(From "A Weekend Note," the editor's letter in Style Weekened Play Day Fridays edition, published 14 Sept 14, 2007 in Manila Bulletin)
A ROOM AT THE GRAMERCY
Over lunch with Century Properties, Inc.’s Ambassador Joey Antonio, his wife Hilda, and their sons Jigger and Marco, as well as their interior designer, Chat Fores, and creative director, GP Reyes, at the Gramercy Residences showroom at the Pacific Star Building on Gil Puyat Avenue, I felt literally transported to New York City. The showroom alone was an eye-popper, despite its artistic restraint and effortlessness as apparent in the use of neutrals like beige and black. On the far side of the showroom, there was even a mock-up swimming pool that looked inviting enough for a dip or even a dive, though I suspected it was all of two feet at its deepest.
BLURB
When you look at a city, it’s like reading the hopes, aspirations, and hopes of everyone who built it. —Hugh Newell Jacobsen
Inspired by the Gramercy Park in Manhattan, this new P5-billion residential development promises to be the centerpiece of the Antonios’ vision for Century City, a P40-billion real estate revolution to rise over 4.8 hectares right at the heart of Makati. I know that the phrase “the heart of Makati” has been overused and often not precisely, but the Antonios are truly building Century City not in the outskirts or the previously undeveloped peripheries of the finance district, but in the very hub of it, right on Kalayaan Street, where the old International School campus used to be. Already creative director GP Reyes has coined a term to describe this part of Makati once Century City is up and running (skyward and into the future): MoMa or Modern Makati. Very New York, indeed!
But more than achieving another real estate coup, the vision of Century Properties, whose 21-year track record of excellence, as proven through landmark buildings like Essensa East Forbes, is to bring city living to the next level, bringing Manila up to par with cities like New York by creating something worthy of Filipino pride.
It is for this reason that Joey Antonio’s firm always collaborates with world-renowned talents like I.M. Pei, whose expertise they tapped for the design of Essensa. For Century City, the design partner is no less than Jon Adams Jerde, whose portfolio includes Bellagio Hotel in Las Vegas, the Universal Citywalk in Los Angeles, the Roppongi Hills in Tokyo, and the Zlote Tarasy in Warsaw.
We have every reason, indeed, to be excited about Gramercy Residences at Century City, due for completion in 2011, which is the only way we can truly live in this city of vision. The inspiration, Gramercy Park, one of the last remaining private fenced-in parks in the United States, is enough indication that more than glass and steel and space, Gramercy Residences at Century City will incorporate poetry into the development in a bid to redefine city living. The Oasis, for instance, a preview of which is present at the showroom, where the mock pool is, is another innovation, a sprawling 6,000-square-meter sky park, replete with cascading waterfalls, infinity pools, cafés and restaurants, health clubs, and even a library, a THX theater, and a wine bar, all set 36 stories above ground and traversing Century City’s trilogy cluster of buildings.
To have a piece of Gramercy, whether a flat or a loft with one bedroom or two or three, is to be at home with Manila’s only fully fitted, fully serviced, and fully furnished, hyper-amenitized luxury condominium concept that the Antonios have pioneered in Philippine real estate.
In the meantime, may this Play Day Friday edition of Style Weekend inspire you to take a very good look at what you are doing with the money you are working so hard to earn. Based on a computation we accessed at www.oprah.com, at least 35 percent of every peso you earn must go to housing. I am hoping that my lunch with the Antonios is the universe’s way of opening my eyes to this fact.
Work hard for the money, but, better yet, make your money work hard for you!
A
post aapatawaran@yahoo.com
Sunday, September 16, 2007
…AND SO WE DREAM
(From the Editor's Note, "From the Editor, of the upcoming October issue of Sense&Style)
What if you lived on a small, empty island, where the only visible sign of a larger life is a faint mountain silhouette on the far horizon? What if you lived in the slums, where the spectacle from your window is a panorama of rusty, makeshift rooftops, tucked into place by old tires? What if you lived in a box, where there are no sights to explore, no smells to discover, no flavors to unravel, no mysteries to untangle?
You open an atlas, you dream over a map, you repeat the glorious names of unknown cities. —Joseph Kessel
Then you dream. You focus on that pale shadow on the other side of the deep, blue sea, conjuring up images of great, seemingly implausible things. You keep your head above the vista of poverty, wondering what other worlds must exist under the same blue skies and cotton clouds overhead. You retreat into your inner world, inhabited by bizarre beings, the creatures of your imagination, the magic of your inventions.
That’s the power of dreams. Unlike most of the other things we value, they cannot be bought. They do not care whether we are rich or poor, dumb or smart, strong or weak. They cannot be locked up in a safe or stripped of their right to exist, that is, without our consent.
