proper names for inanimate objects

thus it is with utmost respect that we christen our punching bag “aviance”, a deferential remembrance of that one night in new york where the horrors of ignorance and the strength of hope were demonstrated in a dark alley. this bag stands for the will-power and the resilience of kevin aviance.

rummaging through old fitness stuff in the garage and the attic, we found some few grappling gloves, hand wraps, punch mitts, stopwatch and a really heavy punching bag. we suspended the bag with some old chain and sturdy rope on the beams.

for some odd reason, the punching bag is of leopard print and houndstooth pattern.

ado: who makes punching bags with jaguar print?
me: i think the more accepted term for it is leopard print.
ado: yeah, yeah, it’s the same animal.
me: no. they’re the same genus, but not the same animal.
ado: whatever, you know what i mean. but who makes it with leopard print and checkered like a picnic mat?
me: i think you are referring to gingham checks. that’s not it. this is houndstooth.
ado: who cares what it’s called? no punching bag is made of these things.

paulie: it’s the sexiest punching bag i have ever seen. like a drag queen.
me: we should name it.
ado: what?
me: it’s like a drag queen and it is punched…
ado: don’t name it…
me: how about that dance artist female impersonator who was a victim of a hate crime in new york?
ado: wouldn’t that be taken the wrong way?
me: it’s a way to commemorate that important event… we love this punching bag, don’t we?
ado: dad said we can change the material.
me: don’t you dare.

from wikipedia: On June 10, 2006 while exiting the Phoenix, a popular gay bar located in the East Village section of Manhattan, Aviance was robbed and beaten by a group of men who yelled anti-gay slurs at him. Four suspects were arrested under New York’s hate-crime law, but reports say up to seven men were involved in the attack. Despite suffering a broken jaw, he insisted on appearing in the city’s gay pride parade later that month.

i first saw kevin aviance in the tyra banks show, where he spoke about his harrowing experience. if my memory serves me right, the wikipedia entry doesn’t give justice to the actual events (i mean, you can’t expect much from wikipedia, no matter how dependent we are to it) as narrated by kevin. he was beaten to a pulp and left for dead on the street. he had to muster what little strength he had left to find help and medical attention. there are so many hate crime stories i have seen and heard on tv, but kevin’s particular ordeal somehow stuck with me the most.

anyway…

we love this bag a lot. it is used for both fitness and unleashing blind fury. sometimes, the guys come home inebriated and whack the thing with as much skill as an octopus on land. once, one of them failed to land a punch squarely and fell rolling on the grass beneath the step.

on most days, we just have some fun around it, time ourselves and see who lands the most jabs and punches in three minutes. paulie drops by every once in a while and he gets to join.

anna tried to learn how to use the punch mitts.

you can’t mess with anna. she barefists the bag.

we started boxing daily for about a month then got kind of slack during the holidays. i think it’s time to go back to doing it regularly. that is my new year’s resolution. which means that won’t happen.

playing tourists on christmas evening

ado and i decided to just pop into a resort last christmas and go around as if we were tourists. we might as well have been, ado himself hardly recognized the place since a big part of the sheraton’s lobby and pool area was remodeled.

tourists abound, as you might expect during the holiday season, and it wasn’t too hard to blend into the throng of foreigners.

we made it to a live show of fiji history, though i hardly listened to the narrative as i flit from spot to spot for a better view. i could tell it was extremely interesting when i caught enough key words like “cannibals” and “tribe wars”. i should get around to dropping by again and watching it properly.

the actors would occasionally walk straight into the audience (standing on the edge of the lobby going into the pool area) and wave the torch at our faces which elicited yells of fright and amusement combined.

then there’s the fire dancing. nothing like seeing the real south pacific do it.

he even put the torch baton ends right on his feet…

…another twirled two flaming batons at the same time…

…and performed blindfolded.

when the “chief” called on the performers and the guests to “feel free to take photographs”, cameras just clicked and buzzed away like nobody’s business.

especially the ladies…

…including me, of course.

hope everyone had a wonderful christmas!

christmas program at the village

i joined the sabeto (pron. sambeto) pre-school program as an audience member to support dani’s little grandson, eddie (full name etuate, the fijian derivative of edward).

