The afternoon before the perigree moon shone brightly

"Keep calm and don't care what others think." - a tweet from Inspirational Quotes. So here's the Pinoy babushka not minding the discomfort of bending to shepherd two terrific three year olds: my grandchild Kai/Butones who's asking in a thrilled voice "What's that?", meaning, the rush of summer-like wind that greeted us as we got off a cab and posed by National Artist Arturo Luz's outdoor sculpture on Makati Ave. and De la Rosa St., Makati, just this Sunday, and her cousin Max busily munching on choco nibbles.

That's Wowa Pinky, the fifth sibling who came after me, and her grandkid Max posing with the complimentary plate of sweets (a shot glass of chocolate mousse, an eclair and a choco chip cookie), courtesy of the Ayala Museum cafe. We went into the cafe for some juice and just desserts for the kids, but the manager said the Sunday buffet was closing in a few minutes. He sent us this plate for the children while we ordered fresh buko lychee juice, orange juice and the Pinoy equivalent of Four Seasons for ourselves. Thank you, cafe management. That was a lovely gesture, something we will continue to tell our grandchildren about.




Our real reason for being at the museum premises on a Sunday: To attend the free "Opus 1," the Manila Symphony Orchestra Academy's first recital series with Jeffrey Solares, MSO's executive director and associate conductor, hosting the afternoon program. We came away quite impressed how a four-month old music school was able to produce kids shown in the following photos. They performed like real pros. One girl, who not only is enrolled for violin lessons but also for voice, sang "I Whistle a Happy Tune" with such self-confidence that even if she was off-key some of the time, she went right on singing. I couldn't contain an admiring "Brava!" Congratulations, Maestro Solares, the school's faculty, the students and the persevering parents and guardians.

If I had a child or a grandchild there sawing seriously away on the violin, I'd be taking photos, too. Either that or I'll be biting my fingernails and hoping my blood kin measures up. Do I disown her if she doesn't? No! Because the little guy in front wearing eyeglasses showed how it's done--he accidentally dropped his bow not once but twice but picked it up without a trace of embarrassment and continued playing.


MSO concertmaster, violinist and music teachers' teacher Gina Medina Perez with Ira Alexis Aclan whose interpretation of Weiniawski's Polonaise Brillante took my and my sisters' breath away. I am not Madame Auring, but I foresee a bright musical future for this girl.



There is music/rhythm/poetry even in the playing waters of a fountain. I'm sure the seeds of music appreciation are planted in the cousins. When Kai was in her mother's womb, she showed she liked Vivaldi's "Spring" by hardening and kicking. Max has grown up to the sound of her Tita Bianca's piano playing (lessons, practice and recitals). With the MSO Academy setting the pace for their generation, the future of classical music performances and appreciation is as bright as the supermoon. And I hope I don't live long enough to eat my words. Photos by Booboo Babeth and Private Ryan

Robin Williams, Bipolar Sufferer, Dead at 63 Due to Suicide | World of Psychology

Robin Williams, Bipolar Sufferer, Dead at 63 Due to Suicide | World of Psychology

All the love you hold

Don't you just think this prayer and art from Kelly Rae Roberts' portfolio of works is so damn beautiful? It is especially apt for this Sunday, a day after a wearying but uplifting Saturday. My life being what it is, one day I'm all covered up from head to toes because of Baguio's chill, fog, the zero visibility, the sometimes siyam-siyam (almost non-stop) rains that is conducive to a condition called SAD (seasonal affective disorder). 

Next day I find myself in Metro Manila again, perspiring already after I step out of the shower and boosted by adrenalin and other chemicals necessary for life in the big city. But then and then... The weariness of travel dissipates because because...

Ms. Roberts says it all for me:  "Dear World--Thank you for your smallest of moments that bring the greatest of beauty. Thank you for the stars, the light, and your soulful hearts that make living worth ALL the LOVE you hold."

Happy to see her at home with my namesake (naks!)

