(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, EVERY FRIDAY IN MANILA BULLETIN, 14 MARCH 2008)
There was hardly any sign of Wall Street in trouble when I came to visit New York two weeks ago, upon the invitation of Pond’s. The weather was harsh with an average high of zero and an average low of five below. On Friday night, snow was falling on Midtown Manhattan and rain poured shortly thereafter, drenching the neighborhoods from Chelsea on the West Side to Gramercy on the East Side.
The city’s got the right name, New York. Nothing ever gets old around here. —Ralph Stephenson
But our motley crew of magazine editors was all dressed up for a night on the town, having just arrived the night before on a long yet comfortable flight aboard Cathay Pacific that took us from Manila through Hong Kong and then through Vancouver to the John F. Kennedy International Airport in Queens. Beneath the voluminous outerwear, the ladies kept their clothes to a bare minimum, with backs showing, necklines plunging, hemlines rising to show more than a hint of legs, and heels slender and deadly, keeping their poor little feet on eternal tiptoes and adding at least three inches to their height and a lot of sex to their outfits.
Mutya Laxa, marketing manager at Unilever in charge of skin and such brands as Pond’s, Dove, and Vaseline, was the perfect host. The trip was designed to showcase the great care with which Pond’s continues to enhance and even re-invent its product lines to deliver on its promise of longer youth and more lasting beauty, as well as practical, easy-to-apply—not to mention affordable—remedies to such stubborn skin problems as age spots, sun damage, and dullness.
On our first day, jet lag aside, we grudgingly left our lavish suites at the Four Seasons on East 57th between Madison and Park to go on a two-hour drive to Connecticut, where the Pond’s Institute, replete with doctors, experts, state-of-the-art equipment, and high-tech laboratories, wowed us with its dedication to research and development. It’s no surprise, of course, beauty being such a multi-billion-dollar industry, but it’s quite a revelation to me that billions of dollars—or its euro equivalent, the dollar being weak now—is packed into each tube of, say, Pond’s Age Miracle cream, which you and I can pick off a shelf at the grocery for less than P200.
Something very big is happening to this brand that has been a favorite of women since the New York pharmacist Theron T. Pond developed the witch-hazel wonder product called “Pond’s Golden Treasure” in 1846, which later gave way to the iconic Pond’s Cold Cream in 1914. It’s only a matter of time, about five weeks to be more exact, before the Pond’s users are blown away with yet another breakthrough, perhaps the breakthrough of breakthroughs. I am not yet allowed to divulge what has been revealed at the Pond’s Institute in Connecticut, but suffice it to say I am impressed that this brand doesn’t have to call itself a luxury product to invest as much in science and technology as many of the prestige brands that charge an arm and a leg for the same results—or at the very least for the same promises.
I am even more impressed that Mutya, whose brand stewardship, to say the least, is respectful of Pond’s heritage and keen on making its future as rosy as a pink rose, went out on a limb to show us the best of New York as a reflection of the brand’s commitment to the beautiful life.
And so we spent the cold weekend, feeling hot, hot, hot (from downing three orders of Black Russian in 20 minutes or less, in my case) at Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter’s Waverly Inn at 16 Bank between Fourth and Waverly, with no less than Sting and Trudy to gawk at, although we could have caught Cameron Diaz and Lindsay Lohan had we gone another day. From there, we took a yellow cab to Cain, a Chelsea nightclub described by the New York Magazine as “the next best thing to an African safari,” except that we were all too drunk with our pink bellinis to notice the elephant trunk door and the zebra hide bar and even Owen Wilson in the mass of bodies grooving to the music.
There’s more to remember our trip by, including hanging out with American Idol’s Constantine at the get-in-if-you-can Pink Elephant on West 27th Street til 5 a.m. and curing our hangover the next day with fabulous “Bloody Maries” at the trés, trés chic French bistro Pastis in the Meatpacking District, along with bottomless cups of coffee, French toast, and eggs any way we liked it. Of course, all our other meals were just as delightful, particularly breakfast at the timeless classic Carlyle Hotel on 76th corner Madison, which Princess Di used to frequent, and dinner at Iron Chef and former Nobu star Masaharu Morimoto’s eponymous restaurant in the outskirts of the Meatpacking District and Sapa on West 24th Street, where Uma Thurman and Colin Firth shot a scene for the movie Accidental Husband.
It was a New York state of mind, but, unlike that of the New Yorker who drove our stretch limo muttering about recession and
money being hard to come by, ours was completely worry-free. What about puffy eyes in the morning and dull skin from all that sleeplessness, alcohol, and cigarette smoke? Well, too bad but what’s so wrong with a weekend indulgence? That’s why brands like Pond’s hire scientists and inventors. Skin solutions are nothing short of a miracle and science, especially during Eureka moments, is a miracle, eh? But only if it works!
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
Monday, March 10, 2008
LA VIE EN ROSE
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, EVERY FRIDAY IN MANILA BULLETIN, 7 MARCH 2008)
I have no doubt the Oscar is very happy in the arms of this year’s Academy Award Best Actress. I consider leading contender Cate Blanchett an exceptional actor, in any role, but I would have wept if she won this year’s Oscar for Elizabeth: The Golden Age instead of Marion Cotillard, whose performance in La Vie en Rose is, as described by Stephen Schaefer for the Boston Herald, “nothing less than monumental.” The eminent history of the Academy Awards would itself demand that the French actress be given her pride of place for her portrayal of the iconic La Môme Piaf (The Little Sparrow) in the biopic by Olivier Dahan.
