GO FORTH AND MULTIPLY !!!
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 | CONTENTS AND PACKAGES | Jun 26, 2006 |
|  | Caught this while having biscuits in Singapore |
| | Early this year, EDD ARAGON, a Pinoy artist who is now based in Australia and who works for the Sydney Morning Herald, mounted two shows in Metro Manila, both showcasing his talent in painting with UV-reactive paint. Fascinating!
“Under A Different Light” ran at the Yuchengco Museum from February to April and featured portraits of women done in light-reactive paint on white canvas, which are, under normal lighting, seemingly missing. However, once exposed to ultraviolet rays emitted from bulbs installed vertically inside a rotating half-cylinder located on the floor of the gallery, the figures come alive with a bluish glow, exhibiting a three-dimensional quality.
A few days later, the proflific and ultra-talented Edd, had “Cool Men”, an intimate show at the Oar House, Ermita District, this time showing in what he calls paintographs his idol rock stars, including my own Lennon and Jagger.
The pigment that he uses is called Aragonite, a formula he researched and developed with a chemist friend. Ganon katindi at kakulit and Edd. Mabuhay!
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| | GUIA AND HER PALS from PWU High School had a big surprise for Veronica Dangoy Guzman, who celebrated her 60th birthday recently at the art deco Filipinas Heritage Library. Unaware ‘til the last minute, Roni was floored, as the whole house was, when the senior ladies came out in boudoir clothes and danced a Moulin Rouge number.
That should have been worth it. Two others from the USA studiously followed the rehearsals through Skype. Guia literally broke her brittle wrist while practicing the dance and, in fact, was strongly advised by her bone doctor to refrain from joining the number. But who could stop her when she’s determined? With metal skewers on her left arm, Gwiz danced the night away.
The other A-type golden+ girls are Georgina Ochoa Espaldon, who two months ago retired as SVP of Bank of Philippine Islands; Liz Fernandez Gonzales, SVP at SM; Madeleine dela Cruz Pahati, travel counselor based in Las Vegas; Nanette Gamboa Santiago, also from the USA.
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| | IN THE COURSE of one my jobs (as a creative consultant for a television show) I found myself last week in Angeles City, Pampanga to participate in “Pamangan”, a month long festivity that featured the cuisine of the province. Angeles City, the former site of a huge American base, wants to obliterate its reputation as an “entertainment” (referring to its girlie bars and other sundries) city of the Philippines where foreigners continue to flock and have a taste of Filipina hospitality.
Instead, the city leadership has been conducting cultural activities to revive what it says are dying traditions of the Kapampangans. The proud citizens have transformed its former city hall into a museum. Angeles City, formerly known as Culiat, has a deep history. Likewise, Pampanga culinary arts, sartorial and tonsorial talents are known all over the country.
Our “Pamangan” trip was primarily an eating binge one, preceded by a short heritage paseo in the area where we were taken around on a calesa, the construction of which is also a dying craft, lament the cocheros.
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| | After the hectic, juice-crunching PICCA2 in October 2010, Gwiz and I decided to have a quiet rest. We hied off to Misibis Bay. And boy it was so relaxing. I think we spent the first day sleeping. Except for the short zip line, we refused almost all of the freebie activities like the all-terrain driving and the jetski rides. Tulog, kain lang muna. ZZZZ. |
| | I had practically only 12 waking hours in Beijing when I stopped by there last August. Went to check the so-called Ancient Alley there. This is a scene replicated in all of China I guess, with the government reviving old districts and transforming them into tourist destinations, lining these places with shops after souvenir shops. In and out in less than an hour. |
| | You are all invited! The Third Philippine Cartoon, Comics, and Animation (PICCA) Festival will be held on November 25-27 at SM Fairview ("Far view" say some) and Ateneo de Manila University.
Time flew very very fast. I wasn't able to post pictures of last year's edition, the 2nd PICCA, which was much bigger than our first canto in 2009.
The 2nd PICCA Festival was held at SM North The Block, the Annex, and the Sky Garden. We also had events in Ateneo and UP. We also had pre-event activities in GSIS Museum, Arts in The City (Taguig), and SM South, Manila, and Fairview.
We had guests from Canada, USA, China, Thailand, Japan, and Israel. We got had more than 300 card-carrying members (as compared to 2 in 2009). We got major sponsors like PCSO, Quezon City Government, Mitsubishi Philippines, Derwent Art Supplies, and many more.