i finally saw just how the much-talked-about fiji time works when we got to the village less than 15 minutes prior to the performance and there isn’t a single soul nor signs of preparation to mean anything near a pre-school program. well, for the record, it started about an hour and a half after sked. and i thought filipino time was infamous. that’s extremely laid back culture for you.

we got to dani’s house and found our boy of the hour still rolling on the ground. literally. with a younger playmate who seem to be enjoying the frolicking and the chasing each other around the yard like a little puppy dog.

folks had to collect eddie’s meke (traditional fiji dance) costume and props from the neighbors and thread his lei of frangipanis, not to mention industriously coerce him to take a very unwilling, very long-winded shower as showers are wont to be with four-year-olds, before we finally made our way into the town hall.

it was almost full to the edges when we got there, we had to crane our necks to find a good spot for sitting. sitting, of course, means on the mat down on the floor. no chairs, not even for the elderly, so arthritis and rheumatism are not welcome ailments for anyone who finds himself invited to these special events.

the town chief was giving a speech in nadi dialect as we left our footwear into a corner and weaved our way into the crowd so we had to try and be as discreet as humanly possible, given the circumstances involving care and consideration not only for toes but fingers unwarily pressed on the mats in the way of our feet. the school principal took his turn to speak after that then sevusevu was performed.

in a matter of minutes, the curtains were installed and the program commenced with children’s songs and christmas carols.

at the end of the first segment, the children were led almost forcibly (like all pre-school program segments end) out the door for them to eventually reappear among the audience, each making his way towards his respective parent to change him into the meke costume and to thrust the spear and shield into his hands.

at around this time, some of the guys still refilling and drinking grog (yes, grog was continuously downed throughout this children’s program) offered me a bilo (coconut shell used for grog) as was customary to guests.

i think it would also be best to point out now that aside from grog, smoking was permitted during the children’s program.

all of sudden, eddie’s littler cousin started bawling his eyes out without warning. which promted eddie himself to look around for a perp and found what it was with a shock. then both of them cried uncontrollably in unison.

that’s because the object of their terror had entered the premises and posted himself on a chair next to the gifts, flanking the table with another villager dressed in a santa outfit, swathed in semi-darkness and motionless but for his eyes that dart around the audience. of course i know he’s a man dressed in a clown outfit. i guess it doesn’t matter whether you are in the north, east, west or south pacific, clowns are as universal a horror as ghosts in chains.

as a result, eddie refused to join the meke with the other boys because that meant going back up front, closer to his horror clown. so much for the costume and the props.

anyway, it’s christmas eve today. we’re busying ourselves with preparing noche buena. you can take me out of the philippines, but you can’t take the philippines out of me. especially not during christmas. we’re having some of our pinoy friends over and there will be pansit and leche flan and potato salad and hamoooooooon de bola with the pineapple slices and syrup!

have a merry merry christmas and a wild and wacky new year!

cyclone mike and power outage

haven’t had power since monday this week. so it’s five days and counting without appliances. well, aside from the occasional t.v. and lamp at night, thanks to a small generator.

we had to drive to town to check our emails.

curse you, cyclone mike!

what rain?

kindly hand me the newspaper. i want to read the news here in the patio.

when was the last time you were chased around the wet grass?

or played wheelbarrow in the puddles?

or spun uncontrollably with your legs (or arms!) swinging freely above the ground in a display of centripetal force?

rain and not caring combined makes the most exhilarating experience in the world.

everything but the cat

And I am finishing this outside, looking at the moon, yellow and huge above the trees, and thinking how good it is to have life, love, work.
And cats and a garden.

jeanette winterson wrote in her july column. a very fitting conclusion to an essay largely involving defeat and feelings of deep hopelessness. a little of which i’ve been going through myself, feeling mostly different and listless and trying to be aloof because i can’t be anything otherwise. it’s somewhere in that limbo above absolute depression and beneath a gnawing homesickness. it’s just some sort of sad. it’s missing babyn and missing opportunities added to missing native cooking as i knew it.

