(From "A Weekend Note," the Editor's Letter, in Style Weekend, Manila Bulletin, Friday, 21 September, 2007)
From Manila Bay, you can view the city skyline, as though from a foreigner’s eyes. I’ve tried it more than a few times. Each time, aboard Justin Po’s m/v Shanti, for instance, it has always been as though I were in another time, another place. The last time, on a La Mer-sponsored sunset cruise, in which the group of brand manager Sandra Lacson introduced La Mer’s Eye Concentrate to the beauty and lifestyle press, I didn’t even recognize the SM Mall of Asia. With the setting sun tinting everything in gold, violet, and orange, I could really have made believe I was seeing some port in some strange city.
The traveler is the most important part of traveling. —Andrè Suarés
It helped, of course, that I was indulging myself with a glass or two of red wine and with more than generous helpings of caviar while some of my cruisemates, having popped Bonamine a minute too late, were unfortunately too busy trying not to be seasick on the upper deck. Although I was much better off outside, at the tailend of the yacht, where I could see the darkening skies overhead and all the foam the yacht left beneath us in its wake, I would not have minded watching the view from the cabin, where the dessert buffet was.
Indeed, the world looks quite romantically different when viewed within the frames of a moving window. Back when I was a student (and less jaded), watching Manila drift by from the window of even a rickety, roach-infested bus on Edsa was like reading poetry to me. The faces on the pavements, too fleeting to be real, were glimpses of lives I would never know, each a slice of the whole spectrum of human emotions, from ennui to worry, from longing to bliss.
Once, from the window of a car parked in Cartimar in Pasay City, where an uncle was to buy me some pet goldfish as a treat, I saw a woman balancing a huge basket on her head. Even then, I saw scenes like this as a magazine page, transporting the power of the image onto a page in Life or National Geographic. But, as I got older, Manila became too much of an everyday place to stir any strong emotions in me. It’s sad because I strongly believe it’s just me losing that eye that once saw beauty everywhere, even in sadness or poverty or emptiness.
Just a couple of years ago, on a 10-hour drive to Vigan, behind the wheel of a borrowed BMW, I tried desperately to pretend I was driving through the Italian countryside. I wasn’t exactly conjuring up orchards and vineyards, but I was trying to replicate the sense of enrichment that views of quaint villages perched on rolling hills a train ride between Milan and Florence once afforded me. It wasn’t so much Italy or Europe, which in most places, particularly outside the tourist traps, is postcard-pretty.
Even in the dark tunnel that bridges the gap between New Jersey and New York, there had been those strange feelings of adventure. I’d recommend first-timers to arrive in New York this way: Land in Newark (in New Jersey) and rent a car (or have a friend pick you up by car) and arrive in New York via the Lincoln Tunnel. In this tunnel, indeed, you are between worlds. At its New York end, in a span of minutes, you can sense you have arrived. The city’s energy is so palpable it is almost physical.
But then again, it’s just me. Sometimes, do you ever wonder what it will be like if you went to any bus station, picked out a destination that sounded the most strange to you, and boarded the bus that would take you there?
The unknown is an indispensable ingredient of any great adventure. I believe that’s the fine line that separates the traveler from the tourist. But is there any more unknown to explore, besides outer space, now that every global hamburger chain, every soda giant has beat us to practically every corner of the shrinking world? Pretty soon, we can all rest easy there’s going to be a Burger King in Patagonia, unless Mars proves to be a more lucrative venue for expansion.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
Monday, September 17, 2007
Sunday, September 16, 2007
FACE FORWARD
(From the editorial, From the Editor, of the current September edition of the Sense&Stle, "Beauty and the Best," still available in Philippine bookstores, newsstands, hotel kiosks, and more)
I didn’t realize until we started preparing this issue devoted to the pursuit and the upkeep, the benefits and the burdens of beauty that this multi-billion-peso industry is run by people who are as serious about their business as, say, a bank or investments executive. The only difference is that in the way these beauty executives run their business the bottom line hardly ever appears to be about money but rather about putting the best “face” forward for both brand and its customer.
BLURB
Beautiful young people are accidents of nature. But beautiful old people are works of art. —Marjorie Barstow Breenbie
To these brand custodians, a night cream or drying lotion, more than a product to sell or a formula to address particular concerns, is time in a bottle or a porcelain jar. In it is contained a history of excellence, a promise that materializes now, and better, brighter, more beautiful days ahead, depending on the efficacy and effectiveness of the product. That’s the past, present, and future all sold as one over the counter every time a new line of anti-aging creams or a new packaging for a lipstick or a new formulation for your favorite facial wash is launched.