Dreams, I believe, are the reason we all start out in this world as children, who, despite the nagging of the grownups around us, spend our first many years on earth refusing to recognize lack, limitation, boundaries, or even danger. In the world of a child, a discarded tin can on the street is enough to stimulate the mind, to unleash the spirit, to make the heart go pitter-patter with infinite possibilities. It is so when the passage of time has turned us into adults, indoctrinated in the irrefutable science of cause and effect, the unassailable difference between fact and fiction, we can always draw from our childhood a certain power to “shoot rubberbands at the stars,” to borrow a phrase from Edie Brickel.
In this issue, in which we hope to invoke all the forces of the universe to turn our highest aspirations to reality, we turn to dreamers and doers like Tetchie Agbayani (“Steward of Futures,” page 132), who has quietly left the limelight to lead a quiet yet more meaningful life, guiding the youth by the hand on the path to an empowered future. The future, yet the great unknown, is also what feeds Mercedes Lopez Vargas’ dreams (“The Lopez Legacy,” page 126), although her path compels her to turn back time, if only to help history catch up with the present and lead the way. In a world obsessed with speed, Maia Yulo La’O (“Where Dreams Dwell,” page 122), along with her family, is slowing things down in a country estate, which, once consigned to the realm of dreams, has now become reality even for the city-bound, replete with ducks gliding on ponds and tall trees flirting with the sun. Our cover girl, Heart Evangelista (“Heart, Wind, & Fire,” page 114), after having devoted many years of her young life to the public eye, had to slow down, too, to discover the joys of living her life according to the dictates of her heart.
In these pages, there are many ways by which we can view possibilities in our mind’s eye, whether in the language of REM (“The Science of Sleep,” page 82) or in the guise of odd warnings or danger signs (“Lost in a Dream,” page 75). But dreams in order to be powerful have to come in the form of strong visuals, vivid images, compelling pictures. No matter how impossible it seems, if you can see it clearly, every tinge of color, every curve, chances are it will soon become reality. Imagination, not necessity, is the mother of invention. After all, before the submarine was invented for practical purposes, didn’t French novelist Jules Verne dream it up first, seeing it so clearly in his mind that he wrote Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea to describe it?
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
What if you lived on a small, empty island, where the only visible sign of a larger life is a faint mountain silhouette on the far horizon? What if you lived in the slums, where the spectacle from your window is a panorama of rusty, makeshift rooftops, tucked into place by old tires? What if you lived in a box, where there are no sights to explore, no smells to discover, no flavors to unravel, no mysteries to untangle?
You open an atlas, you dream over a map, you repeat the glorious names of unknown cities. —Joseph Kessel
Then you dream. You focus on that pale shadow on the other side of the deep, blue sea, conjuring up images of great, seemingly implausible things. You keep your head above the vista of poverty, wondering what other worlds must exist under the same blue skies and cotton clouds overhead. You retreat into your inner world, inhabited by bizarre beings, the creatures of your imagination, the magic of your inventions.
That’s the power of dreams. Unlike most of the other things we value, they cannot be bought. They do not care whether we are rich or poor, dumb or smart, strong or weak. They cannot be locked up in a safe or stripped of their right to exist, that is, without our consent.
Dreams, I believe, are the reason we all start out in this world as children, who, despite the nagging of the grownups around us, spend our first many years on earth refusing to recognize lack, limitation, boundaries, or even danger. In the world of a child, a discarded tin can on the street is enough to stimulate the mind, to unleash the spirit, to make the heart go pitter-patter with infinite possibilities. It is so when the passage of time has turned us into adults, indoctrinated in the irrefutable science of cause and effect, the unassailable difference between fact and fiction, we can always draw from our childhood a certain power to “shoot rubberbands at the stars,” to borrow a phrase from Edie Brickel.
In this issue, in which we hope to invoke all the forces of the universe to turn our highest aspirations to reality, we turn to dreamers and doers like Tetchie Agbayani (“Steward of Futures,” page 132), who has quietly left the limelight to lead a quiet yet more meaningful life, guiding the youth by the hand on the path to an empowered future. The future, yet the great unknown, is also what feeds Mercedes Lopez Vargas’ dreams (“The Lopez Legacy,” page 126), although her path compels her to turn back time, if only to help history catch up with the present and lead the way. In a world obsessed with speed, Maia Yulo La’O (“Where Dreams Dwell,” page 122), along with her family, is slowing things down in a country estate, which, once consigned to the realm of dreams, has now become reality even for the city-bound, replete with ducks gliding on ponds and tall trees flirting with the sun. Our cover girl, Heart Evangelista (“Heart, Wind, & Fire,” page 114), after having devoted many years of her young life to the public eye, had to slow down, too, to discover the joys of living her life according to the dictates of her heart.
In these pages, there are many ways by which we can view possibilities in our mind’s eye, whether in the language of REM (“The Science of Sleep,” page 82) or in the guise of odd warnings or danger signs (“Lost in a Dream,” page 75). But dreams in order to be powerful have to come in the form of strong visuals, vivid images, compelling pictures. No matter how impossible it seems, if you can see it clearly, every tinge of color, every curve, chances are it will soon become reality. Imagination, not necessity, is the mother of invention. After all, before the submarine was invented for practical purposes, didn’t French novelist Jules Verne dream it up first, seeing it so clearly in his mind that he wrote Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea to describe it?
