This Morning

There is a fire raging across SLEX and EDSA. There is Mayon Volcano threatening to erupt any day now. Life in the RP is often life on the brink (of disaster).

We are happy that Tiger has learned not to pee on the Kusama Pumpkin.

Happy 23rd December 2009.

STAT

You receive a text message, an email, an updated profile... you reply... then they reply... and the back-and-forth is endless. I read somewhere this phenomenon of our time, it is called Incomplete Communication. And it never really stops, it just gets put on hold. Till the next time you log onto your email, or you check your phone, or you wake up in the morning.

So, with this in mind, I held my stub number 1671 in the hospital waiting to claim my STAT lab results. STAT in medical jargon means "rush". And I paid 50% higher than the usual rip off price to find out if I was sick sooner. There is something wrong, but I am not deathly sick. The results show that my RBCs are low, my monocytes are high, and I do not have Mono.

R and I were having an extraordinarily unhealthy lunch of Pizza Hut and Dairy Queen* while waiting for my STAT results when she asked what she should tell people when they ask why I am not practicing the doctor stuff. I don't like hospitals. I can't imagine working in one, at least not here. Hospitals are the intersection of disease and stupidity. All respect to the doctors mind you.

So after 2 hours waiting for the STAT results which they told me would be out in 1 hour, I was still missing one lab result. The one that tells me if it is viral or bacterial. I left. Let's just go with bacterial and take them antibiotics.

So back to Incomplete Communication and Stat. A hospital is one place where the incomplete communication should be completed STAT. To think that I am one unremarkable outpatient case that did not get what was promised (STAT results), what more the hundreds and thousands of other far more emergent cases out there whose results are stranded between break time and change shift?


*Note: the junk food in the new wing of the hospital is what happens when the owners of the hospital own the franchises of the fast food.

One Must Never Let Go

“And how many times have we been asked, ‘Aren’t you migrating? Think of our children, what future do they have here?’ What future indeed, as the eminent Prof. Jun de Leon would say in his landmark UP centennial speech, ‘When the cultural sources of our education are western and it is inevitable that the expertise graduates acquire is better applicable to a western industrialized society than to a rural, agricultural setting which most of the Philippines is?’ and Florentino Hornedo adds, ‘It looks like the Philippines is spending money for the training of our country’s citizens to become another country’s assets.’

“Filipinos have always been a special race beloved by God — creative and beautiful, graceful and multi-talented, a connecting, resilient, hard-working and big-hearted people, loyal to the max. After finding one’s particular calling as a Filipino, one must never let go of it. Everything is interconnected and into one’s life will spontaneously drop all those helpful occurrences, chance encounters, coincidences and synchronicities to cheer one on. Don’t be impatient. Because five or so years down the line, or maybe when you’re old like me, there will be a convergence. Suddenly you are no longer the underdog. The time for your initiative — whether arnis, saya, aswang or bamboo house, has ripened. And its fruits are very sweet.”

- F. Sionil Jose quoting Gilda Cordero Fernando, Philippine Star, 21 Dec 2009

GCF told me that I would never make money from my business, because as a book publisher and writer, she never did. The reason being, cultural workers in the Philippines hardly ever do. But the intangible benefits and cultural income derived from what we do far outweigh any material gains.

I am of the mindset that I am in the education and export business with my subject and commodity being art. It has been a tough five years since starting this, and every day is a Pandora's box of surprises and nightmares here in the RP. But I can't say it has not been incredibly enriching and entertaining.

GCF held a sold out art exhibition at our SLab a month ago. Who said you can't make from what we do?

We love you GCF. We will never let go.


Image: Jose Rizal at Team Manila Rockwell Store

Sarado Mano

The wonderful thing about quick trips is that you don't need to check anything in. Annually, family and I head down to Davao for the company Christmas party. Practically a day trip, nothing to check in, only carry on bags. But this morning, landing in Manila, brother T and I found each other waiting for baggage at carousel 3. T had his daughter's science experiment, a hydroponic concoction set to grow in a beer bottle by our team of agricultural genetecists (don't ask me what for). I had a narra wood baul (chest) with mother of pearl inlay haggled and bought from the Maranaos in Aldevinco (sarado mano as they called my last hour purchase).

As we were comparing notes as to the oddity of our loot from Mindanao, the carousel started up and out came a Sony Vaio box with a chicken inside. The black feathers looked like they were designed into the box, which was very new. Tumitilaok pa the chicken. Talo kami ni T.

Image: Christmas Party Dancing, a good year. Congratulations to sister R.

