run the rays

Easter ever after

2009-04-09T10:15:00.000-07:00

Last Sunday, my family went to a windswept swathe of space that served as the lawn--acres of it--of the Kansas governor's mansion. We were there along with droves of children and their guardians for the annual Easter egg hunt. Yes, here in the so-called Sunflower State, Easter came a week earlier ahead of the commemoration of Christ's crucifixion.

What a breezy change, I thought.

From the navel of the "Cradle of Christianity" in Asia, I grew up browbeaten with the stifling sense of the Gothic in the heat of Lent. A time when the altars of churches are draped in purple cloth, and you're expected to wear your Catholic faith like a blood-soaked piece of bandage.

Forgive me, father, but I always had this sneaking suspicion that we were way too self-indulgent circling around our guilt trip over our Redeemer's death. As if we had to feel sorry for having been saved, to begin with! It's like everything God has given us--our senses and its need to be sated--were no less misbegotten than tumors that have to be lopped off with the scalpels of self-abstinence.

Somehow I chaff at the disquiet of being a derelict of my Catholic duty, and I wonder if this is what God wanted me to feel.

Good thing there's always the open-hearted exuberance of an Easter Sunday to validate my innocent belief in a Christ no less alive for truants like me. Whatever faith persists in me, I owe it from an instinctive idea that grace is ineffably larger than dogma-dictated rituals. You and me, sinners all, have long been saved. And it's enough to honor him by being pleased of that knowledge, even if we will lapse as always back to the whole nine yards of our shortcomings.

Through the bone-crunching weight of Holy Week, I prefer and take comfort of the image of Christ smiling despite all the sorrow, our sinfulness, our burden of being human, our never-ending need for our own private paradise. (Something I tried to deal with here in my latest column in the op-ed page of Sun.Star Cebu.)

Happy Easter to all us, now and forever!

High five, hands down

2009-02-22T01:08:00.000-08:00

It's no contest, period. No problem if the presentor for Best Director and Best Picture in tonight's ceremony at the Oscar Awards would sleepwalk to the podium and go ho-hum.
What's surprising would be someone out there not puppy-eyed after watching Danny Boyle's Slumdog Millionaire, impervious to its enchantment.

Almost too tricky to be true, how its style and sensibility throw caution to the wind (the potential of falling in the muddy face of cliche, like innocence and goodness overcoming the odds as true love prevails, tra la la). How it nimbly leaps and swoops through its sprawling narrative (dovetailing its hyperkenetic chase sequence in the slums as the film kicks off) and dances around the dusty land mine of a dreary and ordinary tale (a doggone boy in desperate search for his girl en route to a happy ending). Marvel at the smoke-and-mirror structure of its storytelling (memory on a quick burn out of the questions in a game show, and destiny as no more than a matter of multiple choice for two brothers blazing on parallel but forking paths to redemption). How Boyle hoists a torch of a toilet rag called reality in a Third World country through a ripple of silk curtains whipped up by his camera's abracadabra. Such a storm, indeed, of visual (and aural) combustion.

That you come out tripping the cinematic light fantastic after the credits roll to the rhythm of a Bollywood no-holds-barred choreography is no accident. Just the way joy and all that jazz settle down, with spirits rising.

Indeed, to describe this pyrotechnic piece of filmmaking would entail no less than a fire-eater's feat of gurgling petrol-laced syrup and spewing out bubbles of flames. Enough said. Or, if this unrestrained awe is not enough, click here to read my opinion column in Sun.Star Cebu as my head brims with the tune of Jai Ho straight from this video remix below:

Bite this book

2009-02-20T03:36:00.000-08:00

It happens that a book might as well bark at you; its dog ears one too many of its prize-winning pages.

"God Laughs and Plays" is the first book I have finished reading so far this year. And there's no stopping me from unleashing again an urge to pore and mull over such watered-down notions on faith and finding joy, how these are suffused with the wildness of its rage and the grace of its wisdom, easing you into an introspection so chockful with a grin and chuckle every now and then.

God bless writers like David James Duncan. He with a maverick's sulphur in the stomach, a Zen master's zoom into sunlit sense of things, and a stand-up comedian's sass. All the world may be a stage for buffoons and charlatans, but Duncan affirms it's also a garden of wonder, a shore of fathomless possibilities, a temple in a playground along a river where fly-fishers can romp around like children.

"Duncan is a scandal both to the institutional church and to secular snobs; a truly dangerous man," a reviewer defines Duncan. Blame it on his writing, "a mind-bending trip through spiritual thought over the ages, with plenty of stops by the wayside of the troubled, politicized present." After all, this book as subtitled is a subversive trove of "Churchless Sermons in Response to the Preachments of the Fundamentalists Right."

Forgive me if my tongue is wagging like a tail regarding another reviewer's unabashed description of Duncan and his book: "He has been a denizen of the wilderness for forty years and has returned with liberating parables and allegories that are majestic, rib-tickling, and timeless. He has brought water to the desert of self-righteous 'Christianity' and in so doing, restores our faith in faith itself. Read it once and you will laugh. Read it twice and you will play again with God as you did when you were a child..."

And here's the publisher's postscript: "It is the vision of an activist sage. A sage ecologist. An ecological mystic." Now you see why I'm drooling rabidly.

Star student, proud parents

2009-02-04T15:54:00.000-08:00

My eldest son Gabriel Ollivan, who turns six today, recently made it a strain for me and his Wawa to get ourselves immune from immodesty. You see, Avondale West Elementary School recently posted his photo on the wall beside the gym door along with those of other students who got a star certificate for academic excellence. Golli, as he is fondly called, is one of the two star students in Avondale's two kindergarten classes.

Caught me by suprise, really, because I thought all the while that he is a rough chip off the old reckless block. You see, it's been a frequent complaint by her teacher that Golli often has a hard time listening and keeping his mouth shut. Mine is a rolypoly kid, I know. Someone who would rather frisk around as most kids would prefer rather than study. Another thing: he complains a lot when asked to read. So imagine how pleased as punched we were when he showed us his star-fringed certificate.