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
Thursday, September 6, 2007
EVER AFTER
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, A SPECIAL SECTION OF MANILA BULLETIN THAT COMES OUT EVERY FRIDAY, 7 SEPT., 2007)
I’ve never really paid attention to Angel Locsin until the recent brouhaha on her transfer from GMA to ABS-CBN. I didn’t even realize until our one-on-one with her just four days after her return from London that Darna was her ticket to superstardom. It made her shine and soar. I hate to give away my age, but to me Darna remains to be Vilma Santos.
BLURB
Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever… —Peter Pan
During our shoot, when Angel, jetlagged and besieged by controversies, had every excuse to let the “diva’ out in her, the local tinsel town’s damsel in distress seemed as good-natured and sweet as Snow White. At this point, no amount of bad press will distract me from the fact that, indeed, here is a gem worth fighting for. My apologies to GMA-7, but you do have some reason to cry over spilled milk. At least, in my limited experience of her work ethics, this one here is a professional.
I know that the Angel controversy has somewhat died down, thanks to another inane battle on the so-called Network War, but, from the outset, I never understood what the fuss was all about. Emotions aside, a contract expired, which means whoever was bound by that contract had the option to renew or to seek better opportunities elsewhere. It’s as simple as that. Or is it?
At any rate, our time with Angel, a scoop for our other magazine, Sense&Style, was fun because it brought us back to our childhood fantasies. Set after set, the actress was transformed into our favorite fairy-tale protagonists, from Little Red Riding Hood in killer boots to Rapunzel in stilettos. Each set turned us back to unforgotten times, when we had more faith in the world and we all believed in happy endings. (See all the images, along with Angel’s heartbreaking yet hopeful story, in Sense&Style’s September issue, our big, collectible beauty edition, “Beauty and the Best.”)
I suppose our fancy pictorial also helped Angel set aside for a while the troubles of her controversial career move, although any woman with her sensibilities could not have escaped the bittersweet emotions of moving from one place to the next, no matter how promising the next place might be. That’s the curse of maturity, where life is no longer as plain as black and white. Whereas in childhood, friends are friends, as easily identifiable as the Seven Dwarves or Glinda, the Good Witch, and enemies are enemies, not quite as challenging to recognize despite their many guises as Cinderella’s wicked stepmother and the Big, Bad Wolf; in adulthood, it’s not that simple. As a mature adult, you can’t help thinking that maybe the wolf is just hungry. As the Snake in the Grass in The Little Prince, a story Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote for the grownups, so succinctly pointed out, “It is just in my nature to sting.”
I wish it were not in the nature of people to hurt each other for any reason and I do wish Angel Locsin all the best in this new phase of her journey. I have yet to watch any of her movies, but she seems to love what she is doing and she seems willing to break a leg (and her heart) for it. In my book, loving what you do enough to beat all the odds is perhaps all you need to make it in this world. After all, I’m an adult, but I still believe in happy endings.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
I’ve never really paid attention to Angel Locsin until the recent brouhaha on her transfer from GMA to ABS-CBN. I didn’t even realize until our one-on-one with her just four days after her return from London that Darna was her ticket to superstardom. It made her shine and soar. I hate to give away my age, but to me Darna remains to be Vilma Santos.
BLURB
Just think of happy things, and your heart will fly on wings, forever… —Peter Pan
During our shoot, when Angel, jetlagged and besieged by controversies, had every excuse to let the “diva’ out in her, the local tinsel town’s damsel in distress seemed as good-natured and sweet as Snow White. At this point, no amount of bad press will distract me from the fact that, indeed, here is a gem worth fighting for. My apologies to GMA-7, but you do have some reason to cry over spilled milk. At least, in my limited experience of her work ethics, this one here is a professional.
I know that the Angel controversy has somewhat died down, thanks to another inane battle on the so-called Network War, but, from the outset, I never understood what the fuss was all about. Emotions aside, a contract expired, which means whoever was bound by that contract had the option to renew or to seek better opportunities elsewhere. It’s as simple as that. Or is it?
At any rate, our time with Angel, a scoop for our other magazine, Sense&Style, was fun because it brought us back to our childhood fantasies. Set after set, the actress was transformed into our favorite fairy-tale protagonists, from Little Red Riding Hood in killer boots to Rapunzel in stilettos. Each set turned us back to unforgotten times, when we had more faith in the world and we all believed in happy endings. (See all the images, along with Angel’s heartbreaking yet hopeful story, in Sense&Style’s September issue, our big, collectible beauty edition, “Beauty and the Best.”)
I suppose our fancy pictorial also helped Angel set aside for a while the troubles of her controversial career move, although any woman with her sensibilities could not have escaped the bittersweet emotions of moving from one place to the next, no matter how promising the next place might be. That’s the curse of maturity, where life is no longer as plain as black and white. Whereas in childhood, friends are friends, as easily identifiable as the Seven Dwarves or Glinda, the Good Witch, and enemies are enemies, not quite as challenging to recognize despite their many guises as Cinderella’s wicked stepmother and the Big, Bad Wolf; in adulthood, it’s not that simple. As a mature adult, you can’t help thinking that maybe the wolf is just hungry. As the Snake in the Grass in The Little Prince, a story Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote for the grownups, so succinctly pointed out, “It is just in my nature to sting.”