Mercury Drug Promo

Hello Pampers Insect / Bee that met me at the foot of the Mercury Drug elevator. Isn't the Christmas rush in Manila the Weirdest?

This morning...

"In 1969, we were very free... so free as to be practically useless" -- Peter Schjeldahl
"The best thing about time is the nick of it." -- Anthony Lane

Today, I got up and did something I have not done since I had the hours to do so in Japan: I read purely for myself. A back issue of the New Yorker, a food issue. With R's blue kilometrico in hand, I read and happily underlined and underlined. Passages and quotes, marked because they meant something, because they read so well, because...

And made little notes to self, that will be forgotten soon enough.

I am back.

Where Am I

The show opens November 18 at 20SQUARE in SLab.
It is called RELEASE

Image: by me, untitled as of now, 2009

120 Boxes

Tita PV and I stood in the empty house on Saturday morning. The house was going to be turned over to the owner. She said the house empty already felt sad, but what a beautiful house it was. It really is a beautiful house. An open plan with green gardens front and back. The plants always lush, the vines red and thick. We had moved out. She asked me "were you shocked at how much you had accumulated?"

120 boxes. That's what we packed up from the house. And that's not even counting the art that we pre-packed and sent to the gallery for storage. When I moved in three years ago, there were twelve boxes plus a bed and a couch. The things collected over the 36 months were exponential. There was so much stuff, and as we had a lot of rooms and storage, they disappeared into the house.

At this point we have given away: a full and a queen bed, my orange couch, a television, three boxes of clothes, one box of shoes, and boxes of smaller items that we had completely forgotten we had. I expect we will be giving away more when we unpack in the adventure called Living Elsewhere.

Tita PV visited Living Elsewhere yesterday. Said it was wonderful, that it was a great find and a great idea. We got a "Congratulations Darling, at may hangin na di ko akalain" from her. Very happy we are.

The rule now is, for every one thing we get, we have to give away two.


Image: Wire Tuazon, Untitled, collage, 1999 (courtesy of Raymond Lee)

October

Dear LFL,

Yesterday, I sat at the hospital watching over D with her daughters. Little did we know that D would be leaving us an hour later. I was glad to have been there, to say goodbye. I told her daughters that of our senses, hearing is the last to go. My last words to her were "Hi D, we will be ok. Whenever you are ready. We will see you soon enough."

It was all over after soon after. I left and her son came in, then her youngest brother and her sister-in-law arrived. Then as everyone was preoccupied with one thing or another, she passed away. It was so quiet, so peaceful, no one noticed until P said "Mama muerta, she's not breathing".

I think it was better that way, not like the monitor countdown we went through with you. The monitor that showed your blood pressure and heart rate lowering hour by hour, then minute by minute, then nothing. I remember the sound of that Nothing. When we all just started crying, lost in our individual grief, falling apart as a family.

So back to D. It was a beautiful death. She was so happy these last few months. I would visit her at home, then at the hospital where she was these last 3 months. She was always so happy to hear what was going on, to feed me; proud of what our generation was doing; and always opinionated about everything.

Looking at her yesterday, I thought she would be with us much longer. She was breathing strong, and looked very calm. Not what you would expect someone who is losing life to look like. Her daughter N whispered to me, 'she's been ready a long time, I don't know what she is waiting for." Maybe she heard N, and figured, "that's right, I'm ready and I trust completely".

Tomorrow, we, your immediate family and the families of your brother and sisters, will meet again at Lolo and Lola's tomb, right near where you are, and say goodbye to D. She wanted no wake, just one Mass, and be buried before the sun set. She was Moslem that way. Well, she is getting almost everything she wanted, only the Philippine bureaucracy takes more than 24 hours to get a death certificate. In our family's burial patch, she will be beside her parents. She is the first of our generation to join you, aside from the cousin we never met who died at the Vietnam War.

An exemplary death, she faced it with incredible courage at the very end. Much the way you did LFL. Resigned and trusting, unafraid. For that, I will remember her. And celebrate her life. Because she has no wake, I am feeling her death more deeply. Appreciating in the beginning how creative she was, how organized, how strong, and towards the end, how simple, how trusting, and how forgiving she became.

We will miss her, as we miss you.

October. The month of your birth, of Lola's birth and death, of Tita Ch's death, and now, of D's passing.

Love,

no.8

Happy Berts

My mother turned seventy-something last week. I am convinced she will outlive her children. Yup, strong and sour that one is.

Inevitable

Back in the day when I was in PGH-land, we would count seven days from heavy flooding and watch, like clockwork, as the leptospirosis folk would be brought into the emergency room. They come in very sick -- highly febrile, with aching bodies especially around the abdominal area. The story is the same: lumusob sa baha (I walked in the flood).

