Fats, Vitamins and Minerals

Strange how one reads more deeply upon the writings of someone who just passed away. It is like reading the letters of somebody you secretly love.

Over the past three months, Sid has been emailing me on a few topics: one was an invite to participate in an exhibition that he was organizing with Dopy for the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Then a few weeks later, a “happy new 2008″ greeting with a note that the exhibition, originally scheduled for February 13, was being moved to September, and that would give them time to think about my reservations about joining. Another was to tell me that the NCCA announcement for Websining was incomplete and that he was submitting his entry to the Open Call for Art anyway. I guess he liked Websining - last year he was one of the moderators for the KURO Satellite Forum on “art competitions” and participated in another KURO forum hosted at the CCP. I also had fun working with Sid on Yankee Doodles some five years ago.

Trevor met Sid once, at another forum at the CCP, and Sid joked how some westerners he meets overseas often asked him if Filipinos could really climb coconut trees … (Of course, when Trevor and I went to Bohol, and saw those kids climbing the coconut trees along Loboc River with lightning speed, and then diving into the water, one would feel most compelled to get to know someone who could actually perform such a feat!)

A friend wrote that Sid actually went home from hospital, so everyone thought he would recuperate. Sid was born to the world on a Christmas Day. I guess, when fate called, he didn’t want to leave the world on an April Fools Day.
Goodbye, Sid, we will all miss you - till we meet again.

Sick Leave
(With reference to Juan Luna’s painting, “Parisian Life”)

Like a patch of skin spared
from sunburn by a shield
of cloth or sunblock lotion,
there’s a rectangle on the wall
lighter than the wall itself,
where a painting used to hang.
Now that the artwork is gone,
visitors ask, “What used to be there?,”
and “What was it about?,”
as if they hadn’t seen the piece before,
or maybe not carefully enough.
‘Wasn’t there a woman seated
in a café?, Didn’t she have a glass
of wine, or some company?,”
The damp ground, eavesdropping,
almost shifts, holding up the house
whose wall holds up a rusty nail
in its perpetual upturned pose,
holding up no answer.

On my fourth day in hospital
with dextrose feeding me twenty
drops a minute, I picture in my mind
a space I may have left behind,
not entirely empty, but of air
made thinner by my absence,
or of lighter tissue,
so that people pause, inquire,
and imagine what used to be there.

“So where’s the painting now?”

vvvvv

Sid Gomez Hildawa (1962-2008)
Artist, Poet
Department Manager
Visual, Literary and Media Arts
Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP)

Dear friends,

Please support the Loboc Children’s Choir on their fundraising advocacy for the Loboc Children’s Choir Music Scholarships for deserving alumni. The Choir will be having a concert in Manila this coming April. More information below.

I was able to see these children in rehearsal and performances in Bohol last month (one performance was with their counterpart children’s choir from Shanghai, I have some photos here). The voices of these young Boholanos are really beautiful, different - you must listen to them. In Encuentro Filipino they will be performing with guest choirs so you can hear for yourself how unique their voices are.

Please pass on this information to your friends.

Maraming salamat!
Fats

ENCUENTRO FILIPINO - THE MANILA CONCERT
THE LOBOC CHILDREN’S CHOIR

in concert at the PETA THEATER CENTER,
New Manila, Quezon City

Enjoy a wonderful night of music and generate scholarship funds for these talented young children of Bohol.

Music from 19th Century Philippines.
Showcasing Filipino-Spanish Heritage.
With Filipino Folk and Contemporary Classics.

CONCERT DATES:
April 12, 2008
3:00PM / 7:30PM

April 13, 2008
3:00PM / 7:30PM

VENUE:
PETA Theater Center
5 Eymard Drive, New Manila, Quezon City

Tickets available at the PETA Theater Center
Call: ENCUENTRO Secretariat, c/o PETA Office;
Tel Nos. 7256244, 4100821,4100822
Or call Gardy Labad at (0916)3611786;
Evelyn Silva at (0916)6430848
You may also email your reservations to: lobocchildrenschoir@yahoo.com

The LOBOC CHILDREN’S CHOIR is a national and international champion in music competitions (NAMCYA First Place 1993, 1995, 2001, and Barcelona Europe and Its Song Festival Competition 2003) and has projected its beloved Bohol and the country through concerts and performances since 1996.

