THE BEAUTY WITHIN
By: Iris P. Concepcion

Before dawn break, I could still be grinding saliva on my mouth, tasting on thin air a doughnut that has been doing remarkable strides in my taste buds by leaps and bounds.I had miraculously snapped a pic on its baking source one time.

The place where its hole peeks through is similar to a baker's delight you deliriously eye in an upscale hotel lobby.

It is a curious area in that I had met the unnamed painters who dared break loose from the rigidity of museums and placed his works in downtown hawkers' dens. The photographs of these paintings were uploaded in this blog. I did not know then he downsized the opulence of his surroundings beside the hilarious diploma mills. All the grander contrast as Garfield's tubby tummy protrudes in utter guttural shock.

I have fascination for bakeries since I see doughs as a malleable art material similar to a te4xtile that can metamorphose into gowns and dresses. I did not know there is a a thing as a Fgrench pancake where fillings drip from the center of two soft peacock wing spread without the peacock's head.

Breads are gorgeous. I could not get enough of them.

On another note: someone gave me a flyer about prices of medicine in one pharmacy store. This is the effect of the Cheaper Medicine's Act filed by Teddy Boy Locsin in the lower house and co-authored with Mar Roxas of the upper house. This was eventually approved by the previous administration. I used to buy medicine then for my departed mother and her pills cost six times higher than the prices in this drugstore. The right to lower one's cholesterol has now been pegged to five pesos. Of course, these two lawmakers could have filed bills to beautify chicken innards and build monuments to extol their taste. Furthermore, they can have them brightened like skylights and protect its peddlers. They chose the more humanitarian route in the exercise of their lawmaking professions I suppose.

Also as an overture: I watched a chorale presentation of the De La Salle University. It was a mix of German musical pieces and Filipino songs.

The conductor who instructs his singers with quite cutting remarks is a curious paradox. I sort of intuit that the young singers have pipes wider than the Suez Canal. They patiently listened for their instructions even as I can already foretell they are culturally-endowed and are schooled properly in musical schools. They know their musical chops which are far superior than the one mentoring them. But they kept their patience. That is obedience.

I am awed by this. Their longetivity to withstand the verbal, musical abuse, they curbed by singing according to their gut. I am attached to them in a special way, especially the two forefront women who had obligingly but soulfully "defied" the instructions and went on singing according to their meaningful notes.

They had braved it competently without mouthful brawls. This is only fit for the incompetents.

And the pianist. He saved his best for last as staccatos of notes playfully engulfed the air. I was jubilant. The fact that the conductor approached him during the last piece via a congratulatory handshake is enough a sign of thousand gestures that he has all the reasons to be rightfully favored.

Note to the cornkids:

I have laughed and cried at your temerity to barge the unchanneled courses. Just this morning, I saw something of a "drencher" that lessens the trouble to mop the floor. Craft is in and the familiarity pleasantly smiled back at me. Mo son, you have never failed. Not once, not twice, not even thrice.

I found myself grinning at the tweak furniture hauled off the Greenland peninsula. I turned the leaf of a visual page and saw my naughtiest crawling inside this concierge fixture in his toothy guffaw. I almost farted with pride.

Just like your mother, your Grandparents have your gift of gaffe. I can see them showing off their asses to those who shall humiliate you. The rotund, fair-skinned fellow is especially crazy.

And yes, I am proud to be your granddaddies' offspring. You have won and won it without using the foul words your mother sometimes resorts to when faced with the booze masters.

Thank you so much for making me love my life better when I have the least.

Stop wincing. Who cares about internet wrestling? We do live satellite.

WARDING OFF UNWANTED PEOPLE DURING TIMES OF DISTRESS
By: Iris P. Concepcion

It is truly right: when you are pinned down at all levels, art does save.

Yesterday, I attended the combined Phil-German series of musical productions and had an evening mesmerized my chime dialogues.

I wonder how instruments would converse. I got my answer last night: magically.

It reaffirms my trust to mankind and its nuanced humanity, this pursuit for decency and goodness via artistry. The loud kibitzers were silenced. The conductor was young, energetic. I swear to God he can be a rockstar. He has curly hair, a winning smile and hands that caressed his baton like muted wind. Enthralling.