And the memories I had
I no longer desire
Both the good and the bad
I have flung in the fire
—Édith Piaf, from her signature song “Non, je ne regrette rien”
On stage to accept her acting Oscar at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles two Sundays ago, Cotillard said with a lovely French drawl, “It is true…there are some angels in this city.” Édith Piaf, born Édith Giovanna Gassion in the slums of Paris in 1915, would have attributed it to St. Thérèse de Lisieux, her patron saint throughout life, but, of course, it was Édith herself, in spirit, in memory, in legacy. It would have been a mockery if a lesser artist played the Little Sparrow in this gripping, breathtaking reenactment of a life lived in pursuit of greatness.
La Môme in France, the movie has been renamed La Vie en Rose for cinema audiences in English-speaking countries like Britain and the United States, after the song Édith herself wrote shortly after the Second World War. In the movie, it was this wildly popular song that underscored the great affair between her and the one she called “the love of my life,” Algeria-born French boxing champion Marcellin Cerdan, whose family in a quaint farm in Morocco posed the greatest barrier between the chanteuse and her happiness. In a scene in La Vie en Rose, she confided to her friend Ginou, feigning indifference, “I’ll never have him. He’ll never be mine. He won’t leave his wife and kids,” only to place a desperate overseas call no more than two minutes later to entreat Marcel to come to Paris because “I can’t be apart from you anymore.”
I wonder if Édith’s life had been as dark and depressing over-all as La Vie en Rose, which ironically translates to “A Life in Pink.” Sunshine made itself very scant in this film, where practically every scene is veiled in poetic shadows, except during brief diversions, such as when Édith and her team were on a road trip in California. But even that scene is very sad, in which the viewer is made to imagine her alternating between pain and numbness on account of depression and her growing morphine addiction. As you know, history can only accommodate highlights and, if we were to define the life that is to be remembered forever based on history’s depiction of how Édith Piaf lived hers, we would define it as a series of tragic moments, interrupted only by career landmarks and milestones and—only too briefly—a high point at which love, along with happiness, promises to last.
And then, flashback to 1949, a plane bound for Paris crashes in the Azores in Portugal. Among the casualties is Marcel Cerdan on his way to France to meet Édith.
For me, that was a high spot in La Vie en Rose for both the viewer and the lead actor, Marion Cotillard, who was given the opportunity of a lifetime to showcase her immense talent. Despite the score rising to a crescendo, it is as though suddenly all sound had left the world, as you concentrate on Cotillard acting out the intense moment, her eyes, her facial muscles, the shaking of her hands, the closing and opening of her soundless mouth articulating the deepest sorrow, the most unbearable anguish.
But life cannot be all bad, just as it cannot be all good, even for those destined for greatness and destined to pay a great price for it. On a more triumphant note, when light briefly promised to cast away the shadows, there is another high spot for me. That was when, in one of her first few music hall tours of New York City, Édith met Marlene Dietrich, who told her, “I haven’t been to Paris for ages, but this evening when you were singing, Édith, I was there… in the streets, beneath its sky. Your voice is the soul of Paris. You took me on a journey. You made me cry.”
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
I have no doubt the Oscar is very happy in the arms of this year’s Academy Award Best Actress. I consider leading contender Cate Blanchett an exceptional actor, in any role, but I would have wept if she won this year’s Oscar for Elizabeth: The Golden Age instead of Marion Cotillard, whose performance in La Vie en Rose is, as described by Stephen Schaefer for the Boston Herald, “nothing less than monumental.” The eminent history of the Academy Awards would itself demand that the French actress be given her pride of place for her portrayal of the iconic La Môme Piaf (The Little Sparrow) in the biopic by Olivier Dahan.
And the memories I had
I no longer desire
Both the good and the bad
I have flung in the fire
—Édith Piaf, from her signature song “Non, je ne regrette rien”
On stage to accept her acting Oscar at the Kodak Theater in Los Angeles two Sundays ago, Cotillard said with a lovely French drawl, “It is true…there are some angels in this city.” Édith Piaf, born Édith Giovanna Gassion in the slums of Paris in 1915, would have attributed it to St. Thérèse de Lisieux, her patron saint throughout life, but, of course, it was Édith herself, in spirit, in memory, in legacy. It would have been a mockery if a lesser artist played the Little Sparrow in this gripping, breathtaking reenactment of a life lived in pursuit of greatness.
La Môme in France, the movie has been renamed La Vie en Rose for cinema audiences in English-speaking countries like Britain and the United States, after the song Édith herself wrote shortly after the Second World War. In the movie, it was this wildly popular song that underscored the great affair between her and the one she called “the love of my life,” Algeria-born French boxing champion Marcellin Cerdan, whose family in a quaint farm in Morocco posed the greatest barrier between the chanteuse and her happiness. In a scene in La Vie en Rose, she confided to her friend Ginou, feigning indifference, “I’ll never have him. He’ll never be mine. He won’t leave his wife and kids,” only to place a desperate overseas call no more than two minutes later to entreat Marcel to come to Paris because “I can’t be apart from you anymore.”
I wonder if Édith’s life had been as dark and depressing over-all as La Vie en Rose, which ironically translates to “A Life in Pink.” Sunshine made itself very scant in this film, where practically every scene is veiled in poetic shadows, except during brief diversions, such as when Édith and her team were on a road trip in California. But even that scene is very sad, in which the viewer is made to imagine her alternating between pain and numbness on account of depression and her growing morphine addiction. As you know, history can only accommodate highlights and, if we were to define the life that is to be remembered forever based on history’s depiction of how Édith Piaf lived hers, we would define it as a series of tragic moments, interrupted only by career landmarks and milestones and—only too briefly—a high point at which love, along with happiness, promises to last.
And then, flashback to 1949, a plane bound for Paris crashes in the Azores in Portugal. Among the casualties is Marcel Cerdan on his way to France to meet Édith.