I wish it were not in the nature of people to hurt each other for any reason and I do wish Angel Locsin all the best in this new phase of her journey. I have yet to watch any of her movies, but she seems to love what she is doing and she seems willing to break a leg (and her heart) for it. In my book, loving what you do enough to beat all the odds is perhaps all you need to make it in this world. After all, I’m an adult, but I still believe in happy endings.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
Thursday, August 30, 2007
A WALK IN THE PARK
(FROM THE EDITOR'S NOTE IN STYLE WEEKEND, A WEEKEND MAGAZINE THAT COMES WITH THE FRDIAY ISSUE OF MANILA BULLETIN, AUG. 31 2007)
If I had the time and the means, I would gather the top 10 Filipinos on Forbes’ list of the world’s richest to dinner at the Presidential Suite of the Manila Hotel, which has the best view of Rizal Park. With hope, I could get the best Filipino chefs to whip up a menu tantalizing and hypnotizing enough to have each of my dinner guests sign a check for the benefit of Luneta and, better yet, to pledge a hefty annual contribution to the goal of making the park worthy of its history and its future. With hope, if at all I trusted the National Parks Development Committee, whose leadership has complained of a lack of funds term after term, I could turn over enough money to get Luneta on a path that will soon make it up to par with, say, New York’s Central Park or even just Paris’ Jardin de Tuileries.
To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment. —Jane Austen
Now a showcase of neglect and a study in deterioration, Luneta, as most of us know it, is home to vagrants, although, occasionally, on my way to work in Intramuros, I spot foreign dignitaries laying a wreath on the Rizal Monument or tourists striking a pose with the bronze-and-granite statue created by Zurich sculptor Richard Kissling in the backdrop. The Rizal Monument, more than a tribute to—and a mausoleum for the remains of—the National Hero Jose Rizal, is where it all starts. Unknown to most of us, the monument is Kilometer Zero, a point of origin from which all distances in the Philippines are measured.
I suppose that generations born after the ’80s no longer have good memories of Luneta, where, luckily, I have fond remembrances of Sunday picnics, the refreshing sensation of salt spray on my face at the breakwater, and a view of the world from the mouth of a giant hippopotamus. Although I am thankful that malls are sprouting to give us places to go to, I find it so sad that parks no longer provide us with escape options when we want to be away from it all. How very sad, indeed, that the lungs of our beloved city need desperately to be checked in at the intensive care unit of the Philippine Lung Center!
But maybe, after decades of neglect, Luneta, all 53 hectares of it, is beyond redemption, if all I could think of to save it is some donations from the 10 richest of our people. Maybe, more than money, what it needs is for all of us to start thinking of it as our own, an extension of our backyards and gardens, a place in which to have our little children learn a few more things about trees and flowers, the swirls of cotton candy in the sky, the occasional dragonfly or beetle or bird, and the Philippine archipelago through the replica of it made in the middle of Luneta’s man-made lake.
Of course, the park police, if we can even trust them, first have to do their part. But so do we. Our first, most important step, as I see it, is to claim it back, to make Luneta ours again. Once we do, the business sector may just begin to see the value of the park and begin to invest in it. With hope, all that attention will translate to cleaner restrooms, more dining options, better Concerts at the Park, lusher trees, greener grass, and more park benches in which to sit back and watch the day go by, without anyone bothering you for alms or running away with your purse or offering you cheap sex.
It’s not that easy, but it’s not impossible. It’s becoming quite urgent, too, now that, to the city-weary, the two-hour drive to the countryside to enjoy a few minutes of walking barefoot on green grass is beginning to sound like a walk in the park. After all, one hour is all we need to get out of this country, period.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
If I had the time and the means, I would gather the top 10 Filipinos on Forbes’ list of the world’s richest to dinner at the Presidential Suite of the Manila Hotel, which has the best view of Rizal Park. With hope, I could get the best Filipino chefs to whip up a menu tantalizing and hypnotizing enough to have each of my dinner guests sign a check for the benefit of Luneta and, better yet, to pledge a hefty annual contribution to the goal of making the park worthy of its history and its future. With hope, if at all I trusted the National Parks Development Committee, whose leadership has complained of a lack of funds term after term, I could turn over enough money to get Luneta on a path that will soon make it up to par with, say, New York’s Central Park or even just Paris’ Jardin de Tuileries.
