Get art in that garden
After all, a good, well laid-out garden is art in itself.
Brookside Baby
Monday, June 11, 2012
Saturday, June 9, 2012
'Ambo' & the Missing Family of Spiders
"Two S.
Koreans swept away in Philippine river"
"Three dead, six missing as typhoon passes Philippines"
we in our isolation thought
"Three dead, six missing as typhoon passes Philippines"
--Headlines from
www.ph.msn.com, June 6, 2012
we in our isolation thought
the fog
& ceaseless rains
merely meant
summer's end
& the start of the monsoon
that
meant laundry would
take longer to dry
although
others said typhoon "ambo"
didn't
quite hit land
&
dissipated in the seas
&
what we were feeling were
its weak
formation
the nuisance of a weather kept us indoors
where we
waited for word when power would resume
where we couldn't
stop fumbling
in the dark
for matches or batteries
for the one
& only flashlight in a rattling house
when "ambo"
exited the country
the shy
sun rose slowly over the bamboo grove
&
cast light on corners of the balcony's iron bars
where we
usually arrange the laundry
on
dozens of individual clothes hangers
there on a corner of every bar
clung deceptively frail spiders'
cobwebs
i wondered
where the mama spiders
evacuated their babies at the height of the storm?
their homes
were intact
glittering
in the morning mist
&
once again in my middle age
with two daughters all grown up
with two daughters all grown up
i cried over beauty & frailty
just as
intact were the last red blossoms
of the
'ber months' poinsettia
huddled in pots
intact
in the sense that the pots
didn't
tumble & spill out their contents
at the
height of the lashing rains
a day
later i read about people swept away,
fisher folks
most probably,
but it was so like me
to worry about the family
of spiders
who were my family's counterparts
in the world of fauna & wondered if they were
also washed away by the year's first storm
--Babeth Lolarga
June 9,
2012
11: 27
a.m.
Photos by Babeth Lolarga
Wednesday, June 6, 2012
The North West London Blues by Zadie Smith | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books
Novelist Zadie Smith argues why libraries must continue to exist and their existence not questioned by politicians or even educators. Despite the possibility of putting an iPad in every child's hand in the future or some degree of universal accessibility to knowledge online in these times, libraries must remain. Libraries, like love, must be here to stay.
The North West London Blues by Zadie Smith | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books
The North West London Blues by Zadie Smith | NYRblog | The New York Review of Books
Tuesday, June 5, 2012
“I didn’t like sex at all”
“I didn’t like sex at all”
This to me is a more satisfying portrait of Martha Gellhorn than last night's HBO biopic, "Hemingway and Gellhorn."
This to me is a more satisfying portrait of Martha Gellhorn than last night's HBO biopic, "Hemingway and Gellhorn."
Sunday, June 3, 2012
Gray casts a lovely light
Not my kind of Sunday when the sun is absent, the world outside garbed in gray, the rains dampening one's plans and the two days of wash hanging like a semi-permanent installation on the clothesline.But rain has a way of not only driving me indoors but inwards, too.
I've been re-shooting photos and letters from my grandmother Telesfora C. Lolarga's albums and scrapbooks off and on this summer. Off and on, too, my grand-daughter Butones would come in to interrupt this self-imposed work that the rainy season has caught up with.
Yesterday, curious Kai, as we also describe Butones these days, got a hold of the scrapbook, looked at some images, but when she turned to the page where old letters and drawings done by cousins and siblings when they, or rather we, were learning to handle language and draw with crayons or color pencils, I had to pull her away and store the album for a revisit on a day like this. (I think of her as fifth-generation Lolarga who carries a bit of Lola in her.)
On the last page of the blue album is an image of Lola and a quotation that she must have copied from elsewhere written in her own penmanship.
"Don't be ashamed of your gray hair, wear it proudly like a flag. You are fortunate in a world of so many vicissitudes to have lived long enough to earn it. One really ought not to be ashamed when one's hair turns gray."
Lola wore her gray hair proudly as she did when the same hair was still black and lustrous in her prime. She wore that head of gray with dignity even in the months when she lived by herself or with companions in her old house in Baguio's Lower Brookside and was visited by the same weather I'm whimpering about.
What's my point apart from underlining that well-earned gray hair is beautiful? Let me put it another way.
Last night I caught the TV news with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton giving an official statement about another hotspot in the world. I recognized the voice but what I didn't was the un-made up face. But she held the reporters' and my attention.The sight of her devoid of stylist's touch and makeup was refreshing counterpoint to the always urgent bad news couched in diplomatese.