It's the second time Golli surprised us since he started kindergarten. Last December, he told us that their school will present an annual Christmas play. All of my classmates are in it, or so he mentioned in passing. No big deal. We thought he would be no more than pipsqueak in the background, considering how he merely made us hear a line he had to say to someone else in the play. So we just shrugged the whole thing off, until we saw him onstage so breezy with those long lines he had to deliver! How did he manage to memorize those? Turned out his part (as Papa Snow) was one of the play's main character.

Enough tooting of parental trumpet. Which, as every father and mother would know, is as easy as stifling a post-prandial burp.

Meanwhile, keep up the good work, anak! At least all my panic overdrive while whipping up your lazybone to a frenzy every morning in preparation for school has been not for naught.

Good morning, Mr. President!

2009-01-20T08:39:00.000-08:00

This is the day! All the world wakes up with America embracing a new era. God bless Barack Obama as he rolls up his sleeve along with the rest of the nation and its dreamers and believers of the possibilities of hope and change in this time of challenges.

Click here to read my recent opinion column in Sun.Star Cebu in celebration of this unprecedented moment of the inauguration of the 44th president of the United States of America. For the complete text of Obama's inaugural speech, click here.

Monterey in my mind

2009-01-18T05:29:00.000-08:00

Four days into the new year, and off I went up in the air. There I was, peering down the plane's window over the desert of Arizona en route to California to join a multi-cultural gathering of writers, editors, linguists, translators, and professors in the scenic peninsula and city of Monterey.

So there I went spanning the bridge, so to speak, between the fact of loitering after each day's seminar session through Cannery Row, Monterey's most historic spot celebrated by John Steinbeck in his eponymous novel--and the fiction of lives he rendered more vivid into immortality. Where nothing now stays of the "stink and a grating noise" from the fishing industry that Steinbeck scribbled for posterity, the air continues to stir true to the opening line of the novel: "Cannery Row in Monterey in California is a poem... a quality of light, a tone, a habit, a nostalgia, a dream." Amen, I say short of humming.

For someone who owes his lifelong faith to the power of literature in no small measure from Steinbeck's body of works (Of Mice and Men, The Pearl, Grapes of Wrath and, yes, Cannery Row, among others), all that I could exhale was nothing less than the inebriated air of exhilaration.

It was also a blast reuniting with a long-missed friend and former colleague in Cebu, Cathy V., with whom I had an exquisite dinner at the Sardine Factory. That Hollywood celebrities gorge themselves here when they are in Monterey is not hard to swallow, pun intented, with its world-class cuisine and ambiance (such a lazy word, I know, for something that takes your breath away). Clint Eastwood shot one of his films here once, or so the book about the Sardine Factory reveals. That Cathy and I had the luxury of having our fill in this adjective-choked restaurant renders only one fact a tad fantastic: How can such fabulous service and delectable menu and ambiance (there goes that word again, waxing ever so pretentious) be so affordable? But, I swear, to slurp is to believe.

Four days drifted like opium smoke: The post-prandial chatter about language and its distances and disguises, the cross-pollination of cultures and its greenhouse of complexities and possibilities and, yes, small talk and side-splitting asides over wine or beer. No wonder, on my flight from Monterey back to my family in Kansas, the cumulus of memory still hovered over my head even as I sneaked a bird's eye view over the urban sprawl of Los Angeles and the Hollywood marker on a distant hill. Always near, these: what the heart opts to hear above its beat. The squeal of a thrill, as if from a shared secret, with Steinbeck's bust. The roar of the shore-scraping surf against the rocks where seagulls gathered to roost. The silence from a fragment of a time-crusted shell that I picked up and promised to keep so it would echo bits of what endures of Monterey inside me.

Holidays and the warmth of home

2008-12-31T15:22:00.000-08:00

Let there be more love, joy, good health, safety,wonder, humor, imagination, fortitude, and faith for our family here in Kansas and Cebu for 2009 and beyond. And, yes, peace on Earth in spite of Grinch's grin.

We remember. We celebrate. We believe.

2008-12-24T01:35:00.000-08:00

"Except the Christ be born again tonight
In dreams of all men, saints and sons of shame,
The world will never see his kingdom bright."
~ Vachel Lindsay

"And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more."
~ Dr. Seuss

Malipayong Pasko ug Bulahang Bag-ong Tuig natong tanan!

Blowing the blues away

2008-12-14T02:57:00.000-08:00

If the footloose Grim Reaper had a favorite song to send him pirouetting on a carpet of petals nipped in the bud, it could be Louis Armstrong's "What a Wonderful World."

It's supposed to be an ode to the bliss of being alive, its lyrics utterly incandescent to our ears. We could have hummed along like we were swelling up until we could burp the rainbow into rising above us. But, alas, its evocation of paradise never fails to impress me as something fitting for a funeral procession.

It could be the cocktail of rust and champagne in Armstrong's voice, as if he were tasting the ache of bearing witness to all things sweet and light, so sharp it could whittle his heart to its breaking point.

Happiness, after all, happens like refrains in a dirge. Pretty much like background accompaniment only to our front acts and its regular repertoire of these little deaths: our anxieties, our disappointments, the jiggle of our jaundiced eyeballs to the sonic boom of our sighs.

In this season that confronts us with a compulsion to be merry--the topic of my recent column at the op-ed page of Sun.Star Cebu--it is unavoidable for the vultures of worries to spread its wings over our heads. In the face of crisis--global, local, and personal--the pursuit of happiness does loom no less than an obstacle course up the paths of Sisyphus.

What does it take to be cheerful? It's the crux of the cinematic genius of Mike Leigh in his latest film, Happy-Go-Lucky, whose chuckle-prone protagonist comes in sunlit contrast to the stripped-to-the-bone depiction of lives exiled into their inner darkness in Naked (so fully embodied by David Thewlis in a bruising performance worthy of the Best Actor prize at the 1993 Cannes Film Festival).

Worth scrutinizing, indeed, how Leigh mines the dynamics of joy without drilling and driving headlong down the borders of escapism. So far, as in most of Leigh's works, those who have seen it are up on their toes in applause. (Click here to read the chorus of rave reviews.)