For me, that was a high spot in La Vie en Rose for both the viewer and the lead actor, Marion Cotillard, who was given the opportunity of a lifetime to showcase her immense talent. Despite the score rising to a crescendo, it is as though suddenly all sound had left the world, as you concentrate on Cotillard acting out the intense moment, her eyes, her facial muscles, the shaking of her hands, the closing and opening of her soundless mouth articulating the deepest sorrow, the most unbearable anguish.
But life cannot be all bad, just as it cannot be all good, even for those destined for greatness and destined to pay a great price for it. On a more triumphant note, when light briefly promised to cast away the shadows, there is another high spot for me. That was when, in one of her first few music hall tours of New York City, Édith met Marlene Dietrich, who told her, “I haven’t been to Paris for ages, but this evening when you were singing, Édith, I was there… in the streets, beneath its sky. Your voice is the soul of Paris. You took me on a journey. You made me cry.”
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
Friday, February 22, 2008
DANCE HALL DAYS
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, THE WEEKLY SPECIAL LIFESTYLE EDITION IN MANILA BULLETIN, FRIDAY, 29 FEBRUARY 2008)
If I had the energy—and if I could muster the courage to “shake my booty” without feeling like my arms are all tangled up and my feet are stuck on the floor—I would spend as much time as I could dancing.
Apart from swimming, it’s the only rigorous physical activity I enjoy that involves practically all of the muscle groups. It is a spiritual exercise, a meditative, therapeutic, if cathartic, experience, releasing excess energy and distributing what’s left of it in equal parts throughout the body or even the spirit.
Besides, dancing is an expression of glee, at least for a non-dancer like me, who only burst into dance when the spirit moves me, which is usually when I wake up to a bright, sunshiny day feeling bright and sunshiny myself and when, after generous rounds of Black Russian, I begin to see everyone else as a backdrop rather than strangers at a dance club.
BLURB
You can’t lie when you dance. It’s so direct. You do what is in you. You can’t dance out of the side of your mouth. —Shirley Maclaine
Of course, it’s not always an act of joy. To the professional, such as the ballet dancer, it is discipline. In fact, in most Asian cultures, dance speaks a language of symbols and gestures that express the whole gamut of human emotions, including but not limited to happiness. In many places, it is as sacred a ritual as the devil dances of Sri Lanka, which are said to cure as well as cause disease, or our very own Bumayah, a religious dance of the Ifugao tribes in gratitude for a bountiful harvest of rice. To American choreographer and dancer Martha Graham, dance is a tribute to the miracle of life. “Think of the magic of that foot, comparatively small, upon which your whole weight rests,” she said in a speech in 1965. “It’s a miracle, and the dance… is a celebration of that miracle.”
Needless to say, it’s more than entertainment. To me, dance is as high a form of entertainment as an exceptional film with great acting, mesmerizing plot, and good script, not to mention cinematography and musical scoring. Many of my favorite movies have dance highlights that are as memorable to me as the movies themselves: Al Pacino sweeping Gabrielle Anwar off her feet to the tune of “Por Una Cabeza” in Scent of A Woman, for instance, or Michael Douglas and Melanie Griffith dancing to “I’ll Be Seeing You” in Shining Through, or even Belle and her prince waltzing their way to romance while Mrs. Potts, Angela Lansbury’s character, is telling her son Chip the story of Beauty and the Beast and lulling him to sleep. Let’s not forget Ziyi Zhang’s picture-perfect, edge-of-your-seat dance performance under a shower of snowflakes in Memoirs of A Geisha.
No wonder, as the British New Wave group The Buggles claimed in 1979, “Video Killed the Radio Star.” In this visual medium, music found a new dimension that is as powerful as, if not more powerful than words and melodies. Sometimes, dance is what endears you to music, whether because the music makes you dance or because a dancer gives the music a whole new meaning for you.
Indeed, in the words of George Balanchine, one of the founders of American ballet, who also defined dance as “music made visible,” dancers are “poets of gestures.” I mean no disrespect to the great divide (if any) between the finer art of dancing and the pop dances or even street dances, but I do believe that all dancers are poets in motion. Although many of them are faceless and nameless, they are the moving force behind some of the biggest pop stars in the music industry today. It’s no surprise, for instance, that despite all of her dirty laundry being washed in public, you can pretend it’s not yet the end of Britney Spears as you try very hard not to get into the groove when she challenges you to a “Piece of Me.”
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
If I had the energy—and if I could muster the courage to “shake my booty” without feeling like my arms are all tangled up and my feet are stuck on the floor—I would spend as much time as I could dancing.
Apart from swimming, it’s the only rigorous physical activity I enjoy that involves practically all of the muscle groups. It is a spiritual exercise, a meditative, therapeutic, if cathartic, experience, releasing excess energy and distributing what’s left of it in equal parts throughout the body or even the spirit.
Besides, dancing is an expression of glee, at least for a non-dancer like me, who only burst into dance when the spirit moves me, which is usually when I wake up to a bright, sunshiny day feeling bright and sunshiny myself and when, after generous rounds of Black Russian, I begin to see everyone else as a backdrop rather than strangers at a dance club.
BLURB
You can’t lie when you dance. It’s so direct. You do what is in you. You can’t dance out of the side of your mouth. —Shirley Maclaine
Of course, it’s not always an act of joy. To the professional, such as the ballet dancer, it is discipline. In fact, in most Asian cultures, dance speaks a language of symbols and gestures that express the whole gamut of human emotions, including but not limited to happiness. In many places, it is as sacred a ritual as the devil dances of Sri Lanka, which are said to cure as well as cause disease, or our very own Bumayah, a religious dance of the Ifugao tribes in gratitude for a bountiful harvest of rice. To American choreographer and dancer Martha Graham, dance is a tribute to the miracle of life. “Think of the magic of that foot, comparatively small, upon which your whole weight rests,” she said in a speech in 1965. “It’s a miracle, and the dance… is a celebration of that miracle.”