Very few survive untreated leptospirosis, it is a bacterial infection that attacks the body focusing on the kidneys. Muscle aches and pains, generalized sepsis, and kidney failure. Death in a matter of weeks.

The bacteria that lives in rat urine finds its way through the flood water into open human sores. And you know how many Filipinos do not wear shoes? All the more risk at contracting it. Truly disgusting. You can take a pill immediately after wading in the nasty stuff as preventive medication. Ask your doctor.

Hospital cases on the rise, from an average of 1 case a month in PGH, they are up to 20 as of yesterday. The cases in San Lazaro, in RITM, in other hospitals are up too.

Looking at footage from the evacuation centers, it hit me that the people who will survive all this disease may mutate. Like in the cartoons when the toxic sludge falls on a town and everybody zombifies? That's not too far fetched. Some of them are already acting like animals- destroying blackboards, stealing furniture and books, smearing classrooms with excrement. The mutation may not be physical but the Lord of the Flies scenario is already starting.

Thank You's

Bright and early this morning, we were at the warehouse for the first day of construction. R is in charge of the physical construction, I am in charge of cleaning out the space of its long staying unseen occupants.

We get there and our foreman hands R a list of additional items we need: drill bits, gypsum putty, boral, gypsum tape, and two thousand nails and screws. The gypsum boards have yet to be delivered but the walls bars are coming up. If all goes well, we will be moving in in twenty days. By then, my daily ritual would have turned my incense smoke white.

In the meantime, we are incredibly grateful to have had this house, and to our adopted family that lent us this wonderful space.

Looking for the Skyline

This is a photograph by Hiroshi Sugimoto. We love his work. Google the man.

We have not had Blue sky in a long time here. The rains and overcast skies have been relentless. Thousands of Filipinos are losing homes and livelihoods because of floods and lack of relief.

In my own home, it feels like an evacuation center, without the evacuees. All things are consolidated to the middle of the house. A result of packing to move and avoiding leaks from all the rain. We have a fairly spacious house, but right now we have taken refuge in the area adjacent to the front garden's steps. It's got a couch, an electric fan, a tv, and lots of plants. Oh and a bell I ring every morning. They are all we've used in the last two weeks.

Makes me want to give away the rest of our things. We've got too many beds for one. And too many tables. And too many suitcases. And too many .... Really who needs twenty-four beer glasses?

How much do we really need to live comfortably? What can we do away with and hand over to people who really need?

The Internet Connection

Three times a year, all eight of us in the office sit around our conference table and get updated on how our galleries did the previous four months. It is also a time to voice our concerns about the goings on, good and bad. And we do short term goal setting, into long terms.... well, the short term goal set by D, our all around everything and my driver-when-he's-free, was to fix the internet connection which has been on the blink ever since. Not ever since Ondoy flooded Pasong Tamo Extension, but ever since PLDT connected it.

His very insightful, and very Pinoy solution, is to connect our own line straight to the PLDT router on the street (and not to the one in the building). He has followed our line physically and found that it snakes around the back of the gallery, into a clump of indistinguishable wires which are all spliced from one connection. Thus every time there is a problem (no internet), the person PLDT calls is Romy, the taong building. Now, Romy is no genius, and uses a screwdriver as his single tool for fixing everything. Read: he is useless. So D figures, if PLDT calls Romy, then it must be the building that's got a problem. So, why not make our own direct line crossing over our bridge, much nearer to the street than snaking around the building, straight into the box?

Let's see if it works.


Image: Gilda Cordero Fernando, Inang Bayan in Perilous Times, SLab Gallery, Oct 21 - Nov 21 2009

Living Elsewhere

It is going to happen. Signed the lease contract yesterday for the adventure called Living Elsewhere.

It is on the 6th floor with a perfect lateral, and silent, view of planes coming into land at the Manila International Airport. We will have two balconies, one for the laundry area, the other for R and friends to smoke, and me to watch the planes coming in. I love watching planes land. Pilots say it is the hardest part of flying. I have an inexplicable fear of turbulence, but not flying.

There will be a 2x2 meter indoor garden for Tiger.

Blame Climate Change

26 September 2006 - super typhoon Milenyo
27 September 2009 - tropical depression Ondoy

Two catastrophic natural disturbances three years apart.

Three quotable quotes:
1. While we were driving down from Baguio through the flooded fields of Bulacan, on the radio was a press conference by GMA and Gibo--
Gibo: Madam President, I'd like to acknowledge the donation of two rubber boats by the U.S.
GMA: Thank you U.S. for two rubber boats.
She was serious.

