Christmas Gift #3 Decorating with Flowers

With co-author Elizabeth Reyes and publisher Gail Tok of Tuttle

With author Robert Caballero

This is the gift I would recommend to a friend who is looking for the perfect gift for her mother-in-law. I will even give it to mine. (Hope she likes it!) It is perfect for ninongs/ninangs, titos/titas, and anyone else you want to impress. It is  beautifully styled and photographed, with each home done by a stylist and florist team.

Although the book is filled with fabulous floral set-ups, I was interested in the book also because of the interior ideas and varied tablescapes.

This contemporary black and white setting was done by Cynthia Almario for her own home using decorative pieces to set the tone.

Stylist Leo Almeria advised, "Look around your host's home first, and most likely you'll find enough artifacts and ideas to build up a theme successfully." and so he and florist Anton Barretto were able to re-create a Moroccan inspired table.

 An alfresco dining setting in the Moon Garden, an events place in Tagaytay designed by Ely Bautista.

 A Balinese table is created by Ponce Veridiano in Violeta Lim's home in Silang, Cavite.  "You don't have to spend money on imported flowers. Just look to the jungle and create your own fantasy."

The Jonathan Matti vignettes are luxurious, tasteful and eclectically filled with art and decorative pieces reflecting a period or theme.  Here is one setting in a Tagaytay rest house.  "Fresh flowers, vines and leaves collected from one's own garden can be the simplest and most cost efficient way to bring a home to life."

Filipino-American florist Pico Soriano flew in for a working 2 week vacation to create 5 installations for this book. Here is one he did for his sister Carmen Rojas' silver wedding anniversary.

Tanya Lara's home stands out as a modern minimalist beacon of striking simplicity.

Flowers adorn the chandelier in Lizette Cojuangco's home as styled by florist Nathaniel Aranda.

The Vijandre-Toledo tablescape is as much a fantasy as their beautiful windows for Firma and AC+632.

Margarita Fores created this festive Latin-inspired table for Gianna Montinola.

There are many more treasures in the book. Just don't mind the two table settings with the forks on the right side and the knives spoons on the left.  Hope your mil likes it!

Update:

Just found out that Pico Soriano, the featured California-based florist featured in Decorating with Flowers did my brother's elegant wedding in San Francisco in 2008! Here is the bouquet and the table Pico created for them.

Christmas Gift #2: Ronald Ventura: Realities

Ronald Ventura: Realities is the gift for art lovers, critics and collectors.  Powerbooks had the opportunity to host a rare Philippine exhibit of Ventura’s works. The paintings were hauled in a few hours before the book launch and brought home that evening.  Indeed the paintings, sculptures and the dioramas esconced in 1950’s tv sets, were larger than life and more arresting visually when they were displayed as a collective.  The question from other guests was, “Do you have a painting in the book?”  Well, no I don’t but I did get a chance to interview the artist. 

As Signore Marella of the Primo Marella Art Gallery says, “We want to give the public the opportunity to meet an artist not when he is 70 years old or dead, but when he is strong and alive.  We can meet an artist living in our age. “

What was the process for putting the book together?

Primo Marella Gallery and Miguel Rosales are responsible for the book. All of the images included in the book come from my past exhibitions.

When did you know that you were an artist?

The artist is the one who creates art. The question is, ‘What is art?’ It doesn’t matter whether it is a painting, a sculpture, an artist is a creator of things. For me, the term artist is very high. It’s hard to say that you are an artist. It always remains a question.

What is your earliest childhood memory wherein you encountered art?

When I was in grade school, I saw the Spolarium of Juan Luna, which is hanging in the National Museum.

Who or what are your artistic inspirations?

My family, wife, kid. Everything from magazines, architecture, fashion to design.  Inspiration is all around us. 

Who are your role models for painting?

Having a role model is like having a formula. I don’t have a formula. I go as natural as I can. 

What was it like to have your first one-man show?

My first one-man show was held at West Gallery way back 2000.  I joined some group exhibitions after graduating from college, so this art scene was not new to me but I grew towards it step by step. 

Which exhibit most defined you as an artist?

I don’t want to define me as this kind of artist. It should be defined by the intention of the exhibition.   Every exhibition should be a certain development from my past exhibits. It is always searching for progress.

What are your upcoming projects or exhbits?

I have an exhbition this December 3, in Taipei, Taiwan, at the Eslite Gallery.  Humanimae—mix of human and animae. It’s about pop culture.  The opening will be exciting because we will be doing some cosplay, as well as some videos and installations. And it will be more of a dialog.

I have a residency at the Singapore Tyler Print Institute and the exhibit is scheduled in July. 

The book was sold out that evening as collectors and critics hoarded multiple copies. (The book is now back in stock in Powerbooks and select National Book Stores).   Here is the team who helped produce the book: his manager Migs Rosales and the team from Push Associates who did the book layout.  I'm also grateful to Migs for making the exhibit and book event possible.  

