8 on a Friday

Sitting in the Hong Kong airport for a few hours. Am done with work for now, so going through the highlights of the last week:

1. Baguio for BenCab's Museum. It was not open yet but the people were already coming. A museum of seven permanent exhibition galleries of Ben's collections, ranging from lime jars to bulols to contemporary and modern Filipino art, and of course his own work. Curatorially, my favorite part was the bulol collection on perches spanning 2 or 3 stories of vertical wall. Architecturally, the building looked more impressive before it was finished. Personally there are too many balconies which detract from the art (is it about the art or is is about the view?). How about just one grand gesture of a view as opposed to several nibbles. Think the Getty in LA. Regardless, it is a wonderful thing that Ben and Annie are doing. Baguio should be so honored.

2. Baguio for a break from Manila. Did not happen. Stayed in a relative's house with a caretaker that reminded us of Kathy Bates in Misery. Stephen King could not have written it better. Big house, only one occupied in an isolated compound, caretaker with a glass eye. Picture glass eye caretaker staring longer than usual after conversations had ended, and smiling a little too widely at anything. Plus a stock room of petrified tea bags and pantry supplies caretaker refuses to throw out because owner (who left the PH many years ago, possibly not to return) might look for them when he 'comes to visit'. Creepy.

3. Baguio for a break from Manila. Did not happen. Ang daming tao!!! Session Road was shoulder to shoulder at 2 in the morning, plus traffic scheme of one-way signs leads everyone to the top of Session Road also known as SM Baguio. Eeks. Gone are the days. Gone. Go straight to Sagada if you want to relive that cold and quiet.

4. Ipis living in the car. We have a cockroach, a big one, that lives in our white car. It has shown itself a couple of times when we get into the car at night, and quickly scurries into a number of holes we have no way to access. It happened last night. So R got in to drive, and screamed. I jumped out. She said 'it was there' (pointing to the gear shift). 'So what are we gonna do?', asked I. 'Drive home with the lights on and your magazine ready to hit it if it comes out, but don't hit the chairs because it just might come out', was the answer. So we drove home. My thought: car is not insured for accident caused by ipis.

5. Bogie Ruiz's opening in the gallery. I've not felt that much appreciation in a long time. And it was mutual.

6. The guilty pleasure that is Nicole. I did not know that Nicole of the Pussycat Dolls is Lewis Hamilton's girlfriend. Spent a happy morning on YouTube watching. I think it set the tone for the day as I bumped into a friend who was carrying the weight of her family's issues and I was singing Baby Love and friend looked at me like I was the ipis in the car and said 'I can't believe you're singing'.

7. Thank you Andy Locsin for being our angel this morning. We had no pesos for the airport travel tax, and the miss behind the glass window wanted us to change our dollars in the bank OUTSIDE the airport, which would mean certainly missing the flight. So I turned to Andy and said, 'may I bother you for 1500 pesos'. Super sakto.

8. On duty. Stayed up 25 hours straight working through day and night then had to pack. Ended it all with a cold shower which I used to do when I was in med school, to break the days without actually sleeping. I can't believe I used to do that regularly. I ended this version of duty by judging a photo contest of Oscar winning movies interpreted by photographers and stylists shooting local celebrities and wanna-be celebs, it was hysterical. I seriously judged about 4 of the 16 entries, I thought Kai Huang's Marie Antoinette was pretty good and Raymund Isaac's Platoon was very commercially viable. The others were just camp. Favorite is the Cleopatra chick who looked nothing like Cleopatra pero feel na feel niya.



Patricia Eustaquio's Mme. Moitessier diptych, in color (bnw conversion mine), to show at Pulse. Here we go!!!

Piolo's Biceps, Abs, and Moles

Those were starring in "Love Me Again". The man is easy on the eye and fit, and the director and cinematographer does not make you forget with the constant tight face shots (left side only where mole is), close ups of arms (both upper and fore), and the 'love scene' starring his abs. They turned him into a poster of different body parts which don't coalesce into a cohesive human being with emotions which filmmaking is supposed to be. The story details were not too convincing either. And it didn't help that there was no chemistry between the two leads. She's a better actress though, than him at least. I'd seen him in "Dekada Setenta" with Vilma Santos and I thought he wasn't a bad actor (but the mullet hair was a little distracting, as was the super soft lighting only whenever Ate Vi came into the frame), but in this movie, he's flat and lifeless. Only coming alive when riding horses, or jumping on top of his male co-stars... hmmmm.

Having grown up in Bukidnon, my interest in seeing the movie was to see what they would make of my favorite part of the PH. They did a fair job,the pineapple plantations, the rivers and canyons, the cowboys and the rodeos, but no red soil, no Mt. Kitanglad. It really is beautiful there, and being on a plateau at the base of a mountain range, the weather is cool all year round and the red volcanic soil makes for incredibly lush greenery.

I can't say that I enjoyed the movie but neither did I walk out. I think the best actors there were the horses and the landscape.