to rise again, doesn’t it?
In her very charming, not-as-stiff-as-a-banker’s manner, Joyce seems to point out that the best way to go is to diversify, although the word diversify still sounds as Greek to me as portfolio, bonds, and stocks when used in the context of money. In fact, HSBC is offering this advice even to young people. In its drive to encourage saving up for the future among the youth, it has recently launched the product AutoSaver, which is supposed to put you in control of how much you save, even if—and especially when—“you can’t help spending.” I don’t really know how it works, but it appears to be a less intimidating way to start getting more aggressive with your dream of securing a bright future for yourself, since it earns three percent per annum on peso accounts. All you need is a commitment to save an amount of your choice every month, which can be as low as P1,000.
In these times of inflation, where basic necessities like rice and fuel are taking up more and more of our monthly income, P1,000 a month might seem too much to commit to for a long-term investment, but Joyce challenges us to look at it another way. “We have the tendency to look at our expenses first and whatever is left we save up,” she said. “But since you worked so hard for the money, the ideal way is to pay yourself first and then whatever is left you budget for your monthly expenses.”
Easier said than done, but the young HSBC VP shrugged it off, “If you look at your expenses carefully, you’ll realize you’re spending quite a fortune on unnecessary little things, like coffee or cigarettes or taxi fares.” True, if I were to pay myself for my hard work every month, I’d definitely set aside more than P1,000 a month.
And here’s where Joyce gets the opportunity to push her diversification agenda, saying that one’s savings should be divided among different products that offer different yields, from a regular savings account, so you have liquid cash to obtain in case of emergencies, to time deposits, all the way to bond funds and stocks. It’s not easy if you have no savings whatsoever at the moment, but then nothing is easy. Again we turn to ancient wisdom. Like any great journey of a thousand miles or so, it takes one small step—and a lot of patience—to get on the road to millions.
OK, there’s no way you can open a savings account with less than P5,000, but don’t burst your bubble just yet because there’s always the piggy bank to turn to in the meantime. Ancient wisdom does have all the answers, doesn’t it?
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
One late afternoon at the office, we had an enlightening visit from Joyce Chua, VP, retail branch head at HSBC in Quezon City. It’s quite empowering to have some expert guide you through some simple steps to determine your net worth and help you increase it over the years via sound investment that is tailor-fit to your particular financial circumstances, which include your risk attitude.
BLURB
Don’t put all your eggs in one basket. —Miguel de Cervantes
Well, c’est la vie! Apparently, risk plays a big part in the equation that spells your financial freedom or lack thereof. Personally, I used to find it so frustrating that you go to the bank for financial advice, but at every turn it’s up to you to go this way (returns are high, but so are the risk) or that (returns are low, but so are the risk) and you end up just putting all your eggs in one basket, most often a regular savings account that yields no more than two percent interest per annum.
Still, it’s always a good idea to save some (for a rainy day), knowing that in life it’s not summer through and through and there’s always a season for rain and even storms. But then, in the world of grownups, where money is all-important, not only for survival but for the quality of life, the “piggy bank” idea that our elders instilled in us when we were growing up just doesn’t cut it. The idea really is to get your money out there to grow, the more exposed to the risk of drastic fluctuations, such as in the stock market, the more likely it will lead you to abundance, that is if you survive the ups and downs. Ancient wisdom does give credit to falling as the opportunity to rise again, doesn’t it?
In her very charming, not-as-stiff-as-a-banker’s manner, Joyce seems to point out that the best way to go is to diversify, although the word diversify still sounds as Greek to me as portfolio, bonds, and stocks when used in the context of money. In fact, HSBC is offering this advice even to young people. In its drive to encourage saving up for the future among the youth, it has recently launched the product AutoSaver, which is supposed to put you in control of how much you save, even if—and especially when—“you can’t help spending.” I don’t really know how it works, but it appears to be a less intimidating way to start getting more aggressive with your dream of securing a bright future for yourself, since it earns three percent per annum on peso accounts. All you need is a commitment to save an amount of your choice every month, which can be as low as P1,000.
In these times of inflation, where basic necessities like rice and fuel are taking up more and more of our monthly income, P1,000 a month might seem too much to commit to for a long-term investment, but Joyce challenges us to look at it another way. “We have the tendency to look at our expenses first and whatever is left we save up,” she said. “But since you worked so hard for the money, the ideal way is to pay yourself first and then whatever is left you budget for your monthly expenses.”
Easier said than done, but the young HSBC VP shrugged it off, “If you look at your expenses carefully, you’ll realize you’re spending quite a fortune on unnecessary little things, like coffee or cigarettes or taxi fares.” True, if I were to pay myself for my hard work every month, I’d definitely set aside more than P1,000 a month.
And here’s where Joyce gets the opportunity to push her diversification agenda, saying that one’s savings should be divided among different products that offer different yields, from a regular savings account, so you have liquid cash to obtain in case of emergencies, to time deposits, all the way to bond funds and stocks. It’s not easy if you have no savings whatsoever at the moment, but then nothing is easy. Again we turn to ancient wisdom. Like any great journey of a thousand miles or so, it takes one small step—and a lot of patience—to get on the road to millions.
OK, there’s no way you can open a savings account with less than P5,000, but don’t burst your bubble just yet because there’s always the piggy bank to turn to in the meantime. Ancient wisdom does have all the answers, doesn’t it?
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
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