Needless to say, it’s more than entertainment. To me, dance is as high a form of entertainment as an exceptional film with great acting, mesmerizing plot, and good script, not to mention cinematography and musical scoring. Many of my favorite movies have dance highlights that are as memorable to me as the movies themselves: Al Pacino sweeping Gabrielle Anwar off her feet to the tune of “Por Una Cabeza” in Scent of A Woman, for instance, or Michael Douglas and Melanie Griffith dancing to “I’ll Be Seeing You” in Shining Through, or even Belle and her prince waltzing their way to romance while Mrs. Potts, Angela Lansbury’s character, is telling her son Chip the story of Beauty and the Beast and lulling him to sleep. Let’s not forget Ziyi Zhang’s picture-perfect, edge-of-your-seat dance performance under a shower of snowflakes in Memoirs of A Geisha.
No wonder, as the British New Wave group The Buggles claimed in 1979, “Video Killed the Radio Star.” In this visual medium, music found a new dimension that is as powerful as, if not more powerful than words and melodies. Sometimes, dance is what endears you to music, whether because the music makes you dance or because a dancer gives the music a whole new meaning for you.
Indeed, in the words of George Balanchine, one of the founders of American ballet, who also defined dance as “music made visible,” dancers are “poets of gestures.” I mean no disrespect to the great divide (if any) between the finer art of dancing and the pop dances or even street dances, but I do believe that all dancers are poets in motion. Although many of them are faceless and nameless, they are the moving force behind some of the biggest pop stars in the music industry today. It’s no surprise, for instance, that despite all of her dirty laundry being washed in public, you can pretend it’s not yet the end of Britney Spears as you try very hard not to get into the groove when she challenges you to a “Piece of Me.”
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
JEANNIE IN A BOTTLE
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, THE WEEKLY SPECIAL LIFESTYLE EDITION IN MANILA BULLETIN, FRIDAY, 22 FEBRUARY 2008)
But it’s more like a genie in five glasses of natural, organic drinks that flush decades of poison out of your life and make so much more than three of your wishes come true.
BLURB
Internal cleansing, which gets each organ functioning with maximum efficiency, is the core of health and beauty of the mind and body. —Jeannie Goulbourn
I have long been acquainted with Jeannie Goulbourn’s generous, charitable nature, but it was only last weekend that I saw the extent of her commitment to spread the good—and to share the good life—with as many people as she could possibly draw to her many projects.
One of these life-changing projects is last weekend’s “My Self-Discovery to Well-Being” seminar, a detox flush aimed at cleansing the gallbladder Jeannie and her partner Dale Flores, an expert in holistic nutrition, have been conducting every two months or so over the past year at the Discovery Suites in Pasig.
The non-invasive treatment starts at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning, although mine started the night before, when messages from Jeannie’s assistant Joyce flooded the inbox of my mobile phone urging me to refrain from meat and oily food. That early, I realized how terribly careless I had been with my food intake that it was stressful to go over my list of favorite restaurants in search of a clean, simple, fresh, hardly unadulterated steamed fish. I ended up ordering a whole lapu-lapu from The President’s in Binondo, with specific and absolute instructions to keep it MSG-free.
The next day, the first day of the two-day seminar, began with the healthiest (or only healthy) and most refreshingly enjoyable breakfast of my life: a series of gourmet organic soups, accompanied by a platter of fruits and glasses upon glasses of fruit juices and water, from the kitchen of Discovery Suites’ Colombian chef David Pardo de Ayala. Jeannie and Dale devoted the early part of Saturday to hydration, during which our motley crew of 60 or so, from ages 18 or 20 to 80+, was also plied with information through the talks given by health experts Dr. Ricky Soler and Dr. Madeline Valera, themselves graduates of the detox flush seminar and, in the case of Dr. Valera, a co-participant of mine in the detox flush scheduled that weekend.
Fasting began in earnest at 2 p.m., just before Raya Mananquil and Corey Wills took us through the basic yet calming and de-stressing steps of yoga. Strangely, the whole diet of fruits and soups in the morning was enough to keep me full and I hardly ever clamored for food and water, except late at night when I fleetingly fantasized about chocolate.
The five drinks, glasses full of electrolytes powerful enough to empty out the gallbladder as well as other organs like the liver and the intestines, were served at carefully calculated intervals beginning at 6 p.m. on Saturday night. We were told to expect the release of toxins through bowel movement beginning at 6 a.m. the next day, but mine started right away, not later than 30 minutes after I took the first drink. I spent the greater part of the evening in my suite, ridding myself of a lifetime of toxins with about five trips to the toilet before I fell asleep at midnight and maybe another five after I woke up on Sunday morning at 9:30. Congratulating me, Jeannie called me “an early bloomer.”
The toxin comes out in various sizes and shapes. For some, it is the size of a golf ball; for others, the size of a fine grain of “Boracay sand,” as Jeannie described it. It also comes in a whole palette of colors, from olive green to deep black, the darker it is, the more of a health hazard it is stuck in your system. On my last trip to the toilet before I slept on Saturday night, I released only water, as clear as spring water, and, for the first time in my life, I felt clean as a whistle, imagining all the passages in my digestive system washed clean of extraneous, hazardous, poisonous material like unprocessed fats and cholesterol. What’s more, I lost two pounds immediately after the overnight detox treatment. One of us in the batch, however, lost as much as 10 pounds.
So here I am on the very first day of my new life, although I believe I am only in the awareness stage and it will take more than a weekend of detox to convert me into a health buff.