ENCUENTRO FILIPINO in Manila kicks off the Loboc Children’s Choir advocacy concert tour of the US: SEATTLE OLYMPIA LOS ANGELES HANOVER BALTIMORE NEW YORK HOUSTON TORONTO ST. LOUIS KANSAS SAN FRANCISCO LINCOLN SAN DIEGO.
To know more about the choir, please visit www.lobocchildrenschoir.net

Loboc Children’s Choir
Agape, Loboc, Bohol 6316
Telephone (+63 38)537-9022

A glimpse of the Easter procession, below, which passed our street at past 4 in the morning. Today, midnight, kids are outside laughing and playing, trying to get fruits from these trees.

Summer evenings can be quite lovely.

The Catholic majority here will celebrate Easter Sunday by going to church (which will be more festive than usual). The covered image of the cross (signifying death of Christ) will also be uncovered.

However, Catholics here prefer to celebrate the Passion and Death of Christ more than Easter. I guess people here like all that drama. The image of the Sorrowful Mother (Dolorosa) is especially significant. And of course, self-flagellation and actual crucifixions is practiced particularly on Good Friday. I guess this make the country one of those places where sado-masochism is publicly celebrated!

Good Friday, all our barangay had was the procession of the Nazareno, the Dolorosa and the Santo Entierro. Nothing too fancy like the flagellants in Quiapo and Baclaran or the Crucifixions in San Fernando, Pampanga.

In the meantime, Trevor got lots of time to plant seeds and vegetable stems from the food we bought at the supermarket last Wednesday. Shops were closed Thursday and Friday. Even the halo-halo lady stationed along the sidewalk fronting our apartment didn’t work on Friday. But Saturday we could hear her shaving ice again the whole day.

I was able to get three balls of beige crochet thread today. There were only three left in the large basket. I hope that would be enough to finish the piece I’m working on now, which I’m not quite sure if it’s going to be a shirt or a dress!

At the book store I was able to get two Japanese hobbies and craft magazines, particularly two issues that had crochet in them. It was quite cheap, 85 pesos each, compared to English-language crochet or knitting books that cost from 400 pesos to 1,000 pesos. Although I can’t read Japanese it didn’t matter because luckily I could understand the patterns and symbols.

One magazine had an English subtitle “Organic Cotton for Baby” and had these really nice and soft crocheted shoes, clothes, socks and toys for baby. I’m not planning to have a baby but I got the magazine because the patterns were really pretty. The other magazine had no English subtitle. I bought it anyway because it had instructions for crocheting bags using nylon ribbons (made by an industrial company specializing in agricultural films (probably eco-friendly plastics) called CI kasei), which comes in really handy since I just bought three balls of blue nylon threads from the hardware store last Wednesday.

By the way, Hamanaka have free patterns thru http://www.hamanaka.co.jp/make/index.html In Japanese of course!

So am now back to crocheting work!

And if I get better at this I’d like to put all the original patterns I’ve made online together with the finished works. Sometime Trevor and I hope to go to Quiapo to check out if there are good thread and yarn shops … here, there seem to be only two types of crochet materials - the bulky acrylic craft yarn and the 4-ply thread. It would be nice to get the really soft mohair and silky fine thread …

Surprisingly, I was even able to do some more serious writing work this Holy Week, in particular Finding Linux, the first of my series of Linux misadventures. But that’s nothing really compared to my friend Eric who just finished editing their latest television show and Gardy who’s driving himself crazy preparing for the Loboc Children’s Choir Concert in Manila and the US!

Thank goodness I’m “retired”!

I hardly check my Gmail account. And when I did today, I found an email from Kim telling me that his dad passed away February 1. Thirteen years ago I wrote something about Prof. Valino. I interviewed him, took some photos, and wrote the article below for a travel newspaper I worked with for a couple of years.