No less phenomenal is Sally Hawkins whose portrayal has been rewarded with a Best Actress trophy at this year's Berlin Film Festival. She's been coasting along with a wave of wow as critics' circles from New York, Los Angeles, San Fransisco, and Boston cast ripples all the way to the forthcoming Golden Globe and the Oscar awards.

"Let us be grateful to people who make us happy," exclaims Marcel Proust, "they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom." Here's a bouquet, too, for Mike Leigh and Sally Hawkins. See the trailer below:

In the line of faith

2008-12-13T03:37:00.000-08:00

It's one of those things that are inherently pleasant and yet pisses you off in a manner that makes you a tad guilty for feeling that way. Chain letters sent via e-mail, that's it.

You want to ignore it sometimes just because it obliges you to take your cue from the one who deemed you worthy as one of its recipients. Or responsible enough to push it forward so that it may come full circle. A waste of time, you think. And yet you feel kind of diminished somehow for copping out, as if you're fit to be tied for cutting the chain and its promise of sweetness and light.

From my inbox, here's this piece of pure brightness that might yet send thunderbolt down my path if I would just delete it straight to the trash. What it says is just the way I wish to fill the gap between silence and skepticism in this dark and maddening time. So here I share this prayer:

Dear Lord, I thank You for this day, I thank You for my being able to see and to hear this morning. I'm blessed because You are a forgiving God and an understanding God. You have done so much for me and You keep on blessing me.. Forgive me this day for everything I have done, said or thought that was not pleasing to you.

I ask now for Your forgiveness. Please keep me safe from all danger and harm. Help me to start this Day with a new attitude and plenty of gratitude. Let me make the best of each and every day to clear my mind so that I can hear from You. Please broaden my mind that I can accept all things. Let me not whine and whimper over things I have no control over. And give the best response when I'm pushed beyond my limits.

I know that when I can't pray, You listen to my heart. Continue to use me to do Your will. Continue to bless me that I may be a blessing to others. Keep me strong that I may help the weak... Keep me uplifted that I may have words of encouragement for others. I pray for those that are lost and can't find their way. I pray for those that are misjudged and misunderstood. I pray for those who don't know You intimately. I pray for those that don't believe.

But I thank you that I believe that God changes people and God changes things. I pray for all my sisters and brothers. For each and every family member in their households. I pray for peace, love and joy in their homes that they are out of debt and all their needs are met. I pray that every eye that reads this knows there is no problem, circumstance, or situation greater than God. Every battle is in Your hands for You to fight.

Pacmanship

2008-12-07T00:43:00.000-08:00

We came (short of a shudder of orgasm), we saw, he conquered. A champ is a champ is a champ. Nuff said.

But more than the whiz-bang wonder of Manny Pacquiao overcoming the odds like a true-blue warrior throughout the rounds, what struck me most was not the upfront stance of one-upmanship while the limelight zoomed in his moment of triumph.

A transcendent instant of self-effacement, a graceful gesture of unbelief masking his gratitude. The wow of it occured when the crowd's roar crested, and all he did was turn his back from the camera's larger-than-life glimpse of his genius as a pugilist. See how he scurried to the ring's corner, pressing his face at the post as if to sob his heart out while crunching himself into a prayerful crouch. Or so my column raved in the op-ed page of Sun.Star Cebu.

To you, fighter extra-ordinary, a high five for humility.

Beyond a Manny-splendoured thing

2008-12-05T19:52:00.001-08:00

Just a sleep away, as they say. Isang tulog na lang, the Dream Match in Las Vegas where Manny Pacquiao is out to render a fellowship of the ring out of the whole archipelago. Tomorrow, we'll have our eyeballs in our throats again.

We'll hunker down in front of the telecast, and up on a toehold of hope as the weight of our collective expectation bears down on him. As if his failure would be our doom. As if his victory (let alone his millions and his legendary popularity) would be our deliverance, personally or as a Filipino nation.

For a while there, as if by magic, our mundane lives would hang by the string of his gloves as he'd do the rounds that run circles around our little corners. In our inner arenas, yes. Where we face, battered and without fanfare, our daily fights. Where we'd get lucky enough if we could roll along with the punches and at the end of the day wish for another morning when we could wink, even out of a black eye, at a fistful of possibilities.

Such faith, or grace, would suffice to knock our rundown of failures off its feet.

No sand and fog at the White House

2008-12-01T10:13:00.000-08:00

W hen the cauldron of the Democratic Party nomination boiled down to a face-off between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama, it was like choosing between coffee and beer for a post-prandial downtime at the porch. I can take both, you see, like it were broth.

Although I leaned more toward Hillary at the start of the campaign, Barack had been stirring my cowlicks with the fresh air of his conviction and the force of his character. Both, I believed as I do now, will make the White House live up to its color after the stain and smoke of the Bush administration.

It was a thrill to see them squaring off then. It is phenomenal to see them coming full circle now, and proving they can be "a team of rivals" steeped in the art of sporty statesmanship for a common concern larger than themselves--to overcome the odds in this awful yet awesome time in America.

Here's a toast, therefore, to President-elect Obama for tapping Clinton into the top echelon of his administration, appointing her today as his Secretary of State. In choosing Clinton, among other liuetenants in his Cabinet, Obama proves his governance will be set upon a rock amid raging waters.

"I assembled this team because I am a strong believer in strong personalities and strong opinions," he said. "I think that's how the best decisions are made. One of the dangers in a White House, based on my reading of history, is that you get wrapped up in group-think and everybody agrees with everything and there's no discussion and there are no dissenting views. So I am going to be welcoming a vigorous debate inside the White House."

Spoken, indeed, like a stalwart out to bowl us over with his "pragmatic use of power" and "a sense of purpose about America's role as a leader in the world." Salud!

Who's the sexiest of 'em all?

2008-11-22T03:09:00.000-08:00

What turns us on often doesn't take a lot of imagination. It just sucks our eyes off its sockets and hits us, wham bam, at gut level just a breath away from our zippers.

Easy to see, therefore, why the choice of E! entertainment television as "the world's sexiest woman" is someone who can wear seduction on her belly button.

Karolina Kurkova, a Czech lingerie model, takes the lead with Israeli supermodel Bar Rafaeli in the second spot in the list that includes celebrities who take us at hello with the hell-bound bottomline of physical appeal: Angelina Jolie, Scarlett Johansson, Gisele Bundchen, Heidi Klum, Penelope Cruz, Shakira, among others.

