The First Eye in black and white

That was how photos were printed in the past. Although color pictures were already being done when these photos were taken in 1990, black and white pics still have a different appeal. I can almost hear photographer friends Tommy Hafalla, Ed Santiago, Alex Baluyut et al say "Aye!" in unison.

The occasion here was the launch of my first book of poems, The First Eye, boldly published by Kalikasan Press. I say boldly because Dr. Gode, or was it Godo?, Calleja of Kalikasan took a leap of faith when he okayed my manuscript. Print run was only 200 copies, but for a poet, it was enough that her book saw light.

Bob and Cecile Feleo's kobre kama (bed covers), inspired by Filipino images (Darna, anting-anting, St. Michael piercing the devil serpent, etc.), served as backdrop for the launch. There was a bed made and designed by Bob in the middle of Hiraya Gallery where my readers-performers Gigi Duenas, who had just given birth to her first daughter Amihan, and Monica Feria, pregnant with daughter Jasmine, sat. Actor-tenor Dodo Crisol chose to stand by the bed and not create a false image of a menage a trois by sitting on it (kidding lang, Dodo, wherever you are).

As these pictures show and as the song goes, the people in it--"some are dead and some are living, in my life I've loved them all."

And bless you, Erning Mendoza, wherever you are now, too, for these photos. The originals are with the Ateneo Library of Women's Writings. I'm still hanging on to my only copy of the book. I will photocopy it on a less busy day and turn over the original to the archives.

Dodo's voice filled the space of the gallery in Ermita, including the mezzanine, I think. It was followed by a loud clap of thunder and if I remember correctly, the lights briefly went out. Drama!

Dodo sang two songs, both of them originally composed as poems. One was Christopher Marlowe's "A Passionate Shepherd to His Mistress." Among those in the audience are Leonor Orosa Goquingco, Odette Alcantara, Sol Juvida, Virginia Moreno, Hilario Francia, my dear framer Ricardo Arquero and Gigi Custodio.

Beautiful Dodo--we miss you. And there is the just-as-beautiful Gigi who seems to be stifling a giggle, or should it be a guffaw, over a private joke.

Gigi reading...

...with feeling. In the audience are guests Mauro Tumbocon (a.k.a Mike Feria), baby-face Chato Garcellano, then my editor at The Sunday Times Magazine, Marie Dimapilis, Lynett Villariba and Anna Leah Sarabia.

Odette Alcantara, like a nicely aging hippie with flowers in her hair, chatting with the Orosa sisters, Leonor and Rosalinda

Here I am feeling like I'm sandwiched between two grizzlies. Correction: two grizzled newsmen, Armando J. Malay and Nestor Mata.

This is one of my favorite photos from that evening. I'm with four guys I shared a past with: Fort Yerro, Art Cariaga, Rod Reyes and Mandy Manaloto. That's Monica behind Fort.

Monica I worked with at the martial-law newspaper, Philippine Daily Express. At one time, she was arrested and detained. Much later she was my editor at Mirror Magazine. Art I also worked with at People's Journal, San Miguel Corp. and briefly at the International Finance Corp. Rod Reyes was the founding editor of Manila Standard where I worked at the news desk.

Signing copy of Rod Reyes, one of the most gentle editors with whom I've worked. Behind me are two favorite gardeners masquerading as writers: Ester Dipasupil and Paula Carolina Malay. Behind them is my youngest sister Gigi who documented the launch in video, but where does one play a Betamax tape?

I think it was Armando Malay's stature as the Grand Old man of Journalism that let him get away with smoking in an enclosed, air-conditioned space. The others with me and who don't seem to mind the secondhand smoke are Odette and Nestor.

Chato and Lynett check out my book, Nino Aguilos enjoys his drink while Mayita Subido casts critical eye on the Feleo four-poster bed. Lynett designed the book cover and interiors. Nino, of course, is now known as Bituin Escalante's dad.