The book covers a good survey of Mr. Ventura's work.The auction record breaking painting, Grayground,  is printed on a fold out spread to capture the enormity of the painting. 

I got more answers from the essays found in the book.  The articles  from Adjani Arumpac discuss the different themes he explores in his art such as humanimal and cyborg. Alice Guillermo  discusses key works wherein "Ventura's personal aesthetic of the nude is engaged in breaking down the rigid binaries of male-female.    Igan D'Bayan's piece provides a biographical context to his early beginnings as an artist.  International Art Critic Daniela Palazzoli talks about his place in the global art scene.  While Ramon E.S.Lerma comments on Ventura's dioramas as a commentary on media.  

This is the painting that really spoke to me.  I met Mr. Ventura's son who was the model for this work. But it's not for sale.  

I did get to go home with some art. Mr. Ventura signed my book and put in an illustration with some stamp art. 

Anyway, Ventura is not done yet.  He's doing more things that could fill future auctions, museums and monographs. 

Christmas Gift Suggestion #1: Home for the Holidays: Over 60 Treats to Enjoy at Home or Give as Gifts by Aileen A. Anastacio and Angelo F. Comsti

This Christmas season, we received a tin can of yema balls, each one perfectly caramelized and wrapped like candy.  My friend has outdone herself again.  I'm still searching for her recipe for the Chocolate Chip cookies that she gave 2 Christmases ago when I just gave birth and was nursing. It seems that the best hostesses in Manila all seem to have one or a few signature desserts, and they can give away home baked goodies for Christmas.  My mother-in-law herself has Food for the Gods, and perhaps, any self-respecting homemaker must master at least one baked recipe.

This is why Home for the Holidays: Over 60 Treats to Enjoy at Home or Give as Gifts is a welcome publication.  Authors Aileen Anastacio and Angelo Comsti are familiar names in the dessert world as owner/chef of Goodies N' Sweets and The Food Barn respectively and as contributors to Yummy Magazine.

The recipes in the book are organized into Bottled, Boxed and Bagged. In their recent launch in National Book Store, they featured a dessert buffet..

The easiest to make is the Olive Tapenade (p.40) as you just put ingredients in a food processor.

The authors' favorite sweet baked dish is the White Toblerone Cheesecake (p102).

While the best savory treat is the Caviar Pie (p90).

The cheapest to make are cookies, which they have several recipes of, from Chocolate Chip Espresso Cookies (p134) to Death by Chocolate Cookies (p136), Gingerbread Cookies (p138) and Holiday Sugar Cookies (p140).

The Chocolate Mint Cupcakes (p 86) are worth breaking my holiday diet for.

Here is my own attempt at the Jam Thumbprints (p70). It was easy to make. As an occasional baker, I think I need more instructions on the molding part than may have been assumed in this recipe. They did not end up to be the flower and star shapes my daughter S had hoped they would be.   I decided against gifting the cookies to my friend whose shop has the Marks and Spencer version that I take from the cookie jar at every visit. However, my husband actually liked the flaky cookies I baked. I used Bonne Maman strawberry jam for the middle but they ended up a bit tart.

Because of the time that actual production would entail, I won't be able to give baked goods away this Christmas. I'll give this book instead, and let my friends discover their own signature baked dish.

Revelations from Junot Diaz, Pulitzer Prize winning author of The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

Welcome to the Philippines! How has your visit been so far?

I’ve kinda been waiting most of my life to get to the Philippines.  I grew up in Jersey. Right south of  Pinoyland.  You grow up with folks from the Filipino diaspora. You want to see where they’re from. 

Tell us about the Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. From the title, we know he is doomed. Why did you choose to write the book this way?

I was interested in writing about someone’s life from beginning to end.  It’s not a bad idea to see how someone develops and progresses.  It’s a different kind of challenge from writing about a love story or war. We still need a couple of thousand more books to fill the shelves of immigrant literature . I wanted to write about a kind of kid who never shows up in the books.  Very nerdy, a kid who was  obsessed about comic books and science fiction, not at all a womanizer.  This kid never shows up in the Dominican books.

Countries who were colonized by groups like Spain and United States have a certain relationship to masculinity.  I wanted to write about Dominican-American masculinity from its absolute obverse and opposite to best understand it. This big dork who never goes on a date will say more about Dominican masculinity than a baseball player or a boxer.

Is Oscar a hero?