Which makes me wonder how E! bigwigs come up with the ranking. I mean, how they spot the difference among those women is beyond me. Looks like there's just a skin-tight line of the lingerie and the pout of their lips that set them apart. No brainer if it would be easier for a sultan, supposing these ladies were in his harem, to have a heart attack than decide who's the most alluring of 'em all.

Well, the likes of Karolina may wrap us all and our winky-kinky thoughts around their fingers. But, in my book, there's no crossing out the cliche about that sex organ under a woman's hair. Of course, it wouldn't hurt if brain alliterates with beauty.

By that standard, no woman in the world stands taller in my eyes than Jhumpa Lahiri, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Interpreter of Maladies.

From India, which has also spawned such egghead goddesses as Lara Dutta and Aishwarya Rai, Lahiri has been my all-time crush since I got gob-smacked by the sultry poise of her prose, no less bewitching than her photo in the inside flap of Interpreter of Maladies.

Just look at her in this photo accompanying her profile for Men's Vogue magazine. See, she doesn't have to melt us with a come-hither gaze. All the Karolinas and the Angelinas of the world will kill for that Lahiri look so fiery with intelligence and mystery.

Too good to be true, Lahiri also glows with self-assured aura along with her down-to-earth humility so evident in this video of her being interviewed about her work. Beauty without vanity. Something only in the realms of the imaginary, you'd agree.

They're talking about my mother

2008-11-20T02:43:00.000-08:00

If I had an epic imagination, an ode to motherhood would have been easier to render. The scope of nitty-gritty about what it takes to be tender. The utter sense of selflessness that love at its strongest is made of. Sweet, but hardly a piece of cake.

As my Mama Violeta turns 62 today, all I can do to honor her and everything that she has done for me is to become a worthy parent to her grandchildren. Apart from wishing her the best of health, safety, and peace of mind, let me echo the following words I hold true:

"Grown don't mean nothing to a mother. A child is a child. They get bigger, older, but grown? What's that suppose to mean? In my heart it don't mean a thing." (Toni Morrison, Beloved)

"Women's Liberation is just a lot of foolishness. It's the men who are discriminated against. They can't bear children. And no one's likely to do anything about that. " (Golda Meir)

"The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men-- from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms." (Oliver Wendell Holmes)

"God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers." (Jewish Proverb)

"My mother is a poem I'll never be able to write, though everything I write is a poem to my mother." (Sharon Doubiago)

"A man loves his sweetheart the most, his wife the best, but his mother the longest."(Irish Proverb)

Happy Birthday, Ma. :) God bless my beer for you!

All things Bisaya and beautiful

2008-11-20T01:13:00.000-08:00

What happens when Visayans, particulary those who call themselves Bisdak (Bisayang Dako, or big Visayan) come together? Count on the cup of merriment to brim over. We in the Visayas, after all, are no slouch when it comes to celebrating our culture. The most exuberant essence of a Filipino fiesta, without doubt, can be gleaned from the month-long buffets in Bohol, the mardi gras in Ilo-ilo's Atitihan and Cebu's Sinulog, among other festive romps in the nearby islands as well as in the Cebuano-speaking segment of Mindanao.

We are wow, or so Bisdak pride takes a hollering carousel ride. We hold no horses, after all, about our identity: descendants of the daredevil Lapu-Lapu, and caretakers of the oldest Christianity in Asia. Fierce and pious but fun-loving, that's the stew of the Bisdak spirit. Humility aside, there's more to mull over being Bisdak, as my regular column in the op-ed page of Sun.Star Cebu recently affirms.

Come the 22nd of November, the Kadugong Bisaya Foundation Inc., will prove how Filipino culture is enriched by the Visayan joie de vivre, our sense of kasadya. To believe is to see "Si Lapulapu, Si Rosas Pandan, a Bisaya Musical Extravaganza" at the main theater of the Cultural Center of the Philippines. Visayan history, culture, music, dance, and theater will be the toast of a stellar array of Visayan singers, composers, actors and actresses, and choreographers along with world-class choirs, ballet groups, and the Philippine Philharmonic Orchestra. Arang nindota ini. Lingaw gyod ni kaayo.

And for offshore Bisdaks like yours truly, ay pastilan, igo na lang taw'n maghandom.

Wishes for Aegan, my youngest son

2008-11-16T00:17:00.000-08:00

Raphael Gandalf J. Obenieta turns three today.

Just in case he'll come across his father's blog someday, this post is a prayer just for him:

Anak, thank God for just being the way you are to me, your Wawa, your Kuya Golli, your grandparents, your uncles, your cousins, your ninongs and ninangs (ayaw mo'g kalimot, uy, mga kanahan!)

May your appetite abound with broccolis, carrots, spinach, utan-Bisaya, avocados and bananas. May your scars be skin-deep only. May you grow with the grace of a Gene Kelly and a Buster Keaton. May you sway your head along a Yoyoy Villame tune. May you memorize the 23rd psalm and some of Rumi's poetry.

May you, in the wrinkled face of cynicism, persevere with the child-like carelessness to slosh around the wellspring of imagination and wonder. May you hoard superhero comics and collections of quotations. May your invectives be as genuine as your gratitude.

May you be fierce and at ease with your individuality in the company of people who may hurt or take you for granted. May your happiness be shallow, and your laughter be deeper and fuller than the tide of your tears.

May you learn to stare failure in the eye, and succeed in winking at it. May you measure your worth in the wisdom of the Golden Rule. May your learn to do CPR and Heimlich maneuver. May you be a Red Cross donor and volunteer.

May your guardian angel be your only stalker. May there be sunscreen and condoms in your backpack even if you'll be going to Iceland or visiting a convent.

When the world continues to go mad, may you find a merry-go-round of reason and rhyme. May you have the folly to make an art, an adventure, an altar out of your lifetime.

May the future, even if your sight falters in the dark, also find you gathering your own grandchildren in the light of fairy tales.

Happy birthday, anak! And thank you for giving me the chance to grow as a human being by simply striving to be father worthy of you and your brother.

