Papet ASEAN!

It's a busy time for puppeteers now that February is coming up. On February 24-26, puppeteers from different ASEAN countries (such as Indonesia, Malaysia, Singapore and the Philippines) come together at the Abelardo Hall Auditorium (College of Music, UP Diliman) to showcase their different puppetry forms and techniques to help create appreciation and awareness among the younger generations.

At a time when television and the Internet rank high as main forms of entertainment for kids, the puppets of Papet ASEAN 2010 provide a different (and if I may stay so, creativity-enhancing) take on what entertains kids--and at the same time educates them. Join the Seminar on Puppetry-in-Education at the Claro M. Recto Hall, Bulwagang Rizal (Faculty Center), UP Diliman, at 4pm on Feb 25.

Here's the news snippet on the puppet fest:

“PAPET ASEAN 2010: Celebrating ASEAN Puppet Traditions” is a 3-day celebration of artistry, solidarity, and life as distinguished puppet artists and experts/scholars meet, perform and discuss the rich tradition of puppetry in the ASEAN.

Puppets come alive on Feb. 24 (Festival Opening) and Feb. 25-26 (10 am & 2:30 pm shows @ the Abelardo Hall Auditorium). The festival will feature Mascots and Puppets Specialists (Singapore), Pak Yusoff Mamat (Malaysia), 2 Indonesian dalangs, Anino Shadowplay Collective (Philippines), Ony Carcamo (Philippines), Roppets Edutainment (Philippines), and Teatrong Mulat ng Pilipinas (Philippines). A seminar on puppetry-in-education is scheduled on Feb. 25.

PAPET ASEAN 2010 coincides with the celebration of the National Arts Month, the U.P. Diliman Month and the U.P. Department of Speech Communication and Theater Arts 50^th Anniversary.

Festival Organizer Samahan ng mga Papetir ng Pilipinas acknowledges the invaluable support of the ASEAN Foundation, ASEAN Puppetry Association, National Commission for Culture and the Arts, UNESCO, the Quezon City Government, PAGCOR, Theater Lighting Technology, Royal Embassy of Cambodia, Embassy of the Republic of Indonesia, Embassy of the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and the University of the Philippines (Office of the President, Office of the Chancellor, Office for Initiatives in Culture and Arts, College of Arts & Letters, and the College of Music Department of Musicology).

Mark your calendar for Papet ASEAN 2010—February 24-26, 2010--and get ready for this magical puppetry event!

For inquiries, call/text 0918.9032040, 439.1471 or email papetir@gmail.com.

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Schedule of shows!

Feb 25/Thurs

10am and 2:30pm

Wayang golek dalang (Indonesia), Pak Yusoff Mamat (wayang kulit, Malaysia), Anino Shadowplay Collective (shadow puppetry, Philippines)

Feb 26/Fri

10am and 2:30pm

Wayang kulit dalang (Indonesia), Roppets Edutainment (table puppetry and muppets, Philippines), Mascots and Puppets Specialists (marionettes, Singapore)

Feb 26
Festival closing (after 2:30pm show)

Tickets (P200) are available at the Department of Speech Communication & Theater Arts, FC3069, Bulwagang Rizal, College of Arts & Letters, and Ticket Net)

March for Life - JAN 22

Statement of Solidarity with the January 22 March for Life

We, concerned Filipinos from all walks of life, who uphold, respect and protect the dignity and quality of human life from natural conception (fertilization) to natural death, and the natural institutions of marriage and the family, hereby express our solidarity with the people participating in the January 22, 2010 March for Life in Washington, D.C., USA.

DIANA UICHANCO
MANNY AMADOR
MIKE GOMEZ
MIKE MAPA
NICOLE BAUTISTA
BEN SANTILLAN
MON CABRERA
WILLY JOSE

* The March for Life is an annual peaceful protest held on January 22 to mark the 1973 Roe v. Wade US Supreme Court decision that decriminalized abortion. The first March for Life in 1974 had about 20,000 participating; in recent years, the event has drawn together an average of 200,000. It is held in Washington D.C., but in the last several years people from different parts of the US have been holding their own satellite activities to bring awareness to the repercussions of the infamous 1973 decision, and to reiterate the dignity of human life in all stages, from womb to tomb.

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Some students from the University of Asia and the Pacific had a tarp made of the Statement of Solidarity and displayed it for people to sign. In this picture, UAP faculty Abby De Leon signs up in support of the Pro-Life cause! (Photo courtesy of Mike Gomez.)

If you want to sign up too, just leave a comment here and I'll edit the entry to add your name. You can also post the statement in your FB, blog, Multiply, etc., and add your name to the list. :D

Happiness!

Need a laugh? In putting this issue together, I learned that describing what happens to the body when we laugh is very hard to put to words! Is it because laughing is so natural that no one bothers to think about the how-to-go-about-it?

Topics featured--such as laughter (and how it heals stress), endorphins and health, babies and giggle-inducing tickling, money's non-relation to happiness, positive thinking in pregnancy (plus perks!), and what really makes kids happy--show exactly how Baby Magazine covers happiness from ear to ear! It's important to start the year with a smile, don't you think? And, with optimism hinged in the right place, this smile should last all year long.

The cover taken by Karen Ilagan captures the laughter of Mommy Reena and Baby Caleb, winners of J&J Look Alike, Skin Alike contest. Baby magazine is published by Marathon Publishing Co. and is sold at all National Bookstores, SM baby department stores, Babyland (Robinsons Galleria, Shaw Blvd. near Cherry Foodarama), Baby & Co. (The Podium and Power Plant Mall), Bufini, Procreation Shangri-la mall, Big & Small Co. Shangri-la Mall.