There is a lot of pseudo-Catholic mythology where there are lots of saints, but in reality saints are some kind of perverts. I was interested in flawed imperfect people.  I wasn’t really interested in people wanting to go on a date with him. I grew up in a beauty culture world. Everybody wants to be the hero, king or queen. I wanted Oscar to remind people of their own humanness.  That’s more complicated than liking or disliking a person.  People who remind us that we are frail and human, are people with whom we have complicated relationships. In the end, myths of being a hero and perfect will torment you every time you are weak, or make a mistake. Those myths are good to survive with but they are not good to see yourself with.  Oscar is the protagonist.  He is only a hero in the sense that he keeps trying no matter how much he fails. Can you ask anything more from a human being?    

Why did Oscar go back to Sto. Domingo to meet his fate? 

He is kind of a dumb ass.  I was born in Sto Domingo.  If I got my ass beaten by a military man and left for dead, I would not come back.  Oscar had an American naivete which was charming but I had to kill him for it.  My little brother was born in America. He is very optimistic. When a man shows up at the door with a knife, my little brother thinks he is looking for butter.

 Can you explain fuku and zafa? Our local version is called malas. Is it possible to escape your family’s fate or are you doomed to follow it? 

Even if it seems to be a Dominican idea, it’s really American.  No one in the world is more superstitious than Americans.  People there believe in UFO’s more than Darwin, and in angels more than evolution.  The idea that a nation might be cursed or blessed is a foundational American obsession.  The American believe that the United States is the chosen nation, the Jerusalem on the hill.  The problem with the concept of that is, when there is slavery, illegal wars or colonization, it opens up the probability that you may not be a blessing.  You may be a curse.  Melville, Hawthorne, Faulkner, Morrison obsessively wrote about it.

Oscar gets beaten up and survives.  He gets to return home.  The reason that Oscar gets a second chance is to show that I don’t believe that there’s fate.  I believe we have to make some choices. He chooses to go back. The mother is also given a deep warning about messing around with this dictatorship.    The mother is given a chance to go, but she chooses to back into danger.  If you make enough mistakes, you might actually learn something. I love this family because they never learn. 

Is the diaspora the only solution to oppression? 

The dictatorship was exceptionally pervasive.  People made different choices to survive this.  A lot of intellectuals ended up being agents of the regime.  Some people disappeared into weird and strange activities. People partied through it. Some people go into religion or act like nothing happened.  Some people who can leave leave.  But very few actually was able to leave. 

Why did you tell the history in footnotes? Is the line above the footnotes fiction, and the footnotes facts?

This is your book. You can read it anyway you want to read it.  What is your relationship to authority? There is a reason that dictatorships last.  We kind of like authority and we empower toxic authority figures.  The footnotes are one story you like to empower.  If somebody shows up in a nice suit, not sounding like a camposino, we tend to empower what he says to us. 

Footnotes are instruments for authorization. Footnotes are part of the game.  Are you going to give authority to a bunch of stories that seem very official?  I would be very cautious in giving authority to the history in this book because most of the history is wrong, and the narrator came out and said it.  But we love official stuff, man!

Why is Yunior the narrator when he was not part of the family or even very close to them?

That is the key question of the book. Yunior as the narrator, does not invite you to ask that question because depending on how you answer that question, the book takes a different shape.  If you begin to wonder that it’s very strange that the person who most hurt Lola and Oscar is telling their life story. How strange it is that an enemy of yours writes your story and what might that imply, then you have another kind of book.  In the end, the last chapter, is to be written by the reader.  There is an empty page that the reader must write in.  The book is constantly about missing chapters and stories. The final character in the book, Lola’s daughter, is called Isis.  When Isis grows up, she can try to piece back the story from interviews, maps kept inside the refrigerator. Isis in mythology is responsible for reassembling the chopped up pieces of her dead brother-lover Osiris. 

What do the references to the Fantastic Four mean?

Readers who love comic books figure out that the book is organized like the Fantastic Four.  Oscar is the Thing, the big, fat hideous monster that no one wants to date. Lola is hot and on fire. She’s the Human Torch.  The mom, Belicia has force fields and is the Invisible Woman. The grandfather, Abelard, is described as the smartest man in the Dominican Republic and is made of rubber and can bend this way and that way and he is Mr. Fantastic.  If the family are Fantastic Four who is Yunior?

What books are you reading?

I’ve never read spy novels before.  I finally read “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy”. Shit, that book is brilliant. I can’t believe I’m 42 years old and I only read it now.  John Le Carre is it for me right now.  I’m reading Benedict Anderson’s book on the Philippines “Under Three Flags” about Filipino anarchism, and how Jose Rizal and the Filipino liberation movement was connected to Cuban liberation movement.

Three Days with Nicholas Sparks

at the Podium event where he signed 1200 books. 

It was an exhilarating 3 days with Nicholas Sparks.  After all, it’s not every day that I get to hang out with a New York Times bestselling author, a prolific author of 17 novels, including the “The Best of Me” which he was here to launch. But as I learned, Nicholas Sparks is more than his novels. 6 of his books have become successful movies. He is now producing his own movies and tv shows.  He is also a husband and a dad of 5. He is an overall nice guy who was very generous about answering the same questions over and over again, signing books and meeting fans. 