I liked best the rendition of Richard Strauss' Also Sprach Zarathustra Op.30. It started rather slow but then came a loud gong of the bass drum. I was bewitched and mesmerized like I was caught in a fairy tale. Like the doves hovering in front of the unfinished swimming pool ( a curious installation), I can only weep silently as I always do when gifted with world class acts in my little nook of the metropolis.

This was my dream ever since. That the best of the universe may be made accessible to ordinary folks. It is only through cultural orientation that we can begin to restore our pride as a people who shoot for nothing but excellence. Yes, this is more than sports. This is total cleansing of the soul. These young kids took their flutes like wonderful ballet dancers in tutus.

It was also educational in that the lustre of the song "Ako Ay Pilipino" lost its shine. I did not know some of its notes were appropriated from Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Concerto in A major K . 622. Can the dead composer spit his saliva and cringe at this false misrepresentation?

The rendition of Lucrecia Kasilag's Divertissement was like a humming conversation inside my head. It was playful and like a mini-novellete that started with Le Carre and ended with O. Henry.

I was with fellow ear-addicts to wonderful music. We can only strive to compose superior productions if we are exposed to how our neighbors in the world do it.

That is when we crave, thirst and yearn to surpass them.

As a nation? That is a lofty goal. And I do not mean kicking that football inside the net.

Thank you creators. I would not mind going hungry for as long as I am with your company.

As an aside, Davao must be praised for braving the storm and went on to stage its multi-dimensional visual fora during its art festival. I heard it was a huge success and was attended by the biggies in literature. I am baffled that this is becoming regionalized but I keep on hoping, dreaming. Read Krip Yuson's (Philippine Star) article on it and my law school buddy Isagani Zarate (Philippine Daily Inquirer).

GOOD MORNING VALENTINE (For G)

By: Iris P. Concepcion

No, I press my stomach

Not to feel its wiggle

Nor play wigmam inside

Its intestines

Grinding last night's

Dinner

I press it for

The plenty

Schedules of unswam beaches

Together but separated

As you choose

To subdue and wage battles

With the dirt, mud, sun and boors

The bitches of endless shores

Floating breasts

You abhorred (in sly)

Like twin peaks

Of inferno

Cramming in your

Passion outside

Your girlfriend's innards

Circled and twined

Christmas came as an adult

February arrived as a faggot

With no normal gifts

On sight, sighs behold

The most precious for the heart

Lingered in the throat

As wiped thirst

Iridescently reduced

In that tall glass of water

Crushed ice meticulously cut with love

All years come to naught

But good tidings, good tidings!

Finally consumed.

Happy Valentine's day to a fellow fighter who had endured with me: for my baddest moments that you had turned into sublime rewards after having had to walk the mile and trashing the rowdy, potbellied types.

P.S. That glass with pink hearts was all gizmo. Gooey but a huge base saver. Wink.

DRAWING THE HAND
By: Iris P. Concepcion

My little five peso Golden Gate pad is all tattered and filled with my own undecipherable handwriting. I grab it whenever I encounter men with a vocabulary of Hefner proportions, the melting alps off my level of comprehension, travelling as they were with shoes and the impending TRO's that could ruin huge, huge public relations retainers. They lurk between the rejected and the second spotters normally.

I likewise write anything on it when faced with on-the-spot hilarity like the washed stuffed toy floating inside a pail, sleeping as if sunbathing in the Ritz. This is the comical, glistening frame on my way to the loo. It is a fat toy who is in perpetual sleeping mode.

As I am scribbling on this page, a kid grabbed it and did little drawings of a hand on it. Instead of sketched nails (she bargained for just two sheets, I gave her four) to imprint his young Rembrandt powers.

What she did is this: she placed little television sets on these nails and they kept on playing over and over again if we are going to transport this into the table of impressionable advertising creatives.

My argument not to give in to the boorish, flat, alcoholic bent on the tailers is precisely this. They could not clean up their own life as relationships tumble in bins. They throw this out to people who have better wits to throw their misgivings back to the world by delivering good deeds.

