Manny Chaves again

While chewing my half of a whole burger that Rolly divided between the two of us, I remembered how a hamburger figured in my history with the late art director Manuel Garcia Chaves. One time lunch caught us unprepared after a meeting at the old Hiraya Gallery on UN Avenue, Ermita. Nobody brought baon so everyone, especially curator Bobi Valenzuela, was listing what they would order from the restaurants nearby. We had our respective orders picked up by messenger-janitor-handyman Roger Abesto. Roger was behind the precise installation of artworks on the gallery walls. Meanwhile, Manny or Manoling, two nicknames we called him, disappeared and came back a few minutes later. "Where have you been? What's your food order?" we asked. He grinned and said he was just at the McDonald's branch on the same street. "That's why there is such a thing as fast food." I've never forgotten that incident for although he may lean towards the arts and sometimes have an artistic temperament, Manny was the practical sort. I miss him, especially today, on what would have been another birthday if death had not cut his life in October last year. I used to tease him that he shared the same birthday as singer Joan Baez and writer Simone de Beauvoir. People of quality. I miss his impeccable taste for music--he gifted me with a vinyl record of Sarah Vaughan singing the compositions of Michel Legrand. Careless me I have forgotten where I placed that valuable piece of music. I miss chatting with him on anything and everything. Before my family relocated to Baguio in 1992, he and Bobi entrusted Rolly and me to their friend, retired UP Baguio professor Delfin Tolentino Jr. He said, "Remember that when you're with Del, it's like you're with us, too." And indeed Del is widely steeped in art, literature, music. Whence cometh another like Manny? Here in the first picture he is shown with me at my silver wedding jubilee celebrated at Cafe Juanita in Pasig. In the second photo, same occasion, he is seen with the Tirols (Vic and Lorna) and Gou de Jesus. If it's possible to art direct the look and sound of the astral world, I suspect Manny is doing that. Happy birthday!