How to be noticed in church

So, you want to be noticed. In church. No matter the motives, the methods are the same. Here is a list of Pinoy churchgoing practices that are bound to help heads turn your way. I gather these from three years' experience of attending mass in a chapel beside a mall (i.e., where the experts attend mass). I assure you that those heads would not be smiling, but as long as they don't breathe a word to you, you can go on turning heads this way. Ready?

1. Getting noticed starts with the clothes. Pick out your rattiest pair of pants. Or do like the party girls do, wear short shorts, spaghetti straps and bling. Keep your cool hat on. Or wear slippers. If you're a guy, wear a sando or beach shorts. Tropical!

2. Even if there is somebody at home to watch him, bring your wailing baby. Or bring a restless tot and tell him that "Bro" is on the cross, but He'll come down and snatch him if he misbehaves. Make your voice loud as you say this so other people will be impressed by your wit.

3. If you don't have a baby or a toddler, bring your living breathing barking animal. Tie its fur in pink ribbons and give it a shirt to wear to make it look more like a person. Nobody will be able to tell the difference.

4. If you have neither kid nor dog, you can bring a big bag and treat it like a person. Save it a seat and leave that old person standing on the side without a seat. Who could bear seeing a genuine LV on the floor? Sacrilege!

5. Act bored. Rest both arms on the back of the seat, cross your legs, step on the cushion for kneeling, preferably after you stepped on wet grass. Slouch and make faces at your brother. And when your mother tells you to quit it, pout until the end of the mass.

6. Talk to your companion when the priest is talking. Shut your mouth when people are responding. Repeat 70 x 7 times.

Good luck being noticed! I hope the people at your church become more vocal about correcting bad conduct.

Book-loving, and -keeping

Been reading A Passion for Books, edited by Harold Rabinowitz and Rob Kaplan. It is a book about "collecting, reading, borrowing, lending, caring for, and appreciating books." I am not a book collector, in the sense that A.S.W. Rosenbach was a book collector, but I do have quite a hoard, which has been quietly encroaching my parents' shelves too (partly because my dad likes reading my books after--or even before--I've read them...in fact he even picks up some of the books I borrow from friends--while I'm reading them).

I am really amused with some anecdotes about writers (like the one about Margaret Mitchell getting so overwhelmed about her book being chosen as Book of the Month that she kept it to herself for three days, and the one about Wordsworth tearing open the pages of a new book using a butter-y butter knife) because in these little glimpses you really get to picture them as real people, and not as the big names behind some famous book. But I want to delve into caring for books in this post.

I live in the top floor of a building, and up there, when it rains, the walls sweat. When we moved in, we converted all of the nooks in the rooms into bookshelves by putting some glass in them, and they're pretty sturdy and accessible. Problem was we didn't know that bit about the walls, so when the rainy season came, we learned the hard way that those easy-access shelves were death-traps for books. It was a good thing that the books that were sticking to the walls were wrapped in plastic so we could just wipe the mold away and save them.

I've at least three rainy seasons in that flat under my belt, and I've found a good way to use the shelves without leaving much damage to the books. Instead of the usual way of putting books side by side, I just stack them up one on top of the other. This way, no book needs to touch the traitorous walls. It's just harder to pick out a book that is in the bottom, but that's a small price to pay if it means the books will never get wet.

Here are a few mental notes I've made about keeping books.
1. Shelves should be reachable; too-high shelves discourage browsing and rediscovering old favorites. I failed to mention that, besides the nooks that we converted to mini bookshelves, my dad had the carpenter build a long ledge for books one foot below the ceiling. I cannot reach any of the books up there and it constantly frustrates me. Besides, it's harder to dust!
2. Keep away books from harsh light. I have a booklet that I keep by my bedside. I wondered every day why the face got lighter and lighter as time went by. Then I remembered that I kept it on the window ledge, unprotected by the curtain.
3. Regular cleaning keeps books happy! If you don't regularly dust the books (or shift them around, rearrange them), they could turn brown faster, gather dust and form cobwebs (A-choo!). In the words of one of my friends: "they age."
4. Reading while eating? Proceed with caution when it comes to snacking. I sometimes read at the dining table because there is no other decent place where I can sit and have a sturdy table to put a glass of water on. (And reading on the bed makes me sleepy.) But because it's a dining table I tend to snack. There are neat foods and there are messy ones, so I guess anyone will be able to distinguish them and exercise proper caution. Mealtimes, though, should be spent with spoon and fork on the right and left hands respectively.

"I have sometimes heard of an Iliad in a nutshell; but it hath been my fortune to have much oftener seen a nutshell in an Iliad." -Jonathan Swift

Time for some resolutions that stick!

I'm not a big fan of New Year's Resolutions because they're like fireworks. They make a big loud show, then sputter, die, and leave you with ashes, which is bad for the environment. How many times have New Year's Resolutions been broken and then not taken up again until the year turned? Honestly, January 1 comes around too few times to be able to actually help anyone be a better person. So why do people bother with resolutions?

What is easily forgotten is that the word resolutions is not inseparable from the two words that usually precede it. Remove "New Year's" and you still get its full meaning--it still poses the same big challenge, that is, to make better people out of us.

If anything, resolutions should be quiet (just keep it to yourself or share it with someone whom you think can really help you make it and keep it), not so grand (maybe one or two solid things...three or more would be too ambitious for a person to achieve--besides, you can always add to it later when you think you've mastered some), and constant (you don't stop being on your guard...ever).

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Work started yesterday and I'm under a heap of things to do. So this is just a quick post, but I hope it is helpful and makes sense. The end.

Happy New Year!