Last I heard from Kim, Prof. Valino was living in Cabanatuan, Nueva Ejica with his cousins and nephews who took very good care of him. Kim sent a photo and I was quite happy to see that his father looked healthier and plumper. My last memory of him then was a very thin frail man (as in the photo I took of him below in 1995) - which was after his retirement from teaching at university. That time he was working on a mural painting.

In Cabanatuan, Prof. Valino had lots of painting work to do - he still had commissions and has done some paintings for the churches and chapels in Cabanatuan City. Kim said that Prof. Valino also had paintings of various stages of development in his studio. Perhaps there would be some interest in the Valino clan, perhaps his daughter Lorna who is also an artist, to document and investigate Prof. Valino’s work development - it could be a valuable contribution to a truly indigenous art education in the country.

I feel sorry that I didn’t get Kim’s email on time to attend Prof. Valino’s funeral and meet his family… I feel sorry that I was never able to stay in touch with Prof. Valino after he left Manila…

Carlos P. Valino, Jr., reluctant master
by Fatima Lasay
TravelNews Philippines issue October 1995

There’s work going on at the lobby of the University of the Philippines College of Fine Arts. For nearly three months now, Carlos P. Valino, Jr. has been pouring his heart out onto a larger than life painting in an effort to depict the vast history of the Fine Arts.

From dusk till dawn, one can see the artist at work, progressing, studying, reviewing the images, there in the lobby of the college building. It is an unusual situation, because Valino is no ‘exhibitionist.’

For years, art has been a private matter for Valino, never taking pleasure in art shows and exhibits, never really wanting to show off his work or sell them. And if he should ever show them, he shows them only to a chosen few, and if he is ever talked into selling them, he tags exorbitant prices. Valino’s attachment to his work is bordering selfishness, a private affair, a work all his own.

Carlos P. Valino, Jr. was born in Sampaloc, Manila. His childhood years, however, flourished in the provinces of Cabanatuan, Nueva Ejica and Santiago, Isabela. In 1947, he entered the UP School of Fine Arts as a Ramon Roces Scholarship Grantee. In 1951, fresh out of school, he worked as a freelance artist until seven years later he was asked to teach at the UP School of Fine Arts. From 1965 to 1969 he served as College Secretary of the then College of Fine Arts and Architecture.

Besides being a UP professor, he has managed to put up a few one-man shows and win major prizes in various painting competitions, among them the Bonifacio Centennial, the Malvar Centennial, and the Aguinaldo Centennial. In 1976 and 1977, he was listed in the Dictionary of International Biographies and in Volume 4 of the Illustrated Men of Achievements book. He is also the recipient of the Outstanding Novo Ecijanos Award in 1982.

It is worth mentioning here that Valino never really intended to become an artist. His first choice in college was Medicine; he wanted to become a doctor. His mother wanted him to become an artist. Perhaps there is little difference between his youthful interest and his destiny, as today Valino is an expert on the human figure.

Valino’s mastery of the oil medium may be associated with a deep and lasting reaction to the drama and treatment of the gigantic Spoliarium. As both creator and critic of art, his involvement with the works of his mentor, Ireneo Miranda, may also be considered a significant contribution to his practice of art today.

In the proliferation of styles beginning in the 70s to the present, a stylistic pluralism has evolved, and many of our contemporary artists have subconsciously directed their styles in a need to comply with the demands of what is popular and new. In the midst of this crossbreed of styles, the technique, imagery and material of Valino is a timeless classic. While many styles today are rapid and spontaneous burst of color, Valino’s is a disciplined and progressive study on the laws of value, color and texture. I have seen his line drawings in the early stages of his work at the College of Fine Arts, and the lines are whimsical where the images are so, and the lines are aggressive where the emotive content is aggressive. The patient and masterful control of every line, every space and value is what sets a dedicated master apart from the dabbling painter or the ominous art mill.