2. Seen on the news in the early hours of the flooding when it became apparent that this was definitely not just a tropical depression:
Reporter: Sir, why do you think this flooding is happening?
GMA Cabinet Member: Well, you know this is all the fault of climate change. So it is a good thing that our beloved president GMA is holding masses for climate change. Samahan natin siya sa pag-dadasal.

3. On Wowowee this afternoon:
Revillame: Seryoso na 'to ha, seryoso na 'to. Dapat lahat ng barangay, lahat ng bahay, meron tali (para ma tali sa poste o ano pag lumakas na yung water current).
He was serious.

I am so sad for all those who have lost their homes, their belongings, their material lives, and had to go through all the mud and sewer water. We, and most people I know, are putting together relief efforts to help people who were affected. In our street alone, there are two relief centers.

Thoughts:
1. The government should stop self-congratulating, they are so poorly prepared, and it is not over yet, with two more tropical depressions heading our way. Why do I get a feeling the hourly press conferences with GIbo are being milked as exposure for his presidential bid? We have never had anyone so visible in the hundreds of natural disasters we've had. It's not working on me though, he reminds me of a dutiful bodyguard, not a charismatic decisive president. Well his boss has the charm of a sour librarian, so bagay nga sila.

2. We should all learn from this and manage our personal waste, stop throwing our trash irresponsibly, recycle what we can, and stun gun people we see littering.

3. Stop dumping into our rivers, lakes, and waterways. All these factories that line the Pasig and it's tributaries should be assessed, fined, and monitored.

4. The people living along the esteros, haaay... what can we do if you insist on living in a cess pool?

5. Watch the government continue to blame climate change, he is neither in government nor running for office kase.

Image: IL, Boltanski at Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial, Japan, 2009

Diamond in the Rough

I know someone who likes to embellish stories heavily, very heavily. The line between fact and fiction blurs more to the latter. Let's call her Someone # 1. And I know someone who tells it like it is, matter-of-factly to the point of pain. The first person used to be in the public relations industry. The second person is my driver D, Someone #2.

We are looking to move out of our house and into a warehouse space. A diamond in the very rough, with a little imagination and a lot of work, we can get it to be our next home. If we left the description of the place to Someone # 1, it would be: "3,000 square foot loft space, open plan, exposed beams, wall of windows with Makati view, personal elevator, lots of parking, quiet neighborhood, low prices, will not last".

Someone # 2 describes the place as: "kung mura lang ang habol, yung pera madaling ipunin; yung buhay, hindi". In other words Someone # 2 is afraid for our lives.

Well, Someone # 2 and co. scoped out the place again yesterday and put the plans in for security and all that. Plus TCB with her 3rd and 5th eye said it was fine. She said the only problem with the place is we may really be rooted to Manila for at least the next 5 years. Which was fine with me, but made R's eye twitch a little to produce a tear.

I want an indoor garden (without anay).

The Body Snatcher

This is not a post on horror movies.

I have had a walk in. I am a walking walk in. TCB says that I look different, my aura is different. 'Calm, clear, and simple' were the words she used to describe this me that returned from Japan. We were sitting in her office, R and I, and she and R were talking about me like I wasn't there. Does that mean I was stressed, murky, and complicated before? "Yes!" was TCB's answer. Yikes.

Well I am different. But I can't put my finger on it.

R can't get over how friendly I have become at work, and how concerned if people have not eaten or are not feeling well. Artist MM laughs every time she sees me because there's a smile on my face constantly or am bouncing around. Even M our girl at home talks to me now, because I say hi to her first all the time.

Little symptoms of a good disease. I hope it lasts.

TCB says that R and I are switching personalities. 'Yan ang yikes! Kawawa naman si R!!!

Retro

1. my laptop keyboard's space key moves the cursor ten to thirty spaces left or up to the previous line

2. our clothes dryer's electronic keyboard died

3. the graphic designer's computer monitor at work has shifted colors way purple

4. N's computer shut down twice yesterday

5. wrong emails have been sent out, sorry Italy

6. incomplete messages have been received leading to misunderstandings in negotiations, apologies to Panorama

The Mercury is in Rgrade.
Astrologyzone.com says that the period from 15 - 23 September is the absolute best for miscommunication and failed agreements. No sign no contracts this time.

Too many floating undecided, running out of time, but don't want to fight the planets. It should be better by the 29th.

Early Evening Conversation

I: "So why didn't it work with her?"

A: "Our circadian rhythms didn't match."