The 3rd PICCA Fest will relatively and purposely be modest, in preparation for a grand one in 2012. Am getting hyped already. : ) |
| | In Filipino. we have an expression that goes: pera na, ginawa mo pang bato. In the town of Luna, La Union, they say "ang bato, gawin nating pera". The shoreline villages, aside from having fishing as a livelihood, gather stones of various colors, shapes, and sizes that are washed by the sea providentially to their area. They classify them according to hues and sell them to home embellishers as far as Metro Manila.
Last June,with my brothers Joel, Toto, Mike; friends Cat, Doddie, and Barry, I swung by the town to mainly shoot a disintegrating Spanish fort. We were met by very friendly children who were very aggressive in selling us multi-colored pebble in bottles, and were not shy before our cameras. |
 | Joanne | Oct 1, '11 12:48 AM
for everyone |
| | Model: JOANNE GUTIERREZ, 15 years old
Make-up: PIXIE
Location: TAGAYTAY |
| | After nine years of restoration, the University of the Philippines (UP) Carillion is again serenading the people of the Diliman community. Together with the Oblation statue, the UP Carillion is a landmark in the state university.
Funny, but the "carillion" that I remember is that of Cornell University where I spent a dream period there when I took a special summer course. Every afternoon, whenever I could, I would go to a promontory that overlooks the whole town of Ithaca, New York. I would witness the sun going down in a blaze of yellow and orange as the Cornell Chimes (I understand it has less bells than UP Carillon) played beautiful melodies. Ahh, that was life.
“Back in the 1950s and late 1960s, the UP Carillion was a part of everyday life in UP as it signals the start and end of the day when its chimes ring at 7a.m. and 5p.m., respectively,” according to UP Alumni Association (UPAA) president Atty. Gladys Tiongco.
I went to UP in the late 60s and can't, for the life of me, remember a significant day that UP carillon impressed a LSS (last song syndrome) on me. It is said that it even used to play Beatles songs. The tower finally went mute in 1988, while I was still a teacher there. To reckon, it was inaugurated in 1952.
The UPAA raised more than P10 million (Richard Gordon donated some P5 million) to renovate the tower and purchase 36 new bells from Holland.
The newly landscaped Carillion Plaza was also part of the UPAA project. These photos were taken in December 2010 when the winning UPAA Hymn (different from the UP song) was first sang to the public.
It was only in 2007 and 2008 when the bells were recently heard again, in time for the UP centennial celebration.
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| | Ferdie Cacnio of the in-demand Cacnio family of artists, held a one man show in May 2010 (parehong Taurus si Guia at Ferdie...yata) at the LRI Plaza, Reposo Street, Makati. This is another pahabol post. |
| | I had a one-day stopover in Beijing, after attending the comics and animation festival in Guiyang last August 2011. Instead of seeing the popular tourist sites, I thought I’d try going to the off-track ones. Like the 798 Art Zone.
The 798 Art Zone, a fifteen minute taxi ride from my hotel, was once a booming compound for China’s electronic industries. Somehow, with the country’s march to economic dominance, the cluster of factories lost business and became deserted.
“Around 2002 an amazing reincarnation process began when artists' studios started cheerily popping up like daisies over graves. Today most of the properties are rented; new life and light has been created in these once hollow, unused buildings. Gradually the spaced has turned into a combination of swanky galleries, hip art centers & studios, pricey design companies & fashion stores, and cozy coffeehouses & bars”, says its website.
I only had an afternoon to swing around the huge area; not enough but I was impressed. This area felt like the Greenwich Village in New York - always at the verge of discovery and creative explosion. |
| silya | Jul 23, '11 8:56 AM
for everyone |
| | In 2009, I started to count my birthdays backwards. And one big party in life would be enough. Well, we still had a celebration of sorts last Friday. My wife gave me a blonde, brunette, and a red-head, through the creative touch of The Bunny Baker (X Division). It is apparent that they have wilder imagination than I. |
| | How many of us get the unique privilege to witness a 50th wedding anniversary celebration? Probably much less, how many of us married couples would reach that milestone?