However, Valino is not the stereotypical artist living in a degenerative state. He is the jocular artist, the one unaffected by whatever spate of critics or vandals, the one calmed by religiosity, acquiring the therapeutic benefits of his art.

Looking over his few art shows from 1967 to the present, one may notice a slight but significant abandon from the political and social statements he has made to the more spiritual and religious thematic series beginning in the early 1980’s. He quips that perhaps as one gets older, one becomes more concerned with his reputation in heaven. He is not, however, slightly concerned about his popularity on this temporal earth. He has done huge works gratis et amore, and he is not impressed at the trend of artists putting up as many as three art shows every year. To Valino, art is never a source of revenue but rather solely a source of joy. His work in progress at the College of Fine Arts is his love for art and for God. And for the first time in his life as an artist, he could feel a presence guiding his hand into asserting the images of a work he could not now merely regard all his own.

The weather started to change a few days ago - it is definitely warmer now and the wind is blowing in a different direction. It doesn’t drizzle in the afternoon anymore too. The thousands of birds that flock to the ridged walls of SM have disappeared. t must be summer.

I feel better now too, after cutting off my hair the other day. It has grown too long and too heavy. I did think of keeping it long and braiding it in all sorts of styles but my hair is very thick so having it long isn’t very practical. Luckily I can cut my own hair so I don’t need to go to a hairdressers every now and then…

Have just started a new crochet project too, some filigree squares that I can later stitch together to make a whole dress. I wonder about that - if I can have enough patience to make a whole dress.

In the meantime, I found this photo of Edward, which cheered me up a great deal. Trevor and I was at the Fort Santiago a few months ago and we saw a pile of artillery shells and a lantaka (canon) on them. Funny really, since the lantaka comes from the Spanish period and the shells are from World War II.

So I put Edward in the lantaka and took this photo.

I’m trying to get back to my readings too: SICP to learn about programming and Lisp; Political Economy of Adult Education (Zed Books) to pick-up on non-formal education where I started way back 2004 (after I stopped teaching at university); and a cheap hardbound book on needlework with instructions on knitting.

I thought maybe I could start  learning how to knit again because there’s this lovely filigree design that I’d like to do and it’s only in knit.

The HTDP book on programming (using DrScheme) is now in my harddrive - and it certainly is much easier to read than SICP. However, I’d like to have it printed and my printer’s busted so that may take a while… It’s interesting to compare the two books though, where one has a practical (problem-solving approach) and the other has a conceptual approach. The “satisfaction curve” in reading SICP is definitely much steeper.

Switching between the political economy book and the SICP is interesting, though. I think there is a link between the two. I was hoping to write about this direction but I kept getting distracted (by cooking and eating for example!)

Around 3-4 in the morning I was still pounding soya beans, the neighbor downstairs came over because of the noise … The sound of the marble mortar and pestle at the quiet of night must’ve resonated, amplified … Luckily, when the neighbor came, I’ve already finished the last batch.

Of course, the following day, it was a disaster. I couldn’t get the soya of the proper consistency to fry it like a pancake. Suddenly everything was wrong. I couldn’t get any of my writing done, couldn’t get any serious work done, couldn’t focus or concentrate, everything was just pitiful.

There are just too many attachments at the moment, from the gadawful people we had to deal with in the failed  project last month to the look of pity, sneer-like and disgusting, on the security guard’s face at the NSO when he saw me with Trevor.
The neighbor across from ours seems to have just bought an electronic piano, a keyboard synthesizer with gunshot, dog, cat, cow, duck and toad sounds in it. Obviously, it also had a mic input since I heard a girl’s shy voice going “hello.” The sound of tinkering with the keyboard - from piano to percussions - gave me a strange uneasy feeling. A cat tinkering with a ball of string was much much more comforting.

There is an old chow living in the next apartment building. It is always a joy to see him resting outside the apartment. Today I saw him trying to play with a cat resting nearby. The cat clawed his face. The chow recoiled, quite embarrassed and looked at me as if to say, “well what are you looking at?”