Readers can’t help but be touched by your characters and relate to them.

As an author, I put myself in the readers’ shoes: What might you want to read? I try to craft a story along those lines.  A Walk to Remember was based on my sister. The Notebook was inspired by my wife’s grandparents.  Whenever you write anything, you have to draw on everything you can as an author to make that story come to life.  I’ll draw on my memories, my own personal experiences and the experiences of those I care for. To try to make the book the best that it can be. 

My books can be kind of sad at times.  It’s what helps you remember them.  Titanic, Romeo and Juliet were sad. You can’t have a real love story without sad.  You can have a romantic fantasy, but not a real story.  Every great love story by definition has to end in tragedy. It has to, because none of us live forever.  If you don’t love them, there’s no tragedy when they die. 

What is a day in your writing life like?

A typical day, I’ll workout, walk the dog, go through office paperwork.  I’m start writing at 10 and end at 3.  I write from January- May.  It takes me 70 days to write a book, though not continuously.  I take a month to edit.  When I write, I write 2000 words a day. 

Let me run through the math with you.  I write 2000 words a day which takes me 5 hours.  That’s 400 words per hour.  I type 60 words per minute.  About 7 minutes is spent typing at full speed.  53 minutes is spent evaluating what you wrote in 7 minutes, editing it, starting out the window, checking email, procrastinating like crazy. 

Do you read a lot?

I read anywhere from 120-150 books a year. You can’t be a writer if you are not an avid reader.  If you like what I write,  Linda Nichols wrote Handyman 12 years ago.  I’m a big Stephen King, Dennis Lehane,  Lee Childs, the Irish writer John Connoly.

I do both printed books and electronic books. But on this trip I brought book books.  I went on safari a few weeks ago.  I brought my kindle and it broke on day 1.  I was in the middle of the Kalahari dessert with no book , no internet, no tv, no radio, no nothing except a broken Kindle. 

What are you working on next?

For this next novel, it’s gonna be a college love story. One of the first things I consider for a new story is the age of the characters. The next novel is gonna be a college love story.   I’m working on the story arc.    I have to know how the characters meet. What is the conflict that is keeping them apart? I have to know what’s driving the story and how the story ends. 

Six of your novels have become movies.  How has your Hollywood experience been?

I’ve been very fortunate in the movie business.  When you start you don’t have a lot of power.  With that said, I was able to work with 3 producers most of my career.  They always respected my opinion.  Now, I’m producing the films with some friends of mine, and now have a lot to say.  I will be able to choose the actors in Safe Haven and the Best of Me. I oversee the script and get to choose the director. 

How did Miley Cyrus end up with The Last Song written for her?

A couple of years ago, I made the decision to write about a teenage girl, when Disney called.  Miley wants to do another movie after Hannah Montana, and she loved A Walk to Remember.  Do you have anything she might be interested in? I asked them to give me a few weeks, then flew to LA to tell the story to Disney and Miley Cyrus.   This is the next novel that I’m writing, do you want it. I swore them all to secrecy. Then Disney hired me to write the screenplay.  I asked Miley what was important to her.  She loved animals and so there are some sea turtles in the movie. 

Will you ever write your own love story?

My wife and I met on spring break in Florida while we were attending (different) colleges.  It’s wild, it’s drinking and bikinis.  I met her on a Monday, told her I would marry her on a Tuesday and we’ve been married for 22 years.  How can I write about it? No one would believe it.

My wife and I believe that the more you give, the more you receive. We founded the Epiphany school in our hometown.  It has a big international component in the curriculum.  We introduce the students to the world. By the time you graduate you will have visited 16 countries on 6 different continents, speak Spanish fluently and learn history, culture and economics of a lot of different countries in the world.

Do you believe in the one true love?

No, I think falling truly in love is rare.  If we find it once in our lifetime, we’re lucky.  When you’re young, you are so much more open and you believe anything can happen.  When you have a little more life experience, your passions are tempered by reality.  I do believe in true love. I believe there are those who can love, but when they lose someone, they can find another true love.  I don’t know that there’s only one single person meant for you. 

At the more intimate gathering (of 400) in Powerbooks Greenbelt.

Most of the answers were punctuated by screams from the audience. He is after all the writing equivalent of a rock star.  One of the fans told me I was so lucky, I guess for spending all the time with Nicholas, and getting to know him up close and personal.  And I am.  This is why I am sharing our conversation in my blog.

Nicholas, we can’t get enough of your stories.  Thanks for choosing Manila to be your only Asian stop in this tour.  Hope you come back soon.  

