Reconciling "fashionable" and "modesty"

Marc Jacobs, 2008

Google "dress" (under Google image search) and you get all sorts of dresses--prom dresses, summer dresses, casual dresses, formal dresses... mostly strapless or plunging or too short dresses. It always seems to mean "fashionable" (and the results get even more fashionable if you stick a popular clothing brand before the word "dress"). But google "modest dress" and there's suddenly something a bit less fashionable among the search results. And most of them have nuances of one religion or another.

It's so easy to dismiss any dress that is called "modest" as unfashionable or fit only for those old women who don't care for fashion anymore. (Must point out that many mature women are very fashionable, in fact more fashionable than women my age, so this previous statement is probably oozing with common bias. Forgive me.) But I really do think that a modest dress is not something one who doesn't care for what she wears will pick up.

Why? Because it's so much harder to find a modest, fashionable dress! Anyone can simply get herself a dress--but to get a dress that covers you well and makes you look elegant (drawing the eye to your pretty face!), well that's something more of a challenge isn't it?

Can anyone give tips on choosing better dresses? I have one: think elegant.

Fashionable is not always flattering--and honestly, following trends all the time? That gets tiring. It seems that modesty, especially when it comes to dresses, is quite non-conformist!

And who says nonconformity is not fashionable?

Rainy June day

It's June again! School again! Rain again! And what should little tots do to learn? Why, play of course! So for the month of June, Baby Magazine is focusing on play and toys that are really good for the kids. There's a special feature on Pinoy games, those simple but super-fun games we used to play in the school driveway or wherever. Kids today are not let out as much, some even don't want to go out because of the lure of computer and console games (especially now when some consoles promise you actually get to move around)--but if you encourage these old games to your little ones, who knows how much more fun they'll have?

There's also a feature on leptospirosis--that scary disease you get from wading in infected flood-waters! Not many people are aware that going out in the rain in inadequate gear can make one really sick...and not many people are aware that it isn't only flu that you can catch out there. So, buckle up those boots and give your kids some wellies and read about what else you can do to keep healthy during the rainy days.

I learned a lot from writing Catherine Lanzona's story--Catherine has five kids that she has been homeschooling for 4 years now. Her story is something to inspire parents who have been looking for a way to take their kids back from the prevalent and not necessarily wholesome culture of today.

Oh, and that very active cutie on the cover is little Jaden Chua Medina, who in the picture is comin' at photographer Kristin Alfafara Rodriguez of Little People Lifestyle Photography! Watch out, Kristin! Teehee! The photo was taken at Gymboree, Manila Polo Club. Baby magazine is published by Marathon Publishing Co. and is sold at all National Bookstores, Babyland (Robinsons Galleria, Shaw Blvd. near Cherry Foodarama, Shoppesville), Baby & Co. (The Podium and Power Plant Mall), Bufini, Procreation Shangri-la mall, Big & Small Co. Shangri-la Mall.

Superhero duties...and Teamwork

As promised, here are more lessons on doing household chores, which from the beginning I have put under that death defying label, the Superhero Duty. Look at that Avengers picture above. Obviously superheroes also value teamwork. I just wonder how they can work together without getting into each other's hair.

I've been doing this a while and I notice there's more than teamwork involved when putting the house in order. It's one thing to say we'll clean the house as a team, but it's a very different matter to assign chores. Why? People being people, we all tend to be a little touchy when someone orders us around. I know I do, sometimes.

Here's an example: on the first week of our housekeeper's vacation, I was so enthusiastic about the new duty of fixing the bed every morning. I would wake up and wait for my sister Isis to get up, and then I'd attack the covers and pillows with a flourish, to the point that I could fix the bed with 5 minutes left to spare in the cellphone alarm. It was all good until my sense of fairness started bothering me and soon I was pretty indignant about her not getting up as early as I would like. I thought, "Am I spoiling her?"