Dr. Tony Protacio, fellow culture vulture, seems to be having a good time. Also in photo are then Manila Times publisher Johnny Perez, Paula Carolina Malay, Ester Dipasupil and Wendy Regalado.

The making of a best-seller. Ha ha there! Maribel Ongpin awaits her turn while I get Margarita Holmes's copy. Laughing is my mom's colleague Allan Juanta.

My life partner, Rolly Fernandez, watches me sign his copy. He complained days later that he was the only husband he knew who had to buy his own wife's book. Good point! Skinny Suzy Lolarga also in picture. This should be where I end and put a smiley icon, but the blogging service doesn't provide it.

On World Teachers' Day, Mrs. E Once Again

Dedicated to the committed teachers in my family:

Rolly & Ida Fernandez, Eileen & Suzy Lolarga & Auntie Linda

"Hey, Teach, your hips are too wide!"--student Junald to Teacher Babeth

I considered myself a successful teacher on some level when my high school student in a weekly elective on creative writing came up to me recently after I laid my bag down on the classroom table and said that to my face with no inhibition. In the Catholic school where I grew up, he would've been called impertinent and sent to the guidance counselor's office.

I came into teaching rather late in life--at age 55. I held back for many years, despite worthy offers, because I held the profession in high esteem that I felt I had to accumulate decades of experience in my field of specialization and get almost browbeaten by life before I had the "K" or right to stand in front of a roomful of students. Yes, there were the summer workshops and weekend writing seminars I conducted but not the everyday commitment that real teaching required. At those workshops, I insisted on being addressed "Tita", not by any honorific like "Ma'am" or "Teacher."

The lessons learned from Nieves Benito Epistola or Mrs. E, the late professor emeritus of the University of the Philippines Diliman, have truly been internalized in midlife. She was genuinely interested in what her students were doing and talking about. In conversations, she would use the hip expression in current use.

Once, after a heavy lunch, she hailed a cab, then turned to me once we were inside, "Let's smoke in my office and watch the smoke rings come out of our mouth!" This was decades before the UP campus became a no-smoking zone.

Or, when a new shopping center ("mall" wasn't the common term then) went up, she'd eagerly invite me to "case the joint."

When her colleague and friend Dolores Stephens Feria was released from prison and returned to the university after years spent underground, she told Mrs. E, "Looking around, everyone has grown old and gray, except you, Nieves." That same day, Mrs. E rushed to Cubao and bought a pair of denim jeans.

She enlarged my world, she and husband SV bringing me to art exhibitions, foreign film festivals, Palanca Awards Night, concert halls, an orchid show at UP Los Baños and introducing me to a Who's Who in the arts and culture arena. She took it upon herself to gather my sheaf of poems and practically badger editor Franklin Cabaluna into publishing them in the literary section of his soft-porn magazine, Fina. She gave me the highest recommendation in my first reportorial job. She had my survey forms for my undergrad thesis mimeographed and disseminated by her own students to lessen my feelings of being overwhelmed at the academic requirements before me. And when my first book of poems was published and launched, she barged into the publisher's office the next day, demanding to buy the unsold copies.

Her carport-turned-porch on M. Viola street was a magnet for "kindred spirits," she called us, on Sundays in the early '80s; we hanged out there right after breakfast, overstretching the couple's hospitality by staying on till early dinner. Actress Gigi Dueñas quipped, "Mabuti na lang di alam ni Imelda (Marcos) about High Tea with the E's or else gagayahin niya rin."

This generosity of spirit, the sticking out of one's neck for one's student even way after she has graduated, is mostly lacking in teachers I've encountered when I went back to school at the same university in this decade. Overweening ambition/careerism, I surmise, generally defines the academics of today. Mrs. E once took the young instructors in the English department to task in a poem, dismissing them as "these young competitresses."