His majesty, Miguel Syjuco

2008-11-13T22:52:00.000-08:00

Makes my day, this latest news from Hong Kong where the winner of the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize has just proven the world-class stature of Philippine literature.

For his debut novel Ilustrado, Miguel Syjuco rules in the second year of what might as well be the literary Olympics among Asians writing in English. Illustrious feat, indeed. Here's the rest of the report:

"A panel of three internationally acclaimed authors and experienced literary judges named Filipino author Miguel Syjuco winner of the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize for his novel Ilustrado, a fictional account of a young Filipino caught within a notorious scandal spanning over the Philippine history.

The panel of judges for the 2008 prize praised Ilustrado: "The shortlist for the Man Asian prize testifies to the great vitality of the novel in Asian societies undergoing hectic and unexpected transformations. In the end, we had to choose; and Ilustrado seems to us to possess formal ambition, linguistic inventiveness and sociopolitical insight in the most satisfying measure. Brilliantly conceived, and stylishly executed, it covers a large and tumultuous historical period with seemingly effortless skill. It is also ceaselessly entertaining, frequently raunchy, and effervescent with humour."

The prize winner was announced at a celebratory dinner at The Peninsula Hong Kong. Miguel Syjuco was awarded USD 10,000. Ilustrado was selected from shortlist of five: Kavery Nambisan (The Story that Must Not be Told), Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi (The Lost Flamingoes) of Bombay, Miguel Syjuco (Ilustrado), Yu Hua (Brothers), and Alfred A. Yuson (The Music Child)."

In an earlier interview with The Guardian after he found himself shortlisted for the prize, Syjuco explained it was "like someone coming into my dark room and throwing open the curtains."A vindication, indeed, that dispelled the doubts lurking inside and around him while he hunkered down along the process of seeing his first novel through the light of day. "This whole Man Asian Prize hullabaloo suggests maybe my literary experiments and ideas-- which many people have suggested I compromise but which I refused to-- are not misguided," he said. "Perhaps now I can share my work with the world. I also hope the Man Asian Prize will help spotlight the writing of my Filipino countrymen."

Take a peek at the plot of Syjuco's prize-winning novel: Miguel, the central character, is the acolyte of a prominent man of Philippine letters, Crispin Salvador. The author has been found dead in the Hudson River, and soon Miguel is investigating both his death and the disappearance of a manuscript about the corruption of rich Filipino families. He winds up tracking Salvador's life through his poetry, novels, memoirs, interviews and more, building a narrative that spans four generations of history.

Can't wait to read the entire novel, can you? In the meantime, here's a high five to the Filipino novel in English and skywritten congratulations to Miguel Syjuco. Bravo!

Hail, Himala!

2008-11-11T21:41:00.001-08:00

And the winner is....

Hurray, Filipino film enthusiasts have a reason to rejoice with this breaking news from the Philippine Daily Inquirer-- CNN: ‘Himala’ best Asian film in history.

Here's the full report: "A spellbinding victory for Philippine cinema.

Visitors to the Cable News Network entertainment website voted Ishmael Bernal’s Himala, which starred Nora Aunor as a simple provincial girl turned faith healer, as the best movie of all time in the Asia-Pacific region, outclassing such greats as Akira Kurosawa’s “Seven Samurai” and Ang Lee’s “Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon.”

Others in the top 10 that vied for the honor, in which “Himala” was the only Filipino film, included Andrew Lau and Alan Mak’s “Mou Gaan Dou (Infernal Affairs)” from Hong Kong, Chan-wook Park’s “Old Boy” from South Korea, Hayao Miyazaki’s animated film “Sen to Chihiro no Kamikakushi (Spirited Away)” from Japan, Satyajit Ray’s “Pather Panchali” from India, Peter Weir’s “Gallipoli” from Australia, Wong Kar Wai’s “Chung Hing Sam Lam (Chungking Express)” from China, and Mohsen Makhmalbaf’s “Gabbeh” from Iran.

According to the CNN website, critics, industry insiders, Asian film stars, and CNN viewers chose the movies that landed in the shortlist of ten films. The online poll that ran in October determined the winner.

The Filipino classic, which was written by Ricky Lee and originally released in 1982 for the Metro Manila Film Festival, was announced the top vote-getter in the popular vote and named the winner of the CNN-APSA Viewers Choice Award for Best Asia-Pacific Film of All Time on Tuesday at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards in Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia.
Hundreds of film industry luminaries from around the world attended the event."

Take another look at the trailer of one of Philippine cinema's pride:

Worthy of his words

2008-11-06T22:08:00.000-08:00

W hat do prize-winning writers Toni Morrison, Michael Chabon, Jane Smiley, Rick Moody, etc. have in common? An ode to Obama, that’s what they might as well have written.

Writers welcome a literary U.S. president-elect, affirms an Associated Press article. “A peer, a thinker, a man of words--his own words,” thus they agree about the author of two best-selling books, Dreams From My Father and The Audacity of Hope.

About the forthcoming White House ruler, the AP story also reveals that Obama used to write poetry in his college days and even caught the attention of critic Harold Bloom who thought Obama had the spark of a Langston Hughes.

“I was astonished by his ability to write, to think, to reflect, to learn and turn a good phrase. I was very impressed,” lauds Morrison, Nobel laureate for literature and Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist, about Obama’s Dreams from My Father. “This was not a normal political biography.”

Chabon and Smiley, also Pulitzer awardees both, agree. Chabon confesses he admires Obama because of “his writing, the quality of his prose.” Such is the source of his charisma, attests Smiley who appraises an Obama speech as “more convincing in a politician than the usual thing of speaking the words of a raft of hack speechwriters.”

So much has been said about how the Obama candidacy took the upper hand by tapping the tools of modern communication for whiz-bang organization and cohesion of campaign strategy. But without the instinctive undercurrent of character, something that Obama oozes enough for such abstractions as hope and redemption to hold water, his message would have left his listeners high but dry. The sheer force of sincerity beyond the electric gift of gab. That’s what drive his messages home, finally. That’s what surges through his unprecedented and almost improbable rise to power.

