A Chocoholic's Vexation (more variety please...)

I am a confessed chocoholic. 

Chocolates are among my favorite addictions, and my colleagues at work know I get weak in the knees and give in to their petty requests whenever they bribe me with a bar or two.

My regret?  If only we had the wealth of varieties other countries enjoy. Even if I do not tire of treating myself to a choco snack, I sometimes tire of the limited choices available here.

A recent trip to Hong Kong led me to a grocery where I was bound to grab some sweets to bring home to friends and family.  And here's what I found.

While in the Philippines Hershey's Kisses come in

our fave milk chocolate, milk chocolate with almonds, special dark chocolate, and cookies and cream, other markets like Hong Kong carry strawberry (pictured above).  In special pink foil, these Kisses are a refreshing surprise with their sweet fruity essence. Incidentally, in the U.S., Kisses also come filled with peanut butter, caramel, and chocolate truffle.  I must plan a trip soon...

Nestle Kitkat, on the other hand, has gone beyond the milk chocolate and white chocolate (oh, there was cappuccino variant once as a special offering) we have come to know.  In other markets, the famous crisp wafers have also been enrobed since 2004 in rich dark choco, choco-orange and choco-mint.  Mmmmm.  And what about my recent discovery?  Kitkat Vanilla Bean pictured here.  These are essentially wafers dipped in vanilla-infused white chocolate.  And you've got the vanilla caviar specs as evidence.

Ok, here's another. I am a major Meiji fan.  I think for its price, Meiji delivers outstanding quality.  I particularly delight in the creamy texture of its chocolate bars (especially its Dark variant), and the same is true for the Meiji Rich Matcha I came across.  Don't be distracted by the asparagus colored chocolate. Yes, it can be off-putting. Meiji Real Match is essentially white chocolate flavored with Japanese green tea. Think of it as Haagen Dazs green tea ice cream in a bar. Sure, maybe this variety isn't for everyone. But you see, I'm also a confessed matcha addict.

Imagine my enthusiasm when I found out that Swiss brand Lindt had become available in some supermarkets in the metro.  But do these stores carry such variants as the one pictured here?  You read it right.  Lindt Chilli is a 100g dark chocolate bar, rich and creamy, but with a distinct kind of heat that lingers on one's tongue and throat.  It carries none of the flavor of jalapeno or habanero, or any of the more popular varieties of pepper. But count on the Lindt Chilli to provide a subtle yet spicy hit that will stun you and make you ask, how did they do that?  Lovely.

It frightens me to think what my colleagues would bribe me with had all these chocolate treats been available to us in groceries and supermarkets.  But it bothers me more to wonder what other chocolate wonders are waiting for me out there but are for now are under my radar.  Pity me.

FREE International and Domestic Flights from Cebu Pacific. Book Now.

Dinner last night with advertising industry colleague and fellow BP member, Barok Gutierrez, has made we wonder when the best time would be to visit Ho Chi Min.  After all, Barok has been stationed there for seven months now (but is in town briefly), and I need a respite from my daily routine--so what the heck, I figured a trip to Vietnam soon would be ideal.

Ah, such luck.  Today I got wind of Cebu Pacific's latest promo: ZERO COMES BEFORE JUAN.  read on, and book now.  You have till Sunday...

CEB offers ZERO fares to all domestic and international destinations; More than half a million seats available 

Low-fare leader Cebu Pacific (CEB) is offering more than 500,000 domestic and international seats at zero fares.  The promotional seat sale will run from May 15 to 18, 2008 or until the allocated seats are sold out.  Travel period is from June 9 to December 31, 2008. 

  

CEB allocated more than 100,000 seats for its international routes that include:  Bangkok, Guangzhou, Hanoi, Ho Chi Minh, Hong Kong, Jakarta, Kaohsiung, Kota Kinabalu, Kuala Lumpur, Macau, Taipei, Shanghai, Singapore and Xiamen. More than 400,000 seats have been allocated for all of CEB’s domestic routes. 

  

Candice Iyog, CEB vice president for marketing and product, said, “This is our biggest seat sale, to date.  We are offering yet another first in Philippine aviation history by offering zero fares to international destinations as well.  This is to further stimulate domestic and international travel in spite of rising fuel costs.  We hope that the riding public will take advantage of this promotion.” 

  

The airfare is free.  Passengers will only pay for taxes, as well as fuel and insurance surcharges which are non-refundable.  Iyog explained, “The best way to book flights is via CEB’s website, www.cebupacificair.com.”   

The airline continues its expansion with the delivery of its 18th brand new Airbus aircraft last week, which brings its fleet to a total of 20 aircraft.  CEB also has a sub-fleet of 2 ATR 72 aircraft.   