Conversation with Alexander Yates, Author of Moondogs

Conversation with Alexander Yates, Author of Moondogs

"A man and a rooster exit a taxi idling on a crowded street."goes the first line of Moondogs, Alexander Yates' novel set in the Philippines.  The local language and descriptions sound authentic enough to be written by someone who knows the Philippines, yet there is enough perspective of an outside observer's point of view.   The novel reads like a movie with an ensemble cast of characters and their interwoven relationships, and their roles and reactions to the kidnapping of an American expat.  

Here is our conversation from the first event from Alexander Yates' Manila book tour, held at Power Books Greenbelt.  

One of your characters did not like food stewed in vinegar and spaghetti in sweet sauce with hotdogs. Do you feel the same way?

I like Filipino food. The trip has been less than a day and I’ve eaten chicken adobo, garlic rice, kilawin ng tanigue

What is it about the Philippines that inspired you to write a novel?

The Philippines and Manila are very important to me.  I moved here when I was 15. This is the city that felt like home for me.  I met the woman who would become my wife in International School Manila.   When I went to college in the States, I had never lived in the United States before. When I went to the United States, people expected that they could say the name of a football team and I should know what that was, why it was important and why I should know that person.  I had some culture shock when I went there.  When I came back to the Philippines after graduating I had the sense that I was returning home.  Of course when I got here I had to reckon with the fact that it was not really my home and it is still alien to me in a lot of ways. It’s that sense of dissonance--seeing Manila as home and longing for it as home, and being an outsider.

What are the most memorable experiences you had from studying or working in Manila and did any of those appear in the book?

There is no autobiography at all in the book.  I have a great relationship with my parents.  But there is a lot of emotional biography in it—dealing with questions of cultural identity and trying to figure out where they fit in. The experiences in Manila that affected me most are my high school career and my friends.  I loved International School Manila. I had a fantastic high school drama teacher who put me in a few plays.  An English teacher read the first novel I wrote while I was in IS, and gave me notes and comments and was very encouraging.  My teachers invigorated a passion for the arts.

Are any of the characters based on real people? How about the character who was an actor who played a politician who became a politician?

They are certainly inspired by real people. Everything in the book comes out of my life, what I’ve read and what I’ve seen.   The process of fiction writing is taking the raw material of life and making it into something. 

What is the significance of Moondogs and why did you choose that to be the title?

The first time I saw a Moondog was in Manila. I looked up and there was this big halo around the moon.   It is caused by ice in the upper atmosphere and the moon’s light refracting through it.  There was a big beautiful lunar halo and there were flares of light on each side, and it struck me as being preposterously beautiful. I called my girlfriend to come out and see it with me.   

One of the characters early in the book looks up and sees a moondog. I realized that the novel was working that way.  There was a lot of stuff going on around a core, so Moondogs felt like an appropriate title. 

There are several plotlines in the book. Who are your favorite characters and what relationships do they have with each other?

It has been pointed out to me that some of the characters are jerks. They are all struggling, but not winning the struggle.  They have “being jackass” issues. Some people have said the characters are surprisingly sympathetic or perversely sympathetic. I really care for all of them. 

Monique and Joseph

The character that is closest to me is the American Embassy employee in the book.  She was raised in Subic Bay because her father was in the navy.  She has never felt at home in the States. She gets a job in the Foreign Service and works in the American Embassy in the Philippines with a sense that she is going to a place she understands, an idealized version of home.  The Philippines of her memory is not the Philippines. It’s a little girl’s Philippines: a yard and a few special people. She goes seeking a nanny.  She arrives, does not get that sense of home and she feels lost.  

Her husband is a Trailing Spouse.  He gave up a job in the States to go with her and he does not handle the transition well. 

Benicio and Howard

Benicio is to some extent the main character. He is the young man who looks for his father in the Philippines. They have not spoken for 5 years.  His father was unfaithful to his mother and Benicio found out about it.  There was an enormous flight.  They kinda sat on the issue as people do.  They never got around to making up.  In the opening of the book, Benicio’s mother has recently died.  He reconnected with his father at his mother’s funeral and decided to spend some time together. His father lives in Manila.  He is a hotelier whose company manages resorts.   Benicio travels to the Philippines to spend the summer. When he arrives, his father is missing. He initially thought his dad was just being the dad he knew—too busy, not available. But it is revealed that his father was kidnapped. 

Reynato

Reynato is the celebrity policeman. His exploits are chronicled by the media.  He is based on the characters that Estrada would play--the tough guy, Dirty Harry macho archetype. He has no aspirations to be an actor or a politician.  There have been a series of movies based on his life.  There is an actor who plays him in the movies, and who is running for the Senate when the book opens.  Their relationship is full of friction because the actor is trading on his likeness to gain credibility.

Reynato runs a police task force that is assigned to rescue Howard. 