Small wonder he looms over the podium with an aplomb above the usual political lip service, as when he dares to be self-deprecating during a dinner talk, tongue-in-cheek candor matched only with a burp-worthy wit: "I'm so overexposed, I'm making Paris Hilton look like a recluse."

At last here comes a talking head who can literally steer clear from the bumbling and rambling woes, the foot-in-the-mouth affliction, of a George Bush.

Regarding possibilities despite the daunting tasks ahead, it’s easy to see why an Obama speech is enough for writer Rick Moody to be teary-eyed.

“I think the larger issue is cultural,” he explains. “There's a trickle down from the top in the way art exists inside and outside of the culture as a whole. Here in the USA, you could feel in the Bush years how little regard there was for it. People who disliked art, literature, dance, fine arts, they had a lot of cover for this antipathy.”With a president who seem to carry the torch for writers, that rag-and-boneshop-of-the-heart tribe, Moody thinks, “There's reason to believe that we are in for a much better period.” You bet, so far so good.

Attuned to the swathe of sweetness and light in the wake of Obama's election, here's a new stomp-the-feet-at-the-rooftop song and video just launched by Will.I.Am (the genius reponsible for the stirring "Yes, We Can" MTV, which proved popular among YouTube viewers, and cued in Oprah Winfrey to believe the rap song is partly responsible for this watershed moment in world history.) Sway, all together now, and sing: It's a new day!

When America rocks

2008-11-04T23:37:00.000-08:00

Whoa! The rest is history, yes, as we witness this meteoric phenomenon: the presidency of Barack Obama.

Never mind that I'm merely a kibitzer with no partisan flag to wave over what might as well be a stardusted chapter of an American fairy tale. Yes, I'm not a voter. That, however, did not stop me from getting myself stuck on the telecast since the start of the counting of the ballots up to Obama's rousing but sobering victory speech.

“Even as we celebrate tonight we know that the challenges tomorrow will bring are the greatest of our lifetime: two wars, a planet in peril, the worst financial crisis in a century,” Obama told a sea of supporters in Chicago’s Grant Park. "This victory alone is not the change we seek—it is only the chance to make that change."

Ah, to bank on the belief that the American electorate would rise to the occasion. Though I don't have their privilege of getting my voice heard and counted, let me seize this opportunity to give them their due of a standing ovation. Whoa, I say again. For proving true, at least, what an essay on transcendence by an Associated Press writer affirms.

En route to the inaugural, optimism does a moonwalk along with my mood to the tune of James Brown and the pop-eyed creature in this following video:

Today, while the world watches

2008-11-04T15:05:00.000-08:00

It's heady to come from a country where elections are an exercise for voters to bend backwards through their threshold of tolerance. And so being in the midst of the 2008 US election has stirred in me a strange cocktail of outrage and fondness regarding the way we Filipinos make a circus and a chainsaw massacre out of our right of suffrage.

Indeed, as my latest column in the op-ed page of Sun.Star reveals, America's election season has primed me into missing the mess of the political festival-cum-pestilence back home.

Out here, it's good riddance for the mosaic of candidates' posters and streamers more than enough to convince you that blessed are the blind. None here, too, are TV ads jolly with campaign jingles to jazz up any clown's routine. A galaxy apart, indeed, from what I've been accustomed to see in Philippine elections: a litter of sample ballots swamping the streets and a crowd jostling, sweating, and squinting for their names at the voters' list tacked outside the classrooms.

Early today when I sent my son to school, it was sort of disorienting--pleasantly so--not to see a throng of voters to the polling precincts. In the main hall of the school where the voting booths were set up, I could have sneaked in for a catnap. Which nearly fooled me into thinking that Americans (at least the Kansans) were not hot about this election. Wrong, they and the rest of America did cast their votes in unprecedented numbers. The calm and the orderly manner rendered this election all the more affirmative for an airtight process of polling with technological leverage.

So much for the ease of voting and counting the ballots through computerization--a process that remains an alien concept for the Commission on Elections (Comelec) whose prehistoric conduct has spawned watchdogs as rabid as woebegone protesters.

Later tonight, the outcome of the Obama-McCain duel--widely seen as historic and seminal--will be known. The choice America takes will be crucial, no doubt, at a time when Washington's agenda on the economy, the environment, foreign policy, terrorism, etc. have flung shadows looming all over the planet.

For those watching America as a beacon of liberty and the pursuit of happiness, among others, may the hope for a sea-change cast ripples elsewhere about the necessity for and the possibility of change for the better. Go hum, whistle: The best is yet to come.

Jazz and Pinoy pizzazz

2008-11-03T02:59:00.000-08:00

Talk about breathtaking talent, and Mon David is an example for the immodest use of exclamation points when describing his performances.

Blown away. That's how I was the first time I witnessed him perform live with another Pinoy jazz royalty Richard Merck in Cebu several years ago. It was just a small bar, but that night paved my fandom for his fantastic vocal chops. When I went to pee at the bar's rest room, imagine his discomfort as I chanced upon him there and immediately grabbed for his handshake even if he had yet to wash his hand after he took a leak. :)

Man, I could have peed in my pants in euphoria over his feat in 2006 when he brought honor to the Philippines and made history--beating 106 vocalists from 27 countries to win the grand prize at the 1st London International Jazz Competition (LIJC).

Knowing how manic I am for his music, my wife made whoopee for me when she unwrapped his album, Life & Times for my birthday two years ago.

Amen, or so I echo Jim Paredes's hossanah for this album: "Life and Times is an album that says a lot about this man whose gift of music is wonderfully extravagant. If talent for music was like water that could be taken from a well, then it’s quite a deep and endless one that this album partakes of. The music is sweet, pure, refreshing, nourishing, and more than satisfies many musical tastes and wants. Mon abundantly serves his listeners a cocktail of many musical genres—ballads, sambas, traditional folk songs with a playful modern twist, and inspirational ones. And he does all this as composer, singer and instrumentalist, producer/visionary.

While the album is a triumph, alas, it is also an endangered one. It is triumphant since in today’s landscape of musical blandness brought about by extreme commercialism, the integrity, freshness and vibrancy of Life and Times easily towers above the musical flatlands of this new millennium. Endangered because no such albums are created now—albums with heart, albums which refuse to be shackled by the tyrants which most music artists these days kneel and bow to, such as sales reports, radio trends, and other ‘business ‘ considerations. To put it as simply as I can, it’s an album made by one who breathes, lives and loves music in all aspects and wishes to express it in the way it moves him."