  

Now in its 13th year, CEB operates flights to 21 domestic destinations.  Its international destinations will soon increase to 16 with the addition of Kaohsiung and Kota Kinabalu in the coming months. 

  

Alay Kay Fr. Honti Tonight

Dear friends,

DAKILANG PAGI-IBIG: ALAY KAY FR. HONTI is on tonight and tomorrow night at the Church of the Gesu, Ateneo de Manila, 7pm.  

Let's pay tribute to the man who has selflessly devoted himself to the service of God through music.  For many of us, it is because of or through him that we have found our own voices and have thus created for ourselves a life of prayerful song.  Performing will be the Pansol Choir, Canto Cinco, Tinig Barangka, Himig Heswita, Barangka Choir, Tanong Choir, Bukas Palad, Hangad, Hontiveros Family, Musica Chiesa, and the UP Filipiniana Dance Group.

We hope to see you there.  Admission is free.

Alay Kay Fr. Honti Tonight

Dear friends,

DAKILANG PAGI-IBIG: ALAY KAY FR. HONTI is on tonight and tomorrow night at the Church of the Gesu, Ateneo de Manila, 7pm.  

Let's pay tribute to the man who has selflessly devoted himself to the service of God through music.  For many of us, it is because of or through him that we have found our own voices and have thus created for ourselves a life of prayerful song.

We hope to see you there.  Admission is free.

A Promise Is A Promise

About this time last year, I had dinner with friends Anna, Rica, Gino, Palan, Lui, She and Lou at Galileo Enoteca in Mandaluyong. And somewhere between our cheese platters at the start of the meal and our limoncellos at the end of it, Rica managed to coerce Palan, Lou and me (as they had just celebrated their birthdays and I was celebrating mine) to draft a list of things-to-accomplish by our next anniversaries.

I no longer remember who dared me to finish three paintings apart from the other items on my list, which included completing BP's double CD and maintaining my blood pressure.

At that time, I boldly accepted the challenge, only because two years back, I had completed nine pieces in collaboration with my sister Monique, who was staging an exhibit of her ceramic work in Makati. How could I forget that what I had painted were mere backdrops for my sister's carefully shaped pieces of clay that were mounted on my canvases?

True to character, the last task I performed was the one I had dreaded the most. And why not? I had never completed on my own a painting on canvas (I have several abandoned pieces), primarily because I'm a pencil and pastel kind of guy.

But what the heck. Here are the three pieces (and Icar has been pressuring me to upload them). Products of just some nights' work during the last 2 weeks, but an interesting learning process for me.


This one is based on a photo I took of my niece Daphne last Christmas. She sat behind a table while defocused in the foreground was an empty goblet covering half her face and picking up some of the Christmas pin lights. I thought it was an interesting picture, but transferring the image onto canvas made me realize I do not like painting transparent things. Oh, and I dislike how quickly acrylic dries up. Maybe if I had taken up painting classes, I would not have to learn this the hard way. Maybe I should shift to oil.



In first year high school, our art teacher Lita Perez instructed us to take off our shoes and assemble them on our group work tables. We then painted some still life with poster color on cartolina while bearing the faint stench. Though I did poorly in that activity (heck, some of those around the same work table are now accomplished artists), I began to appreciate the beauty of crumpled leather, and have since been photographing and sketching shoes. These boots, I simply plopped onto my office table, so what you see is what I see every day from my desk (the couch, stuff on the ledge, and vertical blinds--sans the shoes, of course). So, ok, this was a pleasant painting exercise. I should begin to add insight to my paintings. This one is craving to know, But why? and So what?


.
So I cheated. This painting of She I started as a belated birthday gift to Lou last January. But I quit because the work was getting schizo on me--the style is so confused. I tucked the work into a closet and revisited it a year later, noting I had barely 2 days before my deadline to accomplish what I had promised to do within the year. After lots of retouching last night and fresh from the easel thus, this painting is in search of style. I admit, I have to work on that badly. Nonetheless, happy birthday, Lou! You'll have something to look at while She is in U.K.

Mission accomplished. Not bad I guess. I've been surrounded by too many artists, so I learn via osmosis. In my family, all the kids have a natural art sense. Though only Eileen has been schooled at it (it was she who shoved them oil pastels into my hand when I was six) we all can draw (do we not remember those afternoon sessions drawing from Connie Gordon's ancient art books?). And the artists among my friends? Too many to mention.

My next fear? We'll be gathering the troops for dinner again this Friday, and who knows what I will be challenged to do now. As for me, I'm just trying to get my hands on whatever I can accomplish in a lifetime. Maybe there's an alternative career there somewhere waiting for me when I do get to retire. Painting may be an option. Oh, but that will be so many birthdays away from tomorrow when I turn 42.

