A tale of two cities
By: Radel ParedesParis is everyone’s dream destination. Artists, most especially, are drawn to the City of Lights. The Eiffel Tower beckons them like a lighthouse promising refuge from a world that is inhospitable to art.
Paris is everyone’s dream destination. Artists, most especially, are drawn to the City of Lights. The Eiffel Tower beckons them like a lighthouse promising refuge from a world that is inhospitable to art.
Tonight, which is the night before this column comes out, our Cebuano writers group Bathalad gathers in Handuraw Café in Gorordo Avenue for a pre-Valentine poetry reading. It’s an almost-predictable activity for any literary group given that in no other time of the year would poetry suddenly become popular than during love month.
I love teaching. I have worked in a nongovernment organization, ad agencies and the print media, but it was in teaching at the university that I decided to stick around. I’ve had more tempting offers in companies here and abroad, but I refused them all for the love of teaching. For the love of my alma mater that is the University of San Carlos.
Forced to dance, I reinvented tai chi. I tried to recall the few times I actually joined a group of senior citizens gracefully doing kung fu in slow motion at the park early in the morning. Yet unable to actually memorize anything, I just did whatever moves my stiff body could do in free flow with my eyes wide shut.
As in the story of Moses, a nun was said to have discovered a baby floating in the sea on a broken piece of Styrofoam two days after her mother lost grip on her when they were struck by the flash flood in Cagayan de Oro. We saw the infant’s face on a computer-printed poster announcing a reward for whoever would find her. It was posted all over the city, on electric posts, walls and in the notice boards of evacuation camps.
Just when our friend, a consul who writes poetry, comes home once again on Christmas to treat us to a round of drinks (and when lucky, cigars from his diplomatic pouch), I fight deep-down chills sitting with him and our other writer friends in the group Bathalad at the outside tables of the restaurant in the heat of noon.
At midday, a space-age knight wearing robes that are a cross between “Star Trek” and King Arthur is the first to suddenly appear at the college building. By late afternoon, the invading force of robots, androids, galactic monsters, futuristic samurais and saber-weilding amazons in long blond hair wearing mini skirts and long boots has completely occupied the lobby making the earthlings gather around them in total awe.
Wit and irony sometimes define the Cebuano notion of the beautiful. You see that often in our literature, radio drama and popular music. Yet it seems to be missing in our visual arts today, which continues to be identified with the nostalgic pastoral paintings of the Martino Abellana school.
From the General Santos airport, we drove to downtown Takurong in Sultan Kudarat, where another car, our lone security escort, had been waiting for us. Trailing behind the private vehicle, we left the city, stopping by several army and police checkpoints. Whenever the road was clear, our driver shifted to high gear and I fastened [...]
The University of San Carlos will host for the first time a Chinese Film Festival in the College of Architecture and Fine Arts Theater starting tomorrow, Monday, through Thursday morning next week.
I set my cellphone alarm not to wake me up but to remind me when it strikes midnight on Nov. 11, 2011 (which makes it a lucky date of four elevens) that I am supposed to be in the mountain sitio of Pung-ol, Cebu City where the 1st Habagat Ultra Trail Run was going to start.
While it seemed that the whole neighborhood took to the cemeteries on the day of the dead, I stayed home and, like a neglected child, played with matches.
As news of recent fighting between government troops and the Moro Islamic Liberation Front blared on TV, I checked “MILF” on YouTube and was surprised to see that the top entries were all videos of gorgeous hot moms.