My only wish is that Jeannie Goulbourn, whose passion for living well and wisely is very infectious, will succeed in her “health is wealth” campaign and, more important, in her vision to make health not only accessible to the wealthy. With her determination, I believe it is not impossible that her search for healthy food will soon yield something as cheap and conveniently obtainable as French fries and a can of sardines to satiate our need to eat and our need to draw pleasure from what we eat.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
But it’s more like a genie in five glasses of natural, organic drinks that flush decades of poison out of your life and make so much more than three of your wishes come true.
BLURB
Internal cleansing, which gets each organ functioning with maximum efficiency, is the core of health and beauty of the mind and body. —Jeannie Goulbourn
I have long been acquainted with Jeannie Goulbourn’s generous, charitable nature, but it was only last weekend that I saw the extent of her commitment to spread the good—and to share the good life—with as many people as she could possibly draw to her many projects.
One of these life-changing projects is last weekend’s “My Self-Discovery to Well-Being” seminar, a detox flush aimed at cleansing the gallbladder Jeannie and her partner Dale Flores, an expert in holistic nutrition, have been conducting every two months or so over the past year at the Discovery Suites in Pasig.
The non-invasive treatment starts at 8 a.m. on Saturday morning, although mine started the night before, when messages from Jeannie’s assistant Joyce flooded the inbox of my mobile phone urging me to refrain from meat and oily food. That early, I realized how terribly careless I had been with my food intake that it was stressful to go over my list of favorite restaurants in search of a clean, simple, fresh, hardly unadulterated steamed fish. I ended up ordering a whole lapu-lapu from The President’s in Binondo, with specific and absolute instructions to keep it MSG-free.
The next day, the first day of the two-day seminar, began with the healthiest (or only healthy) and most refreshingly enjoyable breakfast of my life: a series of gourmet organic soups, accompanied by a platter of fruits and glasses upon glasses of fruit juices and water, from the kitchen of Discovery Suites’ Colombian chef David Pardo de Ayala. Jeannie and Dale devoted the early part of Saturday to hydration, during which our motley crew of 60 or so, from ages 18 or 20 to 80+, was also plied with information through the talks given by health experts Dr. Ricky Soler and Dr. Madeline Valera, themselves graduates of the detox flush seminar and, in the case of Dr. Valera, a co-participant of mine in the detox flush scheduled that weekend.
Fasting began in earnest at 2 p.m., just before Raya Mananquil and Corey Wills took us through the basic yet calming and de-stressing steps of yoga. Strangely, the whole diet of fruits and soups in the morning was enough to keep me full and I hardly ever clamored for food and water, except late at night when I fleetingly fantasized about chocolate.
The five drinks, glasses full of electrolytes powerful enough to empty out the gallbladder as well as other organs like the liver and the intestines, were served at carefully calculated intervals beginning at 6 p.m. on Saturday night. We were told to expect the release of toxins through bowel movement beginning at 6 a.m. the next day, but mine started right away, not later than 30 minutes after I took the first drink. I spent the greater part of the evening in my suite, ridding myself of a lifetime of toxins with about five trips to the toilet before I fell asleep at midnight and maybe another five after I woke up on Sunday morning at 9:30. Congratulating me, Jeannie called me “an early bloomer.”
The toxin comes out in various sizes and shapes. For some, it is the size of a golf ball; for others, the size of a fine grain of “Boracay sand,” as Jeannie described it. It also comes in a whole palette of colors, from olive green to deep black, the darker it is, the more of a health hazard it is stuck in your system. On my last trip to the toilet before I slept on Saturday night, I released only water, as clear as spring water, and, for the first time in my life, I felt clean as a whistle, imagining all the passages in my digestive system washed clean of extraneous, hazardous, poisonous material like unprocessed fats and cholesterol. What’s more, I lost two pounds immediately after the overnight detox treatment. One of us in the batch, however, lost as much as 10 pounds.
So here I am on the very first day of my new life, although I believe I am only in the awareness stage and it will take more than a weekend of detox to convert me into a health buff.
My only wish is that Jeannie Goulbourn, whose passion for living well and wisely is very infectious, will succeed in her “health is wealth” campaign and, more important, in her vision to make health not only accessible to the wealthy. With her determination, I believe it is not impossible that her search for healthy food will soon yield something as cheap and conveniently obtainable as French fries and a can of sardines to satiate our need to eat and our need to draw pleasure from what we eat.
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
ONLY HUMAN
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, THE WEEKLY SPECIAL LIFESTYLE EDITION IN MANILA BULLETIN, FRIDAY, 15 FEBRUARY 2008)
In this age of reality TV, nothing much is forbidden anymore, so that polite society has practically become utopian. At cocktail conversation, for instance, it is no longer a no-no to whine about how stressful your day has been and, should anybody hush you, you might as well snap back, “Why, it’s the truth!”
BLURB
Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few. —Benjamin Franklin
Most people no longer have any qualms about expressing themselves, whether or not doing so will cause the people around them some discomfort. “I’m only human,” some will say and so it is perfectly natural to ruin everyone else’s day when you’re not in the mood. After all, it is a lie, indeed, to say “What a beautiful day!” to strangers at a party when you would rather cocoon yourself at home watching TV.
And so you let reality dictate how things go. Don’t talk to me I’m thinking. I don’t like the way you look today. Why can’t I ask about your love life when it does intrigue me? This gift sucks! I can’t be with you on the most important day of your life because I don’t feel like it. It’s your birthday… oh well, I’m busy. I’m shy, so don’t force me to be sociable!
In matters of dress, for example, we have become worse than barbarians. Since when has it been a badge of character to defy the dress code because “it’s not me?” And since when has it been acceptable for a guest to wear a wedding gown to someone else’s wedding and steal the thunder from the bride? Less rude but just as inconsiderate are the people who think it is no problem to send their regrets at the very last minute, whether the invitation is to a party planned at least two weeks before or to an out-of-town trip to some beach paradise an hour’s flight away.