If they can't do it right on the family, they are going to bluff and fake and bungle it on the larger play of transformation.

For sticking by my side amid the howl and noise, thank you selected people of the universe.

It is tough getting out a sculpture of worldclass value to yacking barbarians. This I just realized, with laughable results.

God knows they are the only reason why we stay calm and sane.

From the words of Conrad de Quiros, once more:

"How many of us can do what she has done? Easy to be brave when you’re far from danger, not so when you’re heading straight for it. How many of us could have looked at how formidable the enemy was, and gone on to do what she did anyway? How many of us could have looked at how arduous the journey was, and gone on to do what she did anyway? How many of us could have looked at our children, at the scary present we were throwing them in and the uncertain future we were putting before them, and gone on to do what she did anyway?"

I repeat, women in this country have more guts and balls than our rather girlie, mouthy, nagging males who just yack and yack and yack and swipe back by mentioning genitalia. They are sissier than the real sissies themselves.

In the real world of interplay, they never count.

THE ESSENCE OF MASS

By: Iris P. Concepcion

I have a very warped fascination of attending worships for God during Sunday masses.

I love listening to beautiful sermons especially when priests deliver things that hit trespassers of morals who do extemporaneous double talk.

Yesterday, I attended a an efficiently-celebrated mass and met an artist. He stole the thunder from the very charismatic and pug-like priest (he looks like Manny Pacquiao) who read the Catholic Bishops Conference Of The Philippines (CBCP) communique on the Reproductive Health Bill. I am sorry for the word communique, I could not call it a manifesto or a position paper either. I do think the priest did improvise on the content, being the wit that he is. I shall leave its merits on another entry.

This artist entered the mass site bringing his gadgets. And a music book. He looked uncanningly like our prexy Noynoy Aquino. His keyboards brought back memories of my own lost instrument. I was happy that he did justice to the musical object than I could possibly wreck it. A woman played it prior to his own renditions. She was using the double chord mode. This is when you just press a key to produce B, C or E sound instead of playing it by notes.

What this artist did was to change the arrangement of church songs. The usually boring church hymnals were musically scored with, get this, happy polka sound. I mean, the impish, catchy, child-like, circusy polka sound.

The Noynoy-looking fellow was all grinning as he dished his ditties like "Somewhere In Time" and "My Funny Valentine" before the mass started. I was by my lonesome in my mini pew but felt embraced by several shy Licads. He was punching his keys with such joyful exuberance that I ended up moving my hands to the clownish, almost flamboyant rendering of keyboards hopping in musical chairs. I could not be any happier then than where I was at that precise moment. You know how fellow artists reach for their guts almost in wavelength? He knows I was having a heyday of appreciation with his clanking keys. A lot of people tried to stop him; they were swarming him possibly to distract his ongoing, superior recital. And his segue playlist. David slayed Goliath again. Up from above the bin, someone uttered this writer's better other's name. It was weird.

I shall attend masses like this if only for the music; it was enthralling and definitely bouyant. And he was making fun out of the notes, and was smiling, and all agog about the surroundings and playing samba. I shall not be surprised if he can do hip-hop in another manner.

Of course, a human tragedy occurred later. A gaggle of men planted themselves outside the venue and started mouthing inanities like " Take off your clothes, where are you going for 12." I was the only woman around. I retraced my steps, faced these morons and told them offhand: "You wish to be leaders of this country, try finetuning your language to credible level!". I took a picture of this terrible beerhouse habitues. It is my new hobby. Once you are barraged by these cretins, face them and view how they enunciate their harangue on cam.

This is what separates artists from gung-ho characters like these prison-bound creatures. The former improve the awful distress of human psyche through their craft; the latter can only use the original purpose of their mouth: yak.

To this guy above: You were my lunch treat yesterday. I was hungry and you gave me those melodies. I brought that as I walked amid this sea of hacksters ruining your goodwill.

Madamdaming Pasasalamat.