Filipino babushka with grandchild and her old pal Precious Leaño who's from Elbi (Los Baños) and was in Baguio briefly for a communication workshop she conducted for the Department of Trade and Industry-Cordillera Autonomous Region offices. We're flanking a gigantic rubber-cut done by Cordi artist Leonard Aguinaldo who has a solo show, "Transposition," at the Indigo Gallery of Bencab Museum on Asin Road, Tuba, Benguet. Show runs until Aug. 17

This granny goose (babushka, Booboo, lola) never thought a grandchild of hers would enter a Roman Catholic school, but she just did. And the kid seems to love it there and is thriving in the care of the Daughters of St. Mary of Leuca.

Almost a month into her nursery class, she kinda snubbed me after I escorted her to her classroom this morning. My husband thinks it's because of the babushka style I insist on outfitting myself in: bandana on my head, eyeglasses, denim jumper dress over print turtle neck sweater, warm socks to cover my chilled feet, clogs, backpack and cane. Our apo may be embarrassed to be seen with me.

Nah, I think she was more excited to see her classmates and the toys surrounding the classroom proper because she had a few more minutes of free time before the school bell rang.

I hope she also learns about the school's patron saint, among my favorites in the Catholic pantheon--Elizabeth of Hungary, patron of bakers, countesses, hoboes, knights, people with in-law problems, lace-makers, widows, the homeless, people suffering from a toothache, people made fun of for their piety, etc. That's a lot for a saint to be concerned about. But then all Elizabeths are women of faith.

Preschooler hoisting her backpack on her back and telling her elder, "I'll do it myself!"

Film review: Jersey Boys: Chasing the music while trying to get home

Film review: Jersey Boys: Chasing the music while trying to get home

Walk proud, Ida gurl

The little girl I used to carry at a Halloween party at a friend's home in UP Village in 1990 before our family moved up to Baguio

"Definition of good, emotionally-adept parenting: that the child grows up with no wish whatever to become a writer."

"Most of our childhood is stored not in photos, but in certain biscuits, lights of day, smells, textures of carpet."

Two quotes, all attributed to Alain de Botton, make me think of my two daughters who're beyond physical reach, except through their FB, Twitter or Instagram updates. The sisters are bonding in parts elsewhere while their mother reflects on times gone by and how swift the hands of time are moving to close that circle chuva la di la.

Maria Popova, another great curator of ideas like de Botton, shared through her blog, brainpickings.org, a letter that the poet Maya Angelou wrote to her younger self. Re-reading it for the fifth time today, I am struck at how her words have a force of truth that only mothers of daughters can relate to. I quote the letter in full by way of wishing  my younger of two girls all the best on her special day today:

You’re itching to be on your own. You don’t want anybody telling you what time you have to be in at night or how to raise your baby. You’re going to leave your mother’s big comfortable house and she won’t stop you, because she knows you too well.

But listen to what she says:

When you walk out of my door, don’t let anybody raise you — you’ve been raised.

You know right from wrong.

In every relationship you make, you’ll have to show readiness to adjust and make adaptations.

Remember, you can always come home.

You will go home again when the world knocks you down — or when you fall down in full view of the world. But only for two or three weeks at a time. Your mother will pamper you and feed you your favorite meal of red beans and rice. You’ll make a practice of going home so she can liberate you again — one of the greatest gifts, along with nurturing your courage, that she will give you.

Be courageous, but not foolhardy.

Walk proud as you are, 
Maya

And the girl whose fallback meal was Oreos dunked in a glass of milk when my home-cooked ones were wanting can now adjust to assorted situations in her new life. Ride 'em, cowgirl! 

A little afternoon music in one's brief life

Soprano Myramae Meneses, second from right, with the other members of Viva Voce, leads the singing of Francisco Santiago's "Pilipinas Kong Mahal" that ended the second and last part of "Complicated the Concert" at the Lopez Museum and Library. Photo by Babeth Lolarga

The second time around "Complicated the Concert" was as lovely as the first, if not lovelier and more colorful in terms of costume and production details.