Saying sorry is a noble act, but some people just cannot do it. To me, it’s not so much pride as it is fragile, delicate, weak ego. Saying hello is not so much a noble act, but it does also reflect the state of your ego.
I agree 100 percent, for example, that some people are better off as strangers to each other, but I do have a problem with people who scurry away like rats when you bump into them in the hallway. It’s painful to watch them do their best to look away, to appear busy, to frantically reach for their mobile phones, if only so they have a reason to keep their eyes down. I believe my mother decided to send me to school so I could more gracefully deal with situations involving other people. I believe that she decided to send me to a campus full of strangers so that I would learn to behave properly in the company of others. Otherwise, she could have very well just taught me at home, away from danger, away from people who might have bad habits to pass on to me, who might not like me for one reason or another.
This is not to say that backbiting is any better than open rudeness. It’s definitely uncouth to smile at people and then stab them as soon as they turn their backs. It’s barbaric in every way, especially when done without compunction. After all, we also go to school so we can learn to control our impulses.
Sure, we’re only human. We cannot help it that we like some people more than others. Sometimes, we cannot help not liking some people to the point of not being able to stand them. But we can at least take the time and make the effort to be pleasant, especially when they have done us no actual harm or when we have no proof that they have done us harm.
After all, we are not wild animals whose only clue to social behavior is primal instinct. We are humans!
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
In this age of reality TV, nothing much is forbidden anymore, so that polite society has practically become utopian. At cocktail conversation, for instance, it is no longer a no-no to whine about how stressful your day has been and, should anybody hush you, you might as well snap back, “Why, it’s the truth!”
BLURB
Be civil to all; sociable to many; familiar with few. —Benjamin Franklin
Most people no longer have any qualms about expressing themselves, whether or not doing so will cause the people around them some discomfort. “I’m only human,” some will say and so it is perfectly natural to ruin everyone else’s day when you’re not in the mood. After all, it is a lie, indeed, to say “What a beautiful day!” to strangers at a party when you would rather cocoon yourself at home watching TV.
And so you let reality dictate how things go. Don’t talk to me I’m thinking. I don’t like the way you look today. Why can’t I ask about your love life when it does intrigue me? This gift sucks! I can’t be with you on the most important day of your life because I don’t feel like it. It’s your birthday… oh well, I’m busy. I’m shy, so don’t force me to be sociable!
In matters of dress, for example, we have become worse than barbarians. Since when has it been a badge of character to defy the dress code because “it’s not me?” And since when has it been acceptable for a guest to wear a wedding gown to someone else’s wedding and steal the thunder from the bride? Less rude but just as inconsiderate are the people who think it is no problem to send their regrets at the very last minute, whether the invitation is to a party planned at least two weeks before or to an out-of-town trip to some beach paradise an hour’s flight away.
Saying sorry is a noble act, but some people just cannot do it. To me, it’s not so much pride as it is fragile, delicate, weak ego. Saying hello is not so much a noble act, but it does also reflect the state of your ego.
I agree 100 percent, for example, that some people are better off as strangers to each other, but I do have a problem with people who scurry away like rats when you bump into them in the hallway. It’s painful to watch them do their best to look away, to appear busy, to frantically reach for their mobile phones, if only so they have a reason to keep their eyes down. I believe my mother decided to send me to school so I could more gracefully deal with situations involving other people. I believe that she decided to send me to a campus full of strangers so that I would learn to behave properly in the company of others. Otherwise, she could have very well just taught me at home, away from danger, away from people who might have bad habits to pass on to me, who might not like me for one reason or another.
This is not to say that backbiting is any better than open rudeness. It’s definitely uncouth to smile at people and then stab them as soon as they turn their backs. It’s barbaric in every way, especially when done without compunction. After all, we also go to school so we can learn to control our impulses.
Sure, we’re only human. We cannot help it that we like some people more than others. Sometimes, we cannot help not liking some people to the point of not being able to stand them. But we can at least take the time and make the effort to be pleasant, especially when they have done us no actual harm or when we have no proof that they have done us harm.
After all, we are not wild animals whose only clue to social behavior is primal instinct. We are humans!
A
post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com
Friday, February 8, 2008
LABOR OF LOVE
(From the Editor, the editor's letter in the February 2008 issue of Sense&Style)
On the fashion front, 2008 has great things in store, which is perfect for our theme this month. What’s inside is all that matters, true, but you can’t just go in there, unless the outside appeals to you. That’s why, in pursuit of romance in this issue, we are happy to dwell on the surface en route to “what’s more important” within.
BLURB
If we want to be sincere, there is a well-nourished love and an ill-nourished love. And the rest is literature. —Colette
After all, attraction is the first step to romance. Whether it is deep brown eyes or perfect skin or diction or smartness or a soul connection that leads you even to love at first sight, that’s all just skimming, which is just as good as any a springboard to, well, something more meaningful as a long-lasting relationship.
The return to the Seventies, as envisioned by Spring/Summer 2008 collections all over the world, promises to be as fun as Saturday Night Fever as we all put on that “watch me, like me, love me” vibe in this rather breezy, nippy month of February. For woman power, it’s a blessing that Grecian influences are back, so that the woman in power, now too tired and tiring in the usual power blazer, can shift to something more befitting of a goddess like Aphrodite whose power did not have to hide in the fabric of pseudo-masculinity to be recognized. In this issue, divinity takes a feminine form as we herald the trend predictions of the Spring/Summer 2008 collections of women “empowerers” like Valentino and Armani (“World Fashion Report,” page 92).