The Christ Child

To this day, 20 years after we recorded the song, people still ask me about the composer of Bukas Palad's THE CHRIST CHILD. Is Marlene del Rosario a BP member? Where is she now? Does she still write music?

Daughter of Roberto del Rosario, who has been credited for inventing the karaoke, Marlene and I (with Mano and Jandi) were batchmates at the Ateneo College. As early as our freshman year, we quickly discovered each other's passion for music, and had helped each other compile our demos of songs. She then went professional, joining several bands, and in our junior year, had pulled me in to be the second keyboardist of her then current group, Collage with musical director Caesar Aguas (Jun Fernandez, whom I had then replaced was moving on to join Blackbird with Richard Merck).

It was around that time, when Marlene crafted THE CHRIST CHILD, a Christmas song she had written for competition at the Ateneo (she has joined many competitions, once even representing the Philippines and winning second in an international songwriting contest for children). But the contest never materialized due to the political situation during those years. I thus boldly asked her if we could use her song in Bukas Palad's upcoming Christmas album.

No, Marlene was never a Bukas Palad member though in our senior year, she had joined the Ateneo Student Catholic Action from which many BP members emerged. As such, she knew and sang all the BP songs of that era.

Though a graduate of Management Engineering, Marlene now resides in the U.S. as a professional jazz singer with her own band, the Marlene Jazz Trio. Many, many miles away, from here, Marlene probably knows little about how her song THE CHRIST CHILD has moved listeners of BP's music. Besides, the song has been written so many years ago...

Here to relfect on how the song moves her is another fellow former member of the Ateneo Student Catholic Action and recently UP ICW and Madrigal-Gonzalez Best First Book Awardee, Rica Bolipata Santos.


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THE CHRIST CHILD
Rica Bolipata Santos

I think that the Christmas story is a fantastic story.

From the point of view of a storyteller, this one has all the elements needed to achieve what all good stories should achieve – the achievement of wonder and surprise. It begins with certainty: So many years ago, a Child was born. He was unlike any child ever known. He lay in a manger, not a crib made of gold. And the royal nursery was a stable of old.

Christ’s birth has a set of the most interesting characters. There is Joseph whose wife was found pregnant before he could marry her. There is Mary, whose strong faith makes it easy (or hard) for her to follow God’s command. There is Herod, afraid for his throne and desperate to keep it. There are the Wise Men who add the pomp and circumstance necessary for any story of worth. There are the pure-hearted shepherds, bleary-eyed and sleepy on this starry night. But my favorite character even as a child was the Innkeeper. It is his generosity that gets this story going. Every character has a strength only he or she has; and every character has a flaw that becomes divine by the presence of Christ.

The Christ Child is one of my favorite songs because it is a song that musically transposes all these wonderful incongruities in the story. The dialogue that exists between narrator and wailer (for lack of a better word) is a perfect metaphor for the central irony in this story: a King is born in a manger. Though He didn’t have to be poor. A king such as he could have had so much more. And have all the wealth and rule all the earth. He was instead, born a Carpenter’s Son.

The wailer is not just for embellishment. He is there to remind us of the human hunger for a spiritual life. He is there to remind us that our yearnings are heard by a greater Being. He is there to remind us that our emptiness is loud and can be heard by our Savior.

There is also a reason why the song begins with one singer, and then is answered by another singer and ends with the entire choir singing the song: But thousands of years after that. They learned to adore the most eminent fact: that He was with us; that He lived for us.

The first singer acts as storyteller, and the second singer acts as witness and testifies to the truth of the story. In the end, it is the human race that embraces the irony of the quiet event that continues to resonate in history.

Pasko Ng Paglaya

It was on a Saturday, in a classroom at Gonzaga Hall, that I received a brown envelope from Fr. Mano, then a novice at the Sacred Heart Novitiate. I must have been in third year college then, and it must have been during my Business Communications class that I peeled off the scotch tape that had sealed the parcel.

Not to my surprise (as Mano would send me stuff on occasion), the envelope contained music sheets of a newly-composed Christmas song. What intrigued me more, in fact, were the song's title--PASKO NG PAGLAYA, the apparent theme of the lyrics, and the nationalistic melody that began to play in my head as I skimmed through the hand-written notes. By the end of my 3-hour class, I was halfway through arranging the vocals.

Eric Barro, one of the original Bukas Palad members, was among the first to hear the music and play it on his guitar. I have invited him to collect his thoughts on PASKO NG PAGLAYA and to share them with you.