the moon was full the other night. we took some minutes to stand on the boardwalk terrace to gaze at it beyond the trees and strange moving shadows. for a minute i thought of collapsing on the grass. then i remembered i don’t like frogs.

then i realized i have everything winterson is thankful for. everything except the cats.

these dogs can all stay outside a fence that i intend to put up myself. i’m going to have cats.

coronation night feels like the time sacramento kings lost to l.a. lakers in the western conference finals

…or like the time blake lewis lost to jordin sparks in a.i.

all photos lifted from fijitimes unless otherwise specified.

miss fiji, merewalesi nailatikau wins miss south pacific 2009

in summary: she deserves the crown for how she answered the last question. but i think other contestants deserve the special awards.

when they were reduced to five finalists, grand slam pageant style, scores were erased and judging for honors was based solely on answers to the last questions. yes, i mean to pluralize that. because unlike other international pageants, they still had to fish for a “surprise” topic from a pool instead of the typical one final question where as one contestant attempts to answer, the others are either in a soundproof isolation booth or wearing noise-reduction headphones with elevator music playing. a dip in many topics for your question i think is a little skewed. how can you compare the answer to, say, “if you win this title, how can you help the youth in their battle against drugs?” to “how can society promote corporate social responsibility?” one question will naturally be more difficult than others and the competition vastly increases the element of luck.

not that i think a one-final-question format would have dramatically altered the outcome. because despite my above ideas, miss fiji still makes a runaway winner; she, after all, delivers the paradoxical “prepared impromptu speech” leagues better than the others. but even with this glaring reality, i was still hoping that my favorite girl miss cook islands, who happens to be articulate herself, throws us a curveball and snags the crown. in other words, like the l.a. lakers some western conference finals ago, i expected miss fiji to win over miss cook islands’ sacramento kings, but up to the last minute, i was crossing my fingers for an upset.

my favorite miss cook islands, engara gosselin bags first runner-up.

what really pops my snare though is miss fiji also winning the special awards for best talent and best traditional costume (my complete thoughts in this entry). there might be other criteria we are unaware of that upend my shamelessly frank opinions or the judges just might have preferential views that are strange to me, but i still can’t quite put a finger on how a “talent” as puerile as declamation randomly coupled with an amateur dance routine beat an obviously classically trained, well-choreographed performance. or how a drag-and-drop costume design whose cut and workmanship is as common as a budget outlet wedding gown beat a conceptualized, well-planned production of a dress. it’s like charlene gonzalez winning best national costume during the philippines-hosted miss universe when, upon ambush interview, the other contestants didn’t even attempt to conceal their aversion of the results.

i hope miss aotearoa somehow reads this so she finds out how ado and i were extremely impressed by her talent! i hope miss samoa somehow reads this so she finds out how my father-in-law’s and my jaws dropped at the sight of her dress!

miss aotearoa (new zealand), paretaunu randal's dance was in a class of its own. miss samoa, tusisaleia pomele's traditional costume was a work of art.

other special awards and brief thoughts:

miss photogenic: miss american samoa (judged by professional photographers)

miss personality: miss american samoa (chosen by the other contestants like miss congeniality or miss friendship)

miss internet: miss papua new guinea (most internet votes. here’s a crazy notion: miss png was nowhere around the top of internet votes for more than half the duration of the voting period. when i posted this entry in my other blog, she suddenly shot straight to number one. it’s most probably coincidence, but i’d like to think that some of my 1000+ readers that day helped boost her stats. i can indulge myself, can’t i?)

miss aotearoa (new zealand) and miss papua new guinea in a fun pose at the arts tent.

miss (forgot the category name of “most text votes”): miss fiji (host country, duh)

miss interview: miss fiji (as the name suggests, best in interview portion)

best in sulu/sarong: miss cook islands (that dalo planting sure paid off. and who would object to her figure.)

miss elegance: miss tonga (selected by sponsors, wins a modeling contract, therefore imho the one truly relevant special award. very well-deserved.)

for winning miss elegance, miss tonga, paea williams gets a modeling contract. it couldn't have gone to a better candidate.

