Women at Cannes: What do the numbers tell us?
The selection of films in competition at the Cannes Film Festival is one of the strongest for women so far, but there are…
I can’t get the image out of my head, though I can’t remember exactly when I saw it on TV: a beached whale on a provincial shore, its belly full of plastic, leading experts to conclude it died in severe pain.
We discovered the joys of cruises rather late in life, but at a perfect time, considering the temperament and disposition we have grown old into. We’re just right for the pace, and we feel we’ve earned the delayed gratification.
Last year, we had missed the cherry blossoms—sakura—completely. We took a trip to Osaka toward the end of April, but the blossoms, we were told, were abloom where we weren’t. Luckily, Osaka had more than enough to offer to make up for unseen blossoms.
We watched the latest remake of the operetta “Noli Me Tangere,” adapted from the novel by Jose Rizal, set to music by Felipe de Leon Jr., poetic libretto in Filipino by, surprisingly, the sculptor Guillermo Tolentino, the cast all competent, in fact impressive singers who did justice to both the songs and the historical memory.
They’ve changed the rules again. It used to take only a week between the time one gets listed and one’s application gets approved, if at all, to visit Sen. Leila de Lima in detention at Camp Crame. Now it takes at least 10 days.
Now more than ever, Vergel and I make time for the finer things. Among our favorite weekend activities as a couple are art shows, concerts and theater. For outside company, we gravitate toward like-hearted couples who not only enrich our cultural experience but also deepen our understanding and appreciation of everything—of life itself.
I believe in angels. I believe some of them to be the spirits of my ancestors, protecting spirits who make such arrangements that we may find ourselves in the right place at the right time.
People tease us February-born as underdeveloped or incomplete, having been delivered into the world on a month thought freakish, because it is short, as months go, by one day on a regular year and two on leap year.
It turned out to be the best Valentine’s gift from my husband, one who’s never a gift giver—unless books picked out sometimes and on no occasion at all and poetically dedicated count, as they very much do, to me; those sure beat anything money can buy.