To sit in the shade on a fine day, and look upon verdure is the most perfect refreshment. —Jane Austen
Now a showcase of neglect and a study in deterioration, Luneta, as most of us know it, is home to vagrants, although, occasionally, on my way to work in Intramuros, I spot foreign dignitaries laying a wreath on the Rizal Monument or tourists striking a pose with the bronze-and-granite statue created by Zurich sculptor Richard Kissling in the backdrop. The Rizal Monument, more than a tribute to—and a mausoleum for the remains of—the National Hero Jose Rizal, is where it all starts. Unknown to most of us, the monument is Kilometer Zero, a point of origin from which all distances in the Philippines are measured.
I suppose that generations born after the ’80s no longer have good memories of Luneta, where, luckily, I have fond remembrances of Sunday picnics, the refreshing sensation of salt spray on my face at the breakwater, and a view of the world from the mouth of a giant hippopotamus. Although I am thankful that malls are sprouting to give us places to go to, I find it so sad that parks no longer provide us with escape options when we want to be away from it all. How very sad, indeed, that the lungs of our beloved city need desperately to be checked in at the intensive care unit of the Philippine Lung Center!
But maybe, after decades of neglect, Luneta, all 53 hectares of it, is beyond redemption, if all I could think of to save it is some donations from the 10 richest of our people. Maybe, more than money, what it needs is for all of us to start thinking of it as our own, an extension of our backyards and gardens, a place in which to have our little children learn a few more things about trees and flowers, the swirls of cotton candy in the sky, the occasional dragonfly or beetle or bird, and the Philippine archipelago through the replica of it made in the middle of Luneta’s man-made lake.
Of course, the park police, if we can even trust them, first have to do their part. But so do we. Our first, most important step, as I see it, is to claim it back, to make Luneta ours again. Once we do, the business sector may just begin to see the value of the park and begin to invest in it. With hope, all that attention will translate to cleaner restrooms, more dining options, better Concerts at the Park, lusher trees, greener grass, and more park benches in which to sit back and watch the day go by, without anyone bothering you for alms or running away with your purse or offering you cheap sex.
It’s not that easy, but it’s not impossible. It’s becoming quite urgent, too, now that, to the city-weary, the two-hour drive to the countryside to enjoy a few minutes of walking barefoot on green grass is beginning to sound like a walk in the park. After all, one hour is all we need to get out of this country, period.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
Saturday, August 18, 2007
SECOND LIFE
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, TO BE PUBLISHED ON AUGUST 24, 2007. STYLE WEEKEND IS PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY AS A SPECIAL MAGAZINE INSERT IN THE MANILA BULLETIN)
I had a recent invitation to Second Life, a 3-D virtual world, where you can start all over again.
As of press time, there are about 8,953,230 residents in this digital continent. I am one of them. Although I believe I am not even in the infant stage yet, I have chosen a new name and a new look, as represented by my avatar whose image, rather than dictated by genes, is one of my choosing. In the Create Your Avatar phase of the application for residency, it says I can change the way I look as I go along.
BLURB
There are many ways to be free. One of them is to transcend reality by imagination, as I try to do. —Anais Nin
I heard through the style grapevine that global fashion giants are flocking to the site, but on my very, very brief digital tour of this virtual world, I hardly came across any real brands (But I did see H&M in the other just-as-popular online community, Sims 2). My first impulse was to browse through the Second Style magazine, but so far all the brands are as virtual as the avatars behind them. I must check the other magazines. Just like in Manila, there are so many of them cropping up in Second Life, with interesting titles like PixelPlus, Pixel Chic, Voodoo, and .Fur. Maybe, I should start a magazine of my own once I get the hang of this alternative universe, but then it’s going to be the same life as I lead now.
I was thrilled to hear Suzanne Vega was the first major recording artist to perform live in Second Life in August last year. In my meanderings, however, I only came across a sampling of her guitars with Robbie Dingo, as commissioned by Infinite Visions CEO (and Second Life entity) Oliver Oddfellow, building it to match the animation for the Vega avatar. I am a technodinosaur, so I have yet to navigate my way to the concert. After all, I have good memories of Suzanne Vega back when I was young and her “Tom’s Diner” was a hit. I did find her avatar performance of “The Queen and the Soldier” on YouTube and I wonder if it means Linden dollars down the drain for the virtual organizer that there was more space than avatars on the bleachers.
But that’s Second Life. It’s not like The Simpsons or The Grudge or The Titanic, where you can only momentarily escape the realities of life. It’s a whole new life, where you can buy property, own virtual land, and establish a business using Linden dollars, which, according to the Second Life primer, “can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online Linden Dollar exchanges.” I wonder if I could use a second life or if I need it at all when I barely have enough time for one.
The way I understand it, Second Life is real life, except that it exists in a parallel universe and except that it’s in 3-D animation rather than in solid, liquid, or gas and people are avatars rather than flesh and blood.
But then, is it going to be easier to make it in Second Life? With only a little over eight million residents to compete with, maybe, but that also means there is a chance to fail, to have your heart broken, to have your properties stolen, to have your Linden dollar account wiped out due to a failed business venture or extravagance or a swindler of a virtual wife or a compulsion for gambling.