So I brought the matter up with a friend and she suggested that I could divide the work (but of course!). I told my sister the new plan and she was ok with it instantly--but I had to find out in the morning what it was truly like.

Every time I would remind her to do something, she comes at me with another. Mornings go this way:

"Your turn to fix the bed."
"Okay, but you do the dishes."
"Okay, but you feed the cat."
And so on.

Why do we do this? I don't really understand the need to assert the fact that something else had to be done by someone else because one's hand is already full with something herenoworelse.

Just this morning I was washing the dishes and I asked my sister to feed the cat. She comes up to me twenty minutes later saying she can't feed the cat because I didn't bring the food out. Apparently I was supposed to have done it for her. Ah, well.

Teamwork makes work easier but at the same time it causes some friction here and there. (So one must really stock up on patience!) And teamwork plus superhero duties? All I can think of now is: 'Now that's something to force you to grow!'

Superheroes, faster than the speeding bullet--

--or at least the cellphone alarm.

I've been taking over the superhero duties (in this case, chores) more nowadays. One factor is our housekeeper went on an indefinite leave. The other factor is the dawning of my own pathetic-ness and inactivity as a supposedly full-fledged member of this household. And throughout this time I've been learning to twist my schedule in various yoga-asanas just to get things done. I must say, these lessons I've been picking up from the most mundane of daily duties are so rich that I can't help sharing them; do forgive me.

First off, I must point out that I'm a working girl and I'm not always at home. But my job allows me to have those "work from home days," part of which I'm spending helping my mom get the house in order. The rule I made was: As long as you know you can finish what you have to write that day, the chore should be done without second thought.

Because time is very important when juggling work and, er, work, I had to borrow a trick given by the never-failing Sunnyday: time yourself with the cellphone alarm! This trick is pretty effective because it keeps me on my toes. If the tendency is to procrastinate, the alarm is usually that whip that cracks to say "get a move on!" Stressful? Not really, because eventually you realize how valuable your time is--isn't there just so many things to do all the time?

Making time is part of the ordinary day, and really, there is no excuse when one duty is left undone--it only means one needs to become better at organizing...

Oops! Time's up! More on superhero duties soon.

...and it was still hot

Does my entry title sound familiar? It should if you've been devouring picture books! It's the last line in Maurice Sendak's book Where the Wild Things Are. I love this book because the way it is told is so simple and yet it seems to mean more than those simple words...not to mention the way the images help tell the story and create a mood to get the story running! (In fact, there's a whole spread that has no words in it at all, but because of that you know instantly what "wild rumpus" means.)

The book introduces the child reader to Max, a little boy dressed in a wolf suit who makes mischief (running after the dog with a fork, talking back to his mother) and is sent to bed before supper. "Wild thing" is actually what Max's mom calls him because of his behavior. Go read the book if you haven't yet--no synopsis will do it justice!

Why I'm writing now about a book that has been around since 1963 is that there'll be a movie out this year! October 16! Woot! That link goes to the official movie site, where you'll see the trailer and some pictures. The movie looks Jim Henson-y awesome.

Where have the princesses gone?

The word "princess" has been used by media (to describe the Hollywood lifestyle?) and marketing giants (to sell!) so often that it's hard to think of it without that tiara-wearing, luxury-overloading, scepter-wielding, pony-riding and pink-overusing parody coming to mind. While there are admirable characteristics about Disney princesses (and even Barbie movie princesses), so much attention is put into emphasizing the prettiness of it all that the better side of the word is left to fester and fall away.

It's time to look for another image of a princess. And I have just the girl! She isn't blonde--she doesn't even think of herself as good-looking--she wears too-small clothing, she has lost all the riches she once had...and yet, she still offers an ear to her friends, makes up stories for lonely and cold nights, thinks about another child's hunger over her own, and meekly submits to the ways of the world while keeping her head high. Do you know who I'm talking about?