I wish to quote again the words of Conrad de Quiros who take the cause of unrecognized artists like this scribbler:

"Arguably, this country does not lack for people who pretend to be journalists and will write anything shoved in their faces with an envelope attached to it. Paner is neither. She is not a paid hack, she is not a resentful wannabe official, she is not an AC-DC columnist pitching an "introduction". She is an artist, an honest to goodness artist. She depicts things as she sees them and she does it because she has to."

He should have been there in the mass. I heard that he is agnostic; he could have swell time with his ears over in that corner, where the Bible is but an instrument of beautiful, magical and transformational music.

READ TODAY'S PAPERS ON PRINT
By: Iris P. Concepcion

There is beauty in the snow-covered cars lining up in the headlines today. I wonder why they were edited out online. Beautifully taken and bewitching, the accompanying stories are like literary pieces often read in Norton Anthology of short fiction. I could not link them, hence, grab the copies and read all the dailies.

EXCEPTIONALITY
By: Iris P. Concepcion

Gorging on nothing but a steadfast faith on the transparency of people tasked to give shield to the coveted writing profession. I have seen enormous payback on the given pictures, fluid as nature's witness embracing the pages with truth better than the paintings I have seen so far.

At this juncture, I reiterate the words uttered by our President: " I AM NOT SHOCKED ANYMORE."

Not only did the faces recur in a series of flashbacks, the people involved are familiar, including their arrogance. Conrad de Quiros is right as he wrote these words:

"Vampires do not fear the dark, they fear the light. Tyrants do not fear tyranny, they fear decency. Criminals do not fear criminality, they fear the law. They do not fear the death penalty. They fear reason and due process and human rights."

And this:

"From standing too long on the back of the carabao, the heron now thinks he is taller than the carabao."

Rest assured the key figures on top are helping the ordinary soldiers who wallow in eating saredines, their funds diverted for other purpose i.e. paying off mistresses and cars and nightly sojourns in nocturnal places.

Here, from Philippine Star:

"Gazmin admitted that certain groups are trying to exploit the scandal to foment unrest within the ranks. But he expressed confidence that the agitators will get no support because the necessary reforms have been implemented.

He and David nevertheless are meeting with commanders, who in turn are meeting with their troops to explain that reforms are in place and the days of fund diversions are over.

Congress and the Department of Budget and Management should also approve the necessary measures to plug other loopholes and ensure that the reforms will not be reversed."

REFORM AT THE MALLS

By: Iris P. Concepcion

If you have read the papers today, you shall be proud about the crop of journalists in our midst who had exposed the extent of corruption plaguing this country. Even the columns had been very forthright. Kudos to these men and women of letters who had chosen the correct path in exercising their professions.

Yesterday, I headed straight to Lacson as if something was happening in Ohio.

I made that up.

I did my own footrace yesterday under a welcoming weather of gamma rays on the first street above, deluged as I am by the idea that an artist in deep slumber may be camping in one of the "esteros".

I found none.

He (She, They) has/have rearranged the mall facet.

Some of the happiest pictures I have taken are unexpected clicks of bemused, visual opportunities begging for lens angles.

These pictures arrived at my cellphone camera like little wonkies in sweet boxes and even with just a cent on a pocket, one would never sell these pieces of discoveries.

Here are the advertisements of the best yonder past. What I was not able to post here are not worth the bother. They are comical. If you do not have dough for movies, lounge at the appliance centers and stay in front of the computer/tv arenas. You might catch clips that you aim to watch but could not because of, lack of time maybe, and not censorship.

P.S. That little wayward sketch is by the kid. I like it because she drew the pair with heart eyes.

I pay homage to a little lady who brought forth a sense of discernment beguiling enough to withstand the boiling tempers of the past. I have often said the bravest of hearts sometimes spring from the littlest of stature. You credit the upbringing; you credit the parents; you credit the usage of opportunity to be productive and not merely as a nuisance entity.

FROM THE CENTRAL AREA

By: Iris P. Concepcion

TO THE IMPROVED CENTRAL

By: Iris P. Concepcion

DYLAN IN THE PHILIPPINES

By; Iris P. Concepcion

"The centerpiece of "Born To Run" is the title track, a blasting anthem that, again, takes up the theme of running away from your town, finding freedom on the open road."---Bob Dylan as quoted in Scott Garceau's column in Philippine Star today.