For someone like me who wears regional pride and Cebuano heritage on my sleeve, it's also inspiring to know that Mon David takes it as his crusade to champion and preserve his rich, albeit endangered Kapampangan language through his art.

That said, and since Christmas is near, here's another cue for my wife or whoever wants to play Santa for old fogey me. Mon's My One and Only Love album would be a blast of a gift, yes.

Here's a video of Mon David peforming at the 3rd Annual Fil-Am Jazz Festival to remind us that jazz runs in our blood:

A footnote to tap my toes along: Another musical conquest has just proven that the Pinoy flair for a class act in the world of jazz is no fluke. Raised in Chicago, Jon Irabagon recently became the first Filipino to win the Thelonious Monk International Jazz Saxophone Competition, dubbed as the most prestigious of its kind. Irabagon won a $20,000 scholarship and a record contract with Concord Music Group, one of the leading jazz labels in the US.

Bitaw, bay, di gyod paiwit ang Pinoy!

Here comes history, Mr. Obama!

2008-10-27T08:46:00.000-07:00

Now that the air is acrid with the stench from Bush's pisspot at the White House that leaks all the way to Wall Street, being here in America may be wrong timing for any migrant dreamer out to raise the stakes for better opportunities.

But it's also a thrill of a time to be in the midst of history in the making, hovering in the wings of change. (This, in a nutshell, is what my opinion column says in today's issue of Sun.Star Cebu.)

Economic uncertainty, notwithstanding, it's great to witness America bracing to redeem itself from its excesses and the ignorance of its arrogance and prove what greatness it is capable of.

With hope and in honor of the next President of the United States of America, I echo what will resound a few days from now: "Yes, We Can!"

Here's a music video from the Black Eyed Peas and a host of celebrities supporting the candidacy of Barack Obama.

Priming up the Pinoy pen

2008-10-25T23:37:00.000-07:00

If there's one thing we Pinoys can suck sweetly off the imperial toes of our American heritage, it’s how we’ve come to colonize the English language. Really, we've appropriated it in our tongues like second skin. Go listen to the chorus of Call Center agents, and agree.

Imagine the taste of sewer between gnashed teeth, therefore, when I eagerly got hold of The Vintage Book of Contemporary World Poetry (edited by J.D. McClatchy) more than a decade ago. Ethnocentric subjectivity be damned, but not only me believes the best of our wordsmiths can hold water with the world’s best.

What a wet blanket (a hanky is not enough) for my face hot with dismay to discover that the seemingly ample anthology featured poets from Vietnam, among others, but none from the Philippines!
Over the years, I guess many of our kabayan can only gaze green-eyed in envy at other Asian writers, particulary the Indians, whose inkwells have swept the shore of world literature with the sheer tidal wave of genius: Salman Rushdie, Rohinton Mistry, Vikram Seth, Anita Desai and her daughter Kiran, Arundhati Roy, Jhumpa Lahiri, etc. Oysters in their open palms, all that Bookers and Pulitzers. So much so that I sometimes wish to shake hands even with a beggar in the streets of Mumbai.

A few weeks ago, another Indian made a splash as 33-year-old Aravind Adiga’s debut novel The White Tiger clawed out the competition in this year's Man Booker Prize, which honors the best fiction written in English by an author from the UK, Ireland or the Commonwealth. Now, two Indians are again among the five candidates culled from a long list of 21 semi-finalists for the 2008 Man Asian Literary Prize.

But, whoopee, two Filipinos also made it to the top five. Alfred Yuson's Music Child and Miguel Syjuco's Ilustrado (the Grand Prize for the Novel at this year's Palanca Awards) will slug it out with the works of Siddharth Dhanvant Shanghvi (India), Kavery Nambisan (India), and Yu Hua (China).

In last year's inaugural of Man Asian Literary Prize, the new Olympics for Asian literature in English, Jose Dalisay had the honor of hoisting the flag of Philippine writing with his entry Soledad’s Sister, but eventually bowed to Chinese writer Jiang Rong for his novel Wolf Totem. This time around, hope bobs up twice for the announcement of the winner next month.

Fingers crossed for Yuson and Syjuco, and all hands as well for Carlos Bulosan, Jose Garcia Villa, Nick Joaquin, Bienvinido Santos, NVM Gonzalez, F. Sionil Jose, Eric Gamalinda, Ninotchka Rosca, Jessica Hagedorn, Luisa Igloria, Rick Barot, Nick Carbo, etc. for rippling up the Filipino imagination around the globe. Mabuhi ang Pinoy!

Cinematic cornucopia of Asia-Pacific

2008-10-21T10:05:00.000-07:00

Asian films, arguably the most dynamic in world cinema in terms of thematic variety and aesthetic daredeviltry, take the spotlight as CNN International picks the 10 all-time best films from Asia Pacific.

No less thrilling is the inclusion of the Filipino classic Himala directed by the late National Artist Ishmael Bernal, written by Ricardo Lee, and starring Nora Aunor.

Though local award-giving bodies in 1982 sidetracked Aunor's iconic turn for the Best Actress award in favor of her arch-rival Vilma Santos (who scored a grand slam for another Bernal movie, Relasyon), critics have been nearly unanimous in hindsight about an oversight. Aunor's portrayal as the faith healer Elsa has been considered as "transcendent... the greatest performance of all-time" in Philippine cinema. (Joel David, founding director of the University of the Philippines Film Institute, in his book The National Pastime: Contemporary Cinema)

I was in first year high school when I saw this film, and it sort of initiated me into a lifelong love affair with cinema. What a thrill, therefore, to see it still making ripples all over the world after more than two decades since it was shown.

Here's the report: "CNN's shortlist of ten films was drawn up by critics, industry insiders, stars (including Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai) and—most importantly—CNN viewers.