Or maybe it’s a good idea to start over in Second Life and see what it’s like to just do it, to follow our instincts, to eliminate fear and go for broke and make it big, perchance in real-time we discover what it takes to make real life work by undoing what we have done and doing what we have yet to do.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
I had a recent invitation to Second Life, a 3-D virtual world, where you can start all over again.
As of press time, there are about 8,953,230 residents in this digital continent. I am one of them. Although I believe I am not even in the infant stage yet, I have chosen a new name and a new look, as represented by my avatar whose image, rather than dictated by genes, is one of my choosing. In the Create Your Avatar phase of the application for residency, it says I can change the way I look as I go along.
BLURB
There are many ways to be free. One of them is to transcend reality by imagination, as I try to do. —Anais Nin
I heard through the style grapevine that global fashion giants are flocking to the site, but on my very, very brief digital tour of this virtual world, I hardly came across any real brands (But I did see H&M in the other just-as-popular online community, Sims 2). My first impulse was to browse through the Second Style magazine, but so far all the brands are as virtual as the avatars behind them. I must check the other magazines. Just like in Manila, there are so many of them cropping up in Second Life, with interesting titles like PixelPlus, Pixel Chic, Voodoo, and .Fur. Maybe, I should start a magazine of my own once I get the hang of this alternative universe, but then it’s going to be the same life as I lead now.
I was thrilled to hear Suzanne Vega was the first major recording artist to perform live in Second Life in August last year. In my meanderings, however, I only came across a sampling of her guitars with Robbie Dingo, as commissioned by Infinite Visions CEO (and Second Life entity) Oliver Oddfellow, building it to match the animation for the Vega avatar. I am a technodinosaur, so I have yet to navigate my way to the concert. After all, I have good memories of Suzanne Vega back when I was young and her “Tom’s Diner” was a hit. I did find her avatar performance of “The Queen and the Soldier” on YouTube and I wonder if it means Linden dollars down the drain for the virtual organizer that there was more space than avatars on the bleachers.
But that’s Second Life. It’s not like The Simpsons or The Grudge or The Titanic, where you can only momentarily escape the realities of life. It’s a whole new life, where you can buy property, own virtual land, and establish a business using Linden dollars, which, according to the Second Life primer, “can be converted to US dollars at several thriving online Linden Dollar exchanges.” I wonder if I could use a second life or if I need it at all when I barely have enough time for one.
The way I understand it, Second Life is real life, except that it exists in a parallel universe and except that it’s in 3-D animation rather than in solid, liquid, or gas and people are avatars rather than flesh and blood.
But then, is it going to be easier to make it in Second Life? With only a little over eight million residents to compete with, maybe, but that also means there is a chance to fail, to have your heart broken, to have your properties stolen, to have your Linden dollar account wiped out due to a failed business venture or extravagance or a swindler of a virtual wife or a compulsion for gambling.
Or maybe it’s a good idea to start over in Second Life and see what it’s like to just do it, to follow our instincts, to eliminate fear and go for broke and make it big, perchance in real-time we discover what it takes to make real life work by undoing what we have done and doing what we have yet to do.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
IN FILIPINO FASHION
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, AUGUST 17, 2007. STYLE WEEKEND IS PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY AS A SPECIAL MAGAZINE INSERT IN THE MANILA BULLETIN)
I heard some good news from Lancôme chief makeup artist and proprietor of the recently launched House of Laurel Makeup Studio Gela Laurel. A bride-to-be traveling all the way from Singapore booked her for trial. The Singaporean had apparently been told that when in search of a good dress, whether for bridal or other reasons, it was best to look in the direction of Filipino designers, “the best in the region.” And since she had agreed to come to Manila to look for a designer, she might as well check out the city’s makeup artists who “are just as creative.”
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit —Aristotle
Like all other things of our own, Philippine fashion design has been through the wringer in the critical eye of the Filipino. I guess it is in our nature, having had too many foreign influences, to look for excellence elsewhere, which is why we make a big deal of those who, like Josie Natori or Monique Lhuillier, make it in other places, often at the expense of their equally exceptional comrades who stick it out here, despite the pull of the bigger world out there. No offense to Josie or Monique, especially to Josie who has never given up on the local market, although I would assume it is only a drop in her New York bucket.
In recent years, a whole new batch of new designers have emerged and more than a handful of them has become so popular that their names now roll off the popular tongue quite as smoothly and as readily as Inno Sotto’s or Auggie Cordero’s or even Joe Salazar’s. In our press room, for instance, our directory of fashion designers has enough entries to fill up the Yellow Pages. What’s more, should we need to travel to places like Cebu for a shoot, there’s no need to worry about overweight charges as there’s no more need to fly in a whole atelier of clothes from Manila. An NDD call to Cebu’s growing A-list of designers like Cary Santiago or Philip Rodriguez prior to the shoot is all it takes.