a full two minutes after announcement of winners, i have gotten over the loss of my favorite candidates. so i went on to browse online for photos. i wrote this entry a few days ago saying i couldn’t find any picture of miss aotearoa doing the maori pukuna. well i just found one:

miss cook islands, engara gosselin blows a kiss as miss aotearoa, paretaunu randal does the pukana.

miss south pacific 2008, niue's vanessa marsh with some of this years candidates. she has been a very worthy representative of the region. and i still think she's a dead ringer for sarah geronimo.

i'm posting sarah geronimo's photo here just to prove my point. i bet some of you thought this was vanessa marsh at first glance! this is sarah about to sing the pna before the pacquiao-morales fight.

as we called it a night, i suggested to ado that greenscape ltd. sponsor a special award in next year’s pageant. in keeping with the nature of the landscaping business, it should be the best in hair foliage award.

national costume, interview and talent portions: hits and misses

please excuse the lack of more recent photos. there is limited coverage online of last thursday’s and friday’s festivities. calling on miss south pacific official website… typically, official websites update promptly and comprehensively with almost real-time accuracy…

all photos lifted from fijitimes.

i’m in a bit of a testy mood today because i didn’t have enough sleep. so i’m going to be stricter than usual and say, in general, i wasn’t impressed. and i can’t believe how after a bad night’s coverage, i’m reading stuff like “a tough act to follow”. i don’t know what their standards are, but i wish they at least won’t settle for below average and call it “a tough act to follow”. it’s an international event, for crying out loud, other countries would think we are satisfied with mediocrity. all right, cutting some slack, this is the first time fiji hosted the miss south pacific. but aside from the highlights, points for improvement should also be emphasized.

day to day, night to night, live coverage is interrupted by one technical difficulty after another. from mics not working to videos taking too long to load to a complete power stoppage altogether. during the sarong/sulu competition, for instance: a power outage should not hinder the program at all. there should be plans b and c for things like that. don’t even make me start with the mic and how one emcee tucks it into his armpit as he unfurls the question scroll during interview portion. not that it dramatically changed my viewing pleasure. the overall quality of the lights, sounds and pictures weren’t doing it for us to begin with, so much so that ado can’t stand watching it and many times had to get up from his seat and walk away. having been educated in film, poor coverage is his pet peeve. on top of that, by a serious oversight, the committee failed to include the message from samoa’s prime minister into the handout program. and to think samoa is the home country of this pageant. these among other major setbacks.

but poor coverage is not my pet peeve, so i have to admit i still do enjoy watching the event. because a pageant is a pageant and that’s my guilty pleasure.

national costume

by a long shot, miss samoa’s costume wins this in my books. her outfit depicts a species of parrot fish known to possess habits that are beneficial to the environment. the mermaid-tail cut was perfect for her frame and the color complemented her skin tone (or i might just be biased towards teal. it is, after all, my favorite color). the “scales” were a mosaic of mother-of-pearl discs, clearly assembled with painstaking effort and excellent workmanship. the bustier top was actually the fish’s head and the eye is a jewel brooch. it demonstates the parrot fish about to consume the corals strung around her neck which i think is just a brilliant way to mix education with a work of art. the dress would make an absolutely fantastic museum piece. if she doesn’t win this portion, i’d probably say the contest is rigged. or i just have a dramatically different opinion.

miss samoa, tusisaleia pomele's marine-inspired costume (not shown here) blew the competition out of the water. i made a pun there.

stage interview

like many other pageants i’ve seen before, this one most likely let the ladies anticipate what possible questions and issues would be raised during the q&a, giving them the chance to formulate answers and practice how to deliver them (believe me, many pageants do this. my club used to train beauty contestants for interview portions). i may be wrong, but all answers seemed canned, several of them were gazing up as they were talking, a strong indication that they were trying to recall certain key words or phrases. all in all, it struck me more as if it were a prepared speech contest than an interview portion. not that i have anything against it. i’ve seen much worse in bigger pageants. remember bb. pilipinas 2008 and that question from vivian tan? i don’t mean to remind you, but i’m assuming it has occurred to you already.