Illustration by Odelia Leaf

I finally read Frances Hodgeson Burnett's A Little Princess. You probably know what happened in that story, as it has been retold countless times... but I'd like to give a rehash: Sara Crewe, raised in India and sent to London to study, was a girl who had just about everything a girl ever wanted. Her father Ralph was rich man who liked to lavish her with gifts...she had the most beautiful (ridiculous, as Miss Minchin would say) wardrobe and everything a princess seemed entitled to. But one day, news about Ralph Crewe's death arrived, and along with it the vanishing of all Sara's fortune.

What I admire about Sara is fortitude and character--and what willpower that child had! I can't help sharing some Sara-isms with you! These are little lessons from a princess on how to be a real princess, or at least, someone strong, admirable and compassionate. Might be good to think about when the going gets tough!

On being a princess:
"Whatever comes cannot alter one thing. If I am a princess in rags and tatters, I can be a princess inside. It would be easy to be a princess if I were dressed in cloth of gold, but it is a great deal more of a triumph to be one all the time when no one knows it."

On giving:
"If nature has made you for a giver, your hands are born open, and so is your heart; and though there may be times when your hands are empty, your heart is always full, and you can give things out of that--warm things, kind things, sweet things--help and comfort and laughter--and sometimes gay, kind laughter is the best help of all."

On patience and fortitude:
"When you will not fly into a passion people know you are stronger than they are, because you are strong enough to hold in your rage, and they are not, and they say stupid things they wish they hadn't said afterward. There's nothing so strong as rage, except what makes you hold it in--that's stronger. It's a good thing not to answer your enemies."

On trials:
"Perhaps I have not really a good temper at all, but if you have everything you want and everyone is kind to you, how can you help but be good-tempered? Perhaps I'm a hideous child, and no one will ever know, just because I never have any trials."

On miracles:
"Somehow, something always happens just before things get to the very worst. It is as if Magic did it. If I could only just remember that always. The worse thing never quite comes."

Now I have someone new in my Awesome Fictional People list. ;-)

I second the motion!

Ang Sarsuwela ay isang dulang may kantahan at sayawan, na mayroong isa hanggang limang kabanata, at nagpapakita ng mga sitwasyon ng Pilipino na may kinalaman sa mga kwento ng pag-ibig at kontemporaryong isyu. Ito rin ay tinatawag na zarzuela, sarsuela, dulang inawitan, dulang hinonihan, drama-lirico at operetta. (WikiFilipino)

Found this article (below) by Amelia Lapena-Bonifacio in Inquirer's Lifestyle pages yesterday. I think Lola Amel's proposal that they make the Metropolitan Theater a Zarzuela Theater and Museum is a very good idea! This way, we can bring back the theater form for today's audiences. After all, wasn't the zarzuela festival in UP last February successful?

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Why not a Met Zarzuela Theater and Museum?
By Amelia Lapena-Bonifacio

MANILA, Philippines – As a follow-up to your news item on the rehabilitation of the Metropolitan Theater, I suggest that the Met be renamed the Metropolitan Zarzuela Theater and Museum. This would make the Met more unique and meaningful because it would honor a theater genre which was used by our forefathers in their struggle for independence—the only theater in the long history of dramatic art that used theater so cleverly and strategically in the fight for freedom of Asia’s first republic.

The first floor of the theater could be lined with glass cases that would exhibit manuscripts and musical sheets, books, letters, costumes, props, sets, etc. I am sure families keeping these items across the land would be only too happy to donate them (permanently or periodically) for the exhibit.

...

I hope my suggestion will be taken seriously so that our school children could be properly educated about a very important phase of our theater history and about theatrical events unique only to the Philippines. And as the Japanese and tourists go to the Noh Theatres and Kabuki theaters of Japan, Filipinos and tourists would go to the Metropolitan Zarzuela Theater and Museum in order to watch zarzuela and see the exhibits of zarzuela items and of, I hope, a surviving zarzuela telon or set.

For the money and labor still to be spent, we may as well work for a meaningful Metropolitan Theater—set apart from all existing theaters in the country and the whole world!

Read the whole article here.