I'm hoping Butones grows into that sort of woman our Lola was, devoid of vanity once she reached that very interesting stage when she realized what mattered more was what she had done with her life--for God's glory and the good of others-- than what she looked like, what she wore, what kind of face she presented to the world.
I've been re-shooting photos and letters from my grandmother Telesfora C. Lolarga's albums and scrapbooks off and on this summer. Off and on, too, my grand-daughter Butones would come in to interrupt this self-imposed work that the rainy season has caught up with.
 |
| Upside down viewing |
"Don't be ashamed of your gray hair, wear it proudly like a flag. You are fortunate in a world of so many vicissitudes to have lived long enough to earn it. One really ought not to be ashamed when one's hair turns gray."
 |
| Our lovely light who continues to speak to us through pictures and documents left behind |
 |
| Lola by her dining table |
Last night I caught the TV news with US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton giving an official statement about another hotspot in the world. I recognized the voice but what I didn't was the un-made up face. But she held the reporters' and my attention.The sight of her devoid of stylist's touch and makeup was refreshing counterpoint to the always urgent bad news couched in diplomatese.
I'm hoping Butones grows into that sort of woman our Lola was, devoid of vanity once she reached that very interesting stage when she realized what mattered more was what she had done with her life--for God's glory and the good of others-- than what she looked like, what she wore, what kind of face she presented to the world.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Fresh spring in Dario Noche’s step
After decades of doing editorial illustrations and cartoons. Dario Noche is setting his sights higher as a visual artist.
In his recently concluded show at the Conspiracy Bar on Visayas Ave., Quezon City, he reminded viewers of the body of works he has come up with in his long years in journalism. He had roughly 40 black and white illustrations and 15 in color in the exhibit, including original artwork from his Asiaweek stint.
In his heyday, he designed or redesigned publications some of which are in the annals of journalism history: Initiatives in Population, Manila Women’s Wear, Moptop, the weekly magazine Oh!, What’s Up cultural magazine, Standard Express, Jingle magazine when it morphed into Twinkle and The Manila Standard Today.
His interest in the visual arts was stirred as a boy in the province walking home from school and stopping at a place for more than an hour to look at a man working on the billboards of a movie house.
Noche recalls, “In the olden days, movie promotion was done this way. I was greatly impressed. They were to me huge murals. I was hooked. From then on, every blank paper in the house became my canvas. There was no artist gene in the family; I was the first aberration.”
He started as an architecture student at Mapua Institute of Technology but realized he couldn’t bear the math and shifted to fine arts at Feati University where his professors were mostly from the old Manila Chronicle.
Liborio “Gat” Gatbonton liked Noche’s work and recommended him as illustrator at Philippines Free Press. Although still unfinished with college credits, he was accepted.
He rues, “It was THE magazine at that time. It may have been sudden for me, but I managed. I was in the midst of the cream of Philippine journalism: Teodoro Locsin Sr., Nick Joaquin, Greg Brillantes, Kerima Polotan, Napoleon Rama, Jose Lacaba, Lorna Kalaw, Ricky Lee, J. Ser Sahagun, Danny Dalena, Alex Ngo. Most of them were very considerate. I fitted in snugly.”
He continues, “It was a time of turmoil then, internationally and right in our place of work. An unsettled labor dispute gave birth to Nick Joaquin’s Asia-Philippines Leader magazine that readily trounced Free Press. It was from this group of professionals that I inherited the bane that few managed to ingest: coffee, cigarette, and beer. With Nick around, beer was never lacking.”
His years in journalism have been instructive. He says, “I hated the
drudgery, the nine to five inhibition of the work, the flying egos. But
in no other place else was my intellectual hunger sated. I learned
grammar while poring over heavily edited manuscripts that were handed to
me for layout. Listening to editors’ informal discussions, you had not
only a glimpse of them but also learned vast literary knowledge and
secrets. All these rubbed off on me, and I’m forever grateful.”
He put aside a cherished dream to be a full-time painter. Now retired from journalism, he says, “I am psyching myself up to become a painter. Earning a living is still a paramount concern. Painting was always on the back burner. My stay in the paper made me realize I was in the wrong profession, but I must admit it wasn’t a complete waste of time.”
Today he joins sketching sessions to hone his grasp of the human anatomy. His intention is to specialize in historical painting or illustration.