I: "That's the first time I've heard that reason. You mean like the time you woke up in the morning was different from the time she woke up?"

A: "No, no, not that way. More like, she stresses me out. When I'm stressed, I am very relaxed. When she's stressed, she's really high strung."

I: "So?"

A: "I mean, when you want something to happen, sometimes the more you want it, the more you won't be able to get it. She's like that. Basta, she stressed me out. And you don't want to be with someone who does."

I: "Well, she does have issues."

A: "And I have none. She wants to get married to a man who will be the father to her child. Relationships don't start with an endpoint in mind."

I: "That makes more sense than the circadian rhythm."


Image: IL, Pistoleto, Venice Bienale 54

The Last Three Weeks

I am back in the RP. It has been 24 days since I arrived from Tokyo. The landing and re-entry was smooth. But life in Manila never is really smooth, at best, it is manageable. Life here is so immediate, because I suppose big changes happen close to home.

In the last three weeks, I have heard of six people who I know or who are a degree away from me who have been murdered in Metro Manila. What is going on?

In the last three weeks, I have visited relatives who are very sick in hospital, and one of them passed away tonight.

In the last three weeks, we have combed through other places to live as this happy home we have needs to be turned over for major roof repair and termite control. And found nothing that comes close to this house. But have to move out soon. The adventure continues.

In the last three weeks, we have hired (and fired) graphic designers for not being on the same design wavelength.

In the last three weeks, we have counted seven pregnant friends.

It's been busy. And I haven't even started working on my Japan show.

The most common question I got in Japan from other gallerists was, "How is the global recession affecting your gallery in Manila?". The thing is, since we are always on emergency room mode in Manila, putting out 'fires' and constantly solving unforeseen problems, my answer is "we are doing ok, same as always".

After experiencing incredible control and 'no surprises' in Japan, coming back to Manila which is so damn full of unforeseen events is a daily roller coaster ride. For example, on Thursday at 4 pm, I had a big shoot to do and we were all set in the studio to receive the items, when, at 3:55, a garbage truck decides to back into the driveway, spend 30 minutes collecting garbage, blocking our entrance completely, delaying the shoot, and killing our daylight time. Top it off, we really couldn't complain, or tell them to come back another day, because they had not collected garbage in a couple of weeks, and the basura juice was getting thick.

Life here is either a circus or an emergency room, never a dull moment.





Image: 410, Frankie Callaghan (Dwelling)

Oh Tokyo

My last night in Tokyo, I had dinner at Shabu-zen, unknowingly sat in Scarlett's Lost in Translation scene spot. We had premium Japanese beef (paper thin and very marbled) with winter vegetables in the middle of summer. As of last night, I had spent eight weeks in Japan. Enough time to eat, look at art, make art, and meet the right people. Happy and challenged to make something of the whole trip. I can be a Japan-guide now.

Food highights off the top of my head:
1. Jangara Ramen
2. Shin sushi
3. Maisen tonkatsu
4. Champion-Ebisu steak
5. Kyubei sushi
6. Morimoto XEX


Art space highlights:
1. Hara Museum of Contemporary Art
2. Gallery Ef
3. Gallery Koyanagi
4. Mori Art Museum
5. SCAI the Bathhouse
6. 21_21 Design Site

Really fun things to do:
1. watch the fish at the Sony Aquarium, Ginza
2. watch the shadows lengthen and the sky change colors at sunset from the Wald 9th floor cinema theaters, Shinjuku
3. sit in Starbucks at Tsutuya and watch the people crossing, Shibuya
4. wander around Tokyu Hands / Itoya / Muji / Loft / any 100 yen store / Bic Camera
5. watch the elevator girls in Matsuya / Mizukoshi
6. walk around the Meiji shrine, Harajuku
7. take the skybus tour of the Imperial Palace walls and Marunuochi, Tokyo station
8. read the design and art magazines at the National Art Center library on the 3rd floor, Roponggi
9. watch the dogs prancing outside the groomers in Tokyo Midtown, Roponggi
10. walk around Ginza on Saturday and Sunday afternoons when they close the streets to cars, and the old people set up pretty umbrellas
11. go to a Pecha Kucha night in superdeluxe, Roponggi
12. walk around Comme des Garcons and Prada in Omotesando

Best Bookstores:
1. Nadiff in Ebisu
2. Watari Museum basement bookstore - the most beautiful bookstore I have ever seen, and they have English language books
3. Tower records 7th floor in Shibuya

Books you NEED to have to survive:
1. Tokyo Metropolitan Atlas - the best 2,000 yen you will spend in Japan
2. Claska Guide
3. Art Beat Tokyo
4. Michelin food guide - Tokyo has the most number of star restaurants, second only to the whole of France