No wonder, the industry is run by the most engaging personalities, mostly women like Tina Tinio (“In Tina’s Shu,” page 112), whose phenomenal success, a PR feat, in making Japan’s Shu Uemura a household name among fashionistas in Manila has brought her on top of six countries in the “Shuniverse.” Mutya Crisostomo (“High on Her Heels,” page 124), the classic example of beauty with brains, has taken this former actress and beauty queen barely a year to be a young woman on top of Unilever’s skincare products like Pond’s and Dove. After her life-changing brush with breast cancer, Marionnaud’s Toni Abad (“Vanity’s Fare,” page 122) has made it her commitment to devote herself to what is truly important and that includes seeing other women with cancer through this ordeal.
So many other women make up this special “Beauty and the Best” edition who, like this magazine, are tasked with the mission of keeping the women and the world looking and feeling good. Among them are Manila’s devoted guardians of the world’s most trusted brands in makeup, skincare, and fragrances (“Brand Management,” page 130), such as Lancome’s Zerline Chan, Guerlain’s Trisha Chua, Coty Fragrances’ Vicky Marchadesch, Shisheido’s Raisa Mislang, and Creed’s and Paul & Joe’s Esmeralda Abe.
That’s a whole lot of beauty in this country. If only we can have these women pour all their ideas, energies, savvy, and taste into the Metro Manila Development Authority’s “Metro Gwapo” campaign, whose blue-and-pink sense of aesthetics I find quite disturbing, we can maybe begin to dream of a city as dreamlike as Paris! After all, beautiful people deserve to live in beautiful places, too.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
I didn’t realize until we started preparing this issue devoted to the pursuit and the upkeep, the benefits and the burdens of beauty that this multi-billion-peso industry is run by people who are as serious about their business as, say, a bank or investments executive. The only difference is that in the way these beauty executives run their business the bottom line hardly ever appears to be about money but rather about putting the best “face” forward for both brand and its customer.
BLURB
Beautiful young people are accidents of nature. But beautiful old people are works of art. —Marjorie Barstow Breenbie
To these brand custodians, a night cream or drying lotion, more than a product to sell or a formula to address particular concerns, is time in a bottle or a porcelain jar. In it is contained a history of excellence, a promise that materializes now, and better, brighter, more beautiful days ahead, depending on the efficacy and effectiveness of the product. That’s the past, present, and future all sold as one over the counter every time a new line of anti-aging creams or a new packaging for a lipstick or a new formulation for your favorite facial wash is launched.
No wonder, the industry is run by the most engaging personalities, mostly women like Tina Tinio (“In Tina’s Shu,” page 112), whose phenomenal success, a PR feat, in making Japan’s Shu Uemura a household name among fashionistas in Manila has brought her on top of six countries in the “Shuniverse.” Mutya Crisostomo (“High on Her Heels,” page 124), the classic example of beauty with brains, has taken this former actress and beauty queen barely a year to be a young woman on top of Unilever’s skincare products like Pond’s and Dove. After her life-changing brush with breast cancer, Marionnaud’s Toni Abad (“Vanity’s Fare,” page 122) has made it her commitment to devote herself to what is truly important and that includes seeing other women with cancer through this ordeal.
So many other women make up this special “Beauty and the Best” edition who, like this magazine, are tasked with the mission of keeping the women and the world looking and feeling good. Among them are Manila’s devoted guardians of the world’s most trusted brands in makeup, skincare, and fragrances (“Brand Management,” page 130), such as Lancome’s Zerline Chan, Guerlain’s Trisha Chua, Coty Fragrances’ Vicky Marchadesch, Shisheido’s Raisa Mislang, and Creed’s and Paul & Joe’s Esmeralda Abe.
That’s a whole lot of beauty in this country. If only we can have these women pour all their ideas, energies, savvy, and taste into the Metro Manila Development Authority’s “Metro Gwapo” campaign, whose blue-and-pink sense of aesthetics I find quite disturbing, we can maybe begin to dream of a city as dreamlike as Paris! After all, beautiful people deserve to live in beautiful places, too.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
PLAY DAY FRIDAYS
(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
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
…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
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