ok, i wouldn’t even choose one i think stood out from the rest, because no one really did imho. but if some alien race suddenly pressured me into choosing one, i’d have to choose miss fiji. i do not doubt that she is intelligent and she practiced her lines well. while simply based on content, all of them said the right and relevant key points, only miss fiji was able to deliver her “piece” without faltering, pausing or repeating herself. on that, i’d say she did a far better job than anyone else. i believe she would do well to speak in front of international audiences if she wins and is sent to represent the south pacific in conferences. i’m sure she’s smart, she’s personable and she won’t embarrass the country by talking nonsense. but, frankly, i’m not really rooting for her. go figure.

miss fiji, merewalesi nailatikau, seen here during the sarong/sulu competition, is smart and articulate.

talent night

was it too much for me to hope? that someone comes up to a mic stand with a guitar to sing “harvest for the world”? or someone takes her place by a baby grand to sing “heal the world”? ok, now i think i’m too badly influenced by american idol, everything i see is david cook and david archuleta.

in between contestants, the show goes on commercial break. so why do they take so long cuing the contestants during their respective turns? the stage hands and assistants still grope in the dark setting up props and backdrop while the viewers look into pitch black nothing. what did they do during commercial break? take a break? i know how difficult it is to organize and to implement a talent night, but please more effort for an international event where people from different countries get the chance to scrutinize the show.

now that that’s out of the way…

oh my, props for miss cook islands for dramatizing, singing and dancing! of all three, i think she should stick most to dancing. i mean she isn’t a terrible singer, she can carry a tune, but i don’t think she’ll make it to hollywood week with that performance… unless of course she makes like this season’s bikini girl and both simon cowell and randy jackson move her on to the next stage. again with the a.i. reference…

one opinion i just have to voice out: there ought to be an age limit for when declamation can still be considered a talent. i think the limit should be 12. unless of course you are ralph fiennes or someone around that calibre, then you can get away with monologue and soliloquy until you run out of shakespearean verses. some ladies declaimed. and they are not ralph fiennes.

i was very disappointed with miss tahiti, i had such high expectations of her. she belongs to a family of professional dancers and we’ve seen her do the tahitian tamure (the polynesian dance that involve rapidly thrusting your hips in all directions while your shoulders remain solid) with exceptional skill. this lady has tremendous talent for sure, but her number was ruined by overthinking. whoever suggested that she perform about five different dance styles and wear all five different costumes should be locked in a barrel. she spent more time with her back towards the audience trying to put one costume after the other. such a waste of opportunity.

i had the same expectations of miss tonga and she delivered. she’s an entertainer in hawaii. her performance was a dramatic end to a polynesian legend (narrated by one of the emcees before miss tonga took to the stage), where as a goddess about to perish, she danced her last dance before finally succumbing. someone should make a west end musical out of this story. any producers out there?

miss tonga, paea williams gave a performance filled to the brim with emotion.

but i placed my highest bet on miss aotearoa (new zealand). she’s a choreographer by profession and performs traditional maori dances. what really makes you want to see how she fares is the fact that she aspires to one day dance with janet jackson in concert… people, please keep passing this message until it reaches janet herself. miss aotearoa has some mad skills. hers was a modern interpretation of a maori number (a fusion dance of sorts, a genre famous in nz and oz for traditional dance troupes). she pirouetted, bent over backwards, did leg extensions and went down on all fours, done with flawless grace and very emotional choreography. she could represent as a solo performer in superstars of dance. i swear. if she doesn’t win best talent, i’d say art is hopeless.

miss aotearoa, paretaunu randal, seen here during the sarong/sulu competition, is limber, graceful and definitely showed the best talent.

tonight’s the coronation night! let’s see if any of my favorites win the title. if not, i think i would be very frustrated. this is personal…

first judging night: sulu/sarong competition

i believe (and this is just me) in lieu of a swimsuit competition, miss south pacific has a sulu/sarong category which states among its conditions “worn in such a way that it can be used in the beach for swimming” or something to that effect. that’s almost like a pc term for swimsuit, right? i’m just comforting myself.

if i’m not mistaken other conditions state: it must be no longer than three (3) meters and should provide enough coverage to be deemed as modest.