Things people told me to do that I did that were not a big deal:
1. watch cosplay (costume play) dresser uppers in Harajuku and Yoyogi on Sundays (the gothic bo-peeps and elvises and ... )
2. walk down Takeshita street in Harajuku

On the whole, Tokyo was a challenge and an experience. Staying in an office building felt like I was being detained and living in a horror movie (the picture is the view from my window, isn't all that concrete charming?; the horror movie was 'The Ring'). But can't complain, it was clean and very well located in the heart of Aoyama. But the language barrier and cultural differences were the bigger challenges, add to their written language not being in our alphabet really can get you lost. But was glad for it all. The alone time pushed me to do many things I would otherwise not do. Plus I lost weight from all the summer walking. Best part was rediscovering the playing in photography.

The show will happen soon. Thanks for reading. The adventures continue.

Darkroom Realization

Spent today in a darkroom in Shinjuku. Thought that seven hours was a really long time to have a reservation, but turned out I wanted to be in there longer. I felt sorry though for the guy who was my neighbor in the lab. I kept hitting his wall--and that vibration moves the enlarger which blurs his prints! Sorry!

The wall was so close to the blind turn door, it was impossible to move through the curtains with my prints without either my body or my elbow hitting the wall. What got me thinking was guy who was my neighbor passed the same door a lot, and never hit the wall, ever.

Am I really just heavy handed and clumsy?

Beautiful Leica

Shibuya crossing is five minutes from where I am staying. It's a crazy place, thousands of people crossing the four way stop every 3.5 minutes.

Glad to be back. Now the real work starts. Of processing, editing, editing some more, and then editing again. At the end of which, do I make prints, or do just guerilla slideshow? Shot a bunch of polaroids and color negatives. Am very happy with how they came out. The polaroids were actually Fuji wide angle Instax, it was incredible fun. The colors are so saturated that they can only be unreal.

And the color negatives... sigh. I AM IN LOVE with my Leica. From the first time I shot it many years ago, to today, I've not experienced the same happiness with my pictures from any other camera. I always think I am not shooting right, wanting to pull back or move closer, or change the setting. Plus, the silent click of the shutter is so unassuming and the old boxy body is so low key that I've had bigger SLR boys look down on my single fixed lens on a film camera.

But when the negatives come out, makes me Happy. Something about film, the photograph is something you can walk into, it has a 3D quality to it. With digital photographs, the photograph is sitting on the paper, it is not in the paper. I can't really explain it, but you know what I mean. Anyway, the Leica M6 that I am proud to carry is an awesome machine. Photo in this post and the one after done by it. I have had people stop me in the street here and say "beautiful camera Reica".

Super Sink

Have not minded the complicated toilets too much as they are ubiquitous here.

But certainly, it is a challenge to figure out how to work the majority of these toilets as there are countless models. The most complicated one had 8 settings on each mode for water temperature and jet strength for bidet / spray / blow.... You can even choose the temperature of the toilet seat, and of course there is running water as soon as you sit (to "provide melodious sound while not embarass" was the written explanation).

But then, I saw this


A sink that's fully motion sensored for soap (L spout), water (R spout), and warm air (basin). Wow! It can actually serve as hair dryer as the blast of hot air ricochets off the basin and hits you hard and fast on the forehead.

Pine Tree, Joinery, and Carp

Kenrokuen Garden, Karasakinomatsu Pine

This garden was magnificent. Centuries old trees all grand and manicured. The control and discipline of the Japanese way spreads wide over everything, including the growth of nature, which is both controlled and dolled up. The irrigatiion system in this garden is several centuries old! The like pines and rocks in their garden. Pine trees are evergreens, signifying longevity. Rocks and stones signify loyalty.

Kanazawa Castle

Fully restored according to ancient Japanese joinery practices. Not a single nail was used in the process.

Carp Everywhere

Samurai and Spelling

Walked all over Kanazawa. I was not boycotting taxis nor buses, but I couldn't find a taxi, and I couldn't understand the bus map. So I walked and walked and walked. And chanced upon a district of Samurai houses. The streets were stone, the walls low, with moss gardens and open shoji screens; and oh so quiet. It was the time of day that allowed for the sun to shine strong and low on the horizon. It was beautiful.

Kanazawa is an old town, think early 14th c. with a castle and a garden. I mean an entire town within a castle and garden. I understand now why the Tokyo people really wanted me to see this.