Even as she rose to become associate dean of the College of Arts and Letters, she did not demand an office with a view or one equipped with comforts and staff befitting the post. I still visited her at faculty room number 1118, the one assigned to her after she returned from Harvard and her other colleagues had earlier picked out the better located rooms. She gave me the spare key to that room one summer so I could concentrate on my freelance writing assignments when I was in between jobs. Later, I learned that she was not wont to do that with just anyone.

I suppose that was Mrs. E's personal and affirming legacy to me, the one I wish to pass on to my students: that I am, and they are, special.

"Hey, Teach, nice pants!"--Carem to Teacher Babeth

Poster grabbed from Gwenn Galvez's Facebook page

How We Were Before

I'm composing this in Room 940 of the Peninsula Manila where my one & only husband of 25 years Rolly Fernandez & I are holed up to compose ourselves before we face loved ones at our little gathering at Cafe Juanita in Barangay Kapitolyo, Pasig City, today. In typical couple fashion, Rolly is mesmerized by ESPN's coverage of the New York Yankees versus Oakland Athletics game (no matter that it is a replay).

Last night we had dinner with Rolly's mentor, Enrique "Pocholo" Romualdez, and his wife Lita at Mikey's on Diosdado Macapagal ave., Pasay City. Every couple of minutes, Mr. Romualdez would turn to me and repeat a variation of this same question: "How do you put up with this guy?" The implication was, Rolly hasn't changed all these years: talk about being caught between a rock and a hard place. Is it any wonder Rolly's siblings call him "Rock"? He is unmoving, unchanging. The upside of this is he's reliable, dependable & nice to come home to wherever my inner-outer journey takes me. But I don't think Mr. Romualdez, the epitome of the hardboiled newsman, would like my answer so I kept it to myself.

Mr. Romualdez also shared a wonderful insight. During his and his wife's celebration of their golden anniversary (they're on their 61st year this year), people gave Lita a standing-ovation and the applause went on and on. People were on their feet cheering her for putting up with Mr. Romualdez, the last of the shouting editors. Then he winked at us, saying, "Kung alam lang nila. Ako ang tunay na martir dito!" Rolly laughed heartily; he could connect with that remark.

Following is a background about Rolly's & my relationship:

He & I went steady for five years: 1979-1984. It wasn't all moonlight & roses; Rolly pretty much left me to myself after we
officially were "on." It's because work is his wife; I'm the mistress. I appreciated it then & appreciate it now--he gave me lots of space & wouldn't call or date me for weeks on end. So I had a rich single girl's life that included going to art exhibitions, plays, movies & concerts on my own.

Which is what I miss now because there's not much of a cultural life in sleepy Baguio for all the number of visual artists & musicians per square meter. I miss ballet, contemporary dance & orchestral performances which are infrequent there.

About our preparations for the wedding 25 years ago, Rolly & I agreed that we would have a stark, simple one, aware that a wedding is just for a day or an evening but marriage is a commitment.

So he had his outfit for the occasion done by his Daily Express colleague Danilo Franco who headed the art department and was apprenticing with the great Ben Farrales. I was just gonna wear a shirt & skirt from my closet, not a gown (Jeez! The thought of wearing one still gives me the creeps), but when my mother heard Rolly was having barong & pants made pasadya, she had a nice dress made for me.

At that time, I had just returned from Mindanao where Jerry Araos & his comrades sent me on an exposure-immersion trip that had me shuttling from Cagayan de Oro to Butuan to Davao City & to a forest in Agusan del Sur where I lived with armed rebels for 10 days (not sure exactly how many days but it was long enough so I could appreciate their life). In the jungle I remember recording revolutionary songs in a portable tape recorder Rolly lent me.

When I returned to Pasig, I lost so much weight. When I was having my fittings with the dressmaker, I was probably down to 105 lbs. because food in u.g. life was strictly budgeted. I did not complain because we always had a balanced meal of fish, rice, vegetables & fruits whenever I was in an urban place. In the forest it was rice, siling labuyo, salt. Skyflakes crackers were a treat & rationed.