Camille Lopez Molina, Viva Voce founder who also served as assisting artist on the piano to the 10 classical singers (many, if not all, of them her students in voice), promised us earlier: "We've tweaked the program so it will be interesting even to those who saw the first concert."

We were at the May 31 concert, a prelude to June's historical milestones (Rizal's birthday and Philippine Independence Day). During that performance of art songs, from bel canto arias to kundimans, what struck the listener/viewer was the program's potent political content as images from the exhibit of Leslie de Chavez, Mike Adrao and Ea Torrado were flashed on one side of the wall, alternating with more slides of the museum's permanent collection of works by Filipino masters and photos of notorious figures in front-page news. (The exhibit, by the way, has been extended until tomorrow, Aug. 4.)

During the July 19 re-staging at the same venue, the singers' formal wear and an elevated platform that served as stage added a dramatic element. And this time the "tweaking" that Lopez Molina did with the program drew more dramatic responses. This audience member found herself copiously and silently weeping at Kristine Marie Balingcos' interpretation of Catalini's "Ebben, ne andro lontana" from the opera La Wally, a heroine's death aria before she throws herself in an avalanche. It's not an ordinary soprano who can acquit herself with that aria, especially if one has heard versions by Maria Callas, Renata Tebaldi or the young Angela Gheorghiu.

Certain types of music invite that kind of visceral response. By the time tenor Ivan Niccolo Nery was singing Schumann's "Stille Tränen," to mean "Silent Tears," with a slide closeup of an unknown man, a survivor of supertyphoon Yolanda aboard a C 130 plane that was evacuating him and hundreds of other survivors from Tacloban, Leyte, my handkerchief was soaked.

Romance filled the afternoon air with soprano Myramae Meneses' "Ah! Love but a Day." Not included in the first staging, this is from a song cycle by American composer Amy Beach with lyrics by the English poet Robert Browning: "Ah, Love, but a day,/And the world has changed!/The sun's away,/And the bird estranged;/The wind has dropped,/And the sky's deranged;/Summer has stopped./Look in my eyes!/Wilt thou change too?/Should I fear surprise?/Shall I find aught new /In the old and dear,/In the good and true,/With the changing year?"

But it was upon hearing for the very first time baritone Raymond Yadao sing Juan Celis Bautista's kundiman "Parang Maghapon Lamang" that one felt as though one's Filipino chest was being cut open without anesthesia. Levi Celerio's haunting lyrics tell of youth wasted. Even if it feels like the length of a life, whether it ends at age 27 or at age 88, is long in earth-time, in the eyes of Eternity, it is only the equivalent of an afternoon.

Ang buhay ko’y maghapon lang pala
Tila isang saglit sa akin ang ngumingiting umaga!
May awit ang ibong tanda ng pag-asa!
Pagsapit ng hapon, ay!, kay lungkot sa puso kong nagdurusa!
Kung katotohanan ay ganyan,
Bakit sinayang ko yaong unang sigla ng aking buhay!
Di na magbabalik kahit na kaylan man
O! ang buhay pala ay parang maghapon lamang!

Camille Lopez Molina and Myramae Meneses bracket two similarly dressed music fans (the blogger and Mercy Lactao Fabros).

With Manila Chamber Orchestra Foundation's Joseph Uy, tenors Nomher Nival and Ivan Niccolo Nery. Joseph once reassured me during a sad period in my life (I never seem to run out of these periods): "A golden tone from a good singer's voice erases all the frustrations in life." Amen to that, Joseph, amen.

How green it was

I've often wondered who took this early in the 20th-century photo of La Trinidad in the province of Benguet. It must have been early in the last century because the Philippines is referred to here as PI (Philippine Islands). It looks colorized, but most of all it makes you want to exclaim: "How green was my valley!" Once upon a time, not very long ago, this was how it was. Whoever took this picture, thank you so much. I don't want to ruin the moment by posting an After (what La Trinidad looks like today) picture. Screensaver, anyone? Photo shared by Manong Ed Maranan