They also have an ultra modern contemporary art museum right beside the garden called Kanazawa21. It has Anish Kapoor, Mona Hatoum, James Turrell, and a set of A-listers in the contemporary art world in their permanent collection. I took many many photos but these two are the ones that stayed with me. Note how many other names are written in English on the lunch line at the museum cafe.

None.

And note the spelling,

A misspelled word that brought up a very strong memory from a long time ago. We were in the 4th grade, or maybe the 3rd. But whenever it was, Trina Monsod was still my classmate. There was a spelling bee that was to be held amongst all the grades and there was an elimination in our class. As a contestant, I was in front of the room, blackboard to my back, facing the class with Trina Monsod directly in front of me. The word was clear enough, pronounced loud and slow by the teacher. And...I did NOT know how to spell it, I had certainly ridden one to expert levels for a third grader but I didn't know how to spell the damn word. Trina saw this and mouthed to me: buy-sigh-cull. And I went: B-Y-C-I-C-L-E.

I don't even know if Trina remembers this little story from 30 years ago, but thank you Trina. She and I have become a lawyer and a doctor, resepctively, and photographers.

But academically having proven myself, I can't help but think it was really a hard word to spell!

6.4, Left to Right Choreography

That was the magnitude of the earthquake that woke me. It was 4:13 this morning but the day was fully bright already. The bed was shaking, left to right. The thought that woke me was not that there was an earthquake but that it was moving me just in the left to right direction. Then I heard the doors to the other rooms opening and the window shades being drawn, and my neighbors in the hallways.

But not a peep from the Japs. They used to it I guess.

I am deathly afraid of earthquakes, but only in the Philippines. Here, I figure the Japanese are such control freaks that they've figured out every way to avert human disaster from earthquakes. They invented the giant ball bearings under buildings right? So a 6.4 magnitude quake hits Tokyo and is felt at 4.5 in Kyoto (where I was), and the whole city sleeps through it. In Manila, brown out na 'yan tapos may nahulog na building na.

Hotels

This was the lobby of where I came from. Very comfortable hotel found on Tablet. That was in Kyoto.

Now, am in a city called Kanazawa which is very popular amongst Japanese (castles, samurai, a contemporary art museum called Kanazawa 21) but since the shinkansen hasn't reached here, very few other tourists. So am here to 'research'. That's apparently what it says on my form letter in Japanese that I hand over to people to introduce myself. The Japan Foundation people made this for me. Am pretty excited to move back to looking at our century with Kanazawa 21 after a week of looking at the Japanese answer to the Middle Ages (though they will insist, and I agree, they were much more progressive than Europeans).

So, after a 4.5 hour bus ride, I arrive in my hotel. And there was some confusion as to the reservation, but being it was the only one not written in Japanese, it had to be mine: Ro-ise Loilengo was the name. Yup, that's me.

Gardens

This is probably a blasphemous thought, but all I could think of while walking through these magnificent gardens manicured to the millimeter, was they look like golf courses! But with really old bonsai trees.

Imperial Palace garden, looks like a short par 3.


Another par 3 at the Nijo Palace gardens.



Honmura Palace aka the Clubhouse


I think I need to start playing golf again.

Palaces and Temples

In Kyoto, hit the palaces--

the Nijo Castle with the nightingale floorboards, home of Tokugawa Ieyasu, probably the most famous shogun of Japan. This is actually a new building on the edge of the grounds, I like the trees.

the Imperial Palace where the tenno (Emperor) and co. lived for 500+ years... it took a personal appearance with passport to get on the list to tour it. Tour is free. But a bit of a hassle, and on a wet day like yesterday, a bigger hassle. But well worth it. Hey, I wouldn't mind living there if I was the Emperor. The structures are straightforward and simply designed, but the materials and the workmanship are exquisite. And the gardens are perfect.

the Golden Pavilion, a temple that was burned down repeatedly by jealous monks. Finally restored in the last century, with several centimiters thick of real gold leafing. Gold leafing is big in Japan.

but really, all people do when they get to these places...

I wonder if people still even bother to look at what they came to see in the first place, or just take pictures.

"Are You a Traveller?"

I arrived yesterday in Kyoto.

I walked into a bonesetter's clinic and this was his question this evening. He looked like a physical therapist to me, with a foot stencilled on the glass of his clinic. I figured he was a reflexologist, or a PT, he insisted he was a bonesetter. I suppose he was like orthopedic surgeons who cast broken bones. But without the casts. Anyway, too much of a language barrier but my feet were crying out to the stencilled sign for a massage. He agreed to 'set my foot'. The price agreed on, I lay down and he went to work. I was asleep in minutes. It was very nice. At the end of it, he asked me if I had a website, so we sat there making gestures about shashin (photography) while looking at the gallery website.

