There was the music, of course, by Debussy and Berlioz and the art of Monet snd Picasso. But in college it was Albert Camus who incarnated Paris. Not Jean Paul Sartre, although I read his work on existentialism. Not Simone de Beauvoir either. It was Camus and his novels – The Stranger, the Plague – and his essays The Rebel and Art, Sedition and Death. I read about those intellectuals on the Left Bank. I went for the more accessible writings – Francoise Sagan and Antoine de St-Exupery and later on Roland Barthes. Michel Foucault and Jacques Derrida were too high above my comprehension. I had a copy of Sartre’s Being and Nothingness but I never went beyond the first chapter. The Little Prince is still my favorite book. I gave my rare copy of Peter Ustinov’s rendition on vinyl to my granddaughter Isabel on her wedding.
Continue reading “Paris: Through the Years”Month: August 2024
A(nother) Death in the Family
Just received the news that another friend from college has passed away. Ed Labitag was my classmate and fraternity brother. The list is getting longer. Jut a few months ago, it was Salvador “Buddy” Carlota, former dean of the college of law in the University of the Philippines and authority on administrative law. He was also a talented musician who played the piano and the guitar. Almost immediately afterwards, it was Josue “Sonny” Villa, the Philippine ambassador to China. Earlier another ambassador to China Jose Santiago “Chito” Sta Romana passed in Hainan Island: he was taken by Covid. Years back Frankie Llaguno, writer and colleague in the Banana Club like Buddy, died from a chronic disease.
Continue reading “A(nother) Death in the Family”Shamans, Babaylans and Kuranderas
The different healing modalities – meditation, qigong, nutrition/dietetics, massage, martial arts, feng-shui, astrology, sexology, acupuncture, herbalism, essential oils, alchemy – have their origins in shamanism.
Continue reading “Shamans, Babaylans and Kuranderas”Hiroshima
I am going to attend the commemoration of the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the Todabayashi Serenity Garden tonight at 6:30. It starts at the LEPOCO office at 53 E. Lehigh Street for the program and readings and then there’s a walk to the Garden.
Continue reading “Hiroshima”