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PASKO NG PAGLAYA
Eric Barro

Norman asked me to write a reflection on either Pasko ng Paglaya or Himig ng Hangin for his blog. Save for the memory of Norman and Manoling’s first attempt to do vocal arrangement when we were 4th year HS and one ATSCA member trying the tenor voice when he, in fact, was bass, there was no significant memory for Himig ng Hangin that I could write about.

Pasko ng Paglaya it is then.

I was part of the first batch of BP and was involved in the recording of the first two albums and four songs, if my memory serves me right, of the 3rd album. I was the only member of the first batch that knew the songs way back in high school.

Footnote 1:
People may disagree but when BP started, I had always thought and felt that I was the “fourth man” (nothing significant about this title…alalay baga!) behind the geniuses of Mano, Jandi and Norman. I came into the picture the summer before 3rd year high school…really an outsider…classroom at the farthest end (whereas theirs were beside each other)…different interests and sets of friends…varied lifestyle.

By the time the school year started, I started hanging out with them. That was the first time that I was intimately introduced to their music. Never realized that chords could be that sophisticated…the progression…the use of bass (e.g. D/C)…even guitar-strumming style! The songs were distinct: contemporary, sophisticated, pop and easy to sing (though not necessarily easy to play).

As the “fourth man”, my main role was just to wonder in awe at how Mano, Jandi and Norman could do it, with the hope that soon, it would rub off on me. Sadly, it did not!

Before we launched the Pasko Na! Album, ATSCA was already singing most of the songs during our caroling. It was during this period that I had first heard of Pasko ng Paglaya.

Footnote 2:
It was just a matter of time before Manoling would write a song (both lyrics and melody) that had a nationalistic flavor. The political situation then had influenced our minds and actions and we were in the forefront of Ateneo’s student activism: Jandi was to become President of ACLC. Norman and I were ATSCA presidents one after the other. Manoling founded and was President of Lingap Bilanggo. And we shared one room.

But I was not really thrilled about singing Pasko ng Paglaya. The first two stanzas had no vocal arrangement; the refrain was too short to showcase the vocal calisthenics Norman was known to provide in his arrangements. But most importantly, on a personal level, BP was actually my “break”, so to speak, from all my student activism undertakings. It was clear to me, even back then, where to draw the line between my convictions and passions. My convictions brought me to the streets, to the squatters’ area, to the laborers. I sang Patatag songs, Petty Burgis, Karapatan ng Tao with the basic sectors. On the other hand, I was passionate about the type of songs BP had been known for--the cover versions that we did of Manhattan Transfer, Al Jarreau, Hotdog, during campus concerts.

I thought then that singing nationalistic songs was crossing over that line.

I did not expect the album launching of Pasko Na! to be jam-packed. The venue was bigger (LHS chapel; the first album launch was in Dulaang Sibol) and it was held in the evening. The songs were not as familiar as the ones in the first album, at least to the college community. And we were going to sing Pasko ng Paglaya!

Footnote 3:
Compared to our debut album launch, Pasko Na! launch involved more people; even those who were not part of the recording. We had better costumes, I think. Opening song was Emmanuel, which Norman re-arranged in order to have that “live and bombastic” feel. And I had the task of emceeing alone, without Risa Hontiveros (now congresswoman) whom I thought was a perfect partner, she being a complete foil of my personality.

It was a light and entertaining evening. I even thought I had a new career as a stand-up comic. Then we sang Pasko ng Paglaya.

It was stunning. The audience was completely silent. Our unison voice for the first two verses was simplicity at its best. The refrain provided just the right vocal blend to convey the message of the song. And the oooh-ing at the end was perfect. The song penetrated the hearts of the audience. It was one of the most applauded songs in the evening. For me, it was the most earnest.

I listened again to the song when I agreed to write this piece of reflection. That same day, Trillanes and Lim marched to Manila Peninsula. Friends sent opposing text messages: support the plotters…no to coup. Others offered their houses as refuge, just in case.

The present political landscape makes me wish that the message of Pasko ng Paglaya still reverberates and is still relevant, in either side of political fence one belongs to. It is in these times that I go back to that particular evening, hoping to penetrate again the hearts of people.

Footnote 4:
I still prefer BP’s jazzy and soulful songs though than those traditional and nationalistic sounding-hymns. I have now become the nth person: no communication with Jandi and Manoling the past 5 years and very sparse contacts with Norman. Their musical ingenuity was apparently non-transferable! And I did not become a stand-up comic.

But now, it is not a question of crossing the line…because there is no line! Music, regardless of passion and conviction, naturally crosses over and it is how one learns from the melody and lyrics that actually matters.