Taking inspiration from Greek goddesses, our cover girl, star-to-watch-out-for Maja Salvador, puts on floor-sweeping, flowing, and feminine dresses by Filipino designers Rajo Laurel, Eric de los Santos, and VJ Floresca as the better half of her love team-in-the-making with Jason Abalos (“Love Team,” page 110). I have seen the young actress in a movie-made-for-TV and, if talent were the only basis, I believe this one is destined for immortality. Already, she has awards to prove it, but of course, there are many other variables, many of which have nothing to do with giftedness. In fact, rumor has it that many other actors, like Rayver Cruz, are to be teamed up with her this year, if only to push her further into stardom. After all, even Nora Aunor had to have Tirso Cruz III to get people interested enough to discover the stories her eyes alone could vividly tell.
But Maja is young and, like her acting career, her life before her is an endless stream of possibilities, finding true love, whether or not in a love team, included, although, as they say, you can’t (and shouldn’t) hurry love. Still and all, as a tribute to romance, we gather in this issue some of the most inspiring love stories of real life, such as that of Bayani and Marides Fernando (“Leap of Faith,” page 120), Andrew and Ruth Co (“Room for More,” page 122), Kirk and Ciara Serumgard (“Love Knows No Distance,” page 124), Rolando and Jacqueline Laudico (“Happy Together,” page 126), and Edwin Aguirre and Imelda Joson (“Written in the Stars,” page 128).
Indeed, love brings out the best in people, but it also brings out the worst. Here at Sense&Style, we treat every page like a love affair, giving it the time (more), the dedication (so much more), and the passion (more, more, more!) a lover would demand of us. Embedded in this, our first edition of 2008, are all our hopes and dreams, guided only by our mission to inform, entertain, inspire, and empower the reader as well as ourselves.
In the pursuit of our exciting vision for the year, whose fruition, I believe, is already apparent in this issue, we might have spent less time with family and friends. But that’s only because we are at the doorstep of great changes, one of which is to do as we preach in our quest to inspire all to live life to the fullest. Balance is key in living life well and wisely and that, like success, like glory, like power, like happiness, like love, is a goal to aspire for every day of the year.
A
Post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
On the fashion front, 2008 has great things in store, which is perfect for our theme this month. What’s inside is all that matters, true, but you can’t just go in there, unless the outside appeals to you. That’s why, in pursuit of romance in this issue, we are happy to dwell on the surface en route to “what’s more important” within.
BLURB
If we want to be sincere, there is a well-nourished love and an ill-nourished love. And the rest is literature. —Colette
After all, attraction is the first step to romance. Whether it is deep brown eyes or perfect skin or diction or smartness or a soul connection that leads you even to love at first sight, that’s all just skimming, which is just as good as any a springboard to, well, something more meaningful as a long-lasting relationship.
The return to the Seventies, as envisioned by Spring/Summer 2008 collections all over the world, promises to be as fun as Saturday Night Fever as we all put on that “watch me, like me, love me” vibe in this rather breezy, nippy month of February. For woman power, it’s a blessing that Grecian influences are back, so that the woman in power, now too tired and tiring in the usual power blazer, can shift to something more befitting of a goddess like Aphrodite whose power did not have to hide in the fabric of pseudo-masculinity to be recognized. In this issue, divinity takes a feminine form as we herald the trend predictions of the Spring/Summer 2008 collections of women “empowerers” like Valentino and Armani (“World Fashion Report,” page 92).
Taking inspiration from Greek goddesses, our cover girl, star-to-watch-out-for Maja Salvador, puts on floor-sweeping, flowing, and feminine dresses by Filipino designers Rajo Laurel, Eric de los Santos, and VJ Floresca as the better half of her love team-in-the-making with Jason Abalos (“Love Team,” page 110). I have seen the young actress in a movie-made-for-TV and, if talent were the only basis, I believe this one is destined for immortality. Already, she has awards to prove it, but of course, there are many other variables, many of which have nothing to do with giftedness. In fact, rumor has it that many other actors, like Rayver Cruz, are to be teamed up with her this year, if only to push her further into stardom. After all, even Nora Aunor had to have Tirso Cruz III to get people interested enough to discover the stories her eyes alone could vividly tell.
But Maja is young and, like her acting career, her life before her is an endless stream of possibilities, finding true love, whether or not in a love team, included, although, as they say, you can’t (and shouldn’t) hurry love. Still and all, as a tribute to romance, we gather in this issue some of the most inspiring love stories of real life, such as that of Bayani and Marides Fernando (“Leap of Faith,” page 120), Andrew and Ruth Co (“Room for More,” page 122), Kirk and Ciara Serumgard (“Love Knows No Distance,” page 124), Rolando and Jacqueline Laudico (“Happy Together,” page 126), and Edwin Aguirre and Imelda Joson (“Written in the Stars,” page 128).
Indeed, love brings out the best in people, but it also brings out the worst. Here at Sense&Style, we treat every page like a love affair, giving it the time (more), the dedication (so much more), and the passion (more, more, more!) a lover would demand of us. Embedded in this, our first edition of 2008, are all our hopes and dreams, guided only by our mission to inform, entertain, inspire, and empower the reader as well as ourselves.
In the pursuit of our exciting vision for the year, whose fruition, I believe, is already apparent in this issue, we might have spent less time with family and friends. But that’s only because we are at the doorstep of great changes, one of which is to do as we preach in our quest to inspire all to live life to the fullest. Balance is key in living life well and wisely and that, like success, like glory, like power, like happiness, like love, is a goal to aspire for every day of the year.
A
Post me at aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
A FIRST GLIMPSE OF SPRING
(FROM A WEEKEND NOTE, THE EDITOR'S LETTER IN STYLE WEEKEND, THE FRIDAY LIFESTYLE SPECIAL OF MANILA BULLETIN, FRIDAY, 08 FEBRUARY 2008)
We don’t have spring in Manila, but it was springtime, indeed, in a yet to be unraveled strip of luxury-on-the-rise at the end of Macapagal Boulevard when Sense&Style threw a par-tea at the Sentosia at Bay City last week.