now, modesty has always been such an extremely subjective value to me (please note that traditional dress in many pacific cultures involve topless women), but i must say fiji has evolved to become an ultra-conservative society. i just hope the male judges in the panel gave the highest marks to miss cook islands and miss tahiti (who both certainly have the goods to bare their legs and their midriffs). because men are men and if they choose to be prudish now, i enjoin all their male friends to pick on them until they own up to having zero hormones.

miss cook islands in her sarong

and they didn’t simply walk across the stage and back. part of the criteria for this category is how the ladies interpret the story behind their sarong. a voice-over narrates the significance of their attire to the island culture.

in terms of that, i also like miss cook island’s interpretation best. she depicted planting dalo using environment-friendly materials. towards the end, the voice-over tells us that planting dalo is no easy task especially for a beauty queen, on which cue she gamely wipes imaginary sweat from her face, “inadvertently” rubbing mud on her cheeks and forehead. the story culminates in a nice dip in the sea after a hard day’s work. cute, right?

i’m glad it’s not one more of those cloying “save the earth” orations. i know environment awareness is crucial, but stop ramming it into our ears, we get the point already. just tell us about how ordinary people like me can actually make a difference without being all al gore on us. let’s just talk about planting dalo and hitting the beach after work.

another entry, other pageant favorites

i watched the opening ceremony of the miss south pacific pageant the other day and one of my favorites, miss tonga, didn’t make it soon enough for the inaugural festivities. but the last-minute entry did make it and i like her a lot for doing that maori pose of flicking hands and bulging eyes. people who are not familiar with that expression might find it alarming. as for me, i think it’s absolutely cute. too bad i can’t find a photo online of paretaunu randal doing it.

miss aotearoa pacific (new zealand), paretaunu randall

aotearoa pacific is new zealand. for miss south pacific, the new zealand contender has to be of maori descent in order to participate in the traditional showcase and presentations.

yesterday morning, they covered the activities in the arts village and the tent where contestants gave viewers a brief “tour” of their respective displays. they explained crafts, indigenous materials, native languages and their country’s culture in general. they performed traditional dances and even gave dance workshops to interested audience. last night, among the performances, hosts interviewed each candidate onstage.

after watching how the ladies presented their displays in the tent and how they handled themselves during the interview in front of a live audience, i found another favorite in miss papua new guinea, antonia singut.

miss papua new guinea, antonia singut. she looks like brandy or mary j. blige to me.

some were clearly nervous in front of the camera, can get a little disoriented against the lights, others sounded canned and contrived, as if parroting answers from a script (there is such a thing as overpreparation). miss png, on the other hand, was confident and spontaneous and obviously knew her craft very well. in her country’s art display, she confidently explained what her costume was made of, was even able to compare it with fiji’s similar materials. when asked about the design on her dress, without batting her long curly eyelash, she named the source of the dyes, how they were painted on and how the entire design actually tells a story. if she practiced this answer (which i think she did), she was able to deliver it without sounding as if she already knew the question beforehand. when eventually asked what other items viewers can find in her display, she nonchalantly strides around the booth, expertly describing each piece of work, looking at the camera (which the others didn’t or barely did at all), talking to the viewers, making you want to be friends with her or something. when by accident she dislodged one item off its hook, sending the piece to her feet, she didn’t even flinch nor slacken her momentum; she quipped a little apology and moved on. that’s poise for you.

in the night’s interview portion, she was the only one who enunciated her greeting beauty pageant style (“insert mother tongue here… my name is antonia singut, proudly representing papua new guinea!” higher decibel and stress on name of country), others sounded more like they were addressing a student body or a business convention. her voice had clarity and her delivery was effortless as she told the audience how her name means bird-of-paradise in her native language, that’s why her dress and her accessories depict that species. again, if she practiced this answer (which i think she did), she has clearly mastered the art of seeming spontaneous. she is, after all, a journalism student. on top of that, she is the granddaughter of the illustrious veteran journalist ian boden, to whom she dedicates her participation in the pageant.

to recap the day, my vote for most photogenic is still miss tonga. best in evening wear (if you can call it that. they don’t even have this category, but what the heck) is miss cook islands. and best in interview is miss png.

i am excited to watch tonight’s coverage and see who will shine this time.