Task Force Ka-Pow

The task force members all have super powers. They have one foot in X-Men land. They are not heroic and they only have conceptual powers. One guy is just unlucky and soaks up the bad luck from everyone else.  Another guy can do magic for real, but only cliché magic tricks.  He can pull a coin out of his ear, and can saw a woman in half and put her back together.  There’s a character that can turn to any animal he has seen. A new recruit, Efrem, can shoot anybody wherever they are just by knowing their exact location. 

Can you tell us about the social commentary in the book?

In 2004, kidnapping felt urgent and salient and was in the media constantly. A Filipino truck driver was kidnapped in Iraq which caused the Philippines to pull out their troops.  In the opening of the book, a taxi driver has a crime of opportunity: a wealthy American, who is a little drunk steps into his cab late at night.  Everything is set up for something to go very wrong.   I have this American in the car. Clearly, the thing to do is to sell him to terrorists.  The 2 bumbling criminals are reacting to the media narrative. They are steeped in international news.  Then to keep the victim quiet, they put a booming television in the room, and it is turned on to the news so he is also imprisoned by a larger narrative. 

Your characters are very real. How did you create them?

  

I wrote the characters one by one. If you unthread the novel, you can read each character as his own short novel.  I would spend six months just doing Efrem and another six months just doing Monique.  The content comes first , voice comes much later after a slow process of figuring out what the character sounds like. I need to do my due diligence, making sure that every character has its own breath and that no character is enslaved by something I want to say. 

What is next for you?

I am teaching writing at George Mason University.  I am working on another novel, a ghost story based in Finland where my wife is from. I am also putting together a collection of short stories. My wife joined the Foreign Service so we are moving to Rwanda in the spring.

What books have influenced you?

One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This book changed my life. It is so genius, so beautiful that I don’t know why I even bothered writing a novel.  Midnight’s Children by Salman Rushdie has superheroes yet is a serious book. I didn’t know writers can do that. I was also moved by Filipino authors.  I am a huge fan of George Saunders—he is a genius. He writes short stories about post apocalyptic theme parks.  When I moved to the Philippines, my Father gave me Gagamba by F. Sionil Jose.  Moondogs is also a tribute to Gagamba where different characters react to a singular shared event, an earthquake. 

At the end of the conversation, I got my book signed with a note I was thrilled to read.  And I got all 4 stamps of the woodcuts designed by Rebecca Cullers and cut by Emily Bender.  Each chapter starts with the symbol of the character featured in it. Can you guess who is represented by the gecko, the rooster, the crescent moon and the sun?  Moondogs is available in National Book Store and Powerbooks.  

Follow Alexander Yates on Twitter @TheOtherYates 

Harper's Bazaar Greatest Hits by Glenda Bailey P2775

"I think of my job as hosting a can't miss party where everyone's invited. My editorial philosophy is that good is the enemy of the great. This translates into a never-give-up attitude and the thrill of achieving the impossible.  I'm allergic to standard magazine fodder, where every issue looks the same regardless of year. Our aim is to make ideas iconic, " says current Harper's Bazaar editor in chief Glenda Bailey, who took the helm of the fashion magazine in 2001.  

As Creative Director Stephen Gan puts it, "The book starts with Gisele and ends with Lady Gaga, and to me that sums up the decade."True enough, with every turn of a page, there is a historic fashion moment. In 2004, Ford shot what was to be his last major magazine profile, 2 weeks before he resigned as creative director of Gucci and YSL. 

  

Maybe fashion books are not for reading, but I enjoyed the essays. Ali Macgraw talked about being Diana Vreeland's assistant and it sounded like the inspiration for Devil Wears Prada.  Ellen Degeneres explained why she thought a woman would make a good president. For example, "Foreign relations would improve because a woman president would just keep calling back saying, 'We need to talk.'"

Over the years they shot tongue-in-cheek editorials featuring our favorite designers.  "Fashion superheroes" starred Stefano Gabbana as Batman and Domenico Dolce as Robin.

 Here is Donna Karan as a bronze goddess.

Marc Jacobs appears naked in two pictures in the book. Here he is graffitied like his Louis Vuitton bag.

 

As a reference to Rachel Zoe's favorite line, "I die", the September 2010 issue featured her in an editorial also styled by her, where America's top designers were plotting to kill her.  

 I wish they wrote more about the behind the scenes story of their shoots such as Naomi Campbell  outrunning a cheetah in Blumarine, Kate Winslet hanging from a rooftop scaffolding of a  New York building in a white Ralph Lauren gown, and Sarah Jessica Parker running along the Brooklyn Bridge in Chanel.  In this image, Demi Moore is on a staircase to nowhere in the desert in an Alexander McQueen dress and Armadillo shoes.

Harper's Bazaar Greatest Hits is filled with all the models, the celebrities and the iconic outfits that one could hope for in a book.  There are even more fashion moments that the team at Harper's Bazaar engineered like when they played peacemaker between Karl Lagerfeld and Courtney Love in the editorial "I'd rather go naked than wear fake Chanel."