On 11 November 2008, at the Asia Pacific Screen Awards, CNN viewers will honor one Asia Pacific film as the best of all time. The Asia Pacific Screen Awards, which celebrate the finest filmmaking in the region, will be held on Australia's Gold Coast at a glittering, star-studded ceremony. Now, you can help your favorite win the award by voting in our poll. You can decide who will win the award. Voting closes on Friday, 31 October."

In chronological order, here's CNN's cut of Asia Pacific's top 10:

* Seven Samurai

Akira Kurosawa, 1954, Japan

* Pather Panchali

Satyajit Ray, 1955, India

* Gallipoli

Peter Weir, 1981, Australia

* Himala

Ishmael Bernal, 1982, Philippines

* Chungking Express

Wong Kar-wai, 1994, China

* Gabbeh

Mohsen Makhmalbaf, 1996, Iran

* Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon

Ang Lee, 2000, China

* Spirited Away

Hayao Miyazaki, 2001, Japan

* Infernal Affairs

A. Wai-Keung, A.Siu-Fai, 2002, Hongkong/China

* Oldboy

Chan-wook Park, 2003, South Korea

So far, I have seen at least seven of CNN's top 10. But if it were up to me to honor the top 10 Asian films, here are my personal choices as ranked:

1) Pather Panchali, Aparajito, Apu Sansar (The Apu Trilogy) by Satyajit Ray, India

2) Ikiru (To Live) by Akira Kurosawa, Japan

3) Himala (Miracle) by Ishmael Bernal, Philippines

4) Tokyo Monogatari (Tokyo Story) by Yasujiro Ozu, Japan

5) Bom Yeoreum Gaeul Gyeoul Geurigo Bom (Spring, Summer, Fall, Winter…and Spring) by Kim Ki-duk, Korea

6) Suna No Onna (Woman in the Dunes) by Hiroshi Teshigahara, Japan

7) Tatlong Taong Walang Diyos (Three Years Without God) by Mario O’ Hara, Philippines

8) Narayama Bushiko (The Ballad of Narayama) by Shohie Inamura, Japan

9) Hangul (Oldboy) by Chan-wook Park, Korea

10) Ying Xiong (Hero) by Zhang Yimou, China

Ato ni, bay!

2008-10-17T11:35:00.000-07:00

More than once in a blue moon, a Cebuano book, particularly a collection of Bisdak poems, comes like comet. Panagsa ra gyod kaayo. And how it blazes over the benighted state of Cebuano publishing!

Indeed, the launching of my friend Adonis Durado's debut book, Dili Tanang Matagak Mahagbong, tomorrow calls for celebration. The event, which also features a visual arts exhibit by my friends Radel Paredes and Josua Cabrera, is a homecoming of sorts for Donz who's now based in Bangkok, Thailand as a graphic designer.

The book is long overdue, and should be a beacon of inspiration both for old and young writers in Cebu who, againts the current, continue "to endure burning to give light" to Cebuano literature.

Tagay, bay!

Really, the rich are not like you and me.

2008-10-17T10:21:00.000-07:00

Talk about attitude, and this man has got gazillions of it. Warren Buffet, the world's richest man in the list of Forbes magazine, thinks the current nerve-wracking state of world economy is his oyster.

Putting his money where his mouth is, and while others investors are hanging their tongues between their legs, Buffet shows he got oodles of balls as well as he reportedly buys US stocks despite the down-the-drain state of American economy.

Hear what the honcho of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. conglomerate wrote in the New York Times: "The financial world is a mess, both in the United States and abroad. Its problems, moreover, have been leaking into the general economy, and the leaks are now turning into a gusher...In the near term, unemployment will rise, business activity will falter and headlines will continue to be scary."

But Buffet, whose fortune is as famous as his frugality, personifies what Atilla the Hun and Pollyana would have spawned if their paths had crossed. Cold-blooded optimism, that's what Buffet exudes with his ruthless maxim: "Be fearful when others are greedy, and be greedy when others are fearful."

Words like boulders over your head, huh? If that's too outsize for your pocket, here's a thought of the day in the latest issue of Forbes magazine, a quote from a certain Christopher Morley: "Big shots are only little shots who keep shooting."

Que Sierra, Sierra!

2008-10-16T10:47:00.000-07:00

Into each life, a mountain must rise. That may help explain the reason why, out of the blue, I suddenly turn green. With an ID as evidence of ecological advocacy somewhere in my trash-filled wallet, no kidding.

And so it's enough to raise your eyebrow, too, when I counted myself in as a member of an organization that wear its green heart on sleeves rolled for moving no less than mountains. Like trying to change a bit of the world. Ho-hum, you'd say.

But hand to my heart, I swear my membership in Sierra Club, cited as "America's Most Effective Enviromental Organization," is something I intend to go beyond merely a passing fancy. Don't look down on me now, but--who knows--this closet mountaineer might yet soon go beyond relishing long solitary walks and would finally have the chance to kick myself into joining a trek up, up, and away into the wilds?

It doesn't hurt either to receive the official Sierra Club 1892 Rucksack, similar to the ones used during the time of John Muir by the club's supporters during their exploration hikes over a hundred years ago.

Neither would it bruise what little remains of my scab-studded conscience to lift even a fingernail for something larger than one's self. Environmental issues, stuffs like that. Plus, I get also get the chance to do my share of sticking my thumb down at the face of Dubya Bush whose policies the Sierra Club and I share in loathing. So there goes the rub.

For whatever it's worth, here's some words by Muir: "This grand show is eternal. It is always sunrise somewhere; the dew is never all dried at once; a shower is forever falling; vapor ever rising. Eternal sunrise, eternal sunset, eternal dawn and gloaming, on seas and continents and islands, each in its turn, as the round earth rolls."

And then I begin, again...

2008-10-16T09:31:00.000-07:00

So here comes another season for shedding off old skin into this cyberspace coil. This cycle of blogging. This one more leap into yet another corner of the Web. Here, this turning of new leaf and this letting go from the virtual nest of old branches, smack into my favorite time of year.

Ah, Autumn! When trees have colors to tell about changes in its free-fall down to death --and never mind the portents of gray in the forthcoming winter--until the flourishes of rebirth at Springtime. Soon, pretty soon.

Pastilan baya! Stop this somnambulist, please, from sleepwriting what could have been a welcome greeting. You know, this is just to say, "Hello!"