Guia and I were in Iligan City two weeks ago to attend the renewal of vows of his uncle Cecilio Tecson who came from San Miguel Bulacan and Aida nee Tumaneng of Ilocos Norte. Also during that lovely occasion, their son Manuel, Guia's first cousin, and his wife Josie, had their Christian wedding, to make complete their civil vows. It was a lovely, happy day. |
This blog is, in a way, a reaction to Tochie Irigo's note on the grass being green on the other side. This is an essay that appeared in my regular column, MyPad, in the weekly paper OpinYon, on March 21-27. This is also an expansion and modification of my regular column, Director's Chair, in Dyaryo DAR, a bimonthly newsletter. I still encounter this anachronistic bio-data form that asks us to describe our occupation from our vocation, asking us in effect to differentiate what we drudgingly labor for and what we do with joyous passion that is not work. As if work was some unpleasant thing that we undertake. Conventional wisdom suggests that there is work and that there is leisure. We are supposed to endure during workdays and enjoy during weekends or after office hours. As if we cannot have great fun while we work. Going to the “salt mines” was a mindset that was foisted on us early on in life. As if work deprive us of everything. The baby-boomer generation, my generation, inherited that heirloom of a notion to work hard to be able to enjoy life on our retirement. What it meant was that we should carry an onus almost all of our lifetime and relish life only when we are near our twilight. There was a great beginning and a sickly end. I was a sucker to this thought. I wanted to retire and “enjoy life” at age thirty that, for a time, to race against that deadline, I was holding at least five different jobs simultaneously. I was teaching at the State University, writing for a weekly television magazine, consulting for an advertising firm, project managing for a government technological office based in Makati, and starting my own business with my wife. It was a relentless, deadly pace. Soon after, I was down hard with pneumonia. It would take two more decades or so before I completely learned my lesson, at pacing at least. My savings only went to ICU bills because I would drive myself to points of susceptibility. I blame this on my genetic compulsion to fill “idle” hours with something to do, and preferably with a compartment I saw as work. Like many others then, I misconstrued that work meant putting on hold enjoyments, when in fact they should not be exclusive of each other. I should have been more astute and took note that the “works” that gave me the least pay, teaching and writing, gave me the most wonderful feeling. Therefore, it was not in the race nor in the “raise.” Love your work, and you will never have to work another day in your life, so goes a popular but unpracticed adage. Millionaire and behavioral guru Ricardo Semler demonstrated further, through perspective-altering models, the possibility of having a so-called “seven-day weekend” to value work and extract enjoyment while earning from it. What Semler meant was that it is really possible to have leisure everyday in our job and be efficient in it. All we have to do is look at the offices of Google. They are an eclectic lot. Working at Google is like going to a playground or a game arcade. They have colorful furniture, pool tables, heated swimming pools, cafes, snack bars, gyms, massage chairs, and more. That is not to say there are no “work spaces”. There are cubes, yurts, and huddle rooms that employees share. No such privilege as room with a view, because such only implies that you hunch on your table and sigh when you look out into the world. Of course, we need to recast on our idea of productivity. We still see a lot of offices where people appear to be busy but are actually producing nothing, not even for their own self-improvement. There is no use feeling cooped-up. In long flights, we are told to limber up our body, walk a little, and move around the cabin. Within our office space, we are advised to stretch. We should that - mentally and physically. We Pinoys are pros in sneaking work breaks and having furtive fun. We fill the malls, beer gardens, fiestas and restaurants with ease and vengeance. We try to escape from work that sustain us. When we get back to the office, there is that feeling of drudgery. New paradigms say this shouldn’t be so. Allow me to modify the adage above: Love your work and fuse them into your leisure and you will never really retire in your lifetime. | | HUGH CARMELO J. YONZON. Juan Lucas and Pam's third child, celebrated his second birthday last Wednesday (although his real birth date falls on Good Friday) with a brunch party. It was strictly a family and best friends' affair. The guests had to make their own hamburger or hotdog sandwich. Well, the others made them burger and dog. Burp. For dessert, they made their own halo halo. |
| | These sculptures, about two times bigger than real shoes, were done by Ferdie Cacnio and was exhibited in Singapore, another successful foray by a Filipino.
Titles of works are just my own. |
| | BAMBOOZLE TIME is around the corner. Haha. We are now readying the Third Philippine International Cartoons, Comics and Animation (PICCA) Festival that we plan to mount in November of this year. We hope to duplicate if not surpass last year's edition that was, in turn, a leap of an improvement from our first try.
In 2010, we had more foreign guests, more student members, more sponsors, more walk-in crowds, more activities, and more media mileage.
We had guests from Japan, Thailand, and Israel. We also had our suki from USA (John Lent this time with wife Ying), Canada (Trevor Bentley and Mauro Caselese this time with Jeff Agala), and China (Liuyi Wang this time with Weng).
We had more than 500 student members (a jump from only 2) from as far as Davao, Cebu, and Batangas. The PCSO and the Quezon City government came in to help, along with others like Panda Travel, Mitsubishi Philippines, and Times Trading, a distributor of art materials.
We had exhibits, contests, awards and honors night, talks, animation showings, trade and showcase, caricature sessions, workshops, a party for members, and more.
PICCA is an advocacy work really. Our dream is to make the Philippines competitive in the field of creative content, especially in animation, comics, and games. Check our handsome website piccafest.com. We need all the help we can get. |
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