BLURB
Spring came along, a season of song, full of sweet promise… —Bette Midler
All things traditional provided the elements for a great sunset party, a hybrid of high tea and cocktails, but because the idea was to showcase the changing of seasons and their accompanying trends, every moment at the party was very here, very now.
Fashion editor Hector Reyes was more than thrilled to have had the occasion to stage “A First Glimpse of Spring,” with trends that seem to be harking more and more back to the good ol’ things, like tea at 5 p.m. and flowers in spring, which the Devil Wears Prada character Miranda Priestly brushed off as “very imaginative!”
But times are changing—and they’re changing back. In a world besieged by life-threatening issues like climate change and terrorism, there is a clamor for stability and continuance. After all, when the future is uncertain, the past provides some kind of reassurance.
So here we are at the doorstep of another season, a time of new beginnings. Last Monday, Feb. 4, was the first day of spring in the lunar calendar, although we only ushered in the Year of the Rat sometime before midnight last Wednesday. In the temperate zones, spring has yet to come and the leathers and the mink in the closets have yet to give way to lighter fabrics in a profusion of flower prints.
Yes, flowers are in vogue. At the Sense&Style tea party, which unraveled at the three-level clubhouse of Sentosia, the walls were abloom with them, thanks to the spring-inspired paintings by various artists like Sanso and Velasco, collections lent to us for the occasion by Gallery Big’s Jonathan Sy and Gallery Joaquin’s Jack Teotico. A collection of floral dresses also blossomed in strategic corners, showcasing the fashion genius of some of our best and most promising young designers like Puey Quiñones, Kate Torralba, Tippi Ocampo, Eric de los Santos, and Veejay Floresca.
With Elnora Halili’s piano renditions of songs like “La Vie en Rose” and “April in Paris,” along with songstress Snare Mata’s repertoire of feel-good numbers like “What A Wonderful World,” everyone was in the mood for conversation in between mouthfuls of Billy King’s avocado prawn tartlets and sips of Tea&Therapy’s lemongrass with lychee, as well as bottomless glasses of Moet&Chandon.
After sunset, everybody moved up to the roofdeck. Under a firmament of stars, Mondo Castro’s Pin-Up Girls performed to endless rounds of Infinit as fireworks, courtesy of Johnny Lugay’s Phoenix, lit up the clear, cloudless sky with what appeared to be a garden of sparkling, shimmering, explosive flowers.
It is raining as I make these recollections and it feels like April in February. They say it is La Niña or, to the more paranoid, a classic symptom of global warming. Change is here, but I am waxing romantic about our spring party and the only change I can think of is flowers bursting back to life after a long dry spell. They wither and die but they always find the reason and the season to bloom again.
Spring is a season of hope, indeed. Let’s drink to that!
A
post me aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
We don’t have spring in Manila, but it was springtime, indeed, in a yet to be unraveled strip of luxury-on-the-rise at the end of Macapagal Boulevard when Sense&Style threw a par-tea at the Sentosia at Bay City last week.
BLURB
Spring came along, a season of song, full of sweet promise… —Bette Midler
All things traditional provided the elements for a great sunset party, a hybrid of high tea and cocktails, but because the idea was to showcase the changing of seasons and their accompanying trends, every moment at the party was very here, very now.
Fashion editor Hector Reyes was more than thrilled to have had the occasion to stage “A First Glimpse of Spring,” with trends that seem to be harking more and more back to the good ol’ things, like tea at 5 p.m. and flowers in spring, which the Devil Wears Prada character Miranda Priestly brushed off as “very imaginative!”
But times are changing—and they’re changing back. In a world besieged by life-threatening issues like climate change and terrorism, there is a clamor for stability and continuance. After all, when the future is uncertain, the past provides some kind of reassurance.
So here we are at the doorstep of another season, a time of new beginnings. Last Monday, Feb. 4, was the first day of spring in the lunar calendar, although we only ushered in the Year of the Rat sometime before midnight last Wednesday. In the temperate zones, spring has yet to come and the leathers and the mink in the closets have yet to give way to lighter fabrics in a profusion of flower prints.
Yes, flowers are in vogue. At the Sense&Style tea party, which unraveled at the three-level clubhouse of Sentosia, the walls were abloom with them, thanks to the spring-inspired paintings by various artists like Sanso and Velasco, collections lent to us for the occasion by Gallery Big’s Jonathan Sy and Gallery Joaquin’s Jack Teotico. A collection of floral dresses also blossomed in strategic corners, showcasing the fashion genius of some of our best and most promising young designers like Puey Quiñones, Kate Torralba, Tippi Ocampo, Eric de los Santos, and Veejay Floresca.
With Elnora Halili’s piano renditions of songs like “La Vie en Rose” and “April in Paris,” along with songstress Snare Mata’s repertoire of feel-good numbers like “What A Wonderful World,” everyone was in the mood for conversation in between mouthfuls of Billy King’s avocado prawn tartlets and sips of Tea&Therapy’s lemongrass with lychee, as well as bottomless glasses of Moet&Chandon.
After sunset, everybody moved up to the roofdeck. Under a firmament of stars, Mondo Castro’s Pin-Up Girls performed to endless rounds of Infinit as fireworks, courtesy of Johnny Lugay’s Phoenix, lit up the clear, cloudless sky with what appeared to be a garden of sparkling, shimmering, explosive flowers.
It is raining as I make these recollections and it feels like April in February. They say it is La Niña or, to the more paranoid, a classic symptom of global warming. Change is here, but I am waxing romantic about our spring party and the only change I can think of is flowers bursting back to life after a long dry spell. They wither and die but they always find the reason and the season to bloom again.
Spring is a season of hope, indeed. Let’s drink to that!
A
post me aapatawaran@yahoo.com.
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