Hearst Magazines, the corporate owner of Harper's Bazaar recently bought Hachette Filapacchi Media , publisher of Elle, and with the expected shakeup of people and jobs, it is unknown whether Glenda Bailey will stay on. But I hope she does.   

Nina Garcia's rules for how to edit from "The Little Black Book of Style"

"I don't care if it is the latest trend or the 'must-have' item of the season. I don't care if you spent a week's salary on it in 1999 so that you could afford it. I don't care if you wore it everyday in college and you 'can't bear to part with it.' If it doesn't look good on you, it should not be in your closet."

I could hear Nina Garcia saying the lines above as I tried to sort out my closet.  Closet space is limited in our condo.  The unexpected holiday did not give me an excuse to procrastinate further. I had to clean out my closet because no matter how hard I push  I cannot make way for more hangers.

I'm still hopeful I can someday fit back in the Chloe dress I wore in my Despedida de Soltera and the Prada dress I wore in a bridal shower. But into a broken piece of luggage went my resort trousseau for my honeymoon and my finds from Australian designer Alannah Hill from that trip.

I can easily give away all the dresses in which I look like I'm expecting. But how can I let go of the bright green dress I wore in the baptism of my first born?

While trying to find a bargain, I probably ended up spending for something I never used so it's probably time I actually used my Stella McCartney for H&M cigarette wool plaid pants from 2005 to sport the androgynous look.  But will I still resurrect that Marc for Marc Jacobs black denim jacket which has gone with me on so many trips--that went into the luggage too.

I used to love wearing dresses, and many of them have marked milestones in my career. I found the orange striped maxi dress I wore on tv last summer, and I also saw the dress I wore on Project Runway Philippines while I was seven months pregnant. Here is a feather bolero I wore to the launch of the angel author, and another printed chiffon maxi dress I wore to a garden themed book launch.  With sadness, I'm putting a lot of  them in the giveaway pile. They are better off being used by someone else.    This was a time when I wore mostly dresses to work and events.  But now I want to move on to mixing and matching separates. 

What I really can't let go of,  I'm saving some for my daughter's future vintage wardrobe.

Here are Nina Garcia's rules for editing:

1. Throw out what you don't wear and what doesn't look good on you.
2. Buy the right size
3. Don't be sucked in by the sale tag
4. Don't play it too safe
5. Do not buy according to the trends
6. Be ruthless when you edit

Weekend reading: State of Wonder by Ann Patchett

My book club was captivated by Patron Saint of Liars.  I couldn’t really understand why the character did what she did several times in her life, first as a pregnant woman who leaves her husband and lives in a home for unwed mothers. Then, when her past threatens to meet up with her presence, why she would just walk away from the family she had chosen so many years before. But the characters grew on me, and I felt the poignancy of her fear of being committed or caught.

With State of Wonder, Ann Patchett has written another compelling tale. Dr. Marina Singh, who works in a lab outside Minneapolis researching  statin development for their cholesterol drug program, is transplanted down to the jungles of the Amazon to speak some sense into Dr. Annick Swenson, about the timetable of her research for studying breakthroughs of the Lakashi tribe on fertility. The CEO, who is also secretly Dr. Singh’s lover, sends her to follow on the heels of her lab partner who ended up dead with a fever.  

By the time she reaches the research camp, she has lost all her luggage, then the clothes get stolen off her back and she has to subsist on two dresses she gets from the tribal women.  She has to battle an anaconda coiled around a boy, brave flying arrows and a tribe of cannibal and perform a Caesarian section, something she hasn’t done since medical school.   But what she ends up discovering in the jungle, changes her irrevocably and forces her to finally make a stand. 

State of Wonder is currently on the New York Times Hardcover Fiction Bestseller list.  It is available in National Book Store in paperback for P729.00

Conversation with Samantha Sotto, Author of Before Ever After

The more I talk to Samantha Sotto about her book, Before Ever After, the more I appreciate her story behind the story. But more importantly, I understand the book more and more. It is a profound yet entertaining read, an unconventional love story.  This was our conversation at the "world premiere" book launch in National Book Store Glorietta 5, one rainy evening...We should have been sipping jasmine tea while having this conversation though...or rooster soup inspired by coq au vin.  

What inspired you to write a novel?

The need to do something while my son was in school is what spurred it.  It was traffic, I didn’t want to pay for e-pass. I didn’t wanna pay for gas. I had 3 hours to spare at Starbucks, and I didn’t want to pay for wi-fi either.  Kuripot reasons.  (Reasons of thriftiness).

Luckily, Max, the lead character, just kinda popped into my head. He introduced himself to me while I was driving on Edsa. I didn’t even have to imagine who it was.