Last night, I watched Bunraku at the National Bunraku Theater in Osaka (which is 29 minutes away from Kyoto by train). Bunraku is four century old puppet theater that makes the muppets look really kawawa. They played Shakespeare's The Tempest-- the narrator who speaks and emotes all the parts, the three puppeteers to each puppet who are all hooded and in black, and the shimasen player who acts as conductor but is not allowed to have any facial expressions. The audience had a median age of 70. I was one of the few who was not in a kimono. The shimasen players were all National Living Treasures and the Bunraku is one of Unesco's protected Intangible Cultural Heritage. It was finely done, iba talaga.

In the last three days, I have slept in these three beds.
Last night at the Hyatt Regency

I was so happy to final be in a room with a television after one month of no TV. Only to find out that the two English language channels, CNN and BBC, are dubbed in Japanese. Christian Amanpour in Nihonggo not a good match. Here talaga, no space for outsiders.

The night before, at the attic of the Yoshimizu Ryokan in Mayamura Park, Kyoto.

There is a picture that accompanies this. It is of the view of the bamboo grove the room looks into. I took it with a polaroid. The photo is filled with hundreds of orbs. I stayed in this room one night, and don't think I'm going back there again. Too many things going on that I could not see.

And the night before that, at the Benesse House Park, Naoshima.


The rests have been good, but my dreams in the middle room were very disturbing. Won't go into the details as I would really rather forget.

Here, have some matcha ice cream.

Filipinas: Cory

I photographed Mrs. Aquino in 2005 as part of my FILIPINAS series. She arrived early for the shoot, and had a bodyguard along with her carrying 2 sets of clothes. One set was cream, the other was yellow. Which really did not matter since they both translate into a whiter shade of grey in black and white, so I chose yellow of course.

The shoot went fairly quickly. I asked her what her life would've been like if she hadn't become President. Her answer, "well, what would my life have been like if they hadn't killed my husband?". Enough said. It was inevitable, the Presidency. She also mentioned that the last time she had been in a studio setting like that, it was as Time Magazine's Man of the Year.

The whole thing was done in fifteen minutes. I must have shot about five rolls. This is the photograph that ultimately made it to the show, and to the book. The book I am very proud off; the show I am very grateful to have assembled with DOR such a strong set of women to learn from and be inspired by.

As she was leaving, she stopped and turned around and said, ' doesn't your family own Pancake House?'. To which I say that a brother does, to which she says, 'they always run out of food in the Tarlac branch. I ate there last week with Japanese guests and they ran out of batter.'

So human, and so down to earth.

Goodbye Mrs. Aquino, thank you.

Big in Japan: Tahimik-san at Echigo-Tsumari

Look who I saw in the Echigo-Tsumari Art Triennial that opened last weekend: Kidlat the Father, also known here as Tahimik-san. They certainly stood out, all 15 of them, in their bahags and Ifugao wear. Tatay and crew (including Kabu and Ruel) participated at the Triennale up in the mountains of Niigata, the only art festival spread out over 700 square kilometers, by building an Ifugao house in the rice paddies up there. He calls it his Love Letter to Japan.

Do not be deceived though about the mountain weather, it was incredibly hot. Sauna hot, humidity at 90%. It was not pleasant. But the scale of the festival was amazing. Over 250 artists from all over the world come and make work to leave in this mountain region whose population has gradually depleted since the war. Many homes are abandoned, and many rice fields have grown over. Every 3 years since 2000, thousands come to see these art installations in the homes that have been converted into exhibition spaces and participate in this one of a kind art show. The great thing about it is that it is very much community-based, and there seems to be an equality amongst artists. Something that the heavily commercial Venice Biennale seems to have lost. There, the galleries are front center with the artists in credit at the captions; here, that artists are identified by country, and medium of art.


Antony Gormley creates a permanent installation "Another Singularity" for an old vacant house.


Japanese artist makes outline cut outs in iron of all the living members of the village.


Boltanski and Kalman transform a school gymnasium into straw floor + electric fans + lightbulbs. The smell of the straw was sweet and happily overpowering. Nice when unexpecteds come out of work like that.


Bankart House. They house artists and make furniture. This year they made baths.


Trippy trip... there was a school that was down to 3 students from a high of thousands, they closed it. So Japanese cartoonist makes story book about these 3 students that centered on a ghost who fed on children's memories being hungry. Trip.


Then the Herb Man project. They planted it, self explanatory. Can you see the man? It was really muddy. Fun.