The fashion industry is growing. It’s a problem for some, especially for the purists who believe that like fame and fortune the very idea of being a designer has become so accessible it has lost some of its “high life” nuances. That may be true in this age of reality TV, where all it takes to make your dream come true is Pinoy Big Brother, but the more, the merrier, if only because I still believe that sooner or later the mediocre (or the undecided) will fall by the wayside and excellence will prevail. In the meantime, we are happy we have a growing number of choices in matters of dress. As always, we have the choice to let mediocrity die a natural death, unless we are willing to embrace it and make it the norm.
With all the clothes on our shoot racks still eliciting oohs and ahhs, if not in terms of execution, at least in terms of promise, I am confident that, in general, the Filipino people have yet to mistake mediocrity for excellence. If this appears to happen, maybe we are just giving our fellows a chance.
And maybe to be given a chance is all we need. After all, the Philippines has been in existence only since 1521, as per the world records. France, on the other hand, has had at least since 843 BC, through the Verdun Treaty, to master civilization, as we define it now.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
I heard some good news from Lancôme chief makeup artist and proprietor of the recently launched House of Laurel Makeup Studio Gela Laurel. A bride-to-be traveling all the way from Singapore booked her for trial. The Singaporean had apparently been told that when in search of a good dress, whether for bridal or other reasons, it was best to look in the direction of Filipino designers, “the best in the region.” And since she had agreed to come to Manila to look for a designer, she might as well check out the city’s makeup artists who “are just as creative.”
We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit —Aristotle
Like all other things of our own, Philippine fashion design has been through the wringer in the critical eye of the Filipino. I guess it is in our nature, having had too many foreign influences, to look for excellence elsewhere, which is why we make a big deal of those who, like Josie Natori or Monique Lhuillier, make it in other places, often at the expense of their equally exceptional comrades who stick it out here, despite the pull of the bigger world out there. No offense to Josie or Monique, especially to Josie who has never given up on the local market, although I would assume it is only a drop in her New York bucket.
In recent years, a whole new batch of new designers have emerged and more than a handful of them has become so popular that their names now roll off the popular tongue quite as smoothly and as readily as Inno Sotto’s or Auggie Cordero’s or even Joe Salazar’s. In our press room, for instance, our directory of fashion designers has enough entries to fill up the Yellow Pages. What’s more, should we need to travel to places like Cebu for a shoot, there’s no need to worry about overweight charges as there’s no more need to fly in a whole atelier of clothes from Manila. An NDD call to Cebu’s growing A-list of designers like Cary Santiago or Philip Rodriguez prior to the shoot is all it takes.
The fashion industry is growing. It’s a problem for some, especially for the purists who believe that like fame and fortune the very idea of being a designer has become so accessible it has lost some of its “high life” nuances. That may be true in this age of reality TV, where all it takes to make your dream come true is Pinoy Big Brother, but the more, the merrier, if only because I still believe that sooner or later the mediocre (or the undecided) will fall by the wayside and excellence will prevail. In the meantime, we are happy we have a growing number of choices in matters of dress. As always, we have the choice to let mediocrity die a natural death, unless we are willing to embrace it and make it the norm.
With all the clothes on our shoot racks still eliciting oohs and ahhs, if not in terms of execution, at least in terms of promise, I am confident that, in general, the Filipino people have yet to mistake mediocrity for excellence. If this appears to happen, maybe we are just giving our fellows a chance.
And maybe to be given a chance is all we need. After all, the Philippines has been in existence only since 1521, as per the world records. France, on the other hand, has had at least since 843 BC, through the Verdun Treaty, to master civilization, as we define it now.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
FROM ZERO TO ETERNITY
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, AUGUST 10, 2007. STYLE WEEKEND IS PUBLISHED EVERY FRIDAY AS A MAGAZINE INSERT IN MANILA BULLETIN)
What if God were all this space, including the space we occupy? It makes sense because then it’s not quite hard to imagine God to be omnipresent, omniscient, and therefore omnipotent. If He is all there is, then He is, knows, and has power over everything. Growing up as a Catholic, I couldn’t quite make up my mind how God could be everywhere, if, like me, He had a body, with only a pair of eyes to see everything that was taking place in an infinite universe.
Limited in his nature, infinite in his desire, man is a fallen god who remembers heaven —Alphonse de Lamartine
I have always taken it for granted that space is infinite, but then, now that I am thinking about it, how do I know that? Did I get that from science books or from my religion classes? Who has ever gone to the edge of the universe to determine that there is no such thing and that this vastness just goes on and on and on, ad infinitum?
But then over the past decade, in my search for more out of life, I’ve had many opportunities to explore what the enlightened call the infinity within. From Days with the Lord to PSI, from year-long weekly sessions with renowned counselor Dr. Lourdes Lapuz to feng shui consultations with the late Paul Lau and now Hong Kong geomancer Joseph Chau, from reading (and watching) stuff like Star Wars, Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations with God, and James Redfield’s The Celestine Prophecy to meditation classes under Nouel Resella, I’ve come to believe there is more power in this space than I can imagine.