I decided to set the story where it could logically be set to tell Max’s story well and that was Europe.  Thanks to my Dad who was based there as an expatriate when I was in college. That was my first taste of Europe. Then I had a backpacking trip when I sold my car…to my dad… to go on vacation.  I got a secondhand book on Europe on $50 a day.  We were “homeless” or “starving” many days travelling in Europe. We would cut a baguette 6 ways for breakfast, lunch and dinner. Then if we got hungry in between, we had Max’s candy and Hershey’s miniatures (rationed at 4 a day).  That adventure inspired a lot of the stories in the book.

The Slight Detour was inspired by Bob’s Bavarian mountain tour.  The tour guide took us to interesting places and was charming as well.  Wherever he is now, “Thank you, Bob!”

How did you come up with the itinerary of the Slight Detour?

Everyone already knows about the famous landmarks and important events in Europe.  I thought it would be interesting to go through the backroads and look at the gaps in history and fill that in with stories that sound probable. Plus, I have a superpower for getting lost, even if I have a GPS.  Getting lost a lot, inspired me to unearth stories that were also lost, and to bring them to life in Before Ever After.

Google and Virtual Tourist are my friends. The tour had to start in London because Max was British and I knew it had to end in Italy.  So I looked at the map and I plotted the countries. And that became the outline of the book. 

I wrote it the way readers experienced it because I didn’t want to spoil the surprise for myself.  I wanted to feel  like I was a tourist myself.

For each country, I googled “strange chicken facts”, then I wrote. It was research, write, research, write.

What is the significance of the egg and chicken references?

No Max is not inspired by Max Fried Chicken. Gallus means  chicken, but also foreigner or stranger.  It is also Scottish for “a cocky fellow” and Max is rather cheeky.

Max came prepackaged. It was a quirk of Max that came with his character, fondness for the BeeGees, a fascination with chickens, a belief that everything would be ok if there was a chicken.

How did you structure the book? 

Each chapter is a deconstruction of Max’s character. In every story,  you will get to know an aspect of Max’s character and understand why Max is the way he is.

My favorite Max is the present day Max. He was the most fun to write. He was inspired by Dr. Who—a very fun and campy British guy. Next to my husband, Max is my ideal guy.

If I can finish this chapter, then I can finish this book.  And so I did, then I did. 

Let’s talk about the strange chicken tales

The basilisk is more of a rooster crossed with a dragon instead of a serpent creature. The river man is one of my favorite characters, but he has my sympathy. I had a hard time doing what I did to him in my book. 

What is the symbolism of the egg timer?  “Yesterday flows into tomorrow, and tomorrow tips over into yesterday.”

I talk a lot of the concept of time. The book is not about time travelling. 

(SPOILER ALERT!) Max is an immortal. It is not the mystery of the book. I tried to imagine that time for a person this way would be very different from the way we would perceive time. It would increase our appreciation for time if we saw time through his eyes.   He longs for things that we take for granted. There is no period in his life.  What more is there to life. If there is nothing more than this, how do I get meaning into today.  Thank you to Ateneo philosophy classes.

What kind of research did you have to do to talk about immortality?

I wanted to do away with myths on immortality where it is imposed on you or you have to have a magical object or get bitten.     The mystery is how he became the way he is. 

Can you see it as a movie?

If I’m going to dream out loud, I see it as a mini series.  I can’t imagine it as a movie. It is so episodal.  I don’t want to say who I think Max should be. I don’t want to do the imagining for you.   Whoever you think Max should be to you, that’s who he should be. Suffice it to say, that he’s hot. Gerald Butler, Daniel Craig, Mark Zuckerberg, Hugh Jackman…have been suggested.

The entire book takes place on a flight to Boracay.  Can you tell us about the Shell in Boracay?

It is real. In Station 1. The waiter in Two Seasons said there was a hut in the cove just around the corner.  After I wrote the book, we went back to Boracay.  We passed it while riding the boat.  It really is for backpackers

What about the egg and cheese dish?

My husband, Tembong, does make the dish. I just had the dish two days ago with steak. 

Would it be cool to have a Slight Detour tour like the Da Vinci Code tour?

I would like to go on that tour.  Although the accommodations would not be as luxurious as Max’s houses as he has amassed quite a fortune. 

What’s next for this book?

The book will be released on August 2 in the U.S. We fly to New York for a press briefing. It will be covered by TFC. 

Can we look forward to Book #2

I’m 80% done on a second book. It’s a love triangle between two people. But when I’m done with this book, I’m going to write about Batanes. Before this book, my editor and agent have never heard about Boracay. When I sent them the picture of Boracay, they agreed it was like paradise. 

I had to stop here to give way to more than a hundred of her family, friends and fans, fellow book lovers who wanted to ask questions and get their books signed.  

 The international paperback edition of Before Ever After is exclusively available from National Book Store for P499.  To our friends in Bangkok or Singapore, you can order through the National Book Store website.