When the dress was finally done & I got into it, it was tight. By that time, my old appetite had returned with a vengeance; I was
eating 4-5 pieces of pan de sal at breakfast. So the dress had to be refitted & dyed a shade of tan because it was white.

I didn't like to wear virginal white. I wasn't a virgin. Rolly & I were avid practitioners of premarital sex with proper use of contraceptives. (Jerry said in his book The Garden of Two Dragons Fucking, which I edited in 1992, that parents who can declare openly that they had practiced premarital sex ought to be congratulated. So congratulations to Rolly and me!)

My original plan was to wear my office clothes: pleated, rainbow-color skirt with matching top.

Jerry called me at my old Raya Media Services office in United 1, Paranaque, & was surprised to learn that I was still working on technically was the eve (morning) of my wedding. The wedding was set at 6 p.m. on July 26, 1984. He asked what my plans were after our Baguio honeymoon. I told him Rolly & I would go our separate ways--he to his apartment in Makati where he lived with his medyo sickly mother & I back to my parents in Pasig. Jerry said, "Ang suplada mo talaga, Babeth! You should
live with your mother-in-law because eventually she will die. After that, it's all silence ."

But Rolly was the one who discouraged me from living with him for as long as his mother was there. She was the empress
dowager type, but he knew how to kowtow to her. As for me, my attitude has always been, if you don't like me, well, the feeling is mutual. Tapos ang usapan.

So Rolly & I continued to behave like a young couple still going steady. We would meet on his day off from work, usually mid-week. We'd watch a movie, catch an art show or a baseball game at the Rizal Stadium & have a nice dinner after. When the house in Antipolo was finished, we'd go there on weekends, but he would leave for work after lunch & I'd be left alone spinning records or reading a book. Our two children were conceived there. Jerry made our matrimonial bed & some furniture which are now in Baguio.

An important detail about the wedding: of all my many friends, I chose Jerry to be present at wedding. He kept it secret from everybody else, especially the Hiraya Gallery crowd of the '80. Only he & Gigi Duenas knew that I had gotten married. Before my wedding, Gigi told me, "Babeth, ang nag-aasawa lang ay yung may balak maghiwalay." But eventually Gigi got married too & even uses her French husband's name.

There must be a lesson or two here somewhere.

Photo shows old married couple at a book fair, University of California in Los Angeles, 2008.

Why She’s Magic Meryl

Watching her spontaneous whoop and heartfelt speech after she was announced the winner of the best actress award from the Screen Actors Guild last Monday, I couldn’t help looking back to the very first time I saw her—on the small screen, a television mini-series called “Holocaust” where she played a noble German named Inga.

There is something about how the face of Meryl Streep that is so well put together despite her pointy nose. I became her instant fan, buying any magazine that had her on its cover (Time, People, Ms.). I followed her through Julia, Kramer vs. Kramer, French Lieutenant’s Woman, which I saw twice in one afternoon that stretched to late evening (coming out of the theater, I ran into art critic Leo Benesa; we rode the same homeward-bound bus and he expounded on Streep’s acting and her mastery of accents), Out of Africa, Sophie’s Choice, Postcards from the Edge down the line until I saw her paired with the great Vanessa Redgrave in another made-for-TV movie “Evening.”

“Evening” is special, I suppose, for those two actors—their own flesh-and-blood daughters appeared with them, Meryl’s Mamie playing her younger self, Vanessa’s Natasha Richardson as her dutiful daughter.

In the late 1980s, I was interviewing Filipino actor Gigi Duenas (now Gigi de Beaupre). A photographer was assigned to take her picture. She brought out a copy of Life magazine, flipped it to a page showing Ms. Streep. Gigi said, “That’s me.”

Yes, we all wish we have a bit of Meryl’s gifts.