He explains why he is concentrating on historical paintings as his niche, “I am a First Quarter Storm participant. This awakening profoundly affected my thinking. Former Third World countries, now recently developed nations, achieved their economic status because they have a deep sense of nationhood, culture, traditions and values. These nurtured and propelled them to impossible achievements.”
Noche bewails that “our youth today don’t have that. They grew up with wrong goals and values. Our educational and cultural system is wanting or doesn’t have a clear goal. I gave up on the older generation to ever deliver us. Maybe I figured re-educating the youth or the few remaining open-minded elders through historical paintings or illustrations can help inculcate and waken the right values hidden in our past.”
His illustration skills were also honed during his Asiaweek and Straits Times
years in the 1990s. After joining many group shows in photography,
illustration, graphic design and painting, he will explore sculpture
through bas reliefs of historical events.
To do all that, Noche at 62 practices what he calls “moderation, restraint, physical and mental activity. Occasionally, I do weights to stay trim. I walk the short distance going home or to the market.”
He quips, “I’ve seen too many decrepit old men and some few hardy old men. I know what I will be when my time comes.”--Elizabeth Lolarga
First published by Vera Files/ Yahoo Philippines, May 16, 2012
In his recently concluded show at the Conspiracy Bar on Visayas Ave., Quezon City, he reminded viewers of the body of works he has come up with in his long years in journalism. He had roughly 40 black and white illustrations and 15 in color in the exhibit, including original artwork from his Asiaweek stint.
 |
| Dario Noche |
His interest in the visual arts was stirred as a boy in the province walking home from school and stopping at a place for more than an hour to look at a man working on the billboards of a movie house.
Noche recalls, “In the olden days, movie promotion was done this way. I was greatly impressed. They were to me huge murals. I was hooked. From then on, every blank paper in the house became my canvas. There was no artist gene in the family; I was the first aberration.”
He started as an architecture student at Mapua Institute of Technology but realized he couldn’t bear the math and shifted to fine arts at Feati University where his professors were mostly from the old Manila Chronicle.
Liborio “Gat” Gatbonton liked Noche’s work and recommended him as illustrator at Philippines Free Press. Although still unfinished with college credits, he was accepted.
He rues, “It was THE magazine at that time. It may have been sudden for me, but I managed. I was in the midst of the cream of Philippine journalism: Teodoro Locsin Sr., Nick Joaquin, Greg Brillantes, Kerima Polotan, Napoleon Rama, Jose Lacaba, Lorna Kalaw, Ricky Lee, J. Ser Sahagun, Danny Dalena, Alex Ngo. Most of them were very considerate. I fitted in snugly.”
He continues, “It was a time of turmoil then, internationally and right in our place of work. An unsettled labor dispute gave birth to Nick Joaquin’s Asia-Philippines Leader magazine that readily trounced Free Press. It was from this group of professionals that I inherited the bane that few managed to ingest: coffee, cigarette, and beer. With Nick around, beer was never lacking.”
 |
| Asiaweek cover illustration by Noche |
He put aside a cherished dream to be a full-time painter. Now retired from journalism, he says, “I am psyching myself up to become a painter. Earning a living is still a paramount concern. Painting was always on the back burner. My stay in the paper made me realize I was in the wrong profession, but I must admit it wasn’t a complete waste of time.”
Today he joins sketching sessions to hone his grasp of the human anatomy. His intention is to specialize in historical painting or illustration.
He explains why he is concentrating on historical paintings as his niche, “I am a First Quarter Storm participant. This awakening profoundly affected my thinking. Former Third World countries, now recently developed nations, achieved their economic status because they have a deep sense of nationhood, culture, traditions and values. These nurtured and propelled them to impossible achievements.”
Noche bewails that “our youth today don’t have that. They grew up with wrong goals and values. Our educational and cultural system is wanting or doesn’t have a clear goal. I gave up on the older generation to ever deliver us. Maybe I figured re-educating the youth or the few remaining open-minded elders through historical paintings or illustrations can help inculcate and waken the right values hidden in our past.”
 |
| Noche's illustration of Aung San Suu Kyi meeting Hillary Clinton originally published in Asiaweek |
To do all that, Noche at 62 practices what he calls “moderation, restraint, physical and mental activity. Occasionally, I do weights to stay trim. I walk the short distance going home or to the market.”
He quips, “I’ve seen too many decrepit old men and some few hardy old men. I know what I will be when my time comes.”--Elizabeth Lolarga
First published by Vera Files/ Yahoo Philippines, May 16, 2012
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)