Sometimes, I try to simplify the whole concept of infinity, a concept I often interchange with God, by imagining the universe or God as a blackboard, minus the borders, of course. In its emptiness, it’s just a blackboard but in it can emerge other concepts, from letters to figures, and all you need is a piece of chalk. Draw a cat figure on the board and the board disappears into the background. All you see is a cat, a concept that can exist purely on its own or at least pretend to. The material on which it exists is, after all, often perceived as irrelevant, so that if I were to ask you what it was, you would probably just say, “It’s a cat!” rather than a cat on a board. But without the board, will this cat exist? Better yet, isn’t the cat just a part of the board, a part of the board that has now found a new meaning, perhaps a new purpose, as a cat? Which is not to say that the blackboard had no meaning before somebody drew a cat on it. On the contrary, the blackboard always has the power to be anything and everything. It is, to put it simply, a universe of infinite possibilities.
Sometimes, when I meditate, I try to focus on the vastness within me. It can be an empowering tool to imagine yourself plunging deep into the core of the earth or soaring to heights in the infinite space. For most schools of meditation the practice is reconnecting to or establishing oneness with all there was, all there is, all there will ever be. In most cases, it entails emptying yourself out or focusing on the immensity of space, devoid of any extraneous elements, including your own thoughts, or the emptiness of silence, devoid of even your own voice, which, in a chanting meditation, you tend to lose, exactly the point of endless repetition.
Now that I’m no longer sure if the universe is truly infinite, then I believe that all that space the wise ones keep leading us to can only be God. After all, what else is there, from here to eternity, that can be all there was, all there is, all there ever will be but God alone? The question is, when our religious leaders said we were created out of the image of God, did they mean this physical body, meaning eyes, ears, nose, ears, arms, legs, and all? Or is the image after which we were patterned the infinity within, what many call the True Self, that quiet vastness that is boundless, borderless, and edgeless, inside all of us? No wonder, meditation, like prayers, often requires us to close our eyes.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
What if God were all this space, including the space we occupy? It makes sense because then it’s not quite hard to imagine God to be omnipresent, omniscient, and therefore omnipotent. If He is all there is, then He is, knows, and has power over everything. Growing up as a Catholic, I couldn’t quite make up my mind how God could be everywhere, if, like me, He had a body, with only a pair of eyes to see everything that was taking place in an infinite universe.
Limited in his nature, infinite in his desire, man is a fallen god who remembers heaven —Alphonse de Lamartine
I have always taken it for granted that space is infinite, but then, now that I am thinking about it, how do I know that? Did I get that from science books or from my religion classes? Who has ever gone to the edge of the universe to determine that there is no such thing and that this vastness just goes on and on and on, ad infinitum?
But then over the past decade, in my search for more out of life, I’ve had many opportunities to explore what the enlightened call the infinity within. From Days with the Lord to PSI, from year-long weekly sessions with renowned counselor Dr. Lourdes Lapuz to feng shui consultations with the late Paul Lau and now Hong Kong geomancer Joseph Chau, from reading (and watching) stuff like Star Wars, Neale Donald Walsch’s Conversations with God, and James Redfield’s The Celestine Prophecy to meditation classes under Nouel Resella, I’ve come to believe there is more power in this space than I can imagine.
Sometimes, I try to simplify the whole concept of infinity, a concept I often interchange with God, by imagining the universe or God as a blackboard, minus the borders, of course. In its emptiness, it’s just a blackboard but in it can emerge other concepts, from letters to figures, and all you need is a piece of chalk. Draw a cat figure on the board and the board disappears into the background. All you see is a cat, a concept that can exist purely on its own or at least pretend to. The material on which it exists is, after all, often perceived as irrelevant, so that if I were to ask you what it was, you would probably just say, “It’s a cat!” rather than a cat on a board. But without the board, will this cat exist? Better yet, isn’t the cat just a part of the board, a part of the board that has now found a new meaning, perhaps a new purpose, as a cat? Which is not to say that the blackboard had no meaning before somebody drew a cat on it. On the contrary, the blackboard always has the power to be anything and everything. It is, to put it simply, a universe of infinite possibilities.
Sometimes, when I meditate, I try to focus on the vastness within me. It can be an empowering tool to imagine yourself plunging deep into the core of the earth or soaring to heights in the infinite space. For most schools of meditation the practice is reconnecting to or establishing oneness with all there was, all there is, all there will ever be. In most cases, it entails emptying yourself out or focusing on the immensity of space, devoid of any extraneous elements, including your own thoughts, or the emptiness of silence, devoid of even your own voice, which, in a chanting meditation, you tend to lose, exactly the point of endless repetition.
Now that I’m no longer sure if the universe is truly infinite, then I believe that all that space the wise ones keep leading us to can only be God. After all, what else is there, from here to eternity, that can be all there was, all there is, all there ever will be but God alone? The question is, when our religious leaders said we were created out of the image of God, did they mean this physical body, meaning eyes, ears, nose, ears, arms, legs, and all? Or is the image after which we were patterned the infinity within, what many call the True Self, that quiet vastness that is boundless, borderless, and edgeless, inside all of us? No wonder, meditation, like prayers, often requires us to close our eyes.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)