IT WAS ORIGINALLY fueled by a hunger pang for pasta. It gradually extended onto a streetwalk discovery of artworks.

If one has settled long enough as a wanderer in Quiapo, you could get used to its fleet of diploma mills that reproduce everything from marriage certificates to "cedulas". If an alien frog ever lands here, it might find alarming the riches of duplications thriving as business enterprises. It could have wished as well to have been elsewhere instead of this Neanderthal manufacturer of badges. It could hop, hop and hop away to a happy hopping area.

It need not look far. Beyond this are artifacts refined suddenly under the hands of the mysterious Creator, him who had sprung from Springtime and who returned as Autumn.

Thus, my gastronomic trek starting with a platelette (is this what you call a small plate?) of spaghetti worth below the price of ham and cheese, ended in a view of sunglasses displayed in empty shoeboxes. In between are paintings not necessarily museum-bound in strokes but are definitely superior than what you may normally see in mass production.

Compared with the often hilarious "stuck paint" on canvasses (they are like miniature hard balls of antique paint), the type of huge frames sold for a fortune in these roads, these new materials are an incredible leap to the unbeknown best.

These creators are cruel creatively in that, they never leave any natural entity unimproved. I have seen karitons, diplomas, bread carts and bakeries, gowns, generators, poetry on hankies, prayers, transcript of records, even eyebrows rendered in another shade of quirky, visually appetizing production. I wonder when they shall be doing electrical sockets next.

The designs are tremendous.

The uppermost photo in this entry is an abandoned theater at Evangelista Street in Quiapo that had been left unattended. It has a beautiful facade but was never refurbished. Whoever was heading the local government in the past ought to be cleansed from biases. I love this present President because he opened a lot of doors to artists and craftsmen in shaping our future as a Nation. If from the onset, these been given to the people who made the Rizal Park look what it is right now, we might be experiencing less traffic and more opulent visual bursts.

We are only realizing the extent of our nonchalant behavior, of accepting what is just passable when we may be worth, as tax-paying citizens of this country, (I am currently a bum which exempts me from doing my monetary share hence, this blog) more than this total display of mediocre works.

It can be done. Even a small bookstore can look like a million buck nook worth the side trip.

Walk and discover. Afterwhich, glide. Just glide.

HOW THIS FLAG SHOULD BE FLOWN: PRETTILY

By: Iris P. Concepcion

I first set foot in Luneta when I was on my third grade of primary schooling. Both my parents were robust and hale then. The wind swept our hair, all curly and proud, in a picture taken in front of the map of the Philippines which floated in water. I had a white flared pants on. We were clad in total 70's garb. My father had gabardine; I had polyester; my mother in affordable, silky textile.

This flag was still moved on its scale via a rope, a remnant of the past.

Today, you shall see this base of our identity carefully spread. It has a memorial-like theme to it (reminiscent of that Lincoln landmark). It is befitting as a proud symbol of our race. It is huge, big and worth bragging about. You could not miss the brains behind the improvement; it sticks to you like a gold imprint.

See below the pictures of how far the government can benefit from the multitude of artists who view our country in a totally different light. The ongoing art festival staged for the whole month of February shall showcase another montage of visual contrasts and comparisons. They are staged not out of spite. The play of rhymes and hues and lights shall make us more aware of the people who can contribute abundantly to the Philippine art coffers if we can only remove the "networking" mentality we are so used to in getting the jobs done.

In art, everything is connected. This is the only area where both the aetheist and a God-believer can see eye to eye without throwing daggers at each other.

The venue for Concert At The Park is promising in that it resembles the sunken garden of the University of The Philippines. When brushed up, it could provide a field where melodies can ring loudly but solemnly. We do not need the black, mossy things growing out of its benches. If you see how the hawk-eyed children can electrify this venue's stage, you can feel the promise of the future. Look at the colorful wallpaint they did in this area.

It pays to know that the real thing is better than the brochures this time around.